Women sometimes overlook.
the mean that have it going on, but are very quiet about it. Like most women that are in my space will look at the more flashier person on the internet. And that was me at one point in time. In 2020, my marketing agency did $60 million. I opened a co-working space in the middle. Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. There's plenty of things that you've bought from a beautiful website and had no followers, right? Yes, for sure. And there's plenty of things that were highly marketed. And when you got to the website, you were like,
Something is off. Even people's ads around their courses, you see all the ads and when you get to the landing page, you're like, a lot of times we need someone that is shining a light on us when we don't feel like
We have that light, right? A lot of times we are walking around with the light inside of us, but we're scared. We're like, oh, I don't want to be too boastful. You need someone to call somebody and say, hey, why he not on this stage? Why he not doing this? You don't want to call them and do that.
The results that we're trying to get is a number one podcast. So in order for us to be a number one podcast, we want to look at your competitors and see what they're doing and then make a framework or a body of work that can exist on the levels in which your competitors are killing you that.
Welcome to another edition of the social proof podcast. We got more social proof here, man. My dog, somebody ought to know forever. And you've been winning since I've known you though. You've been up a long time. That is such an amazing statement. That is not true.
Skittles. When I met you, you was popping. And you had your cupcake mafia brand was going crazy. Cupcake mafia store. And then I saw you turn the store upstairs into like a content creation photo shoot area type joint.
And then you went on to do some amazing things with some amazingly talented people in the management space. And then you open up your own content creation studio, 20,000 square feet. And then you're married to another rich man, which we thought for a long time that he was using your money.
No, no. First of all, you can't think the caliber of the woman that I am would ever continuously be in a relationship with a man and allow him to be a man like Oprah. God's statement. You don't know. Not that's not that step many have nothing going on, but Oprah.
So the thing, wait, wait, wait, cause we got to dive into this, right? Because that was the narrative with me and my husband for so long because he never had Instagram and he's quiet, right? So honestly, I work with a client right now who's very popular on the internet, but her husband is in the oil industry. So he doesn't have an Instagram. He doesn't care about posting, but trust in their house is 30,000 square feet. So to me, I think,
I want to change that perception. I know what he's doing. I know what he do. But I'm saying for a while, everybody see it. Oh, this guy, I guess he's in clothes and then you got Skittles. So skit, this is the narrative. Of course. I know. So is all the way up because he's giving me a lot of money. Okay. We've done business ventures together and it's never like a, Hey, give me a couple of days. It's like, check your account. I'm like, Hey,
And that's how that's a good portion of our relationship in the beginning. Like I had a clothing brand and I was growing it and scaling it. And the person that I knew after my first divorce, the person that I knew that I wanted to be with long term would need to match my hustle, my drive and the ability to
Sometimes fun my dreams when I'm down and me have the ability to fund his dreams if he was down as well. Now we've been together 10 years. He's never been down. But I mean, never, never, so and never been down because though it's just a quiet hustler like he I was getting on him the other day.
Because I was like, babe, you do so much that I don't I don't feel a part of like my husband is so big on life insurance legacy planning. All of our kids got multi million dollar policies. I don't know. I'm like, okay, great. I see every week a new state farm person coming jab me. I'm like, is
I need to put this on public record. But I'm like, you know, he's, he's really big on the investing side and just really knowing where every single dollar goes in your business and how to triple it where I feel like I've always been on the side of working really, really hard. And so works very, very smart. Like those can be a one man being and like,
make millions of dollars. Meanwhile, my payroll is like six figures. So, and it's always been how it's been. But the reason why I think it's very important is that women sometimes overlook the men that have it going on, but are very quiet about it. Like most women that are in my space will look at the more flashier person on the internet. And that was me at one point in time when I'm as though he's like, oh, I haven't got no Instagram, but I'm going to do, I'm taking my mom to Dubai. I'm like, cat, like,
Because if you can't see another another another here you go and then like he comes back shows me all these pictures and y'all the pictures I'm like why are you imposing on Instagram? Who you trying to hide from? He's like my wife ain't on Instagram. I don't care about that So it was a big transition to me also, which you don't know day I'm always coming on your podcast give you all the secrets when I met so I
I felt like I was in a very pivotal place in my life. Like I had, you know, my own apartment, my car, like I had everything. And so had 10 retail stores, but was living with his mother. Was living with his mom. So I'm like, hold on. Do you got it like that for real? Like, are you stable? He's like, I'm good. I got 10 retail stores. I got employees crazy, like come to South Carolina and see what I got going on. But it was that stability piece that was like,
but you ain't got no Bentley or you ain't got no this. Is it really real? Until I needed to ship a Jimmy Jaz order that was like $50,000 and I called him and I was like, hey, I'm not gonna be able to spend so much time on the phone with you and dating you this week. I got a hustle. He's like, what you mean? I'm like, I'm coming down there this weekend, but I'm not gonna be able to talk to you that week cause I have to be able to hustle up this money to be able to ship this PO. And he was like, okay.
Leaving that weekend, I was getting in my car to go back. He came to the car and was like, here's the money for the PO. When you get it, just give it back to me, it's no problem. But I can't miss a day when I was talking to you. So it's like, yeah. When we get married. Are we married? Like, yeah. So it was that moment when I really knew like, not only did he have my back, but the capacity of the men that he had the potential to truly be.
Yeah. So we'd be sleeping. Ladies, we'd be sleeping. And y'all be like, how you get this out? Oh, I got him, but he was living at his mom's house. And I wasn't on that good either. He stuck with me on an air bed for six months, you know, while I rebuilt my brand and rebuilt my business. So I think when you are preparing that relationship, there has to be some give and take.
Yeah, for sure. If y'all know Zodagul, y'all know Zodagul, right? Yeah. But as that Skittles husband, yeah, but that obviously, you know, perception is everything, right? But everybody, now I didn't care much, but, and I met Zod, I think we met in Vegas at like a trade show. Yeah. I know he's like, when all the cars, I knew he was good, but the aesthetic was, who's this guy? Skittles is Skittles, Skittles is late.
And that was that was the perception, but that's actually who these ladies need to be going after the person who got it that ain't showing it. Cause a lot of times the people that are showing it are showing it to be extra because of some sort of insecurity that behind the scenes, no one can find out that I'm in financial trouble.
That's real. And one thing that I had to realize is like, one thing that I absolutely love about the man that I married is he does not care. Like he truly does not care what is going, like he doesn't care about the flashy things or having the cars or looking the certain way. You know, though, he's showing up and slides, he's showing like he don't care. He doesn't care to be at all the events and the who's who and for people to know him, like he cares about impact over income all day. And even with our family,
A lot of times I've had to adjust me as a person to be the wife that I know that he needs and deserves because I'm a worker. I'll stay at work all day. And I'm like, OK, when I get home, I'm good. I do this. I do that. But he's like, nah, we're taking our whole family. I don't care about that. I don't care about that event. Tell them if the whole family can't come, you can't speak. I'm like,
Like it's a big, it's a huge event. He's like, yeah, and they should respect that you're a mom. So it's a lot of things that he pushed into me, like morally, that he's like, that money is gonna come and go. Remember we dated seven years ago and you were on an air bed figuring it out. And those people that were, oh, loved you and cared about you and your Instagram followers, they didn't care about you, then they weren't pouring into you then. So don't forget about the people that care about you, whether you got it or not.
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Lots of times, lots of times. I mean, obviously everybody knows an airbag story where I built Cupcake Mafia up and this is kind of a narrative that I want to speak more publicly about is because
We are building our businesses and we consider them our babies, right? And you can never think to give your baby to somebody else and let them do whatever they want with it. Like you have children, you would never allow a random stranger to just watch your kids, right? But now that I know what I know now,
My business is not my baby. It's a business. And that's it. And that's my ties to it as well. Do I want it to bring impact? Absolutely. Do I want it to bring income? Absolutely. But it is a business, not a baby. Right? And so when I built Cupcake Mafia up, I was like, this is my baby. Oh my God. I felt like my whole entire being.
results it around the success of this business. So when I partnered with those investors and I ended up getting fired from my company, I also felt like my entire being failed. I felt like Mary or Skittles, the person had completely failed as well. And it's like you didn't fail. You still have so many other skills that went on to birth so many other businesses, but it was the mind
process, right? It was a process of figuring out in my mind if I did it before I can do it again. And that one failure was not the trajectory of my entire life. So when I was on that air bed, I was like, I'm about to go work a job. Like I literally hired someone to build me a resume. I thought that what I deal with cupcake mafia was just a anomaly. I thought it could not ever happen again. And it wasn't until one of my friends was like, girl, you built a million dollar business to it again. And I'm like,
You're right. The same things that was inside of me to build that business is the same things that's inside of me now. And now I have five mopsie million dollar businesses that were built on that air bed. So I literally, when I chose to not give up on myself, like I felt like the business had gave up on me.
That's when my life really started. Also, I feel like you will really build the biggest glow for your life in the darkest times, because you will start to weigh out who's really around you, who really got your bag, who you've been pouring into, and now your cup is empty. You're like, hey.
Where y'all at, right? It'll really show you what you're capable of. And in that moment, I created the icing agency. I created Girl Mop. I built my blueprint for the bakery co-working space after joining another co-working space and not really feeling welcome. I started management. I opened a factory in China.
It was, it was, I have to do everything. Like, something has to stick. I have a family that is depending on me, and I can't let that one failure that I went through be my entire trajectory of my life. So I have to change that narrative. Like, that was the lowest time of my life. But since then, opening a co-working space in a pandemic, that ain't easy. Yeah. I would scam twice over half a million dollars. You're scammed? Yes, like, working with contractors. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've been there yep Come pay the money never see them again. So you know for me Just understanding like if I can make it through that like if I can make it through Surviving on the airbed for six months trying to fight for your brand back. I can make it do anything So one thing I think is cool you manage
You still manage people? I don't manage people. I manage their brands. So I have a marketing and branding company. It is a difference. So being a manager, you are managing every aspect of their life, every aspect. They're personal, they're emotional, they're public, they're the marketing who they are. You're basically, you have Play-Doh in your hands and you have to construct them into what you want them to look like, sound like, be
It is a lot. Whereas managing a brand is only managing the branding or marketing and the getting the results from doing both of those things. So I'm not necessarily managing people. I'm managing their brands. First of all, I need help, period.
How would you help me? Manage, would you manage me or manage my brand? I would manage your brand. So for example. I don't need personal support that a manager would have to do. Exactly. So that's why you need brand management. Brand management is able to have an outside.
be able to look at your brand from outside persona and tell you what you need to change. Like I can look at your page right now and I can tell you everything that you need to change. I feel like people identify David Shans with social proof podcast and they don't identify David Shans for David Shans. And you were already a person like you had books, you had best-selling books, you went from
Working at it the cheesecake factor and teaching people how to build a t-shirt business That's people don't even identify you with that story anymore. They just identify you as a Podcaster that attaches your audience to other people's story, but what about your individual story? Isn't that a good narrative if that was my goal? I mean because that's my goal really to keep people like singularly focused on one objective So I mean I've never been
I'm not a big self-promotion person, but what do you think? Do you think that is a good idea? Because I don't think it's a good idea because ultimately in the end go, right? Like obviously if you were thinking about your five year, 10 year plan, are you planning on being 60 and having your podcast, right? Like are you planning on Howard starting this thing or, you know, whoever has the longest running show that is senior level?
Are you planning on being that person, right? If not, if you're planning on being a person where you can go and speak at Howard about what you've done and how you've overcame working at a cheesecake factory to building a T-shirt line, doing seven figures, and then starting a podcast and building a university around podcasting and all of these things, you have to detach David the person from the podcast. And how I do that?
You do that by personal branding, right? So when you think of P Diddy, you don't think of his record label. You would book Diddy. You think of Diddy. You think of Diddy. For a show. You're definitely not thinking about Denny Kane making the band. And all of the other people. Day 26, you're not thinking about all the people that Diddy has built. You're not thinking about all the products that Diddy is a tattoo. When we think of Beyonce, we don't think of Darianne. We don't think of Ivy Park.
True. Not even Destiny's Show. We don't think of Destiny's Show because they do so good of being a personal brand and letting their businesses live on their own. So I need to step my personal brand again. Yes. How much you charge? How much are you going to charge? I charge a little bit. About.
around about like, I mean, okay, let me ask you, you probably charge people a number, right? But would you charge a percentage of how much you can make me make? Not me make, why not?
Because one, I have 30 employees that get paid every single week. And I offer a done for you service. So my agency is for people that literally want to do nothing. They're like, I have this idea. I have no idea how to bring it to life. And I don't have the people to attach to it that can make it larger than life.
So you bring me your idea. You say, hey, I have this water. It's an amazing company. I have a great name, but my packaging sucks. I don't have any influencers. I don't have a website. We do everything for you. Not only do we redo your packaging, we do your website. We do all of your branding, all of your reels, all of your content to create that lane for you. We attach influencers to this brand so we can get
Everybody to be like, oh my god, this water. Maybe it was beautiful, blah, blah, blah. We attach influencers to your brand, which is automatically bringing your product into an audience of people that would have never known about it before, right? And you don't touch, you don't move a finger.
You don't move a finger. So there's three different ways that you work with my agency. Alacart, which is people that pay 5K and less premium, which is people that pay 5 to 15K. I was just about to have you text in here how much it's going to be. Yeah, no, I'm going to tell you. So hold on. I was at five and under is Alacart. Alacart. So.
How we describe it in my office is like, y'all know the video like, let me hold you like that. So, Alacar is like this, we got you, but it's not as hands on. What will I get? You can get a logo, you can get a website, you can get things that could be
one offs and we can get your feedback virtually. So you're not talking to anyone. You're not allowing our brains to work with your brain to make something bigger. You're basically submitting a form telling us what you want and we deliver it to you at the highest capacity of what you ever would have got online. So that's our Alucard Division, right? Our premium division is a little bit of it.
I frame your division a little bit closer because now you're working directly with my team and all of my team has been trained by me to know exactly what I will allow and would not allow into the marketplace, right? You also get me to review everything and I have one to two calls with my premium clients, right?
And you get like a move where you know exactly what you're getting along your journey. There's no blindness. Like you get a visual move where you know when you come to the shoot. This is what you're going to look like. This is how you going to pose. These are the reals we're going to create. This is what your social media will look like in 30 days. We do all of that.
And then the elite is white glove service. Our clients literally show up one day a month. We do all of their branding. So imagine if you had 30 reels created in one day and your audience never knew that it was created on the same day and captions and everything set up for you. It's like.
A lot of times people can't grow their personal brands because you're in the personal brand, right? You can't see the picture when you're in it. So you need someone to tell you like Dave, I honestly think if your goal is to be on Bloomberg or your goal is to be on Forbes, I think some of your segments you should dress up a little bit or you should articulate yourself in this way or I think we should take social proof and go speak at more colleges so you can start to get that college audience that will book you as David Chance to teach
whatever it is that you're teaching to colleges. So you need someone to be able to look at you and say, you know what? You're doing a great job, but you could be doing more. And this is what you do to get there. You do the work. Here's what I want. I need somebody to go get me some money. OK.
go get me a speaking gig, go get me. They come in like, K, every, you know, a few times a month people reach out, like, y'all want to pay for this. And it won't be too low. I'm not, I'm not leaving my heart. I think it's all about personal branding, right? And when you think about it,
your personal brand dictates every move that you want to make. If you are not putting yourself out there as the person that wants more speaking engagements, you're not gonna get them. What I see on your brand is that you care about social group podcast. I love it. So guess what you get, a bunch of people in your DMs that wanna be on your podcast. You've never once articulated it. Did y'all tell her that?
Y'all talking with some of these? No, of course not. I have a brand strategy. I can tell you, I can read most clients' mind and see what they're going through even before they articulated to me because I can see what your audience is perceiving about you that you're not seeing. Not one time have you ever went on Instagram and articulated and put a speaker's reel together and articulated, hey, I'm now open for more speaking engagements. Let me know.
Let me know where should I speak at, right? You just use the people that you're connected to and you say, you know what? Why they not booking me?
They booking you because we feel like you sit on this couch all day and do podcast. And you don't got time to be on stage with us, right? So when you change, that was me as well with my personal brand last year. I honestly felt like, okay, I've done this. In 2020, my marketing agency did $60 million. I opened a co-working space in the middle. Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. First off.
You said your marketing agency did $16 million. Correct. The I think need of it. Yes. The one of you was just talking about the five of the 10s in a, of course, a little left behind you down. Yes. 16 million. Yes.
Just from the, okay, there gotta be some other money in there, because you'd have to be helping every brand in the world. No, you don't. You thought a picture of people problem. No, but I'm saying if, okay, so I pay you, I pay you, let's say a premium client. What's the most, how much is that? Like, how much is that? How much is it? If I'm a premium client. 500,000. I mean, okay, let me just calm down. Okay.
Okay, first of all, Elise, right? We're talking about elite. We're talking about, I mean, you guys can go on my Instagram and look at the clients. I'm not a big name dropper. Like I hate dropping like that. Can you give me one client that did the 500?
No, I'm like a- Or not to define your budget. Okay, I can tell you the money clients that I've worked with, right? Yes. And their budgets, I don't want you to identify them with, they paid me $500,000, but just know that they received white glove service, no matter what they paid, but they were a lead client. Okay. Grant Cardone, Tamar Braxton, Candy Burris, I've worked Coca-Cola, Sprite, Monster headphones. They paid $500,000.
mindset for show. Okay. So, okay. That's another reason why I don't like to publicize all of the clients that I work with is because I kind of want them to, I want their audience to believe that it's their genius. Yeah.
I don't want to be. I'm not sure. You know, like how they were like, oh, all right, did he gonna be on your records? Like, I don't want to run my agency like that. I want people to know that they can trust me and come to me and I be the brains for their entire operation without saying, oh, yeah, I did this. I told them what to say. I told them how to what to look like. I told them like, but that's what my agency is doing. So you told Grant Cardona where his hat backwards? Was that you? I didn't. I did not.
Okay. No, we did lifestyle marketing for Grant. Okay. So we did a lot, a lot of lifestyle marketing for Grant. One of the highest performing reels we created on his page. So we did a lot of. First off, I love love love Grant. Grant, some more interview we did. We only did one. Let me just still be kind of viral and take talk.
I love Grant. I love his wife Elena. That is how I started working with them through Elena. And I just think that sometimes when you have employees, let me tell y'all this where everybody is watching. When you have employees, every single note that they get, it alters their perception and creativity.
So if you tell your employee, no, no, I don't like this graphic, no, I don't like the way, oh, I'm not gonna pose like that, or I don't wanna sit like that. In their mind, they are thinking, oh, well, I don't wanna give him other suggestions because he's not gonna like it, right? Having a brand strategist come in, you hired me to tell you what you're doing wrong. So I don't care if you like it or not, I'm gonna tell you what you want, what you don't wanna hear to be able to get the results that you actually want.
So I'm going to tell you, no, you need a dress up. Yeah, everybody told you you go wear a T-shirt. You don't need to wear a T-shirt. If you're trying to get here, the people that are going to take you serious are going to take you serious in this way. So you have to formulate your brand to be a little bit different to be taken serious by those people. Got it. Hey, y'all not afraid to bring me ideas, right? They're not going to say that. Hey, are you? It's real quiet in here. Are you?
Do I, no, are you sure you can tell me? No. But would you tell him that if you didn't like when he worded that today and you think you should dress up? Would you tell me that? Would you tell me? Raise you tell me. Yeah, if I was like, if I was swagulous today, it was just, yeah, you tell me.
I know. Yeah, okay. Would you tell me if I was, no? Why? Why wouldn't they tell me? I mean, I'm not like a... Because it doesn't, it doesn't, one that could feel like it could affect your confidence. Also, it could... No, I just roast you right. That's not so good for you.
They also could feel like it may affect your confidence in them. Like your confidence in them to, okay, now I wear this button up and now all my clients, all my fans are roasting me and they're like, oh, you wearing a button up now? So now you may lack confidence in them to believe what they told you was actually good. You don't think I need to wear a button up though, right? That's not what you're hitting at. I mean, I definitely think you could, I think you could, yeah.
For sure. I want a regular? I mean, I honestly think where I see Dave being in the future commands a different aura than what you currently have. This is a coaching session. A little bit. Chelsea, can you invoice it? No, but I'm saying, so let me ask this. Is there someone that you think that is going to that higher level that needs to dress the way I dress?
I mean, honestly, I feel like when you look at EYL and what they've been able to do and you look at their first episode versus where they're currently at and where they're currently going, they have shifted the narrative around what EYL is and they showed up.
they showed up looking the part you know I just think that where you want to be in five years should start now like my personal rebrand honestly I used to be
so busy focus on making sure all of my businesses and my brands were successful making sure grandma was successful making sure the icing agency was successful and I have multiple businesses so people always looked at me as we don't really know what Skittles does but we should we know that she do a lot right and no and depending on who knew me
Every narrative was different. You would say something different. Someone else would say something different about me. Right now, I want people to know that I'm building the next we work for female entrepreneurs. Like, I'm building the next we work, but make it pink. I need everybody to know that. I don't want them to know. I have agency, I have grandma, I have this, I have that.
Those brands already exist on their own. They're already doing great on their own. I have already have a team built around those brands, right? So when you go to my page, I can't just give hex or hear, share this content or da, da, da, da. Because I know that that's not what Forbes is looking for. I know that's not what Bloomberg is looking for. I know that's not where I'm, what Oprah, Oprah is not trying to come to my page and see me selling the ebook.
I'm sorry. You're talking good. She just isn't, you know? So, and not shading those that sell e-books because I have tons of them, right? But it lives on the business page that that brand is around. It lives on GirlMob. It lives, my marketing services live on the ISA agency. You don't need to come to my page and say, you need a logo, three steps on how to get your load. You don't need that, like my brand. You're not going to Jeff Bezos page to find out how Amazon shipping is working.
You're not going to Oprah's page to figure out what article she's writing next. Like, where do you see yourself being 10 years from now?
It's so good. Also, ladies, as watching this, it also goes back to, who do you see yourself being 10 years from now? And are you dating that person that you see yourself being with in 10 years? Like, my relationship now is solely based on who I knew I was gonna become. Like, I knew our first date with me as though it was an interview. Are you and that? How many kids do you want?
What are you? What's your plans? You live in South Carolina. Are you moving Atlanta? It wasn't aggressive. Of course, I was like, okay. So what you consider moving to Atlanta? How many kids do you want? Because I already knew that I didn't want more than two kids, right? So if he was to say, oh, I want four kids. I want a big family. I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah, we're not even compatible right now.
So I already know the trajectory of my life. We're not gonna align. And so many people are listening to this podcast right now and they wonder why am I not where I want to be because you're not aligned with the person that is going in the car with you. So you trying to go left, you trying to go right. I already knew from day one, we were both going left together. And when it's time to go right, we both going right together. So I think when it comes to me, I'm thinking so far ahead.
I'm thinking so far ahead. I'm thinking, where is the bakery icing agency? Girl, my gonna be in five years. My goal is to sell all of my businesses, right? And if I'm thinking about selling all of my businesses and living my best life and my grandchildren living off of the businesses that I've built and struggled with for 15 years,
I need to personally detach from those businesses so that when the business sells, I don't sell. Okay, before I say what I'm about to say. Wait, quick question. Do you think that social proof in teen years could be successful without you? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Who would take
Well, we have like five, six shows now. Okay. So as a network, that guy sold his podcast network for like 300 million. So absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. I think that that's important for you to start training your audience to feel that way as well.
It is very important for every small business that is listening to train our audience and our employees to work without us. Get used to coming in the bakery and not seeing me. Like no one ever comes to the bakery and is like, I'm going to co-work with Skittles today. I'll be here every day. No one thinks that. No one thinks that. I love it though.
I'll be here every donut. I'm here. Oh, I live here. Yeah. And that's cool. And that's cool. And that's cool. And that's cool. And that's me too. And that was me, really? It's cool. And so you realize, like, dang.
I miss it moments that I could really be living with my family. I miss it moments that while my daughter came home with a whole speech and she knew it and I wasn't a part of her learning that, you know? I think that it's very important that we run businesses but not let the business run us.
for sure. But I think for my particular situation, I enjoy it. And I would sacrifice, I guess, long-term system stuff for me doing what I like to do right now. It's not like I have to. Sometimes I'm here and we chopping it up. We talking about what we're going to talk about. But I think for the space that I'm in right now,
I love, I love building. You know what I mean? I love being in the mix. And I don't have like my, like on Thursdays, typically I take my daughter to gymnastics. It's not like I have to be somewhere at certain time. But I think also it's going to depend on obviously what your goal is. So I wasn't thinking
Do I, am I doing some things that will prevent me from making 600 million later? I wasn't really thinking about that. I gotta ask you another question too, that something to me and Donnie were discussing. You think I'm too accessible? Yes, certainly. Accessibility brings your value down. I'll be around too.
Accessibility brings our value down. I'll be a soul in the mix. Think about, I really hate saying names, but think about Beyonce. Think about Oprah. Think about Tyler Perry living in Atlanta, right? But you never see him. So if he does an event today and announced it right now on his Instagram, would you go? Of course. But if you've seen him every day this week, would you go? No.
So I wouldn't be, I probably would go, but I wouldn't be as excited or if I had some other stuff to go on, I'd be like, Oh, I'll see you tomorrow. Exactly. And I think that again, how we run our businesses nowadays dictates the
cult following that you're ultimately going to build. And it dictates how much people are going to pay you. How much would you pay somebody that you see every day versus somebody that you never see? And you dream to be in that room. Beyonce did not care that our financial crisis when she listed her renaissance tickets.
I questioned myself and I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. I was like, babe. This might be a gift. You get what I'm saying? But she didn't care because she knows that the people that are going to be in that room are going to figure it out. You either see me in Atlanta or you've never seen me. I think that we've built our businesses to feel like accessibility means community and it doesn't.
We think that accessibility means community. Yes, you think having a show up every day, having to hug people, having to know their kids' birthdays. And listen, you think Jeff Bezos will know all his hundreds of thousands of drivers, but they still at your door all Sunday.
On Easter, I got packages. They were still there. That man don't know that person name, but that person is attached to the core values and the mission of Amazon. And that person has attached who he, his personal goals to his professional goals, which is why he shows up on Sunday as nothing to do with Jeff Bezos. What if you really, really like the engagement? I love it.
You know what I mean? So waking up in the morning, jumping on his morning meetup call, it does more for me than it does for them that I get a chance to speak and teach and I get to see all these people and I'm seeing people grow. What if you like it?
What is the end goal? Because it's cool when you like it, but what about when you don't? What about when there is issues at home and you like, let me pull myself out of bed.
put this craft myself up into this person that has to run the morning need up. And I don't even feel like meeting up with myself for real. What about those days? What about those months? What about those years when your daughter's like, no, daddy, it's summer break. I want to be on vacation. I want to do this. I want to do that. What about those days? I think for me, my daughter is five years old.
She's been to 15 countries and she's been on 500 flights. Dang. And I'm not saying that as a. This message is sponsored by green light. So we have a new school year approaching and I can't believe I have a ninth grader on my hands, which she's a freshman at high school and I'm a little concerned about the things they teach in public school, which is why I'm talking about this green light program because as a parent, you want the new school year.
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Gymnastics, running my business. It's a lot of stuff I gotta think about, man, but I'm not about to overthink my water choices. I go with smart water, okay? Life is full of choices. Smart water is the simple one. Visit drinksmartwater.com to learn more. Both will think. Sometimes as a mom, I question myself on, is this right for her?
Does she want, like, literally, it's funny, this whole week, instead of my daughter saying, oh my, are we going to school? She literally wake up. I'm like, good morning, baby. Good morning, we going to the airport? I'm like, oh, we know. We're going to school. We not going to the airport. I'm like, no. And it starts to challenge me because now her school is like, oh, y'all going somewhere this weekend? Yeah. I'm like,
But it makes me think, like, is that what she wants to do as her five-year-old self? Or does she want to be at a park? Does she want to say, Mama, are we going to the park? Most five-year-olds are saying, Mama, are we going to the park? They're not saying, Mama, we're going to the airport. They don't know about CSA. They don't know about taking all the laptops and iPads out of your bag, you know? So I think when I think about how my life is and who it impacts,
I want to live for not only myself, but the people that it impacts as well, which is my husband, which is my children. So when you think about that 10 years, your wife probably makes a lot of sacrifices from you being here.
Your wife probably makes a lot of sacrifices from you running your business. Zone makes a lot of sacrifices for me being in my day to day, which is why I heard a VP, which is why I had an operations manager, because I don't want, it's cool. We've been doing this 10 years, but what about the day? I've in 10 years, Dave, there's never been a day when my husband has called me and said, babe, let's go to lunch during a work week and I went.
The tears, unless we're on vacation or unless we planned around that. And when I see him at brunch with y'all, I'll be like, oh, you went to a brunch with me. Oh, I see you at brunch. He didn't bring me nothing or it. But there hasn't been a day. But trust me, do you not think that he wants his wife to be like, babe, we going to lunch. Babe, we going to greet. Babe, we out. He's answering his lifestyle based upon my own dreams.
So there's some sacrifices that he's making as well. I have to be as knowing my 10 year plan. So maybe this is not where you are right now, but in 10 years, would your wife be tired? In 10 years, would your daughter be like, okay, daddy, I'm sitting in the record podcast. I know how to work the mic, the lighting, but I really want to be at the park, right? So as we grow and really understand where we want to see ourselves in 10 years,
Like, you need to live and build around that. I think, yeah, I 100% think you're correct. In my particular situation, it's not like I have to, right? Everybody knows today it's supposed to do and we do well. But it's not like a, some people do run their business like a job. So when I was working at the kiosk in the mall,
I had to be there. Like I'm talking about all day. If somebody called out, I got to be there. It just is what it is, right? But I think there's an element of what fulfills me as people. And I don't know if I want to sacrifice
The fulfillment of looking into one's eyes, they have a question and I can answer it and they go out and say, yo, the thing that had been plaguing me for the last six months, you gave me the answer. I don't know if I want to sacrifice those feelings for my 10 year plan.
And I just want to be clear, like, I don't sacrifice that, right? I still have, girl, mom, a digital community of thousands of women that pay $50 a month that I show up to, right? We have a lot of class every single week. It's not with me. It's a thousands. Thousands that pay 50. Yeah.
You get into this money Skittles, you hear me? You get to this money. Okay, go ahead. I didn't be catched a little, little flexes that are really a flex, but they just come out and you're like, hey. That was a win, man. We also have the selfie museum attached to that. That is amazing. We service over 300 people a weekend. So all of those businesses, again, are built to live without me. But when I show up,
It's greater, right? I want the business to be great, but when I show up, it's greater. I think that we are building our businesses to only be greater when we're involved. And when we step away, when we're having a challenging day, they're like, oh.
We might as well cancel this membership. They ain't been on that. You might as well cancel this, right? Girl, my ass has been running five years, five years. And I need to show up. My mandatory time is once a month. But how I show up six times a month, seven times a month, three times a month, depending on how it is. But when I show up, I'm gonna get them so much value. They're gonna be like, oh, this $50.
You might as already, I might as already paid for a year, paid for a lifetime membership. Because when I show up, I'm going to give so much value. Another thing is, it's Charlie's cheesesteaks, right? You know in the mall, where they give you the little sandwich? What if they gave you a six inch as a sample? Would you buy it? Of course not. You wouldn't buy the full, right? Why? Yeah, whole joint.
A lot of times, we're showing up to our businesses, giving our audience the full joint over and over and over again. They haven't even processed what they consumed.
And you giving them more. And you giving them more. And you wonder why they canceled. They're canceling because they mine. It still stuck from three days ago on the information that you gave them. And you telling them, oh, the homework that we gave you three days ago, you ain't doing it. But no, you gave me homework yesterday. And I'm a mom. And I'm a wife. And I already got all this information. Haven't been able to get results from this information. You're giving me new information. Now I'm combating if this information is better than the information you gave me on Monday.
They already fooled. They pay $9.99 and they don't need the sandwich. They don't need the sandwich because they already have consumed it all. Most scalable businesses require you to have more and more and more. If everything, think of every billion dollar business, don't you think Walmart would make it easier for everybody to shop and just put one thing like, okay, they know people come to get bread, milk, put it all on one aisle.
Instead, they make you go around and around and you're going to pick up this, pick up that. I came to Walmart on Friday to get two things and my cart ended up being $4.00. Why? Because I'm walking around and people calling me. I'm like, you know what? I don't know. We got milk. We got this. Every multi million dollar business is that way. No one is giving you the full thing. Even when you go on Amazon, you order one order tissue. They're going to say you want a subscription. Yeah.
They're not giving it to you. They're keeping you coming back. You want to add this on? We are giving, giving, giving, giving, burning ourselves out and really burning our audience out because they're not able to handle the capacity of information that they're consuming.
Got it. So if you start brand managing me, I can't come outside anymore. Is that what you're saying? No, you could come outside, but you could come outside when it's valuable. Like you could come outside when, hey, we're doing a social proof podcast tour. We're doing this. We're doing that because I guarantee you, I guarantee you, you can count on your hands.
Three months ago, there were five people that were super committed to being apart. They were always on the meetups. They were always there. And then you're like, where the five people go? Like, what happened? It's because you gave, gave, gave, gave, gave. And then they're like, ooh, I'm full. I can't think no more. But what if you gave them a little bit?
that led on to them wanting more, you gave them more, led on, and that's how people are able to see success. That's how people are able to see results. So when working with my agency, that's why I only do 30-day contracts, right? I used to be, oh my God, I gotta sign this client for six months because I need to know, six months from now, how much they're paying me and blah, blah, blah. 30 days, I'm gonna blow your business out the water. And in 30 days, if you're not happy,
We both compare ways and you leave with everything that I built for you, right? Because I know that I have 30 days to prove myself, prove what I can do. Six-month people that put you on retainers, y'all, no shade to people on retainers. But just make sure that what they're doing in six months, they couldn't do it one month.
In that one month, I'ma give you all the value. I'ma connect you to as many people as I can connect you to. I'ma redesign your label. I'ma read, update your website like, look on my, look on my Instagram. We just did a movie, we did Countryway movie. He gave me 30 days to get his movie charting on Amazon. We did the premiere, website graphics, social media management, press tour,
Influencer campaign got him on all the blogs the results 376 people at his premiere sold out a fully packed premiere and number 18 on Amazon and 30 days and guess what they came back and was like we need 30 more days Right because if you give me six months if you give anybody six months they can be like alright Well, I got these other clients right now. I'm a focus on them month to then I'm a star. Hey, how much you pay put it on there?
How much I would charge you? Now, how much do you pay? First off, let's do that number first. All right, just, okay, how much do you go charge me?
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Okay, all right, but I don't movie coming out. What you gonna do? Oh, we gonna do a lot. We gonna do a lot. Got some plans for me. For sure. It's so much more you can be doing day. Okay. Truly, truly. And you know what, you know what saddens me a little bit.
What saddens me as a brand strategist, and this is what has held my personal career back, because I will pour into other people's cup more than I pour into my own. And sometimes as a brand strategist, you see what everyone else should be doing and you're telling them, and while you're consumed doing that, you're not telling yourself what you should be doing.
So I was telling people, you need to do this, you need to launch this podcast, have all my clients have viral sensation, podcasts when I wanted a podcast, right? But I'm like, I just sold them to do that. So do I do it? So that's one thing that I have fought with myself about is that I've always been the person to pour into everyone else. Since you've met me, you've seen so many people that I've built.
Yeah. That are killing it right now. For sure. Right? That are scaling, doing amazing things. That when you met them, they were not in that situation. Correct or wrong?
Am I right? No, 100%. Absolutely. Absolutely. So a lot of the infrastructure of building a successful brand, most of the time comes from a brand strategist that is able to see the outside picture when the person on the other side is in it. Got you. Let me ask this in terms of the influencer marketing strategy. You teach that often, right? For sure.
How would that work for somebody that maybe doesn't even have as much traction as I got going on or somebody that just, they got an idea. Is influencer marketing good for a new business owner? Yes, influencer marketing is good for any business owner, any business owner, no matter what you're selling. Marketing is good for anybody, right?
First of all, when you think of branding, let's start with that. You have to have amazing branding because branding is a lifetime. When we think of the Nike logo that what they, the girl sued them, she made like $20,000 from that logo, that is a lifetime.
branding tool, right? So your branding got to be aesthetically pleasing to attract the influencer. If I had an amazing brand, if you walk into the bakery, you walk into the bakery, right? The branding on that is so amazing that you would bring anybody for free. You would be like, oh Beyonce, you're in town? I got to take you to the bakery, right? I wouldn't have to pay you to do that. But what if I had a little rundown shabby co-working space with gray walls and tables and I'm like,
Hey, bring Beyonce to the bakery. Now you're scared because your integrity is based on my branding.
the fact that if I tell Beyonce to come to the bakery and it's shabby, she gonna think I'm crazy. And that's most of the time why influencers don't wanna share your business to their audience because now their integrity is questioned because, why are you sharing this? You got paid for this. So when you build the branding up to look so pristine,
And whether you have followers or not, if I go to a website and it's beautiful, works well, everything is right. There's plenty of things that you've bought from a beautiful website and had no followers, right? And there's plenty of things that were highly marketed. And when you got to the website, you were like, something is off. Even people's ads around their courses, you see all the ads. And when you get to the landing page, you're like,
something is off, right? So that's where branding and marketing mix. So the first thing before you work with influencers is to really review your brand, create a focus group with five people, 10 people, and say, would you buy for me? What does my Instagram profile need to look like for you to buy for me? What does my website need to look like for you to buy for me, right? Once you have that, then you say,
Now, tell me five people, now that my branding is where it needs to be, tell me five influencers that you can see wearing my brand. They're gonna be like, oh my god, you got a lipstick line. This person always wear lipstick, and they never shouted out, this will be a great influencer for you, right? So now that your branding is stable and great. Taking notes, Johnny. Taking notes?
Now that your branding is amazing, you go to that influencer and you say, hey, listen, I noticed that you always wear red lipstick. And I know I'm a small business, but I have the capacity to ship hundreds of thousands of units. I just need the awareness. I would love to go 50-50 with you on a lipstick shade. And you promote it and market it on your, on your, to your audience.
and bring them back to my website, and I'll give you 50% of the proceeds. You don't need to ship anything. You don't need to handle any customer service. With the right branding, that influencer is gonna be like, bet. Because they're already missing out on Monday. They're already wearing the red Mac lipstick. If they could partner with you that already has great branding, if you think of Chick-fil-A, even without
the name without the aesthetic, without the branding. Think of the first Chick-fil-A, right? The branding is still the Chick-fil-A that we see today. For sure.
So it was that branding that commands people to walk into your building or walk into order on your website. The moment when they like, this is Canva. This, it gives fiber. For sure. It gives vendors, right? It gives dropshipping.
How many times have you wanted to buy from a brand and it looked like it's being dropped shipped? You're like, I'm not going to get this in five. I'm not. This is going to be 50 months. Like this is definitely coming from China. You have black melanin matters or my black power on.
stock photos that don't represent the culture. So I really, you know, for everybody that's listening, really look at what your brand represents and are you putting your best foot forward? Would you buy from you for real, for real? Not, yes, I would buy with my sob story. Yes, I would buy because I'm a single mom and I'm making it on Canva and I'm doing the best that I can.
No, that's not good enough because your competitors are smarter than you, cuter than you. They have more resources than you. So you have to be the best, right? I always tell people save up. If you're going to build a brand, it doesn't cost a lot. Save up and hire the best person possible in your realm of business to give you advice on how you should do it.
You have your pot. Actually, you know, I'm gonna give you this number back. And then I'll help you with your podcast, right? And then I'm gonna give you the number you gave me and then you, like we just, anyway.
Okay, let me see that, because I need help. I got you. Okay. I got, yeah, yeah, we're gonna work together. Y'all gonna see me less and less, y'all. And then I'll be making more money. Let me articulate that better too. I feel like a lot of stuff that you do every day could be done in one day.
Like what? A lot of stuff that you do every single day could be done in one day. What you mean? You could film a certain amount of episodes two times a week and have the rest of the week a planning session with your team one day a week and the rest of the week you be David Shains. Yeah, we do. We only record on Wednesdays. And you hear? Yeah, but we just, we don't stop. What?
Boys is on yesterday playing mad, and we played mad in yesterday. We weren't doing it. I was going like, but you know what? It was fun. You know what I mean? I really want to play mad. But on Tuesday, we took it off, but we was doing like Bible study every Tuesday here. I do a lot of me stuff. And I've set up a lot of stuff that allows me to be OK.
And I don't really work that hard like that, but I like coming up here. Okay, but do you, are you at a place where you want more financial success? Um, I'm at a place that if I didn't make more money, I'd be happy. Let me tell you something. My kids stole all my ambition. Okay.
all of it. Like I used to want to be out grinding and working and all that kind of stuff. And I don't want to do that no more. So like literally if I and I hate to say this, but I'm somewhat complacent. I'll do some cool stuff like where we're buying a building and building out another concept.
But it's not I'm thinking how much money can I make? I'm thinking this will be so dope if we did it. So I'm at a point now where it's not about getting to the next level. I'm honestly not focused on the next level. I haven't thought, okay, what do I want to do? I want to make $100 million in the next 10 years. Obviously we can talk about it. It'd be cool, but that's not my, I don't know, I'm kind of complacent.
I think it's a problem. Why? I think it's a big problem because I truly believe that God put us on this earth, right? And when we look at the heart monitor, it goes up and down. It goes up and down, right? Yeah. So if you are not having moments of where you want to be up,
or moments of when you down and you want to be up and you're just flat lining, it's almost like the existence and the passion or the purpose that God put inside of you is kind of like flat lining, which to me is an issue because there should be more that you want in. It doesn't have to be financial. It could be like, I actually want to experience more love or I actually want to experience more time or more freedom or more peace. Yeah, I think so.
Doesn't necessarily it doesn't have to be a certain level of ambition because you're still very ambitious to wake up every morning 100% No, it's not it's skills not that I don't want like I just said we're about to build out a whole nother building like it's like was this for so I was like 40s. Yeah, put together but it's
I want to do things that I want to do. If there's something that I have to do and it will make me a lot of money, I'm inclined to just sit this one out. What? Why? Because I want to do stuff that I want to do. Okay. Are you? Okay. Check this out. Say there's a
Somebody wants to hire me for the company and they're going to give me, I don't know, I don't know, $20 million for the next two years, but I got them with Denver. I'm not going. Of course not. But that, that doesn't, that doesn't work. It's not about trading money for success or trade. It's not, it's not that it is
in five years, in three years, how is what I'm currently doing going to impact my family and the person that I want to be then, right? Also, it's if someone that is more lit, that is more
savvy that has more relationships was to bypass you and get the opportunities that you may in the back of your mind want, but you currently think it's too hard or currently think, oh, I just really want to play Madden. So I mean, I want to be on Bloomberg, but I'm not really worried about it. But the moment you see that happening for someone else, and you feel like, bro, that really could have been me. I don't really feel like that.
Because I know I'm going to be fine. I'm not stopping working by far. I guess my question is, what is it that you want to do long term? Yes. Okay. All right. Here we go. Here we go. I need to 10x my morning meetup community. There's like a thousand people now. The goal is 10,000. All right.
So I'm figuring out how to do that. So that's more. Obviously it costs more money, more opportunity. It comes with more. I definitely want to do that. I want to be responsible for more people launching successful podcasts in anyone in the world, okay? We're building out podcasting suite. So like I'm in this podcasting space, 100%. Obviously I want to get up the podcasting charts. I wanted like do top 10.
I think we got the like 50 or something like that, but I wanted like top 10 podcast stars. So I have ambition to do stuff, but. Okay, so the inventions that you just spoke about can be broken down. It can be broken down into ways to.
builds those things up with less time, right? Okay, the morning meetup, right? Like, I wanna grow into 10,000 members. How am I gonna do that? And do I personally need to be on every morning meetup in order for it to convert the way that I wanted to convert, right? Or even with the podcast, I wanna help this many people grow their podcast. Do you know, Dave, that there are people in this world that will pay you $50,000 to sit with them and tell them how you've done it? Let me give you this number.
I'm gonna send you this. There are people. I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I did it. You know what I mean? Like, for your podcast.
I'm not one of those people. But there are people, right? When I started my agency, I started my agency in the corporate space. So my first client was a corporate client. And once I realized that I was giving them a lot of great ideas that wouldn't really work for their structure because it's corporate. And most of the people that was
on the board, in the board room, didn't understand their audience, right? So marketing for them just didn't really match. So I was kind of torn between, yes, I'm making a lot of money with my agency, but I really have this passion to help people grow and see their businesses scale with my marketing, with my brandy. I know that I have the information, right? So I started to create my marketing agency, and I started offering clients $5,000.
$5,000 you're going to come in for 30 days. We're going to give you everything. And when I tell you I was breaking my back, even in 2020, when you're like, how did you get to $16 million? It was clients from Alucard to premium to elite. It was all different clients that helped me get that number. And I worked blood, sweat, and tears on every single client. Was every single client happy? Absolutely not. But did I absolutely try my hardest to make every single client happy? I did. But
In that moment, I realized $16 million came from blood, sweat, and tears. And the reality was $16 million could have came from my mind. $16 million, really, the millions of dollars that you're looking for is really in your mind before it ever reaches your hands. Right. So when I understood that the millions of dollars that I was making
was from, I sorted it out and say, okay, how many clients did I service? That paid this much, how many service? Guess what, the bulk of the clients that I service were under $20,000.
How many clients I have to be to get to 16 million? How many nights that I did not sleep? How many nights did I miss time with my daughter? How many nights did I sacrifice right to be all in on my business and make these clients happy and some of them Well my logo I want it later like you gonna say like some of those clients you simply just could not please because of a price point and
Yeah, gotcha. What I did was I said, you know what? I'm going to build a body of work that is undeniable to where when I walk into any room, I can show any case study and they're gonna be like, you're higher.
I can look at anybody business, bring me a Microsoft, bring me Amazon, bring me on any company, sit me in front of anybody. And I'm going to tell you exactly what you're doing wrong and why you're not talking to the customer that you're trying to target. And I'm going to build a whole marketing camera around.
Bring me in front of anybody. I stand ten toes down on that, right? So one, I had to build my own confidence up and what I really brought to the table comes from my mind. It doesn't come from the graphics and the photo shoots and all of those things are great because it's what's going to make your brand amazing. But really, it's the strategy. I made people millionaires.
to date 10 people millionaires based off of my strategy that came from my mind, not based on the deliverables that we executed for that client. So what I did was I changed the narrative to say, I'm going to solve richer people's problems.
I'm going to solve richer people's problems. So yes, you want to help everybody in the podcast space. You need three different tiers to be able to do that. The morning meetup is one. Yes, social proof podcast information could be another. And then you have the elites where it's people that are working with you and you're telling them, look, bro, this last episode, trash, like you can't.
Your posture, like that's when you're giving them that white glove service to know, look, the people that you're booking, no, it doesn't align. All of those things, that's when you're building out that and you're building your team around those people that are gonna pay you the $50,000. Last year I had a client pay me $100,000 for 12 months straight. What? Yes. What's your name? $100,000 a month for 12 months straight. Really? To do her marketing, yeah.
Did it work? It worked. She was on Ted's song. She was on her page. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Just show me. Just take me to a page real quick. OK, I'm going to show you afterwards. I'm not going to say I'm not going to say it only. I'm going to show you afterwards. All right.
Dave is gonna DM her, do you need a podcast? So he actually does have a podcast, he really doesn't help. You know what I do, I do respect what you're saying because you have a manager, yes? You have someone that's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have someone helping you. So what does Sean do for you? Yeah, he helps me with my podcast. Gotcha, okay. So he's that person that is looking at my picture while I'm in it. Yeah. You know, like honestly,
I've all after like, I've always been just throw me this number. How much? Just give me the number. Just I just want to know. Yeah. So I know what I need to be playing. I don't even know what I would you pay. Just like I know what I should be charging for the white glass. I know. Yes. I'm up.
Okay. So, okay. So, I'll say to my boy. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is I think that a lot of times we need someone that is shining a light on us when we don't feel like
We have that light, right? A lot of times we are walking around with the light inside of us, but we're scared. We're like, oh, I don't want to be too boastful. I don't want to be putting myself on, or I don't want to command. You need someone that is working and navigating those rooms for you. You need someone to call.
Somebody and say, hey, I need them. I need David to be on this market. I need why he not on this stage. Why he not doing this? You don't want to call them and do that, right? You need someone that is navigating that space and telling you, Dave, listen, if your plan is to make a million dollars, $10 million, $20 million, this is how you have to do it. This is how you have to do it. You get what I'm saying?
You have to set yourself up and have someone not employees because at the end of the day, they still work for you. So they're in your picture. They're still in your picture. They still emotionally are attaching you. So the moment when they want to tell you, I don't care, get it together. Like you have to film. They're going to be like, no.
He just wasn't feeling good today and we should just give him a pass. I know that he's a dad like, not me. I'm like, great. What are the results that we're trying to get? The results that we're trying to get is a number one podcast. So in order for us to be a number one podcast, we want to look at your competitors and see what they're doing.
and then make a framework or a body of work that can exist on the levels in which our competitors are killing it at. Yeah. Dang. This was a good session. I really stole your time. I really feel like you should send me invoice. All right. Don't. But.
No, I think there's a lot of things that we don't discuss or even think about when it comes to personal branding and what you gave me was a vision of who I want to become.
Even as you're talking, I think that was maybe like the jolt of ambition that I needed, because my kids really just took my ambition, man. I just want to go home and play with them and five o'clock I'm done. Typically, unless I have like something else going on, but I really, well, it ain't even really, because I want to do some work, but Sarai is not playing. She's no daddy. She takes my phone and like she'll grab it and like throw it. Every time on the phone in her presence, she's like, ah, nope.
Like daddy's on. Yeah, for sure. So, um, not. And I really just want you to be able to experience more moments like that and not feel the way of like what I think about is, you know, I was talking to my dad and I wrote my dad a book because my dad is, well, I hope my dad write a book is his story.
Which, woo, I found out a lot about him, I'm scared. But my dad is 79. He turned 79 this year. And when I was starting my business, I remember a time where I was at a trade show and I thought that I would have enough money for payroll. This is like when I was on an airbed figuring out my business. And it just, the order that I thought was coming, they didn't pay their invoice.
And I called my dad and I was like, Dad, I need you to send me $10,000. He's like, oh, I just wish you, you went to college, you did this, you just wanna be selling t-shirts, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Dad, listen, I'm crying in a trash, that registration, I'm crying in the middle of the hour and I'm like, Daddy, I just need you to believe in me. If you don't do nothing else, I just need you to believe in me and believe that I am going to make you through this. I'm not wasting your money. I'm not out here
buying materialistic things like, I need to pay these people. And like, I think that was the conversation that like kind of shook up our relationship a little bit. And, you know, we spoke and he's like, the money that I'm giving you now, I'm trying to leave for you later. And I didn't understand it. I'm like, I don't give up that you are.
You ain't going nowhere. You are going to be here. I need the money now. I have four girls that need their feet and their families because of me. I need the money, and I just didn't understand him. And he sent me the money. After crying, after freaking out about it, he sent me the money. And last week, when we started to talk about his book, which is Surviving the Serve, my dad has been an activist, pretty much his whole life, after leaving Vietnam and went through so much.
And we were talking and he was like, I'm 79. And one of my insurance policies is about to be up. It's about to be mature or whatever. So do you want me to just take it out and give it to you to help you with your business now? Or do you want me to just leave it there? And I'm like, I'll leave it there. And he's like, OK. He was like, I was checking you. I just wanted to see where you were financially as a business owner.
Where are you in the desperation phase of death? Take it out. Give it to me. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to flip it. Or where are you going to tell me to leave it there and let it grow? He's like, it's so important that you start now at 30 years old thinking about what you're leaving for your kids. Like you're good. There's four properties that are in your name. There's life insurance policies that are in your name. So although I may have not been the father that you needed me to be when you were younger,
you and your children will be good based off the work that I did. So now it's completely shaping
my mind, because he is 79. And I did lose my mom five years ago, very young. My mom was 50. So, and I'm like, she didn't leave me anything. I paid for everything, right? I had to pay for the funeral. I had to pay for the, I had to pay for all of those things. No matter how financially stable I was, my family was like,
Oh, you look lit on Instagram. You must be there for this. That's your mom. And guess what? I was. So I was able to do that. But when I think long term and I think of the Louis Vuitton's and the Jeff Bezos and the people that go on the Walt Disney's of the world, we don't see that in our culture. We don't see people.
selling businesses and building their own legacies. Walt Disney is Walt Disney regardless, right? Like he built his own legacy, but he left a business that left his entire family good. And I want to make sure that we are starting, I don't care where you are, I started with $300 and a t-shirt line. And now that I've built several successful businesses, what are my grandkids, grandkids going to be able to say? Or are they gonna say, my,
Grandma, she had a small little marketing shop, and she was helping these influencers that we don't even know who they are, because they don't even exist anymore. The things that we speak about now.
came with legacy. You understand what I'm saying? The things that we call great now came with someone that started in a basement, started in a garage, started with three employees, and now they have billion dollar businesses. But a lot of times when we're in it, we're not thinking about how does my current efforts, I leave my office some days at nine o'clock, and I told my team this the other day, I'm like,
Y'all are at home chilling. I'm at the office. I leave it on a clock. I'm a mom, I'm a wife and I'm still back in this office at 9 a.m. Woke up, took my daughter to school, made sure my husband was great, still sending lunches to wherever he is and make sure he's good. And I'm still running six multi-million dollar businesses. And I necessarily don't have to, but I want to because when I think about my legacy, I want them to say my grandmother built
the female version of we work and sold it for a billion dollars, and we're all chilling. She paid for our college 20 years ago. We never get the meter, but she paid for all of our colleges. She made sure we were all straight. We didn't have to go work in our business to make sure it ran. Yeah, goodness gracious. Give me a round of applause, please.
Skittles, thank you so much. One, thank you for like just always being a friend. We've been cool for a long time. A long time. I've been grown. Y'all know the funny, let me say California story. Funny story is me and Dave one time was just talking about like, yeah, I'm sitting going about to start dating, this and this and that. And me and Dave talked all the time at one point. Then I called him and say, hey Dave, what's going on? Oh, well I'm married. I'm like. Popped up. What?
I was again. I'm like, OK, well, maybe I don't know you. That was a six. We met six months later. We were married. That was a great.
I was trying to do that with though. He was not on it. You know what I mean? But I don't move like this. Oh, it seems more relaxed, chill. Yeah, no, it was up. He don't move like that. But, you know, we got it done. It was in all due time. Yeah, everything works out only. It's supposed to work out, but not, but thank you. Cause you maybe gave me my ambition back. Hey, we got to drink water. So you might as well drink the best. First off, I drink smart water. If I'm being honest, because it looks cool in my hand.
The bottle's so cool and I look prestigious, it made me look like I got money. But also it fits in my gym bag and my backpack. It's really dope man. Smart water alkaline is the hydration choice for people that's looking to elevate in all areas of their life, whether it's fitness or beyond. Playing with your kids takes a lot out of you, but you have to stay hydrated. Smart water alkaline, however, keeps you hydrated throughout your active life, whether you're running miles or running meetings. In a world filled with overthinking,
We're providing a refreshing change of pace, a moment of clarity with a simple choice of hydrating with smart water. When it comes to living my life, there's a lot to overthink, whether it's my kids picking them up from
Gymnastics, running my business. It's a lot of stuff I gotta think about, man, but I'm not about to overthink my water choices. I go with smart water, okay? Life is full of choices. Smart water is the simple one. Visit drinksmartwater.com to learn more.
I'm, it's starting in around 3.30. I'm like, yo, I'm to the house. Okay. Um, but I, I think there are some amazing things that we need to do. I'm going to talk to you about my personal brand. Okay. Please. Yes. Cause calm down. She's like, yeah, you need to like, I'll be calm down. Does everybody in the room agree that David could be doing more with his personal brand? Honestly, speak loudly.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. So you're going to help me with that. Yeah. Okay. We'll work on this number that we've been passing back and forth. Okay. And if you guys go to, if you use social proof on the icingency.com, whether you become an allocart premium early client,
that will help with David's invoice for his personal branding. Y'all can use social proof. I'm gonna give y'all a special discount on any branding services. And honestly, like one thing for me is that I don't, I sell services that help people. I don't sell services. Like you will never see me
aligning myself with a brand that is not helping someone change the trajectory of their life. So you can go on Fiverr and you can go on Canva. You can go with any graphic designer, right? But if you feel like your brand is not where you want it to be and you're watching this podcast and you're like, man, if I only had an expert that can give me honest advice and tell me real life feedback on what I should be doing and then definitely the ICE agency is where you should be.
There it is. Listen, man. Thank you so much. Again, I really appreciate it. I think there's a lot of people that are in that space confused about their brand. Where do you need to go? So this was very, very helpful. Well, you already kind of gave your website, but tell everybody how they can connect with you. And then close us out with a word of wisdom. Yes.
Um, so my, where you can find me is on Instagram, Ms. Skittles, M-Z-S-K-I-T-T-L-E-Z. Ms. Skittles, and you can find me at the Bakery Co-work, that is my co-working space for aspiring women. It's female-focused. We have an event space, photography studio, can't wait to have you guys. Girl Mob is my digital community. We also have a museum, Girl Mob Museum.
And then also the icing agency for all of your marketing brandy needs. My word of wisdom is some people are praying for it while other people are paying for it.
Some people are praying that they get the results, praying that their business launch, praying that God just sent him a sign. He sent you five sides last week. And other people are paying to get it done, paying to get in the right rooms, paying to get mentored by the right people, paying to get it further along. So you can be the person that's praying, but if you're not the person that's paying, you're going to be in the same place next year.
That's a fact. Clap that on, guys. That was dope. Well, look, man, do yourself a favor, man. Make sure you're following my skills. Let's get your brand together. I also get you some social proof, meaning go build something significant, but come back to your community and teach them how you did it. It's the only way our community grows. Like, subscribe. We out here.
