Ariadna Jacob with Creative Growth Expert Michael Sanchez | Influencer Management

Hey everybody. So I have someone that I personally—and I know you are very excited—to talk to you right now. It's a, it's been something in the works for about a month or so. Um, so without further ado, I want to introduce you to Artie—Art, oh my god, I can't say it again—Ari. Are you—oh no, I can't. I feel like I'm butchering your name. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, uh, she owns a company called Influences. Um, you probably 100% have seen many of the people that she manages and represents and helps out and stuff like that. Um, but if you don't mind, Ari, because you said I can shorten it down a little bit since I'm a little bit speech impediment here, um, or if you don't mind, can you maybe tell us a little about like who you are, what your background is, and how you got started on this for people who haven't heard of you or are still kind of getting up to speed on TikTok and stuff?

Yeah, so you know, I was—um, I'll bring it back, you know, so you guys get my background—I was born in Mexico City, and um, I grew up in the Bay Area. I moved to the United States when I was like four years old. And so I lived right outside of San Francisco, right before the big tech wave hit, the first big tech wave hit. And as a kid, I was just really obsessed with technology. I spent hours, you know, creating content before any of the current, current social media platforms existed. And you know, I would beg my parents to buy me more bandwidth so I could upload videos before YouTube was even invented, you know, before YouTube was out. Um, I taught myself how to do HTML code, learned Dreamweaver, built websites, and I basically became like one of the only female, you know, programmers, computer nerds amongst all my peers. And I'm just, I'm really like a tech geek at heart. Um, and I just, I really also just love like figuring things out, you know, from watching YouTube videos or anything. I like, if I get interested in something, I obsess about it, and I have to learn everything about it. So I'm just really curious. And um, you know, my background also growing up, like if you asked me what I wanted to do when I grow up, I wanted to be like in advertising, like the movie, um, uh, *What Women Want*, and *How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days*. Those were my favorite two movies because it was like about these advertising executives that were like coming out with like, frost yourself, like, and you know, that whole idea was always like what I wanted to do.

Um, but you know, it's—and I think part of it was like storytelling and people; it's really what I'm passionate about. So after college, I actually realized that um, the nightlife scene in San Diego—I lived in San Diego, I went to San Diego State—I realized that the nightlife scene like needed a little more buzz. And so I basically became like a social media marketing promoter for nightclubs, bars, restaurants, venues, hotels. Um, I was, I actually started a company called Red Rope Reviews, and it was like a Yelp for nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. And I was 21, and then I got hired at um, a nightclub. I worked, I opened up every major nightclub in San Diego. Um, and you know, doing so, I was, you know, coming up with the logos for the for the company, all the way to like doing the social media posts. And um, but I was also the VIP manager, so I basically was surrounded by VIPs and professional athletes, hedge fund CEOs, celebrities, models, you name it. And I cultivated relationships in that space that eventually brought me to LA. And um, you know, in between that time I also worked for a digital agency um, for about three years, and I worked basically in sales, but I was kind of like more client strategy where I would sell something that was an idea of mine, like, oh, you know, I think you could do this with Vine. And at the time when Vine was very new, we were, I was working with Mastercard, for example. So you know, I had like a really diverse like set of like a skill set that was very diverse. I would say, you know, we work in a nightclub; you're working with high-end people; you have to be super patient; you have to be really strategic about, you know, who's going to be friendly with who and how, you know, humor, interaction is going to be, and and negotiating rates, you know, because the more popular the nightclub night is, the more expensive the tables are. And I'm saying this because it'll all make sense now based on what I do now. But um, came out to LA like three years ago, and you know, I essentially, because I had—um, I actually met Gary Vee in 2009 or so, and I was like obsessed with him. He was like my hero before anybody knew who he was. And I had lunch with him one time, or I forget, we had like coffee. Um, and basically at that time, nobody knew you could make money off like, you know, doing vlogs and stuff like, people were, it was just weird to have a vlog. But you know, I was watching Gary, and I was making my own vlogs like with my Blackberry. And Gary believed in me, you know, everybody else was like, what the hell's this could do, including my parents, like they just, they, you know, I had to be in school, in college, and I couldn't just drop out and be a YouTuber because I couldn't make money on it at the time. But um, Gary believed in me, and we have like built a really close friendship throughout the years. And so having that access to Gary, when I moved to LA, I met all these influencers, and I realized that like a lot of them were dealing with more traditional talent managers and talent agents. And those traditional talent managers and talent agents, when they get on a phone with the brand, like a brand like CMO, is used to people sucking up to them because they want their budget; they're not used to an agent being like, well, how much are you gonna, you know, it's 50 grand, or like throwing a number. Like those types of people turn off a marketing executive who like has KPIs and like has to, you know, they're not, they're not going to take a risk on getting fired just so they can hire Amanda Cerny or whoever, you know, I mean, like it doesn't matter how many followers she is if it's not going to back out for them, it's not going to back out. So having that marketing knowledge, like I would just, I just became friends with a lot of the YouTubers and and and buying people.

Um, so I was, you know, through that whole, I actually moved into um, uh, 1600 Vine, and I uh, was bringing in like uh, at one point I lived in a like an influencer mansion, so I was like in there with them. I was old enough that I had some experience in marketing, but also young enough, and I was like cool, and I get invited to the party, you know. So I just got to know them. Um, oops, sorry, I don't know how to turn this thing. I figured it out how to do it the other day. Notifications mute. Okay, hopefully, hopefully that worked. Um, sorry. Uh, I met the Team 10 kids like pretty early on when I moved out here, and um, if you, everybody on this call knows Team 10, or no? Yeah, I mean, they definitely should. Well, if you don't, Team 10 was like the first collective of influencers that lived together in a mansion and created content. It was led by Jake Paul. Um, I knew where these people live, so I decided to move into that building. And um, you know, I put all my like, you know, money that I made from working at the nightclubs, and I ended up getting the penthouse at 1600 Vine, and I did it on purpose because I knew if I was networking with them and immersed in their lives and also like, you know, I worked in nightclubs; I know when the baller comes in, everybody pays attention. So I was like, how do I create that atmosphere for these kids that like otherwise wouldn't know who I was, you know? So um, now I'm the, we have, we, I own the only talent management company that represents content creators and um, uh, in that represents content creators in the way that we do it. Um, not only was I the first one to represent people in a big way in this landscape because most of the times it's like boutique management companies, um, but I continue to be, I think this is the only company that um, manages the largest TikTok roster, um, you know, probably in the world. Um, you know, talent managers don't sleep. I spend countless hours on my phone, and I'm constantly in touch with my clients. A couple of them just left; I was going to have them say hi, but the call hadn't started yet, and I'm available for them 24/7. Um, and you know, it's—and that type of lifestyle is already ingrained to me. I worked in nightlife for so long that you know, if you don't pick up a phone call, you know, someone's going to call another host, and you lose your money for that day, you know what I mean? And and you may lose out on the relationships that that person is going to bring you. So um, in this type of industry, you have, you know, you have two sets of clients: the brands are your clients, and then the talent as your clients. And so um, we had to build a company that that really serviced all the different aspects of it, and it's just, it's different than your traditional talent management company.

Yeah, I love that intro, or like telling us a little bit about your background. You know, one thing that's funny, we haven't talked about this, we have a lot of similarities, like a lot of the stuff you said. I'm curious, did you also have a good MySpace page? Because you need HTML and your CSS and all that stuff.

Of course. Yeah, on MySpace, I'm the same way. Like I had the background of nightlife. I feel like anyone who wants to be a photographer, videographer, or a marketer, start in nightlife because it's like you have to be the best, the flashiest, the most intriguing, the most captivating. It's like every week you basically just start over again because you're always in competition. So it's interesting hearing you apply that background of, like, especially the nightlife into other, other key things, because I've done that in a similar way, like making flyers at least, or thinking process is a strategy.

100%. Yeah, I'll, I'll tell you something I learned uh, in the nightlife world that like stuck with me is um, so I was in San Diego, and I ran, you know, all the popular clubs and and and uh, we had a database of probably like the largest like pretty girl database in San Diego, right, of like email addresses and stuff like that. And because I'm a girl, it's a lot easier to approach other girls and not be creepy, like, hey, you want to go to Vegas for free? Like it was, you know, I built that, and I, I leaned into other women, which is another thing I learned is like not to be competitive with, with people, you know, other, especially other women. But what I learned was that um, we got a big deal, uh, my company had gotten a big deal with um, one of the nightclubs in Vegas, and we would put 50 girls on a bus and from San Diego and basically bring them out to Vegas, and they got everything for free, and my company essentially got paid to bring them out there, right? So when I got out there, I was like, sorry, my dog, I was like trying to, you know, compete in a way with like the people that um, like the people had been in Vegas for a long time, and like I just realized like I was about to get eaten alive, like I'm a nice person. And I remember one of the guys that was running like the biggest nightclub there, he was work, he had hired me, and he, and I was like, man, I hate Vegas; I hate coming out here; people are mean; like I feel like they hate me; like I'm just trying to do my job; and like, and I feel like everybody's like trying to screw me over. And he's like, Ari, he's like, what do you, what, what do you bring to the table? I'm like, San Diego. And he's like, exactly. He's like, the hottest girls are in San Diego, the biggest spenders in San Diego. He's like, own San Diego. He's like, don't come to LA or Vegas and try to compete with all the hosts that know their people in Vegas. He's like, be the girl in San Diego that owns San Diego. When they, when they call you, you're bringing in all the hot chicks from San Diego; you're bringing in all the high rollers. They need to know you; you have to be on their side for them to like, you know. And how that relates to to what I'm doing now is I came to LA, and I didn't try to compete with traditional talent managers or talent agencies. I'm like, I know my lane: digital and social media marketing; that's my lane that I know really well. Yeah, I have contacts in traditional; I have contacts in music, and but that's not what I do, so I don't compete with those guys. And because of that, they're asking me for help. So now we're working with talent that's like Sophia Wylie, for example; she's a Disney star; she's huge; they're coming to me, will you be Sophia's TikTok manager? Bella Thorne, huge movies, all this stuff, will you wrap Bella on social media? Like, you know what I mean? And so in that, I would, it was a really good lesson that I learned back then because, you know, figure out what you're good at, and then don't try to compete with everybody that's doing the other thing, you know? How do you, how do you become the person they want to actually work with, and they're going to bring you their talent?

That's awesome. Yeah, I think that even like transcribes over to, or translates over to TikTok in the sense of like everybody trying to do everything and trying to be like the viral person, where it's like, just stick to what you're passionate about, what you're good at, what people love you for, what's, you know, instead of like, I do dances, I do this, I do that. It's like, well, kinda aren't anything because you're just everything at the same time.

Um, actually, the last thing that you said kind of brings me to a question that I had. I think a lot of people are wondering this for the most part, especially with TikTok, but in social media in general, what exactly is the difference between management and an agency in terms of like, you know, repping influencers or managing influencers? Like, what's that difference?

Between this early on and actually not early on—okay, I come from digital marketing, right? So the way I looked at influencers before was like this is like a media buy, right? So for example, like I'm paying an influencer; it's an, it's the media buy that gets you a lot more than a media buy, right? Because it gets you talent, production, you know, writing the content and distribution all in one. And so you're getting like a lot of bang for your buck. But you know, brands mostly, they're looking at it like on a CPM or, you know, if it's a direct response, like they're looking at it like that. So you know, in the, in the digital agency world, like for example, if I brought a brand to um, an agency that did like SEO, right, and I'm like, hey, I've got this contact, that agency can pay me out as a referral, like, hey, you know, we're gonna cut you out five percent as a referral for bringing this brand to me, right? And and they did a deal like that happens all the time. Well, I didn't realize that in traditional television, acting, music, and everything like that, talent is considered like, you know, I'll tell you how it works in traditional. So um, a manager is traditionally uh, the person that finds you from the beginning, you know? It's like if anybody is old enough that they watched *Entourage*, like he was the manager; he was like his best buddy from home who like, you know, he saw the vision of what like, you know, of what um, uh, whatever that the main character, what he wanted to do, what he, what kind of movies he didn't want to do, you know, they had a long-term plan for his career, and like, you know, your manager is the one that's like, when you're nobody, they let you sleep on their, you know, they let you sleep in their spare room and fly to LA and invest in you on the long term, right? And help you grow; maybe they're connecting you with like other celebrities, or they're introducing you to people that they know. Your agent is the one that's like, you're Brad Pitt, some, you know, there's a movie happening, and and your Brad Pitt's agent, well, Brad Pitt would be good for this movie; they start like promoting you to that whoever is making that movie, and they're your agent because—or if somebody's making a movie and be perfect for Brad Pitt, it's not like social media where Brad Pitt just has his email out there and they're gonna like, they have to contact Brad Pitt's agent. So traditionally, agents go out and get you deals; they do, they deal with all the money. Um, and then there's another level, which is like if you're doing a deal with like a label or there's production deals, and those are typically negotiated by lawyers. So you have a brand deal or touring deal; your agent handles that, and then your manager is the boss, so the agent has to agree with the manager, and that's why like on *Entourage*, he and Ari were always fighting because it was like Ari wanted the money deal, and then he was like, yeah, it was not gonna be like, you know. And then, you know, the manager is really like your family, like your mom, you know, like you're, you count on them for everything, and they're also looking out for you, you know, maybe Ari Gold wanted to take this deal because big money, but you know, he would be like, yeah, but that's not him staying true to like who he is, like I think I think we should hold out and not do that movie, like, you know, because they're looking at it the long term. So that's what I understand is your, is in traditional. Now, in digital, it's different, right? Because you're, first of all, you're anybody that's reaching out; brands are reaching out directly to their email on their social media platform, right? So what I don't understand, one of the things that I learned was that I, I managed this girl that that came from like, she, she was one of the biggest people that that that broke out from TikTok, and I was working with traditional like with like Bachelor stars and stuff like that on Instagram. And when I signed um, this girl, like, you know, she uh, I saw a lot of potential with her, but I didn't know much about TikTok, you know, but I knew how to talk to brands, and I had all that experience already, so I signed her. And about a month into it, you know, I'd already invested a lot of time, you know, offered a lot of like, had her out to stay at my place, like connected her with all my connections, and and we're starting to build her. But you know, a month after that, that's when like she really got a lot of press, and people started really talking about her, and um, basically the big agencies came in, and they were like, oh, now you're somebody; now I wanna work with you. So she already signed to us, then we were like, okay, you know, she was like, well, I didn't want, I didn't want to hold her back, right? Because she wanted to sign to this big talent agency, and I'm like, I talked to the talent agent, and he's like, because oh, because one day she just changed her email to this, this agent's email, and I'm like, dude, you can't do that, like, you know, we're, we're funneling in, of course, like the, the minute she changed it was when like I started seeing like Chipotle, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, all these emails coming in, and I was like, oh, this is what we were working towards, right? Like this is exciting. And then all of a sudden, the emails went away, and I'd go on her page, and she doesn't have our email up. And so I'm like talking to her, and she was like, oh, yeah, well, like, you know, it's this really big agency; like I really want to be part of it; they, they, they link and they rep these people and these people and…

I'm like, man, like, you know, these guys make me look like a chump, you know. And they're like, "Who have I repped?" Like, but I, I know what I'm doing, right? Like, I, I do know how we are making her money, and she's getting these really great deals. So, and I know that potentially, first of all, if we don't even see the deals that are coming in to that talent agency, we don't even know what they may, they may look at a deal that she would want to take and say it wasn't worth our time; we're not going to talk. You know? So I'm like, okay. So then I went to the agent, and I'm like, "Listen, dude, we're, we're on a 20 percent management fee with, with this person. We, we do the sales and the management side of it, so we take 20 percent." You know, an agent can technically get a deal. So let's say McDonald's calls an agent and says, "It," McDonald's could be like, "Hey, we have a hundred thousand dollars to spend." The agent can be like, "Okay, I'm going to take a 30 percent margin, put that away, and then I'm going to spend 70,000 on influencers, and then on top of it, I'm going to commission them 10 percent." So they just made 30 grand, and they just made whatever, you know, 10 percent of seven grand. So as a management company, we only take, if you're managed exclusively by us, we only take 20 percent of what you make. We, we don't do those back-end deals, right? It's, it's not necessarily even, not illegal; it's not even bad practice. It's just that's what agents do, right? Is that they can figure out, they know how much influencers are willing to take, and they know what brands are willing to spend. Right? So, so um, I made a deal with the, the company, and I was like, and at the time they're probably like, "Oh, this is a little old-like manager, like, you know, she'll go away after a little while." So I was like, "Hey, guy, like, you know, you're not gonna put her email up and take all the incoming leads. You're an agent; you're supposed to bring inbound, like, you're supposed to do outbound sales, you know? And, and you get," so I said, "But she wants to work with you, so we'll give you 10 percent of anything you bring, and all paid out of my percentage. She's never going to lose 30 percent. I'll take 10 percent, and you take 10 percent of what you bring. But, my guy, you're not going to take all of our incoming leads, and we're going to do all the work, and we're going to take 10 percent, and it doesn't back out for little deals like this, for a thousand dollars, 10,000; it doesn't back out. I have to have an accounting team, a PR team; like, I have to have all this stuff." So, so they were like, "Okay, whatever." They weren't too happy about it; they were like, they really want to work with this person, though. So, you know, some time goes on. So time goes on, and everything's fine. And then, you know, we ended up starting to work with some of the biggest TikTokers in the world right now, including Charlie D'Amelio, the Lopez brothers, Addison Rae, Dixie; they all had influencers' emails up. Their contracts weren't signed yet, but, you know, I'm, uh, the way I've always worked, and what GaryVee, Tommy's like, "Just give," and then, you know, when people see what you can do, they're gonna stay true to you, right? But this is Hollywood, so. And not that anything negative happened, but basically, when those people blew up, first of all, that initial talent that I had, nothing got dropped or anything for her, but it was like, "Oh, now you're working with these people." You know, it was a little jealous. And by the way, there wasn't that many people working with me at the time, so I was in a bit over my head when all that happened, when I had all those people. And then the New York Times article came out, and then it was like all hell broke loose. Every major agency was out there trying to sign; WME, UTA, CAA; they're all, and then, you know, and then these people are getting like, uh, "Well, why are you with Ari? Like, she has like two talents that she's ever managed; like, why would," yeah, yeah. And so, so those people went and got agents, right? Not managers, agents. So they signed with an agency. And, and by the way, sometimes an agency doesn't even make you sign; they're just so big that they put out press that says like, "Ari just signed with UTA," and then there's no even paperwork, but the whole world knows because it's in Variety, you know? And so everybody stops talking to you unless it's UTA, you know, or whatever, whatever it is. I don't have that. So, so then this person who started with me is feeling left out; well, all these people are now assigned to agencies, and it's a big thing. And so she wasn't, and you know, by the way, these are kids, so there's a, there's a thing that happens to the kids is they all talk to each other, and they don't know, and it's like, "Oh, I heard, you know, I heard this," and you know, if you're following along with the Hype House, it's like there's just a lot of little kid-like drama that, like, you know, and, and probably they've gotten screwed over; I've been screwed over, so I understand, you know, everybody's like worried about getting screwed over. So anyway, this person's agent started chatting with her and was like, "Well, you know, let me get you a lawyer." So then the lawyer wrote us a letter and was like, "You know, even though she's signed to a one-year long deal," so this is another thing that you have to understand, nobody can own you; there's no such thing as slavery, right? Like, even if you sign a management company, like, if you decide you don't want to work for me anymore, work with me anymore, like, you don't have to; you can tell me to screw off, but you're going to have to pay me 20 percent for the rest of the year and not use any of my services, right? So I just get to sit back and collect money from, you know, whatever you're making. Now, I'd probably have to sue you, which more often than not, we're not going to want to get into that situation, but like, really, the reason why we have a contract is so that everybody's clear up front with what's going on, because if you have a little argument, instead of it being like, "Ah, screw off," and we just invested six months in you, to think about it for a second, "Ah, you know, do I really want to get into," is there a way we can make a, you know, is there a give, like, "Hey, you know, I'm a big talent now; I need an agent." Like, "Okay, maybe we drop it to 10 percent." Like, I'm a very fair person, right? But this person's lawyer came to me, and, and was like, "Okay, well, uh, it says here that you procured XYZ deals for XYZ talent, and um, you know, because you did that, um, because you procured these deals, uh, um, what's it called, without," and you don't have an agency license, you're breaking the, you know, you could be seen as breaking the California talent agency law, which is like basically a labor law issue, which says that a talent agent needs a talent agency license. So basically, I was getting in trouble, or I was potentially getting in trouble, because, because I brought her business. So if I would have never brought her one deal or negotiated any of the deals, um, I wouldn't be in that, in that situation, right? With talent. Yeah, yeah. So the reason why I'm saying this is because actually, there's never, that law has never been contested with social media people, so nobody set precedent on that thing, you know? It was, it was meant for, I think, the traditional talent world, procuring talent, like, when you're getting inbound leads, you know, it's, it's very different than, than the talent agency world, you know what I mean? So like what we provide at Influencers is essentially both. Now we've had to, now bring on agents that work for Influencers in order to protect ourselves from that. And also, here's the other thing: so if your Influencers can hire an influencer, so for example, if I hire a talent, and I, and I pay them, and I do a contract with them for Influencers, then I'm not in breach of that talent agency law. So basically what we had to do is we're a management company; we're not an agency. This is how we're like aligning ourselves so that, you know, we can work within this weird entertainment world. But really, I'm telling you guys this because, you know, like, it, that provided a loophole for her, because I don't want to get sued. So I was like, "Okay, forget it; like, hey, you know, we're washing our hands." You know, this person was trying to assume for all the money I made her, the commissions I made; she was trying to get them all back. Like, I was like in shock, you know? Like, I, I was like, "I can't believe that," you know? That's why talent managers have to protect themselves because it's like you're investing all this money into somebody, and then you make them famous, and then they're going to use that fame and then go get bigger lawyers, bigger attorney, whatever, and turn around on you. So we really had to protect ourselves on that, and it was a big learning lesson, because, and you know, and a little heartbreaking, too, because you're like, but also, I learned from other managers and stuff; they're like, "You know what, at that point," it was like, you know, my lawyer was like, "All right, you could cry and be upset about this person that you feel like you did all," or you could turn around, and there's, you know, 10, like, there's 100 kids that would love to be repped by you and like have, you know, and so why don't you go turn around and sign all them, and let's figure out a way to like not have this issue again. And really, all it is now is that even though all the talent is signed to us for management, whenever a brand comes to us and we negotiate a deal out for the, like, you know, we negotiate a deal, the brand does a contract with Influencers, so it's like, "Brand pays Influencers 10,000," and then we do a contract with the influencer, and Influencers hires the influencer for 8,000. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's interesting how it kind of played out that way. I guess that's kind of like reminiscent of the music industry; like, you get repped by somebody, you bring them up, and then unfortunately, you know, something kind of, something similar kind of happens. It's a weird loophole, but, you know, it's like, I think that at the end of the day, fast forward to right now, you know, a lot of the things that I said that when a lot of these houses were starting, and you know, I was friends with Nick Crompton and Kate Pifer, when, um, when, when Team 10 was like falling apart, and they didn't own any piece of that company, you know, like, they, they built this huge thing out, and they didn't own any of it, and they learned so much, and they're so valuable. And so when I saw some of these kids get involved in houses, I was like, "Hey, guys, like, it's great that you're all collaborating together, but like, who owns the house? Is there insurance? Like, you know, like, who's, who put in money? Like, you know?" Like, and literally everything that, so I said these things, and at the time these kids are like, "Why are you poo-pooing on our parade?" Like, you know, I would, and, and I didn't tell them not to do it; I just said, "Hey, like, let's make sure you have your ducks in a row so you don't get taken advantage of." And it's not even anybody taking advantage of it; it's like they don't see the future of, like, "This isn't," yeah, like, this, they're not reinventing the wheel; like, content house. Yeah, I even had Jake Paul's guy, um, that lives with him; like, he was like, "Why don't you get Jake on the phone with them?" And they were like, "We don't want Jake Paul; like, he's old; like, we don't want to collaborate with him. You know, we're TikTokers." And it was like, "No, don't collaborate with him; like, learn from him; he's going to tell you," and fell apart; nobody wanted to have a call with it, and they're like, "Why are you even introducing us to Jake Paul?" I'm like, "Okay, I'm just gonna," like, and I, you know, it's like you can only tell someone so much. All the things that I said, and I hate to like say, "I told you so," but it's happening now; it's playing out. Yeah, totally. Yeah, things are falling apart because they work because that person starts off as something just fun and entertaining and cool, and then you start to realize like, "Wait, wait, they got how much money for our house name or the brand? Or wait, we're selling merch, but I haven't made any money from it, but they just bought a Lambo." So yeah, I guess you're just saying it's kind of like they just probably don't know the longevity aspect of it in terms of like how to position themselves early on, which is kind of like the whole point of what I'm doing these calls for. And this stuff is like, being famous on TikTok or any platform is cool, but like, let's actually build something from it and leverage it and use it correctly and not have like, kind of what you're mentioning, like some foreseeable possible things happening where it's like, "Oh, you shouldn't learn from people," like, you know, if somebody's telling you something, you know, it's not because they're trying to be smarter than you; it's because they're looking out for you, I hope, right? It's like, I would never tell them like, you, how would it benefit me to tell my talent like, "Don't sign up with this house that's blowing up right now?" Like, it wouldn't benefit me; the only thing that would benefit me is if I didn't want them to like fall apart, like what they had is like peak and then be done because they made some mistake. And you know, there's, you can't put a price on experience, and like, you know, actually earlier I was talking to some kids, and they were like, "You know what, do you guys bring the tape? Okay, you guys bring your service to the table, but you're getting a percentage of what we make," and it's like, but the value that really experience brings is like, you know, uh, I'll tell you a quick story. So my investor told me this; he's like, "You know, imagine there's a, a, a mechanic, uh, or like a machinery, like plan or whatever, and they, they make some type of a product, and it has a very intricate machine, and every, every day or every month they make a million dollars from this machine working the right way. The machine breaks all of a sudden, and you're losing, you know, a lot of money every day for, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars every day that machine doesn't work, and you're calling people, and nobody can seem to fix it, you know? And a guy comes in, and he's like, looks at it, and you know, this is by the way, you've already lost like, you know, five hundred thousand dollars, let's see half a month or whatever, and this guy comes in, and he's like, 'I know what to do.' He like literally tweaks something; 15 minutes later, hey, you're up and running again, and the guy's like, 'Oh my god, thank you so much,' like, you know, whatever. The guy gets a bill, and it's a hundred thousand dollars, and he's like, 'This has to be wrong; you were here for 15 minutes; how is this possible?' Like, you know, 'I'm not paying a hundred thousand dollars for 15 minutes of work.' And it's like, and the guy's like, 'My guy, like, you, you know, the time that it took me to learn how to get that piece and how to do, you know, is,' and, and by the way, if I hadn't done it, you'd be losing millions of dollars until I came around, so how much is that worth to you? You know?" And I think that young people, like, you don't think of it that way, right? It's like, it's like, "Well, it only took you two seconds to make that introduction with that brand." It's like, "Yeah, but do you know how long I've been, like, you know, you know what it took to get to that point?" And it's like, and that's the value of having a good, I think that's what we bring to the table is that, like, you know, we've already put in our blood, sweat, and tears, and, and I've, you know, outside of just money, it's like, you know, I'm 36; I put in all of my 20s and half of my 30s to understand this business of social media and like everything that's going on in it. I gave up a lot to get to where I'm at now, you know? So what's that worth to you? You know? So yeah, yeah. Um, you know, and young people just need to realize it; like, just, you can't pay for experience. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that kind of actually brings me to a question that I have with you doing what you do and like, uh, looking for influencers, like, what do you look for in terms of talent? What are you expecting out of influencers for maybe who people are listening right now, they do have a big following? What are you, as a manager, specifically looking at, and maybe they should try and, you know, start to work on and stuff? I would say, um, like, so for example, um, uh, I, I, I think I found Addison when she had like, and by the way, Addison's not signed to us yet, uh, no, just kidding, she's not signed to us, but I do work with Monty, um, her dad; her dad actually joined our company; um, he's our chief talent officer. So first of all, when I met Addison, like super positive, spunky, outgoing, and she just had that like "it" factor, like big smile, like she could dance; she was doing stuff with her mom; she every time I brought her, you know, she was super engaged, like, if she was meeting with me, like 100 percent engaged, and came on time to stuff, like really, really motivated, and constantly making content, like, you know, we'd be at a meeting, and then like we go grab lunch, and she'd like have the thing up, and, and um, and, and she was also like, for her, she was like all about collaborating with people; like, that was her big thing; like, she, she was the one that came to Jake Paul's house and was like, "I'll do a video, Jake Paul; I want to teach him how to TikTok." And so like, really positive, motivated, and hard-working, I would say, is like number one. And that, like, she had that like "it" factor, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, could you kind of just say, could you kind of describe what that would be? I think because a lot of people are getting big numbers on TikTok, and they're doing well, but I don't think they know what's going to set them apart from the rest of the talent. So I'm wondering like if there's some like three actionable things that they can start to think of or apply. I would go on my "For You" page and like, and like, I would just say the first thing is that, like, "it" factor that made me stop and like, you know, watch that video again, like, you know? And I don't know; it's just, it's just something that, like, you know, everybody's seen it. I mean, why, you know, when you guys go through your "For You" page, you know, there's probably somebody that makes you stop, and it's like, what I would do is add that person and follow them and keep following and see if they grow, because if they're growing, you'll see that you have that, you know, you can put that, that um, you have that same ability to catch who's, who's gonna blow up. But like, as you compare to what you're doing is like, if I was in this feed, what's gonna make someone stop and be like, "Oh, wait a second; this, who is this person? I wanna know more about them." So I would say like that, you know, that initial like talent, I would just say like, talent around something; like, are you talented? If you're a magician, are you, you know, there's Chris, I've been talking to; she's balanced as a ball, but she doesn't just, there's just something about you that makes you different and unique, and you're talented at something; singing, comedy, whatever it is that you're talented in. Second thing I would say is like, just work ethic. And um, the third thing I would say is, um, uh, is like the last thing I would say is like views; what I, in terms of what I look at before I sign someone.

It's like, first, they have that "it" factor; they have talent. Second, they have the work ethic and professionalism, and they get up at, you know, then they're constantly making content. And then the third thing is that they have a following. Because if you're talented and you're at—I mean, I added the Yankee Boys, the dad and his son, when they were at 10,000. I knew they were gonna blow up. Like, I literally, I couldn't even find them. Like, I literally was like, I was adding them; I added them just to like figure out whenever they put up their email address. Alicia Allen, you know, she's like—you could tell she's like an actress—she had like two or three million followers; her engagement was super high every time she made a funny video, like, or um, like a lip-syncing, whatever, when they're like acting.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, damn, like I can't get in touch with this girl. Like, those were the people that I was—I was so excited to talk to. And I'm actually glad that they didn't put their emails up because they would have gotten that big Hollywood agent to call them and get the whole spiel, and they don't even know what they're getting themselves into, you know. So I think like for us it was—it's like, you know, who is that—that talent that's different? And then also, I try to find people that aren't already on my roster of like that type of person. So, for example, like, you know, if if I had—if like I don't want to have more than like, you know, three e-boys on my roster, and I would—if they're e-boys, I want them to all be different types of e-boys, you know, different nationalities or whatever. Like, uh, you know, if uh, like I want—I really wanted to have like the most diverse group.

But we went to a meeting after we signed like our first group of talent, and literally people were stopping me on the street being like, "Are these people famous?" Like, didn't even know who they were. I've got like two bald girls; they have alopecia. I've got highlighter-head Marcus and his friends.

Yeah, yeah. I've got Arabic—isn't like super tall; he's like super like trendy, like looks like, you know, knowing Eubanks-type guy. I mean, these people just look famous, right? Like, they just—I don't know what they do, but that's, you know, that "it" factor. We really want to—um, we just want to have a diverse group of talent that we're working with. It's really about quality versus quantity.

Yeah, that's something I really try to tell a lot of people when they're building their actual profile at itself from like content-wise—it's really about quality versus quantity. Because quantity—yeah, whatever, you get X amount of numbers, but it's not going to make you want to tune in. You talked about like Jake Paul and them—like there's a quality to their video. They put out videos every single day, but they made sure to keep this level where it's like—that stuff, I think, just makes you—like when you are someone who's bigger, you know, like big Universal Music or whatever, like whoever is actually looking, they might want to see like, okay, what are they talking about? Not exactly like, well, they put out 50 videos, but like what are they actually doing? You know, what's really valuable is anybody that can make their own sounds. So, for example, one of my clients—because uh, one of my past clients—because she was so funny and she didn't have to use a musical sound, um, brands were more interested in working with her because they didn't have to get the rights to that piece of music. And also because of the user-generated content that came from the sounds she was making. So if you make a funny video and you're like, blah blah blah Chipotle, and it's something really funny and it catches on, and then you know 500,000 people make a video about with Chipotle in the sound, you know what I'm saying? Then it becomes way more valuable to that brand.

Yeah, totally. I love that. Awesome. Um, real quick, just to ask you, um, do we have enough time to do a couple more questions and then also do Q&A? Or I'm not sure what your schedule like right now for the next—I don't know what the schedule is for your viewers. As long as you have time, we'll be here. I promise you, people will stay for 10 hours if you don't mind saying 10 hours, but I just want to make sure that we can do the Q&A, but I didn't want to take up too much of your time, so I'm not sure what your—your schedule is like because I know—Let's go for it. Okay. Well, I know you also have all these influencers—know they're gonna call you and be like, "Hey, um, we don't know how to do this." You're like, "I gotta go; I gotta be back; I gotta go." I already know.

Yeah, I've been using Calendly now, and like I make them make an appointment now, so—

Oh, nice. That's smart, though. Just to tell you like, you know, anybody watching, so when I got overwhelmed, I started to think about all the smart people I know that had money, and I called them and I'm like, "Listen, I'm in over my head; I've got all these people want to sign with me; I need some support; I need a staff. Like, it's not possible for me to be everything to everyone." And like, you know, that was the biggest thing that—you know, when I met Jason, who ended up becoming um, our investor, he was like—he's more of like a nuts-and-bolts guy, and he was like, "Okay, what, you know, what did each—how many—how many managers, you know, what do these people need? They need a manager and a salesperson because those are two different roles." That's probably why there's managers and agents, because one person's on the comp, you know, answering emails and making negotiations; one person's like, "Hey, let's make a YouTube video and like, you know, with you in the red carpet and like all that kind of stuff." So how do we bring that—those two things together—the company? You know, and by the way, we—we do work now with some of those big agencies um, when the talent requires it um, or like, you know, on every deal right now we work with agents, but everybody that like helped us—like it's just—there's enough to go around; there's always a way to make something happen. So but my—but now the—the great thing is that like we actually do have the support that we needed to scale and be able to like—be able to sign more influencers because um, and we—and we've like developed like a CRM to like—you know, the amount of fan mail that comes into our funnel email is like crazy, but like now we have a system, you know. There's—I'm not gonna tell all my secrets, but yeah, we have—but now we have a system where, you know, a talent can call and be like, "Hey, what does my pipeline look like?" And their salesperson—you know, their brand partnership or something—like, "Well, there's—I've got two things that are uh, ready to close; here's the contract; I've got two things that I've got a call set up for this week." So people know what's happening. And I think like honestly what I've learned is that—and I—this has been something that is not super easy for me because I'm like all over the place sometimes—it's just like communication is so important, especially with young people, because sometimes like—like a—like a very simple miscommunication between management and talent—it's like, "Oh my god, I'm getting screwed!" Like, "Well, you—you know, you're lying to me." And it's like, "Wait, wait, wait—like, no, no—like maybe there was a change; maybe the brand changed their mind," and then I'm the messenger, and I got to tell you—this doesn't mean I lie—like, but because it's kids—like we have to almost overly—overly—overly—overly communicate so that that trust never gets broken. Even though, you know, I've been in business for however—15 years—and I've never—you know, I don't lie, still cheat. I have people that we've done business with that sometimes things don't go well; they're not going to tell you that I'm a bad person, you know. They're like, "Oh, yeah, we try to do this thing; it didn't work out." But I think with talent—it's like, especially young people, you know, they like—they're automatically like—they're almost like you're walking on eggshells at first until you build some—you know, nobody's gonna tell that to like maybe a Scooter Braun, but like somebody that's new in this industry—it's like very easy for talent to be like, you know—so that's one of the things that I've learned is like you definitely want to have a lot of communication with your team so that—and—and then also too—like give each other the benefit of the doubt, you know what I mean? Like maybe there was a miscommunication, and it's like instead of like going to other talents and be like, "What did you get for this deal? Or how come I didn't?" It's like, go to your—go to your manager and be like, "Hey, I noticed this—like, I was just wondering if you could explain that to me." Like, give them the benefit of the doubt instead, because what happens is when I've seen as a lot of these influencers talk to each other and then they like—they like construct some like crazy plan that like their manager had to like—you know, these people had to like screw them over, and it's like, "No, no—well, you know—"

What that kind of brings me to like another question I think is like probably one of the most asked sought-out questions is making money off of social media and more specifically TikTok. I'm kind of curious if you don't mind kind of sharing like some of the back-end process of it. Like, I think a lot of people were always curious like how do you make money from TikTok? Like, how does that even look like from like a management position? Is there like some kind of a way that you do like a step ladder like, "Oh, first we need to do this, then we reach out to that, then we get this going?" Like, is there some kind of system that you—influencers are listening—should think about?

I like to give the influencers reps. So what that means is—uh, for example, they wanna—they wanna work with a brand, right? Let's call it Boohoo. They wanna work with Boohoo, and you know what a lot of people need to realize is a lot of brands have never really done activations yet on TikTok. They don't really know how TikTok works; they don't really know like, you know, there's certain things like an influencer might be like, you know, "I don't want to put that caption," but what you can do on TikTok is you could tell the brand, "Well, I don't want to put that caption, but I can put it in the comments and pin it," or whatever—however you do that, you know. So I think that there's like ways that the brands need to be educated. So if you—there's a couple things you can do to get brand news—if you educate the brand that wants to work with you on how you want to work with them and—and—and help them—"Hey, you know what are you guys trying to—you go on there and—and go and do your homework; go on the brand pages and like go on their Instagram, go on their YouTube, go on their TikTok." Because if you provide them value of like you're—you're teaching them something that they should be doing on TikTok, they're gonna value you more, right? We do that all the time with—with brands that want to work with us is we'll get on the phone and instead of being like, "Hey, we're gonna charge you, you know, a thousand-dollar agency fee for creative to like help you put that brand to get like that brand deal together," I just do it because I know it'll work, and I'm like, "Hey, you know, do you have everything about doing it this way?" And then they're like—they feel like I've given them so much knowledge that they're like, "Hey, can we just do the whole campaign with you guys?" Like, "Who else would you recommend for this?" And then, you know—and so educating, I think, is—is very valuable. Then the other thing is like if it's a brand you really want to work with—you see longevity in—do a little bit of that—give—like I learned from Gary—I mean, I think it's just, you know, some—it's like give—give—give, and then ask. A lot of times influencers are like, "I'm not doing—giving anything till I get paid," but first of all, if you're not—that—if you're not getting a lot of brand deals, that means that you don't have that many reps in the space. So, for example, when you get a brand deal, you have to pay attention to the—to the caption thing; you have to pay attention to when you're supposed to post; you know, you may have to turn in the content first, and then they have to approve it; you know, they might want you to—so let's say that you do a—a deal with—with um, Boohoo, and it's a trade deal—they send you clothes and—and you're posting, but treat it like it's a real deal, right? Be on time; do it right; communicate with the brand; don't just do a job just because the brand is not paying you—this is your tryout—try out—get a—get some reps because if you mess it up at the end of the day, you didn't get paid for it, so they can't—you know, come back because then when you do get a big deal, if you mess that deal up and then you're not—then that brand is never going to want to come and work with you again, you know. So sometimes I tell my talent, "Hey, guys, let's—this is a brand that has big budgets behind them, you know—like let's—let's show them a little love." You know, like in the nightclub business, if I knew a guy was worth, you know, millions of dollars and he came in, I'd maybe throw him his first bottle comp just to show him a good time—"Hey, you want to have a good time at this club?" And guess what? That guy was coming back spending over and over and over with me because I showed him a good—like, you know, we showed him a good experience one time. So take that—I would say do that—like, you know, don't—and also, by the way, nobody knows you did it for free, so uh, you know, when you—when you have the other brand that's looking—"Oh, man, I really like that ad they did with Boohoo," and then they're hitting you up, and then they're like, "Oh, what's your rate? I like that video," and then they don't know—they don't know you didn't get paid for it—you'd say, "I got paid five grand for that."

Yeah, that's perfect. It was funny that you mentioned something in the beginning about like knowing the brand and understanding them and stuff like that. Um, there was someone that we had about a week ago, I think, or two weeks ago—her name was Saba—and her whole thing is like how to really get onto like news publications and TV shows and TED Talks and stuff, and one tip that she gave that's so similar to yours is like instead of just saying, "Write an article about me," she's like, "Put the subject line of what you think the article will be good and like literally kind of like bullet-point out what the article should be—what you could talk about," where she's like—to the point where they just get it—it kind of like you said—they're like, "Yeah, that sounds perfect; let's do it." Like, you did so much of the effort and the work and the education that it's like—why would they turn down—so the same thing—what you just said right now where you could do the—the creative and you're just like, "Oh, whatever, I don't care," you're like, "Oh, we can do this, this, and this, and check out that—I know that you guys did this in the past"—like they're gonna probably be like, "You know what? I love Ari; she's like—she knows our brand; like she probably represents us so well." So I love that you touched on that because that's something that I think like a lot of people that are even with big influencers—like I've talked—and I know you have talked to a lot of people that have big numbers, but they still haven't gotten like a single, you know, deal or ad or anything, and it's like—it's interesting. The other thing is don't outprice yourself just because, you know, "Oh, if you like the brand"—always figure it out—like you don't know if on the back—and like that—that brand might say—it might be a huge brand, but their boss might say, "You can't spend more than 5,000 on any influencer." So let's say an influencer is typically should be getting 10 to 15 grand a post, right? Like if they want to work with that brand—like maybe they're going to be like, you know, "I normally wouldn't do this at this rate; I really like you guys; if that's really the max you can spend—five grand—like I'll do—you know, let's do this one," and then guess what? That brand's calling you every week and giving you five grand every week.

Hell yeah, you know? And it's a cool brand—it's Chipotle or whatever, you know what I mean? It's like something that—and then by the way, the more Fortune 500 brand deals that you do that aren't like fashion over Sugar Bear Hair, the more valuable you're going to become, and you can build your brand out, you know? If you do it—most people think like, "Oh, I'm gonna do a deal with Target, and so that's gonna be a hundred thousand dollars." Like, Target might not have the budget to pay you a hundred thousand dollars, but if you do a deal with Target, your—the level that you're going to look like—that of—of the type of deals that you take is going to be on another level. So when, you know, uh, Procter & Gamble is doing the deal, they're like, "Oh, she worked with Target—like hell yeah, I want to do this deal," right? So that's a really good point—I think like people should listen to that—like how can you leapfrog one brand that you work with for the other one? Kind of like leverage—almost like when you get an offer for another job that's competition, you go to your boss like, "Hey, they're offering me this, and I could do that"—where like—see like, "Oh, they worked with Target, and she's paying me this somewhere or she's charging this much—we probably should do it because she's working with Target." And like most people maybe don't even think that way—like how you're saying like that—like kind of that nightclub mentality going back to it—like I comp you a bottle so I get 50,000 out of you because of that one bottle that cost us 20 bucks, you know—like wholesale costs.

You know, what does that post cost you?

Zero.

Yeah, anything. Yeah, but what can you gain from it is the big thing about it. Your peers are not gonna be like—now don't go around telling people what the hell you're making, you know? It's like don't do that, you know, because then that's when you get yourself in trouble because then it's like, "Oh, you know, I heard that," and everybody talks. You know, you could sign an NDA; it doesn't matter—everybody talks to each other. So you know you want to keep that between you and your management—even like between—like in our management company, we have different people; we don't tell them—you know, we will sell them like, "Hey, that brand spent X amount on another influencer that," you know—so like because it's just—you know, it's hard, right? Because sometimes I just want to be like, "Dude, just trust me—like just like trust me," but it's what I'm doing, and everybody wants that—you know—to say—disturbance—but like this is what we do every single day, so like we know what other people are getting—you know—are getting offered and stuff like that, and so sometimes like kids get scared, you know, for a brand that's like, "Oh, I don't want to lose this deal," and I'm like—"They're never gonna lose a deal because you brought in your lawyer like to like—like you know—I—I don't think that's even legal—like—like they send you a contract, and then you're like loop in your lawyer to read it, and they're gonna like drop the deal because you have a lawyer." I'm like, "That doesn't—" But these kids are literally scared sometimes that they're like, "Oh, I really—"

Want to work with this brand? They're like, "If I show this to the lawyer, like they're gonna, they're not, they're gonna take it away." I'm like, "That's someone taking advantage of you if they don't let you have a lawyer look at the contract."

Yeah, yeah. The worst they could say is no, and then that's it, and then you decide for yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Then I realize that on TikTok, they don't realize that they have the leverage. You know, there's only so many creators creating on TikTok. It's different than Instagram because on TikTok you have to actually be a performer, almost, you know. And it's like there's way more eyeballs looking at TikTok than there are people making content. So if you're one of the very few people making content that people want to watch, like you're especially right now with what's going on with the coronavirus—literally, there's no productions going on; you can't advertise on television right now. You do a new commercial; you have to go to content creators that are convicted that can create content from home. I mean, even look at like Jimmy Fallon—like he's terrible at vlogging. Like if you watch the Late Show, it's like that's not what they do, you know.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what they do. So awesome.

Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to switch over to Q&A so people can come in and ask a question. And then what I was thinking I would do, because I do have a couple more questions that I think are really, really good and kind of just show what you actually do, but I think it'll be kind of cool to do a couple questions and then bounce over to like one of mine, and then go back and forth to the point in which Ari's like, "I gotta feed my dog and go, so goodbye." Um, so I'll bring on someone that you probably—actually, I'm gonna bring everybody in, but we're only gonna do one-on-one. So let me—um, let's see. I'm gonna zoom right here, so—um, okay, I'm gonna do this, hold on real quick, everybody. Okay, um, trying to start it up. There we go. It's connecting. The audio—Zoom has a new thing where they make it a delayed now so that you don't—so people don't get like a Zoom-bombed all of a sudden. I don't know if you've heard of that or seen that, guys, yet. So yeah, that's kind of going on. Um, okay, so Steph, did you want to go ahead and ask your question first?

Yeah. First of all, hey, what's up, Ari? We met you.

Hi! Good to see you again.

Hey! Great seeing you as well. Um, yeah, so actually I have a question. So what would you—what would you say is like, um, I guess the hierarchy of like priority for like what—since you manage all these creators—like what is super important that they get down and like what's valuable to you that you know as far as like creating content and stuff?

You know, most of the people that we manage, like, like if I can take everything away from them in terms of like stresses of what they're doing so that they can just literally focus on creating content all day long and and and collaborating and like not having to think about, you know, like where they're—where they have the free, you know, because to be creative you have to have a lot of mind share, you know? I—I feel like and and and if you're thinking about, um, "How am I going to pay my rent?" or "How am I going to, um, you know, get to my—go like reach my goals?" and and and, you know, "I need to move to LA," or like, you know, what are the things that you need to happen so that you can just feel like, "I can just create all day long, like I feel good about this," you know? And and um, that's my job, right? So that—so I take—every creator is different, right? In terms of like what their goals are, what they want to do, and it's like they—they're good at—I'm not telling them how to create content, like just their general content, but what I—what I do help with is once we do have a like, let's say I have a brand opportunity, is like sometimes they're like, "I don't know how to integrate that with like what I'm doing," you know? And it's like—and they're—they're—I'm like, "It's a, you know, $20,000 deal, let's think about that," you know? Because I've—what I've noticed is creators really want to be true to themselves, and we're 100% on board for that. We never want you to take a deal just because it's money. If you're—if your followers are going to lose followers because of something, like—like never do a deal like that, but be creative in what you can do. Like I had this—um, scroll—she was like a comedian, and and everything that she did was really funny, and uh, you know, they wanted her to do a skincare thing, and she's like, "I—like I don't want to do a skin—like, you know, I can't figure out how to do a skincare thing," and then I was, you know—and then she—I was like, "I think this is a really good opportunity; like let's just do it, but like let's think of a way that you can like take—you know—that you can do it creatively." So I started doing research on the brand and like some of the things that worked for them, and then what she ended up coming up with is she was like washing her face and talking in like a British accent, like she was on that show—um—"What's that like reality show that's really popular?"

Love Island.

It's one of my favorite shows of all time, by the way, everybody. So it was so funny because she did the ad, and then people were literally commenting like, "I cannot believe this is an ad!" Like, and that's what I want—like I want all my talent to have branded videos where like people are like, "Oh my god, I didn't—I did not even know that was an ad." You know, those are the types of things we can help talent with on the creative side, but more—more than anything, like we handle everything else, you know? So that—and and then also, too, it's like the biggest thing that I would tell my talent that's especially the biggest on TikTok is like, "Build your brand's story." You know, you need a couple things to do that: be a good storyteller. Like tell—every talent should have a video that's like, "Who am I?" Like, "Who is Marcus Olin?" And you—and you look it up, and it's literally like Marcus, like in whatever kind of way he's doing it, he's telling like, "Hey, this is where I came from, like, you know, I grew up in this place, like—like who—who are you?" And then take content from like your past and put it in a video that's like your bio, right? Because when people—when like brand executives are looking you up, like they don't have time to go through your whole feed. And like, by the way, on TikTok there's not enough time to tell your backstory. So for example, like my mom—I was born in Mexico City. My mom's like a Mexican lady—like she's got an accent, and she doesn't watch football or anything like that, but like one day I walked in the room and my mom was like—and—and I think the Seattle Seahawks were playing, and we've grown up in the Bay Area all my life, so like 49ers and, you know, Raiders. I could see her like cheering for—she was like cheering for the Seahawks, and I'm like, "Mom, like what is wrong with you? Why are you cheering for the Seahawks?" She's like, "Well, I watched this episode—like I think it was like 20 for 20. I forgot what the show is—it's like that talks about, um, athletes, and she's like, "And this guy—and he's deaf, and he can't—can't hear, but like, you know, he came from nothing, and he's the only, um, you know, deaf guy on—" Anyway, she knew his whole story, and so she was cheering for the Seahawks. That's what you want to do is like—is—is tell your story so that anybody watching it can relate to you, right? The reason why I think people like Addison did so well, people like, um, Joe Mel—Melee—the guy that did the Ratatouille with his—with his dad—the reason why those guys are—way—those people are—are—um, interesting, the Hype House, is because there's like a backstory. It's like, "Who are these people?" You only get invested in people if you know their story. So like one of the things that I'm really trying to work on with my team is like having everybody make that—you know—that piece of content that's searchable and that's like the "Who am I?" Because—um—that's what's gonna make you relevant and and like, you know, get other people interested in you, whether it's like a musician or if you have some type of struggle, you know? Like the reason why I literally went right towards Emmy when I first saw her—Emmy and Alex—is because I'm like, "Clearly they're not like regular girls," you know? They're completely bald, like—and they're happy and beautiful and like different and embracing that, and they're not like—and when I met them I was like, "This is like a real—this is something inspiring to—to me, even—not other—just other girls," you know? And if you can be inspiring to people, and that's what influence really is and should be used for—if you can make a living out of it, great, but if you can do good and and inspire the people before you, that's what—like is really—that's like my why is like, "How can I—like, you know, how can you send the elevator back down?" Um, so that's what we really encourage and look out for and help them with.

I like that a lot. Thank you so much. That was really good.

Yeah. And by the way, like the whole like hour of you like talking and sharing all these stories, like I really love that. I was taking so many notes; like that was very valuable. So thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah. All right, peace.

Yeah, thank you. Okay. Can—can you start your video up, uh, McKenzie? If everybody, by the way, who's coming in, like don't turn your video on—audio on because I want to really be like one-on-one. So anyways, uh, this is McKenzie, by the way. Ari, I told you about her yesterday who like super grew her Instagram account in like a month. This is the person I was talking about. So by the way, so you can put some context now to it. So go ahead, go for it.

Hi, Ari. Thank you so much for coming on this chat and talking to us. I've already learned so much from every story that you told us; it's amazing. Um, so my question is, I've been on TikTok for a little bit under a year now, and I've done kind of everything myself, on my own, but a few managers have like reached out to me and kind of talked to me, but like, how do I know when is the right time to work with a manager? Because sometimes I hear like bad stories about like certain managers, and certain managers can really help you, so I just don't know like when is the perfect time to be able to work with a manager and when you kind of know like you're ready to do that.

I would say, um, when are you ready? I mean, to get like significant opportunities, like, you know, at least for us, we really—we look at people that have—that are getting like at least they have like close to a million on TikTok. And I say that, but then also there's people that like that I brought on that have like 200,000 followers, you know? And it's like—um—but like I see the talent, and then I see that they're gonna like blow up, you know? So it's worth me investing a little bit in them, and then also like, you know, now that I have a bigger roster, like if somebody brings a lot—so for example, like if—if I found a musician that's like unbelievable, then like—and I know that my talent would love her, like I know I can collaborate—put her with those people, and they'll grow her, um, you know, and—and that she'll bring value to them because she sings or does something really cool. Um, but you know, in terms of like when do you need, um, you know, management, it's like—it's really when you see a lot of deals coming in that are like brand opportunities coming in that you're not sure what your value would be, you know what I mean? Or like you don't even know like how to negotiate it. I think that, you know, you—like it depends really who's—who's coming and like—like what kind of companies are trying to manage—like I don't know—give me an example. Like you don't have to tell me what the management company is, but like what was their pitch to you, I guess?

So pretty much like when like a manager like came to me, like here's one example where they pretty much just told me that, "Hey, I'm a manager; like I could really help you out, uh, grow you, and also like help you get like great brand deals," and then they kind of—what sold me was like, "Oh, I'm working with this huge person and this huge person," and then we kind of hopped on a call and like talked about it, but I got like weird vibes, like every time we wanted to like meet up or like—like talk on the phone, like they were always like an hour and a half late, and every time like it was just kind of like off, and we didn't like vibe totally right away.

I would say honestly, chemistry is the number one thing to—to feel out is chemistry. Um, also ask them like who's gonna be on your team. So for example, like now when I'm signing people, um, I have a group text with all of our talents, and it's like, you know, Alex Umazo team, and it's—I'm on it, uh, Laura Beatty, our EVP, our executive vice president, she's on it, um, they'll have a brand executive that's in there, so like—um, you know, I've got Cody's on Alex's team, and then we have like a day-to-day manager. Um, right now I'm kind of serving as both for the girls in the valley, but they're going to have their own manager for that house. So there's like essentially any and all times there's like five people in their group, so that like a—you know, let's say that—um—let's say they get, you know, they don't like their manager, right? Because I have other managers in the company, I can like be like, "Okay, why don't we swap out this person—this manager for this person?" So they don't have to like leave the company and everything they built with that team just because they're not seeing eye to eye with someone. The other thing is that's good is that like if you only have one person that answers to you, like maybe I'm annoying one of my talents, and she needs to talk to Laura, or like maybe, you know, that's gonna happen—it's like a marriage, you know what I mean? Like there's gonna be dis—you're gonna disagree, but like if you have other people you can talk to, because then maybe Laura's gonna come to me and be like, "You know, when you do that, like it didn't—it didn't really fly that way," and it's like someone else from my team telling me versus like the talent like being scared like, "Oh, if I tell Ari like, you know, what's gonna happen," you know what I mean? Because they're like—they are your manager. So ask them what the—what the team looks like, and then also I would ask how many people they are specifically looking after, um, and uh, you know, if it's 20, you know, it's gonna be tough. I think if—so if a manager is managing 10 people that are, you know, mid-sized, that's manageable. On my team, I wouldn't put like, you know, I wouldn't put like five—I wouldn't put more than like three people under somebody if they were really big talents, right? Like if it was like—I don't manage them, but if it was like Addison Rae and Charlie, like I would just have one manager on Charlie the whole time, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, um, it's basically—and also, too, like you may not live in the same city that, you know, if you don't live in LA, you know, you're—but you're still—your manager should be talking to you every single day, um, you know, the way that I've worked is—is that like, you know, we try to get to know somebody before we like make them sign on the dotted line, but also—and sometimes like I'll just like bring an opportunity—I'll be like, "Hey, what do you think about this?" You know, a lot of times now we're just like—we'll have them sign an NDA, so it's a non-disclosure agreement, so if I do bring that up, they can't like go around me, you know, just for that one opportunity, but like, you know, because a lot of people will be like, "Oh, we'll work with—you know, can you just do—can you just do it like as you go management?" And then it's like, "Yeah, but if I build you up like—and I'm, you know, getting you verified on all these platforms, then like you gotta rock with me," you know what I mean? So, you know, put yourself in the manager's shoes at the same time, but I would definitely get an idea of who they work with, and not only who they work with, but like—it's so easy on TikTok, you could go to any of my clients' pages and see their brand deals. Yeah, go look on their—their pages, and if they're rep'd by us now—of course, like the ramp-up period is probably one to three months of like where like I start pitching them and they start getting a bunch of deals—like that's if they don't get that many incoming deals—but like, you know, you wanna—you can—you can go and check and see what people are bringing. You know, there's very few people like in this industry that I would recommend. One—one person I really like is Charlie—um, I forget his last name, but he reps Brent Rivera, and—and he's like really big in the—in the—in the TikTok space, so like you want to have someone that understands that space, you know? And then the other thing, too, is that like let's say you're a musician, you've been being a musician for a long time, but you want a manager in digital, then you know what we do sometimes is I'm like, "Listen, you know, traditional for management on a musician is 10%, I'll take 10% on the music side and 20% on your digital side, or I won't touch your music side till you come to me and say, 'Yeah, I really like you; I want you to touch my music side'," you know what I mean? So you—the way that we work is like I send a contract and I'm like, "Chop it up—you tell me like where it's unfair about it," you know, right? Um, so definitely overall, you think it's definitely beneficial to have someone—then kind of work on your own and do things on your own.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, thank you so much. I have a quick question real quick from myself/McKenzie. For someone who's at her numbers right now and like the great that she's growing—I think you have like what, 1.2 million or one point—one point—1.3—um, if she's getting approached, and this is for anybody else, but like specifically in McKenzie's space right now, if she's getting approached by managers that aren't like, you know, maybe the best to work with or not ideal, how would someone as an influencer go reach out and find management and be proactive and like, "I want to find someone who's going to resonate with me and like who I'm about and what I'm doing?" Is there any like advice in terms of like how would someone reach someone like you or the people that you mention in the right way? If they're like, "I want to do this for you."

I—the way that I, you know, people are reaching out to me because they see influences in a lot of people's profiles, you know? But like—and—and honestly, like the way that we're working right now is like, you know, we can't take everybody on, so like if somebody reaches out to me and and they're not a—they're not like somebody that I think I could help grow, like I would probably just—I would probably refer them to like the handful of people that—that um, you know, that I trust.

That would also be able to take them on, um, or, you know, we we might just say, hey, like, let's stay in touch, you know. You what I would do is continue to grow this, continue to grow that. When you get to this point, let's talk. But hey, by the way, I'll keep you, you know, in in the in our sort of wheelhouse, so that if there's a deal that makes sense for you and, you know, like it's for a micro-influencer, we don't have anybody on there that's Microsoft or whatever it may be, we might just kick you those deals because we know you, you know what I mean? Like we work direct with a lot of talent, and it's like sometimes people are looking for something very specific.

But I would say like, you know, um, look for and like look for other managers that are in that space. Like, for example, um, when I worked in the in in with a lot of Bachelor people, like, you know, the the managers that are managing a lot of Bachelor girls, they're getting a lot of those deals. So like what you had to look at is who could I benefit from? So, for example, I don't know what kind of content you make, but let's say that there's a manager that has a girl that's kind of like you, but like way bigger, right? But you're on that trajectory to get to like that level. I would reach out to that manager because for them it's going to be a lot easier to get you deals, right? Because they're going to be already talking to the people that, you know, are getting her deals, and it's going to be easy to like pitch you to, hey, you know, why don't we add her to the deal? You know. So I'm sorry, not to the deal; the way that we work is like we'll close the deal with that person first, and then if there's extra budget, then we're like pitching other talent, you know what I'm saying? But it's like you definitely want to work with someone that's in that real house.

So, for example, if somebody if somebody reaches out to you and they're managing like a bunch of um male TikTok talent and you're a female Instagram person, like they're not going to have any contacts that are coming their way that is going to fit for you, you know, right? Cool, awesome. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Thank you, Mackenzie. I just want to hop on real quick and say that was—she's still there; I just stopped her video. Yeah, I'll send you her stuff afterwards. Um, I I just wanted to say that I think that's such a good idea and it's so simple but so brilliant: like just find influencers that are similar to you but bigger and find out who their managers are, because like you said, it's going to be so much—it's kind of like going back to we said earlier, like why make it harder for management even to be like, hey, I'm like your staff or like your talent, can you help me out? Do you want to rep me? It's it's so much easier versus if you go to someone who's a manager is like, I work with guys who are bros, and why would I? Can't—no, I'm not going to do it. So that's like such a good—you're like—and that's the thing, unless you're like popping off so big that you're like, you know, I want Tana Tana's manager to manage me, like, you know, like like those people aren't gonna obviously like add another person their roster unless it's somebody like they know they can build like.

So like I was talking to like Sam Shahidi, right, who was a good friend of mine, who he like built Lele Pons and and all in shots and like all the people under there under him. When a lot of these big, you know, YouTube or TikTok people came out, I was getting advice from him, and it's like, you know what, okay, like he's adorable, like you can't—that's universally adorable, you know what I'm saying? Like it's like anybody that watches that and it's like a dad's son, it's like it's a good story, right? Another one was was Jacqueline—beautiful girl that can dance and all her videos super well-lit and um just super brand-friendly. You know, I could think of a million brands that would want to work with both of them. So what I so like and also I knew I wanted like a female dancer because a lot of times the labels want somebody to uh choreograph their stuff and, you know, I wanted to have somebody that could uh fit that need at a lower rate, you know. Not everybody can afford the Lopez brothers or whatever, you know what I mean? So for my roster it was important for me at that time to like, you know, fit those people in. So um and and also because, you know, I think we could grow that. I mean, TikTok is just growing so fast that um that I, you know, I it was really like it made sense, you know. But of course, I want like also like the Jason Coffees of the world that have 15 million followers who know how to do YouTube videos, who know how to do uh that really understand the platform that have a big social media across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I mean, my—that's the dream, right? And like but at the same time, I know that like a lot of people that blew up on TikTok, if they have talent, that they're going to blow up on YouTube as well, you know. We just have to give them the right tools, and some of that might just be like like literally with Alex French right now, she's she's like she blew up because she would like do these vlogs we're like, hi, but like she wasn't just saying hi, she was like, hi, this is what I did today, and like, you know, she put it all together, but like that's what she was known for. So I'm like, I told her for her YouTube we should have like an intro, or she's like, hi hi, you know, she's a really cute little—and then we did the intro for her, um, and she's putting out that content and and that's what people like. So I think that, you know, it's just about can I build a brand under this person, you know? Bottom line, can I build a brand um that I could stand behind and that I would could pitch to any brand that I'm working with that would make, you know, that and they would be like, yeah, that makes sense.

There was a kid, you know, nothing against him, but like he's had like 10 million followers, but all he does in his videos is throw his sister around, like, you know, looks like he's like beating her up, like not in a bad way—brothers like doing really crazy things—like all of a sudden she throws her, and I'm like, great kid, and I'm sure he's not he's not actually hurting his sister, but like I'm a brand, I don't want—I don't mess with that, like, you know what I mean? So it's like as doesn't matter how many followers he had, I wasn't gonna sign him, like, you know, okay, because I um I I'm in fitness niche, so I I noticed I looked at your website actually, um uh sent you a connection request on LinkedIn a long time ago, I just realized I looked again, but um I uh I I was looking at your website, and it seems like um you don't have any um like specifically fitness um like because it's hard to find—I I haven't seen any fitness uh like actual fitness influencers; they're more like they start off as models and then they transition into fitness. I would love to have a fitness person, honestly, like I think it would be like when those coronavirus stuff ends, like I've got like four houses I'm working on, like, you know, we need like a fitness guy to come and do boot camp like stuff like that would be super fun; they would help grow that person, you know. But yeah, that's a niche that we don't have yet, um, you know. Yeah, so it's like that's the thing, right, is I don't have somebody in every niche, right? Like I was telling you guys about my first client, the um the person that ended up leaving, but like she like the contacts that I have because of her like will translate to other talent that's like similar to her, you know what I mean? So like and and people need to understand that just because a brand does a deal with somebody doesn't mean they're not going to do a deal with like another person; like most the time a brand has a budget to get at least like five or ten influencers in the thing, so you know influencers shouldn't be so like, why are you getting this person the deal, you know what I mean? It's like it's like no, I mean there's brands want to be able to like reach several audiences.

So, for example, like even like Marcus and Staff who I work with, they have uh like six million followers each; if they probably have a similar audience, right? So it's there might be different things that come up. So, for example, like the Trolls movie, you know, they they fit perfectly. So for the Trolls, I would want to hire both of them, right? Because like that's like double exposure to the same the same audience that's like a kid audience that's like very—it's gonna—it's gonna resonate because they all posted it at the same time. So it's like it's like when um you're on Instagram and you know one hair brand is working with all the girls from the Bachelor and they do it on purpose because whenever an affluent female shopper in the US and Canada is looking on Instagram, she's likely following everyone from the Bachelor, and so that day it's like Bachelor post—bathroom, I mean, shampoo—pose shampoo, and she's like she's gonna buy that shampoo, right? But let's say a brand—let's say that somebody just wants exposure um across like, you know, a younger audience, an older audience, uh, you know, a fitness audience, a—then I need a whole—I need a bunch of different people with different audiences, right? So I think that it's important to have a couple in each lane, but like for us we don't have—we should talk—so we don't have a fitness person yet. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I sent you the—I commented on something on LinkedIn. Okay, cool. Yeah, and if anybody like wants advice or, you know, anything you guys could just email me um the ceo@influences.com and um me and Monty check that um email because Monty's really um heads recruitment with me and, you know, Monty's a great resource because his daughter—said thing—got approached by everyone under the sun to manage her, and he literally talked to everybody and he was—and they held out and held out and it's like, you know, Monty came back to me and he's like, man, I've seen everybody working Ari, but like at the end of the day you've gone through a lot, you know, because when you're at the top, people want to come at you. And so but I just stayed super positive and just, you know, I I stayed out of like they tried to stay out of like the drama stuff and just was like, bring people deals, like make people happy, bring the money, and in the end everybody come back and it's like what the worst they could say about me is like, man, she's bringing me tons of deals and like, you know, not whining about it and not like constantly pitching me. It's like when somebody says like no or they're like, you know, they're dating too many managers, like, oh yeah, what can you do for me? What can you do for me? From a management like once you become at like my level of being, it's like we don't need to deal with that, you know what I mean? It's like if you're for—for—and I'm not saying don't shop around, I'm saying don't ask a bunch of managers to help, and this isn't any regards to what you're saying, but this is just like a good example like tip for anybody watching is like everybody talks in this industry, so like don't like be asking one person like, oh, I want to get, you know, help me get uh, you know, verified on on Instagram and I'll sign with you, and then you know you're talking to another person, because at the end of the day like we all we're all friends, we all talk to each other, and it's like, man, deal with that person, you know, because it's like that that person doesn't respect me, you know. So but I think what you do want like, you know, if you're—I think the biggest thing is like if you're looking for management, you know, you can either look for something that has a lot of uh people in that that have a lot of people in that roster, like they manage all the Bachelor people, you know. So either someone that's like all fitness because that's they're they're constantly getting fitness opportunities or somebody that um that doesn't that that like doesn't have anyone like you on the roster, you know what I mean? So okay, cool. Yeah, that actually was answered all my questions. Thank you. Thanks, Adam. Um, Austin, do you want to hop on? By the way, I am so sorry that I dipped everybody for like a random five minutes; my internet completely just died, and I thought the entire call and everything got severed. Someone over here staring at my router like, why would you do this to me? But I'm glad to see everything just was able to maintain itself. So anyways, go for it, Austin.

Cool. Uh, so thank you for everything you've shared so far. Um, I'm a little—I have a basically a product I'm launching, um, and I'm kind of looking for influencers—this is—it's a basically a phone accessory made out of denim material, and it holds your credit cards in the back; it also has a spot for your keys—that's kind of the unique value of it and the fact that it's made out of denim. So I'm looking for influencers, and I kind of wanted your expertise and advice on how if you were in my position, going about looking for them, because I haven't even like we haven't even launched yet, so it's basically from like zero; we're trying to, you know, spend—not—we're trying to keep the budget very low—also like the cheapest way possible, I guess. So I was on a call the other day with the guy that has a scrunchie company, and the scrunchie like zips and you can like put stuff in the scrunchie, and uh he reached out and he was like, you know, honestly, he's like, I've been, you know, getting people to post for like, you know, just product and like, you know, 100 bucks or something like that. You know, I think when you're launching a product, when you're startup, like unless you're like, you know, ready to go big, like it's you're not gonna see a huge um return on like direct response from like TikTok marketing. I would say I definitely think that like, you know, you could create TikTok content and then have them re-post it to their story—not just—so kind of an untapped place is Snapchat right now because anybody that's verified on Snapchat, they get like a lot of views per story. So I have a lot of um direct response type companies that like want a return like a direct return from a swipe-up link to purchase that are doing really well on Snapchat, and sometimes the influencers like if they don't care about their Snapchat that much like they'll just give you a way better rate on Snapchat. Um, but I would say like, you know, what I see for like products when you're like, hey, buy this product, and and this is how it works or whatever—if you want to do like a three-to-four-frame story with at least like two swipe-ups, those are the ones I've seen convert the best. Um, you could also just go with like, you know, like TikTok influencers like that are smaller that are creating a bunch of content for you and then do a contract with them where you can uh use the content that they make to for your advertisements. So what you're what you can do is like, you know, pay them 50 bucks for 100 bucks if it's like a micro-influencer, but have them do an engaging piece of content and then use that content and promote it, or you can sometimes whitelist it underneath their page like in Facebook or whatever, you know. I haven't been in that in that realm for like a year or so like since we started building the management company because we used to do influencer marketing like for brands, but um, you know, don't spend a ton of money; I would say like, you know, test it out and see how it does, but like really the the value of micro-influencers is the content that they make that you can, you know, use on your social media pages—use them as content creators. You know, don't pay them pennies; I mean, I I would like to say like pay pay a creator at least, you know, even if it's a if if it's a micro or nano like, pay 100, 250 a pop, you know, um, just because they're they're creating that content; it's like you don't want to pay someone like minimum wage to do stuff for you; they won't come out as good on just sending the product kind of for free and trying to get—not really just trying to send it to them and let them use it and share their opinion if they like it kind of thing. Like it's really about out doing outreach and seeing like and seeing like what influencers are down to do that, you know what I mean? Like some of them like might not—bigger ones like—anybody that's that's making money isn't gonna like do that. At the same time, if it's something that's really cool that they really like, like you may—it's just a matter of what can you afford, you know what I mean? I would say if you do a deal like that, just assume none of them are gonna post; don't have don't have the expectation of like, oh, I sent out 200 um case uh holders, and all these people are gonna post—just literally assume that zero will post, and then you'll be like happy when like 10 of them do, you know what I mean? So don't like broke sending out the the free thing if you can't, you know what I mean? If you can't afford it. Okay. Thank you. Super awesome. That crunchy idea is pretty good, by the way. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Austin. Thank you. Okay, so this is Seal, and you know what, and like and then also pay attention to influencers that like are going to like that product, like like I was just thinking like Candy Ken; they're always showing like money in their thing. So like if I was doing like a wallet type of thing, I would hit up Candy Ken because I'd be like, you have wallet in every—like it makes sense to do the thing. So you could also like like that that scrunchie line, they reached out to Alex, you know, Alex has no hair, so like it would have been a really funny video that people are definitely going to see of like, you know, why does she have a scrunchie on her wrist and she doesn't have any hair? She's like, oh, I have like—I'm putting stuff in there, or I use it to like give my friend like, you know, she can make fun content. So I don't know if they did that on purpose, but I was like, that's brilliant if they did, because this piece of content is going to go super viral because they were very—if you're thoughtful about the type of influencer that you're reaching out to, you know. Yeah, I mean, we were thinking about like fashion influencers because and like people that are kind of passionate about denim that kind of route, yeah, with the video, but yeah, that's that's right. You know what I would do on this talk is you could get you could get um we're doing these videos because, you know, everybody's doing the quarantine like collabs where they pass something, so you can literally be like start with one and then they pass it to the next one and then everybody has a thing and then at the end you're waiting to see what they pull out of it. That's a great idea. Thank you. That's a killer idea right there. Like when you said that, I actually smiled right now; I was like, yo, that's an easy one because of duet chains right now; that's a big deal; that's a big thing even with uh what's his name uh My Cacao—Mike—Mike, like the transition guy; he started collaborating with a lot of big influencers; they're all doing these like little transition loop things, so that's a good one—that that's—I should be charging for that one. She's like, you know, I'm gonna send you a little invoice real quick. What was your name?

Again, Austin, what's your email? I'm gonna say this invoice, let me send you this quote.

Um, okay, thanks so much. Awesome, thank you.

Hey, um, so before I bring you on, I have a question. Actually, I should probably go on camera, right? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut off the other person. Then I don't know, I'll make sure to bring her back on, but there's someone in the comments that asked a question I thought was really, really good. Um, she said, "Not sure if this has been asked yet, but how do how does someone become a manager because she loves connecting people like how does someone get where you're at basically?"

Do your job. If you like work with you or people, you just gotta shadow somebody that's really good. Like honestly, go become Jordan's personal assistant, like you know, go become like you. I really think it takes drive and it takes a lot of patience, and it's like and uh and and you have to wake up every morning and watch your kids' content, you know, and you and you have to watch what other people are doing online so you can get ideas. You have to really be integrated; you have to watch a lot of content and then also be working with somebody that you know. I don't know; some managers, they do both; they do like the deals and they do and they do like the day-to-day hand-holding of stuff. So you know, it just depends on really who who you admire or who you want to work for, but you know, interning, um, you know, I would say yeah, interning or go work for someone for free that you admire.

You know, I will say this though, from what my experiences have been and like connecting with Ari and stuff, it's not very easy. Like it's a lot of energy and time. Like you were actually you were sick; you went to Playlist Live, got even more sick, came back home dying of illness and still was working. And you unfortunately, like you know, you had a family event that you had to miss, but stuff like that. Like you can't bow and not go to Florida for three to three days. Like I have to suck it up. So I'm not saying that's like the person who asked, Melanie, but in general, like it might look cool like, "Oh, she's hanging out with all these people." Like you said you're staying there for five hours a day watching videos of your creators. You cannot be like um like uh what's it called um uh thin like sk; you have to have a thick skin because some some days the the people that you love that you've like you work around the clock for, they're gonna call and they're gonna at you, and and you can't be like, "Hey, go yourself." Like you have to be like, "Okay, I hear you." You know, that's the biggest thing I'm learning is like because I I you know my my one of my mentors, oh, he always reminds me like the four agreements, sorry, you know, one of the four agreements is don't take things personally, because I always just like I'm like, "How dare they talk to me? Like do they not know what I did for them yesterday?" And it's like and it's like you just you can't. Like I'm even learning not to do that, you know, because um people only can see from the perspective of what they're coming from, right? Like they don't, especially they don't have the experience; like they they only see what's in front of them, and and you have to have the patience to be like like the the biggest thing I've I've learned is like is to actually to say like, "I hear what you're saying. If if I hear you correctly, this is what you're saying to me," and then instead of because I'm like in the beginning I would just be defensive, right? Because I'm like, "No, you don't understand what I'm—" Okay, I hear you, actually hear them, repeat it back to them what their issue is or what they're, you know, because there's gonna be issues. Like there's always like it's like you know your mom. I mean, look at the Kardashians; like they don't get along with their mom all the time, you know, but like the mom has the best interest in mind for them, and you know, it doesn't mean you just agree with your manager all the time, but it just it means like have a little empathy and compassion, and that empathy and compassion has to be taught both ways. I think that the talent needs to understand to have empathy and compassion and lead with kindness, and the manager has to have empathy and compassion and lead with kindness. I would just that that's the biggest thing that I've learned is that like if somebody's um you know putting something over your head or being condescending, you know, sometimes even like because texting is so happens so frequently like sometimes I'll put something in a text and then like Laura on my team be like, "Hey, Ari, like I know you didn't mean it like this, but like" because she knows me, right? Because I'm not any person, but she's like the way that might come off to that person is that like they like you're being like a no, you know, and I'm like, "Damn, I didn't mean it like that," you know, and it's like then I'll go back in and you know I use voice notes a lot sometimes now like just so that people can hear your um yeah your tone. Um, but it's just it really is about like psychology, and honestly, like for me when I came into this business like one of the things that we were going to do is like my buddy um knows the guy that works with like Robert Downey Jr.; he's like essentially like his therapist but like is also his like life coach, business coach, and I'm like, "Man, can we bring that guy in to like whenever we're having an issue with talent like he can just talk to them," and and then my advisors were like, "No, we can't just like give him a shrink," but like I ended up just starting to go with like to him, and he was like, "Okay, in order for me to get your kids like I need to I need to work on the leader," you know, and so how can we work on your the things that like you're having trouble with, and and then he's like and then we can maybe talk about like when you're like a superstar and these kids are like, "How did Ari get to that level? Like we want to meet with with that guy. Like we like can we meet with him because you know we saw the change that it made in Ari or whatever," you know, we saw the communication um improve or whatever, and like he was saying, you know, when when like an NFL player goes to the NFL like they have a coach like that that like teaches them like, "Go get STD check, like don't you know don't don't sleep around, don't like do this, don't," you know, you're getting a media training, you know, so you don't and that's like eventually what I want to build is like that side that like promotes like you know helps support them and mental health and in all those arenas, but it's like obviously that those are just resources that I can give to talent; I can't like make somebody go like a shrink, but I I definitely think that like talent should be thinking like, "How can I improve myself all the time to like you know be better myself, better my relationship with my manager?" If you're if you're gonna make the plunge of working with that manager, like don't be half in half out all the time; like make it work; it's like a marriage, you know; you don't get out of that marriage unless it's absolutely like that person you caught them cheating on you and you you know you have proof and like you know and and the other thing is too is like that's why you think it's so important to have things in writing because it's like assumptions that my teacher is telling assuming it makes an ass out of you and me, you know, because literally like I can have an assumption that like you know I'm creating a content house and you have to post you know for the hi for you have to post at Hype House you know every time you're staying here and I'm assuming well I'm paying rent so I don't have and all those assumptions and it's just implodes, and it's not that two people were bad people, it's just that there wasn't enough communication. So yeah, I would say um managers, what do you do? What does it take to become a manager? Like is is be over-communicative, have a lot of patience, and always be improving yourself, um and and mentor these people like they're your kids, you know what I mean?

Yeah, perfect. Okay, um, real quick, is it okay if we do a few more? I don't know how yeah your time is okay. I know that again you're like the most you're the biggest one; everybody's like, "Yo, I have so many questions for her," so I don't wanna I don't wanna abuse your time. Maybe if everybody you can all pull together and send her some Uber Eats or something like, "Hey, airhead moment," the first time we were supposed to talk and totally like bailed on you, so I I definitely owe you, and and I appreciate everybody tuning back in even though I had a brain fart one day. I promise you everybody this was the one that everybody was like, "I need to be there." Um, there's actually someone who was like in the beginning he's like, "It's four o'clock in the morning and I woke up for this call." Let's do it. So kind of funny. Um, still, did you want to head and go ahead and hop back on? Um, sorry, you're on and then you like get went off, so sorry about that.

Oh, you're going to donate myself. Oh, hi, uh hi Arianda, uh thank you for being here. I love all your stories and I especially love your entrepreneurial spirit; like it's you're very enthusiastic about what you do, and I had a question uh I guess in regards to one of your stories where you're mentioning how that uh influencers should be I guess like they that big companies may not have like the budget for them to um I guess pay them for um pay them for like if they think if influencers think they're worth x amount of dollars but the company doesn't have the budget for them. I guess uh at what point does I guess the resume resume building stop I guess because you're uh you're asking the company essentially like, "Oh, I like you guys; I want to work with you, so we're going to be uh working at a like I guess like a better way which works for both the influencer and the company," but I think you have to you have to weigh your time and uh so for example like and your circumstance, right? So let's say that um you know I got a bunch of money in the bank saved up and uh I don't really need a brand deal right now, right? Um and but like you know it's and so and I wanna and and so it's like you have the opportunity to like you don't wanna bog down your if you if you could like live with putting no ads on and you're and you're crushing it like you have a lot a lot of leverage because obviously the more ads you do on your feed, especially if they're not like in line with whatever you want to do, then that's not you know you don't want to you don't want to take things for lower rate if you you already have or like for example like let's say I'm an influencer and I have a Fashion Nova deal and a deal with this other thing and I have to post a lot but I'm getting paid a lot for that like bulk content. Like let's say you know another brand comes along and they're they're offering like you know let's say my rate is 2500 typically, um and they're offering a thousand dollars, but you know it's gonna take me a lot of time to make that video and I already have this other you know these these other commitments like I probably wouldn't take that deal. Now if it was like a brand that I really like then maybe I would take that deal, you know. So it's it's really I would say like set a standard rate of like what you want to be making per video or what you think like a lot of it is like do it by a CPM, so you can find you guys can go online and find a CPM calculator and so like a typical CPM for like radio and advertising is I think it's like a 30 CPM, so it's cost per thousand um views or listens or whatever. So like typically if if let's say a brand like let's say you get a hundred thousand views, I'm really bad at math, but like let's just say you get a hundred thousand views typically and um you know and that and then you're charging the brand you know I don't know uh on TikTok let's say you're charging the brand like ten thousand dollars, whatever that CPM is, it's probably not going to back out for the brand like because so make sure that how do I explain it? Do you kind of get what I'm Michael, can you help me out on this one? Like well that actually segues into my next question essentially like if you have like statistics already ready for them is there room for negotiation with the brand? Like you're saying like I get x amount of views, these are my viewers, this is like the the niches that they're in or this is what they're—

You always want them to give you the first offer.

Oh yeah, I would say like I would always get the first offer from the brand honestly, like you know they go, "Hey, what are your rates?" and I would be like, "Hey, what are the deliverables?" You know, then I look at the deliverables; do I have to go somewhere to film this? Do I have to is it super ad-y? Like do I have to be like reading a script? What's the what's the caption like? If it's a fun one that like they're gonna they're gonna be like, "Oh, what's your concept?" then maybe I would charge them less because it's not gonna like interrupt my feed so much, you know, but like I I would definitely say always like get them to put the first offer out and then you know I really don't like to give out rates because it's like if once you give out a rate then you're you know you're stuck to that; you don't know if they would have paid you more. So I would definitely get them to give you an offer, and then if it's like super lowball I would just be like, "Hey, you know what, um I'm really you know I really work hard on my engagement; I I'd love to like you know try out your product and you know uh uh and maybe we can work together in the future," you know, or whatever it might be, but like it's funny I was sitting in a dinner with 15 managers, all different types of you know gamer managers, and I asked that question; I'm like, "Is there like a way to do—" and everybody's like, "No, just throw it throw something wall see what sticks," and really the the the goal is to not leave money on the table, you know what I mean? If I worked with this one girl, she was on the Bachelor, and um she was really picky about the deals she would take. I was like, "Cool, no problem." She's like, "I don't I don't believe in these," you know, super picky, and then she got pregnant, and I was like, "Watch, as soon as you have your kid you're gonna tell me, let's close every deal, whatever the max they're paying, let's just close it," why? Because you want to put you want to build as much money as you want as you can for your kid, right? And so her mentality changed so different from before when she was like, "I only want to take these," you know, and neither one is right or wrong, you know what I'm saying? But it's like what what it's it's all about what matters to you in that you know time frame, like you know I've got talent that wants to move here from another country, and they're like, "We have to we have to make money like right now," and it's like even though I know my value, once you get the final offer like the final final one from the brand, it's like if it if it makes sense for them like they're gonna do it, you know what I mean? So but it really depends on the talent; some people are like, "Nope, I don't really need the money; I'd rather just build my my following, and I don't want to overload them with ads, and I don't really need to be making money off social media right now; hold out, hold out," you know. So it really just depends. Does that answer your question at all?

I feel like yes, definitely; it's uh very well-rounded, and I was just wondering do you really um do you hold off on brand deals with like if the brand deal you don't feel like fits your influencer like at the moment?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because um I mean I'll tell you guys like so I'm I'm friends with Larry Rudolph; he manages uh Britney Spears, and he managed it he managed her from like the very start. So at the beginning, you know, her family like they they weren't making a ton of money like you know it wasn't like she just made money overnight, and there was remember when that commercial came out, the um the uh the Herbal Essences where she's like having an orgasm and she's like, "Oh," and it was like a very famous commercial; they were gonna put Britney in that commercial, and it was like you know I don't know what the what they were gonna pay; let's say it was like you know a million dollars for to be to be in that commercial, and you know they thought about it, and Larry was like, "You know, I really want to hold out for like you know you know she's going to be in a commercial where they're like you know it's fun and games like she's you know it sounds like an orgasm, but like I don't know if this is the right one for her," like even though it was a lot of money, let's say a million dollars, right? Then she's never seen that kind of money; they passed on it, and then however long later and by the way she had never done a commercial before, and then uh Pepsi came and remember I think I think it was Pepsi; she did a Super Bowl commercial with Pepsi, and let's say she got 10 million dollars, and she wouldn't if she would have done and the reason why they did it at 10 million or whatever however much she got paid was because she had never done another ad before, you know, or another uh commercial before. So her partnership with Pepsi like ended up being tenfold what that original I think and I don't know if it was a year later or five months later, but that's a very similar lesson and like what an influencer can do is like you know if it doesn't seem like it's the right deal for you or if it's going to take you in another direction that your fans aren't going to like like hold out for that bigger deal if you can, right? Unless you need the money, and then it's like then you know what I mean? If you're going to go broke and you're going to not be able to be a creator because you're focused on paying your bills and you're stressed out like take take take the Herbal Essences deal; you get what I'm saying?

Yes, yes, uh definitely uh thank you for so much for answering my question; that was uh thank you so much; it's awesome; that was a super awesome answer; I was I was sitting there like hmm let me let me write that down real quick.

I'll give you another another example. Um, I had a talent that um we went to uh to New York and she met with Vayner with GaryVee's team, and there was a big company that wanted to do um a brand deal with her, but they'd never done anything on TikTok, and they offered this person you know I don't know the numbers, but let's say like she normally was getting like eight to ten thousand for a TikTok; let's say they offered her like you know 2000 or something, and so it was way under her thing, but like I knew who was behind it, right? I knew the company and I knew it was Vayner, right? And I'm like, "Listen, dude, take that freaking deal; like I'm telling you, first of all, Gary's my guy, and like you know and they and and I think I need to do him a solid, so I've gotten all these other deals; like let's just do this one, but trust me, it's going—"

To be good and and you know, at first she's like, "Ah," and she's kind of like half asking. I'm like, "No, you need to do a good job on it because there's a lot more where that came from." I mean, Vayner manages budgets for, you know, a ton of other, uh, a ton of other brands. I have a good relationship with them; they're not gonna screw you. Like, let's just—this is a give, you know—like, let's just do a give. She did it, and she did a great job. Two weeks later, um, the person on Gary's team called me and goes, "Hey, um, do you guys have time for a five-minute call with Gary? Um, we're putting together a Super Bowl," and that person got the commercial. So oh wow, you know, you know.

She trusted me. She's like, "Okay, I wouldn't," but you know, I wouldn't tell her to do it for that rate with that person unless I knew. And listen, I'm not going to guarantee, but it's it's it's a small world, right? It's it's in it. And by the way, you know, when we had that call with Gary, he literally told her, he was like, "You're great, you're amazing. I think you're you'd be great for this, and I think this is going to put you on a platform if you get to do this thing." He's like, "You know, we're paying X amount, we're paying everybody, but like, you know, I think this is gonna be really great for your for your career," and he's like doing this because, you know. And like that was like, I was like, "Damn, that's," you know what I mean? But that's like—that's what talent wants to realize is that, you know, you want to work with people that have built relationships and and you know that because, at the end of the day, there's always going to be new talent, but there's always there's only going to be so many people that are really good at what they do in digital, right? Like there's I don't know another person exactly like GaryVee or like people on his team, you know. So there's only so many people, there's only so many scooter brands of the world, right? And it's like, if if I was a musician, like I would want to work with someone that has the relationships like, you know, with with those types of people.

But even as a creator, you can build those relationships. You know, you can decide, "Hey, you know, if I help out this brand with this with this opportunity, when they come back with a bigger budget because they did a little test, you know," it with influencers it's hard because like with when you're doing paid media, you can do a small test. I can test with a thousand dollars, I can test an ad, see if it works, and then come back and spend, you know, triple, quadruple, 20 times what I originally spent. But with influencers, it's like you don't really know if it's going to back out. And so if you're confident that you're going to back out for a brand that you're going to do a good job, do it with them because a lot of times they're going to come back, and when they get that bigger budget, they're gonna be like, "Oh, I'm gonna give that you know that budget to that influencer because I already know that they I already know their team, I know they work well, I know they're gonna show up, I know that their their ad converts," whatever.

"Oh, thank you so much. That was so awesome." Like, uh, "yeah, I wrote down a lot of stuff. Like you can't see it, but my pencil is just like scribbling. Thank you so much." "No, it's awesome. It's it's interesting hearing from like women entrepreneurs just because I don't see them that often, and then it's just like whoa, like like you really know your stuff honestly." Like that's our my biggest focus is like I had really amazing mentors. I never had a female mentor, and um, I'll tell you it wasn't until I started working this TikTok space that I met uh, Celine Joshua. She's the head of content strategy at Universal, and she's just a friend. We haven't done any deals yet, you know. She actually, Nick Crompton works for her and Kate Spicer who were in Team 10, and they were the ones that brought me to meet her. But like like I just, you know, there's other labels want to work with us. I just want to work with Universal because Celine's like because having a female role model to me is like means the world, especially because like, you know, she's loyal and she's just all the things that I hope I can be to somebody one day, you know. And I think like I think it's important to have, you know, to spend 30% of your time with people who are more experienced than you, 30% with your peers, and 30% with people that you're you're bringing up, you know. So um, yeah, so I'm I feel really lucky to have Celine in my in in, you know, as as as a relationship, and um, you know, I definitely want to be um somebody that helps, you know, other female entrepreneurs because that's a whole nother conversation and call, but like, you know, even Monty jumping onto my team, like there's been so many times where like and you don't want to whine, and it's just like I'm getting screwed because I'm a girl, but like even just having Monty pick up the phone and call and they're like, "Oh, oh, never mind," it's like it's like sometimes you feel like you need some muscle behind you, right? It's like even though I I know I'm the muscle, it's like, but that's what's so great about having a you know team around me now is that like I have I have a female mentors I have, you know, and I don't know if that's part of culture. I'll always think that, you know, there's some leverages about being a girl that I can connect with other women better than probably a guy can, and there's some benefits of being a guy, you know. So I I completely agree with what Jesus helped me with what we got. Yeah, I I completely agree with what you said just because it's like and I don't want to take up too much time because I know there's no no no, it's not gonna ask questions, but like yeah, I really admire that just because I I'm trying to find like female entrepreneurs to like look to mentor and mentor me, but they're like you guys are like diamonds in the rough are like really hard like a needle in a haystack to just like look for somebody. I'm just like I just want to look for somebody who is like that can mentor me as like a female entrepreneur. I'm like there's too many guys out there where I'm just like I can't relate to all you because none of you know my problems, like none of you like like props to GaryVee and all that good stuff, like nothing nothing wrong with the guys, but it's just like sometimes it's like where are the girls at.

"Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm sure. But anyways, thank you so much for answering my questions and um sorry so much of your time. Um, thank you so much." "Thanks, Sue."

"Little Miss Miranda, how's it going?" "Oh, you're muted by the way. I thought you were going to turn the microphone on too, Michael." "Hey, thanks for um sharing everything with us. You're really personable too. I like that. Really cool stories. Thank you. Um, I wanted to ask what kinds of people do you usually look for? Is it just strictly entertainers and talent-based, or do you ever look for like educators, people that do educational content? Um, you know, like as far as like who I look for, I mean, most of the people like fall on my lap lately, you know. It's it's like it's uh either I'm seeing them or like, you know, the girls in the valley, the girls that I represent, there's like five or six TikTokers, but like initially it was like the girls that lived in the house, and like Emmy and Alex were were like so friendly with everybody that like I would see people come in, and so I get to like see the collaborations, and then there'd be like somebody that like stuck out to me of like I don't really like that I just like their vibe, and then I chat with them and see if they had a manager. So luckily a lot of the people have just like come to me, um, you know, but like I would love to have people, you know, actually there's a platform that's launching right now. Uh, my PR company said it ascendant to me that is gonna be like all education-based um stuff like from, you know, like the uh like for example, like I would rep Matthew Hussey, right? Like I love him because he like talks about dating and relationships, and his content is like really engaging in that niche. Um, anybody that's really engaging in a certain niche and is really knowledgeable, like yeah, that would be really interesting for me on the enter like on the uh education side. Um, you know, Drea that we rap, Drea Knows Best, she has a podcast where she interviews other people that are trying to, you know, be in the TikTok space, and and um she's kind of like an OG that like teaches, you know, that other TikTokers are really um uh that other TikTokers are really engage with. Like I also try to pick out people I can tell are the leaders in the space. So for example, like Marcus Olen, like you can just tell all these kids like look up to him, and they do whatever he like he's the guy that knows what's going on. Like he's like, "Oh, if you put these people in a house," like he literally told me he didn't even he hadn't even signed to me yet, and he was like, "I think you should manage this this kid," and I'm like, "Why?" And he's like, "Look at his engagement," he's like, "and look at it," he's fashioned, and he's like, "I'm like, okay, okay," and like literally I end up meeting him and sign him, and the kid has got gotten to like a million followers and like a very short amount of time. Everybody wants to collaborate with him, knowing Eubanks, all these people. So you know, I try to find the leaders in the space. So I don't know who the leader is in education on TikTok or YouTube, like, you know, I I only really know what I watch, but if something was put in front of me, then I'd be able to say, "Hey, can I help this person?" Or maybe I would connect them with like somebody like Dan Fleishman who does like a lot of the like like Jake Paul just did a course that they released. Um, I would put them with somebody, one of my colleagues that I knew that like, you know, uh focuses on that space. Yeah, it's I do health and diet, so it's like it kind of it's educational, but like a lot of people have issues with or, you know, they want to improve their diet and health, like what I would I would want to do is like one of my best advice to you is like go find all the influencers that are like struggling with that and and and like not all of them actually go find like two or three that you could be like, "I could really invest the time in you and give you like the the services essentially for free and then get them to be your advocates because once they go on your your podcast or you know your show or whatever you're like, you know what I mean? Like that they're gonna they're gonna tell a real story." So that's something that, you know, you might want to think about doing or just take one person on, you know, right.

"Yeah, thank you. Very helpful. Thank you." "I I was talking, and I'm like, 'Oh, wait, I am not unmuted.' Sorry about that. Um, yeah, I think it's kind of interesting um, Ari and then also I guess Miranda and everybody else like where the where the talents coming from now, and then also the content-wise where it seems to be diversifying a lot from the funny, cute, like interesting people, you know, to the what you see now like the more diversity happening of like different types of content, like like the dentist, for example, like that's very very, you know, different than what you would think in terms of like influencers and stuff." "Yeah, and what's so cool is he's getting deals that are outside of dentistry like because he's just so personable and like people connect with him, and like, you know, it's crazy because we get all his emails, and like he gets more fan mail from people like being like, 'I broke my bracket and I can't go see it.' Like it's so cool to see that, right? And so like, you know, I'm like a dot connector. So for example, like I was on a call with um with my PR company, and they're like, 'You know who should we pitch to Good Morning America?' And and like, you know, they want feel-good stories right now, and I'm like, 'Oh, we gotta do the dentist because he's got all this content on TikTok about how to fix your bracket and like, you know,' and these kids are so engaged in it, and it's like think about it, what what is going to make somebody feel good when you know they're they're you're taking them out of their comfort zone of what they see every what you know every month that you go in to get your brackets changed or whatever it's called that your your fans and now that part of your life is gone, and you don't get to see that person, and it's like it's a it's a it's something that's like it's a change; it's like, you know, it whenever there's change, people get sad or they get scared. And so what the dentist is offering is a little bit of normalcy and a little bit of support, and that is a feel-good story. And so like I'm connecting that with, you know, to be able to put him on a platform where he can be, you know, one of his goals is like to be kind of like a doctor—um, not Dr. Oz, but like Dr. Mike, you know, where he's like somebody that they bring in a talent that's it's a personable guy that people want to see on TV. You know, that's how I would uh loop the dentist in. But yeah, there's for each person there's like different there's a different strategy. I would just I definitely think that like for educators and stuff you're gonna get less like probably brand deals and stuff like that, I would say if that's your focus unless you're like a fitness model, but um, you know, you can create your own products, like you can create your own like a lot of people are doing like those bands or meal plans or even like Kayla Itsines like look what she did with her you know little PDFs that turned into Sweat. So um also for the people that are in fitness um I would connect with um with Jen Selter. Jen's a really really good business person, and her sister Steph, I think it's her sister's name, um and they actually own a bunch of pages. I think they own at couples, they own it's not like at fitness, but they own like a couple really good um handles. And so you know they they need content for all the time. So if you're a fitness person and you want exposure, like give them content, and they'll promote you on their social channels. Bella Thorne has a company like that too called uh 10 20 10 12 PM or something like that for what's called, but they own at girls and at style. So if you're a micro-influencer, at girls will post you if you have good content, and then they'll tag you, and then they'll grow your social. So there's a lot there's some company, you know, there's some people that have those profiles. You can collaborate with them to grow. There's like different levels to this, you know. I'm just trying to like tell you all the secrets I know. I'm trying to take it off a pin. I don't know why. Hold on real quick, Nelly. I want to stop your video, and I'm going to restart it real quick because yours okay. There we go. Um, go ahead, Natalie, and restart it. I hit the wrong button, so I uh I made it so your video was like big, and now nobody else was um okay. Is it awake? Yeah, yay. Hi, hi, hi. Um, so I had a question, and I hope I don't know it's kind of like a silly question because my uh niche is more of like the pet account, so I guess what I want to know if if you know anything is like how can I make my pet stand out from all of these other pets that are also online? Like how can I make him—it's a dog.

"Yes, it's a corgi, and you've been able to grow it." "Yes, so right now we just hit 400K on TikTok. Um, I got I got something for you. Okay, I'm working with a company called Paws, and they have 1.5 million on Instagram, and they hired us to run their to grow their TikTok account. Anyway, we should talk. I got I got like a paid monthly client for you, but okay, but keep going. I'll let you finish your story." "Yeah, that was basically it's like I want I know you're fine. Um, I see a lot of well, now I think especially because of the quarantine, there's a lot more accounts jumping in the pet niche and everything, and so I'm trying to make sure that I want to make him to be able to stand out so he can work with business uh like with brands and stuff like that. I don't want him to just be like, 'Oh, I'm gonna be famous TikTok famous.' No, my goal is to be able to branch him out to work like be taken seriously is kind of what I'm what I'm hoping to get, but I just like if you have any insight as you know like a manager." "Make something unique. I mean, I worked with Swaggy the dog, like I don't know if you remember Swaggerman. You'd be considered like an old-school dog influencer um if there's like such a thing, like like the Jake Paul of of dog influencers, like he's kind of OG, like he's not as like new, but he gets a lot of views. Um, you know, they uh his strategy was that they put him with all celebrities, and we were actually I was joking about it with somebody today because they're like the only time that we've seen like um anybody get into all the events is like either got to be a hot girl or you're Swaggy the dog because you have a cool dog, and they let you into everything, and all the celebrities will take a picture with you. So um, you know, obviously when this stuff is over, like definitely collab with him, like you know, go to BeautyCon, you know, go because everybody's like, 'I want to see a dog,' you know, and and like um obviously you want to be good to your pet, you know, and and but there's I think there's also like do some have something that's like unique about about him, you know, about the dog." "What's your dog's name?" "Ollie. It's a corgi." "Yeah, so he's Ollie the Corgi is what we kind of put his username." "It might yeah, it might be worth mentioning too a lot of the videos is about like the dog being super obedient and listening and being calm and collective. So I think like what Arya was saying right now, like if you go to BeautyCon, it's like you don't have to worry about your dog like pissing on somebody and running away, where it's like don't worry, he'll sit down, he'll live up on you. He was really obedient. They they painted his tail pink, and that was like kind of his thing, in his little ears pink, but like, you know, and then they would dress him up and stuff, but there's always like, you know, just I would say like some kind of a hook, and then you know include them in all the trends that are going on and stuff, but uh like, you know, I think collabs are like, you know, it will go a long way, like even if you make a trip out to LA one time and like just get as many collabs in there with him as possible because you know most influencers like they might not want to just collab with just anyone, but like a dog like they're gonna collab you know with and then and then think about the types of audiences that like you know get the best brand deals, like I would collab my dog all day long with Bachelor people because Bachelor people make a lot of money because brands they're very like, you know, I had a friend that wrapped a lot of brand uh Bachelor people, and he's like literally Ari, they all have uh you know the Bachelor people have an audience of affluent females over the age of 25 in the US."

And Canada, which basically makes their pages QVC on steroids. You know what I mean? So you want to have more female followers than you have male followers, honestly, because women buy more stuff. So, but dogs are great because everybody loves dogs. So okay, perfect. I will definitely send you an email.

Um, yes, let me know. I might have a client for you.

Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. That was my question. Wait, hang on. I guess I got a show. This is Scooby. His name's not really—there's Curvy, but I put a blue collar on him, and we—and one day he's going to be internet famous. Scooby-Doo!

Hey, yeah, mine is—I don't even know. I'll show you. I hope it's okay. But yeah, I want to see this dog. Oh, what's his name? Ollie the… Ollie? Yeah, so cool. Well, congrats on Sam.

Thank you. And that was mostly the question, so thank you so much for helping me.

Yeah, no problem. All right. Okay, bye.

It's probably worth mentioning too, for Nelly, like that growth wasn't over a long period of time. That was like in a month or two. It wasn't anything like years or several months; it was like two months of just doing good content. So yeah, definitely on a good trajectory.

Yes, thank you. Uh, by the way, Ari, do you mind if we do a couple more? I don't want to over-abuse your time because you're like, uh, I gotta do stuff. I don't know, people are sick of hearing me talk.

No, no, no. Trust me, there's like a queue of people that are like, "Hey, can I go next?" "Hey, are we still doing it?" Okay, um, so yeah, go for it.

Uh, Jordan, hey, what's going on? You're on mute, I think, too.

Yeah. Hey, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too. Thanks for staying on for so… so late.

Yeah, no worries. So, um, basically my question is, I haven't—honestly, I haven't been taking the TikTok thing too seriously, um, you know, because I have a full-time job and stuff. But like, I've saved up enough money where I could quit and live off for like a year or two and just produce content platform—um, where I want to produce the content. Are you producing on other platforms, or you're saying you… you're… you're big on TikTok, but you haven't like taken it like fully where you want to take it?

No, I'm not big at TikTok at all. Like, I haven't—I barely post on it. Um, no, what I do is Facebook ads for influencers, like, but like the guru space, you know, selling those nine hundred men… yeah. Um, and I write jokes for a couple comedians. So my whole goal is to create a comedy brand. Right? So I have funds where I can just produce content for about two years. For somebody starting off at zero, what do you—what are like the milestones that they should like… they should aim for that you consider when working with somebody? Like, what is… what do you look… look for in the growth of somebody like brand new?

You know, I do not really know. That's not true. I… okay, so the only accounts I've ever really grown are like… like Bella Thorne when she got on TikTok. Like, she's already a celebrity, so I, you know, automatically you have visibility. But on TikTok, just because your celebrity doesn't matter if you're not doing the trends, if you're not doing the right people, like, you know, you're not gonna grow versus like, you know, we would tell—I would tell Bella like every day like what to… what to post, who to tag, who to… I mean, I was in there in her account, you know, like, "What song is blowing up right now?" And you know, following all the trends, and we got her from… to a million followers in a month. But she's Bella Thorne. I don't really know how, you know, I'm not an expert in like the growth of it, um, you know, to be completely honest. I think, you know, will be helpful as is. Uh, I'll connect uh Michael with like one of my create… like, you know, I'd love to like connect you guys with like Joe Mele because he's really funny, um, and there's another girl I don't rep her, but yet… but uh, her name is Christine… Snaps, or Christine Snaps. Like, anyway, you know, talking to other creators that are in that niche and figuring out how fast they grew, what are some of the… the tricks that they do… that's what I would focus on, um, in terms of, you know, if we're gonna sign somebody on like, you know, I'm looking at my competition, so I'm like, okay, let's say someone has 500,000 followers, but they're like someone I see is going to be talented, like, I'd rather sign them now before they get to like the next level where then 10… 10 of my competitors are trying to sign them, you know? I take—I'd rather take a risk on someone that I could see is gonna grow a lot, you know, but at the same time, you know, sometimes I even tell those people like, "Hey, listen, you know, I really want to work with you. I know you're going to grow. I'm going to become… I'm going to be a resource for you. Anything you need, just call me." But you know, they're not… they're… they're might not get the same level of brand deals or um… like, not that they're not gonna get as much attention, but like if… if I'm working with, you know, other talent that's like, you know, bringing in constant deals because they're at a bigger level, like they kind of—we're up front about it is like, "You're not gonna get that same level of management because you're not there yet," you know? But like, if you want to work with us, you know, and a lot of times what I'll do in that situation is I'll offer them like, "Hey, we'll do a non-exclusive," that way like if you're signed to me, you know, we'll… you won't get the services of like a full of like uh… what's it called? Like uh… of exclusive management, but that way if you have somebody else comes along that is willing to invest more time into you at this stage, then you could be like, "You know what, Aria, I'm gonna go work with that person," and then I'll be like, "Okay, of course, like that's better for you," right? Because I'm not gonna hold you back. But at the same time, it's like, if you wanna hold out to where you're at that level and you wanna work with what I think is the best of the best, then stick around, you know? Don't sign with any… or it's like just don't sign with anyone yet, you know? You can still call me, pick up the phone, and I'll still… I'll still pick up the phone and… and give you advice, like, you know? But so that's… that's kind of how I handle um… just people that are still growing and stuff like that. I would love to work with everyone, but at the same time, it's like I want to make sure that everybody that we sign has a level of attention to where nobody's like, "Hey, I worked with Ari and I never talked to her," you know? I don't want to have anybody on my roster that I'm not speaking to once a week, you know?

Yes, it's more of a, "This is where you prove to me that you're serious about it" kind of phase.

Yeah, yeah. And… and also like, you know, I might have a manager that works for me that I'm like, "You know what, you gotta talk to this person. This person will see that… you know… see the… like, you know… do you owe me on my team?" He works with a lot of like the models, and like there's one kid that's like… I think he's… that like, you know, we took him at 300,000 on TikTok because he's a good-looking kid, he's a hard worker, we really liked his family, and like he's growing like crazy. And Naomi knows how to work with models, you know? I never had any experience with like models, so, you know… but he's like, "I want to rep this guy. I see him," and I'm like, "Yeah, let's sign him," you know? So a lot of time it's also too like if the… if the manager like sees something in you that… that they can build…

What's your experience with working with people that do like stand-up?

So my first client actually… like, she's really funny, but like, you know, uh, stand-up is… is hard. I mean, actually, I work with Natalie Friedman, and she's a great example of somebody that's been in the social media game for a long time. Actually, I got her on TikTok, and literally she posted one video of her with Cardi B and like it blew up. She got like 10 million overnight, and you know, now she has like several million followers, and… and she was like, "I don't get TikTok," you know? She… she is signed to Gersh, and… and they bring her opportunities. I'm not… it's not really super my wheelhouse, uh, but if you wanted to like… like that's somebody I would connect you with of like somebody give you good advice is Natalie, you know, because that's… that's what she like has been building this whole time. So, um, but you know, somebody like Natalie, like she hustles, man. Like, she… she sees a celebrity that she can do the impression of, and she'll go up to them like… and sometimes that's what you gotta do. Like, you can't be scared of like, "Oh, my peers are gonna like think I'm a loser because I'm going up to Cardi B." It's like, "Are they paying your bills? No, then who gives a…" Like, like go do what you know is gonna grow you, as long as you're not being rude or like, you know what I mean? She's… but she goes for it, and sometimes some people might be like, "Oh, that's too… I don't like that," and but guess what? Like, because she's done that, she's gotten herself to another level, you know?

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for uh… you know, spending the time, taking the time to answer that. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I gotta say you're dropping some… some major value bombs right here. Like, I feel like this… this one right here alone should be like… I love this because this is like… I know my… in this… in this space…

No, it is cool. Like, I kind of like doing it this style in a way, like… just the… like organic back and forth kind of… kind of reminds me like Joe Rogan, where it's like you can do a quick five-minute talk, but when you're gonna see… you hear someone for like an hour, it's like, "Damn…" Any question Ari's getting like thrown her way, she's giving like a fire answer, where if it's like a three-minute segment on TV, you can't really see that thing, you know what I mean? You don't really get to see like… because if… if everybody asks you a question, you're like, "Um, I don't know," then it'll be like, "All right, she just has talking points. She doesn't know what she's talking about," where you're over here just like crushing it. Everybody's like, "Wait, I gotta go do some stuff now. I'll be right back. I gotta go to execute."

I don't mind. I love Joe Rogan. That's like the only thing I actually like have time to listen to. Real quick, what's your favorite Joe Rogan podcast episode? Do you have one?

Oh my gosh, uh, I was listening one the other day. I don't even know who was on it, but they were just like ripping it back and forth and like they're just ripped… like he's drunk. I just… I don't know. I… I forget which one it was, but it was like… it was my favorite one. I… I listen to him all the time. I'm like him where it's like I'm just really curious, and I love like just learning stuff, you know?

Yeah, people… people that are smarter than me. You should honestly do your own podcast. I know you don't even have time, but I think a lot of people would tune in just to hear like the inside or the behind the scenes, not like drama-wise, but like, "Hey, you thought it was easy to get to this part, but I'm going to tell you the story of how it all actually went down," like the whole Super Bowl thing. Like, that looks easy, but like, let's back up three years ago and tell you how that actually happened, and it started with blah blah, you know? Okay, anyways, go for it.

Okay, hey, um, so yes, thank you for being with us so late. Um, yeah, my question is, so I'm also a comedian, and um, my plan is just to become known for comedy skits, but my actual strength right now is copywriting. That's kind of… that's my business, um, and I was wondering if there's a way to become valuable to brands. You mentioned that some brands… yeah, actually prefer direct response, and so… and I actually… I'm really great with email marketing, so that's… so cool. Have you… have you watched… go on YouTube and search uh… the making of… um… Dollar Shave Club commercial? Do you know that whole story?

I don't think so, but I know the Dollar Shave commercial. I don't know… remember like the one that went super viral, right?

Yeah. So uh… that guy was… he was actually the founder, I think, of the company, and he… Kirby, stop! He's eating my… my carpet. Um, hang on one sec. Kirby, you need to give him a Scooby Snack. Scooby… you know that's a rat! Come here, dude. Um… uh… basically, he… he… he was like… he started to have a startup, and then he was doing improv, and uh… and then um… he was able to like create that commercial, um, you know, based on his… so that's somebody that brought comedy, and that thing like broke the internet when they first started it. They had to like… they… all the servers shut down because it went so viral, and so many people were purchasing. And I mean that company, I think, got like… for like a billion dollars by like Procter & Gamble or something. I don't know. But like… also uh… would go to uh… the Harmon Brothers website. Do you know them? So they have a course. Take that course. It's uh… I haven't gotten through the whole thing, but they've really come… figured out… I would tell influencers, if influencers could like sit through someone else's content, like go take that course, because you're gonna be a better influencer for it. Half these people won't listen to me, but that's what I would do if I was an influencer. I would go watch that whole course, and then I would become… like a brand would hire me, and then all my stuff would convert like at, you know, 10 times what other influencers are converting, and then I'd charge more because I'd be like, "I know how to make stuff convert," you know? So okay. Yeah, that was basically what my question was, was like if I actually… because I'm so great at email marketing, and I build like… um… an email list based off of my comedy, and where… so are there types of brands that would actually value that and be like, "Okay, we're gonna pay you more because I'm somewhat of an agency, not just another influencer," and that… like aspect of it?

Yeah, they would value it. You just need… you know… and I think that's the value of having a manager is… there… your hype man, right? So if I was managing you, I would go around and be like, "Hey, you don't want to have a really creative person, and this is why they're good," and you know… and it's like there's so many influencers… to know what someone's backstory is for a brand… like a brand manager… I mean, like they just don't know, right? So I think like, you know, the value of um… being in my position right now is that I'm seeing what the brands need, and then I know the kids… like I know the people in and out… like I know who they are. And so it's like very easy for me to be like, "Oh, let me connect the dots real quick," like… and then I pitch, and then I'm like their hype man, you know? Like, it's crazy because like the Coffee Family, they're huge. Like, they probably have like… I don't know, right now… like 25 million followers combined, and some people never heard of them, you know what I mean? And I'm like, "What?" Like… and then I'm like pitching, and all I want is… oh, I just want to work with Charlie and… or Addison's… like… why? Because those people got an article in The New York Times, and everybody picked up The New York Times article that day and read the same article, and all these executives were like, "We gotta get on TikTok. Oh, who's the biggest people on TikTok? It's these five people." Okay, well, there's like 500 other people that are amazing, they just don't know them. And would they want to invest in them? Yeah, probably. They don't… just know who… they don't know who they are. They're not on TikTok every day. So, you know, it's… it's important to… that's why I think like press is important. Collabs… like doing YouTube… you know, searchable content on YouTube. Somebody told me that TikTok is searchable through captions, um… you know… like… like I don't know… like do you do a YouTube video that's like… copyright or… turn TikToker… like anything that you would want like the press to write about… make a YouTube video, and you know… I'm gonna talk about SEO, but like… make a YouTube video, and make that the caption… the title of the thing is whatever… whatever someone's searching for, you know?

All right, thank you.

Yeah, that's all I had. Thank you for clarifying that. And… and honestly, I would go and look at every brand that works with the Harmon Brothers or that does that type of marketing, and I'd reach out to them, and I'd be like, "Hey, this is my experience. Like, I really liked your…" You know… go to Poo-Pourri and be like, "Hey, I'll make sick TikToks for you because I get… I get you," you know? And they're gonna be like, "Oh, bet. Let's do it," you know? That's a really good idea. Thank you. Um… but yeah, that's it for me. Thank you. Sorry, I was like… okay.

See you. You're really confident in what you do. Don't even get Poo-Pourri to hire you. Just make a dope Poo-Pourri video. Make it go viral, and then Poo-Pourri… not only Poo-Pourri's gonna come to you, but every other brand's gonna come to you and be like, "Hey, do what you just did for that brand," you know?

Yeah, totally. I love that. Like, don't… don't wait for them to come to you. If you really like the brand, you support… you love it, and you just happen to create content for it, they're probably gonna choose you over the other person… like viral… who doesn't even know who you are or anything. When we were first working with the Lopez Brothers, there was a song that came out, and it was like a chip… it was like fighting the chip, and… and they used a Chipotle bag, and they weren't working with Chipotle. And so when I talked to Chipotle, I was like, "Oh, and by the way, they already did a Chipotle video," and then of course Chipotle was super excited, you know? Like, they're like, "Oh yeah, of course, we'd love to work with like people that are already engaging with our brand."

What's up, Sean?

It's Schwann. How are you doing?

Hello. Nice to meet you.

Oh, good. Um, I'll get right to it. Uh, I myself am a media manager, so kind of… not really the influencer in this group. Uh, I manage an IG for a pro soccer player, a rapper on TikTok, and I'm bringing a WNBA player onto TikTok because she's doing pretty well, and hygiene wants to drive more traffic from this platform. And you seem to be doing like what I want to be doing in the future, and I want to be driving revenue for clients through these platforms. So when the issue isn't finding elite talent or talent that I know I can grow and uh… see revenue from… do you have guidance on what I can do to leverage what I'm doing into like a space or a place where I can learn and actuate strategies just to further it along?

What kind of space do you want to get into? Like… um… so that… that's what I'm looking… I… I was working at an agency before, but left it so I could do more freelance work and learn about… in generating revenue from it. Been… it's been amazing doing that, but… well, the value of working with celebrities is like… I worked with Canelo Alvarez, um… the boxer before like um… the Triple G fight, and I was doing all his content on his platform. Now, Canelo was making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, so like I try to bring him deals and like… but really what I was doing is… he cared about…

His, his persona, and he wanted to be like the, you know, he want to get the same attention that Mayweather gets, that, you know, Conor McGregor gets. And it had to be really strategic because Canelo doesn't speak English. So, in order for the American audience to connect with him, so what I found with him is that he loved music, you know. And so me and my partner at the time, um, you know, we, we had contacts in the Latin space, but a lot of people love boxing, you know. And so that was like a little bit of a, it was like I had like French Montana hitting me up, being like, hey, I'll, I'll collab with Canelo, like I'll post him on my thing, like I just want tickets to the fight, you know, or like Drake.

And so what we did was we, it ended up, if you, if you go and um, there's a song with uh, that just came out with Will I Am and um, Jay Balvin. At the time, Puerto Rican singers would never collaborate with a boxer from Mexico because it's like rivals, you know. But Canelo really connected with the Latin music, and um, and then, and so we brought in Jay Belvin. I mean, now there's a song where literally like Jay Balvin shouts out like, be like, Canelo in the ring, I'll knock you out. And my partner at the time, like he was really into Latin music, but he wanted to be like creating content for Canelo, like on ongoing, and because he like bridged those two worlds and offered a ton of value to Canelo, like, and then other boxers started seeing like what he was doing and they wanted to work with him.

So I guess what I would say is like, keep doing what you're doing, use your contacts, and then just get like expand your, um, your, your reach and relationships, um, to other areas to where people see like, oh, he built that for whatever, uh, basketball player, like now I'm gonna hire, and then you can get paid a retainer for like, like, you know, I work with like even like, uh, Devin Booker, like his guys calling me being like, hey, how can we get him big on, uh, gaming, you know. And it's like I don't know anything about gaming, but I'm just like connecting the dots with like the people that I know. So it's really just everything is about who you know, but like also show value because if other people see that value they're going to be like, I want to hire this guy.

So look up Chrissa Ace on, um, on TikTok. She's, um, she has like a ball as she balances on her finger and all her, she's huge, and she's doing, we're, we're working with her, um, I can like connect your athlete with her who's already big on TikTok, and they could do some stuff like, even especially right now, like passing the basketball or something, you know. So, um, you know, that'd be phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, like a good example of it too is like, um, Jason Derulo was so funny. Two months ago I was at sushi with my friends, actually with like some of my talents, the younger ones, and my friend Jenna was with Jason at the table next to us, and I'm like, oh my god, it's Jason Derulo. And the girls are like, what, what is he saying again? And I'm like, oh my god, this is Jason Derulo. And then next thing you know, because Jason's friends with, because Jason hangs out with Jenna, who's an Instagram girl who's connected to the, and I don't know how it all connected, but all of a sudden he's doing content with the Lopez brothers, with Addison, with all these huge TikTokers. If I asked a TikToker who's Jason Derulo, they'd tell you right away today, right? Two months ago they didn't even know what he sang or who the hell he was. That's crazy, right? So you connect, you connect, make one of your talents, athletes, Jason Derulo, where everybody on TikTok knows who he is, all of a sudden you, you rebranded them to a whole new audience and never heard of them, right? Okay, that's what I was trying to do with the rapper. He was a case study because I, I gave him growth that he hadn't seen before, and I did it with a budget with zero budget, basically. He gave me a budget, and I was able to do it for free. And that's how the WNBA player who I was friends with was like, okay, now I want you to help me out because I'm unlike him, I'm already doing well on IG and have a presence, it's going to be easier for you to steal, yeah, or have them like repost. Like I'm friends with, um, King Sam, he just said that like the drip song, and he's like, hey, I don't even have a TikTok, and I've got all these people remade my song, and I'm like, and he's just, he reposts them to his Instagram every day, like, you know, and then they want to make that song so they can get, they can share, you know, followers on each platform.

Um, the other thing, like another good strategy was Kid Laroi. He, uh, his somebody that works at Columbia, I introduced to Addison like several months ago, and um, they literally made a song called Addison Rae. So yeah, I remember any of those people to promote your song, it's a lot of money. I don't know if it was paid or not, I really don't know, but all I'm saying is if, if I'm a talent and somebody makes a song about me, I'm sure as hell gonna post it because it's a flex, right? So we were discussing that the rapper and I, he was like, who can I do like Madison Beer, Charlie D'Amelio, like who's smaller, have him do Daisy, Daisy Keech, and like something like, she's a bad, like she came out, she, you know, you got to like almost fall, you know, sometimes with rap it's like about following the drama and like making a song about it, you know, you don't have to like it, but it's like, it's like you got to tell him the who's who on TikTok, right? Like, like, and tell him what would make a good song, you know, or even just if he already has a song just shouting them out in it, you know. There's actually, I'm creating that group, and it's the girls in the valley, and I was talking to my friend at, um, at Capitol Records, and he's like, you know, there's actually a song called hoes in the valley, and he like, he's like, we were like joking about, he sent it to me, and I'm like, dude, that's actually a really good song, like, could they take off the hoes and replace it with girls, and then I'll like use it as their theme song. He's like, I don't know, actually, let me ask him. So they got me the track, and it just, it bleeps out the hoes part, and so I'm having like, you know, I'm gonna see if they'll remake it, but it's just ideas like that, like, you know, what value are you providing? Like these TikTokers probably don't have friends that are rappers that can just remix a song that's like trendy with their, with shouting them out, that's like, I mean, it's like somebody like Canelo, the fact that Jay Balvin shot him out in the song, like he'll do anything for Jay Balvin now, probably, you know what I mean? Like it's like they've created like a bond, a mutual respect. Right, right on. Well, that's all I got. I really appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Sean. Good questions. Well, you know what, I, I know I was gonna pee inside the house, maybe, yeah, I don't know. I was like, I know there might be a few more, but you've honestly been here for almost three hours, which is insane. I think you actually now have the record for the longest Q&A interview calls like that. So one, I want to personally, because I learned a lot, I have my own little notes, I was like, oh, I gotta remember that one. What I want to say for myself, Michael, did I redeem myself? 100. You did. Yeah, I was like, I was sending people texts when you guys were like talking, and I wasn't on camera. I was like, yo, you're asking about the Q&A, I promise you it's so worth it right now, like why are you not here right now? It's so good, it's so valuable. So that being said, for myself, thank you so much, super, super appreciate your time. If people want to like find out more about you or like with your management or work with you, like people that are brands or people that are advertising agencies right now, they want to collaborate and work with TikTok influencers, how can they best find you and contact you under those like circumstances?

So my email, uh, if you email me at ceo@influences.com, um, my Instagram is littlemissjacob, we have at influences, I have a TikTok at littlemissjacob, uh, but email's probably the best. A lot of people DM me, um, but like, you know, if you reach out on both platforms that'll always like get my attention because I do end up like looking at those things, and um, it's just a matter of like when I get a second to like go through everything and like do my homework on somebody, you know. So, and you know, just understand that like we're growing too, so if I don't get back right away, I'm not like, you know, it's funny because like I don't know if you guys remember like back in the day GaryVee used to like answer every single email like, and that's I feel like how I was been like up until this point, and now it's like, you know, I definitely, uh, I definitely, I'm a little slower to get back, but definitely like, you know, actually too, don't get offended if I see your, if I see your thing and I open it, if you message me on, on Instagram, and then it says seen, because it's like, at least I opened it, and then probably I'm so 80D someone else started talking to me, but then I, it doesn't mean I didn't retain it, you know, it's like I saw it, I opened it for a reason, and then I'll come back to it, but you know, someone's just got to be persistent. Like I managed this kid Adam who like literally like messaged me so many times and like I just didn't connect it, and then finally when I got on the phone with him, I'm like, I freaking love this kid, and he's like, dude, Ari, like I just, I just want to sign with you because like you literally like wouldn't answer your phone, and like, and he was like, he's like a Disney star, he's like a Disney star dad, like is like a business consultant, works like Bill Gates, like he became like one of my like closest like friends, even like his family. So anyway, but we always joke about it because he's like, you blew me off. My way, it didn't blow you off, you're like, I promise I'm trying my best, like I just, it's a little chaotic sometimes. So very few and far between that like someone gets like my full undivided attention. So hopefully, uh, you know, hopefully, uh, I did that today. No, you definitely killed it. I promise you there's a lot of messages I'm getting private, they're like, how do we get her again? How do we get more like this? This is crazy. And I'm happy to bring some of my talent on and anything like that, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Okay, well everybody watching, make sure to go check her out. If you're watching the replay, check her out, and then if there's anybody that's watching this that you know, you want to find out more about the influencers, how to like actually work with each other one-on-one, not to be friends and chat, but like actually like, hey, we were looking for talent for this specific thing, um, definitely reach out to, are you, can all the way she said, I'll have a description, all the links and everything, and if you want to see who's on my current roster, the most updated place is follow at influences, because, um, there's a highlight with, uh, that says sign roster, and you just go through the highlight, and you can swipe up and go to their TikTok pages, um, and then you also have their individual emails. So if you email, you want to work with an influencer, if you email any of them, my team will get back to you. Awesome. All right, thank you guys so much, Ari. Thank you so much. Shout out to Scooby in the background, he's probably like, thank me, I have to pee so bad, but yeah, thank you so much, mega appreciate it. Everybody have a good night.