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Speaker 2: my graduates from my school being forced bad drop Drop,
Speaker 2: Mike drop, Bad Drop drop. As far as you get
Speaker 2: in the game, how did how did your career path
Speaker 2: takes as a producer first and even figuring out as
Speaker 2: far as like points on an album, man, negotiating royalties
Speaker 2: and things of that nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think now more than ever it's
Speaker 3: important to know your math on that. I think really
Speaker 3: when I when I was getting started the the going,
Speaker 3: I think actually, in a lot of ways, when people
Speaker 3: start getting into music, they just say, look, I just
Speaker 3: want to have the biggest hits possible, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's inevitable if I have a really big hit that
Speaker 3: I'm I'm gonna get paid, you know, And uh, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of there are a great number of revenue streams,
Speaker 3: and there are a great number of revenue streams that
Speaker 3: are potentially overlooked. And so you know, for me coming
Speaker 3: up in a game, I was very fortunate to have
Speaker 3: really great mentors and folks that were working with me
Speaker 3: had signed me management all of that, and so they
Speaker 3: really helped me to sit down and understand not only
Speaker 3: just my paperwork and my contrast, but what all the
Speaker 3: actual revenue streams are. So with music, I mean, first
Speaker 3: of all, I would say, look, information is so readily
Speaker 3: available online. It's just about knowing what to search and
Speaker 3: then also knowing what's reliable and so listen, you know,
Speaker 3: for me even still today, there's your performance rights organizations,
Speaker 3: which is like your askhap your being mine, and then
Speaker 3: you have your actual publishing, so whoever's actually administering your publishing.
Speaker 3: So I know there's a ton of folks that are
Speaker 3: putting music up on Spotify and you know, distributing their
Speaker 3: music through an aggregator like a CD baby, distro kid
Speaker 3: whatever it is. Yeah, and they completely overlook the actual
Speaker 3: other side of the publishing and so you still need
Speaker 3: an administrator on that publishing side. And that's and so
Speaker 3: you know, I just had a great meeting with Downtown
Speaker 3: Music Holdings and they've got probably one of the leading
Speaker 3: from a technology standpoint platforms for that publishing administration. It's
Speaker 3: called song Trust. And so you know, I think nowadays
Speaker 3: everything is basically self service, and software really has been
Speaker 3: that equalizer, I would say. And for me, I just
Speaker 3: like to be in control of my revenue stream. So
Speaker 3: I like to be able to look at be able
Speaker 3: to just log into my accounts and see them all,
Speaker 3: even if that means that you know, they may be delayed.
Speaker 3: I just want to be one on top of them.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I'm not sure if I'm even answering
Speaker 3: your question per se. When I first got started, I
Speaker 3: would just say, look, I was very much concerned with
Speaker 3: in advance, and I think a lot of folks when
Speaker 3: they first get started, you've been living in the basement,
Speaker 3: you've been you know, living out the trap wherever you living.
Speaker 3: You want that advance because that advance is that first
Speaker 3: way that you're going to pay for all those years
Speaker 3: of starvation, if you will.
Speaker 4: So the advance is the money that the record label's
Speaker 4: given to you, saying like, here's the money that you
Speaker 4: get to do the project.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean it's actually an advance against your royalties. Right.
Speaker 3: So on the artist's side, depends on the type of
Speaker 3: deal you make. And I mean, listen, business is really
Speaker 3: just business, and whatever you sign is whatever you sign.
Speaker 3: I know, there's definitely always been a lot to talk about, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, people are you know, they got they got
Speaker 3: into slave deals and you know, you hit these kinds
Speaker 3: of overtones. At the end of the day, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, as long as you've got good legal counsel
Speaker 3: and you're sitting down and you're looking at your contracts,
Speaker 3: you're definitely the final arbiter of what deal you get into.
Speaker 3: And so it's important for you just to just know
Speaker 3: and be informed. So for me, my Bible level primer
Speaker 3: for the music industry, and this is an age old primer.
Speaker 3: It's a Donald Passman book all you need to know
Speaker 3: about the music business. It's updated all the time, and
Speaker 3: you know, I always recommend look, somebody really wants to know.
Speaker 3: They could start there and it's updated and it was
Speaker 3: written by an attorney who definitely just understands just the
Speaker 3: nuances of the business. And then you know, no matter
Speaker 3: what's actually written in the books, it's different when you're
Speaker 3: actually sitting across the negotiation table and you're going to
Speaker 3: negotiate whatever deal is best for you at that time.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I find that there are a
Speaker 3: lot of folks that when they're sitting at there at
Speaker 3: that negotiation table and they've never seen five thousan ten
Speaker 3: th twenty thousand, one hundred thousand at one time in
Speaker 3: their bank account, much less five hundred thousand or a
Speaker 3: million dollars, and those situations, they say, oh yeah, definitely
Speaker 3: sign me up for that, without actually looking at what
Speaker 3: the actual what the contractual obligations are that are associated
Speaker 3: with those deals. The end of the day, though, you know,
Speaker 3: life just goes on. And I was just having a
Speaker 3: conversation today. Life is really like water. It is fluid,
Speaker 3: and basically the time that you have takes on the
Speaker 3: shape of whatever container that you put around your life.
Speaker 3: And so if you put a container around your life
Speaker 3: where you get that upfront advance, and it's a big
Speaker 3: upfront advance and you're able to do in a smart
Speaker 3: way what you should do with that, and you're keeping
Speaker 3: track of your accounting and when that advance is recouped, etc.
Speaker 3: Then that may be the right pathway for you as
Speaker 3: opposed to delaying the gratification and waiting eighteen months to
Speaker 3: actually let the publishing or the royalties trickle in.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you this because a lot of times,
Speaker 2: especially with producers, there's been a lot of record lab
Speaker 2: won't name any recor labels, but there's a lot of
Speaker 2: record labels where producers say that they don't get paid. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like a it happens all the time. So why
Speaker 2: is it such an epidemic with producers, specifically producers making
Speaker 2: beats and getting delayed on their payments or not getting
Speaker 2: paid because you hear about that all the time, and
Speaker 2: even like big name producers and they go on social
Speaker 2: media and they make a big deal about it.
Speaker 4: And so it's like, yo, I have a relationship with you,
Speaker 4: and you'll give me on the back end, and it
Speaker 4: never happens.
Speaker 3: That happens all Tom, Yeah, I mean listen, like I said,
Speaker 3: all of all of those situations are directly correlated to
Speaker 3: what you negotiate upfront, and would I would just say that,
Speaker 3: in many cases one of the most uncomfortable conversations to have,
Speaker 3: and unless you have an advocate or you have the
Speaker 3: wherewithal to have that conversation right there in the session,
Speaker 3: that uncomfortable conversation is Hey, what part of this record
Speaker 3: do I own? When do we get paid? How is
Speaker 3: it all going to be broken down? And where's the
Speaker 3: paperwork for it? It almost seems that antithetical to the
Speaker 3: creative process, right, because the creative process you want to
Speaker 3: be open, you want to be open is people want
Speaker 3: to be sharing back and forth and the last element
Speaker 3: of that process is to be sitting back and saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: what percentage of the sung line? It's it's but it's
Speaker 3: I just believe you you get what you negotiate, and
Speaker 3: you may not even get what you deserve, you get
Speaker 3: what you negotiate, right, And so for me, I think
Speaker 3: that you know, we just have to get more comfortable
Speaker 3: with the discomfort and it that just needs to be
Speaker 3: a requisite of doing business. And once you're at that
Speaker 3: level and you understand and folks that work with you
Speaker 3: understand that a requisite of doing business is to just
Speaker 3: have that upfront, transparent conversation. Then once both sides agreed,
Speaker 3: then you allowed to run down on people for the
Speaker 3: money that's owed because there is no confusion in terms
Speaker 3: of having some sort of like you know, fugazy conversation
Speaker 3: as opposed to have whatever you need to have in writing,
Speaker 3: and so you get what you negotiate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm imagine you know when you walk into
Speaker 4: these tables, obviously you come from a highly educated background.
Speaker 4: I think you said your dad wanted you to study law.
Speaker 4: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Law, medicine, you know, whatever was guaranteed pathway that somebody
Speaker 3: was going to get.
Speaker 4: Did you feel when you sit at these tables, Obviously
Speaker 4: you have a distinct advantage knowing that you know what
Speaker 4: they're not talking to somebody who's under educated in this game.
Speaker 3: Listen, I would say that baby and Slim sitting at
Speaker 3: these tables, they also had an advantage because they were
Speaker 3: moving one hundred thousand mixtapes a week. So the education is,
Speaker 3: the education comes in whatever format that you achieve or
Speaker 3: accumulate the education, right, So it's really up to you
Speaker 3: to educate yourself. You know, you don't. I mean, I
Speaker 3: didn't go to Harvard for music business. I read it myself.
Speaker 3: And so I think probably some of the most astute
Speaker 3: business people in the music business they learn from being observant,
Speaker 3: They learned from having great relationships, They learned from deciding
Speaker 3: that they wanted to be mentored by the best attorneys,
Speaker 3: the best managers, and they you know, they had the
Speaker 3: transparency into the deals. And so I think that you know, nowadays,
Speaker 3: like I said, with the with the amount of information
Speaker 3: that's readily accessible, there's really no excuse for someone to
Speaker 3: enter into a deal blindly unless they intentionally just want
Speaker 3: to be ignorant about the deal. And so I think
Speaker 3: that you know, we live in an age of media
Speaker 3: where you could find anybody, You can connect with anyone.
Speaker 3: They may or may not respond, but you can at
Speaker 3: least reach out. You can ask for an introduction, you
Speaker 3: can ask for a referral, you can ask for a recommendation,
Speaker 3: and you can go get the knowledge. And so you
Speaker 3: want to be great, just be around the greatest UH
Speaker 3: and UH and absorbed as much knowledge as possible. And
Speaker 3: before you sit down at the table, make sure that
Speaker 3: you you've done your homework and your research, so that
Speaker 3: even in the absence of knowing what you need to discuss,
Speaker 3: you can ask the right questions so that people understand
Speaker 3: that you you know, you know slotch when you come
Speaker 3: to the new when you come to the negotiation table.
Speaker 2: So what is the you said the royalty administrative company
Speaker 2: song Trust? Can you explain that I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So basically, you know, you're you're getting whatever the
Speaker 3: streaming services are paying you. And at the same time,
Speaker 3: you're also indited to a royalty as a publisher of
Speaker 3: the music and a writer of the music, and so
Speaker 3: those publishing and writing royalties have to be collected and
Speaker 3: administrated by UH. For for me, the beauty of song
Speaker 3: Trust is that those royalties are actually collected and administered
Speaker 3: traded on your behalf in all of the countries and
Speaker 3: territories around the world. So that includes like, okay, you
Speaker 3: know what happens you know you yeah, you get paper,
Speaker 3: your Spotify streams, what happens when your record makes it
Speaker 3: onto the radio in some obscure country, or what happens
Speaker 3: when your record is actually being used in a video game.
Speaker 3: What happens when your record is actually being played in
Speaker 3: the nightclubs in you know, some overseas country, all of
Speaker 3: that is actually being tracked, and there's a there are
Speaker 3: a massive number of artists who completely overlook that as
Speaker 3: a revenue stream. And so I think one of the
Speaker 3: greatest takeaways from my meeting recently, like I said with
Speaker 3: Downtown Music Holdings, was that you know, there are a
Speaker 3: number of creators who once they put their music through
Speaker 3: distro kid or tune Corps, they they get those checks
Speaker 3: and they think that's it, when really there's an entire
Speaker 3: other world of publishing royalties that can be connected. Just
Speaker 3: needs to hire an agency to do it. You give
Speaker 3: them a commission for doing it, and that becomes an
Speaker 3: additional income stream for you.
Speaker 4: So when you're talking about I kind of think, like
Speaker 4: when streaming, I can get how they track the data
Speaker 4: when it's played on the radio, honestly, on how to
Speaker 4: contract the data? How does that happen in a nightclub?
Speaker 4: Like I'm not you just turn.
Speaker 3: It like really for me, every time I every time
Speaker 3: I perform overseas, they they are keeping track of the
Speaker 3: set list. So I even get paid to perform my
Speaker 3: own music.
Speaker 4: So like a DJ has to give the set list
Speaker 4: to the venue.
Speaker 3: They give the set list and you know in Europe,
Speaker 3: I think it's called Geema Gema, and yeah, they track
Speaker 3: it the best that they can. You know, bottom line
Speaker 3: is it's just an additional revenue stream, and I think
Speaker 3: with the advancements in technology that may or inevitably that
Speaker 3: will improve. It's just going to get better.
Speaker 4: So like you can literally get booked for a nightclub,
Speaker 4: get paid to go to the nightclub, and then if
Speaker 4: the DJ starts, oh, Ryan Leslie's in the house and
Speaker 4: starts playing your record, you get pay that too.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Now obviously it's pennies on the dollar. Once you
Speaker 3: do that, once you do that at scale, it starts
Speaker 3: to begin to become material and significant.
Speaker 2: So as far as the new age that we're in with,
Speaker 2: because we're gonna talk about that the next segment with
Speaker 2: the director consuming all of that, but for new new musicians, artists,
Speaker 2: producers specifically where they're not going to traditional route of
Speaker 2: going to a record label, because now I've seen it
Speaker 2: from both sides where a lot of producers are mad
Speaker 2: at producers that's like selling beats for one hundred dollars, like,
Speaker 2: but they're getting their music out and then you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's an easier route. So what is what's your
Speaker 2: take on that for art for producers specifically, that might
Speaker 2: be I guess maybe devaluing there.
Speaker 4: We happened with the Old Town Road, right, like the
Speaker 4: do sold the beat and he gave it to him
Speaker 4: for like two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Or even what's the kid Bobby's Murder? That was Lloyd
Speaker 2: Banks beat? Right? Originally who is that beats?
Speaker 3: Right? Thing?
Speaker 4: But that record, like that biggest record of the year, right,
Speaker 4: those ten twelve million times platinum.
Speaker 3: Trust me those producers as long as they retain their
Speaker 3: copyright ownership of those beats. And you know, I also
Speaker 3: know ab over at Beat Stars, those beasts are actually
Speaker 3: being licensed and at least to my knowledge, they being licensed.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you give the license for some low barrier
Speaker 3: to entry costs so that you know, some artists that
Speaker 3: doesn't have a lot of money, but it's very creative
Speaker 3: and could create the next Panda, the next Old Town Road,
Speaker 3: the next you know, Bobby Schmurder smash. You license those beats,
Speaker 3: you retain the ownership though of the copyright, and that's
Speaker 3: that's where that song trust relationship comes into play, because
Speaker 3: you're definitely going to get paid based on your ownership
Speaker 3: of that intellectual property.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: And so that's why, like I said, you just got
Speaker 3: to be astute about it. And for or anyone that
Speaker 3: has you know that has time to be hating on
Speaker 3: how someone else is getting to their bag, I always
Speaker 3: recommend like, look, that means you got too much time
Speaker 3: on your hand. You should really just find another stream
Speaker 3: of income that you could go chase, because you know,
Speaker 3: everyone needs to make money the way they feel is
Speaker 3: best for them. And the impact overall that that creates
Speaker 3: in the industry is is just creating more and more
Speaker 3: opportunity for folks that want to make a living doing
Speaker 3: what they love. They have the right and they have
Speaker 3: the latitude to price that intellectual property however they want
Speaker 3: from a licensing perspective. And you know, when I was
Speaker 3: in when I was in undergrad at Harvard, I had
Speaker 3: a business school professor and I used to say, oh, man,
Speaker 3: you know I don't want any you don't want to
Speaker 3: hold on to all my music? He said, look, Ryan,
Speaker 3: just hold on to your copyrights because the best thing
Speaker 3: that can ever happen to you is one of those songs.
Speaker 3: Just go whether someone paid you up front for it
Speaker 3: or not. As long as you own the copyright, you're
Speaker 3: getting paid, and you're gonna get paid handsomely as long
Speaker 3: as as you've done what you're supposed to do in
Speaker 3: terms of owning that copyright.
Speaker 2: So well, that was a lot with the music. So
Speaker 2: now the next segment, we're going to go into what
Speaker 2: you got going on now, all right, So now we're
Speaker 2: gonna go into the deep dive on the tech side.
Speaker 2: And this is something that we talked about a few
Speaker 2: different times. So Derek Ferguson former bad Boy see oh
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 4: Yep, CFO.
Speaker 2: CFO shout out to Derek good guest, and he was
Speaker 2: the first one to actually bring this up. And then
Speaker 2: I got Jabari from R and B only talked about
Speaker 2: the data. And we had Danish Chanel and Prince Donelle
Speaker 2: and they both spoke about the same thing. So it's
Speaker 2: been a kind of recurrent theme on Ernalsia.
Speaker 1: But but.
Speaker 2: You have an actual platform in place. And so twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen I was watching a breakfast club interview. So twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: you said you took your music off of streaming services,
Speaker 2: right right, How did you do that?
Speaker 3: Well, I needed to create an incentive for people to
Speaker 3: really want to connect with me directly. So I mean,
Speaker 3: now you can go listen to my records on streaming services.
Speaker 3: At that time, though, I felt that that the the
Speaker 3: most important I always say, most important factor or most
Speaker 3: important attractor or incentive for someone to connect with me
Speaker 3: directly would be through a conversation about music and new music.
Speaker 3: And so in order to build the audience that I
Speaker 3: wanted to build, and in order to attract the audience
Speaker 3: that I wanted to attract, and in order to accumulate
Speaker 3: the kind of data I wanted to accumulate, I needed
Speaker 3: to make sure that that audience was communicating with me directly.
Speaker 3: Because the convenience of iTunes, the convenience of Amazon, the
Speaker 3: convenience of Spotify made it such that they really were
Speaker 3: just like, oh, okay, well I can just go listen
Speaker 3: to Runds music. Why I got to give him, Why
Speaker 3: I got to give them my cell phone number to
Speaker 3: listen to it, and so to take all the music
Speaker 3: off the streaming services. It gave me a way to
Speaker 3: differentiate between those that were passive interactions with me and
Speaker 3: active interactions with me. And I knew that I could
Speaker 3: convert the active interactions into into a relationship of support,
Speaker 3: and that support, you know, came to the tune of
Speaker 3: you know, a two million dollar independent album cycle at
Speaker 3: that time, with no label, no management, no music videos,
Speaker 3: just a short documentary around the project. And so it
Speaker 3: was important to make sure that there was one exclusive
Speaker 3: hub where they could get the product, and that the
Speaker 3: gateway to that hub was for them to just simply
Speaker 3: earnest what's up.
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Speaker 3: Introduce themselves so that for the first time, instead of
Speaker 3: having an anonymous following, I could actually have a following
Speaker 3: where every single interaction had a name and email, a
Speaker 3: phone number, a city, a birthday associated with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because a lot of times you hear people say
Speaker 4: we have hardcore fans, right, but they just go to
Speaker 4: show and like maybe there's fifteen thousand people in a city.
Speaker 4: You leave that city, you have no idea you don't
Speaker 4: know any of them unless they pay for a package
Speaker 4: and they met you backstage or something like that. That
Speaker 4: doesn't happen even if you've sold records, like there was
Speaker 4: no way to track, Like hey Tuanisa from Pennsylvania, Like
Speaker 4: she bought my album when I you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 4: like your mindset going in was like, let me find
Speaker 4: the core, core base, and then and make advantage of
Speaker 4: that off of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's that's the foundation of any great business.
Speaker 3: That's the foundation of any great audiences. Who is your core,
Speaker 3: your core? Not only are they going to be your
Speaker 3: greatest supporters, they will also be your greatest evangelists. And
Speaker 3: so when you have a relationship with both your greatest
Speaker 3: supporters and greatest evangelists, then that therefore creates the kind
Speaker 3: of the kind of foundation for growth and scale that
Speaker 3: I think every single business, whether you're a personal business,
Speaker 3: whether you're in financial services, whether you're selling insurance, whether
Speaker 3: you're doing business development for a startup, when you have
Speaker 3: that core and that core is pleased with your product
Speaker 3: or service, and that core is also evangelizing for you,
Speaker 3: they're going to bring you referrals, and then you scale
Speaker 3: that exact flywheel, and anyone that's studied Amazon understands sort
Speaker 3: of that flywheel concept, that flywheel starts to starts to
Speaker 3: start to work, and that's where you get the kind
Speaker 3: of Amazon scale. And I believe that that should be
Speaker 3: applicable to anyone that's starting a business. And I would
Speaker 3: say the ability to manage that is even more possible
Speaker 3: when the scale is small. So when you're first starting,
Speaker 3: you should really just be enjoying the opportunity and the luxury,
Speaker 3: if you will, of having that kind of relationship with
Speaker 3: just your first twenty customers, your first two hundred customers,
Speaker 3: your first five thousand customers, at the scale of Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 3: Let's be real, he actually knows what all of us
Speaker 3: are doing on Amazon, and at the same time, he
Speaker 3: only knows that when he's able to log in and
Speaker 3: actually pull up that record. Same for let's call it
Speaker 3: Delta Airlines, same for you know, yeah, they can definitely
Speaker 3: see your activity. The reason why I like the Delta
Speaker 3: Airlines example is because Delta's data about you is really
Speaker 3: I would say, it's very specific to their business relationship
Speaker 3: with you. Right, Amazon and Facebook, I would say, you
Speaker 3: know the reason why they've ended up in Congress and
Speaker 3: ended up with a lot of questions. Is because you know,
Speaker 3: are they collecting more data than they need to have
Speaker 3: that business relationship with you. The reason why I love
Speaker 3: Delta is that Delta just knows, Okay, my relationship, my
Speaker 3: business relationship with Ryan Leslie is is based on him flying,
Speaker 3: whether it's flying on you know, Chartered Aircraft, Delta, Private Jets,
Speaker 3: sky Access or you know, Diamond Medallion member or million
Speaker 3: mile or whatever it is. And they keep their data
Speaker 3: really focused on the business relationship with me and how
Speaker 3: to serve me better. Now, in the in the in
Speaker 3: defense of Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, they also believe
Speaker 3: that they need to collect more data to better serve
Speaker 3: their audiences. So they need to know, Hey, Ryan doesn't
Speaker 3: like this, so I'm not going to serve him ads
Speaker 3: that look like they're the same with Google, or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: Ryan doesn't like this, so I'm not gonna recommend this
Speaker 3: to him on Amazon. The tricky part is when you
Speaker 3: know is your Echo device listening to you, is your
Speaker 3: you know Apple devices.
Speaker 4: One thousand, there's gotta be a mic and the phone.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, like, there'll be conversations and it won't
Speaker 4: even be me talking about it. I could be in
Speaker 4: the room with somebody. Let's are they're talking about getting
Speaker 4: a new oven, like I'm telling you, like I go
Speaker 4: to my phone in the first ad will be like
Speaker 4: a best buy now.
Speaker 2: But the great thing is like they're creating not to
Speaker 2: go off topic, but really not off topic. The crazy
Speaker 2: thing that happened to me when I really started to
Speaker 2: get scared about technology is that I was on the phone.
Speaker 2: I think I might have been on the phone with you, Troy,
Speaker 2: and I was talking about something like, let's say, like
Speaker 2: a vacation in Jamaica or something like that, right, but
Speaker 2: on my phone. So after the conversation I'm verbally talking
Speaker 2: about this, I go on my laptop, which is a
Speaker 2: complete not an Apple device at all. It's like a Toshiba,
Speaker 2: and I go on Google and it's like a vacation
Speaker 2: for Jamaica thing that pops up. So I'm like, how
Speaker 2: did that transfer from my iPhone to a Tshiba laptop
Speaker 2: in five minutes? Like it's crazy, how did that happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I mean, listen, the fact that the largest
Speaker 3: technology companies are doing this at scale, and when we
Speaker 3: talk about the scale Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram managing hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of people. That for me, is just an indicator
Speaker 3: that a the technology exists for relationship management at scale,
Speaker 3: So technology already exists, and B for someone that has
Speaker 3: any level of ingenuity, that technology can be leveraged on
Speaker 3: a personal and business level, no matter the scale of
Speaker 3: your business. So what that means is as long as Google,
Speaker 3: as long as WhatsApp, as long as Instagram, as long
Speaker 3: as Dropbox can have six seven hundred million, maybe a
Speaker 3: billion users and it's all managed. And when you log
Speaker 3: into your Gmail account, it's not mixed in with somebody
Speaker 3: else's email, it's all your it's all very well organized.
Speaker 3: When you long into your Google Drive, it's all well organized.
Speaker 3: The fact that the technology infrastructure exists, the fact that
Speaker 3: the technology infrastructure is now being productized. So a lot
Speaker 3: of your favorite businesses are running on Amazon Web services.
Speaker 3: So whatever Amazon is using to run their back end,
Speaker 3: you can also just subscribe to that service and run
Speaker 3: your back end that way. So my excitement for this,
Speaker 3: especially for our community, is as long as you have
Speaker 3: the ingenuity, like I said, and you have the vision,
Speaker 3: and you have the blueprint, because the blueprint has already
Speaker 3: been laid. Here's how you actually can manage six hundred
Speaker 3: million people. Then there really once again, the only limitation
Speaker 3: is really you. The only limitation is how great of
Speaker 3: a team can you put together? The only limitation is
Speaker 3: how big is your vision? The only limitation is how
Speaker 3: great are the relationships you could put around you to
Speaker 3: believe in your vision. And so, you know, we watched
Speaker 3: Steve Stout go out to Silicon Valley and raise seventy
Speaker 3: million to make the record company of the future. We've
Speaker 3: watched you know, two kids from Brazil who built the
Speaker 3: PayPal of Brazil come and build a credit card company
Speaker 3: called brex turn it into a one point one billion
Speaker 3: business in two years, right, And so yeah, you know teenagers, right.
Speaker 3: And so that's what I'm saying is for us as
Speaker 3: a community, it's important to a understand that the knowledge
Speaker 3: exists and the information is just readily available and it's abundant.
Speaker 3: Number two, though, is the limitation that you place on
Speaker 3: yourself is going to be directly correlated to the kind
Speaker 3: of impact and change that you actually can make in
Speaker 3: the world. And so I believe that it is time
Speaker 3: for us. You know, people say hey, you should dream big.
Speaker 3: I'm saying dream bigger. I'm saying that as long as
Speaker 3: Amazon can be what it has become, then whoever is
Speaker 3: coming next because of the speed of technology, they're going
Speaker 3: to be able to build the Amazon or the Facebook
Speaker 3: or the Google or the Instagram of the future in
Speaker 3: half the time or a quarter of the time. They
Speaker 3: just need to a have a vision that's big enough,
Speaker 3: and b be very intentional around the relations and ships
Speaker 3: that they build around the actual vision, and those people
Speaker 3: have to buy into that vision. And that could be
Speaker 3: you know, your vision for yourself as a music artist,
Speaker 3: your vision for yourself as an entrepreneur, your vision for
Speaker 3: yourself as a software developer, as a medical doctor, as
Speaker 3: an astronaut, whatever your vision is, You've got to put
Speaker 3: great people around you, the best people around you, because
Speaker 3: the best people actually attract one another because they're all
Speaker 3: united in this concept that they want to impact the
Speaker 3: world in the same way that you do, which is
Speaker 3: on the greatest scale.
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the things that you kind
Speaker 4: of preach and I love it. It's like there's a
Speaker 4: bunch of people over here that have the ideas. They
Speaker 4: just need to find the people with the capital to
Speaker 4: help them get out those ideas and relationships is something
Speaker 4: that you're big on, right, And that's what I mean
Speaker 4: pretty much super Phone is based off of that, right,
Speaker 4: And I know you have this dispyramid of relationships. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm interested because in the pyramid you start with obviously
Speaker 4: at the bottom of the social media.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say that social media is almost like
Speaker 3: a virtual representation of walking around the streets of New York. Right,
Speaker 3: So anyone that you see on the streets of New York,
Speaker 3: or riding the trains or however you're walking around New York,
Speaker 3: you actually do have the option of speaking to them, right.
Speaker 3: So you could be in Times Square and you know
Speaker 3: it's ten twenty thousand people in Times Square. As long
Speaker 3: as they're standing there and walking the same street with you,
Speaker 3: you have the option of speaking with them. Whether they're
Speaker 3: going to speak to you is up to them. You
Speaker 3: have the option same on the internet, right, social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,
Speaker 3: whatever social platform you're on. As long as they're there
Speaker 3: and they're sharing, you also have the option of reaching
Speaker 3: out and speaking to them, whether it's through a direct message,
Speaker 3: whether it's in a comment, whether it's in a retweet
Speaker 3: or reply, whatever it is. They obviously have the option
Speaker 3: of whether they would like to respond. The connectivity is there,
Speaker 3: so I would say the expected response. And that's why
Speaker 3: you just said, oh in New York, because there's already
Speaker 3: the building, but it's already built in the expected response time.
Speaker 3: So once you start on social media and you're basically
Speaker 3: and that's basically a virtual representation of what's happening in
Speaker 3: the world. If you're just walking around, the expected response
Speaker 3: time or the expectation for a response is very low.
Speaker 3: Once you can move up and you actually can get
Speaker 3: an email address, that expectation for a response goes up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you went social media. I think you said MS.
Speaker 3: Email, right, so you get from DMS to email. The
Speaker 3: beauty of email as well is the fact that nine
Speaker 3: times out of ten when you get someone's email, you've
Speaker 3: been introduced by someone. So you say, like, just how
Speaker 3: I say, Hey, put me in touch with your guy
Speaker 3: from the R and B and he's doing texting. I'm
Speaker 3: going to get a warm introduction, so it's not just
Speaker 3: me reaching out randomly. Yeah, I'm getting a warm introduction
Speaker 3: on email, right, That can also happen on text. What
Speaker 3: I like about text though, is the fact that text
Speaker 3: allows you to turn up from texting to a phone
Speaker 3: conversation very quickly. And when you have that kind of rapport,
Speaker 3: you're really going to see who wants to work with you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when you can take stock of who actually answers your
Speaker 3: phone call, especially in twenty twenty, who's actually going to
Speaker 3: answer the phone call?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And then that continues up the pyramid. Okay, yo, we
Speaker 3: had a phone call. Hey, look, why don't you pull
Speaker 3: up at this time? You got that in person, and
Speaker 3: then you continue moving up the pyramid from this.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I want to talk about superform, But before that,
Speaker 2: I wanted to go back to that. You said you
Speaker 2: made two million dollars after off that album when you
Speaker 2: took it off, So can you detail, like how did
Speaker 2: you do that? Was it through e merged? Was it
Speaker 2: through live shows? A combination of everything live lit? I've
Speaker 2: made up the majority live shows. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I put my number on Twitter and say hey,
Speaker 3: everybody shoot me a text, there were thirty five thousand
Speaker 3: people that texted in the first response that everyone got.
Speaker 3: And whether you're texting, you know you texted me for
Speaker 3: the first time, or you see any of these other celebs.
Speaker 3: I mean they're now six seven years later, everybody finally
Speaker 3: caught on.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: The first response is it needs to be automated right
Speaker 3: for you to be able to manage the scale, And
Speaker 3: that first response is always thanks for texting. I would
Speaker 3: love to know who you are, so please, you know,
Speaker 3: put your information in my phone right because I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna type everybody's information. So here's a form you can
Speaker 3: you can actually put your information in my phone so
Speaker 3: I know who's even texting me at that point. The
Speaker 3: difference I would say between my twenty thirteen campaign and
Speaker 3: the campaigns that I'm seeing now is that there was
Speaker 3: a very specific intent captured at the initiation of the conversation.
Speaker 3: So I didn't just say, hey, here's my number, shoot
Speaker 3: me a text.
Speaker 4: What's up.
Speaker 3: I said, look, shoot me a text to get my
Speaker 3: new album. So they shot me a text. I already
Speaker 3: know the reason they're texting is to give new product.
Speaker 3: What's your information? Once I have the information, here's the
Speaker 3: link to get the album. Once that intent is captured,
Speaker 3: then you have an incredibly high conversion rate, so one
Speaker 3: out of every two about seventeen thousand people actually bought
Speaker 3: that record. They bought it for ten dollars. That's one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy thousand, right. The difference though, is that
Speaker 3: I now have a rolodex, a record, a ledger of
Speaker 3: every single person that's willing to actually spend money with
Speaker 3: me directly. So now not only do you I have names,
Speaker 3: not only do you have emails, not only to have
Speaker 3: telephone numbers, I have city and state and country information.
Speaker 3: So now I'm going on tour.
Speaker 4: Got the real goal?
Speaker 3: You going on tour. People go to concerts because it
Speaker 3: is a social experience. So yeah, you might go to
Speaker 3: the concert. If none of your friends want to go,
Speaker 3: you still figure out a where you go by yourself.
Speaker 3: But you're still in a room with a bunch of people.
Speaker 3: You guys are connected by the fact that you appreciate
Speaker 3: the artist that's on stage. For me, in that situation,
Speaker 3: even though only seventeen thousand people in my phone actually
Speaker 3: bought my record, they all brought a friend or two
Speaker 3: or three or five to the concerts. When I announced them,
Speaker 3: we sold forty thousand tickets sixty euros a ticket.
Speaker 4: You could do the math. That's like five albums right there.
Speaker 3: You know, and so it's really just and like I said,
Speaker 3: you know, there's obviously ancillary income that happens from that.
Speaker 3: There's publishing revenue and merchandise, et cetera. For me, you know,
Speaker 3: I really prefer digital goods because you know, there's a
Speaker 3: cost of goods. You know, when you have merchandise, and
Speaker 3: there's a cost of inventory, there's a cost of shipping.
Speaker 3: So digital goods for me have always been my preference
Speaker 3: just because they have unlimited scale and as long as
Speaker 3: you're delivering value, hopefully your content is gonna be ever green.
Speaker 3: And so that's why I always I always remind an
Speaker 3: artist that even though you may feel like your music
Speaker 3: is outdated to you, it's actually brand new for the
Speaker 3: person who's hearing it for the first time. And the
Speaker 3: reality is that even if you went platinum, there is
Speaker 3: still a large number of people around the world who
Speaker 3: have yet to have even heard your record one time.
Speaker 3: So you have the ability in music, which is always
Speaker 3: why I say, look, just create the best music you
Speaker 3: possibly can, because great music is ever green, you know.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I'm doing some real estate development
Speaker 3: and investments in and so you know, sometimes you'll walk
Speaker 3: into some of the whether it's the mom and pop
Speaker 3: stores or just the bodegas or wherever, and they'll be
Speaker 3: playing some great, you know, old school music. I've never
Speaker 3: heard the record before. I'm putting my shazama up because
Speaker 3: for me, it's still that experience of discovering that music
Speaker 3: for the first time. It's thirty forty years old.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I love what you said as far as like, how
Speaker 2: many people don't know you? Because that happened, I realized that,
Speaker 2: like now with the podcast has become very popular, especially
Speaker 2: in our community, and we went to an event curl Fest.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard of it, but yeah,
Speaker 2: one of our guests on the podcast, a friend of all,
Speaker 2: she does it. So we had curl Fest this year
Speaker 2: and it's like twenty thousand women and not a lot
Speaker 2: of men, and like at least probably like twenty twenty
Speaker 2: people came up to us like, yeah, we love your podcast.
Speaker 2: So at first, like this is dope, Like we feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, we made it. But then I'm thinking twenty
Speaker 2: people recognized us, which is dope, But there's twenty thousand
Speaker 2: people here, Like how many people? We still got so
Speaker 2: much more to penetrate.
Speaker 4: Day I tell them every day, Like my life is
Speaker 4: so much duality. Like I go to work, most of
Speaker 4: my co workers don't even know I do a podcast.
Speaker 4: When I walk down the street, most people don't even
Speaker 4: know I'm a teacher. But like there are rare cads,
Speaker 4: like we're in Houston and somebody will say, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: I love your podcast. It's like, this is cool, but
Speaker 4: now we got so much concenetration.
Speaker 2: You cannot get thinking that you like made it because yeah,
Speaker 2: there's always a bunch of people that don't have no clue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also just to be just to keep it
Speaker 3: one hundred, you still can be ridiculously wealthy just from
Speaker 3: a niche audience. You know, I would say that you know,
Speaker 3: they're they're there exist a number of gen zers that
Speaker 3: may not even know who Oprah is.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the fact.
Speaker 3: The audience though that she's created, that's her niche audience,
Speaker 3: and that's a that's a loyal audience. And that audience
Speaker 3: is not just limited to the viewers, it's also limited
Speaker 3: to the television executives that love her content and want
Speaker 3: to syndicate it. Right, And so I think that you know,
Speaker 3: the I would say the conundrum of scale, or the dilemma,
Speaker 3: if you will, of scale is unless you really have
Speaker 3: the technological infrastructure to have a direct relationship with each
Speaker 3: one of your listeners at scale, you're better off having
Speaker 3: a manageable, manageable audience in terms of size, so that
Speaker 3: you can actually have a depth of a relationship with
Speaker 3: those folks. I have folks, you know. You look at
Speaker 3: my socials, my socials compared to the biggest stars or
Speaker 3: influencers on Instagram. I'm sitting at three hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: thousand followers.
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 3: In my core though, I have folks that have spent
Speaker 3: four or five, six, seven, ten thousand dollars with me,
Speaker 3: and I know every dollar they spent, I know the
Speaker 3: products they like, et cetera. And so you know that
Speaker 3: depth of relationship on it. And that's sort of in
Speaker 3: any than any vertical. In any circumstance, the depth of
Speaker 3: relationship is always going to yield I would say, just
Speaker 3: a greater reward in general.
Speaker 4: Sometimes less is more.
Speaker 2: My graduates from my school being forced bad drop drop
Speaker 2: drop bad drop b drop.
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