Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 1: the team today?
Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
Speaker 2: Lottery players.
Speaker 3: Everything.
Speaker 2: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 2: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 2: the game. That's all for now, Coach, One more question.
Speaker 4: Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine
Speaker 4: Ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery.
Speaker 4: A little play can make your day. Peace made responsibly.
Speaker 4: Must be eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
Speaker 5: All Right, guys, welcome back eyl LA Hometown Heroes Edition.
Speaker 6: That's a fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: We are sheltering in place in the great city of
Speaker 5: LA one of my favorite places in the whole entire world. Respectfully,
Speaker 5: absolutely so, while we're out on the West Coast for
Speaker 5: the summer, we definitely, you know, planned on getting a
Speaker 5: lot of content done. So this is the first of
Speaker 5: hopefully many episodes that we will be recording while we
Speaker 5: are in Los Angeles, West Coast Natives, and this is
Speaker 5: very rare to actually meet somebody from LA or the
Speaker 5: Greater LA area, because everybody that's in LA is like
Speaker 5: from somewhere else, like you meet him like from Toronto, Chicago,
Speaker 5: or Houston. Everybody comes to LA from different places. But
Speaker 5: Ernest Dukes is actually from the OC, which is close enough,
Speaker 5: close enough LA southern California to LA the Greater LA area,
Speaker 5: and he's a really superstar in the game of being
Speaker 5: a publicist and a TV producer. Is actually crazy because
Speaker 5: I just found out. So I was talking to MG
Speaker 5: the Mortgage Guy. If you're a loyal listener of Ernia Legia,
Speaker 5: you know who Mad is. He's a close, close friend
Speaker 5: of OZ and one of our most prestigious alumni. So
Speaker 5: MG the Mortgage Guy, I'm talking to him like a
Speaker 5: few weeks ago and he's like, yeah, DJ Envy hooked
Speaker 5: me up with this publicist. So I'm thinking about, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, working with a publicist. So I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's like, you know, publicist told me. He was like, well,
Speaker 5: you know, have you heard of this podcast called Earn
Speaker 5: You Lisia? Like you should try to get on that podcast,
Speaker 5: And he was like, I'm the best episode by the way.
Speaker 5: You're like, oh, if you ever earned a Lisia, you
Speaker 5: already He's like, yeah, I made them go into top ten.
Speaker 3: That is true.
Speaker 5: So as as fate would have it, shout out to
Speaker 5: our Gta Dune another ey L alumni, my God versus
Speaker 5: my enemies. He hooked it up with our partner Mike
Speaker 5: to get us our first interview in LA with like
Speaker 5: I said, Ernest Dukes, who is a publicist. And it's
Speaker 5: actually interesting because we haven't talked to a publicist yet.
Speaker 5: We haven't talked to a TV producer yet, so I
Speaker 5: run down. He has a long list of accomplishments, but
Speaker 5: he's the owner of a marketing and PR company called
Speaker 5: the Nottingham Group. He represents a lot of celebrity clients.
Speaker 5: Some of them are Jeezy Remy Ma, Fashion Nova, Keisha Cole,
Speaker 5: La La Milan. Some of his past clients were Nick Cannon, Ky,
Speaker 5: Michelle Scott Storts, Tammy Rome In one twelve and Uh.
Speaker 5: He has a bunch of stuff going. He has annual
Speaker 5: business and branding workshops that he does once a year
Speaker 5: I believe once a year yeah, called Ernest Living Tour,
Speaker 5: where he's had guests like Mona Stock Monas Scott Tyson Beckford.
Speaker 5: He also has a book that he is the author
Speaker 5: of called Caption God, which talks about five hundred captions
Speaker 5: on social media to increase engagement, and he has a
Speaker 5: web series called Black Publicist Working. So this is going
Speaker 5: to be a very informative, going on, educational episode. And
Speaker 5: it's perfect that we you know, we're in Hollywood in
Speaker 5: a perfect place to do it. So first and foremost,
Speaker 5: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 7: Appreciate it, Thank you, appreciate you.
Speaker 6: But now we candn't have Shotty do this for you,
Speaker 6: like for the rest of your career.
Speaker 7: I'm here for When he was talking, I'm like, who's
Speaker 7: he talking?
Speaker 6: We're open to that, YO.
Speaker 8: Side note, I'm so jealous of y'all because I did
Speaker 8: my tour, the Ernest Living Tour. I really wanted to
Speaker 8: call my people know how to have like the old
Speaker 8: fans or whatever, like the community.
Speaker 7: I want to call him the.
Speaker 5: Earners shout out to ans.
Speaker 6: That sounds good. We go use as a drop.
Speaker 5: So all right, so let's start at the beginning because
Speaker 5: I'm interested in this because, like I said, we actually
Speaker 5: thought about hiring and publishers.
Speaker 9: I just told him when we were in Chicago. I
Speaker 9: saw Mandy shout out to many another alumni and I
Speaker 9: was like, Yo, Mandy. We were watching her go to
Speaker 9: all these events and we would look like, Yo, we
Speaker 9: need a publicist. We need to be in these events.
Speaker 9: And she was kind of like why you need it,
Speaker 9: and I gave a bunch of reasons, and she was like, nah,
Speaker 9: you guys are great where you are. You know, just
Speaker 9: see how far you can go without it first, and
Speaker 9: then if you really mean I was number one, was like, look,
Speaker 9: we need to be in events that other people in.
Speaker 9: We need a little bit more notoriety. We hadn't had
Speaker 9: any press really, and she was like, I'm not sure
Speaker 9: that's what a publicist does. I think you need to
Speaker 9: figure out the roles first. And then we had another conversation.
Speaker 9: She was like, keep going the way you're going. I
Speaker 9: like the way you guys are doing this, and we'll
Speaker 9: talk later. And we haven't talked about it since. But
Speaker 9: like when you said that one of the episodes that
Speaker 9: you listened to was Mandy, I'm like, that's ironic because
Speaker 9: she had this conversation with me about the publisher position.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So all right, so before we even start, how do you,
Speaker 5: how do you get started in being a publicist. I mean,
Speaker 5: you're in the best city, LA for that. But you
Speaker 5: never worked with an agency. You was always independent, you
Speaker 5: told me, so you just like run down on people, like, hey,
Speaker 5: let me get you in the magazine.
Speaker 8: I've never been that person, so all right, so let
Speaker 8: me start from the beginning. Growing up, it's gonna sound
Speaker 8: super funny and corny. I wanted to do acting when
Speaker 8: I was a kid, like a teenager, and so I
Speaker 8: would come from Orange County to LA and I would
Speaker 8: always do these acting classes. And at the time, like
Speaker 8: a lot of the people that I was hanging out
Speaker 8: with have become successful to this day. Like coming up,
Speaker 8: like I would run around like Kiki Palmers and like
Speaker 8: Quincy and Kofie from Queen's Sugar and Own. And so
Speaker 8: by hanging out with them, I would always get invited
Speaker 8: to events. And so one day I got invited to
Speaker 8: some event. I saw Jackie Christie who's on Basketball Wives,
Speaker 8: and so she was super nice. She was on the
Speaker 8: red carpet and she was sweating. So I was fanning her.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm like, hey, I'm trying look out for you,
Speaker 8: because it's.
Speaker 7: Like it was like sweating, right.
Speaker 8: And so when I was finished and she was done
Speaker 8: during her interview, she gave me one hundred dollars and
Speaker 8: she's like, here's some change.
Speaker 7: And I'm like some change.
Speaker 8: After time, I was broken as hell, So I'm like,
Speaker 8: what can I do for some more change?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 8: So every time I would go out and I wouldee her,
Speaker 8: I always try to be nice and cordial because I
Speaker 8: wanted to get some more change.
Speaker 3: Nah.
Speaker 8: I was like, what you need? Like I would have though,
Speaker 8: you know. And so she asked me, like, who's your publicist?
Speaker 8: Because you are you are always at the same events
Speaker 8: that I'm at, and I didn't know what a publicist was.
Speaker 8: And so I'm like, well, shit, I guess it's me
Speaker 8: because no one else is here. And so she's like
Speaker 8: if I pay you, can you get me into events?
Speaker 8: And I'm like, yeah, perfect because it was some pay
Speaker 8: involved and I again wasn't making money. And so from there,
Speaker 8: her and her husband written a book called No Ordinary Love.
Speaker 8: It was they co authored it together, and then Basketball
Speaker 8: why it was happening on that show?
Speaker 7: There was nobody. None of those women had publicists.
Speaker 8: They didn't even know what a publicist was, like, you know,
Speaker 8: think about it, like you're just a wife or a girlfriend,
Speaker 8: and all of a sudden, you're on television.
Speaker 7: You don't know what to do.
Speaker 8: And so they saw Jackie at a publicist and so
Speaker 8: they all start hiring me. So like season one, like
Speaker 8: I worked with Malaysia and Laura Govin and like all
Speaker 8: these different women, and then it just kept going from
Speaker 8: there and I became like the reality show publicist.
Speaker 9: Yeah so she had she had a sister, right, Laura, Yeah, Gloria,
Speaker 9: So yeah, both of them.
Speaker 7: No, I just had they weren't getting along.
Speaker 8: So and that's another thing I realized too quickly that
Speaker 8: those women are so competitive that it didn't really help
Speaker 8: me to represent everybody because everyone Like for example, when
Speaker 8: I had Laura and Malaysia, they got.
Speaker 7: Into a fist fight, so it's like, what do you do?
Speaker 3: Like, what do you know?
Speaker 7: How well legend I think it's on real start, You're
Speaker 7: gonna check it out.
Speaker 8: They both have hands though I could tell you what
Speaker 8: I saw, but yeah, and then from there I started
Speaker 8: doing all the reality shows. I got people on Love
Speaker 8: and Hip Hop, I got Hollywood X's on VH one,
Speaker 8: Mob Wives, and like again becoming the reality star guy.
Speaker 8: It was looked down upon, Oh, you just do reality
Speaker 8: because at that time, no one cared about reality stars.
Speaker 8: It's like who cares? And then but it's funny that
Speaker 8: it's funny that people look down at me having reality
Speaker 8: stars because that's what actually got me my job at Fashionova.
Speaker 8: They saw value in reality talent as influencers, Like before
Speaker 8: influencers were really a thing. It was like the reality
Speaker 8: people they would pay and so I had so many
Speaker 8: of them. They hired me to do the PR for
Speaker 8: Fashion Nova, and that's really what people started treating me
Speaker 8: different after that. It's like, you work at Fashion Nova,
Speaker 8: you know stress because of reality TV?
Speaker 6: Really that's crazy.
Speaker 9: So you got all these clients in season one, I'm
Speaker 9: still thinking to myself, what actually does publicist do?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I was thinking that too at the time because I
Speaker 8: never went to college for PR, like really intern for
Speaker 8: a bunch of people, and I don't really feel like
Speaker 8: I learned what to do. I learned what not to
Speaker 8: do because like there were those people I interned for,
Speaker 8: with the exception of one woman her name of Chanelle Green,
Speaker 8: were all kind of just using me to like do
Speaker 8: things for them.
Speaker 7: Like I wasn't learning nothing.
Speaker 8: It's like and that's why I tell peop about internships,
Speaker 8: like you got to really figure out like if the
Speaker 8: internship is in alignment with your vision, because like me,
Speaker 8: running to get you coffee every day is not going
Speaker 8: to ever propel me to where I want to go.
Speaker 8: I know how to get coffee, I know how to
Speaker 8: look at me. I can eat, you know, I know
Speaker 8: how to order and uber eat and all that. So
Speaker 8: like literally it didn't help me at all. And so
Speaker 8: I started taking like classes, like you know, online classes
Speaker 8: or watching YouTube videos.
Speaker 7: I think I have a PhD in Google.
Speaker 6: Oh, I guess class, ye.
Speaker 8: And I used to steal, but like not like steal steal,
Speaker 8: like you know, like stick nobody up. But I would
Speaker 8: go to this bookstore called Borders Bookstores. I don't know
Speaker 8: if they still have them, but they used to have
Speaker 8: the price tag on the back of the book. It
Speaker 8: was a sticker, and so I would go like in
Speaker 8: the children's book section and get like Clifford the Big
Speaker 8: Red Dog and it was four dollars. And I would
Speaker 8: take that sticker off and put on the back of
Speaker 8: like the Art of Publicity that was sixty dollars. I
Speaker 8: had like a CD rom in the back before there
Speaker 8: was apps and stuff, and I would go and like
Speaker 8: pay for that. So I was stealing, but like still
Speaker 8: trying to you.
Speaker 6: Know, have a good art with it to the scramblers.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: And that's kind of like how uh that's how I learned.
Speaker 8: But yeah, I remember what the original question was. I
Speaker 8: started thinking about stealing and going to jail.
Speaker 5: I think he was saying, like, what's the actual role
Speaker 5: the roles?
Speaker 8: In the beginning, I didn't know, like I said, so
Speaker 8: I kind of operated as a best friend for hire.
Speaker 8: Like these women would call and be like, oh, my
Speaker 8: husband's cheating on me, and I'll be on the phone
Speaker 8: like what happened?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 7: John three sixteen said like, you know, giving them script jobs.
Speaker 7: Six You know, I'm serious.
Speaker 9: I'm thinking, like this is what you coos to do.
Speaker 8: What I'm doing everything else, you know, I'm fixing ship
Speaker 8: and getting them pressed. So I really didn't know in
Speaker 8: the beginning, but now I have like really learned and
Speaker 8: mastered the art of it. So what I would say
Speaker 8: a publicist like I am in charge of how the
Speaker 8: public consumes your image, of your brand or your project.
Speaker 8: So for different people I do different things. Some people
Speaker 8: come to me for branding, which is like I'm involved
Speaker 8: with your overall like look of your brand, everything that
Speaker 8: you I guess accumulate under your brand. So, for example,
Speaker 8: like Tammy Rowman, when I started working with her shoes
Speaker 8: on Basketball Wives, she just hit somebody in the face.
Speaker 8: I forget which season it was. She hit somebody and
Speaker 8: she's like, I don't need to clean my image like
Speaker 8: they were saying, I'm a bully, and I'm like, all right, cool,
Speaker 8: let's figure this out. So we went and did press
Speaker 8: and all different markets were in Atlanta, New York, LA.
Speaker 8: Of course, like really trying to show like a different
Speaker 8: side of her that people don't see on the TV show.
Speaker 8: And then from there and getting to know her, I
Speaker 8: realized she was funny, and she was doing her bonic chronicles.
Speaker 8: She was on Instagram talking and really blowing up on
Speaker 8: Instagram for that, and so I'm like, well, what more
Speaker 8: can we do? So together her and I created an
Speaker 8: app called tam Motions, was like the first talking emoji.
Speaker 8: We're number one of the app store. We beat Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 8: We ain't really making no money from it. That's another story.
Speaker 8: But we beat her and then from there we kept growing.
Speaker 8: So we did the scripted series on title Bonnic Chronicles.
Speaker 8: We did scripted, not scripted. We did stand up comedy
Speaker 8: where I co write the jokes with her, and that
Speaker 8: would be more more of an example of branding. But
Speaker 8: then there are some people just come strictly for publicity,
Speaker 8: like Scott Storage. She was producing the single for Chris
Speaker 8: Brown and Rick Ross. All he wanted was to do
Speaker 8: interviews and talk about it. So I set up his
Speaker 8: press tour. We did all that stuff and when it
Speaker 8: was over, I got my check. He went along his
Speaker 8: way and I ain't seen him since, you know, So, uh,
Speaker 8: A shorter answer, just like I guess put a button on.
Speaker 8: It is like anything from anytime you've see an artist do,
Speaker 8: like magazine interviews or red carpets or anything that has
Speaker 8: to do with press, Like the publicist is there to
Speaker 8: facilitate that.
Speaker 3: So is it based off of a relationships?
Speaker 5: So it's like, all right, I want to go on
Speaker 5: a press tour, right and I just put a new
Speaker 5: book out. I want to go to breakfast club. I
Speaker 5: want to go to you know, big boy in the morning.
Speaker 5: I want to go to earn your leisure. That's a
Speaker 5: big check, big, big, big where else you want to go?
Speaker 8: So I'm like adding numbers in my head.
Speaker 3: So how do.
Speaker 5: You all right, how do you make that happen? Is
Speaker 5: it like relationships that you've built with these people or
Speaker 5: do you just kind of cold call?
Speaker 3: Like how it can.
Speaker 7: Happened one of two ways.
Speaker 8: So I think a lot of When I first started MPR,
Speaker 8: there weren't a lot of publicists like and not a
Speaker 8: lot of black ones or males at that point for
Speaker 8: that matter. And then over the years, I think it's
Speaker 8: become cool and trendy. So now so many people do it,
Speaker 8: and so those people are just getting in it. They
Speaker 8: would do like a cold call or like an email
Speaker 8: or send a pitch letter and hope for the best.
Speaker 8: If you have a client that is of interest, they're
Speaker 8: going to call you back, you know, Like let's say
Speaker 8: I work with Gabrielle Union. Of course they're gonna call
Speaker 8: me back. Is Gabrielle Union. I don't think that really
Speaker 8: shows like how great of a publicist you are because.
Speaker 7: The talent's name is big.
Speaker 8: I'm always more impressed, like when somebody can get like,
Speaker 8: you know, Joe Jones, no exactly. So when you can
Speaker 8: get Joe Jones on those platforms, that's what I'm impressed.
Speaker 8: I'm like, how do you get this? How you get
Speaker 8: them over there? You know, no one knows him, so
Speaker 8: that's impressive. But for me, I did start that way,
Speaker 8: like not having any big names and really having to
Speaker 8: like really trying to persuade people, and really it's all
Speaker 8: about relationships. So now I can like text someone at
Speaker 8: the breakfast club, like, hey, can you have my person
Speaker 8: come on? Or like because I work with Nick Cannon,
Speaker 8: I can text him and say, hey, can someone come on
Speaker 8: your morning show or whatever. But I was able to
Speaker 8: build relationships by investing in myself. So here's what people
Speaker 8: don't realize. When I said work with reality clients, they
Speaker 8: don't make a lot of money. So it's not like
Speaker 8: I was making tons of bread working with them. I
Speaker 8: was making literally, I'll tell you what I was making.
Speaker 8: When I first started with Jackie Christie, she would pay
Speaker 8: me fifty dollars for every interview I can get her,
Speaker 8: which is crazy, like no one's fucking working for fifty dollars.
Speaker 8: But at the time, like, you don't understand how dead
Speaker 8: broke I was so I'm like, fifty dollars. I had
Speaker 8: her interview with every WordPress blog or blog spot blog
Speaker 8: or internet radio. I'm like, you got to interview here,
Speaker 8: interview there, and she would do it. That's bad though,
Speaker 8: for anybody listening, like you like less. It's more to me,
Speaker 8: like you want quality instead of quantity. But at the time,
Speaker 8: it was like I wanted the fifty per placement. And
Speaker 8: then from there, I'm like, I'm gonna charge everybody a
Speaker 8: thousand a month.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be rich.
Speaker 8: Realized I would never be rich making a thousand dollars
Speaker 8: a month, especially because going back to your point and
Speaker 8: building relationships, I would used that money to invest in myself.
Speaker 8: So like, if I got someone an interview on the
Speaker 8: Breakfast Club and I'm in LA, they bare could afford
Speaker 8: the thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 7: They're not going to afford to fly me in. So
Speaker 7: I would take the thousand they gave.
Speaker 8: Me and fly myself in and put myself up just
Speaker 8: so I can put a face.
Speaker 7: To the name when I meet these people, you know
Speaker 7: what I mean.
Speaker 8: And so I really wasn't making nothing, but I think
Speaker 8: in a long term it paid off because I have
Speaker 8: so many relationships, Like I can navigate through pretty much
Speaker 8: any city now because I've been there so many times
Speaker 8: or so many clients, And now I'm to the point
Speaker 8: where people fly me in and it's not even like
Speaker 8: I'm in coach or in the middle seat, like I
Speaker 8: get first class, like I have a I hit like
Speaker 8: a rider, humbly speaking. But it's all because of like
Speaker 8: the investment I made in myself.
Speaker 9: So your pay is based on the the placement, So
Speaker 9: the higher the placement.
Speaker 7: No, my pay now is based on my name.
Speaker 8: Honestly, I think I always tell people like a lot
Speaker 8: of people reach out to me and I had to
Speaker 8: like really like tap into my discernment and discerning like
Speaker 8: is this somebody should work with or is this somebody
Speaker 8: who's just trying to chase the cloud? Like I've had
Speaker 8: people who've hired me and don't even have any spectations
Speaker 8: for me other than for me to put them on
Speaker 8: my page and say I represent them, and for them
Speaker 8: to say like, oh, yeah, my publishers does Fashionova and
Speaker 8: they do this person that person because I think it
Speaker 8: makes them lit by association. And in the beginning, just
Speaker 8: like the fifty dollars, I'm like, come on, I got
Speaker 8: you I'm a publicists because I want the money, yeah,
Speaker 8: you know, and now not now, but like later in life,
Speaker 8: I realized that like all money wasn't good money, and
Speaker 8: I cared more about my reputation than like trying to
Speaker 8: mix them bread and so again, like most publicists, they'll
Speaker 8: charge you not necessarily based on the placements. I think
Speaker 8: back in the day, there was a way that people
Speaker 8: would factor that in, Like they would say, like how
Speaker 8: much each outlet, like what the value was, and like
Speaker 8: this was valued at this, And the way they would
Speaker 8: create the value is by seeing how much they charged
Speaker 8: for an ad. So like let's say you guys charge
Speaker 8: one hundred dollars for a fifteen second ad, and I
Speaker 8: got somebody a ten minute interview on your thing, I
Speaker 8: would charge, you know, four hundred dollars for every minute.
Speaker 5: So all right, so what's the going rate for publicists?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 5: I believe you said like five and twenty five hundred
Speaker 5: dollars a month.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so I think most people on average charge twenty
Speaker 8: fives to five thousand, But again that some people would
Speaker 8: charge less, some people who charge more. It just really depends.
Speaker 8: And honestly, it's like a business where you make your
Speaker 8: own rate. It's like, what do you charge for ads
Speaker 8: on your podcast? Whatever you want? You know, some people
Speaker 8: charge they rant or they overhead and that's what all
Speaker 8: they want to make. Are some people they think less
Speaker 8: is more. They operate with less is more mentality, Like
Speaker 8: I'd rather get ten clients for one thousand dollars and
Speaker 8: make ten thousand then trying to hustle up two clients
Speaker 8: that will pay five. So I think it all depends
Speaker 8: for me. Yeah, what do you charge? It depends. I
Speaker 8: I was thinking, like should I say what I charge?
Speaker 8: It really does just depend on like the level of client.
Speaker 8: Like I have strategy behind like what I charge, and
Speaker 8: I always try to factor like how much time is
Speaker 8: this gonna take for me? Like if it's fashion OVA
Speaker 8: and I know I'm going to be on the phone
Speaker 8: with you guys on a million zoom calls now because
Speaker 8: we're in COVID, but all these zoom calls every day
Speaker 8: and it's taken away from working other projects, and obviously
Speaker 8: I'm going to charge more for that if it's something
Speaker 8: like a Nick Cannon. At the time, we're just doing
Speaker 8: these music stuff. So it wasn't a lot that was
Speaker 8: going on I still charged, you know, more than I
Speaker 8: that I said in that range, but it was less
Speaker 8: than significantly less than like what I would have charged.
Speaker 7: Somebody was taking more of my time.
Speaker 5: So is it is it something that you need on going?
Speaker 5: Like let's say we want to just a run for
Speaker 5: the book, right, is like I get to published it
Speaker 5: for three months and then I'm good? Or it is
Speaker 5: like something that you just need to have like every month.
Speaker 8: Definitely, that's depending upon what your vision is. Right, So
Speaker 8: if your goal is only to promote this book, then
Speaker 8: I would say do a camp, like a three month
Speaker 8: campaign for the book. But if your thing is like
Speaker 8: I want something a long term where I want this
Speaker 8: person to be invested in my brand and I want
Speaker 8: them to bring me opportunities and I want them to
Speaker 8: find opportunities when there's nothing going on on, then I
Speaker 8: would say do something ongoing like for you guys and
Speaker 8: having your show. I don't know if you have a
Speaker 8: talent book or if you book it yourself, but I
Speaker 8: would say, oh, yeah, you can have a publicist for
Speaker 8: the earn your Leisure podcast because you guys have so
Speaker 8: many dope guests on. But how many times are people
Speaker 8: syndicating it on other platforms. And what I mean by
Speaker 8: syndicating it is like, for example, like you can have
Speaker 8: your interview with Ryan Leslie, you can send it out like, hey,
Speaker 8: we did an interview with Ryan Leslie. I don't know
Speaker 8: how much pickup that's going to get, but if you're
Speaker 8: a publicist, they can say here, they didn't interview with
Speaker 8: lyon Ryan Leslie. You did the excerpts from the interview,
Speaker 8: like Ryan Leslie on starting a business, Ryan Leslie on
Speaker 8: the first time he lost a million dollars.
Speaker 7: So you're really almost doing.
Speaker 8: The work for these outlets to write their stories for
Speaker 8: you guys, and then we're including photos with it. So
Speaker 8: that way when people search earn your leisure, like you're
Speaker 8: turning more people onto the podcast. You're helping your seo.
Speaker 8: So when they google y'all, y'all, of course you're gonna
Speaker 8: be the first thing on Google because you're a unique name.
Speaker 8: But it just helps with all of that. And so
Speaker 8: that would be something that would be more long term.
Speaker 8: You don't tell somebody do that for three months and
Speaker 8: then stop, you know.
Speaker 9: So that's a lot, right, So what is it like
Speaker 9: juggling all different types of clients Because I'm sure you
Speaker 9: have to deal with multiple different type of personalities.
Speaker 7: What's that Like, I've never done crack, but.
Speaker 8: When I be seeing them in the movies they be
Speaker 8: doing all that, I'm like, I can relate to that
Speaker 8: shit I've ever done it. Though it was like that. Now,
Speaker 8: like I mentioned, I have a handful of clients. Now
Speaker 8: I'm in a position where I'm very selective.
Speaker 7: Now I'm like, do I like that?
Speaker 8: Like, is it gonna like when I see them call,
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna be like not this person again, or
Speaker 8: is it gonna be somebody I'm excited to talk to you,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna be calling them. And so if I don't
Speaker 8: have that level of excitement, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 8: Because at the one time I would have everybody, I
Speaker 8: have twenty clients making five hours an hour, like when
Speaker 8: you break it all down, like I wasn't really making
Speaker 8: no money. And I was also very big on like
Speaker 8: that was when PUFF was like I don't sleep, I sleep.
Speaker 7: And I'm dead. I'm like, I'm asleep and I'm dead.
Speaker 7: And then it almost died.
Speaker 8: I'm like, you're going to SEP So now I'm like
Speaker 8: quality of life. So I'm going to sleep. I ain't
Speaker 8: staying up all night. Y'all can have that, and I'm
Speaker 8: easy for me to balance them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know so, so that's part of it, right,
Speaker 9: dealing with the clients. But they also have teams too,
Speaker 9: So what's it like dealing with their manager or their agent?
Speaker 7: And now everything is different.
Speaker 8: I think the time I only have issues with dealing
Speaker 8: with a team member is when I'm brought on to
Speaker 8: work as someone's independent publishers for a label. So for example,
Speaker 8: with Gezi, now I'm as publicists because he's not with
Speaker 8: a label, but like for his last two albums, he
Speaker 8: was on Deaf Jam, and so it would be myself
Speaker 8: as an independent publicist, and then we have a Deaf
Speaker 8: Jam publicist, and that would be hard. And it's always
Speaker 8: hard when you're working with a label publicist because we're
Speaker 8: all trying to we're all trying to show that you know,
Speaker 8: we're worth what you're paying us, that we're needed, and
Speaker 8: they're only but so many outlets, So it's like if
Speaker 8: I'm pitching for a breakfast club and they're pitching for
Speaker 8: a breakfast well, that's a whole other story because then
Speaker 8: he also has a radio person too.
Speaker 7: I learned that quick.
Speaker 8: Radio publicists, well they just handle all radio radio in
Speaker 8: terms of radio ads or radio interviews or whatever. So
Speaker 8: no one touches radio but the radio person. I didn't
Speaker 8: know that because I come from like where I had
Speaker 8: a reality client. It was just me and them. So
Speaker 8: I'm managing damn near doing PR, marketing everything. So that's
Speaker 8: kind of like where my mind is at, like I
Speaker 8: can just get it done. And I remember I pitched
Speaker 8: inn for the Breakfast Club and I was like, you
Speaker 8: don't ever pitched the Breakfast.
Speaker 7: Club for him? Like that's my job. I hate my bad,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 8: And so that's when it becomes difficult when everyone's trying
Speaker 8: to figure out like their role.
Speaker 7: Even with the publicist.
Speaker 8: It's like if I'm pitching for let's say Source magazine,
Speaker 8: and he pitched for Source magazine, it's like, and I
Speaker 8: got it. It's like why I talk to them first.
Speaker 8: It's like, yeah, but did you get it though?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 7: And it happened for me too.
Speaker 8: It's like while I was talking to them for two weeks,
Speaker 8: but they went around me and talked to somebody bigger
Speaker 8: and they got it. And so like now that's something
Speaker 8: that he got to put on his press recap for
Speaker 8: the month, and I'm like, I ain't get that. You know,
Speaker 8: I get a lot of work. So that's hard, and
Speaker 8: it's hard. That's hard in terms of like logistically, but
Speaker 8: I think mentally for me it's hard too, because I
Speaker 8: was always in those scenarios considered like the urban publicis.
Speaker 8: Even with GZI at one point, I'm like the urban publicist,
Speaker 8: he's leaving the label, he's with a big firm, Sunshine Facts,
Speaker 8: and so it's like, well, this is my for lack
Speaker 8: of better terms, you know, to be frank, like, this
Speaker 8: is my white publicist, and this is my black publicist.
Speaker 8: So when it came to me, it was like, although
Speaker 8: I can go and get you like US Weekly and
Speaker 8: get you in People Magazine just as well as I
Speaker 8: can get you on Breakfast Club and Source and hell
Speaker 8: even like on Bossip if we want to go just
Speaker 8: all layers of it, they would only send requests to
Speaker 8: the white publicists for white stuff. And then for me
Speaker 8: it was like get me on Double XL, get me
Speaker 8: on Fader, get me on Complex. And I was also
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna lie. That's the same scenario I had
Speaker 8: with Nick Cannon. But Nick had a million publishers. They
Speaker 8: get a publicist for a while, and hour publicists for
Speaker 8: the radio show, a publicist for his acting, and here
Speaker 8: I'm doing the pr for the music and so it's
Speaker 8: like I was I remember I told Nick. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 8: I got this opportunity. You can go on Larry King,
Speaker 8: you go on the real He's like, I don't want
Speaker 8: to do that. I'm like, okay, well what do you
Speaker 8: want to do? He's like, I want to do an
Speaker 8: interview with This is fifty. I'm like like, no, shade
Speaker 8: of this is fifty. But I was so happy. I'm
Speaker 8: like a TV booking, Like like that's what we want,
Speaker 8: Like we want TV bookings because there's not as many.
Speaker 8: Like with a digital outlet, you can have a million
Speaker 8: stories on it. You can do everybody TV is. You know,
Speaker 8: it's only five days a week. There's limited slot. So
Speaker 8: you feel like you did something when you got it.
Speaker 8: And he was like, no, I want to do it.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, all right, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 8: I'm like, what about cooking with Snoop and Martha. He's like, nah,
Speaker 8: I don't want to cook this is fifty. I'm bossip.
Speaker 8: I'm like all right, And so because I'm the black
Speaker 8: publicist in that scenario, like I'm not even black. I'm
Speaker 8: not going to use race for Nick. I'm the music publicist.
Speaker 8: He just wants hip hop. He wanted to be an artist,
Speaker 8: or he's an artist. He wanted hip hop outlets, and
Speaker 8: then the person who does his general press.
Speaker 7: Would go out and get those TV opportunities.
Speaker 8: So those that it becomes hard working with other people
Speaker 8: and scenarios like that, I would I would much rather.
Speaker 8: I won't say much rather, I was gonna stay. I
Speaker 8: would much rather work alone, but I would work as
Speaker 8: a team if you know everyone was on the same
Speaker 8: pagecause a lot of times it's not because we didn't.
Speaker 7: All start together.
Speaker 8: It's like imagine you're my publicist and we work and
Speaker 8: all of a sudden, I'm like, yo, this is my
Speaker 8: other publicists. Now you kind of feel away, like what
Speaker 8: you needed him for I wasn't doing good and so now.
Speaker 3: Too many chefs in the kitchen.
Speaker 6: It's too much.
Speaker 8: And so there's really no way for you guys to
Speaker 8: become like this because you're always looking at him like
Speaker 8: is he trying to replace me? You might come in
Speaker 8: with like a chip like yeah, they needed me because
Speaker 8: you couldn't do it, and so it I don't know,
Speaker 8: it's not harmonious.
Speaker 3: Who needs a publicist?
Speaker 5: Like because it's like traditionally you would think, all right,
Speaker 5: an actor, actress, musician, But now, like I said, you
Speaker 5: got mortgage brokers. Just looking at publishers and financial podcasts, Like,
Speaker 5: I think that the landscape has changed because of social
Speaker 5: media has really made any anybody can be a celebrity
Speaker 5: on social media, Like you're gonna be a celebrity chef?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 7: Can they?
Speaker 8: Though? I mean you could put somebrity in front of it,
Speaker 8: but I'm like thanks, So, like what defined what celebrity means?
Speaker 3: Celebrity as far as famous? Right?
Speaker 5: So it's like when people actually could recognize a person
Speaker 5: in add value And I actually think that's a good
Speaker 5: thing because I always felt, especially as I get older,
Speaker 5: it's like, why is a musician of celebrity because he's
Speaker 5: he's a good poet. What kind of value is he
Speaker 5: really adding some add value? But a mortgage broke is
Speaker 5: probably way more valuable. We should probably celebrate the mortgage
Speaker 5: broker more than a rapper who's rapping about things he's
Speaker 5: never done ever in life. No, disrespect to the rappers,
Speaker 5: but it's just reality, right. It's like even a ballplayer
Speaker 5: is like, Okay, you can dribble a basketball, you entertain us,
Speaker 5: But what real value are you adding? Right, Like maybe
Speaker 5: a school teacher should be celebrity over a basketball or champion.
Speaker 6: Maybe champion is the word.
Speaker 5: Champion, celebrity whatever, But are you so when you're saying
Speaker 5: school teacher and basketball player, are you equating that to
Speaker 5: like money earned or in terms of notoriety?
Speaker 7: Notoriety? So we should all know every school teacher should.
Speaker 5: Be absolutely not, but every basketball player should be celebrity either, right.
Speaker 7: But what I'm saying is that I got turned something down.
Speaker 5: I don't even know they are, But I'm just saying
Speaker 5: that social media, I think, has created a platform. Like
Speaker 5: we've interviewed people who have way Like I know a
Speaker 5: school teacher who has more followers than half of the
Speaker 5: NFL players.
Speaker 7: What's she doing only fans?
Speaker 9: Now, I'm actually what you're doing.
Speaker 5: Now, she's become she became real big. But she works
Speaker 5: in Baltimore and she shout out the valve. She she
Speaker 5: does like clips on she's like a social activist stuff
Speaker 5: like that. So Rihanna follows up everybody. She's been on Time, magazine, people, Vogue,
Speaker 5: all kinds of stuff. She just became really lit online,
Speaker 5: red table everybody. So I say that to say she
Speaker 5: probably has more press, more write up, more than the
Speaker 5: seventh man on the Lakers. For sure, not a seventh
Speaker 5: bent on the Lakers has more money than her. But
Speaker 5: as far as the world that we're in right now,
Speaker 5: odds are somebody like that will probably get recognized than
Speaker 5: a linebacker that is, you know, just trying to make
Speaker 5: the team for the Lions.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 3: It's the reality of it, right.
Speaker 5: So what I'm so the whole point is that I
Speaker 5: feel like social media has kind of leveled with the
Speaker 5: playing field and has given everybody an opportunity. Now everybody
Speaker 5: can't be it, but has given everybody an opportunity to
Speaker 5: have some fame and notoriety. Whereas before you would never
Speaker 5: a mortgage broker, would never have eighty thousand people that
Speaker 5: cared about them.
Speaker 9: They wouldn't walk down the street on Melbourne and somebody's like, yo,
Speaker 9: that's you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Like we went to a coffee shop, They're like legion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I say that. I say that to say
Speaker 5: and like I said me, that's just my own personal opinion.
Speaker 5: I'm all for it because I said, especially in our culture,
Speaker 5: we it's out of balance. Who we always the celebrities
Speaker 5: have always, but there's no balance like in other culches.
Speaker 5: It's like you CEOs are are superstars, like like Elon
Speaker 5: Musk is a superstar, right, Steve Jobs was a superstar like,
Speaker 5: so yeah, of course you have actors and actresses that
Speaker 5: are white, but they also have business leaders that are
Speaker 5: superstars and politicians that are superstars as well. For us
Speaker 5: not so much, but it's starting to change. Angela Rai
Speaker 5: she's a superstar right in the world of politics. So
Speaker 5: my whole point is who needs a publicist now? Because
Speaker 5: it feels like it's opened up and everybody can be
Speaker 5: beneficial From that standpoint.
Speaker 8: I yes, And though I mean, I feel like what
Speaker 8: you were just saying about like the teacher or people
Speaker 8: who I guess are like you had said someone earlier too.
Speaker 8: I can't really remember, but because she was saying a
Speaker 8: lot and I was trying to hear her. But I think, like,
Speaker 8: it's not like the teacher obviously she's a teacher, but
Speaker 8: our people following her because she's a teacher or are
Speaker 8: they following her because of the ancillary things that she
Speaker 8: does outside of teaching, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 8: I think when you break it all down, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 8: your your career could be whatever it is. But I
Speaker 8: think people like you build your notoriety based on like
Speaker 8: the ancillary things. So for example, the mortgage person who's
Speaker 8: a mortgage broker, people aren't he's not eighty thousand followers
Speaker 8: because he's just selling houses.
Speaker 7: Like what else is he doing? Is he doing webinars?
Speaker 8: Is he doing these ig lives and he's like really
Speaker 8: trying to bring a community together and mobilize people. Is
Speaker 8: he posting listings all on his page? And people want
Speaker 8: to look at real estate? And so it's like it's
Speaker 8: you're not getting it just because of like the career
Speaker 8: where I don't know if that was your what you
Speaker 8: were trying to say at one point, which is like
Speaker 8: teachers should get more than like the basketball.
Speaker 5: No no, no, I'm saying like as far as who actually
Speaker 5: needs a publicist, Like, because does I think just for
Speaker 5: musicians and entertainers or is it for business people? Is
Speaker 5: it for creatives?
Speaker 8: Like I think it's for every industry because every industry
Speaker 8: there's something that you can maximize on. However, I do
Speaker 8: believe some people need a publicist and some people need
Speaker 8: Jesus some things. It's just like I can't do it.
Speaker 8: I can't do it. I can't figure that out for you.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, you know. But like, for example, real estate,
Speaker 8: there's real estate magazines. You want to be on the
Speaker 8: cover of that magazine. You want your listenings to be first.
Speaker 8: That's something you can get someone who does marketing or
Speaker 8: publicity for you. That's obviously help your business. I think
Speaker 8: any anything where you can make money off of, like, yeah,
Speaker 8: you should, you can have the you could potentially have
Speaker 8: a publicist because it's going to bring more revenue to
Speaker 8: you because all pr is is maximizing your exposure, and
Speaker 8: more exposure is gonna bring more money. So like, if
Speaker 8: I want an ice cream truck, I want to maximize
Speaker 8: my exposure, and I don't know who's gonna interview the
Speaker 8: ice cream guy. That might be more of a job
Speaker 8: for someone who's marketing to get him out there more.
Speaker 8: But I think there Yeah, definitely would agree then with
Speaker 8: your point.
Speaker 9: So what type of struggles do we have to face
Speaker 9: if we're choosing this career, right, Like, there must be
Speaker 9: some things that happened. I know I heard you say
Speaker 9: at one point you thought about giving this thing up, man,
Speaker 9: So what type of struggles do people face?
Speaker 7: Well, for me, it was a financial struggle.
Speaker 8: I'm giving it up because all right, So if I
Speaker 8: work for a PR firm and I have my set salary,
Speaker 8: I know what I'm gonna make. I have benefits. I'm
Speaker 8: gonna get paid on every two weeks or every month
Speaker 8: or however it works for them, And so there's stability
Speaker 8: there with me. If I don't hustle and go get clients,
Speaker 8: I ain't gonna eat. And then people don't tell you.
Speaker 8: It's like you might have a client. They agree on
Speaker 8: the rate and the retainer late it ain't on time,
Speaker 8: Like my retainer's due on the first of each month.
Speaker 8: I've had people been months late on a retainer where
Speaker 8: it's like, oh, I got you. It's in my account
Speaker 8: and it's a NET sixty or it's a net ninety
Speaker 8: or a net next year. Like I'm like, I'm a
Speaker 8: sentence to collection, man, Like, what the hell you know?
Speaker 8: And so that's part of it too, because if you
Speaker 8: don't budget correctly, It's like, what do you do if
Speaker 8: your rent is doing the first and your money is
Speaker 8: coming in on the first but it's late. Are you
Speaker 8: late with the rant? You're getting evicted? Like what what
Speaker 8: is it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 7: And so I think that's a struggle for sure.
Speaker 8: I'm reading this book right now by a very famous
Speaker 8: publisher's name is Terry Williams. She was she was like
Speaker 8: one of the first publishers. She used to represent Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 8: And even just in the beginning of the book, like
Speaker 8: she was talking about like always putting her clients first,
Speaker 8: even at the even at her own detriment, you know,
Speaker 8: Like she was talking about she would be out at
Speaker 8: red carpet parties and all this stuff until midnight and
Speaker 8: then come home and she would she'd be just in
Speaker 8: the fridge just eating her feelings. And I'm like, damn,
Speaker 8: I can relate to that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: I'm not saying I'm eating my feelings, but I'm like
Speaker 8: I've been binge eating too, you know. And so as
Speaker 8: she continues in the book, like speaking of struggle, it's like,
Speaker 8: this is the job where you kind of sacrifice yourself
Speaker 8: and put yourself last, Like you're for me, I'm the
Speaker 8: publicist who caters to my clients. Like, if I have
Speaker 8: a great idea, I'm like, is it for me? No,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna give this to my client. Or I'm gonna
Speaker 8: go travel with my client and do all these different
Speaker 8: cities on their tour for them, and that's okay.
Speaker 7: If I don't eat, they eat, they do that. And
Speaker 7: so it's like.
Speaker 8: That can take a toll on you mentally if you're
Speaker 8: not strong, because you don't really know your true word
Speaker 8: out of client one time. It's so funny. I was
Speaker 8: almost said her name, but out of client one time.
Speaker 8: Nobody's listening to something podcasts. Yeah, but literally, like she
Speaker 8: wanted to cut my rate in half, and I'm like,
Speaker 8: cut it in half, and she's like, because all right,
Speaker 8: this is what happened. She was famous and her husband
Speaker 8: were famous, and they both hired me together, and I
Speaker 8: was going to work them as a couple. Me and
Speaker 8: the husband kind of fell out because I wouldn't get
Speaker 8: involved with their arguments.
Speaker 7: Like it's like if y'all was arguing and you're like, well,
Speaker 7: who's right? Am I right? Are you right?
Speaker 8: If I say he's right, You're gonna be mad. And
Speaker 8: if you say if I say, you're right, you might
Speaker 8: be mad. And so I was always in the middle
Speaker 8: of stuff like that, and so one day he's like,
Speaker 8: you fired. I don't want to work with you no more.
Speaker 8: So I'm thinking, like, I guess I'm fired, you know,
Speaker 8: And then she's like, no, I'm gonna keep you. So
Speaker 8: but remember I'm working with both of them. When they
Speaker 8: asked me what the rate was, I gave him the rate.
Speaker 8: They decided to split the rate. So if they said
Speaker 8: this house was ten thousand and you put five, and
Speaker 8: you put five, the house is still ten thousand, regardless
Speaker 8: if you move out or not, you know, you don't
Speaker 8: just get to pay five.
Speaker 7: And that's what she wanted to do.
Speaker 8: She's like, well, I'm only paying my half, and I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: the rate was the rate, and she's like, you're not
Speaker 8: even worth that rate. And at the time, sadly, I
Speaker 8: took the half because I believe I wasn't worth the
Speaker 8: rate because a lot of times, like you don't see
Speaker 8: what happens before a client go on the red carpet
Speaker 8: or before they go on an interview, like the the
Speaker 8: words of affirmation you got to instill in these people,
Speaker 8: or like all the moving parts it takes to push
Speaker 8: somebody out there to get the image that you I see.
Speaker 8: And a lot of times people beat up on those
Speaker 8: who are closest to them. Like I remember in the
Speaker 8: beginning the ice side of a client and would talk
Speaker 8: to me crazy like you motherfucker, you fat mother?
Speaker 7: This heavy e.
Speaker 8: I'm like, heavy E, what bitch knocked the ship out
Speaker 8: to you?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 6: You know, like you ever think about somebody, especially especially.
Speaker 8: Literally now I'm a completely different person, and I'd be
Speaker 8: wanting revenge on people.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 8: I remember, not too long ago, I went on Facebook
Speaker 8: and try to find somebody from high.
Speaker 7: School crazy that I let slide.
Speaker 8: I'm like, yo, I wish I was who I am
Speaker 8: now then? Like what Yeah, Like I was to find
Speaker 8: them and fight. I'm like, this is ridiculous. They probably
Speaker 8: don't even remember what they said to you, you know,
Speaker 8: but like, and I would take that kind of stuff
Speaker 8: because that's how I grew up. Like my dad is
Speaker 8: like if from Detroit, he's a hood kind of guy.
Speaker 8: He would talk to us like that, motherfucker is your
Speaker 8: motherfucker that? But that's how he was raised too, And
Speaker 8: so in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is like,
Speaker 8: this is how people talk, you know, it wasn't. I
Speaker 8: did my own little soul searching and you know, some
Speaker 8: therapy and stuff, and I'm like, yo, this is toxic
Speaker 8: and it even worth it. I'm getting cussed out for
Speaker 8: fifty dollars. So in my mind, I'm thinking right right now,
Speaker 8: right now, That's how I get it. Like, so you
Speaker 8: have a how do you balance your personal life?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 9: Because it seems like you're putting your clients first, right,
Speaker 9: even if you have ideas, you're giving it to your clients.
Speaker 7: This was in sight.
Speaker 8: I want to say, this is hindsight, guys, this is like,
Speaker 8: now you have great personal life. Like the same way
Speaker 8: I said, I would try to the same way I
Speaker 8: would have to budget my time with clients, like Okay,
Speaker 8: this client is going to get this much time, and
Speaker 8: this client's can get this much time.
Speaker 7: Like I'm budget my own life in there too.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: At one point you can call me at two am.
Speaker 8: I'm like hello, I'm always up. Now it's like two am.
Speaker 8: I'm like, nigga, no, what the fuck? So I have
Speaker 8: created boundaries, how to learn boundaries. But I can say
Speaker 8: a lot of people start and they don't have boundaries.
Speaker 8: Like so many people, like when I listened to like
Speaker 8: these zoom calls or these webinars like they.
Speaker 7: Claim to fame.
Speaker 8: Is like, you know, I was working with so and so,
Speaker 8: and I was living in my car. I was homeless,
Speaker 8: so I spent my last to go here. And I'm like,
Speaker 8: why is that the story? Like why is that something
Speaker 8: that we should celebrate? Like you know, like for me,
Speaker 8: it's like, yeah, I was living on a couch. We
Speaker 8: all lived on a couch. That's not the story. And
Speaker 8: nigga like I got off the couch, and that's what
Speaker 8: I want to talk about, like getting off of it.
Speaker 8: But I think so for so many of us, we
Speaker 8: feel like we have to struggle in order to uh,
Speaker 8: to be validated, validated. I even my first TV deal,
Speaker 8: I knew it was a fucked up deal. I knew
Speaker 8: it was fucked up. I knew like everyone was making
Speaker 8: way more than me. And I think, like I executive
Speaker 8: producing the show, like a TV show executive producer, you
Speaker 8: would think you get some checks.
Speaker 7: It was two thousand.
Speaker 8: Dollars and I'm like, what the entire series for the
Speaker 8: two thousand dollars?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 8: And I had an attorney who was experienced. I had
Speaker 8: an agent who was experienced, and what the agent told
Speaker 8: me was like, you know, you always take an L
Speaker 8: on your first deal, Like have you ever heard that before?
Speaker 8: Like that's what everybody says, and we're so accustomed to
Speaker 8: thinking that way, Like you take an L. Yeah, if
Speaker 8: I was doing this on my own, I should take
Speaker 8: an L. But nigga, this is like your hundredths deal.
Speaker 8: This is you've been doing this, Like why am I
Speaker 8: taking els? Why am I expected to take an L
Speaker 8: on my first deal? Like this is my project, I'm
Speaker 8: epeing it like y'all want to buy it. Clearly there's
Speaker 8: a huge budget.
Speaker 7: I've worked.
Speaker 8: I've been blessed to work on different areas of television
Speaker 8: where I'm producing. I know what the producers are getting,
Speaker 8: I know what the talent is getting. I know what
Speaker 8: the marketing company is gonna get when they market it.
Speaker 8: How come I'm getting less than everybody? And this is
Speaker 8: my ship, you know? And so for me, I don't
Speaker 8: want back to your question creating boundaries and then also
Speaker 8: being knowledgeable.
Speaker 7: Like to not have to go through those struggles.
Speaker 8: That's what I try to tell people, like really ask
Speaker 8: Like for me, I was embarrassed to ask certain questions.
Speaker 8: I remember I would go to parties and they would
Speaker 8: be like Diddy, like the most recent party before COVID,
Speaker 8: it was lit and I was that Yep, Diddy's fifty
Speaker 8: then said I was hot and I'm like, hey, I know,
Speaker 8: but it was lit because like Kobe was there, rest
Speaker 8: in peace and Marvin Sapp was saying, and all these
Speaker 8: different people in the room. And I remember I used
Speaker 8: to go to parties like that, and I would spend money.
Speaker 8: I didn't have to look like I was a part
Speaker 8: of the crew, just to stand this close to Beyonce
Speaker 8: or this close to somebody like an La Read or whoever,
Speaker 8: and not say shit, Like I won't even ask for
Speaker 8: a photo because I'm like in LA you don't ask
Speaker 8: for a photo.
Speaker 7: You ask for a photo. It's like your courtney, like
Speaker 7: you got to look like you belong.
Speaker 8: So I wouldn't ask for photos and I would act
Speaker 8: like I was supposed to be there, And really I
Speaker 8: realized that was doing a disservice to myself, Like if
Speaker 8: God's putting you in these rooms, like you gotta humble
Speaker 8: yourself enough to ask questions, like you're in your for
Speaker 8: a reason. Like you network, Like, don't come in here
Speaker 8: and already think that like your shit, don't think and
Speaker 8: you the hottest thing since slice bread because you're in
Speaker 8: the party, like go Like for me, I always see
Speaker 8: people take.
Speaker 7: Pictures that party. I'm like, who's number did you get?
Speaker 7: Like what follow up is going to happen?
Speaker 8: You get a meeting setup, Like that's more impressive to
Speaker 8: me than an Instagram feed full of celebrity images and
Speaker 8: so all this is like stuff I just had to
Speaker 8: learn over time. So one is like knowledge and then boundaries.
Speaker 8: And I hope I answered the question because I thought
Speaker 8: about Beyonce and started rambling shout out to be because
Speaker 8: I'm like, this is a moment right here, and.
Speaker 3: That's the moment.
Speaker 5: Let me let me ask you this to switch gears
Speaker 5: a little bit on the marketing side, because you have
Speaker 5: a book about social media.
Speaker 8: Yeah, let me just say something really quickly, because we
Speaker 8: saw what happen to be Simone and they said she
Speaker 8: plagiarized it.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, I plagiarized that entire book.
Speaker 3: You're not cheating if you're not cheating and not trying it.
Speaker 7: But here's what I did.
Speaker 8: It's I didn't say Written by me, it's curated by me,
Speaker 8: like you're paying for me to curate this erness.
Speaker 3: What's up?
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Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
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Speaker 4: plate or claim.
Speaker 8: Way to where it's you have a million captions. It's like, oh,
Speaker 8: you want a party caps, you want a caption with
Speaker 8: your friends, you want to caption for us ub subliminal
Speaker 8: disks Like I'm curating it, adding my own things into
Speaker 8: it while still sourcing the people who I got the
Speaker 8: things from, but.
Speaker 7: I didn't write it.
Speaker 8: So when they come out like, he's still my caption,
Speaker 8: I gave you credit on the last page and I
Speaker 8: said I curated it, I didn't write it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, go ahead, there you have PC has been given.
Speaker 5: So yeah, you have a book about social media. And
Speaker 5: I feel like social media has really changed the game,
Speaker 5: like I said before and now marketing. I feel like
Speaker 5: whether you're an artist, whether you're a small business own
Speaker 5: or whatever, social media is like everything. Right, So you
Speaker 5: have a whole book about it curated. What is some
Speaker 5: tips that you have for your clients or like, how
Speaker 5: do you like is that part of like being a
Speaker 5: publicist as well as far as like to help your
Speaker 5: clients understand because I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 5: don't really understand social media. And I actually have given
Speaker 5: a lot of tips to different people in the business world,
Speaker 5: and I'm actually thinking about being a social media consultant myself.
Speaker 3: Actually why not? Why not?
Speaker 5: And I feel like people just completely don't get it.
Speaker 5: Like they might like have a great personality, they might
Speaker 5: have great content, they have the potential to make great content,
Speaker 5: but it's just a weird vibe for a lot of people.
Speaker 5: So social media, how do you? How do you handle that?
Speaker 3: For people?
Speaker 8: I don't think that's necessarily a job of a traditional publicist,
Speaker 8: Like they're like, we do PR. That's you have a
Speaker 8: social media manager for that, and maybe a marketing manager
Speaker 8: for the marketing stuff. But going back to what I
Speaker 8: said initially, like being with a client who had nobody
Speaker 8: else and just having to do things I didn't really know,
Speaker 8: like that wasn't the job of a publicist, And so
Speaker 8: I really like mastered my skill in those different areas
Speaker 8: to where it's like, oh shit, like I just kind
Speaker 8: of taught myself to new skills that I can monetize
Speaker 8: on differently outside of PR.
Speaker 7: Sounds like three checks, you know, And.
Speaker 8: So for me because of that, I can do it,
Speaker 8: but I don't think a traditional publicist would do it.
Speaker 8: Like so for social media, for example, one of my
Speaker 8: clients before Covid.
Speaker 7: Was Fox Soul. It's like the new streaming platform from Fox.
Speaker 3: So is that owned by Fox?
Speaker 8: It's owned by Thoughts, but it's like completely black owned
Speaker 8: and ran it's black.
Speaker 3: It's black.
Speaker 8: Sorry, sorry, you know I've been watching the Twitter. I'm
Speaker 8: black on this. Like my friend he's ahead of Fox,
Speaker 8: so he's a black man, but it is under Fox.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, James do boats.
Speaker 8: But uh so with them, Like I got that job
Speaker 8: to do social media managing for them. So I got
Speaker 8: it and like maybe four hundred followers on Instagram, no YouTube, nothing,
Speaker 8: And so my team and I like we came up
Speaker 8: with the whole how the page is going to look,
Speaker 8: getting the content from their platforms, editing it up, putting
Speaker 8: up there with like dope captions, and really cross promoting
Speaker 8: with other Instagram pages and YouTube pages and Twitter. And
Speaker 8: then when I finished, like I'd grown that Instagram page.
Speaker 8: I think it was like sixty thousand followers and the
Speaker 8: YouTube at one hundred thousand subscribers in a matter of
Speaker 8: four months. And so I don't think that's something that
Speaker 8: typical publicers would do, But because I had to do
Speaker 8: that with other clients, it's like, oh, I could do
Speaker 8: that marketing. So right now I'm working on a marketing
Speaker 8: campaign for BT for Chronicles, which is a docu series
Speaker 8: on No Limit and Rough Riders. Has nothing to do
Speaker 8: with PR. There's no press element at all. It's simply
Speaker 8: experiential in terms of marketing. And like the creative campaign
Speaker 8: that I came up.
Speaker 5: With, how did you how did you help how did
Speaker 5: you help grow the page in the in the YouTube
Speaker 5: page that fast?
Speaker 8: Uh? Well, the thing about Fox so every there was
Speaker 8: so much content, So every day from six to ten,
Speaker 8: it's four hours, five days a week there was a
Speaker 8: show on.
Speaker 7: So what is that twenty hours a week?
Speaker 8: I think, so twenty hours of content, Like we would
Speaker 8: just constantly do the feed and then in buying social
Speaker 8: ads like through Facebook or making sure like when you
Speaker 8: click other outlets that are similar, like let's say Fox
Speaker 8: Sol could be similar to the Real or to Wendy
Speaker 8: Wims in terms of in terms of the talent. When
Speaker 8: you click a Windy Wims video, you get a Fox
Speaker 8: Soul ad like it would be like Fox, so's like
Speaker 8: what is this?
Speaker 7: Who's that? And then also what I was saying for
Speaker 7: you guys in.
Speaker 8: Terms of like getting excerpts of like your review is
Speaker 8: like well Ryan Leslie says this, or so and so
Speaker 8: says that, and sending that to blogs.
Speaker 7: That's one way.
Speaker 8: Another way, or I guess a visual way of that
Speaker 8: would be taking a clip, Like you don't want to
Speaker 8: send someone an hour long interview, like I don't have
Speaker 8: time to listen to it. So I would take a
Speaker 8: minute interview, a minute clip, and I would send that
Speaker 8: out to Shade Room or to Baller or to Neighborhood
Speaker 8: Talk or whoever, and they would tag us like this
Speaker 8: is via Fox Soul.
Speaker 3: So people will come and through. Did you pay for that?
Speaker 7: No? No, not at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And that was strategically done because I feel like once
Speaker 8: you pay, no matter if your clip is good or not,
Speaker 8: they want to So I would send stuff all the time.
Speaker 8: Mind you is five days a week, there's four shows
Speaker 8: a day. I would always send stuff. They didn't post everything,
Speaker 8: but the things that they did post was stuff that
Speaker 8: was polarizing. Like for example, now they have the show
Speaker 8: at Lisa Ray and Vivica Fox on there whatever. So
Speaker 8: Lisay's talking about Nicki Minaj, of course they're going to
Speaker 8: post that. So what we realize is like we got
Speaker 8: to really go in and find things that are topical,
Speaker 8: like instead of just doing an interview with somebody about publicity,
Speaker 8: it's like, what question can you ask them that other
Speaker 8: people will care about?
Speaker 7: If they had no idea who I was?
Speaker 8: For example, if no one had no idea who I
Speaker 8: was or no idea who you were, what would make
Speaker 8: somebody post a clip? I would then say, well, we're
Speaker 8: going to ask a question like this Varieting magazine just
Speaker 8: did a cover like the State of Black Hollywood. It's like,
Speaker 8: talk to us about being a black publicist in Hollywood?
Speaker 8: Or do you think these white corporations are using Black
Speaker 8: Lives Matter as a way to get more publicity or
Speaker 8: do you think they really care from a PR perspective.
Speaker 8: So now that's something that is current and trending. People
Speaker 8: want to know about that because everyone is putting Black
Speaker 8: Lives Matter and their messaging. They don't care who I am,
Speaker 8: where you guys are, But it's the clip is a
Speaker 8: conversation piece is going to get engagement on their Instagram page,
Speaker 8: which is why they're going to post it. It's like
Speaker 8: when you post a picture yourself, You're like, if you
Speaker 8: look good, you know, people don't comment because you look good.
Speaker 7: If you don't, they not.
Speaker 8: So you even with like outlets, it's like, will people
Speaker 8: comment on this post?
Speaker 7: Yes? Or no? You know? And so I think that's
Speaker 7: something that would be a conversation piece.
Speaker 8: And then from there I would take that post and
Speaker 8: I might go put it on the Black Startup Page,
Speaker 8: or I might put it on Talk to Pops on Instagram, not.
Speaker 7: Necessarily Shade Room.
Speaker 8: And that's another thing people have to realize too, that
Speaker 8: there are micro blogs that are more important to me
Speaker 8: than the ones who have millions and millions of followers. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 8: like if I was gonna like earn your Leisure, if
Speaker 8: I was going to promote your podcast, I don't necessarily
Speaker 8: think I would put it on the Shade Room because
Speaker 8: even if it's the great content, people on there are
Speaker 8: ultimately there to be shady. I want to have the
Speaker 8: top comment, So I'm going to spend my money on
Speaker 8: my ad on Shade Room for them to talk about
Speaker 8: me and talk about all your.
Speaker 7: Shirt don't fit.
Speaker 8: It's like I don't want that or am I gonna
Speaker 8: put it on like wealth to Prosperities Instagram page or
Speaker 8: something like that, to where people on their only phone
Speaker 8: this page because they want knowledge and information and they
Speaker 8: want to do a business. Like for me, I DMed
Speaker 8: you guys back in March for something. I forget what
Speaker 8: campaign I was working. I didn't get a reply, by
Speaker 8: the way, but.
Speaker 3: Publicist, I don't.
Speaker 8: Know if y'all do as at the time I dammed,
Speaker 8: I'm like, yo, how much would it be for an
Speaker 8: ad on this page? Because for me, I'm like, you
Speaker 8: guys are the perfect page to monetize black businesses or
Speaker 8: just business in general, because everybody following it wants to
Speaker 8: start a business.
Speaker 7: They want to know something about something.
Speaker 8: For example, when I did the Breakfast club, I was
Speaker 8: on there with a hat and like a hoodie on
Speaker 8: or something like. I didn't even think about image. I
Speaker 8: thought I was just talking to friends. I didn't care
Speaker 8: about it coming on here. I'm like, hold on, let
Speaker 8: me go to the closet and get something, because I know
Speaker 8: the audience. Everyone who listens either has a business or
Speaker 8: wants to start a business. And you have a business,
Speaker 8: you want to hire a publicist. You're gonna hire me,
Speaker 8: and I'm on here, like, you know, just slashing with
Speaker 8: my little you know, I'm like, let me put my
Speaker 8: best foot forward, let me put my Louis Paton's on it.
Speaker 8: Even though I didn't know we wasn't going to be
Speaker 8: able to see the fee out of work, you know,
Speaker 8: but nonetheless.
Speaker 3: I put my the resk check, the risk check.
Speaker 8: I understand the audience for this platform, and I think
Speaker 8: that's what people out in marketing got to understand the audience,
Speaker 8: Like people advertise on places that don't even care just
Speaker 8: because the followers and numbers, not engagement or like what
Speaker 8: that audience is into.
Speaker 9: Speaking of variety, can we talk about the coalition that
Speaker 9: you guys formed. My publicist is black and the representation
Speaker 9: I know, I mean presence is everything. And I know
Speaker 9: there's probably a lack of black publicists in Hollywood and
Speaker 9: probably in New York as well.
Speaker 6: Why do we formed the coalition? What's his purpose?
Speaker 8: So in twenty eighteen, I wore a jacket to Beyonce
Speaker 8: and jay Z's On the Run concert that said Beyonce's
Speaker 8: publicsist is black. I wasn't trying to really send a
Speaker 8: message other than like a big fuck you to somebody
Speaker 8: who told me they wouldn't take me on as a
Speaker 8: they wouldn't let me take their client on as their
Speaker 8: publishers because they wanted to have white press, and because
Speaker 8: I was black, all I could do was black press.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, well, Beyonce's publicist is black, and they're like, no,
Speaker 8: she's not.
Speaker 7: I'm like, no, she really is.
Speaker 8: Like well she probably has a white publicist too, and
Speaker 8: so I'm like, let me go look into it. And
Speaker 8: so I went and researched her publicist, Yvett Noel Shore,
Speaker 8: and she'd been with Beyonce since Destiny's Child, and before
Speaker 8: that she was with Mariah Carey, and then she was
Speaker 8: with Prince and Adele and Jessica Simpson, all these big
Speaker 8: names black and white. And I'm like, yo, this is
Speaker 8: who I'm to aspire to be like. And it's like
Speaker 8: for me, it instantly changed the narrative of what people
Speaker 8: would have you to believe. There's like a black publicist
Speaker 8: you can only do urban stuff, and a white publicsert
Speaker 8: can do general market stuff.
Speaker 7: This is a black woman.
Speaker 8: Who has no white publicist or she's not someone's indie
Speaker 8: publisherst she's the publicist, and she has Beyonce on Vogue,
Speaker 8: and she also knows enough about culture to have Beyonce
Speaker 8: talking to Angie Martinez or to talking to people who
Speaker 8: reached the culture and her core demographic right, And so
Speaker 8: I put that on the jacket as like, yeah, she
Speaker 8: is black and I'm at the concert. I didn't think
Speaker 8: I wouldn't meet her at all because there's a million
Speaker 8: people there and I'm like, she's probably in the back,
Speaker 8: chilling whatever. But as fate would have it, my friend Dora,
Speaker 8: she called him, was like, hell, I've my husband's in
Speaker 8: La going to the concert. He has like these passes
Speaker 8: where like the celebrities hangout. Because ticket, Yeah, my ticket
Speaker 8: was gonna be up in the front, like front row.
Speaker 8: I played for that ticket. She got me a ticket
Speaker 8: where I was further back, and at first I'm like, yo,
Speaker 8: my seat way up there?
Speaker 7: Why am I back here?
Speaker 8: But you're on the risers and literally like I'm standing
Speaker 8: with Kim Gardashian and Chris Jenner and all these different people.
Speaker 8: And then here comes Beyonce's publicist, vent Noel Short, and
Speaker 8: so she sees the jacket. I didn't even know that
Speaker 8: June Ambrose had already taken a picture of it and
Speaker 8: sent it to hers. So she was looking for me
Speaker 8: and we took a picture and she's like, here, take
Speaker 8: my number down. I'm gonna send you the picture. I'm like,
Speaker 8: all right, cool, send me the picture. I think I'll
Speaker 8: ever talk to the woman again. I'm like, you busy whatever.
Speaker 8: The very next day she called me and she's like, yo,
Speaker 8: I wanted to have a real conversation because I understood
Speaker 8: what you meant by the jacket. And so she started
Speaker 8: telling me all these stories about how she had been marginalizing,
Speaker 8: how people would try to take Beyonce from her, and
Speaker 8: different friends are like, well, you need to go with
Speaker 8: this company or John Legend. I remember she was telling
Speaker 8: me a story that they convinced him to bring on
Speaker 8: another publicist to get them an outlet that they thought.
Speaker 7: She couldn't get.
Speaker 8: Meanwhile, they still never had gotten that outlet when they
Speaker 8: hired them, and so she's like, yeah, I have gone
Speaker 8: through it as well. And so from there she involved
Speaker 8: a couple other people be brought in Vanessa Anderson. She
Speaker 8: represents Isa Ray and DJ Mustard, and then Erica Tucker
Speaker 8: does Yashadi and Kendrick Sampson he's doing all the Black
Speaker 8: Lives Matter stuff for Insecure, and Trel Thomas works with
Speaker 8: Tina Knowles because at first Miss Knowles or Miss nos
Speaker 8: Lawson was gonna have us do a panel at her theater,
Speaker 8: and that's how he was involved, Like We're gonna do
Speaker 8: a panel at Waco talking about like black pr and
Speaker 8: black publicist and I'm like, okay, cool, and then from
Speaker 8: there it just grew. And so then the last person
Speaker 8: she brought in was Felicia font from Colombia. She's like
Speaker 8: the head of urban there and does so many people
Speaker 8: as well, and so we just started having conversations with people.
Speaker 8: We had no intentions of like making it anything really
Speaker 8: and then it wasn't until we did, like in COVID.
Speaker 8: We had a zoom call, we did one in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 8: one in Harlem at Linkston Hughes's house, and we did
Speaker 8: a COVID one and we had like like almost a
Speaker 8: thousand people on there on zoom. I'm like, damn, these
Speaker 8: people really showed up and we saw impactful. It was
Speaker 8: like we need to do something, and so we have
Speaker 8: turned into a nonprofit organization because what we realized is
Speaker 8: like you can like again sacrificing yourself like I said earlier,
Speaker 8: and not knowing your worth. You can devote so much
Speaker 8: time to client and in the end have nothing because
Speaker 8: for example, oh I see example. So for example, I'm
Speaker 8: represented earn your Leisure and I'm doing all this press
Speaker 8: for you guys. Now all this money is coming in,
Speaker 8: and y'all getting all these ads, y'all bawling, y'all got
Speaker 8: the Porsches, the Bentleys or whatever. My rate is still
Speaker 8: my rate. I'm still getting one thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 8: But I did all this stuff to help elevate your
Speaker 8: brand and get you so much income that when it's
Speaker 8: all said and done, like I could potentially be broke.
Speaker 8: And there was a situation where, going back to the
Speaker 8: woman Terry Williams, so I mentioned her book that I'm
Speaker 8: reading is called Black Pain. Just because we make it
Speaker 8: look good doesn't mean we're hurting.
Speaker 7: Her book.
Speaker 8: I said, you work with Eddie Murphy. Now she's in
Speaker 8: a nursing home, and we're like, does Eddie Murphy know,
Speaker 8: does anybody know, like anybody helping this woman out? So
Speaker 8: the nonprofit started because we wanted to help her. We
Speaker 8: wanted to give her money we wanted to take donations
Speaker 8: for and so like, well, we can help other people
Speaker 8: because there's more than one terry out there. Imagine like
Speaker 8: there's so many people who probably were lit at one
Speaker 8: point and devoted so much to somebody and then because
Speaker 8: that's what happens, honestly, and this is a sad truth.
Speaker 8: I don't want to be long winded, but as a
Speaker 8: black publicist, what happens is that like you become discarded,
Speaker 8: like I can take earn your leisure to new heights,
Speaker 8: like we're competing with Gary Vee. We're on the top
Speaker 8: of the podcast charts. I didn't got y'all a TV show.
Speaker 8: Now y'all on Fox with Murdoch or Fox, so we
Speaker 8: do bos whatever you know, and you as so big
Speaker 8: that when before in this moment here, how many PR
Speaker 8: people have reached out to represent you guys at this
Speaker 8: point in this moment.
Speaker 7: A lot, not a lot.
Speaker 8: So I take you to a point where now all
Speaker 8: the top firms are reaching out to hire y'all, and
Speaker 8: y'all think, well, ship, we want to elevate, so we
Speaker 8: got to go with the big firm, and y'all drop
Speaker 8: my black ass, Like I helped y'all when we was nothing.
Speaker 8: When we was you know, trapping out this nice mansion.
Speaker 8: Don't let that your head, you.
Speaker 7: Know, when it was marble on the floor, but not
Speaker 7: so much to trap.
Speaker 3: But I helped you.
Speaker 8: I helped you when we were like on the come up, right.
Speaker 8: There's no loyalty in this industry. It's like you want
Speaker 8: to go to whoever is hot next, and so if
Speaker 8: you don't again budget and how it's hard to budget
Speaker 8: because my white counterparts are getting paid double three times
Speaker 8: when I'm getting paid, you know, Like I remember, like
Speaker 8: I said earlier, Oh I'm trying to sab my five thousand,
Speaker 8: Like that's so much money.
Speaker 7: And I'm like, well, i's.
Speaker 8: The white publicist who also represents representing someone equivalent to
Speaker 8: who I was representing. How much did they pay? Fifteen
Speaker 8: thousand a month, twenty thousand a month, one hundred thousand
Speaker 8: dollars a month. I'm like, God, damn, what is happening?
Speaker 8: And I'm like, it's only like for like the black people,
Speaker 8: Like I feel like this is only my experience. Somebody
Speaker 8: got a different experience. Is that you expect more, but
Speaker 8: you also expect to pay less.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that that's something that's across the board
Speaker 5: as far as black businesses. It's like, stop disrespecting the
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs because I got like, you know, essentially the entrepreneurs
Speaker 5: are our future. And like I said, no matter how
Speaker 5: good a rapper is, Derek Falcon said is on my
Speaker 5: podcast Shout and one of my favorite Alumni episodes eleven,
Speaker 5: their career is short lived, no matter how no matter
Speaker 5: how fast you can run on a football, for your
Speaker 5: career is short lived. But you can do what you're
Speaker 5: doing for sixty years that you could be a publicist.
Speaker 5: So it's like a lot of times we devalue the entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5: And that's whether it's a barbershop owner or whether it's
Speaker 5: a publicist. It's like you always trying to get a deal.
Speaker 5: And that just comes psychologically, I think, from not valuing
Speaker 5: ourselves enough, Like we don't look at ourselves as valuable enough,
Speaker 5: because the white person can come and just say anything
Speaker 5: and it's like, oh, they're white, they got a suit.
Speaker 3: On, they must be true.
Speaker 8: Monique said this right, and this is so funny because
Speaker 8: I remember Monique was doing her like equal pay thing.
Speaker 8: We're like, shut up, Monique. But then if you go
Speaker 8: back and listen to those interviews in today's landscape, Like literally,
Speaker 8: you hear it differently and I'm like, oh, well, she
Speaker 8: was saying some real shit, you know, like she was
Speaker 8: really preaching. And I think the reason why they're able
Speaker 8: to pay less. And this is a quote that she
Speaker 8: said that she brought from someone else. She said, what
Speaker 8: one what they understand is that what one nigga won't do,
Speaker 8: another nigga will. And so if we're all three publicists
Speaker 8: and I'm saying my rate is what this white person's
Speaker 8: rate is, but then y'all coming behind me like I
Speaker 8: do it for twenty five hundred, I got you, and
Speaker 8: then you're like twenty five I YouTube for fifteen hundred.
Speaker 7: It's taking value away from me.
Speaker 8: No one's ever gonna get that rate because there's no
Speaker 8: standard across the board. And as much as like I
Speaker 8: feel like that's a counterproductive, I also understand it. If
Speaker 8: you're not getting opportunities and nobody wants to hire you,
Speaker 8: and then this person giving you fifteen hundred, It's like
Speaker 8: me with the fifty dollars a placement.
Speaker 3: I knew that was cheap.
Speaker 7: I had no money.
Speaker 8: It's like, I know what's wrong but I got to
Speaker 8: eat ultimately, you know what I mean. And that's why
Speaker 8: I started my own company. It wasn't because I wanted
Speaker 8: to be a boss and entrepreneurship was in now it's in,
Speaker 8: like if you're starting a business now, there's so many resources.
Speaker 8: This is a major resource to help you start a business.
Speaker 8: I was listening almost started the damn vending machine.
Speaker 7: Lucrative.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know this is a real, real right,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 8: But at that time, entrepreneurship was not cool. It was
Speaker 8: like entrepreneurship okay, But I did it because I know
Speaker 8: one would hire me. I was only getting internshi jobs
Speaker 8: and then when the internship was over, they would hire
Speaker 8: somebody who just came in. It wasn't like they were
Speaker 8: promoting within, and so I had to take those rates.
Speaker 8: And so I honestly feel like having like the broader
Speaker 8: conversation like with the my publicist as black, or having
Speaker 8: conversations like this, it allows you to hopefully shift change
Speaker 8: in terms of those shift change with people who are
Speaker 8: making the decisions on who to hire right now. As
Speaker 8: a black publicist, send your resumes out. Everybody wants somebody black.
Speaker 8: There are people out there saying we want to see
Speaker 8: your team, your leadership team, Like who's on there, who's black?
Speaker 8: They're boycotting right Like so many companies they were saying
Speaker 8: like oh, uber like one percent black or representation or whatever.
Speaker 7: Now is the time to be a black publicist.
Speaker 8: You go and you apply for those jobs, get those jobs,
Speaker 8: and charge those rates.
Speaker 5: So how do you feel You asked that question before,
Speaker 5: but I'm actually interested once you bring it up.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of pr going on right now.
Speaker 5: Black lives matter, whether it's Nike, whether it's every company
Speaker 5: has some form. I feel like you had to make
Speaker 5: a statement. If you didn't make a it was like
Speaker 5: you was complicit with everything that was going on. So
Speaker 5: every company pretty much made a statement. Some companies like
Speaker 5: Netflix even went further and they put one hundred million
Speaker 5: dollars into like black owned banks. So everybody's kind of
Speaker 5: like doing their own thing as a publicist. It's just
Speaker 5: just pr spin.
Speaker 3: Is it good? Is it something that's gonna last?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 3: What's your thoughts on the whole Black Lives Matter?
Speaker 8: I think there's so many layers to it because I
Speaker 8: watched all happening, So I think there were some companies
Speaker 8: that nothing at first and then on its blackout too,
Speaker 8: so they you just put a black square and you
Speaker 8: weren't responsible for leaving a caption or nothing.
Speaker 7: Companies took advantage of that, like that's how we could
Speaker 7: set it.
Speaker 3: Both sides.
Speaker 8: Put the black square. It don't mean shit, you know,
Speaker 8: like it's just the black square. The whites are cool,
Speaker 8: the blacks are cool. Perfect No. So for me, I
Speaker 8: think people who do stuff like that or they just
Speaker 8: put like we staying with Black Lives Matter. Almost like
Speaker 8: literally where you guys are at, like a couple of
Speaker 8: weeks ago, this shit looked like Iraq like houses with
Speaker 8: the game, burned, businesses was towed up, it was looting
Speaker 8: and riding like literally a block from where you guys
Speaker 8: are now to the point where all businesses spray painted
Speaker 8: on this stuff like Black Lives Matter BLM, black owned.
Speaker 7: To protect their business.
Speaker 8: And I feel like that is the same thing that
Speaker 8: I see online with companies when they put the Black
Speaker 8: Lives Matter like standard templates like black and gray with
Speaker 8: like a fist, it's like black Lives Matter. I feel
Speaker 8: like they're just doing that to protect their businesses. The
Speaker 8: ones that I do like say, okay, y'all really are
Speaker 8: rocking with us are the ones who have made an
Speaker 8: effort to commit to something where it's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 8: like you said, Netflix, we're gonna commit one hundred million
Speaker 8: dollars to black owned banks, or we're gonna diversify RC
Speaker 8: suite and hire more black people or whatever.
Speaker 7: And it's funny. I'm like, yeah, like black people's inventing yesterday.
Speaker 3: Like I did.
Speaker 6: That's it's easy to protest, and everyone's protest. Yeah, it's
Speaker 6: easy to write, pretty easy.
Speaker 8: But I'm saying, yeah, even if they are doing it
Speaker 8: for their own to save face as a black entrepreneur,
Speaker 8: a black business person, go get your money. Like you
Speaker 8: wanted somebody black to stand it. It's gonna cost you
Speaker 8: to be just for me to stand next to you
Speaker 8: and to give you that. I've never had to educate
Speaker 8: so many people on the black experience. But you know what,
Speaker 8: let me take something else stuff. I have made more
Speaker 8: money in this COVID quarantine than I've made probably in
Speaker 8: the last five never wasted collectively. Want to learn about
Speaker 8: the black hold on remit payment. I teach you everything
Speaker 8: you need to know, you know, and so literally I've
Speaker 8: been helping people behind the scenes, like I've made so
Speaker 8: much it's ridiculous. But I and I think that's also
Speaker 8: not fair to ask people to help you and not
Speaker 8: pay them either. Because literally, in high school, did y'all
Speaker 8: learn about Black Wall Street? Did y'all learn about what
Speaker 8: happened in Tulsa? Did y'all learn about like slave? Yeah,
Speaker 8: we learned about like the slavery and the since they
Speaker 8: wanted us to learn about it, But did you go
Speaker 8: deep into it the way that we are now? No,
Speaker 8: we had to go seek that information for ourselves. So
Speaker 8: I did the work to learn this. So if you
Speaker 8: want to capitalize off the work and the time I
Speaker 8: invested in myself to learn, you got to pay. But
Speaker 8: I say all have to say some companies. I feel
Speaker 8: like a lot of people are doing it, because at
Speaker 8: this point it's it's you're gonna get black balled or
Speaker 8: blacklisted if you have not mentioned or said just.
Speaker 3: They're looking at you. They're looking at you crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: youre looking crazy.
Speaker 8: So now it's like, yeah, black lives matter, whatever, but
Speaker 8: it's like, what are you doing to further that?
Speaker 3: Dude?
Speaker 9: We gotta see I mean I saw Facebook, for one,
Speaker 9: it was like they're going to donate one hundred million
Speaker 9: dollars to black.
Speaker 6: Closes, and it's like, what does that even mean?
Speaker 7: Yeah, why want you to be specific?
Speaker 6: There's no specific It's like, Yo, where where do I
Speaker 6: apply for that?
Speaker 3: People?
Speaker 8: And then at the time, remember what was the Minnesota
Speaker 8: like bail fund or what Freedom fund or whatever where
Speaker 8: they're bailing people out of jail. Right when George Floyd
Speaker 8: Floyd to pass away, they got so many donations they
Speaker 8: put on the website, we ain't taking no more give
Speaker 8: to other places. I'm like, I never nobody say we
Speaker 8: got too much money. I'm like, y'all was really just
Speaker 8: giving them guilt money. I was just sending checks or whatever.
Speaker 8: And so I feel like, for me, if you're gonna
Speaker 8: give money, it also tells me a lot about you
Speaker 8: when I see who you gave them money to. Because
Speaker 8: it's so easy to say I gave money a Black
Speaker 8: Lives Matter or I gave money to NAACP, because they're
Speaker 8: like staples.
Speaker 7: In the community.
Speaker 8: But it's like, what about these organizations that no one
Speaker 8: knows about that really could benefit from No.
Speaker 5: That's and that's a good point that you bring up too,
Speaker 5: because there's always in any crisis, it's always opportunity. And
Speaker 5: it's like, not to sound callous about it, but it's
Speaker 5: just the reality. Whether it was COVID, there was a
Speaker 5: lot of opportunity, and just COVID situations, a lot of
Speaker 5: people made a lot of money. And now the whole
Speaker 5: you know, black lives matter, racial injustice situation. And I
Speaker 5: was talking to a friend of mine who works in
Speaker 5: the NBA, and he was telling me he was like
Speaker 5: he told all his guys like, you know, like look
Speaker 5: like there's gonna be a lot of opportunity as far
Speaker 5: as like for businesses and business people. And it's like
Speaker 5: because now these companies feel like they got to wash
Speaker 5: away their sins and they got to like spend money.
Speaker 5: And it's like they're looking for people to really give
Speaker 5: money to. Whether it's a black publicist, whether it's a
Speaker 5: black teacher that can teach their staff about the racial
Speaker 5: injustices for the last four hundred years, whether it's a
Speaker 5: black accountant, whether it's a black doctor. Like they're looking
Speaker 5: to diversify their looking. So I say that to say,
Speaker 5: if you're an entrepreneur, if you're an investor, if you're black,
Speaker 5: this is a perfect opportunity right now to maybe reach out,
Speaker 5: make network, and make yourself known because I seen it
Speaker 5: firsthand where companies are actively looking to give money in
Speaker 5: a variety of different ways, whether there's inclusion programs, whether
Speaker 5: it's consultants, whether it's a you know, I have never
Speaker 5: really seen this much activity, and we don't know.
Speaker 3: How long it's gonna last.
Speaker 8: So you know, and if you are a white company
Speaker 8: who's hiring people black people, can do more than just
Speaker 8: head up the diversity and inclusion thing. Like literally everybody
Speaker 8: I was looking like we hired somebody for diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 8: I'm like, what God damn Like, like, imagine, like going
Speaker 8: to college and learning, you're so talented at what you do.
Speaker 8: When they say you're going to be here to talk
Speaker 8: about affirmative action and inclusion, it's like it's.
Speaker 3: Like the door.
Speaker 9: It's like I've been putting those situations where it's like, Yo, hey,
Speaker 9: we're gonna talk about race and schools and you're going
Speaker 9: to be the person. And I'm like, yo, I'm living it.
Speaker 9: Like it's I'm living it. It's enough living it now
Speaker 9: trying to explain.
Speaker 5: It and the thing and the thing you know, I
Speaker 5: always look at me. I'm a little different because I
Speaker 5: was raised was due for self, Like I never really
Speaker 5: was raised like on some inclusion type vibe. So I
Speaker 5: tell people all the time, like, to me, support is
Speaker 5: a lot more efficient than boycotting. So it's like you
Speaker 5: boycotting and you're putting pressure on EAT. That's good, but
Speaker 5: it's like instead of focusing that energy, focus your energy
Speaker 5: on building something that you are part of or in
Speaker 5: your community.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's like, let's.
Speaker 5: Say there's a top PR firm who only has white people,
Speaker 5: and it's like, all right, we're gonna boycott this PR
Speaker 5: firm until they hire three black PR eight.
Speaker 3: But it's like, you already have your own PR firm,
Speaker 3: why don't we because that's already a boycott.
Speaker 5: If you, if you, if you, if you, if you
Speaker 5: focus your your energy and you you actually give business
Speaker 5: to real black owned businesses, technically you're already boycotting that
Speaker 5: because you're taking money away from where you are spending it.
Speaker 5: But the problem with the boycotts, like the Gucci situation, like, Okay,
Speaker 5: we're gonna stop wearing Gucci until they make some flip flops.
Speaker 5: It's really cool three months, okay, but what's really changed.
Speaker 5: But it's like if you have like a black owned designer,
Speaker 5: then that's already taking money out of Gucci because you're
Speaker 5: you're just you don't have have to like force them
Speaker 5: to make Okay, we're gonna come to Harlem and.
Speaker 3: Eat it, Sylvius take a photo. It's like, I just don't.
Speaker 5: I just I still to this day don't fully understand
Speaker 5: why black people a lot of times are just so
Speaker 5: fascinated with being accepted by white people. It's really fascinating
Speaker 5: to me when it's like I don't really see any
Speaker 5: other culture that has tried so hard to be accepted
Speaker 5: and it's like abusive relationship, like you're hoping it's gonna change.
Speaker 3: That, it's really not.
Speaker 7: I think that's systemic.
Speaker 3: They're still beating you.
Speaker 6: I was gonna say that's that's the systemic part.
Speaker 7: Sure, I think it's a systemic.
Speaker 8: And then also I think, yeah, you can say, oh,
Speaker 8: come and like patronize with my company versus like trying
Speaker 8: to have this big company hire black people. But I
Speaker 8: think ultimately it's like everybody doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, everybody,
Speaker 8: And that's another thing that everyone is not built to
Speaker 8: be an entrepreneur. Some people just want to work for
Speaker 8: a company, and unfortunately for me, in the way that
Speaker 8: my company is ran. I don't see my company isn't
Speaker 8: scale the same way as like a PMK or like
Speaker 8: a Rogerson Cowan or whatever, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: So I can understand why you might want to go
Speaker 8: work over there because you're gonna get your benefits and
Speaker 8: your salary's gonna be bigger at whatever. It's a bigger
Speaker 8: obvious you might have a corner suite. You ain't getting
Speaker 8: that over here, you know, But we're gonna work hard,
Speaker 8: We're gonna do some things that are dope, and you're
Speaker 8: gonna get paid.
Speaker 5: Let me ask you this hypothetically speaking, right, so you
Speaker 5: you you have ther whole correalition with my publicist is
Speaker 5: black you network with So what's stopping you guys from
Speaker 5: coming together and making your own top agency where maybe
Speaker 5: now you can scale it.
Speaker 7: Stay tuned, Stay tuned.
Speaker 3: Because why not? Right, I was gonna piggyback on that.
Speaker 8: The biggest and you have these big talents, you know,
Speaker 8: like you're coming with Beyonce to the table and then
Speaker 8: you got fucking he's over here.
Speaker 7: You can do a lot.
Speaker 5: Because everything is like like you're looking like a wells
Speaker 5: far like a lot of these different companies were like
Speaker 5: two names or three names. Is because two or three
Speaker 5: people came together at one point and they formed a company.
Speaker 5: That's something that black entrepreneurs don't do a lot of
Speaker 5: Either small businesses stay small because they're not scaling and
Speaker 5: it's small, but three small businesses can come together and
Speaker 5: make a mid sized business or a larger business.
Speaker 8: Thankfully, I found the right group of people who who
Speaker 8: they're thinking it's in alignment with what you just said,
Speaker 8: because I tried that early on and we couldn't get
Speaker 8: past the name. Like my company is not like Earnest Publicity,
Speaker 8: like a lot of people that use their name like
Speaker 8: you know, Ray Charles Publicity or whatever. Mine is not
Speaker 8: that I wanted it to be something that like if
Speaker 8: I ever wanted to leave this one day, it can
Speaker 8: still go on and it's not like tied into me. Also,
Speaker 8: because my mouth is crazy too, I might say something
Speaker 8: in this interview that's gonna get me blacklisted, and now
Speaker 8: with the company no more, it's like no, no, you know,
Speaker 8: And so we couldn't get past the name like the
Speaker 8: people like Lit's say, the three of us were gonna
Speaker 8: do it He's like, now I want it to be
Speaker 8: my name first, and you want your name first, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, what the fuck, Like wet even got no client,
Speaker 8: Like we're talking about a name and so it couldn't happen.
Speaker 8: And also because like it's so competitive. At least when
Speaker 8: it's my peers, like people were my age and we
Speaker 8: all came up around the same time, it's super competitive.
Speaker 8: But with this my publicists black, I believe I'm the
Speaker 8: youngest one on the entire thing, you know, and everyone
Speaker 8: has different levels of experience. They've been around for decades
Speaker 8: and whatever. They all do different things where we're not competing,
Speaker 8: we're collaborating. So just like you guys have like assets
Speaker 8: over liabilities, I'm like collaboration over competition, and that's where
Speaker 8: our mindset is and we're able to say, like, you know,
Speaker 8: we should do this, But before like it wasn't. It
Speaker 8: was like we're too competitive because we think like of
Speaker 8: like the crabs and a barrel mentality, like you know,
Speaker 8: there can only be one and I hate them people
Speaker 8: say crabs in a barrel because like crabs don't even
Speaker 8: belong in barrels.
Speaker 7: Like no one ever questions that. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 7: we crabs in a barrel.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: It's like no, like there really is so much money
Speaker 7: everybody to eat.
Speaker 3: It's enough everybody.
Speaker 6: What's what's your thoughts on quote unquote Black Hollya, what's
Speaker 6: the future of it? Or is it in black Atlanta now?
Speaker 7: Because you know Tyler.
Speaker 6: Peri studios it's huge? What what's your thoughts on it?
Speaker 8: No? Actually know what Tyler Perry Studios. I think is
Speaker 8: gonna be something that's super dope. And I see a
Speaker 8: lot of things are done there already. I've done I've
Speaker 8: done multiplepoper reductions on his studio a lot, So I
Speaker 8: don't want to speak to that. The future of Black Hollywood,
Speaker 8: to me, it seems like, and I hope it's not
Speaker 8: just a moment, but I think people are starting to
Speaker 8: really see the value that black people bring in terms
Speaker 8: of their experiences. Like even like with these animated series,
Speaker 8: like the guy who plays in Cleveland, Cleveland or whatever,
Speaker 8: he's like, I'm not going to voice him anymore. I
Speaker 8: think somebody black should be the voice of him. Well,
Speaker 8: I mean you could have twenty years to say that, you.
Speaker 3: Know whatever, Oh Cleveland, the guy's white.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I never knew that that's that's crazy.
Speaker 8: Close your eyes, he do sound that's very very racist.
Speaker 8: Melon the lack of melon, that's amazing. I think people
Speaker 8: are making more conscious decisions like that, we need representation here,
Speaker 8: Black representation, authentic black voices to be heard.
Speaker 7: We want to hire black and diversify.
Speaker 8: And so I think it's an exciting time we walked into,
Speaker 8: like this pandemic, like the years over, Summer's canceled or whatever.
Speaker 7: I feel like all this stuff.
Speaker 8: Although there has been some bad things that have happened
Speaker 8: and people have lost their lives, lost their homes, whatever,
Speaker 8: I think there's also good too. I think we had
Speaker 8: to kind of do like a hard reset, you know,
Speaker 8: to where like no one should want to go back
Speaker 8: out of this pandemic, Like we want to go back
Speaker 8: to normal. Like I was asking about TV earlier before
Speaker 8: we filmed, I'm like, y'all still want to watch that?
Speaker 8: I don't care about that no more, Like yeah, I've
Speaker 8: been in the house. I didn't watch so much TV,
Speaker 8: Like I don't want to see nothing else. So like
Speaker 8: we're creating a new normal, and I think the new
Speaker 8: normal was going to include diversity and amplifying and supporting
Speaker 8: black voices.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm thinking about this, like I'm going all the
Speaker 9: way back now, Like you started out as a publicist,
Speaker 9: but you also executive produced. Like how did you gravitate
Speaker 9: toward that and where did you get the skill? Is
Speaker 9: it just being on the scene and learning as you
Speaker 9: with your clients or did you like to study that?
Speaker 8: No. So when I was working with a PR one
Speaker 8: of the people I interned for, I didn't really intern
Speaker 8: I'm not gonna lie. She would outsource things to me
Speaker 8: so she would pay me. She was based in Atlanta,
Speaker 8: name Teresa. She would sense to say, you're her client,
Speaker 8: you're in LA. She's like, can you go look after
Speaker 8: them in LA? Because I don't want to fly in
Speaker 8: and it saves money of course.
Speaker 3: Fine.
Speaker 7: Whatever.
Speaker 8: So one of those people was Kisha Cole And so
Speaker 8: I'm like my own publicist. I my own company, not
Speaker 8: really a real company. I just had a logo on
Speaker 8: a website. I didn't do nothing like to like really
Speaker 8: register it. But I thought that's all I needed. So
Speaker 8: I'm thinking I'm like this big Mogo type nigga. I
Speaker 8: got a company. And so she's like, can you look
Speaker 8: after my client? I'm like sure, whatever, So I look
Speaker 8: after Kisha Coole, and at the end of us working
Speaker 8: together for that day, it was a photo shoot from
Speaker 8: a magazine, She's like, Oh, what are you doing? Do
Speaker 8: you want to come back to Cleveland with me and
Speaker 8: my husband and be my assistant? And in my mind,
Speaker 8: I'm like an assistant, I'm a boss, nigga, I have a company.
Speaker 8: But I'm like, oh wait. Her publicist probably told her
Speaker 8: I was her assistant, and so she's like, well, you're
Speaker 8: an assistant, you want to work with her, you can
Speaker 8: work with me, And again, being broke, I was like,
Speaker 8: hell yeah, And so I moved to Cleveland and started
Speaker 8: working with her. And at that time, she had a
Speaker 8: reality show on BT and Keisha is somebody who you
Speaker 8: have to really speak her language in order to communicate
Speaker 8: with her. That there's a way to talk to her
Speaker 8: or I think people we've mastered the art of communicating
Speaker 8: with various type of people. It's like, if you're an introvert,
Speaker 8: we can sit here in silence and talk really loud.
Speaker 8: If you're an extroverted, we could be extra stuck together
Speaker 8: and we're gonna get the job done. And whatever you
Speaker 8: want to talk and we want to curse, we could
Speaker 8: do that. You wanna smoke, i'mna smoke what you want
Speaker 8: to do it. I'm a chameleon in that way. So
Speaker 8: I mastered the art of communicating with her, and so
Speaker 8: that production brought me on as a production assistant, Like
Speaker 8: they paid me in addition to her, so I can
Speaker 8: make sure she was on time and that she knew
Speaker 8: everything she had to do and that because if she's late,
Speaker 8: it's going to hold the whole production up.
Speaker 7: You know, she don't come downstairs for the day you
Speaker 7: wasted money.
Speaker 8: And from there, when it was over, I was offered
Speaker 8: a job by that production company to work as a
Speaker 8: production assistant within their company.
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I want to be.
Speaker 8: A publicist, but this is paying more money because I
Speaker 8: was paying eight hundred dollars a week, and I'm like
Speaker 8: eight hundred a week versus the fifty dollars a month,
Speaker 8: I mean fifty dollars a placement. I'm like, hmm, I'm
Speaker 8: gonna do it eight hundred dollars a week. So I
Speaker 8: went there and I just worked my way up through
Speaker 8: that company while simultaneously still doing publicity. So I would
Speaker 8: be working with Jackie Christie getting her interviews and then
Speaker 8: I would be at the production company answering phones because
Speaker 8: I wanted that extra income and I wanted to learn.
Speaker 7: And so in that company, I went from a.
Speaker 8: Production assistant to casting associate, which is like the casting assistant,
Speaker 8: to like a field producer, a segment producer, and I
Speaker 8: worked my way up to an executive producer.
Speaker 7: And one thing I.
Speaker 8: Would say is that like people, when you demonstrate like
Speaker 8: what you're good at in your strengths, people will hire
Speaker 8: you and they'll rock with you. They may not like you,
Speaker 8: but they'll call you when the money is there because
Speaker 8: they know you can get the job done and they
Speaker 8: can trust you. And so that same guy who hired
Speaker 8: me as a production assistant is also who brought me
Speaker 8: in for Fox Soul to do that, because he now
Speaker 8: is the head of Fox Soul, James Dubos, And so
Speaker 8: it's like a testament to having good relationships and also
Speaker 8: like having a vision. Like I knew when I was
Speaker 8: answering the phones, I'm like, I barely answer my own phone.
Speaker 8: I don't want to answer this phone. But I knew
Speaker 8: I was able to see other people in the company
Speaker 8: who were driving nice cars and they were making nice
Speaker 8: salaries and I'm like, I want to get to that point,
Speaker 8: so I'm gonna do what I have to do so
Speaker 8: I can do what I want to do later. And
Speaker 8: that's really how it came about. And I was I
Speaker 8: got more credits, other people would hire me, you know.
Speaker 8: So then I went an EP like Tammy Roman Special
Speaker 8: for VH one Tammy Ever After, and then I guess
Speaker 8: we got the Bonding Chronicle show was scripted, and then
Speaker 8: I got another show on bt HER with Queen Latifa's company,
Speaker 8: and just really like showcasing like, okay, what you're able
Speaker 8: to do, and not just saying that you can do it,
Speaker 8: which a lot of people do, Like I'm a producer,
Speaker 8: I'm whatever. It's like, I can show you like what
Speaker 8: I've been able to do, you know. So even when
Speaker 8: I took that L and said I got two thousand dollars,
Speaker 8: I booked for another job and I made what I
Speaker 8: was supposed to make on that one.
Speaker 7: So I guess it was right. You got to take
Speaker 7: it L on your first one.
Speaker 8: But I still don't think you had to, like you
Speaker 8: don't have to hurt yourself or less of your value
Speaker 8: in order to be successful.
Speaker 7: But ended up working out for me, for sure.
Speaker 5: So Ernest, it's been a pleasure. One last question the
Speaker 5: most and most.
Speaker 8: Of the all they tired and in the already interview
Speaker 8: already four ads and fifteen second thing full times to
Speaker 8: skip it, like That's what I'll be doing in like bevel,
Speaker 8: the most important I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: The most important question, no anchor shout shout out to anchor,
Speaker 5: just skip that. One the good people is Spotify. How
Speaker 5: do you get verified on Instagram? Uh?
Speaker 8: There are various ways to do it, the easy for
Speaker 8: a friend, the easiest, ask.
Speaker 7: For whatever you want to ask.
Speaker 6: I'm ask for my check.
Speaker 8: But I think the easiest way to do it is
Speaker 8: one if you're on a TV show. Like companies like Viacom,
Speaker 8: vach one, they take ads out or they do ads
Speaker 8: with Facebook, which owns Instagram. They can there are like
Speaker 8: a lot of a certain amount of people they can verify,
Speaker 8: so they'll verify easily. Or the key is to get
Speaker 8: like ride ups that are all right? So are you
Speaker 8: familiar with domain authorities like the rating like the d
Speaker 8: A rating?
Speaker 7: All right? So I wasn't at first either.
Speaker 8: So like imagine like a site like Google, they have
Speaker 8: like a domain authority of one hundred I mean so
Speaker 8: many people go there. Everybody body knows Google. It's like
Speaker 8: a verifiable type of thing, whereas like uh, plant based
Speaker 8: hustlers dot com, they may have like a domain authority
Speaker 8: of twenty, Like no one goes there, they're not getting ads,
Speaker 8: people aren't linking things back to their site or whatever.
Speaker 8: And so you have to have I think as a
Speaker 8: minimum of like five articles about you on on an
Speaker 8: outlet that have like a domain authority of seventy or higher.
Speaker 8: So like if you get an article in like.
Speaker 3: Fours or Yahoo find it.
Speaker 8: Yeah exactly, you do those, then then they see you
Speaker 8: as somebody who needs to be verified, like you are
Speaker 8: a person who these people vouch for, who know who
Speaker 8: you are, and therefore you could get verified or another
Speaker 8: way to do it is like in this you know,
Speaker 8: you have some interns or whatever, create a bunch of
Speaker 8: fake pages, earn your leisure, but eat are in like
Speaker 8: my do mind, earn your leisure, and then it's like okay,
Speaker 8: put the same logo on there and just upload shit.
Speaker 8: Do a couple of those, and then they're going to
Speaker 8: verify you because they feel like there is too much
Speaker 8: confusion on who they're accurate on is like their imposters
Speaker 8: impostering you or havn't just known somebody.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I don't know who that somebody is because I've seen
Speaker 8: people pay and ain't got nothing out of it. They
Speaker 8: didn't get verified or nothing. It's got swindled. But I
Speaker 8: think those are the two most effective ways to do it.
Speaker 7: You know, Okay, you're trying to get verified.
Speaker 3: We should be verified.
Speaker 7: Are you verified in the street.
Speaker 6: That's a fact. That's a fact.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, nothing that not. That's first and formal
Speaker 5: for sure. Respectfully, respect respectfully. Obviously people like I ain't
Speaker 5: verified with you know.
Speaker 3: Like the hout.
Speaker 7: Your game go up when you get verified. So I
Speaker 7: get it, y'all want to be.
Speaker 6: Respectful. I cannot confirm now.
Speaker 8: That who check can't do this house might get appreciate
Speaker 8: you'all got to do on the YouTube page the extra
Speaker 8: blog home to for Really Ernest Living, to Ernest Living.
Speaker 6: Episode in your Leisure for shout out Tonest.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure, bro.
Speaker 5: How can people contact you any initiatives you want to
Speaker 5: make them aware of anything you have going on?
Speaker 7: No, just drink water and get your rest.
Speaker 8: I am on Instagram at arn Duke's E R N
Speaker 8: d U k S And that's kind of consistent across
Speaker 8: all platforms. I don't follow back what I do read
Speaker 8: on my rams.
Speaker 3: So how that me? There? You have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Troy Housekeeping.
Speaker 9: Yeah, shout out everybody on Patreon dot com. Y'all know
Speaker 9: that's our proud to pay program.
Speaker 6: We have some new members. I hope I get their
Speaker 6: names right A Kilo.
Speaker 9: It's Tier five are Brown and Richard, Tier four and
Speaker 9: you know, shout out to hire you. I'm like, we
Speaker 9: don't know, Yeah, so shout out them.
Speaker 3: And you know.
Speaker 9: With Tier four and five, members get access to E
Speaker 9: y L University that is our online school, the number
Speaker 9: one business school in the world with only over seventy webinars.
Speaker 9: We got a book club, movie club, We have the
Speaker 9: Breaking Bread session with our brother MG, the mortgage guy
Speaker 9: who we referenced earlier. So shout everybody that's been joining
Speaker 9: and shout everybody that's been supporting the merch.
Speaker 6: We got some new merch on today. Shout out.
Speaker 9: Shout out to Mike for getting that merch. Out for
Speaker 9: get you some merch. We probably can get you some
Speaker 9: before you leave.
Speaker 6: Yeah, shout shout out to all the earners that's been
Speaker 6: supporting that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and once again you forgot the real estate face
Speaker 5: or the investment face.
Speaker 6: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5: Facebook University is a wave. That's the whole new wave
Speaker 5: that we're right now. So yeah, if you're interested, click
Speaker 5: the link in our bio. Thank you guys for rocking
Speaker 5: with us. Shout out to Los Angeles. Everybody always said like, Yo,
Speaker 5: you don't give LA enough love. Yeah, So we're here
Speaker 5: in l A and we will be doing more stuff
Speaker 5: in l A once COVID is over.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be doing events in l A. You love
Speaker 3: it out here.
Speaker 6: Catch us on running three times.
Speaker 5: So shout out to everybody in LA and all over
Speaker 5: the West Coast. Thank you guys rocking with us. We'll
Speaker 5: see you next week.
Speaker 3: Peace Peace p