Building Influence, Making Money with Your Personal Brand, and Hugging Gary Vaynerchuk

Dear strange people,

Welcome to my experiment. This is a newsletter where I dive deep into the decisions that I am making (and learnings) when it comes to my personal brand, community, and business. 

As I was writing this week's newsletter I had to take a step back, “damn… people actually read my crazy thoughts.” I just wanted to say thank you. This series has been very eye opening for me. It’s easy to record a handful of 2 minute videos… it’s a lot more challenging to push yourself to dive deep into the decisions that you are making in long form. My instinct is to remove words and make things shorter. I’ve tried my best to SHARE more in each of these newsletters. I hope you get value out of this one, because a lot happened this week ??. 

How to Make Money with Your Personal Brand - Our Event & Key Takeaways

My events company, MKE Misfits (Owned by our parent company Urban Misfit Ventures), collaborated on an event last week with Blnk Slate media and Startup Milwaukee last week. It was an unusual event for us as it was more traditional than the direction we are headed in 2020. But the feedback, diversity of attendees in all aspects, and relationships built were amazing. 

Quick tangent: owning this company I feel like a dad. I have co-founders and I still feel like a dad. Not because I make all of the decisions. Not because I do all the work. Because none of those statements are true. But I feel like a father because I’m watching my team blossom. They’re growing. They’re learning. They’re failing. And it’s freaking incredible.

• Izzy is legit. Honestly, our company would not have made it through the first year without him. He runs the business. He’s ops. I’m vision. We’ve known each other for a long time, but I’ve seen him grow more in the past year than I have in the 5 years prior.
• Eric is one of the hardest working people. It doesn’t matter what needs to be done, he does it. And it’s been amazing watching him navigate his way into leadership. It’s less of “hey, what needs to get done? Okay, I’ll do it!” And more of, “what needs to get done? How can we work together to make sure that this gets done?” He’s come a long way from the time that I met him.
• Brema is one of those people that you know one day you’ll say “I knew him when…” He has one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever heard. And someone that inspires me every day. He’s also crushing it with his fashion line Unfinished Legacy.
• Tess is our social media manager. Arguably one of the most important pieces of our company. She is also one of those people that I/we will say, “I knew her when.” I’m excited to see what she does. When we did our mental health event a few months back, she was a large reason why that event was such a success. She sees problems and she resolves them.
• Chandler. Before we hired Chandler I told him to record a video to convince the team why we should hire him. He was awkward in that video (like REALLY awkward ??) but… he has saved us many times. We originally brought him in to write copy and manage some projects. And today he manages a lot of the day to day in the office. We would have failed a year ago if we didn’t hire him.
• Ken, was originally hired to document EVERYTHING (via video) going on in our company. He now edits our podcast and edits a lot of my personal videos as well. He’s also super young! I remember talking to him a few weeks back. He was super excited because a video he edited for me performed really well. That excitement gets me excited. 

And I guess the reason I mention all of this is because my team is everything. They’re incredible. Yet for some reason, we all seem to underestimate the depth of our influence as a team and on the city of Milwaukee. It feels like nobody's watching some times. It feels like no one cares sometimes. But that event had about 70 people attend and we announced it the day of. That is so humbling. 

When we were setting up, I was chatting with Sam Lister (owner of Blnk Slate Media) about our expectations for the event. After going back and forth for a while I said, “what if we just do straight Q&A?” And Sam agreed, “I feel like there have been so many panels during this Startup week. I like it. Let’s do something different.” 

And that was that. People were forced to network because the space was small (intentional). The only seats in the house were for the panelists. And when we started the Q&A session (it was awkward for a few minutes) but it was different. And we hit on REAL questions and REAL struggles. A lot of people my age like to act like experts. A lot of people period like to act as experts. We name drop and share all of our accolades, instead of just having conversations and sharing from experience. I liked this format a lot. And when we finished it felt like we had built a deeper relationship with the audience because 1). We were all forced to talk in the beginning and 2). Because it was intimate and we were talking with them (not talking to them). 

Again, this was an unusual style for our events. But I want to stress this quote here again because it is something that I live my life by:

“It’s good to be better, but it’s better to be different.” - Sally Hogshead

Some key points that were made at the event:

(Some said by me, some said by the other panelists, and others from conversations I had).

1. You won’t make money if you don’t have something to sell.
2. Platforms that I’m going to put a lot of focus on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Quora. I create everywhere for the most part. But in terms of opportunity and reach, I would look at the three discovery platforms that I mentioned (I’ll dive into the difference between Discovery and Branding platforms in a later newsletter).
3. If you can afford to work for free to build skills/relationships… DO IT! But do it strategically. 
4. Brand is a feeling. Get clear on what it is that people feel when they come in contact with your brand.
5. You will more than likely burnout if you don't enjoy it.
6. If you want to win ?? build a strong community

We decided to make our "How to Monetize LinkedIn — the Misfit Way" course live again. If you're interested I'll leave that here. No pitch. But if that is of interest to you feel free to tap the link. We dropped the price to make it more accessible. :)

One Week into My New Podcast - Lessons

My podcast went live on iTunes last week (it’s on other platforms as well). Here are some of the challenges that I am already running into:

• I don’t have a gamers community yet. Most listeners are currently listening for ME. Not because they have an interest in video games / esports. So I NEED to tap into existing audiences and make sure that the content I am creating will KEEP people listening. 
• Backlog of content is not big enough.
• News episodes are proving to be difficult because of the amount of research.
• Editing: the full audio and snippets (if any of you want experience let me know. The show is growing quickly and I’m willing to share everything I know). 

I’m currently editing the show personally and Ken (one of my companies videographers) is helping me create snippets. Moving away from this will allow me to focus more on getting higher profile guests. 

Here is what is going well with my Humans that Game podcast:

• I’m happy with the downloads in week one. Really happy! Which is cool to see and I’m learning a lot of things that I can implement into our Strange on Purpose (my company's podcast) podcast as well. And I’m so happy with our new direction and strategy for that show. I’ll keep you updated in this newsletter!
• Reviews. To see my launch strategy, look at the last two editions of this series. I’m really happy with the reviews. From friends, people that follow my content, my misfits community, and strangers that found the show. 

Where I need to get better and what I’m focused on moving forward:

• Better research for each episode. 
• Recording more and having a backlog of content (I almost missed my upload Tuesday because two people cancelled in one week). 
• Setting aside an allotted time for outreach.
• Finding strategic partners.
• Diving more into the esports side (I’ve talked more about video games as a whole as of now).

There is an evolution for every show. I’m doing my best to document mine. I’m really enjoying this podcast. It’s easily the thing that I am most excited about right now and it’s making me better in every other area of my life. If you have an interest in video games & esports and would like to be involved let me know. I’m not entirely sure what that looks like just yet, but I’ve enjoyed the conversations that I’ve had already within a week of launching this thing.

Speaking of Podcasts….

Podcasts I Consumed This Week (picked from your comments on a previous newsletter)

I’d like to do a better job of including others in the content that I create. A while back, on a previous newsletter, I asked for people to drop their podcasts in the comments. I listened to Marc Champagne’s Behind the Human. It’s a podcast devoted to unpacking the stories [and mental fitness practices] of people living at the top of their game.

I liked it a lot. I even left a review :).

Here were some of my notes [to myself]:

• He makes his guests feel so comfortable. How? Is this intentional? Is there a conversation that happens before the episodes? Is there a separate meeting/call before episodes are recorded?
• He leaves room for his guests to shine. My least favorite podcasts are where the host talks to fill space, instead of talking to bring value.
• He is CONSISTENT. Stick to your schedule!
• Really like the experimenting. He includes his community and experimented with 1 minute daily / question episodes to support his interview. Cool way to stay top of mind. I’m curious on the impact of those episodes.

Hugging GaryVee - I made it into his YouTube video & podcast

An old client of mine tagged me in an Instagram story last night, and it was me hugging Gary Vaynerchuk in New York on stage at an event he Keynoted at (in Gary's YouTube Video). I’ve been made fun of for it and honestly I don’t even care in the slightest. But I do want to talk about what I was thinking leading up to that and a couple of reasons why I went with a hug instead of a question. Here's my video for reference.

All this talk about Influence ??

I was stopped a handful of times at the Digital Marketing Expo event from people that recognized me. That still blows my mind! When I heard Gary was going to be there I turned into a little school girl/boy. And then immediately upon my reaction, I took a step back and asked myself “why am I feeling this way?” And here is what I decided. I can go back (mentally) to my junior year of college, my coach Kendrick looked down the stairwell and said, “you should look into this guy called GaryVee.” 

What kind of a name is that? I thought to myself.

“You would really like his stuff.”

And from that moment I went down the rabbit hole. A year and a half later I started my first company. I failed. I started my second company. Failed. I started my third company. And here we are (definitely going through growing pains but doing well). I owe a lot to Gary. That’s real influence. And he is doing that at scale. People can pin point that moment when GaryVee impacted their life. 

Why the Hug?

After sitting backstage for a bit, we heard that Gary was on his way. I ended up waiting by the elevator with Jackie Hermes and Eric Didier at this event. We knew he was on his way, but didn’t know which time he would arrive (I’m not creepy I promise ??).When he got there he was on a phone call. But he stopped and shook our hands. D-Rock’s team had cameras in our faces which was EPIC! But I didn’t get the chance to talk to him.

 At his Keynote, he opened it up to Q&A for the entire speech. 

Which, quick side statement: he is incredible at reading a room and reading energy.

I rushed up to the microphone and ended up getting the third spot in line. I was bumped back to fourth because I’m somewhat of a decent human and let someone go in front of me. There were two lines so I ended up asking my question about 7th.

I wanted to do something memorable but I also wanted a chance to just talk. Gary gives away so much content for free that there really wasn’t a single question that I could have asked him that would have outweighed what I did. I knew that I looked different. I knew that I was in a room of CMO’s, entrepreneurs, and marketing leaders. And I knew that if I could do something to stand out, then people would remember me.

So when it finally came to me, I made a joke about minimalism and living in a studio apartment with my dog Levi (you had to be there. I promise the room laughed ??). Gary then went on a rant about how he loved it and started talking about my pup. And then I went into my story and how he impacted me. And I asked for a hug. And it was wicked. I didn’t do it because “OMG, it’s GARY!” I do have mad respect for him. But I did it for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to say thank you. Because he seriously changed my life.
2. I wanted everyone in that crowd to remember me. Whether it was good or bad… they would remember.
3. And more importantly, I wanted Gary to remember. I wanted it to be documented. One day, I want to be on the same level as people like that. I don’t want anything. I just want to shoot the shit. Hear the stories that no one else hears. 

I know I say it a lot, but being different goes a long way. I watched Gary’s Instagram story that day, and I was the only person from that event that made his story. People stopped me afterwards to say that it was awesome. I got messages on social.

Be different. You have to be talented too of course ??. 

For those that are new subscribers, welcome to the madness. I'm loving this journey that I’m taking with all of you. Smash the subscribe button to keep up with this experiment!

And for the strange peeps that have made it through and to the end of this newsletter 1). thank you for reading & 2). Who is a content creator that has had a major influence on you? Tag them in the comments and tell them how they've impacted you!

Stay strange,

#justQ ??????