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What's going on? Earnest Welcome the EYL University, the number one place for business education. Shoddy tale.
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My graduates from my school being forced back and drop drop mic drop back, drop drop.
A lot of people come on social media for their business and they get like two followers and they're like running fifty percent off ads and sales, and it's like you don't even have an audience, and it's like, you know, the whole point of wearing business, So the whole point is to make money. We're never gonna apologize about making money. If you are apologetic about making money, this isn't the channel for you. But there's ways to go about making money.
And sometimes like if you promote too much, or you're too gimmicky or you it's like you can make money, but over the course of time, you're diluting your brand because it's not And even if we look at the best brands in the world, like Nike, like they have sale, but how many times do you actually see Itike commercials
selling something. It's not really too often. Most Nike commercials are like you know Andrea Agacy, that legendary situation on Michael Jordan with dunking of basketball, Serena Williams and her daughter, like even Colin Kaepernick. It's an ad to build their brand, not really selling anything because you're gonna buy it on the back end, just by the strength of their brand just becoming so dominant that they don't necessarily have to beat you in the head with fifty percent off sales.
You feel compelled to buy it because they've built so much brand equity over the years.
I think what you said is very important, John. I'm glad you broke that down with the awareness interesting trust. It's like, if you have two followers, we don't even have an awareness over you, and you're trying to sell something which automatically makes me distrust, right, and so how do I go into a relationship with distrust? I don't and so now I turn away. So now, even if you put valuable content out to the world, you've already
lost us because you started selling to us. And so it's very key to give value, give value, give value. People see what's happening, Let them build their trust, let them build the awareness of the brand, which will and then turn grow the interest in what you're doing, which will make it a lot easier when it's time for you to say, you know what, All right, I've been doing this, I've been doing this. Here's what I also have to offer, you know what I mean?
And that's something I'm gonna let you finished, John. But somebody said about how but everybody's way is different as far as how to build brand. But how we built our brand in two minutes is that we just created a maximum value as possible. So before we had a podcast, we had an Instagram page. Well, even before I had my own personal Instagram page. I wasn't selling anything. I was just I was just I was just adding value people that I would take times write, write captions, write posts,
make videos. When we started earning a leisure the whole we didn't really even know, to be completely honest, we didn't know how to monetize a podcast, but we figured that once we had enough attention, there would be opportunities
to monetize. So our goal was just to add as much value as possible, and that helped build our brand on social media, and then you know, all throughout we just had a unique way to relay information with business and mix it with pop culture, and that was our brand building proposition, was that we're going to educate people for free. We're going to give as much value as possible. We didn't sell anything, we didn't have merch we didn't have a live event, we didn't.
Have anything nothing.
So now when we have paid products and we've already built brand equity, but it took us twelve thirteen months before we even probably even longer than that, like before we even sold one thing that made.
Us in Yeah, and so it reminds me of that of that graph, that last graph right, You guys didn't start with sales. You could have if you you could have tricked a few people into buying a quick E course right at the jump without really knowing anything.
But instead you were that red line. You were you.
You were building that brand equity by just giving given, given, given, given, given given. And as a result, look at the platform that you guys grew. And you know, speaking of Nike, I caught a glipse. So their brand essence framework and their one word was performance. I don't think that you're any faster and Nikes than you are in Adidas, but they their their core brand was performance.
And think about how just think about the look of their logo.
The swoosh kind of just makes you feel like performance, the flash, you know, and and and it's a really a student observation. Rashad that that they don't they don't sell I never thought about that. They don't sell ship in their commercials.
No, they don't.
They don't sell their brands.
So so for anyone, so if if you have a tea company, if you have an e comm company.
You know, what are ways what's that word gonna be for you? A?
And then B how can you associate your brand with that feeling. For example, at Loop, our purpose is to move people. We don't care about insurance in the same way that Nike only cares about sneakers because it drives performance. So we we we stand for movement, right, because insurance gets you on the road and then you go and you got to do other things that you gotta do.
So how do how are we gonna build brain around that?
Well, we're gonna have photography of people on the road, all on their hustle, doing their ship and just just a little photo, just a little kind of the bottom that's as Loop, right. And so for example, those are just some of the low hanging fruit ways man that we could that we could build brand. You gotta lock in on that specific value that you feel you want to put brand equity into.
And I also think that for building a brand, going back to our personal experience, you know, we learned a lot from raph and we took a lot. We took a lot from hip hop artists to help build our brain. So you know, being a big Wu Tang fan growing up in the late nineties, and you know when you
saw that w that meant something. You didn't have to hear Wu tang to see that, like you know what I'm saying, Like when you saw a w you automatically associated Wu tang, and then you when you had to kill a bee's like they had a mascot if you think about it. So it's like even schools. You could learn a lot from schools. School is not a problem. It's what they're teaching that's the problem. But the infrastructure of school is actually pretty brilliant.
Schools.
They have clubs inside of schools. They have sports teams to keep you engaged. They have times when you check in, they have parents, they have lunchtime, they have mascots. Mascots is extremely important. So it's like you when you saw the kill a bee, that meant something like you know what I'm saying, but it all equated back to Wu tang. But they didn't have to put Wu tang on every single thing. So it's like when you see us, our mascots are our emojis. That's like a mascot, right, Like
that's like a team mascot that's branded. We don't have to put legion on everything. So now you see eyl y L three letters is very nostalgic when you think of luxury brands YSL Like you know, there's a lot of stuff when you when you think of like three letters, like it's real easy to remember, and it's a it's an abbreviation. People love abbreviations, even if they hate the abbreviation I R S.
You name it like you know what I'm saying.
People, Yeah, use use anything other than the I R S.
Alphabet.
Boys, we got an in here. Let's let Annie in out.
Let's bring up that.
That's something that that's something to keep in mind as well as far as you don't necessarily and even assets over aliability, assets over liabilities, that's ours.
We made that up.
Anybody that's knocking that off, you should shame yourself. But once again, we don't have to put your leisure on everything. Because whether you see the mojis, whether you see E Y L, whether you see asset overliabilities, it all equates back to the mothership.
That's exactly where I was going.
And if you look at the most popular thing we sell it is assets overliabilities. But it goes back to the point of what we're doing. Right, value value in your life. Take the things out that don't add value. Right, So assets over liabilities. And so when you see that, it doesn't matter where you see it, most people are gonna think us. You don't have to it doesn't have to say earn your legion. When they see assets of
a liability. Even some of those bootleggers out there, they automatically think that that must be and shout out to our lawyer who's on that uh desists please.
Yeah, you guys, someone's under your guys skin man, because you guys, you.
Just got to put it out there. We got to put it out there.
You gotta be original.
It's synonymous with us. And so like again, you don't have to see your leisure on the shirt. You see assets of liabilities, we're thinking, all right, those people must be an earner. I had a friend of mine today who was climbing in the uh the Catskill mountains over the like over the spring break, and she made it to the top and was wearing the assets of a liability shirt. You know what happened when she got up there, somebody ran up to her and said, oh, you're an
earner too. Oh talk about freaked her out right because she was like, huh, No, I worked with Troy. We were tea it's my coworker. She's like, oh, but you're not an earnest. She's like, yeah, I'm an earner, but like that's my friend, Like I can call him, and it was like call him. I'm like no, no, let's not do that. But it's anonymous. You can one thing leads to the next, and so we don't have to put your leads on everything. People know us asset to a liabilities. Wait, we got alumni in here.
We got alumni.
Yo.
What's up Annie?
How you doing?
Man?
How you living going?
Well? Man? I'm excited. Shoddy and Troy, what's up y'all?
My god, what's going on?
We taughd y'all were regular human beings and now that is you know, range rovers and bus downs.
I see what it is. It was your fault, partially your fault, your.
Two tone back on your wrist. Congrats.
You know I did lose it for a minute. We did get to watch and we get the car. We haven't gotten the driver yet, so we're getting there, getting to your level.
Yo.
Annie, I'm glad you jumped on.
Man.
You were the first person I thought of when when when I thought a brand. I think that you've done an exceptional job for those For those that don't know, Annie Man just total total legend. Been in the game a long time, one of the practitioners that I am most in the space. A lot of people talking man, but but Annie has been doing this shit and doing it across industries managing artists. Have wrapped with Khalif at some time, is now managing the career of the young
star on e con. But in addition dabbles in a little e commerce. We had launch Equity Apparel together UH owner and CEO of co Cutta Chaco dope concept that the audience wants to hear more about, but also dabbles in real estate. So you're a lot like me in the sense that we are multi hyphen it practitioners.
And the one you know, the one through line that you.
Have across all your projects is that they all have impeccable brand. I mean, we're not big landlords by any stretch, but you would think we were because you know the way that we brand our ship. And for example, in Philly, where I know you have some real estate, you have just regular plots of land which anyone would have just called a plot of land, but Annie then branded it.
Then called it.
You know, Tiger Park created a website.
Around it, you know, really made an experience, hosted some pop up art, you know, all that kind of stuff. And even with your with your Child concept, which I believe is your anchor at the moment, you really lead with a super super brand forward approach.
Man.
So, welcome to the show. Welcome to the limited series. Guest number one, episode number one.
Thank you, Yes, sir Man.
Well, I would love to get your take for some of the audience on the power of brand and how it's been able to effectively elevate.
And distinguish your concepts from a concept.
Brand.
Yeah, I missed the end of it, but I think I caught enough to respond.
I think you know, I look at brand as the real only way to get competitive advantage when you're playing down a couple of cards, right, people like us first generation entrepreneurs, when you're coming up, we just don't have access to the same things that a lot of people do, and therefore your own ingenuity is your competitive advantage, right.
And I think brand, you know you touched on it, it's when you you got to make a big investment in it up front, right, But being tactical and being smart about brand upfront allows you to create that moat around your business, right, nobody can do it like you
do it if you do it well. And I really learned from you know, hip hop music, and you know eyl is kind of spot on with my education in terms of like jay z Rockefeller, right that diamond went up, you know what time it was, master p no limit, you know, make them say oh like it was these these references to their brand at all times that created
that moat around what they did. And to me, I looked at it the same way like if I was going to you know, build a company or launch something from zero when I have a lot of you know, much better capitalized players around me, what's my advantage. It's storytelling, it's branding, and it's creating that you know that bridge and I think you know, I tend to look at brand like it gives your company personality and it also most importantly allows people to buy in with an emotion.
And that's the toughest thing. You know, you're talking about sales versus brand. When you have a brand that people can emotionally relate to, that is the most definitive thing about where you know about your company and going forward because people can't take that from you. Right, Your sales might get cratered because of COVID or you might have you know, a supply chain issue, whatever it is. But if your brand represents all of your values and has
that personality, people will always stick by you. And I think I'm a very long term player similar to y'all.
Uh.
And That's how I'll break it down, yo.
So talk about talk about talk about like your your chiy concept. Right, There's a lot of T shops out there, but I have never seen any of them with a line around two blocks with like straight up, you know, all the Indian boys out there lining up, they can't.
Wait to support.
Had you had eater dot com over there, you, I mean, you guys unlocked ridiculous distribution. You guys have fanatics. You guys created like the uh, like what do you guys call it? Like that the pour over Challenge? Like you guys have done so much shit and it's like a two hundred square foot space, but it is like really a crazy It's crazy what you've been able to do.
With that space.
Man, So talk about like how you approach that and what gave you the what's the secret sauce man Like, how can someone who has pretty little by term in terms of space and in terms of resources be able to maximize the.
Way you have? Right?
I mean, you know, just for context, we opened six months before COVID shut New York City down, and we ended up twenty twenty. We ended up in the black with both our restaurant and our e commerce operations.
And I do a lot of that to brand.
That's why I say it is because you know, I mean to answer your question about how we unlocked it, I think we approached it as.
And I talk a lot about this, you know, storytelling.
What is the story that you're telling as a company, right, that becomes part of your brand story, which thereby leads to brand equity. Right, And you guys touched on this a lot. What's brand that we simply put its credibility?
Right?
It is the intangible reputation that you have with your customers that nobody could take from you. So when we spent about eighteen months before launching the cafe doing pop ups, doing events, food festivals, you know, hustling around the city, that was to create brand equity, right, because we knew, look, whether we had a thousand square foot space or two hundred square foot space. They couldn't take that brand equity
from us. And you know, Johnny, you and I have talked about this a lot, is like how do you scale the one to one interaction?
Right?
That's what we did to build up that brand equity.
What I mean by that is responding to every DM going above and beyond, you know, at events or online to give people you know, an extra cup on the house or you know, FaceTime with their mom because they were excited to walk into a child shop, whatever it was. We made ourselves really available to that, built up that brand equity, and then monetize that, right. And I think that's where a lot of creators struggle with, right. They some of these YouTubers have you know, decent brain equity.
You got a lot of social media personalities with decent brand equity. But if you don't have a product to sell back to them, you're just popular.
Right and don't pay the bills.
As we know, so we you know, we turned our brand equity into into that experience, leaned into our community.
Stepped up for them. Right.
What I mean by that is we were hosting you know, artists meeting greets at the cafe. We were letting, you know, people meet with their book club and things like that. We were pouring back into the community because that's what our brand represented. And now you know, we did you know, well into the six figures of e commerce in twenty twenty in the middle of the pandemic, which really opened up what this business can look like. Right, So now we have a true omni channel model with with the retail,
with e commerce. I'm actually gonna be in Austin in a couple of weeks, John, We just locked in with neighborhood Goods out there. You know, we're taking it now to retail as well. And you know it's that line from American Gangster, right, It's it's what is it General Mills?
Right?
When when when Frank Lucas is making that that comparison Blue Magic, Right, that's that's a they don't need more than they know the CEO of General Mills, but they know what that stands for and that you know, that's that's a hustle's anthem right there. So I think a lot of that is is is what I've picked up and what I put down.
Can you talk about like I feel like branding. Storytelling is extremely important and the power of creating myths. And shout out to my brother Wallow. He had one of the most profound things I've ever heard. If anybody does know his story, he spent twenty years and jail, he came out hit the start. He has one of the top podcasts in the world. But long story short, he said something else extremely profound to me. He was like, you don't you don't have to never beef with the information.
You don't have to like somebody to learn from them. And I say that to say Donald Trump, regardless of how you feel about him. It's not a political show. But one of the greatest things he's ever did was brand himself. And he made things that was normal seem out of this world, extraordinary normal in his world. As far as a lot of people in Manhattan have buildings,
that's not really normal what I'm just saying. As far as being a millionaire billionaire, and you know a lot of people have buildings, and he didn't even own those a lot of these buildings, but he made sure he put his name on every single building. So now when you drive down the West Side Highway and you see ten buildings that say Trump on it, whether he owns it or not is irrelevant because the story in the myth lives much larger than his, you know, royalty fee
for actually leasing his name out right. So to bring it down on a micro level, you know, I talk about this a lot, but you know, people see our trucks. We have a truck, an eighteen wheeler. We're not the only person in the world that has trucks. A lot of people have eighteen wheel trucks. But the story in the myth was told, and it's going to live way longer, and it became a million times bigger than the truck
because we put our emojis on it. We put eyl University on it, we put earn your leege on it. We made a complete monstrosity of it. And whatever we get from the truck, the value and brand equity and the value doing that is going to live way further than just traveling goods from Atlanta to Houston.
And what it also does is it stamps us in that world. Right. People watched us have an interview about it, they watched us learn about it, and they watched us actually execute on the information that we obtained. So now it's always it's a funny question. Everybody asks how we're doing, how we're doing, and that yo, y'all got a truck? The what because nobody had ever seen that done, even though, like I mean, we're from New York, so we see
eighteen years old the time. Never did we ever think that that's actually money that's passing us, that's actually a business that's passing us. And so now to see us do it, being from where we're from, it's like, oh my gosh. And you guys are bold enough to get a truck, and like John said, you're crazy enough to put your face on it.
Even I want to get on these perspective, but even I want to even break it even lower than that because some people might you know, a truck is still costs a good chunk of change.
Merch.
Everybody does merch, A lot of every small business does merch. So we're not the first people to have merch assets of a liabilities, track suits, things of that nature. But we took a lot of l's in our merch journey. We're still learning merch and we revamped our merch. We founded distributor in Pakistan. It's the whole process. So We could have just we could have just put online that we're selling merch. But going through that process, we gained information.
So we filmed the podcast about how to start a merch company, and we did every single thing that we do from A to Z free. We could have charged a lot of money for that. We did that free. We put it out and then we said, okay, here's the discount to buy the merchan We created a story and we added value and then we're going to sell the product. And we're not gonna apologize about selling the product, but we made a story about it.
But a lot, a lot of the things that you guys are saying is illustrated on that last graph. Things that build brand. You will take it L four up front, the truck is not making you money. If it's making you money at all, it might even be costing you money. Costs me a lot of fucking money. All of the things that I've done that have enriched my brand. Copend Harlem, for example, is incubator that first put me on the map cost me a ton of cash.
Anni, you have kicked off a number of projects and I know you front.
Loaded the investment up front, right and we are delusional practitioners in that we heavily over index on brand. What's that you know, there's probably a balance between going to brand heavy, uh, you know.
And compromising sales.
But I just I feel like I see you execute on your projects, and when I see you storytell to Rashad's.
Point, I know what it is that you're doing so for you, I mean, is the hope that the brand, Like are you just going all in and you feel.
Like you're going to cash in on some big opportunities down the stretch, and for you it's just about kind of going the distance.
Or you know, or is it a is it just the only way?
You know? How like helped me make sense of this ridiculous thing that is like going all in on brand up front.
That's a really great point and to Rashad's point too, And this is I think one of the most tactical tips that I want to share with people watching tonight is like, you know, Rasha mentioned the word myth right, and sometimes when you're starting out early on that story that you're telling, you may not entirely be living or you know, you're trying to make it look a certain type of way, or you know, you don't really know if you're gonna make it to the other side of that, Right, Jonathan,
You and I have been in many scenarios where you know, we're in the middle of something, whether it's a residential you know, development project or or something crazy.
And we don't know what the outcome is going to be.
But that documentation and that's telling and you reflecting on your experience throughout that whole process is to me all an extension of brand. And I want to mention something that happened in my life that changed It didn't change anything, actually just validated what I already knew, and that was I was in the middle of a couple of my first real estate projects, right, And so what I would do is I would work, you know, five days a week on the agency job, and then every weekend I'd
work real estate. So I wake up at nine am, go to Newark, New Jersey, painting, you know, spackling, doing all these small things, trying to get my units turned around.
And I used to document all of it. It wasn't glamorous.
It was literally just me eating shit the entire time, but talking about what was going on, talking about the value the neighborhood, the ARV you know, the construction budgets, And in eight months I had raised a quarter million dollars just from people on Instagram who I didn't know, watching my stories and being like, yo, I trust you, I like what you're doing, and I want to get
into real estate. What's your minimum and me being like, it's fifty grand to invest with me on a joint venture and walking out of that with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Instagram stories, just because my brand was constantly being extended through you know, stories or through my post or whatever storytelling I was in the middle of, and that to me was so real because that validated this thing that I knew that I think nowadays we
focus on micro interactions with people that we look up to or respect or want to learn from, and those micro interactions actually have much bigger impact than we realized. Maybe a fifteen second clip, but it sits with people if your brand story is whole. And then I took that too fifty and I created you know, millions of dollars in portfolio value without having to put up my
own brand. Right, So for anybody that's like wary about where they are with brand or if they're like, you know, they got two hundred followers, It doesn't matter, right, What matters is you telling that story and or that myth. At certain times, I'd being consistent with it until the right people pick up on it and be like this is dope.
Let me share this.
And that's how you grow, and that's how you honestly remain who you are. Nothing changes about you or your story, you just consistently tell it.
Annie, I got a question in that because it's it's like again, it's that hip hop coming into our lives, right, Like when Drake said I'm the greatest. I said that before I knew I was. It's that same thing. But I wonder in this sense, we see people start businesses and they try to start brands and then they don't
even trust themselves become something deviated in the story. So for me, I'm thinking about your situation and how covid was an alter right you six months after you start this business and we actually recorded the podcast, this unimaginable event happens in your business, but you still trust the brand. So can you talk about that, how you didn't deviate from what the story that you created and try to create a new one.
Yeah, that's that's a great point. I mean I think that first of all, sometimes your brand story might change a little bit. And having the flexibility and knowing what can change and what can't change, that's like an intuition you had to have as you know, a founder, as a creator, and you'll build that up over time. Right, That's like a muscle that you build over time for for us. You know, my my guy right now is taking a video of all this that day that the
cafe shut down. We pulled up with cameras and we documented in real time, you know it raining on the on the window, me standing outside being like yo, this is insane, and in real time sharing how I felt, you know, because that was still central to who we were as founders in that brand, right. We still believed in the business, believed in the community, believed in our product. We just got hit with the act of God. Right, But that didn't mean that I wasn't allowed to be vulnerable.
And I think that's the other key here, right. It's like people look at you know, even with John now, like John's the face of Loop, but John's brand is different from the Loop brand, right, and so like there may be certain vulnerabilities that he has to share as a founder that won't be reflected on the company, but you know they'll be reflected in his journey.
And that's the perspective I took.
I was like, look, I'm the founder, I'm the owner, and I'm taking these l's and I'm gonna I'm gonna take them and I'm gonna share them. But the company is still going to be all things go, sticking to the story, but we're gonna show the reality of it in different ways.
This is I want I want to say something before we go on different topics. We interviewed Grant card.
Dome and he he actually shot our Uncle Gee.
Episode out now Classics.
So we were talking him about the trucks and he said he said, he was like, you know what you you know would be really good marketing.
I'm like what he was like, Ernest, what's up? You ever walk into a small business and everything just works, like the checkout is fast, the seats are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just fit
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He's like, burn the truck. So he was saying, how all home one of his so grand man from birth to.
His truck burn.
He had a truck and it burned and they called him like, yo, the truck is on fire. And he was like, tape it. Let's good content. But so and shout out to Matty J. This is this is one of the most profound things I've ever heard in life. Maddy J on Ashcash's podcast inside the volte Eyo Network slipe blok.
So, Matti J.
Said he was on Toro. He took a major l his cars was getting messed up. He had to go to mechanic. He was losing money. While he was losing money, while he was making all of these mistakes, he was documenting his journey because he said, one day people will pay you for your failure. That means is that everything that you went through is now going to be a learning experience.
Now you can teach.
So now you went through a global pandemic and lost money and did this and did that. Now you are in a unique position as somebody that actually made it out of that, as the.
Voice of authority.
Now people will pay you for mentorship, for courses, for classes, for books, whatever. So it's like, even in the loss, there's a blessing because by documenting that and by not running from it, by embracing it, it puts you in a position as being an authority that people have to come to you because the next time there's a global pandemic, you've been the only way that they can learn is from somebody that's already been through.
It and that and that's the thing, Like they've watched you go through something, right, They've watched you in the mud. And it's like I was with him. I remember when he was crying. I'm so happy for him. I want to I want to support him in any way I can. John, I got a question for you. As Annie was talking, I was thinking to myself, Right, you have a trusted
brand as yourself as John Henry. What is that like now going to loop or do you feel like you have to reinvent yourself and or your audience that was with you, that knows you as John Henry? Is are you thinking that automatically gonna come with you now the loop? And what's that process like? Man, it's a learning experience for sure. My brain is gritty as fuck, right like like Annie Annie. When he came on, he said, John, I see you got the two tone back. I got
the two tone back. Here's here's the thing, day day, here's the thing. This is yet no no, no, no, no, sirtain just the day just they just.
I had to pawn this bad boy, this bad boy right here.
I had to pawn it when I was in my lowest point of these renovations went south. I'm out of pocket, you know, And and I had to come up with the mortgage.
And I was his act. I was tapped and I was looking around, like, yo, what what could I just like, what could I sell for three g's?
And you know, and I did one of these.
I was like, oh fucking you know.
I knew what I had to do.
And I pulled up to the Diamond District shout out my boy Gabriel and uh and and yeah he gave me. He slipped he slipped me three g's for it, and I and I bought it back. And then that happened one more time before the end of the day. And so now it's a badge of honor. But for example, that's my brand. I'm just a gritty motherfucker. I don't I don't mind it. But the Loop brand is an
insurance company, it's a financial services entity. And so this for me has been an exercise of Phase one is me leveraging my personal brand much like so much like you do to prop up these new entities. But at a certain point you got to step back and let this new entity grow because if you lean on your own brand too heavily for too long, then you will never be able to outgrow the current size of your brand. And I know that Loop will be a multi billion
dollar company. We will take a public and it can never get there if it's the JH Show. It has to end up being something that's larger than any one person. And in order for that to happen, I have to take a step back. And so it's still something that we're learning and doing. We're proactively thinking through because at the same time you want to think about you want to use all the.
Things that you have at your disposal.
Because if you are Bobby Bernstein and you got a rich uncle who put up bread to get your business going, and by the way, let's say he's got a portfolio of buildings that he can put you on and whatever, you're gonna take advantage of it. And so we as a culture have very little things that we can that we can take advantage of. So the few tools that we have we definitely should deploy. That's my take.
So wo man, Annie, I want to give you the last word here. We're coming up.
Can we just can we can we do like a bonus round?
Let's do a bonus round?
All right, Well, let'st I just got one more question than can we get like two questions from the from the.
Got questions?
I just got one question before we go to question and answer scarcity. How do you feel about the scarcity model as far as branding, Because like Cronuts, that's a shop in h in New York that they sell Chronuts, which is like a combination of donuts and croissants. They only they only open for like an hour day at like eight o'clock in the morning. This is before Coviona what happened. But you gotta and I actually did this before you gotta like wait in line at like six
o'clock in the morning they open up. But just like it's a scarcity model, this is a variety of different people that even sneakers Jordan's they release the sneakers, they only have a certain amount they could make. Nike can make as many sneakers as they want, but they know that if they have a limited amount, it drives to demand. It's a whole scarcity place. So how do you feel about scarcity model in building brand and marketing?
Yeah, I mean so personally. I think that as a society or just there's so much going on right now that if you can afford to lean on scarcity as a as a a point of attraction, use it sparingly. But I think that nowadays, like if you're in the middle of a goal rush and you're like being romantic or being cute about how much you're putting out, I think that could actually be a disservice for a lot of brands.
So I'm aware of the power of scarcity.
You know, we went through it ourselves last you know, during COVID, we had a brunch at the restaurant that was like only had ten seats a day, and we would sell out in like fifteen minutes every day, you know, And it was a great way to like build awareness around what was happening and keeping us top of mind.
So it does work one hundred percent. But I think what a lot of people do is they lean on scarcity when they don't really have something that actually validates their brand, if that makes sense, right, And you know, if you're starting something new and it's like, oh, only fifty payers, like I think scarcity is is a tool that you can deploy with with finesse when you're at that point, but don't lean on that to start something because it's kind of secret.
Yeah, there's other ways to deploy scarcity too though, right, it's not just quantity, it's also time sensitivity.
Right, so you can make it for a limited time.
And for example, when I'm out there raising money, one thing I realize is if you don't give them a re like if you don't, if there's no time that the round is going to end, people will kick the tires forever until there's an action forcing event. So I would agree with with you, Annie, But also some of these classic retailers, you know, ironically I have gone out
of business. They've done they do things really well, certain things really well, and that was the offers, right, So like it ended up, it can be something that cheapens your brand. But these man, these these cats are good at straight off like J C. Pennies with the ill offers. Now, not every brand is going to be a coupon brand. However, I pay attention to, you know, offers that.
Drive a lot of value.
And you're in the e comm business and ey l you know you guys run these flash sales too. So I think scarcity I agree with you. I like your take that scarcity is a tool and you should learn to use it. And I think that scarcity in the fashion business specifically works very differently probably than any other industry from what I've seen.
Yeah, let's get get one. Let's get one question from the see, we gotta handles it. If they actually did, just what's going on on?
Mute yourself, you've been unmuted. What's going on?
They had they hand up the whole time?
Good morning, Uh, good brothers.
You just answered my question.
Annie did.
Because I have a couple of real estate properties and it was hard for me to find.
People to do good work.
They was always like, in my opinion, half ass you or they told me they knew how to do something, and after the job was done, it was you know, it was wat. So I ended up having to get the knowledge myself to do the job on my own. So he answered it for me. That's why I have my hand and I appreciate you calling on me and brothers.
Have a nice step.
Also, also to the folks watching right now, because I'm seeing some questions around that that pdf. So if you go to loop insure dot co slash e y l Loop Insure dot co slash e y l, that pdf is now available, so you could just click on it and you type in your email and then you'll get a PDF sent to your inbox, so you can get all of that, all of that brand is his framework and all that other jazz sent.
Sent to you and just using your hustle man and let me know, let me know what you think of it.
YO.
While we get another audience question, can we just do a quick lightning round hip hop? We all referred to it, we all pulled from it.
Let's go through and name who we think has been the most effective brander in all of hip hop and some key lessons that we've taken away personally.
Who wants to start?
Yeah, I mean it's been so many great brands, from death row records to no limit records to cash money records to But I think the greatest brander has to be jacause, you know, he's his brand has survived three decades and that's extremely impressive. And the biggest takeaway that I get from Jay is that he always reinvents himself and he always Drake does this well too. He always surrounds himself with the newest people. He has no problem
severing ties, whether that's a good thing or not. Jay always, you know, he's always in the mix with something that's new and progressive. He's not afraid to change with the times. And he's built his brand off of a mistique. It's a nostalgia. You never see him. He's not on Instagram, he's never on Twitter, he's not on TikTok, and that's the way that you know, that's that's risky because it's like you know, and that's extremely extremely risky and extremely
extremely rare. But he's built such a nostalgic brand that at any given moment, when you see him, it's like seeing a ghost, like you know what I mean.
If it wasn't for these pictures, they wouldn't see me at all.
So I think he got that intentionally and that has helped him remain relevant for thirty years.
Yeah, I mean, obviously Jay is our guy. Jay is our favorite guy. We're gonna keep saying Jay's name. And I know, John, you're sharing this until we sit next to him. But I'll say easy, easy, I think. I think what Yay's done is incredible, right like the Yeasy name that the brand itself speaks for itself. It's transcended music, it's trans it's transcended fashion. It is the symbol of new and cutting edge. And he's done that over time, and he said he was going to do it right
like he lives that line too. I'm the grades with I said that before I knew I was. He's been saying it since O three. He would say it to anybody that would listen, so to watch it come to fruition, and even like with the Forbes thing, I know, John, you have some things to say, and I was right on with you as far as the Forbes thing. It doesn't matter if he's worth six billion or two billion. He's a billionaire and he said he would be and
he's here doing it now. So his branding is amazing with everything he does, and everybody might agree with the way he goes about it, but you can't deny if he steps into a room or if he puts his name on a product, it's out of here. Right. People are wondering, Hey, look at Gap Wow. Why is gap stock rising? Well, yeah, this guy said he's doing a brand partnership with him, and they know when he puts
stuff in the stores, it's leaving the stores. I've been If anyone has been to a Kanye concert, I've been to a bunch of them. There are people who literally don't come to see the music. They will stand in line for the merch for the entire show. Wow, for the entire show, no joke. I went to the Saint Pablo to him, it was one who was like floating over the whole crowd, and I tried to buy his shirt and I couldn't get I was like, I'm miss the show if I wait in this line, and people
will wait in line. My wife was like, oh go, I'll miss a song or two. Him like, Noah, it's fine. At the end of the show, I have to wait an hour to get a T shirt. I'm like, these people have not left everything. He puts on a lot of concert cells out.
But also before you go John. He's also like Jay in a sense where you don't see him. He's also built a nostalgia. He pops up. He's more active than Jay on Twitter, but he pops up for Twitter rants every now and then, and then he's like the groundhog.
Then he goes under. He'll be on Instagram then delete all his Instagram that.
He's driving in water.
Yeah, it's that.
It's that that crazy, you.
Know what I'm saying, Like he's he's another one where he's not really accessible like that.
I think that's something we said, like one of the best attributes is that you can't access access mysterious Manchronica.
Said, familiarity doesn't breathe. Just content like just content like meaning like sometimes you oversaturate yourself. It doesn't even breathe. People get they start to hate you just because they see you so much. It's like like being with a you know, what's a spouse or somebody.
Said what he said one day, they want to knight you the next good night you.
Yeahnny. What you think, man, Who's who's the best brand in the hip hop game?
I mean I think, yeah, I think the answer is Jay.
Because of the ecosystem of product and brands and businesses that he's created, right, I mean what he did with title Champagne Rockaware. You know, Jay's pedigree and his track record are insane. I'm gonna throw in a dark horse just to acknowledge what what Nipsey did while he was here, you know, and peace. But I think Nick was instrumental in branding a consciousness in a way of thought that we hadn't really seen in a long time.
Right.
He he made people believe in ownership and and and got people interested in real estate, and you know, was doing a bunch of technology smartphone ars, you know, nf T related things way before you know, any of these things were in mainstream consciousness. And I think that you know, nips all money in, no money out. You know that there was a lot. There was a lot there. You know, fuck the middleman, like there was a lot there.
He was more marathon.
Yeah, I mean, thank you minded me right like that. It didn't it wasn't mainstream, so less people will acknowledge it. But for for people like us who were grinding during the time that Knit was grinding, it was like, you know, he had a different effect on consciousness. And I think
that's been you know, obviously it's big for me. People know how I feel about Nip, But ye I gotta acknowledge that because I think that he was one of the new school players, you know that that was really about to run it up after that first crop of Jya fifty Snoop Dre, you know, like that that graduating class had already moved on.
I think Nip was the revolutionary in that sense, yo.
Can I also just say that what what jay Z did with titles should be fucking illegal, like that's my man's and he made his bag, but like had did no one.
Like guys, remember when we came out with Title.
He made his fucking entire catalog exclusive to title, brought a bunch of artists, got him exclusive to Title, inflated the value, sold the third of it to Sprint, cashed in I think it was two hundred mil, right, and then once that shit was flopping, Uh, he pretty much brought his cadillag, brought his catalog right back on Spotify. And so because he was vulnerable during that time that
he was only on Title. Uh, and then he made himself accessible again and sold that bitch and he sold it to Jack Dorsey.
And then finished cashing out on it.
That is ridiculous.
That's that's like market manipulation, except for it's his own personal catalog and IP.
You know, so he could do it, but he took the risk, right, I mean with him, and you know Beyonce did with having their music exclusive on a platform that wasn't available to everybody, that when they knew they were losing millions of dollars on them that you know, it was it was a risky movement that paid off for him.
So bought it for fifty, sold a third for two hundred, finished selling Man's Crazy. I think, you know, I think the best brainder in the in the game is Puff. I just I think that bro I seen recently the Ready to Die documentary. I mean, the guy has an eye for talent and when he backed Big, you know, he put this whole like like movement and brain around And for as long as I can remember, Puff has been that flashy type and he took that whole persona.
Going back to that, you know, to the earliest part of this episode. His word really like is just lifestyle in a way that Hove is not. Hope is mysterious. Hope is kind of crusty. Actually, Puff, you just you won't find you know, with the exception of when when his when his girl passed away, and of course he was in that in that dark period of just mourning. That was the only glimpse of time really that I could think of that Puff wasn't smiling, laughing, and he
was able to productize that entire just persona. He's got the Spirits brand and I had the chance to kick it with his CFO, and his CFO told, Yeah, projects that we invest in don't net a whole lot. The projects that we build from scratch and vertically integrate and that we own the i r R the internal rate of return, the profit is through the roof.
Because Puff is not really that that speaks to his superpower. He's not one to invest in another vehicle and then let it do his thing.
He's one to just live it.
He lives his products, man, and and for that, I think Puff is the best brander in the game.
That's a good point, John, because when you were talking about brand, I was thinking about some rock. It's more than a drink, it's a lifestyle. But this guy had like every commercial was a James Bond movie. Right then, it became The Ocean's Eleven's movie and it was like this, I have to taste this. This is the only thing I can drink. I need to feel like that. I want to look like that. I need to have that lifestyle.
Does this drink? Bring it? And now you got Klid and he's on a jet ski and every time I look at his glass and I'm like that, son's that new uh summer breeze is like that new drink looks incredible. I have to try it. It's like it becomes a part of your lifestyle. It's great market.
I just want to say one more thing before we can, maybe just get the one more question before we wrap, but bringing it back, like X said, get well soon, let's bring it back to the streets. And I want to always make this as relatable for people as possible. Another Eyo alumni that we had Nacho Banger. He's a he's a young man out of Baltimore, crazy story, grew up in the streets, literally eats Baltimore and uh, you know, became six figure entrepreneur off of nachos.
So yeah, he does.
He's not shows where he puts like you know, so a long story show so this is the most practical thing in the world, right, Like anybody can make nachos with shrimp, and he was making it in his microwave at first, before he learned how to cook. So this is like because people be like, you know, this is a high level this is the most practical thing in the world brand right, he built He told the story
through a bunch of other stuff. So he created a dance called the Nacho Benga Dance, and he won't viral in Baltimore and colleges like Morgan State and you know, Talents and and all of these schools and all the high schools and in the neighborhood. So now he's going this is before TikTok. He's going viral for his dance. He made a dance attached to the food. So it's one thing to make the nachos, but now he's branding.
It with the dance.
And you know he's doing like going to parties and hosting clubs and all of that. So it's so many different stories that come to mind as far as branding is concerned, but that's one of my favorite because there's nothing more practical than that. Like he literally started from the bottom legit making nachos out the bando. Literally, you had to watch that episode. It's very inspirational. I'm going to finish, and he without even knowing what he was doing.
He's branding himself by creating a story and making himself a legend and a myth. But it comes down to nachos. That's the most practical thing in the world. Like, he's not selling anything that's out of this world. He's literally selling nachos that you get from nachos, like the bag, the nacho.
Bag, jeez, and anything you want. This is the craziest part about that story. Right, So he's getting booked to come to clubs and be the host, right, he's getting paid that because this song is crazy. The dance is even crazy. You got the club doing it. You know what he's doing when people are leaving the club selling the nacho. He's got his food truck outside selling you the food. Because the first thing you got to do is eat. When you come out of a party, you've
been sweating, you've been drinking, you're hungry. He goes to nachos, five dollars, get your sauce. Wow, incredible, that's fine.
I think that's a valuable lesson too on brand.
Right, there's a lot of times like he doesn't the way that your product gets popping on the way you get popping isn't necessarily your core competency.
Right.
The dance might be bigger and getting more impressions than a picture of the nachos. But that's what good thinkers and founders do is they find ways to create, you know, parallel ideas and concepts that lift up their entire brand.
Let's take one question before we wrap.
I hope I did not to apply by saying, my delly, we're coming to you. Mute yourself. You've been unmuted? What's going on? Oh wait wait, oh yeah, I'm here, bro, I'm here, bro.
Come on.
That was less bless How your fellows doing. That's great, man, Glad glad to hear that. Listen, It's funny. You guys have touched on a couple of things that I realized marketing wise, that I never noticed before, even for example, me signing up with E Y L the day that I was just listening to one of your market mondays, and you guys created that urgency with the sale is about to run out. Next thing I know, Bam, I throw my card on the thing. Next thing, I know,
I'm blessed to be to become earner. So I'm saying, but you guys drove it into me by creating that urgency just crazy, which is absolutely crazy marketing? How that works?
Uh?
Quick?
Thing I wanted to touch on is, uh, when you're going back to what you were mentioning as far as creating a brand.
So I'm doing the Amazon.
The Amazon thing, trying to you know, create my brand, and that's so.
Hard to get Amazon exactly.
It's so hard to do right now because you have so much competition and you have to get a bunch of people, you have to get up front, you have to get uh rated, you have to get a ranked and all that.
It's so hard.
What can you Is there anything that you might think that I could be able to use to help my help me, you know, get better with my business.
Wow, that's a great question for Annie, but it's also a brilliant question in general. How do you brand yourself when what you're selling is commoditized and also it i e. Widely available and also you're on the platform that is commoditized.
Man, Annie, what's your take on that?
That's a powerful question actually because a lot of people could probably relate to that.
Yeah, I mean, you know the idea of when you engage with Amazon, you have to know that you are engaging on somebody else's platform and somebody else's brand equity rights making it easy for you to sell and easy for other people to transact, and so you're going to lose a little bit of competitive advantage there.
My recommendation will.
Be create content in your own world and still direct people to Amazon, but that brand equity and the things that you're doing on social editorial, you know, livestream, all those things can still be as fruitful as you need them to be. So just because the transaction is happening on Amazon, it doesn't mean that the entire narrative or the story band is happening on Amazon.
You know, another thing, another thing, This is my take on this is what I would do. So the good thing with Amazon is private label. So like lint rollers shout out to Josh Chris lint rollers or toenail.
Clippers, a lot of these things.
This is what a lot of people sell on Amazon, because nobody ever asked where's a lint roller coming from? So like they sell lint rollers in a factory in China. You get it and you can put your label on it. So it could be like eyol lint rollers.
Right. What I would do is whatever product is selling.
Let's say we're selling lint rollers, right, I would Now I would go to every social media blog whatever. Now going back to creating a story. Black owned lint rolling company, the first ever black owned lint rolling company out of Philadelphia, whatever, I would create a story about it and make the myth and make the story way bigger than would it. Actually, you're not lying. You're a black on lint rolling company. But now that sounds way better than me just putting
the lint roll on Amazon. No, I gonna make a whole movie out of there. I'm making a whole motion picture out of it. Black own lint rolling company. I started from the bottom. Da da dada da had to get distribution from China. It's all about how you say things.
It's damn, it's crazy. That's crazy. It seems to me like I'm gonna have to cut your checks.
Million dollar for a game. You know we're talking about that. Shout out to the earnest.
Yeah, so separately, Yes, gentlemen, this, this, This was fun.
This was fun. Guys, John, I'll let you I'll let you put this, wrap this up.
Episode one Man in the Books. Thank you guys for rocking and rolling with us. Man Annie, always a pleasure to have you on you guys. Got to check out Annie Man. He's at at Annie Hustles, on Instagram, on every other platform. Just one of the realist practitioners in the game. You get a lot of knowledges following all of his content, So talk about storytelling, talk about brand
I take notes from him. I personally reach out to him with questions that I have around how to crack the code, marketing on brands, and things of that nature. So definitely tapping with Annie Man. That's the dude, support his his child concept. You won't be disappointed. It's a lot more than Chi So locking with Annie. But yet to all the folks listening, Man, thank you guys. This has been a limited this episode one of a limited series.
We're just getting going. We're just testing out and experimenting with the show format. I know that some of you guys, I can already see hundreds and hundreds literally of down loads of the framework, So I hope that you guys take value from it. I think in future episodes we will keep the presentations to a minimum and just keep it more rooted in conversation, experimentation, and you know, examples
from pop culture and different moments of that nature. Next up on episode two, we're gonna be diving into content strategy, which everyone here on this particular pod could literally do a master session on. And our special guest for that episode is going to be none other than the team captain for gary V. So this is Andy Kranak, who had he runs gary V's entire thirty five person content
team and just crushes their content strategy. So we're gonna get into the three h's of content hub, hero hygiene, how you can mm hm, how much is your cause, how you should structure your whole ship.
It's gonna be a banger.
So thank you guys, ey L appreciate you all as as always, And for those of you guys listen, remember Loopingshure dot Co.
The link is linked up there.
Tapping and join the wait list slash, make sure you download the framework. Talk about scarcity.
It's going away at the end of the day, so you gotta go and have that ship today and then we'll take it from there fellas. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate y'all.
Y'all the link.
The link is also in the description of this video and it's pinned here. So yeah, thank you guys.
This was fun. See you next week later. Peace.
Peace, my graduates from my school being forced back and drop.
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