0:00

Did you know that The Rock resurrected the WWE.

0:03

I did not know that. Let me tell you, I've been watching these

0:05

on youtur. Okay, so Rock,

0:07

those of you that will follow WWE formerly WWF,

0:10

the Rock has always been the biggest star back

0:12

in you know the Rock Stone Cold Steve Austin,

0:15

like the Undertaker. And so the

0:18

Rock calls up Triple H who's who

0:20

was another wrestler but now he's like president of the WWE,

0:23

and he's like, yo, like, I have an idea. I

0:26

want to become the biggest heel in WWE.

0:28

Do you know what a heel is? No, heel is a bad guy,

0:31

right, So Babyface is a good guy. I

0:33

think it's baby Face is a good guy. Bad guy?

0:35

Right, baby Face? Baby is a

0:37

good guy? That means good guy? Yeah, I think it? Or

0:39

is that a character? No, Babyface is like good

0:42

like heel is bad bad guy? Babyface

0:45

is a good person, right, And The Rock is used

0:47

to like playing both, and so he's like, look,

0:49

if I could become the biggest bad guy, like, we're gonna we're

0:51

gonna drive a lot of sales, right. And I

0:53

don't know if you know this, but Tko the

0:55

group that owns I think both the UFC and WWE.

0:58

Now, I'm pretty sure the Rock as a

1:00

shareholder, and so he's well incentivized

1:02

to do this. This is a little side note, right, you're talking

1:04

about Endeavor. I don't think it's I think

1:06

the group's called TKO. You can search it up

1:08

that I think Endeavor owns TKO.

1:11

You could be right. I think you're right. So

1:14

as you search for it, basically

1:17

what happened, are you right? Okay,

1:20

So Endeavor owns TKO. TKO owns

1:22

WWE and UFC, among other things,

1:25

right, and so pretty sure. Again, Rock's a shareholder,

1:28

so he changes

1:30

up the storyline first, like the Rock was supposed to face

1:32

someone else, but he's like, no, no, it should be this person versus

1:34

this person, right, and then he's just this bad

1:36

guy now. But the ratings are through the roof WrestleMania

1:39

completely sold out, and now

1:41

they're transitioning over to doing this Netflix deal,

1:44

right, and they're so they're coming off of cable, and

1:46

so the WWE is well positioned to win

1:48

for the long term. And I haven't followed the WWE

1:50

for a while, but everyone's saying like that WrestleMania was

1:52

like the best one ever for such a long time.

1:54

The attitude era is back, which is like when Stone Cold

1:56

and the Rock are going at each other and you can feel the

1:58

excitement and he's like playing into

2:01

his character like you can't even tell it it's fake or not,

2:03

Like he's like blurring the line like

2:05

that's how good he is. But it just

2:07

shows a couple of things like incentives drive everything, which

2:09

is like he's a shareholder, so he cares.

2:11

Is he a shareholder though? Because Endeavor now

2:13

went private? And I think is

2:16

if you have the Rock, come on, you have to give him

2:18

something. Let's see rock.

2:22

Sure he could be it may not be. Bet

2:24

you I don't want you want to bet. I

2:26

don't know you could be, right, dude,

2:28

I am like ninety nine percent. I just know Silver

2:31

Like took it public, I mean private. Why put

2:33

so much time and effort into this if

2:35

you're not a shareholder. Either

2:38

he's a shareholder or either he's just getting paid in

2:40

compensation based on performance one of the other.

2:42

Either one is the same thing. Money is money.

2:44

Well, I mean it's a little different if you have equity versus

2:47

like profit share. Not really because

2:49

at the end of the day, if you have equity and

2:51

it goes up and then you're able to sell it somehow, because

2:54

remember it's not publicly traded anymore. It's a private

2:56

company versus someone just

2:58

saying, hey, here's a hundred

3:00

million dollars. If they pay you enough, it doesn't matter.

3:02

It's the same thing if they pay you enough as a big calveat

3:05

right. But the profit share could be like a one off, right,

3:07

But if it's ongoing profit sare okay, that's the same.

3:09

He's the rock. It has to be a really good deal for

3:11

him, I would hope. So, yeah, there's no way

3:13

he did this deal unless he's getting paid arm

3:15

and a life. Speaking of

3:18

influencers and the power of him,

3:20

remember last week we were talking about shorting

3:23

DJT Donald Trump's stock and

3:26

we both said like, yeah, it's too risky because

3:28

I was like, man, the stock is not a five

3:30

dollion dollar stock. What is it about right now? I

3:33

don't know. It started going down, but today it popped

3:35

fifteen per sess right, and in that

3:37

video, by the way, I was like, you can't short it. Nope,

3:39

you can't. And I think overall,

3:41

if I shorted it, I still would have been up because

3:44

it's gone down more than it's gone up. But

3:46

it doesn't matter because Trump could say something

3:49

has crazy, you know, loyal

3:52

fan base, And when I say crazy, I

3:54

meant, you know, to talk about

3:56

how loyal they are, right, not that they're actually

3:59

crazy people, but more so he has a crazy

4:01

loyal fan base where like they're super

4:03

loyal and they'll do anything

4:05

for him. And when you think about that,

4:08

it's just like, dude,

4:10

they could pump up the stock. Just look at GameStop,

4:12

Look at you know what was

4:14

the other one? Gamc is another one? Yeah,

4:17

exactly, And this is like it's just too

4:19

risky. How much am I gonna make? Yeah, there's a

4:21

certain amount of money I'm gonna put towards it, but

4:23

there is a risk that I can just lose everything and people

4:25

just pump it. Yep. Did you see what MKHB

4:29

did to a humane Oh you haven't heard about

4:31

this? Okay, So do you know you know what that

4:33

is? Right? MKHB on YouTube?

4:35

Okay, So he's basically the biggest

4:38

tech reviewer and

4:41

he basically made a few. So this this product Humane

4:43

AI like it's supposed to help you. There's like supposed

4:45

to be a projector's supposed to do all these AI features and

4:47

all that, right, maybe translations. I don't know

4:50

enough about it. But MKHB

4:52

makes this fear this is he's like this the title is

4:55

this maybe the best pro the worst product

4:57

I've ever reviewed till now, right, and

4:59

then I think it's got millions and millions

5:01

of views and it's completely like everyone's

5:03

ripping on a Humane. It's like basically destroyed their reputation.

5:07

But it just again goes to show you. I

5:09

mean, look, he destroyed an AI company in about

5:11

forty one seconds. That's what it takes. Or

5:14

he helped him generate more sales because some of the people liked

5:16

him and never knew about them. Could be I mean, I

5:18

like this this product, like if it works, like it's pretty

5:20

game changing. But I think eventually

5:23

they'll get there. But it just goes to show you, like, hey, you

5:25

know, an influencer can make or break you sometimes

5:28

you no, No, it's funny. So I don't know this

5:30

MKT whatever his guy's name is, but

5:33

I've seen the terrible Humane reviews. In a bet

5:35

you it probably came out after his yeah,

5:37

because they were trying to trend jack it. Yeah,

5:39

and then I'm like, Eh, this thing looks like

5:41

it sucks. Everyone's talking crap about it, So I just moved

5:43

on and I didn't even try to pay attention to it. All Right, real quick,

5:45

I need to tell you about the group that

5:48

Neil and I created called the Agency Owners Association.

5:51

And this is a group that's similar to entrepreneurial

5:53

organizations such as YPO or EO. By

5:55

the way, Neil and I are both a YPO, but we

5:57

thought it would be really cool if we're able to

5:59

create a group OP that's dedicated to agency

6:01

owners, to helping them scale. So you can be at six figures,

6:03

seven figures, eight figures. We have different groups for different

6:06

levels. All you have to do is go to Marketing

6:08

School the io Slash Agency. Again,

6:10

that's marketing school the Ioslash Agency, and

6:12

you can go there to apply. And I will tell you right

6:14

now what we're doing is there's an online community.

6:16

We do calls every now and then. There's stuff that

6:18

we share in there that we don't share publicly,

6:21

and you can, at least the online community, you can counsel

6:23

on any time, so you can go there to learn more about it.

6:25

And that being said, back to the

6:28

video, do you want to know the difference between

6:30

companies that acquire versus companies that don't.

6:32

What the okay, companies

6:35

that were frequent acquirers earned x

6:38

percent higher shareholder returns versus those

6:40

that stayed out of the market. You're

6:43

asking me to take a guest on a percentage one

6:46

hundred and twelve percent very

6:48

close, one hundred and thirty percent higher.

6:50

So sitting on the M and A sideline generally

6:52

is a losing strategy. So this is a study

6:55

done from Bain on M and A

6:57

and it shows these graphs over here over time. It's

6:59

in and you can see the red graph over here. You can

7:02

just see it's bigger, right that those are the people

7:04

that acquire. And you know we've been

7:06

talking about this. I mean it's we're cautiously

7:08

optimistic about the economy. You know, you've bought

7:10

some stuff this year, you're still actively looking.

7:13

I actually had someone reach out to a mutual friend of ours.

7:16

She's looking to sell our PR agency. By the way, we

7:18

can talk about that afterwards. Oh is

7:20

it big? Defined big? Like

7:23

fifty hundred people at least.

7:27

I'll just tell you the revenue. What's the revenue? Four?

7:30

Yeah, But you're

7:32

buying, but you're buying stuff in other countries.

7:35

Yes, but that's different. If I buy a PR

7:37

agency, there's only so many customers I

7:40

can sell PR two because most people

7:42

don't come to us for a PR. But on the flip

7:44

side, if I buy a company,

7:46

I'm going to make up a number that does four million

7:48

revenue in call it

7:51

Singapore or Hong Kong, Okay.

7:54

And let's say they even do five hundred profit or a

7:56

million, it doesn't matter. But let's say their clients

7:59

are, you know, like Google, Apple,

8:02

Domino's, Bingles.

8:04

So let's say they have a lot of enterprise brands like Aquapana.

8:07

The decision maker for Hong Kong, the

8:10

person who runs it a lot of times at

8:12

least in that region, is the decision

8:14

maker for most of Apak. You know a

8:16

lot of the decision makers come from Hong Kong or

8:18

Singapore. But let's say either

8:20

one. So then if I buy that company

8:23

and they sell them one or two services, I can

8:25

sell them four or five more services like we offer

8:28

that are tough, yes, and then I'll sell them

8:30

into the rest of Apak India,

8:33

Australia, Japan, Korea,

8:35

Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore,

8:38

you name it right, and

8:40

then once you do well,

8:43

then I sell those clients across the

8:45

rest of Europe and Latin

8:48

America and America. And

8:50

now I'm really talking because I've just taken

8:52

them from a really small

8:54

market like Hong Kong, and

8:56

I've expanded that account globally

8:59

from one hundred grand to paying

9:01

four or five million dollars. So

9:04

the lesson here is there should be some type of

9:06

connection. Sometimes it's like so

9:08

far off, Like, for example, you've got a service like

9:10

a plumbing company, right, it wouldn't make any sense

9:12

at all, right, So there's got to be some sense of

9:15

tie in here. Let me just to finish

9:17

tied to point on this one. So it's

9:19

not as if M and A isn't still risky. The

9:22

landscape is littered with failures. Yet, while

9:24

some companies made difficult missteps, others

9:26

learned deal after deal how they could substantially

9:29

boost the odds of success in their favor. To

9:31

put some data behind this assertion, from

9:33

twenty to twenty ten, companies that were frequent

9:35

acquirers earn a fifty seven percent

9:38

higher shareholder returns versus those that

9:40

stayed out of the market. I'm

9:42

a big believer in M and A. I know you are too.

9:44

You've done a few deals as well. Yeah, I'm

9:46

looking, I'm looking, and we're both looking. By

9:49

the way, our little agency group, guess what

9:51

the MRR is now, don't

9:54

go too high. Two thousand dollars twenty

9:56

seven hundred. That's right, that's

9:59

right, y yay, Hey

10:01

guys, we're on our way. But I

10:03

think it's helpful. This is this is a good

10:05

way for us to update people every month

10:07

or so on how you can build a community

10:09

from scratch, because you

10:11

know, we're not full assing it quite yet, but it's

10:14

getting better and better. What does that mean? Full

10:16

assing? So? Okay, you can half ass something or you can

10:18

full ass something. Right, So if

10:20

we're like your full ass on your business right

10:22

now, I'm full ass on my business. I've

10:24

never heard that saying before, or

10:28

I've heard like, you know, yeah, you're doing

10:30

a good job and you're all in. Yeah, it's

10:32

an ericism, okay, full ass.

10:35

But but I think it will be helpful for us to share,

10:37

like how community is extremely

10:40

powerful and what we're doing

10:42

to continue to keep people engaged. Because there's

10:44

a meet, there's a there's an objective

10:47

that we have with this group, but it's what's

10:49

objective to help agency owners grow.

10:51

That's true exactly, but for twenty

10:54

seven hundred dollars a month, it will

10:57

compound. How long did it take for Crazy

10:59

Egg to hit your first first million in arr

11:03

within two years? It's a long time. How

11:05

long did it take to get the first ten thousand

11:07

mrr ten thousand an

11:10

m RR? I don't know, like

11:12

a month, a month right when you launched?

11:15

Month or two? Yeah that was fast. Yeah,

11:18

but you full asked it. Yeah.

11:20

Yeah, See, this is us growing

11:23

a community organically. We're not putting any

11:25

resources into growing and it's more so you're

11:27

putting in that effort. Yeah, I am, because

11:30

you're not interested in until the numbers become

11:32

significant. But this is good

11:34

learnings to share with people. I don't think the

11:36

numbers will be significant, but I look at

11:38

it as you have fun with it, you

11:40

keep the money. I'll show up and I'll love to

11:42

learn because I think I can always learn from others, and

11:44

I'll try to provide value wherever I can. What if

11:47

the numbers become five hundred grand a month, I

11:50

don't think they will, but enjoy Hey,

11:54

he said it on this podcast. All right, So I wanted to

11:56

take a second to tell you about Leveling

11:59

Up Founders. This is an

12:01

event slash Mastermind for people

12:03

doing seven eight nine figures. These are founders

12:06

that are doing that amount, and we've been doing

12:08

this event for a couple of years now. We've had amazing

12:10

speakers, but more than anything, it's about

12:12

the people. What I mean by that is like

12:14

minded people want to hang out with like minded people,

12:17

and this is the best spot to connect with people

12:19

of a certain caliber. And we vet every single

12:21

person that comes through. So if people

12:23

are even though they make a lot of money, but

12:25

their character we don't really align with that, we're not

12:28

necessarily going to let them in. We do this event in Beverly

12:30

Hills and it's happening in the

12:32

beginning of August. All you have to do

12:34

to learn more about it is just go to levelingop dot com

12:36

slash Founders. Again, it's levelingof dot com

12:38

slash founders. If you want to hang out with amazing

12:40

people. Meil, my podcast co host,

12:43

is going to be there. I'm going to be there. People like

12:45

say Ed Bulky, he will be there as well. And

12:47

again it's going to be a great time levelingop

12:49

dot com slash founders to learn more and

12:52

we'll see you inside. This is a little

12:54

bit interesting. I have three topics, but it's on

12:56

pretty much the same things. First off,

12:59

it looks like the mark industry is picking

13:01

up. We talked a little about that last

13:04

week or the week before. We've been talking about

13:06

that, yeah, and I ended up talking about

13:08

what we're seeing at our agency because we get a lot of leads,

13:11

but a lot of people are now reporting their Q

13:13

one earnings. Omniicom is

13:15

off to a good start with four percent Q

13:17

one growth, And for everyone listening,

13:20

four percent growth means they grew four percent

13:22

in January February March versus

13:26

January February March of last year.

13:29

It wasn't defined in there. And the problem with these ad

13:31

agencies they buy so much. It's actually hard to

13:33

tell what's organic and inorganic.

13:36

I only define what that means first. Organic

13:39

means that you're just naturally growing.

13:41

Right. Let's say,

13:45

let's say have a company called crazy Egg. Crazy

13:47

Egg has never done an acquisition, It just naturally

13:50

grows. That's organic and

13:52

p digital we organically grow, but

13:54

we started buying companies so if I buy a

13:56

company that does ten million in revenue

13:59

and let's just keep them, that's simple. Let's say if

14:01

my company was doing one hundred million

14:03

in revenue, and if I buy come this doing ten million

14:05

in revenue, I now just have roughly a

14:07

ten percent growth right there or there growth

14:09

that's inorganic. And then if

14:12

I had a natural ten percent ten million

14:14

growth as well, you combine both of them, I could say, oh,

14:16

look at my growth rate. It's twenty percent. I'm

14:18

at twenty million. That's how most holding companies

14:20

do it. Just FI for everyone. Yeah, and

14:22

a lot of them have negative

14:24

organic growth that inorganic growth makes

14:27

up for it. Okay, so IAB

14:30

Their revenue report reveals that the back

14:32

half started increasing when it

14:34

comes to ad dollars, so, in

14:37

what could be a leading indicator of the digital

14:39

ad spending expansion, the second half of twenty

14:41

twenty three grew as

14:44

more than twice the rate

14:46

of the first half, according to a just released

14:48

figures from the Interactive Advertising

14:50

Viewer and PWC's full year

14:53

twenty twenty three Interactive Advertising

14:55

Revenue Report. And on

14:57

top of that, US search

14:59

AS and I saw this on Search Engine Land US

15:02

search as revenue hit a

15:04

record of eighty eight point eight

15:06

billion in twenty twenty three. It's

15:08

a lucky Asian number eight eight.

15:11

That's right, dude. Asians will pay a

15:13

lot of money for things like eight eight, Like a house

15:15

with the number eight eight eight. Yeah, like

15:18

the way the house faces as well, all these things.

15:20

I'm a big believer in all that too. You

15:22

do not that believe the

15:25

facing and all that. I follow

15:27

it even though I'm not Chinese. Oh see,

15:30

everyone's got a little Chinese in them. Like the

15:32

stairs going out the front door. None of my homes

15:35

ever had the stairs going out the front door. What does

15:37

that mean? Your money goes out the door? Oh?

15:40

And there was there was some homes that I could

15:42

have bought. There were out of steel, and I would have made

15:44

like a million to million and a half

15:46

in like less than three months. And I

15:48

refused to buy him because the staircase was going out the

15:50

front door. And I'm like, no, no, I cannot risk everything.

15:52

Oh you can't risk everything? Yeah. Yeah.

15:54

But by the way, going to like both Neil and

15:57

I, I'm speaking for you right now, but we're

15:59

still cautiously optimistic about the economy.

16:01

But I don't know about you. This is probably the first

16:03

time in my life where this is the most instability

16:06

I've seen from a geopolitical standpoint.

16:09

Inflation is still holding right, and

16:12

then you have you know, escalations, geopolitical

16:14

escalations everywhere or tensions everywhere,

16:17

and so you know, who knows what's going

16:19

to happen. And it's also election year too, so we

16:21

can't guess any of these things. So all we can do is

16:23

just continue to march forward. But anything

16:25

can change. But that is

16:27

it for today. Please don't forget to rate view,

16:29

subscribe, go to marketing school dot ioslash

16:31

agency if you want to join the Agency Owners Association.

16:34

That's a group Neil and I have to help agency owners grow.

16:37

And yeah, we'll catch you later.