Speaker 1: So people have been enjoying my business stories that seem
Speaker 1: just obvious to me because I've talked about them so much.
Speaker 1: But I realize that you probably haven't heard them, because
Speaker 1: if you haven't read every Forbes, Inc. Business Inside, or
Speaker 1: New York Times article that I've been quoted in, or
Speaker 1: if you haven't read one of my books, or you
Speaker 1: have your own life, or you're new or here, you
Speaker 1: may not know some of the stories. And I think
Speaker 1: that the first lesson in business that I want to
Speaker 1: convey is to be creative with contracts. I think that
Speaker 1: people are intimidated by business, intimidated by contracts.
Speaker 2: I don't love contracts.
Speaker 1: They overwhelm me, and yet I'm excellent at them, but
Speaker 1: not reading them, not writing them, not contract language, at
Speaker 1: navigating them. And contracts should be thought of as chess
Speaker 1: and createtivity. So what I'm saying is first season of Housewives.
Speaker 1: It is well documented that I only got the two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty dollars that we got for the season. But
Speaker 1: I saw something in the contract that someone explained to me.
Speaker 1: Because someone has to explain something to me for me
Speaker 1: to really understand it when it comes to contracts. So
Speaker 1: someone explained to me that I would have to sign
Speaker 1: away that I would give a piece of any business
Speaker 1: to the powers that be at the network. When I
Speaker 1: signed on to reality TV, I had no business who cared.
Speaker 1: But for some reason I didn't like it. So I
Speaker 1: took the low seven two hundred and fifty that was
Speaker 1: in the contract. But I said, we're crossing that part out.
Speaker 1: They didn't care I was a nobody. They crossed it out.
Speaker 1: That was the Skinny Girl deal that landed me on
Speaker 1: the cover of Forbes magazine and trust and Believe Bravo
Speaker 1: was extremely frustrated that they didn't have part of that,
Speaker 1: and they made sure everybody signed that language in the future.
Speaker 1: That was the Bethany clause. So that's being creative within
Speaker 1: a contract. In addition, prior to that, when I did
Speaker 1: the deal with my partner, my lawyer said to me,
Speaker 1: do you want to do equity and licensing? I said,
Speaker 1: I don't even know the difference. He said, licensing you
Speaker 1: start to get money now. It's not the big pay day,
Speaker 1: but you start to get paid now, which you have
Speaker 1: no money and you're not getting paid anything. He said,
Speaker 1: the risk of your proposition is equity. That means it's
Speaker 1: your idea, you own it, you have skin in the game.
Speaker 1: But if something happens, you take the responsibility. If you
Speaker 1: get sued or something happens, you take the responsibility. Most
Speaker 1: people would take licensing at that point because I was
Speaker 1: a nobody. I had nothing and I just wanted any money.
Speaker 1: Ten thousand dollars would have been a million dollars to
Speaker 1: me then, But I still said because he explained it
Speaker 1: to me and I understood the concept, I was able
Speaker 1: to say, no, I'll take equity. This is my ace
Speaker 1: in the hole, this is my retirement, this is my
Speaker 1: big idea. Now I didn't know would succeed, but conceptually
Speaker 1: I understood, and I just knew in both those cases
Speaker 1: that conceptually I didn't like what I was hearing, so
Speaker 1: I chose that other option. In addition, when I did
Speaker 1: my Skinny Girl, big deal came to buy me. They
Speaker 1: wanted to buy Skinny Girl cocktails. Gray Goose was bought
Speaker 1: for two billion dollars. They sold the entire brand. You
Speaker 1: don't see Gray Goose anything now. You can't do a
Speaker 1: Gray Goose furnishing line, no drinks, no nothing. It'd be
Speaker 1: a great energy drink line, it be a great anything line, nothing,
Speaker 1: Grey Goose clothing nothing. Why they bought the whole brand,
Speaker 1: They bought all the intellectual property. I didn't understand intellectually
Speaker 1: why Beam would need the whole brand because they only
Speaker 1: operate in cocktails. So I said, what, I don't want
Speaker 1: to sell it to you and everything else. I can
Speaker 1: do this in all other categories. I can have jeans,
Speaker 1: I can have salad dressing, I can have popcorn, I
Speaker 1: can have smoothies, I can have coffee, I can have
Speaker 1: anything I want. They said, you're selling the brand. They
Speaker 1: wanted it bad. They wanted to copy it. They told
Speaker 1: me they were gonna copy it if they didn't if
Speaker 1: I didn't sell it to them.
Speaker 2: They kind of had me over a barrel.
Speaker 1: And the numbers now are probably three to five times
Speaker 1: more than they would have been then because I started
Speaker 1: the celebrity cocktail space in the world way it's seen
Speaker 1: today for these big numbers. So they said they were
Speaker 1: gonna copy me. I said, fine, but I had them too.
Speaker 1: I had a hot brand. They wanted it. I said,
Speaker 1: you only need the cocktails. You need to let me
Speaker 1: have the other categories. So they said no, I said, well,
Speaker 1: tough shit. Then you can't have it.
Speaker 2: I pushed.
Speaker 1: I pushed them, I owned the skinny Gral brand, Beam
Speaker 1: only owns it in cocktails. The only thing that they
Speaker 1: could exploit it would have been all these other categories.
Speaker 1: And I make every year seven figures for fourteen years
Speaker 1: on the other categories, a lot of money. So I've
Speaker 1: been making money off that deal for years. So that
Speaker 1: was the double dip. The triple dip is that they
Speaker 1: wanted me to be a spokesperson. They wanted to give
Speaker 1: me an endorsement deal that was seven figures every year
Speaker 1: also and it lasted for ten years. Here was the kicker.
Speaker 1: Here's the quadruple dip. They wanted me to promote certain items.
Speaker 1: I said, no problem. I said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: promote something I don't want to promote. They said, I
Speaker 1: suggested carving out, I would write down a list of
Speaker 1: items that I would promote that I wanted to promote,
Speaker 1: and a list of things that I didn't want to promote.
Speaker 1: Not on that list for did or didn't want was
Speaker 1: wine in vodka, something that the next year they wanted
Speaker 1: me to promote. I said, I didn't have it on
Speaker 1: that list. They said, well, we own the brand, we
Speaker 1: can do it. I said, you could do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: You could have wine and vodka all day long. I
Speaker 1: don't have to promote it. Well, we need you to
Speaker 1: promote it. I said, great, then you're going to pay me.
Speaker 1: They said, you can't sell the brand. Twice I said, well,
Speaker 1: then do it on your own. They ended up having
Speaker 1: to pay me a per case fee another seven figures
Speaker 1: for the per case. Then the fifth thing was the kicker,
Speaker 1: the one time bonus kicker. There was a bonus kicker
Speaker 1: that when I mean kicker, it's like a bonus that
Speaker 1: one time in the whole contract if you hit one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cases, I think it was, Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: hit one hundred thousand cases, you'll get this big, giant.
Speaker 2: Multiple million dollar bonus, okay.
Speaker 1: I said in the contract that they had to guarantee
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money that they would spend every
Speaker 1: year on money marketing, and if they didn't, they would
Speaker 1: take one hundred thousand off that number, one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: cases off that number. The number was a million cases.
Speaker 1: This year we got not We sold nine hundred thousand cases.
Speaker 1: I think in the second year they didn't spend that money.
Speaker 1: So I got the several million dollar kicker because of it.
Speaker 1: If they had spent that money on marketing, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Have gotten it.
Speaker 1: But if I hadn't put that language in, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had to pay it. So I quintuple dipped all
Speaker 1: by being creative with contracts, and my real sustainable generational
Speaker 1: wealth that's happening is still happening now because of that.
Speaker 1: Because I have salad dressing that people are using right now,
Speaker 1: that microwave popcorn people are eating right now, skinny girl
Speaker 1: coffee that people are drinking right now, skinny girl shape
Speaker 1: where that people are wearing right now, and I'm getting
Speaker 1: I'm making money on it because those are licensing deals
Speaker 1: because I kept that intellectual property. So be creative in contracts.
Speaker 1: Understand the contracts. You don't have to be an expert,
Speaker 1: but understand what they mean so you can be creative
Speaker 1: and thinking about workarounds. On Housewives, there were years that
Speaker 1: I would take a small pay bump.
Speaker 2: I was making a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I was making must know six figures an episode, but
Speaker 1: where I wouldn't take a massive pay increase because I
Speaker 1: would ask for something else creatively, I like, I want
Speaker 1: to be able to do shark tank. I want to
Speaker 1: be able to do this other thing. I want to
Speaker 1: be able to come to trips late and.
Speaker 2: Leave them early.
Speaker 1: Other language. It made my life easier. Other language. That
Speaker 1: made it that I could make money in other ways
Speaker 1: long term. So don't only think about the bottom line
Speaker 1: in a contract. Think about the creative language in business.
Speaker 1: I'm literally I'm having the best time watching people go
Speaker 1: into my comment as a spectator sport. So the Chanelle
Speaker 1: content that everybody knows about, I don't even have to
Speaker 1: tell you about it. I always have to tell you
Speaker 1: things because I don't assume that you know anything. I
Speaker 1: am justin Bieber now because of the Chanelle content. One
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million plus views on the Chanelle content.
Speaker 1: Do you understand that on Bravo you got a million
Speaker 1: a million people watch something one hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 1: I am literally walking the street being stopped at Chanel.
Speaker 1: It's endless, it is an abyss, is infinite, it goes on.
Speaker 1: And I did them a favor. I could have gone
Speaker 1: to the dark side because my fans were ready to
Speaker 1: rip each other's limbs off and beat each other with
Speaker 1: them over the Chanelle's story. They were so mad and
Speaker 1: they wanted to go storm the castle of Chanel. I
Speaker 1: talked them off the ledge and they didn't storm the castle. Instead,
Speaker 1: I chose humor. I didn't choose violence. I chose humor. So, Chanel,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for my edible arrangement because I took everybody
Speaker 1: over to the funny side and now we're all having
Speaker 1: a great time. And the few people that are freaking
Speaker 1: trying to find the ants at the Chanell picnic, they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are getting mad.
Speaker 2: Is it enough? Stop it? Like?
Speaker 1: Okay, first of all, it's my account. Second of all,
Speaker 1: it's enough of what of being funny? Of satirical content?
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter. But when the few people get mad,
Speaker 1: the other people love to come in and beat the
Speaker 1: shit out of them, and they get into knock down,
Speaker 1: drag out fights, and we get where we get. We're
Speaker 1: the trolls trolling the trolls. We get more worked up
Speaker 1: and want to do more Chanel content just to piss
Speaker 1: off the Chanel trolls. So it's a circular reference. Also, Chanelle,
Speaker 1: how is their CMO not doing anything?
Speaker 2: Lean into it?
Speaker 1: Make it something like I can't even believe that you're
Speaker 1: not just being part of the joke.
Speaker 2: Help some people.
Speaker 1: Take some people into your store, give them some free
Speaker 1: Chanel bags. Cost like fifty dollars to make a Chanel bag.
Speaker 1: Maximum maximum They used to be in twenty four carra gold.
Speaker 1: But now I walk by the store and I see
Speaker 1: Steve Madden and he's knocking off Chanell and Arimez every
Speaker 1: which way. But Sunday I'm gonna start wearing only Steve
Speaker 1: Steve Madden Chanelle's shoes. Now like it's it's it's called
Speaker 1: like warfare. Now like it's full on. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's like I would never have promoted someone whose entire
Speaker 1: lifeblood is to just knock off. But now it's called
Speaker 1: like all thats are off. Shameless shameless shameless copying of
Speaker 1: Aaron Mes and Chanelle. You know why, cause you make
Speaker 1: an exclusive club. You make it that people can't buy watches,
Speaker 1: can't buy bags, can't go into luxury stores.
Speaker 2: What Like it's like the VIP section how to get
Speaker 2: into a luxury store? Are we okay?
Speaker 1: You walk into a watch store for exhibition only, for
Speaker 1: exhibition only, You're not a lot to walk into a
Speaker 1: watch store. Luke Colmbs did a whole thing on walking
Speaker 1: in and asking for a rollox. So like, godd funny,
Speaker 1: you should ask like he's walking into a rolex store
Speaker 1: asking for a rolex. What is he supposed to go
Speaker 1: in there and ask for a vibrator? Like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: That's what it is. It's a rolex store. Insane.
Speaker 1: We never talked about that, Harrison Bucker in his commencement speech,
Speaker 1: which I've been thinking about a lot, and it comes
Speaker 1: up a lot. And I think the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: not that anyone criticizing being a homemaker, being a wife
Speaker 1: making that choice. It's criticizing the sentiment that that's the
Speaker 1: most important job and that that should be shoved down
Speaker 1: people's throats what they're supposed to feel and think, particularly
Speaker 1: after graduating from school.
Speaker 2: And I think that.
Speaker 1: I'd be remiss if I didn't say to you that
Speaker 1: I think that there's a power in having your own skill, set,
Speaker 1: your own money.
Speaker 2: Not think I know anything can happen.
Speaker 1: What happens someone passes away, you're in a relationship with athlete,
Speaker 1: They get hurt, like you didn't know how to do
Speaker 1: the finances.
Speaker 2: You know you need earning power. You never know what's
Speaker 2: going to happen.
Speaker 1: Someone could go broke, someone could get ill, something could happen.
Speaker 1: God for there is a medical situation in a family,
Speaker 1: you need money for a rainy dam, and shit does happen.
Speaker 1: So as a woman, it's pretty critical that you have
Speaker 1: your own thing. You don't have to choose to be
Speaker 1: working in the grind every single day. This is not
Speaker 1: a prescription or a punishment. It's just saying, like, why
Speaker 1: would you not want to have some identity that's your own,
Speaker 1: some skill set, some marketable skill that you know, or
Speaker 1: some industry you know, or a nest egg or anything,
Speaker 1: just to have some freedom. There's no way that someone
Speaker 1: could know exactly how it's going to go for the
Speaker 1: next twenty years with another person.
Speaker 2: You just can't know.
Speaker 1: You think it's great, but the sixty percent of divorces
Speaker 1: aren't because everything seemed, you know, great. It's because everything
Speaker 1: seemed great and then life got in the way. People
Speaker 1: grew and people evolved and things happened and people were
Speaker 1: presented with different opportunities and it's not that easy.