How to Master Events: Revenue Model, Maximizing Relationships, & Name Power with EYL & David Shands

all right guys welcome back eyo this is a very unique situation uh I will explain later but uh we are here with the podcast King David he put his crown on y'all um social proof Empire got the new studio in Atlanta thank you for having us up there you got your real estate place that you've been working on you got the big event that you that you got coming up you got an online community you've taught a variety of different people how to actually get going in the podcast space how to monetize the space um way before before he's still the first person that's ever done this right nobody's ever done well we're gonna explain this but I'm not saying this I'm talking about what he's done already with us so you're the first person that we interviewed and then you interviewed us yeah right after that's never happened like ever that's never happened so there's never a good episode it's happened before where uh Envy did it multiple times no no the same day the same day yeah oh yeah because yeah I came to the kitchen table Yeah interviewed me yeah and I think we like switch seats or something yeah we did musical chairs if they enter your job but I have to say this up front man um you all are one was the motivation like I think I started podcasting before you you guys but um Iron Man wheels at the Cheesecake Factory and I was having a conversation with uh Troy and he's like man I like his stuff man he just knocking you know you don't do it every week it's not consistent and I really took that to heart I heard bro that next Monday on the morning meet up I'm like yo yo I'm about to be consistent with this thing I love doing it um if I ever not drop an episode on Monday I will come on this call and give away like two thousand dollars wow that was I was offended because you didn't you didn't say it in an offensive way but I was offended but then also um let's talk about that moment for a moment because I saw you did reference that a lot um but what you didn't reference was that he did give you education after that yeah so that's that yeah you know it's just inconsistent it was when I saw the clip I'm like damn all right cool but what it was was like I had used you as a reference before us right so I think we were interviewing Alex at the time and I was trying to find information about information about him and it was your interview I'm like yo this guy's great and so when I when I saw you I'm like you know like you're really great at this but the only thing is that you don't do it enough yeah like it's kind of like you dropping it and it was like it wasn't even a challenge was like yo this is just like positive critique and then we had a longer conversation because we went back to another time we went back to Jeremy Anderson's house and I was like well I mean sorry in that moment yeah in that moment it sort of felt like I don't even remember anything you said after like keeping it I'm like I'm in a space with some people that do the same thing and they're recognizing my inconsistency and I took it personally I needed it yeah of course not did you say anything bad I said okay I gotta be consistent then later on this is more flowers we're going to do a bouquet here uh here we go um uh I really started educating me on the podcasting space and uh joined the early Leisure Network and like just at just one being able to um have proximity I never ever want to take that for granted like you guys are like literally Paving away and have given me so much gain so much information and I I can honestly say I wouldn't know half the stuff that uh I know right now even to teach other people if it wasn't for you all half of it you all directly saying this is what you need to do the other half is watching and modeling so it's it's been an incredible incredible journey even knowing y'all so appreciate that yeah for sure appreciate that for sure and um it's been great to see your growth as well yeah you know and consistency I think another person that wasn't the most consistent it was 19 keys he had a show people forget like how conversations took over the world and you know gets 10 million views every episode he puts out but people don't forget that he had he had a show before high level conversation and that was one of the main issues was the level of consistency so so here's the crazy part the same conversation I had with you I had with him really same thing and he was like all right let's just do this thing right let's just do this thing and like obviously what the success has had now was just incredible but it was it was like you just see that like the talent is there yeah the message is there the pat everything was there it was like this is that one piece how we gonna do it and and everybody can see what it turned out to be now how many millionaires can come from the wild tree Oh I thought about that yeah yeah because most people how do we quantify it like some people can look at the artists that they've signed and how you know their careers have gone but how do we reach how do you know the everyday person that got information and now has become a millionaire for sure I think y'all hit it from three sides two one is the common listener right uh multiple size one is the common listener the information that you guys put out right they can take that information and you can't quantify how many people made Millions from that right the second part is the people that have been on the show being able to share with the audience they became millionaires from their notoriety from like you guys giving them the platform I think three is your your your circle of um and I would be one mentees right people have you you've taught the game maybe they're not they weren't on the show or maybe they're not like the listener but people that you've taught the game to and I think for your whole team of people that your collaborations Partnerships right so it's going to be very difficult to quantify the success you know what I mean like even on like let's say like bad boy you could say okay well 112 became successful Mary J all these people but the impact is different from what y'all doing so I figure it's proper to spend a few minutes appreciate it appreciate that I don't get the credit man nobody you know I'm saying it uh complex that complex list it's so faulty because you can't I know your argument is like well it's for hip-hop but who's more hip-hop like who's interviewed more um celebrities from the hip-hop culture and figured out how they became a celebrity than y'all they go on radio runs on their albums coming out their movie that's coming out but nobody's understanding the backing on how they became that right so y'all not be on the list is disrespectful nobody on that list has made a person a dime nobody on that list has put 14 000 people in a stadium just y'all what are you talking about right now yeah can't argue with you man you got a point there you're right I appreciate that man for sure for sure but you know people normalize greatness and I think 19 keys I spoke about that before was like sometimes when you see things it's it's hard to have an appreciation for it because it just becomes normal right like when you accomplish amazing things on a consistent bit that's that's the problem with consistency is that it desensitizes us right like if a player just drops 40 points and you never heard of them ever in his life it's like yo that's crazy if LeBron dropped 40 points it's just a regular day like I'm saying so it's like we've we've normalized greatness and I think that that's something that is difficult because it's like yeah to be able to accomplish a variety of different things whether it's going sell out two shows in Toronto and Royal Albert Hall and London and 14 000 people that invest fast and a variety of different things that we've been able to accomplish even if you look at eyo Network I mean really if you look at it from an independent standpoint like we have more shows on the charts than on CNBC or any like major like you know when you look at Market Mondays earn your leisure high level conversations just those three yeah you'd be hard-pressed to find any podcast Network anybody across any genre that has three shows that are that successful or even just three shows right because a lot of them just have another they don't have any children I'm just saying that there are podcast networks but I don't know any podcast Network that has that kind of roster yeah so but you know it is what it is you know just you just keep keep the ball rolling and keep going yeah but the greatest isn't even normalized yet because you guys are doing amazing things and it's just not enough people talking about it you know what I mean when LeBron goes out and drops 40 it becomes normal but you're like yo we know that this person is great but y'all drop me 40 every week nobody's saying anything like I mean it's based on what we're doing right like they're not expecting this this is this is built around business it's built around entrepreneurship it's built around finance and investing it's not built around Athletics it's not built around specifically music and so it's tough because it's not common nature in our community right these conversations don't happen so it's still like almost like a foreign language that's penetrating the mainstream but the more that people do talk about it we had that conversation about showing up in these places where all these people are that are doing those things it becomes like wait these guys are here again they're here again they're here again what's happening right now right and so we're just trying to penetrate the the masses with the message and again eventually it'll it'll be commonplace and that's the goal yeah I want to know um when did you know you were making an impact though I mean you know you're doing it online but at some point you said well we want to put all these people in one room when did you know okay it's time to just come out of the living room and really let's listen let's bring people together I think it was our first networking event in L.A um like after like episode 14. we was in LA decided to do a last minute networking event and um really last minute like decide to do it on Friday and it was on a Monday really yeah and it was in Carson California which is like out the way hold on hold on what made you think this was going to be successful well honestly that inspiration came from Matt Matt was doing a network he did a networking event in Atlanta randomly I saw on Instagram I'm like well that's dope are you doing networking event we should do one we're in L.A like so it's like we just put it together and put it on Instagram a restaurant owner reached out to us and let us use his spot it was all like within 48 Hours of putting it together um put a flyer up on Instagram create an Eventbrite and people came so it was like you know probably like 100 150 people that came really and um people came from like San Diego I.E like they were coming from like two different two hours away and it was on a Monday at like five o'clock like terrible traffic in L.A and um that was like you know impactful because the love was just there like you know you had all different type of people from different walks of life that was the first event that we did when people actually met us in person and was like you know Champion us and like you know I rock with y'all I I had did Matt event before that Matt had a real estate event and this is where we met a lot of different people like Sabine and Miss business and stuff like that but um that was like the first time since the show had started that was like around episode six and there was people rocking with it from then so when I did that people was coming up to me like y'all rock with your show I love your show and that was like episode six so a few weeks later we did our own event and that was the first time where we got to connect with people in person and um you know once you once you see that happen it's like all right we wanted something yeah it's interesting because it was like let's maximize the time we were initially going out to LA because we had just uh confirmed Al Harrington and this was a big deal it was like yo we got Al Harrington you know we grew up watching him playing shout he had a relationship with him or met him um early in his in his his uh basketball career so it was like oh this is gonna be great we can talk about cannabis and the else thing was like all right well if we're gonna be out there let's maximize the time let's do that let's put a networking event together to see if people show up and I remember being at the networking event and at the time I'm still teaching I'm like yo I got to catch this plan I can't I can't even I can't stay the whole time right like I'm still like yo this is this is great with meeting people but I can't stay so I actually think I left like an hour early to get back on the plane to come to New York I was like this is crazy so that was a moment but I think after that it was like yeah we got something but then when we did it in New York we did one in Brooklyn at bk9 and when we pulled up it was packed like the restaurant was packed we were walking up I had I had AB with me and um say my niece uh we had we were doing another we're doing our summer program so yo come with me to this event and we're walking up and they're looking at me like it's destroyed yeah it's Troy we'll just throwing him to Brooklyn and we're walking up and people were like yo I just took the bus from Philly to come see you yo I live in Rhode Island I came down here just to see y'all and they're looking at me like wait what I'm like yo this is crazy this is turning into something and then when we what we saw inside of that that restaurant that night was pockets of information and so you know we had somebody talking about stocks and people were surrounding around them because they wanted to hear the information third Falcon who had just the episode 11 was talking about you know his episode and we were just watching this happen like you know this is it like everybody's just gravitating around the information they want to know and we packed out the spot in Brooklyn this is going to be crazy like even in the intro for every episode the clips from that event are part of it I mean it was it was an amazing thing for us what made what made are your leaders so special though you know I mean I'm like episode six yes on my episode 11 episode 14 and people are coming out and there are a lot of people that maybe they're talented but it's taking them 60 up my my joint ain't started rocking to like 50. what's going on y'all that's right the biggest event in business is upon us invest Fest 2023 is here August 25th through the 27th Atlanta Georgia y'all know who's coming but bigger than that shall you tell them what they're gonna learn yeah she will learn about AI you will learn about crypto you will learn about stocks you will learn about real estate you will learn about merchandise you will learn about everything you need to know to be a successful entrepreneur and investor and you will learn from some of the most successful people in the world billionaires like Robert Smith billionaires like Michael novograts and so much more we have Rich Paul we have Steve Harvey we have to BD Stevens we have the master investor himself we have 19 Keys the list goes on this is going to be an event that you cannot afford to miss that's right so head over to bestfest.com and get your tickets right now what I think we had that so we had a head start we was doing social media I was doing social media for two years before we had on your leisure so we didn't we didn't just start with zero there was anticipation for Ernie Leisure but that's the whole reason why we started on your legion because the anticipation had been building so much everybody was dming like where's your show where do I watch it so it was like all right the the demand was already there yeah so it was like you know when we opened the gates we already had thousands of people that was willing to just walk into the house as opposed to just trying to build the house and didn't like Market it like hey come over here so that was definitely a part of it but also I think the packaging it was just good time but the the packaging was different as far as um mixing the sports and entertainment and pop culture and blending it with business you know kind of adding all of the elements from the slaying fashion you know different things that we was doing as far as how we was curating the stories telling stories related to business and that was something that was like really just interesting social media definitely played a big part because a lot of those clips is going viral early like early we did a clip about like George Foreman um that was crazy in the George Foreman grill and Hulk Hogan that went viral social soldier boy that was like on episode one so from the beginning but like I said there was Clips going viable for that but once we started you know it seemed like everything that we would put out would just go viral on social media so it was one of those things people see on explore players like what's this so they were just tapping in so fortunately for us we never really had to try to um build the audience because the audience was already built like that was the hard part trying to figure it out two years prior was like how do you how do you get people to engage with your content how did but that was already figured out by the time we figured we already had a two-year Head Start by the time Ernie Leisure came it wasn't really trying to figure out how to make a clip or how to put a title on a video or how to make it engaging because it was already tried and tested for 24 months previously so by the time on your leisure came it was already like a a thing where we know like all right this is this is what's going to hit this is going to explode and that's exactly what happened yeah I think I had anything to do with timing everything of course time is everything of course A lot of it has to do with time and I always credit you know Dave's 2015 reference Club interview and how that impacted me how how it felt when he was talking about being an entrepreneur and talking about Legacy and talking about that generational but sustainable wealth it was like man here I am and it's not like there's seven to three is that the first back and forth conversation that the world had around entrepreneurship versus job our culture for us is the most impactful I don't know if it was the first but it was the most impactful yeah it hit home it hit home like I'm a teacher and I'm watching this and I'm watching like he was an entrepreneur Mike was an entrepreneur and I'm the teacher like I remember my pops working for 40 years but I knew that didn't guarantee me an interview at the place he worked I'm like yo damn like this school is not even named after me what am I giving to the Next Generation it's like this is tough right and then Jay came with in 2017 with the 444 album and with huge I'm a huge Jay-Z fan and what he was talking about was Legacy like he has a song called Legacy right and then he has the story of OJ and like everything around it was surrounding around financial literacy and it was like great at the time even prior to that like I was we were writing lessons in the program but they were based around the lyrics that were in hip-hop and so we're teaching through music but we're teaching financial literacy through it so it was like all those things happened at the same time it was like perfect melting pot for this to happen and I think you guys even started crossing over like really the first people to find celebrities artists and start finding out the business behind the stuff that they were doing and I think some people might look at it like oh man I missed the boat uh everyone's been interviewed already everyone's doing it but you guys keep finding the perfect timing like the perfect timing for exposing entrepreneurship from a celebrity standpoint bringing people together right like you guys keep finding the right time I think even before it's a celebrity it's your next door neighbor yeah right your next door neighbor could be the millionaire and you'd have no idea if they never got to tell their story we interviewed Derek Ferguson was a close friend he was a CEO of bad boy CFO of bad boy for 20 years I went to church with this guy for 10 years when we did his interview he's like this is the first time somebody's actually asked me what I did for a living wow he's been in this space for 20 years right he's seen from Bad Boy to Surat like he's seen all these things Revolt he's been there nobody's ever asked him and it was like wait nobody's ever asked me you got so much information because the chance of somebody being you are highly likely the chance of somebody being puff is gonna be tough yeah right so it was like the real estate attorney or the real estate agent the the tax uh professional right all these people are entrepreneurs and creating businesses that you actually need that you should know about because there's a a great chance that you could actually do that and apply it into your everyday life then it was like all right once we built up that clientele was like well who's next right can we get the celebrity right we we always talk about this network across right because if you network across long enough like that person might introduce you to the next person you're looking for right so you start at this level and then you build up and build up and then when you get the celebrity it's like all right well let's pull back the layers because like you said most people go on interviews because they have something to promote but most times nobody asks them anything about the business yeah right everybody's getting paid for their profession or they're making money from it but how are you doing it because that's the important part like we see people doing it they never told us how and maybe because they didn't know or they just didn't feel confident enough to talk about it but that that's what this was like it felt like all right let's humanize this as much as we can let's see how much information they're willing to share because number one it could help from the lessons that they learn or number two it can Inspire somebody to do something different for sure I think you guys are creating the right timing it's like when y'all do something and then everybody starts doing it and they say well it was the right topic no I created this yeah that's that's shoddy line like yo they started the reinvesting yeah the first and Best Fest 4 000 people um it has to be kind of nerve-wracking because this this is one of the few things that you can't hide the success or failure right so if I drop a book nobody knows somebody else old you know what I mean like if I drop a podcast really nobody knows how many downloads I got right but a live event is the one thing you cannot hide if there's no one there I mean you gotta put people to the front so the the camera looks good about 4 000 people which is absolutely incredible years ago where did this thought come from and that was a lot so and all right so um definitely Gotta Give a big shout out to uh him for 100 and went to his event in Miami and that was the first time that we saw something like that like the the level of production and especially for our culture but probably just in general because I know for me personally I didn't go to any like business conferences like that so we were inspired by that like yo we got to do something like but how many people were at that event I think it was like 12 000 something uh you know it was just for his community Recession Proof um so but me I'm very big on taking inspiration but not copying yeah it's two different things like you know I mean we all get inspired for everything I might like that's a dope hoodie like I want to rework it I don't want to take your hoodie and you know just put our logo on it that's copying but being inspired by something that's different so I've been inspired by everything from art music everything so we were inspired but we didn't want to copy so it was like all right well how do we make it different how do we do an event wait we need to do an event we got a lot of momentum a lot of people like us like we want we want to do an event bigger because we did our first event at your spot actually so we were doing events in the pandemic shut it down so it was like this would be the first event after the pandemic but we want to Rebrand it we don't want to do like the same thing that we did before the pandemic which before the pandemic the formula was uh two-day event and it would be the first day like a Saturday it would be a live podcast and then on Sunday it was an education seminar right that's what we did we did it in DC we did it in Atlanta and then we were about to do it in Philly and then we had Covey came and shut it down so it's like all right we gotta do something we gotta look to scale so understand words is very important so um Festival the idea Festival I'm like we need to have a festival and you know path Festival a lot of times people look at Festival like it has to be outside but I looked up the dictionary's word and it never says in the dictionary a festival has to be outside it's the characteristics um I could look at it and see I'm not 100 sure but it doesn't say outside right I think that's just kind of been Associated because a lot of festivals are outside so I think that that's just been associated with it right so but it didn't have to be called the fact it didn't have to be outside to be a festival so just thinking about it was like all right well it's difficult to do what we do outside for a variety of different reasons if you take the elements of it might rain and stuff like that but just to get people's attention like you got to actually be able to sit down and learn for hours at a time right and standing outside doesn't really lend itself to that it's good for music when you're just halfway listening halfway drunk like you know that's not that's not the most important thing but it's like when you actually are have to pay attention to something it's better in a closed setting yeah so it's like that's kind of a hurdle but what would also add to a festival feel so when you start thinking about festivals it's like what's the what are in festivals so food trucks right like that's part of a festival feel so it's like all right well what if we can add food trucks to it and have like a culinary experience and then it's like all right I've been to Essence once again drawing inspiration and so what they did with the event the marketplace and like Essence fest that's one of the biggest festivals for our culture so I was like all right well at that time nobody was doing vendor marketplaces for their events and other people have like a vendor Marketplace but it was just like their booths yeah promoting their products which is fine but nobody had done it where it was like outside businesses could set up shop yeah so it's like oh this is an opportunity to do that so now you got two things you got the vendor space which that's a festival type of feel you got food trucks that's a festival type of field and then the stuff that we were already currently doing with the live podcast the Sim like the you know the panel discussion stuff like that we were already familiar with that and then it's like all right well entertainment is always a big part of it so now if we can add an entertainment factor to it so that's where the musicians come in so now it's like now we have a headline a performer or we have you know for VIP night we have a performer for that right so now you add the music part of it which every Festival pretty much has some level of Music Entertainment part of it so and then it was like what do we call it and then you know going back and forth with names for a long time and then invest Fest feel like that you really can't come up with a better name than that right like invest Fest it's short simple conveys the message you're very easy to put on a shirt and for people to remember it Rhymes yeah invest fast um it Rhymes and and that's that's how it was done that's that's how that's that's kind of how it how it it came to tuition and it was never a thing of being feared right like we never operate in fear we operate in like all right let's see what we can do next and so like even the title of the name it was about it not being about us right so that alleviates any type of fear because it really wasn't about us you think about we could have named it during the Leisure Fest but we didn't which was really about the people even like for the marketplace standpoint it was like yeah some people have promoted themselves but it was like you know let's let the community be part of it because even our episodes right we could have just stayed it just being me and Charlie doing episodes yeah it was like nah let's figure out how many people can we can highlight their greatness and so all the episodes become like Monumental because it was highlight and greatness right even from a standpoint it was like all right well if it's not about us we know what we're gonna do we do this every day we can you know we're gonna find somebody to interview but it's like we have a network yeah let's highlight them right so if they stands on network let's let them have a panel if mg's on you know I'm saying so it was like highlighting everything that was going on outside of just the people that they see and associate with the brand it was like no this is a brand this is its own IP and this is about the people so the marketplace becomes that the food trucks become that the community that comes aside of it becomes that because it's more than just a festival where people are going to come and gather and listen to people it's like nah this could be your next business partner you're sitting next to for sure right that you could you could find somebody here your next person to invest in your business whereas we didn't see that we were inspired by other people but it was like all right this would be we can improve on what this is because it's missing that you know what I mean but that's the most I think the most important thing is the name is it in my opinion because like I said just that it it breaks the mole of what there's a lot of conferences there's a lot of symposiums conferences different things that I need to note to my mom knowledge nobody has ever name something that is business related a festival so doing that already sends shock waves through the system you think so because I mean yo I was actually on a panel and I was like I was I was making the point like that the show or the product makes the name the name like people want to think of the perfect name but it like none of us would have thought yo we're gonna have uh all these products in one place and we're gonna call it Walmart well I think I think they go ahead of hand so the name is extremely important because that's the first thing people see that's what gets them in the door but it's like if you walk in a house with no furniture nothing you're not you're gonna walk right out right yeah so it got it now once the house is fully decorated and it's crazy art deco and art and all that now you're interested in staying yeah it's like it's like when you hear rolling loud before you know what it was you know you knew what the name right like Coachella we didn't know exactly what's happening but you know the name even like what Jay what he did with made in America was like what's he doing with that what is this going to be true right so like I'm one I didn't know what earn your leisure meant for like a year and I was like I already know I already knew you guys for that long you know what I mean like I don't know that I mean is it is it you come up with a name where people get it or it's Thursday I think I think so for the investors like I said this is why like I was really adamant like in Festival I thought was very important because the word Festival now you gotta live up to create a festival you just can't name it Festival what happened in your backyard like I'm saying so it's like now that that forces you yeah to think outside the box and to be original and to add different elements to it as opposed to just having a seminar and it's not going to feel the same right if you needed a conference you've probably been to a bunch of those yeah right when you had festivals like uh well they're doing something different automatically they're doing something different I need to change the name of myself we're not doing conferences and Summits we're going to change the whole day I think I got a trademark too thanks Sean yeah let me ask you this 4 000 people first time right yeah this one did you know you were gonna have four thousand people before you did it or it just so happened y'all had four thousand like what was the number one when you do these type of events especially like what we do with that like you have to have seating for a certain amount of people so it's like seating chart so it's like all right you know you're seating for 3 500 4000 whatever that is and then you can as you get closer you're trying to see maybe we need to take some seats away because we're not gonna hit this number oh but we can't but it's kind of difficult to change that so you you kind of go into it with a set Target right of like what you what you want to hit and try to accomplish that goal so that was a Target around I don't know the exact number that we targeted but it was it wasn't just a random thing like because it's like you might if if you set the room for a thousand people and then you tell them we got four thousand that it can't happen like it has to be set for the expectations that you're giving them like you got to give the venue expectations like this is how many people we gonna have because then they got to send the plans to the fire marshal they gotta they gotta you know bring the walls in and and put the chairs in and it's a variety of games but you got and remember like after getting the number from to even look for a venue that holds this amount so it's the analytics right it's the reason why when we look at it it's like we could do it in New York that's our biggest audience but right now it's during cold so the time we couldn't do anything in New York so it was like well what's the next biggest audience that we have oh Atlanta okay best so now we look at that and then there's certain like restrictions that we couldn't do because it was it was covered at the time but it was like all right well we saw what an event looked like when we went to Miami yeah with him for 100 shout out to him again like all right well if they can do that and we I feel like our audience has grown to a point I think we could maybe let's try to double that yeah so you got a baseline based on your analytics plus your reach plus what you know can be done it's like you've seen in the past like all right this feels like a number that I think is obtainable for us to do but also it's it's the eye test but it's also testing the waters so even when we was doing free networking events like that kind of gives us an idea so like the London is a perfect example invest fast Europe so we did invest fast Europe in London last year at Royal Albert Hall so Royal Albert Hall is one of the most prestigious venues in the world and it holds 4 500 people so you don't just guess like you don't want to just know I'm being honest because people might be listening they might be like it's like oh I'm booking Madison Square Garden and then it's like you know what I'm saying like you don't want to just book crypto Arena and then it's like 100 people so there's a science to it but it's not a set science so it's it's a feeling that you have it is an eye test feeling but I think you also have to do other events to work your way up to that so before we did the Royal Albert Hall we did a free event in London free networking event and 2500 people came to a venue that hold 300 and it was 2 000 people on the street so that that gave us a feeling that there was a a high demand in London and with enough time and enough marketing we we felt confident that we could fill up Royal levels never guarantee yeah you don't know 300 people yeah yeah it was crazy but that's I mean even that to that point it was like yeah Atlanta our first event was in Atlanta how many tickets did we sell all right let's look at the analytics for that yeah we did a networking event uh how many people showed up I mean like we started to see these things and it was like all right this makes sense we can we can get this done here so the last event that we did we was the Atlanta effect that we did at just spot we did like 500 people right and that was then we took like 18 months because the covet took off and then we came back and we saw like him find it had almost 2 000 people in his event so I was like all right well if we did 500 almost two years ago he has 2 000 you know we kind of know Atlanta is a very good market for us so you start playing around the numbers in your head like you know it's still like I said it's still not accept science because you don't know anything is possible for sure people might not come you know I'm saying it's always a risk when you do an event do we ever have a feeling like did you ever anybody ever especially like you lost it yeah they're not gonna come but again this is like this is 2021 right so like even I I got covered like even though leading up to it I was sick like it was a chance that I might not even made it to the first of us remember that so it was like I don't think that people wouldn't come I just wanted to know if people felt safe enough to come there was a little of that you know I mean because it was like we still didn't know like there was still a high in the season where it was like I'm not sure do I want to risk my health or get this information and so people have to put that in their mind it was like there's some doubt but you know we were looking at it when we leading up to I'm just like now this is happening and then it became like you know shoddy was down here a week early ad was out here Mike was already out here I was like there's no way I'm missing this if these people are coming right am I missing this all right so first event 4 000 people amazing success what'd you do wrong the first one um I'm not just not necessarily sure we did anything wrong it was just a short amount of time it was like six weeks from start to finish as far as so you know it's six weeks yeah yeah all right so I'm gonna map this out right so him 500's event was in April of that year so like you joined the inspiration from Nick right you're like oh wait okay here we can do this and I remember we had a conversation he was like yo we gonna do this I think it probably was like Maine he's like oh I'm like yeah let's do it it was a group chat so I got I got an idea that was like in in the major we didn't really formalize the plan until like yeah yeah and it was it was like yo guys first week of August are we gonna do this or not and it was like all right let's do this what we need to do so but I mean given the circumstances I think we did pretty good so I don't necessarily look at it like what we did wrong it's just what what can you add yeah even this year like every year it's like look to see okay what could we add yeah what was missing what could have made it an even better experience yeah so that's kind of what I think it's a better way to kind of frame it of like what's a better experience a better you know user Vibe as opposed to just kind of keeping the same thing going throughout the year so every detail right like you're looking at everything from again your analytics right was was our ticket pricing correct was our VIP value correct can we make it better how can we make it bigger how do we make the experience for you know the person who's coming as Grand as possible how we make it as impactful as possible hold that thought when you're thinking about okay one is okay the the workshops but like when you start curating a feeling that you want people to have do y'all consider that like is that something that you're mapping on a whiteboard I want people to like feel this when they leave oh well for me personally it's not necessarily that it's creating an experience because you really can't control how somebody feels but it's like you can control the experience that they get and nine times out of ten if you create an experience That's Unique that's the point of just creating a unique experience then it's going to be a memorable moment I think that's the most important thing like just creating moments like it's like creating memorable moments that people really remember for a long period of time explain a moment from the first event a moment like that you would you know somebody was in the crowd they're like whoa I won't forget this it's a variety of different things that happen but my brother Kenny Burns his head that was a dope panel actually that was the I think that was a keynote panel for that year when we had him Jim Jones 19 Keys Styles a very eclectic group that was put together but after that Jim Jones did something that was really dope where he walked the vendor Market he actually had a booth in the marketplace he had a crypto ATM machine and he walked the vendor Marketplace and that was the first celebrity that actually did that Steve Harvey did it the next year and went crazy it went crazy but that was a that was a dope moment because are you asking for that or they just he tried to do it so which one are you asking them like hey nah well Jim had an incentive to do it because he had a vendor he he was a vendor right yeah so it's like it was in his best interest to try to create Buzz around his Booth yeah so um sh was just kind of he wanted to do it yeah that was just like yeah he wanted to do it I know I know that's your man's now that's not shs I don't want to call him Steve and just be super info but yeah he he uh he heard about it he saw the impact that it had and he was like I want to do it let's let's just go yeah um how it turned out was was it was that was a scene like you want to talk about moments yeah that that was a moment I think for the first one um that's crazy he didn't I thought he would mentioned that but it was um I watched him go out there and interview by himself for the first time hours time yeah yeah I think so as I was too sick to get up there like I was backstage popping pills and I'm watching I'm trying to build up enough energy to go up there and we sit in there he's like you coming I'm like I can't I physically couldn't get up there how'd you feel was it uh yeah that was cool it was cool yeah but the impact of that interview right it was him it was Ryan Leslie it was Ryan Leslie Harper and like most people know Ryan Leslie from music yeah but now he's talking about how he invested in apple yeah and it's like it's a whole different feel and I'm sitting back there like yeah part of me is like can I get up to get it and it was like nah let's just let him go just let him go this is great to watch yeah like it was that moment it was you know what I'm saying so like you these type of things you remember I'm just saying it was just crazy like this is us I'm watching us on stage like this is us this is our thing Turners what's going on listen e-y-l-u is relaunching revamping retune that's right we're creating a new educational experience that's more expensive Shawty tell me what we got yes 2023 we got a lot in store a lot playing for you guys so you know that eyo you already includes monthly financial planning calls with me book club calls with Troy real estate call to mg the mortgage guy access to the home buying blueprint volume one and volume two part of the revamp will include 27 local chapters from across the United States live interactive teaching Hands-On not just pre-recorded videos plus 15 brand new curriculums the biggest just got bigger so this is not natural year one four thousand year two fourteen thousand yeah yeah something happened Steve Harvey definitely we can't can't take it remember the guy we referenced before can't take full credit for this because it's all about Partnerships yeah and um when we met Steve Harvey he said he wanted to do business with us so proposed like well this is an opportunity that you know maybe you can become a partner with us and um he became a partner so he did a few very pivotal things hey he came right so he's one of the biggest stars in the world so putting his name on the bill was extremely helpful he also got us Tyler Perry epic yes now we don't come outside that changes the word right that changes that changes things and um we went on his show I never forget like us the impact of that and I don't never really listened to his Morning Show so I didn't really know I didn't know how impactful his reach was but it's the number one syndicated Morning Show in in America and it's over I think they have like between six to ten million weekly um listeners like so he put us on his show he came on Market Mondays also which was beneficial but we went on his show and after we went on his show it just never it took off and it never came down yeah no serious like it was it's that level of impact because you got to remember there's an audience that he's talking to right like we might not be listening but my mom's listening to that every day for sure and he has a certain region of the country that if he does something they're supporting it and so the fact that he was not only our partner but he was speaking at the event it just added to it plus it just from my other standpoint it was like who else does he have reach to yeah so like that's how you get a Dan Cathy and that's how Dave chance has that epic conversation with Dan cap so like all these people like his network is a lot larger than ours but now that he's our partner we have access to his Network okay yeah he's back up a little bit Yeah guys I don't know if it was okay we have 4 000 people at one and now Steve was like hey I want to be your partner like how did that come about well when we met him so we met him we did an interview with him right which Debbie came a classic conversation how did you get that uh so is it we were um real close with the the talent agent um at uh black effect Nicole Smith shout out to her and um she's Jamaican so we just had this thing like I have to call out once a week we just talked just regular things every now and then she was like yo I have this person that's interested there on the Press run they want to do it and she called me one day uh in the summer and she was like hey I got this golf tournament I want you to go to but I can't tell anybody at black effect yet I'm like who was it she was like Steve Harvey um you I want you to go there and I want you to do an interview with him but uh you can't let anybody know yet I'm like ah whatever whatever the cold like whatever she's like no serious I'm serious about this we're getting closer to it it's in Abu Dhabi right and I'm like yo all right whatever I didn't we didn't go to that golf tournament she calls me later she's like listen why not well it didn't it didn't pan out the schedule didn't panned out uh because he wanted his schedule was kind of crazy like he spends like two months out the year out there and we just it didn't work but she was like look next year yeah definitely doing but I'm gonna put you in contact with his uh somebody from his team his name is to BD Stevens my eye cool I was a dope interview spoke to tabidi he was like listen we love you it's the first time I've been speaking to him he's like we love y'all we love y'all I'm from Atlanta everybody in Atlanta rocks with y'all we know what y'all doing sh is definitely doing the interview um my bad I was supposed to set it up for y'all to come to Abu Dhabi it just didn't work y'all coming next year for sure but before that we got to do this interview I'm like I bet this is like November and he was like oh my God I'm about your shot he said we're gonna interview Steve Harvey he's like yeah I'll see what happens when it happens it happens I always I always like to curb my enthusiasm like this is November I'm like whatever top of the year I Revisited they're like yo you know first quarter we're getting is done January is his birthday month he travels the whole month of January we can't do it hit me at the top of February I'm like I bet him at the top of February yo we're good he's like yeah February 17th part so remember the date I'm like that works let's do it he was like all right I'll send you the all the information you need to know you got any cameras or anything I'm like no we good he's like 17th make sure y'all come James 17 he snapped on that interview too and y'all asked all the right questions y'all dropped 40. it was not stop Brothers like the setups and like the I mean you know what you you interview people so you know it's it's it takes two to dance you gotta have a dancing partner yeah a lot of times people they you know they you could be the greatest interviewer in the world but if the person that you're interviewing isn't into it it's not gonna translate well so it was like I think we did a great job of asking questions but he did a tremend he was fully engaged he wanted to do it he was uh you know just everything about it from telling jokes to being vulnerable to giving his life it's like he is is yes it's humbling that you say that we did a great job but it's extremely we have to give him credit because it was like you know he it was masterful how he was answering the questions how he was you know going in and out of the topics how he was ready he had the bullet points even like the first question was like your five pillars of success and that took like 15 minutes because like he was literally went off every five pillar like it was so many viral moments in that in that episode but um he was in the right frame of mind and he was willing to share information that he never shared before very um vulnerable in a lot of different spaces so he did a great job of of relaying the information it was going to take these flowers like without putting it because it's an interview it takes two to death it's not like that you're gonna have you have a dancing partner so we we did our part but he did his part as well when we left that interview and I'm sure you probably experienced it sometimes you leave an interview and you're like we got one right we looked at each other right after the interview and we were like our lives are never gonna be the same really yeah as soon as we walked out dragging the equipment like yo our life's never gonna be the same what were you basing that off of the information or we had a conversation Pride so before the interview we spoke for about maybe an hour and a half and then we did the interview which is almost like two hours and then after the interview we spoke for another two hours and based on the conversations we had in the room it was like yo this is the one but our lives are never going to be the same because he's like yo we're getting this done I'm now going to be your partner in this invest Festival invest Festival let's see how we can scale this thing we need to have as many people there as possible I want to have the most impact as possible so we knew that our lives wanted to be the same but then when we saw it when the episode came out and him telling us like after you know it you know a couple weeks a few months after he was like this was the most impactful interview that I've ever had in my career at 35 years so the part his interesting part because what you said is right like when he goes to do an interview and he had his own talk show but when he goes to do other people's interviews it's the same thing they want to know what he's promoting how's family he's doing family can he tell a joke really quick you never get to hear anything else about the business right he's building a business Empire in front of our faces nobody's asking the questions we see him on our television every night and send occasional families nobody's asking the questions so we were able to do that yeah definitely he was willing to dance with us and he enjoyed having us there which made it a lot easier but it was like post size like we knew it was going to change our lives for him it was like thank you for this opportunity I mean we were gracious to have it all right give me your give me your perspective from the Our Lives will never be the same no no so he he didn't commit to invest first at that time he just said that he wanted to work with us we proposed the invest first I did it to the BD a little bit after that um but you know just when you ate when you go to his house it's not a regular house okay so it's a it's it's an estate like they actually they take your ID you like you gotta sign a NDA really like there's Security on the grounds like you know it's like you're going somewhere and that's hey that's the first it's home yeah yeah that was the first time that I ever went to a house like that I never I personally I never went to a house where I had to assana NDA and there was a guard at the gate with a dog and all of that and walkie-talkies and all that and tennis courts and all of that type of stuff so he really you know that was an experience within itself just to actually go there and um like you said the conversation that we had was almost five hours when you add up before the interview in the after and um you know obviously you know he's a king maker like he has a lot of influence so when he took a liking to us and he was saying like he wanted to do stuff with us like he wants to do this he wants to do that so I was like all right this is going to put us in a in a different Stratosphere and that's what he did you know you look at it from investment standpoint but even talking about this year's investment Robert Smith like that comes to him he's the first person to introduce us to Robert Smith in person um so that was you know he's he made the introduction for Tyler Perry you know it took us we was in Dubai in Abu Dhabi for his golf tournament you know Formula One race and Abu Dhabi different things of that nature so he's been he's been a good dude but just you know you kind of haven't you if you meet Jay-Z and you know you just have a handshake it's like all right that's cool but then if you meet Jay and he tells you I want to do business with you um it's different you know what I'm saying like your life is going to change how did you pick invest Fest as the thing we partner on I mean it's a bunch of y'all could have created so it was coming up and just felt like that would be a perfect situation you know you know yeah okay I'm sorry so you planned you had year two Investments planned already or you're promoting in marketing already we're putting it together you're putting it together so we all putting it together you weren't thinking fourteen thousand um not initially I think I think it might have been ten thousand original you know one of the things like and and to be saying is because you know that stage had a a warship that he used to do Mr Harvey preferably it's the harmony it was like we were telling them like what we were kind of thinking he was like man you actually do twenty thousand you should do State Farm I'm like yeah we gotta grow to that like we got to figure out how we're gonna do it's like now y'all definitely could do it we already have connections we have all the relationships we used to do our own um award show um for entrepreneurs and it was like a comedy thing they were telling us to blueprint on how they were doing it like yo yeah y'all can get this done y'all definitely could get this done it was like all right well let's figure out how we can get it done so it wasn't like a number but it was like kind of idea like all right well they they got a firm belief and they have relationships how do we make this work I think something lends to that too somebody who just has a a bigger View like there's just bigger thinkers right like I mean I watch you all and like you guys give me the belief that I could do something that I wouldn't even thought of right like so I always ask like yo what's your downloads yeah and I think one time he was like two million I was like oh my gosh 2 million a month I think I could do it you know what I mean like and then like as you as you start connecting with people who just have a bigger Vision you're like oh no doubt I can do that so now I'm starting to understand this whole 2023 20 000 number it just makes sense at this point see yeah but then like even for that like we've had those conversations was like how many downloads what are the analytics but then I'm gonna show you how you get to that that's the biggest difference because I can just tell you we're doing 10 million wow how's he doing that yeah not like yo here's how you do it how many episodes you have you got a back catalog I mean like we just have these conversations like oh if when I look at it like that that seems very attainable so like when they start breaking down like how you can get it done and who you can get and who's what corporate relationships you can have that can be involved in like yo my publicist works with that person and we can get it it's like oh yeah we can mix that number and I think okay we got uh Mr Harvey or I was about it I almost slept I almost said sh we got Mr Harvey on but even still to get that many people there's still some work to be done so I want to know like all the work that goes into providing this experience for people well it's a lot of work um and the key I think in any type of especially when you work with somebody like that you don't want to abuse it because it's like people are busy so for us it's like I it's like riding a bike right if you have a kid like you you push you push somebody on the bike and it's up to you to Pedal yeah like what I'm saying so he gave us a push but it's up to us to pedal for sure we can't you know expect him to do all of the leg work so the legwork part of it is what all of us had to do from Mike myself Troy Matt Abdullah um Ashley our event planner um his wife Danielle every you know everybody on our team um Burke making the flyers for us uh North 13th and create making the videos for us um well what does the legs look like for you you know you're gearing up for um for something massive right it's like a fight like you got a picture you know it's like I you know get in fight mode like a fighter you know he trained for six weeks before you go into the day in Camp so I was like I you know locked down so if I was like you know press doing press that's that's a big part of it you know flying all over doing different interviews like having this conversation like that's part of it um doing Zoom calls um the good thing is that we have a lot of great relationships so booking the talent here's the blueprint of how you do these type of events right so a you have to find a venue right you find a venue and then you put the deposit down you secure the venue right you have to work with an event planner that actually can make this come to fruition as well hold that point real quick what did y'all spend last year I've been dying to ask you um what did it cost you to put on it probably costs like a million probably yeah these guys are putting a million dollars down to make sure you have a great great experience 1.3 but what's going on who's counting actually 300 000. 1.3 million to provide an experience this and and I think it's important that people come to see what Excellence looks like okay so find event planner but let me give you some game on that too because I don't want to discourage people and it did cause I'm discouraged it did cost over a million dollars but that's why it's important to get um your payment processing platform that's important whoever you pick because it was like you know the payment processing platform that we used at that time was we're not using them now but they paid us daily so as we get paid then now we can pay for stuff as well so you gotta have working capital yeah so it's like if you don't have a million dollars in a bank or if you don't have a loan then you know to be able to receive funds on a daily basis is beneficial because as you as the money comes in now you can write checks and the money's going out at the same time so that's important to know if I'm a financial aspect if you're thinking about doing these type of events but from the venue the event planner um you have to curate the event you have to get the people so that like I said luckily for us we don't we we even now to this day we don't go through like talent agencies and it's not corporate like it's personal people that we know even Diddy I can tell that story if you're interested but that's a personal relationship that we developed and I hit him personally I didn't go through you know UTA and shout out to them but we didn't go through those channels like every single person like we got personal relationships and the people change every year as well so people that was on last year is not on this people that's on the first year like so it's different people so we constantly meet new people we constantly develop new relationships so first it's like something really quick because that's important you know the best way to build a relationship interviewing right because now you've given them a platform Their audience has seen it and it's exposed them to a newer audience yeah and so a lot of times if you look at the people that's on the list they've had some form of contact with the network either it was on our show or they came on Market Mondays or rent to gyms or they don't have level at some point they had a relationship with the network where they would be an interview and so now you have a relationship and so now the ask is a lot easier right because yeah we got this platform and we shared you with the world right your greatness but like hey are you interested in talking to the banks again yeah it makes it an easy ass that makes sense yeah so you put together the blueprint of what you want all right we want a real estate panel we want a stock panel we want a keynote speaker we want to panel on you know content creation and then you just fill it in like who do I know I'm teaching on podcasting for sure that's a fact to you guys this year Dave sales with the 3C in August so so yeah so you just you're just filling them fill in the pieces it's like okay this this person will be good for Real Estate this person will be good for Content creation and like I said fortunately for us we know a lot of people so it's just personal phone calls text messages and um most people like people only say no to us for the most part they might have a scheduling conflict and they might not be able to make it but for the most part that's that's the easy part hard part is like getting like the big names yeah like you know but that wasn't really difficult this year we was able fortunately we was able to get some big names early and like that in early music is the hard part we can talk about that if you're interested that's the hardest part music is harder than getting names yeah his musician is the hardest part why because they they they come with the most baggage top Two Kitties Birds it's real it's real that's that's okay ridiculous the most baggage nine times out of ten you you can't go through them directly like a lot of people we could just go through directly like I need you here uh them you gotta talk to their manager and then their manager's manager and then they it's it's like they're Riders and they don't know their schedule they might be on tour they might not be on like just give me an answer they put you in limbo for weeks at a time right now so the music that's uh that's uh I had 40 bottles of stuff I mean some musicians like shout out to Ross he's that's easy you know what I'm saying I could do so it's not it's not every musician that is bad like that but a lot of them a lot of them man yeah unless so like Ross makes it easier because we've sat down with him before all right we interviewed him at him find his event we did it on um ask us all liabilities so this relate he knows who we are right same thing with tip we call tip it's gonna be an easier call because CTI on there no no wait just wait on it because when I saw Jeezy's name I was like yo I was thinking of all my favorite songs and I don't ever think I've seen him in concert so this is really giving me a chance to like see people that was my first time actually invest Fest watching Rick Ross perform that was a house and he's right in front of me I said this anyway and that's what she's going to say is the first time you get to see me perform he did a great performance for us at MSG relationships um so it is beneficial to book artists that are familiar with us and that makes it easier like and we did Jim and at the Apollo that's easy but yeah you know these artists man they got a lot they got a lot man but you know what's so crazy you know what's so crazy so we booked several different billionaires right and um from Dan Cathy to Don P was to Tyler Perry to Robert Smith to Diddy as well um no regrets Mike Nova grads you know what's so crazy especially from the well did he hasn't Cinderella yeah either but we've never received a writer for from a billionaire one Tyler Perry's writer was it was I won like a haircut apple juice the simplest thing minimal we never received any demands or crazy requests from billionaires you know Dan Cathy I'm talking about owner Chick-fil-A he's walking around but but by himself with a name tag on yeah but the great thing about it is this is I don't know where this Rider thing came from that's a musician baby that's a musician there no but I just say it it's like some things we just don't question because I just thought about that today I'm like we booked a bunch of um people in business entrepreneurs athletes um whatever why does why do musicians only have writers I think I think the origin comes from it's from music but it's what they um would like to feel comfortable when they get to a venue which is I get it but some of the things is like yo 20 bucks champagne I'm not sure if that's gonna make you feel comfortable if you're going to beat it for 15 minutes you know what I'm saying so like some of the things it's just like but the problem is that they get coddled to and somebody's a lot of a lot of them don't they don't they're not handling their own business so it's like because like let's really just let's have a two-minute conversation about this because I just thought about this today why why is a writer needed if nobody else has a writer right what like do you ever think about that nobody else has a rider right right like if Don people doesn't have a right what you come to a venue you're going to be in a green room you can expect that there's going to be food there for you there's going to be water there's going to be juice there's gonna be beverage if you have a special request that you might have you might want you know a Halal meal that we could accommodate that right but I'm just curious to know why musicians are the only people that have writers and the writers are alcohol at a tremendous amount of alcohol that you can't consume so it's like if you have 10 bottles of champagne no it's ridiculous like who normalized this yeah and I realize that it's from the nightclub most of them you know these come from nightclubs right where they just go to nightclub and it's like but it's we gotta really start to think about this yeah why are we providing if we're paying you for a service then you should just be paid for a service yeah you shouldn't be paid for a service and have 15 bottles of tequila at five o'clock in the afternoon if you want to buy tequila then you buy tequila and then you want your money in cash there's a variety of different things that make this a lot more difficult yeah dealing with musicians which I understand why like concert promoters they got a hard job because now you got to deal with a hundred like say rolling loud they gotta deal with 100 artists 100 Riders imagine that and if you got 100 of them now you got to worry about the punctuality of it so that's another thing right because the thing is like now yeah I booked you and you're supposed to be but now I need you to be here on time they never come on time and if you're not on time there's this audience of 12 000 people got a way for you to be there or Twenty Thousand that's what I'm saying so it's like it's just it's it's I'm concerned because it's like this has become normalized and it's just past it's normal it's normal for rappers you got to tell a rapper to come two hours early because you know it's gonna come at least an hour and a half late but nobody ever questions that nobody else does that I like the fact that you guys are like even right now educating on and really challenging the system because I think as you're talking about it I'm like yo this is real and maybe we had to put extra time on your thing he's actually a great dude but it is what it is he's three hours late on five o'clock on a Sunday so we're wait we're stalling literally when he got there he we put the microphone gave him the money they counted it he cashed He Walked on stage and performed like cash okay so we literally like yeah we going back and forth with like where y'all at where y'all at like they like five minutes away pulling up half an hour later five minutes away half an hour later five minutes away he was on stage they spent 30 minutes they said we we on the grounds I said Building B we're trying to find it 25 minutes yo it's like put more time on put 15 we would have been we I don't know what we would have done that time the DJ would have been playing because there was no other program that was the last thing of the day yeah so we would have just had to just fit 30 minutes of just nothing hour of nothing crap we were doing uh swag serving for 30. yeah you guys are really like this is this that's why you got to give artists Fat Joe Fat Joe really really impressed me when we interviewed him in Miami he impressed me for a few different reasons so we had him and we had Master P right after I think he was at the Masterpiece yeah so we did Fat Joe before we did Master P the interview let's say was at like two o'clock right so we we spaced it where it was like Master people do Master P at six because we know if the interview's at two he's not gonna come till three because we just think he's just a rapper hey he comes at 155. hmm and B he came by himself that's another thing these dudes be coming with 30 people 25 people it was crazy that's crazy right now everybody's smoking and it's it's not even the the place to smoke necessarily like you know what I'm saying there's a time and place for everything you know it was crazy like there's Joe's always crazy because they're calling now I'm calling on the phone like you're always yeah I'm looking for an Entourage they said no he's in that car right there uh he's about to get out I look it's just him I'm like we have to yeah and that's impressive just him and he had like 300 000 worth of jewelry on well I was gonna leave that part out but he said yeah I mean that's just how he moved me it was just like it was just him he came to the interview he showed love and it was that was it and again relationship so if we ever had to call on Joe it's like all right well he knows who we are I've never seen that before whatever I've never he's the only person I've ever seen a rapper that that came he literally came by himself kids came on time to shout out to kids no kids came by himself all the time but he didn't come by himself yeah he came by himself yeah that was impressive I like that we're having this conversation because it's educational too and our culture needs like shaping right these types of conversations it's correction that's what I'm saying it's not it's not meant to to to to bash anybody but if we if we don't correct these these things then we start to normalize dysfunction yeah and it's like I feel like we have a voice we have a platform and we have credibility and straight like we are hip-hop so it's like this is this is a family conversation yeah so it's like we have to correct these things because it leads to be it leads to getting taken advantage of yeah it leads to not knowing doing bad business because how you do one thing is how you do everything so if you don't if you're not on top of it if you're late if you always hire if you got a million people around you these are formulas for disaster so it's like this is a bigger conversation but the artists need to understand it and it's not this artist like Russell like this there's a new generation of artists that are changing that that mold but it needs to be done more on a wider scale so it's like this is a this is a Formula that record labels have put in place for artists and they give you uh manager and they give you a stylist and they and they give you a rider you don't even know you you don't know why you're doing these things it's just been told to you like you know I'm saying like this is what you're supposed to do this is what this is what we're going to negotiate for you this is what you get you come to the club late they tell them like yo come to the club late fashionably late you know that's the thing coming two o'clock these are things up close at 2 30. this this is not honest it's real so this is how they're being educated so like I said how you do everything how you do one thing is how you do everything so if you if you're told don't come to the club until 1 30. then you thinking I'm supposed to be late yeah so it's a business event I'm supposed to be late you just you automatically think that late is on time because I'm an artist and I can't come on time but the crazy thing is when we interviewed Robert Smith who's the richest black person in American history it was on a Friday at seven o'clock in the morning at at and he came at 6 50. you know what I'm saying so am yeah so it's like this is a person that's up eight billion dollars and he's up with a three-piece suit on early yeah you know what I'm saying so it's like these are the kind of things never ask for a shot of tequila you're drinking coffee that's the report that's the writer give me some coffee and that that happens like you see like a lot of these artists who have longevity like we just saw uh Luda he's on tour with Janet right yeah there's like this thing going around like yo don't show up late to the show they're going on on time it's like yeah they are yeah if you show up at 7 45 he's on the stage at 7 45 in one second yeah because he understands the value of his time but he understands the value of everybody else's time too you pay for a service I'm here to entertain I don't want to have you sitting here for two hours waiting for me to come out and Jenny gonna be on the Clockwork too and so yeah they understand it but they're long they have longevity in the space right and so like if he's setting that Trend and nobody's following it and nobody's bringing awareness to it does it ever change um you know what I mean this is important and all the people that are like coming they're gonna come enjoy the show but have no idea that you guys from this conversation you're teaching from the stage but you're also teaching behind the scenes like you're teaching like you're teaching the artist how to operate and nobody would ever think that before this moment you know what I mean that I'm sure there's certain conversations that you have to have like yo I'ma need you on time or you're just a joke you tell them two hours early you do different things you do different tactics to kind of you know ensure that you don't get screwed because ultimately it's not in your best interest for somebody to be late yeah so you got to have certain incentives or certain different things in that nature so you kind of learned that early like when you learn from artists all right this is how I gotta talk to them they handle this person 2023 it's happening um Diddy it was the first name on the flyer Sean Combs shout out to Daddy love love love I got so excited because I know what y'all do in terms of like curating a conversation and I really honestly believe this interview will be like no other interview I don't even think any of the other people for one he don't do a lot of interviews but the people that interviewed him I think were are more focused on pleasing him in the interview to promote but what I'm excited about is to see all the questions that you guys are going to ask that we have been wanting to know for years for decades it's a lot of questions that that need to be asked um about you know his rise to become a billionaire that's impressive um his ability to reinvent himself from music to Spirits fashion to whatever um his ability to stay relevant for 30 years yeah his you know there's been questions as far as what artists that said that that they were uh taking advantage of the things that nature right these are legitimate questions to be a I'm sure he has his own point of view we just haven't heard it we've heard mace we heard a variety of other artists that have been disgruntled yeah but we haven't heard it from his side yeah we haven't heard like no this is the education that they they missed yeah this is what they you know like this is his side of the story it's important yeah because you know no matter how you feel about them he's an important person in our culture yeah for sure and he's played a tremendous part and um I gotta give credit to to Dion though Dion it's always the people that you don't know who's the most important people so it's like tabidi we talked about him with Steve Harvey Dion is like his right hand man and Dion has been somebody that's been watching on your legion for years and has been advocating us to him for years he's been advocating it for years so um and it was other people inside of the revolt and you know his Enterprise as well but Dion was that he has been in his air for years Sanders no no no no no no okay but not his name is Dion Graham okay and I'm not sure his exact title but he's like high level executive at home Enterprises he's like did he's like you know go-to person a variety of different things so he was telling him he told he's the first person to probably tell diddy about this and he has been telling him about us for a very long period of time so um by the time we actually you know it was already a warm Vibe obviously we you know the relationship will Revolt but then from neon too so um that's important because I wanted to acknowledge Him because a lot of times those type of people don't get acknowledged nobody really knows who they are but these these types of situations just don't happen out of then there's somebody that's usually always behind the scenes that's advocating for it and that's playing the middleman in this situation and that's exactly what he has done and what he is currently doing to this day so he's a good dude he's the guy that we just spoke about right we're not talking about the CFO of bad boy I've been doing this for 28 nobody's ever asked me like this is these are the people you need to know because he has such an important role he has so much information but who's giving him the outlet right speak on the information so it's important like even now just giving him this moment because it he is important to anything for us being at Revolt for us getting the Ditty conversation all of that happens because he plays a role that tavio played a role but I want to go back to the other part about puff is that he wants to do it right like on the message I'm sure I'll talk about it but on the voice note he left he was like time is now like the time is now so all these things that people have been saying this is the time yeah I I want to show why it's important you know I want to give them the blueprint on how this happened right I want to speak about wealth I want to speak about how we bridge this Gap from knowledge and education to whoa right like now is the time to do it and to know that he felt like we would be the trusted place yeah I mean that just adds to it right and we have a track record like it wasn't like hey this is your first one nah you guys have done some some really good work I've been watching it I've seen it on my network I can see what it's doing yeah this is the place because y'all definitely made a good point he don't be at the Revolt events you know what I mean but he's coming with us man I mean we have a show he hasn't I mean that was one of the things we were like yo we got to get him on an episode this is over like we got to have him on the episode we've been saying this since the first episode yeah and it was like not a time and the time and the timing like all right well the time's gonna come yeah we're just gonna leave one episode on the deal if we don't get it so it was like him saying like the time is now I was like yo that paraphrase is everything because it's like it's the thing we saw like he became a billionaire and we just had this conversation but like he's first generation he didn't really get the announcement though it was exactly what why why that's what I I was one even when y'all said it yeah I mean I act like I knew it but the billionaire yeah I don't think he you know he's an interesting person I don't think that he's gotten the the same level of reverence that Jay-Z has gotten I agree because yeah I was like he didn't you know normally Jay-Z got the yo billionaire calculator what was Jay's first line I came into the game wasn't more money than puff yeah well Puff's been doing this for that long yeah that his his first goal when he was right like this is like early 2000s like I want more money than I realized Punk pay been enough and then it was like all right well we'll get back in this thing together and it was like yeah that's right but he's been doing it why you've been doing it in different in different spaces why do you think that why do you think he hasn't been obviously he's celebrated but why do you think that the reverence has not been the same I I think it has it hasn't been the same because people have mixed feelings about Diddy it's almost like everyone loves Jay-Z right um Kanye is the one that's going to tell you he's a billionaire right that he's not necessarily the person who's gonna say I'm that right so I think it just it's just I I don't know it's a I don't know I don't know why do you think I don't know I think I think I think it comes down to that there's a lot of question marks the disgruntled the disgruntled um former artist yeah I think that that's a part of his legacy and I think that that's something that has permeated and has been synonymous whether it's right wrong fair whatever um I think Baby from Cash Money has a similar type of situation because if you look at baby I don't think that he gets enough respect yeah I don't think he gets enough reference either um we put him number one on our list and we had a lot of pushback from that but I'm like who has a run like him but I think when you see a lot of artists from Cash Money or people that have worked with cash money that said that they didn't get paid and that they it was you know some shaky business practices I think the public takes aside yeah you know what I'm saying it takes aside in it without even knowing all the information they take aside and Jay has done something because Jay has had disgruntled artists as well the whole state property all of them at one point have except for freeway I never heard freeway say anything bad about them but all the state property at one point was disgruntled including Beanie Siegel who was his guy uh Kanye West has taken multiple shots at Jay throughout the throughout the course of the years um a mill I don't want to go down a rabbit hole but this been but Jay has been able to stay clean yeah for sure Jay I don't know how he does it but he has a he has a very unique ability to stay clean even when you're throwing mud on them yeah or maybe because he doesn't speak a lot it's a nostalgic that you feel for him because he's he's kind of like a ghost but um no matter what because people have said negative things about Jay from the Colin Kaepernick they have been negative um propaganda has been put on Jay but it hasn't worked the way it's worked for other people like you know I'm saying like Jay has has remained clean for almost 25 years even with the R Kelly thing like he's never really been in a situation where it was like let's cancel Jay-Z yeah you know what I'm saying for sure what I mean there's a part of it that's true but I think there's a part of it that again we kind of normalize greatness and so when when puff has done things we've watched them over the long term right we've watched obviously the music but we've watched Sean John in the clothing and we watch the spirits and they've been great for so long right he just got Sean John back but even that that deal is like someone we there's a conversation around it but he's done the spirits for so long and and while he's been doing it we've seen the lifestyle we've seen the lifestyle so like the fact that he's reached it it's like oh we already expected him to be there yeah whereas with like Jay it's it's he's doing these Investments and it feels sexy because he's doing them it's like yo lvmh oh man that's crazy he just sold it oh he did the Bacardi deal this is right like that happened in front of us like real time when there's social media and there's more emphasis on it whereas when puff did the DeLeon deal it was like well we didn't really know and it works of it yeah but it sounds good right yeah I mean but the expectation for them was like we've seen him since he was 21 years old yeah he's multi-millionaire in in 1995 96. yeah the fact that he's getting to this point you know it's like I I felt like the expectation of it was what was like part of the reason was like the reverence isn't as much it's like for 10 years ago did people know who Robert Smith was no he's been doing it right he's been doing these things right people still don't even know who Dave Stewart is that's right he's the second wealthiest black man in the country right but we don't even know him it's not sexy right and the expectations are not there but it's like no these people need to be recognized for the business right yes the entertainment is great but there's business that's going on they didn't make it from music music was the thing that Tyler poses them to open up other opportunities but it came from Spirits yeah right it came from Fashion it came from investing those are the things that are making them reach these these lists when we talk about the system when we talk about the Walmart family like you brought up I told you the difference right this generational and sustainable we need to have both it's like yeah they did it off entertainment and they have spirits well what happens in the Next Generation doesn't want to do an experience yeah what does that look like do they so this is it like the time is now it is now because now he's 54 years old what's your legacy look like man yo I I know we got to wrap up like I I had so many questions I'll just asked you like I want to know what y'all talked about at Diddy's house because that was that was the meanest thing y'all could have did for Instagram like it was just these sneaks and Peaks and I'm like yo what's happening over there and I was watching like yo this is something's happening I don't know what's happening but something's happening so but yes man Investments 2023 this is going to be an epic epic event um and anytime you can put uh 20 000 people in the room and for me um we got great uh great uh speakers great artists but the value I think is in the other twenty thousand absolutely the network the network be prepared come prepare you need to start working on your networking skills right now because this is going to be um a gold mine that's a fact you never know and yo it's it's millionaires multi-millionaires I'm talking about just there there I'm sitting I'm saying last year it was a dude that like owns a nine figure company behind me just learned with his notebook I said but happy stance What's Happening Here what's happening how many people like that there though uh thousands thousands thousands where else can that happen that's a fact yeah so really if you if you watch any podcast episode it's probably a good chance if that person is going to be in the building so if you watch any episode just come prepared like with you I don't know if you got a pitch if you got a a business card if you just just come be likable okay and some people ain't for the networking you just want to gather information that's cool too but I think you all have done an amazing job of curating a staple in our culture I'm talking about black you go to a black Enterprise event 10 years ago that's the staple now it's 700 people no child no no shade but this is different yes this is different so um shout out to you gentlemen man uh thank you for allowing me to uh come on and just uh uh really really get the information on what's Happening behind this cultural phenomenon man thank you brother facilitating this conversation absolutely um and you know thank you for all the work that you've done and always saying yes whenever we ask you for something and um you know much continued success on your journey your event yeah your network um and keep keep inspiring and keep teaching people because it's important the education part I think is extremely important especially when it comes to our space as far as in the media I don't think that there's enough education it's a lot of trial never so it's great to see you know you actually filling that void as far as teaching people that's important everybody on my network is kind of like your grandchildren yeah no that's important yeah Squad yeah so yeah thank you again but that a lot of people like will get lost in that like like yeah you are on earnings Network and you had an idea to say like I have something that I want to expand on and build on my own y'all supported and it was like yeah yo if you want to do that go ahead and it wasn't like yo we're never doing anything with him again he left the network it was like all right let's help him still build because he's so great at what he does if he can be proud of something let's make sure that he is and so like we always talk about collaboration over competition but it's like not if there's a situation work out like you said when we ask you to do anything it's always like how can I help and how can I still be a service and so like people could see that it doesn't have to be a dispute it doesn't have to be any friction or any awkwardness it's like nah if we can help we're going to so thank you for facilitating this coming back home guys yeah um and um yeah get your tickets and bestfest.com yeah like you said 20 000 people this year Robert Smith but even outside that Junior Bridgeman he's he's almost a billionaire he's 600 million up you know rich rich Paul um you know Ray Lewis Steve uh Ian Dunlap 19 Keys um you know a variety of different people from Jada um Chiefs uh are reflection wow um you know wanted to have a very eclectic group of people so you got Ari and you got Mike novograts you know it's like and they're both important yeah and they're both important so it's like you know let's let's let's really incorporate the entire culture you know musical performances Jeezy Ja Rule um I want to have more women yeah as well so we got pizza and we got a podcast stage this year I don't think I mentioned that so we got a podcast Day first time ever so we got um my boy Jonathan from finesse's only club we got uh B Simone they got um we got who else we got we got um so that's that's a new experience that we're gonna have this year as the podcast stage and that is exciting so check this out man did we say we're not done oh yes we're not done this is the the first wave first wave I have I have some yes keep some things in the tub keep some bullets in the clip hey hey guys put in your vacation hours now okay don't play with it don't let this be the thing that your job said put in your vacation hours now in Toronto yeah love man thank you brother appreciate it absolutely yes sir

Channel: Earn Your Leisure

Views: 45,940

Keywords: earn your leisure, business, finance, sports, entertainment, David shands, Invest fest, Events, Social proof podcast

Id: r7FpDFMzZTw

Length: 91min 15sec (5475 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023