#288: How To Brand Yourself Into Some Out-Of-Nowhere DICK JOKES w/ Damian Alpizar
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people business day product creative bit brand joel talking stock footage fiverr life inspiration client inspirational quotes home damian minutes pull pay
SPEAKERS
Law Smith
Law Smith
0:07
sweat equity podcasts and streaming show the number one comedy business podcasts in the world. Remember, pragmatic pragmatic entrepreneurial advice with dick jokes that other voice you're hearing is Eric Readinger. I am law Smith. We've got Damian, alpa czars, our guests for the program coming back as a guest. Hey, we are 2020s best small medium enterprise business advisory podcast in the United States from what's global Excellence Award proudly hosted by what's Life magazine. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN try expressvpn.com forward slash twit. The nicotine gum is good to me. Good. I'm feeling saucy. Get three months free with with our promo code URL try expressvpn.com ports I sweat like he's sweet. He took three months free off an annual plan. What do you say it's a virtual private network. You can log into other countries. If you're if you're someone on the road, or you don't want to be tracked. You want to anonymize web browsing look going incognito in Chrome it don't do what you think it does. Trust us try expressvpn.com forward slash sweat get you three months free off an annual plan. You want to watch Netflix in other countries. Try expressvpn.com forward slash twit for kids for three months free. grasshopper business phone line try grasshopper.com forward slash sweat. You got a side hustle. You got another? You got your side gig. You got your second job. You got another brand that needs a phone number. Don't have a go to Google Voice. don't have it. Go to your cell phone go Hello. Try grasshopper.com forward slash sweat $75 off an annual plan that's try grasshopper.com forward slash sweat like key sweat equity gets you 75 bones off an annual plan. And lastly, Warby Parker Warby Parker trial.com. forward slash sweat like a sweat. Equity gets you five free pairs to Tron at home to go on your fat face like mine. If they don't work cinnamal back. Get prescription eyeglasses sunglass wear Warby Parker trial.com, forward slash sweat by free pairs to try at home. It helps this show out. It's gonna help you see all the time. Let's get this party started.
Law Smith
2:57
Damian, where do we send people because I'm trying to get on a website? what's your website? Or we can what's your call to action?
2
Speaker 2
3:05
You know, normally I would send people over to, to a monkey's calm but actually most people who follow me on social now so mister creative freedom on Instagram and just Damian oppas are on Instagram or Facebook. I'm trying to build my brand has my name now. Sure. Damian opposite the guy.
Law Smith
3:22
Well, you know, when we had offices across from each other for years, like four years, something like that. It was one of those things where everything was coming through you anyway. Yeah. And you had your buddy for the program. Hector, that was your business partner. He had to go off and kind of do something else for I don't know what he's doing now. He's been programming right now, actually. So he wanted to learn he wanted to get in a corporate gig as I recall. God, that website looks good. Who made that for you? Oh, you know,
2
Speaker 2
3:53
someone, someone, someone who looked at design and UI to
Law Smith
3:58
eight monkeys calm if you want to check out some of Damien's work, but also some of our work is web work. But, you know, fucking thing sucks. As I saw it, you were you heard you were kind of everything was going through anyway. So why not brand yourself you know, work on your personal brand as your business brand?
2
Speaker 2
4:21
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, especially since I'm doing some some transitions in how I diversify my income. It's time to you know, make Damien Alcazar a brand as well. So to wait is recognized. It's got its thing. Yeah. And now it's time to build up the Damien oppas our brand, but I will say this, guys being back on this podcast and seeing how you guys rocked that whole intro. I was impressed. I mean, oh, yeah. You were like on the DJing with the music and totally live mixing that
4:51
whole thing. Nobody's ever even heard that before.
4:54
I mean, just watch it. Yes, they are.
Law Smith
4:57
Are you watching us?
4:59
I was like, wow.
Law Smith
5:00
Yeah, yeah, we got to do a little breakdown. We, I mean, we still try to keep the episodes short. So it's kind of like, we try to keep them around 33 minutes because someone three years ago told us That's
3
Speaker 3
5:11
right. And we're not changing that. We're not gonna look up Why? And we're not gonna argue with it
Law Smith
5:16
the business podcast episodes, whatever. But
2
Speaker 2
5:21
no, I'm just saying I just can't remember when it used to take like, literally an hour and a half. Yeah, I think going, Oh, yeah. I literally told my wife, I'm like, I'll be back in four and a half hours to take an hour to figure out everything.
Law Smith
5:33
It'd be silly time to cuz it's like it'd be after hours. It's like, listen to the podcast. And then just like, I definitely wanted to get back a little bit back to you know, if you need to smoke, you need to drink whatever you need to do to, to calm you down to get on the mic. That's fine. You never needed that. But some people would be like,
2
Speaker 2
5:52
I need to take a shot of whiskey. Right? Okay. It's not that high pressure. I will people, people when they hear live and they hear podcasts and stuff like that. They're like, what are we going to talk about for 30 minutes? Like, trust me, You talk a lot during the day, you'll be fine, right?
Law Smith
6:06
Yeah, we're not gonna be we're not gonna ask Jeopardy questions. You know, it's not like we're gonna be like, Alright,
6:11
let's see. Go through your bank statements.
Law Smith
6:13
Hey, Let's bust out Trivial Pursuit and see how good you are. Right. You know, by the way, always such a Trivial Pursuit.
6:19
Right. You know, you believe that
Law Smith
6:20
you get but you get the sports part. You're like, I got this. And it'd be like, what track and field star from the 19.
6:28
That sports though.
Law Smith
6:31
As we've got Joe Theismann. I know that. But like so you're How many? If you had a Wikipedia you might, how many? How many delegated names would you have? How many delegations we have? Director, Producer, video editor? animator? lover? hugger? How many? What? How many titles could you carry? I guess? Oh, man. It's
6:59
it's the bane of any.
Law Smith
7:00
I mean, this is why you would brand yourself right?
2
Speaker 2
7:02
Yeah, it's I guess it's the bane of any, you know, entrepreneurs, small business owner. I mean, you're gonna be marketer, CEO. Sometimes, obviously not web developer. I left that to you guys. But you know, you know,
Law Smith
7:16
you left it. Yeah, cuz it is not.
2
Speaker 2
7:21
When I did not have you guys next to me, I was like, yep. And that's what to document
7:25
your living document. memorialize it. That's
2
Speaker 2
7:27
the one it is there it is. But no, yeah. Yeah. A lot. A lot of hats and producer, director, writer, blah, blah, blah, but ultimate blah, blah, blah, a lot of stuff.
Law Smith
7:37
But you can't blah, blah, blah. I
7:38
mean, that's the interesting stuff. Well, what ends up happening, what
2
Speaker 2
7:40
ends up happening is that you end up like, I think, creative, either creative director and or, you know, just a creative mind is really what I like to brand myself as because when we end up when we end up doing a production or a video or something like that, most of the times people come to us with like, Hey, I got this cup. Can you make this cup? Cool? And then it's like, Okay, well, you better have a jockstrap. Yeah, yeah, so you got to sit down, you gotta go, Okay, well, it's a cup. But what's cool about the cup, so you end up doing a little bit of investigative reporting and with the guy and with the brand and trying to find out what's cool about it, then you end up having to come up with ideas, and you write the script, and then you shoot it, then you direct and then you do it. So you end up doing a lot of things. And that's where I was just realized, I'm like, Man, you know, what, just, sometimes it's just the idea, which if you don't have the jumping off point, so that's really where I've been branding. That's why I started, you know, gravitating more towards, you know, Damien Alcazar in the sense of like, I do this for other companies now. Yeah, turnaround. And I just, I
Law Smith
8:38
literally, they hire me for the idea. And you have resources. Now, you have a lot of independent contractors now that look, a lot of the job for you should be, you know, production manager or whatever, whatever the title is, director of the production, because that's really the key of A lot of at least scripted stuff, that you're anything involving humans. I mean, you've done a lot of product stuff. I don't know if you're still doing any of that, like mentioning the cup. I'm thinking, I was just thinking what's, what's more fulfilling, doing product kind of creative video, or in that kind of creative or human humans not non production or non human production or human production? I'd say
2
Speaker 2
9:25
there's a big difference. There's there's a big difference. I think, obviously, I'm leaning more and more towards things that have to do with more human interaction. Yeah. This last year actually has been very interesting. And we're talking because I want to date stamp this this sword, we're in 2021. But the 2020 has made a very interesting because everything's had to go virtual. And yeah, I think I've had a move, you know, so if you're trying to demonstrate a lifestyle of a product, how do you do that in a situation where you're not allowed to even band together you know, I mean, so it would became very interesting, hot, pull those things off. I prefer to obviously do We're humans and tell narratives and tell stories. I think that's what sells us on things is the lifestyle people look, they look at the product, and everybody in their mother now can make a decent product shot at their home. But it's like, well, how does what's the lifestyle with this product? Or what's that look like with when I'm using it? And what are the Google reviews? And what are the what are the other elements that helped me sell this product. So even though I'm working a lot more with narratives and things like that, it's still, at the end of the day, we're in marketing, and we're selling products, and we're selling services. And at the end of the day, it's still gonna boil down to the product is centered, and then the people around it and what they're doing becomes a story. So it's product and story. And that's what's really making the sale.
Law Smith
10:42
Yeah,
3
Speaker 3
10:42
I mean, both. Even when it's a product, you're still working with human,
2
Speaker 2
10:46
we did not answer every question everything. Everything is a story. I mean, right? The answer is I like working with people. I like working with just products. I like working with people
Law Smith
10:54
that see my thing is like, I prefer the product. Just because I don't want to deal with people.
3
Speaker 3
10:59
Yeah, but to make it good, you need people you have a product and you can relate it to how it's used in the real world.
Law Smith
11:06
You need to show him the Joel olsteen Okay,
2
Speaker 2
11:10
you know, does a great job is Apple, Apple does a great job of just showing you a product and selling you on a cool product without you know, because they just show you like really cool sleek versions of the product. Alienware does that too. There's some people that that really do show awesome products, but I prefer now working with like the Matthew McConaughey on a car. And sure, I prefer that me to be a
Law Smith
11:28
one season actor that you can just probably throw whatever at him and be like, Yeah, it sounds flat. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And we're seeing a lot more integration of Yeah, we need to show you this. Joel olsteen inspiration cube. Have you heard of it all
3
Speaker 3
11:45
can get rid of your alexes because Joel olsteen has his own little
Law Smith
11:49
$40 cube to pay for. And Joel olsteen will give you some inspiration. No,
3
Speaker 3
11:56
I don't have the screenshare set up. So we're the only ones we're gonna be able to watch it.
Law Smith
12:00
As long as we can pick it up with a mic maybe. Yeah, we'll
12:02
see. Here we go. I
4
Speaker 4
12:03
want you to in today's uncertain times, life can feel overwhelming, and leave you struggling for and stock so that you can overcome life's challenges. wake up every morning inspired, and looking forward to each day. Introducing the inspiration to use portable audio system filled with life changing messages of hope, guidance and strength. From Joel Osteen. One of the world's most inspiring spiritual leaders,
Law Smith
12:29
you may feel today like your track. That is not how your story ends,
12:33
some dreams are waking up. Hope is waking
12:35
up. Waking up
4
Speaker 4
12:37
with a simple push of a button. Remove those negative thoughts with a new message to inspire your day.
12:43
God is saying to you you have struggled long
12:51
on here, you got to lead the product. First and foremost already. It's too long. No, I've watched a movie if not, no, I would start
Law Smith
13:01
immediately. So it's on their website. I don't know if it's a commercial commercial. It's on the web. Their website Vimeo
13:07
What's up? What's How long is that? Just to show me the little end.
13:12
We're at it's about two minutes. And we're at what 48 seconds. Yeah, over
2
Speaker 2
13:15
it last 15 seconds. Yeah, it was I gave it an extra 30 just for courtesy
Law Smith
13:20
for the crowd they're hitting now.
2
Speaker 2
13:22
You know, the problem is I can new to him and get all his inspirational bits because people have already made montages Yeah,
13:28
but they're not in a cube though.
13:31
I haven't seen the usage. You see the display that it
13:33
has.
13:35
I haven't seen the uses because looks like a label maker. It doesn't. Yeah,
13:40
it's like a kitchen timer or something. Yeah,
13:42
it does. Honestly,
Law Smith
13:45
anybody Listen, here's the beautiful Joel olsteen inspiration cue. Yeah,
2
Speaker 2
13:50
here's the beautiful part about it. I've had I've been given the product, I would have also had to come up with something creative and not not dish on the product. You have to love the product. You know, even if you don't like it or believe in it, you have to love it.
Law Smith
14:00
Like your kids.
2
Speaker 2
14:01
Yeah, you got to make it awesome, right. But my to tell everybody love them just like your kids my struggle. And the thing that they did not touch on and which I pointed out immediately was, Well, why don't I just go on YouTube and get a montage of his sayings. Now how they said, Get inspirational quotes, never heard on YouTube or any other anyplace else and get some exclusive feeds or live feeds through the cube. If they if they were to put that in the beginning something that says this is exclusive, then it would have piqued my interest because otherwise, this is just a playback. We need an attention getter of value ads up front. You do but what you're saying is we sell a lot of stock footage of different kinds of people, different ethnicities. Very important. Here's
Law Smith
14:45
what we can take away from this. If you ever have to edit video in a similar fashion and you don't have a lot to work with. You can do a lot with stock footage. Yeah, you totally can. I mean, although this looks like an SNL parody commercial with even the voiceover sounds like a comment Sure, like, like trying to do an impersonation of a narrator, but voiceover guy, but over 400 of the greatest inspirations ever assemble?
3
Speaker 3
15:12
Yeah, does that even does that sentence even make sense?
15:15
Does it matter?
2
Speaker 2
15:16
But it also inspiration? It concerns me that only 400 inspirations. I mean, my you know, back in the day a zoom would have 1000s of right. And so how can you don't have 100? Well, let's see how big is this hard drive? This guy needs to speak a little bit more. Okay, well,
4
Speaker 4
15:28
let's find out. Joel's greatest inspirations ever assembled. Oh, on this easy to use audio listening cue. It's all positive or
15:37
negative you
4
Speaker 4
15:39
start each day with you'd like to touch and sit back for a powerful message of hope, guidance and inspiration, the forces that are for you are greater than the forces that are against you.
Law Smith
15:50
It makes you really energize God in your life and boy have asked me to
4
Speaker 4
15:56
the negative thoughts that prevent you from reaching your goals and take back control.
Law Smith
16:01
You can't think Nick their testimonials for for my husband,
2
Speaker 2
16:05
I would have loved this even more. So if it was one of those pull string goals of him. Yes, 400, pull string variations, it would be as cubic as their cube is it would be cuter. Like now your kids can pull on a string and get an inspirational quote, yeah.
Law Smith
16:21
You cannot think negative thoughts and have fun
16:24
and live a positive life.
16:26
If you'll get your mind going in the right direction, your life will go in the right direction.
16:32
It was
16:33
shocking to me, I'm at peace. My victory is already accounted for.
4
Speaker 4
16:39
Filled with the best of the best from Joel olsteen. For the Ultimate Collection of the most powerful daily inspirations ever assemble. what God has in your future is much more than you've imagined. Challenge yourself today to be the best of you tomorrow black
1
Speaker 1
16:54
check at the end. JOHN, that was a throw in for sure. Yeah. businessy black chick with like a
2
Speaker 2
17:00
little haircut. But first and foremost, I have to tell your audience that, guys, I'm sorry. You had to listen to a minute and a half of that. How long was it? Two minutes.
17:10
They're still sitting.
17:11
But and then don't get me wrong. He's inspirational.
Law Smith
17:14
This is the show should be going we should just find businesses. We want to share it on and just watch.
17:20
We got a list. I got starter list. Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
17:22
I'll say that. You know, his inspirational quotes sound very inspirational. And they're, they sound great, but this product is one of those that unlike it would be a tough sell. It would be real tough sell. No kidding.
Law Smith
17:33
I bet it's crushing
2
Speaker 2
17:34
it his audience. Oh, yeah. his audience is eating it a lot. Oh, yeah. 40
17:38
bucks apiece.
2
Speaker 2
17:39
But then again, he doesn't have to sell anybody else. Really? He's not just he's not selling us. His own audience.
Law Smith
17:43
Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's definitely he's got I mean, the sweeping shots of him onstage in arena. Yeah. A church arena. Well,
3
Speaker 3
17:53
yeah, so 10% of that the same one, they wouldn't open up for hurricane victims. Right?
Law Smith
17:59
Well, what's he supposed to do?
18:01
When do you want to see
Law Smith
18:03
Texas Do you want Yeah, you can't bring in your, your bring
3
Speaker 3
18:06
us your actually don't bring us anybody. You know, just if you're cold and you have no home and you're all wet, you know, go to the go somewhere else, not the church for sure. That's for the 13,000 people in Olds or whatever. It is obscene. The
2
Speaker 2
18:21
shelter to church. Never heard of that in any church shelter ever. I mean, that's really Of course of heart.
3
Speaker 3
18:29
Right? Like, dude, like, that's church day one, you have to it's part of the gimmick. You don't have to pay taxes, but you got to let you know people in whenever they want,
Law Smith
18:40
you don't have to do anything. That's that's the silly part. I mean, you could be a church, john oliver did a show on HBO, he made it a church to, to, to show how crazy it is. You just have to be a place. The credentials are very, very low. It's like, you used to be a place of worship once a week. I thought about this when I had the old office. You did? I know. Because it was like, it'd be awesome, because then you could get away with just harem. Yeah, but I mean, like, the the tax incentive alone is awesome. If you ever got to the part where it meant. Like, if you've made a lot of money, you're actually
2
Speaker 2
19:16
teaching us what equity does, how to turn your business into a church so you can get away with taxes. Why
Law Smith
19:20
not? Why not? Everybody's trying to figure out how to how to save as much money you know, like being an escort tax filing status. What are you doing?
3
Speaker 3
19:29
I mean, we were just talking about this was a yesterday about how it's all given, like, it's so annoying that to like pay your taxes is such a game of like, well, if you have a business, you run it through your business, and then it's like this whole stupid like, we're just like, can't you just tell me how much I owe you? Yes. Tell me how much it is God
Law Smith
19:48
My car is expensed because I use it for business purposes only. And technically, everything I do is business worthy. Right when you're a consultant. Yeah. You know, it's like that's the business car. That is, yeah, it's it's weird and the people who could enact change to make the taxes easier, or the people who benefit from it being confusing, right? Right. Like lawyers.
2
Speaker 2
20:12
Well, that's why that's right. I just told my sister that whole thing cuz she's a traveling nurse. Actually, she's a hazard traveling us for the whole COVID thing. And she's in another state. And I was like, you know, you write off your car, your apartment and everything cuz your primary residence is here in Florida. So all that you get to write off she's like, you're spending you're paying for rent to work remote, any hazard as a hazard contractor. Yes. write that off.
3
Speaker 3
20:40
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that people don't realize you don't have to have a business to be able to still get a break on things. If you're spending it for your job. uniforms, whatnot, that sort of thing.
2
Speaker 2
20:50
Yeah, the word so much. But you know, people, the VA guys get a CPA in your life.
Law Smith
20:54
You just think of Shawshank Redemption, where he's like doing everybody's taxes. And he's like, you bought this gun on your own. He's like, yeah, and the holster too. That's a write off. You know, that's what I think about what I think about, like, if you're just a working stiff, not doing anything entrepreneurial, or you're doing that as a day job, and you're someone that's listening to try to do something that is entrepreneurial that day job, you can still cut a lot, a lot, a lot of expenses and stuff like that. You can't do what you can't do now. You can't do meals and entertainment or you can just do meals. I think that was the big one. They can
2
Speaker 2
21:28
Yeah, you can do you can do meals because the IRS just basically said you've got to eat to live and people were writing off everything from breakfast till dinner and and happy hour. So they're like, yeah, look at them all these meals. Some of this you have to eat to live, so we're not gonna write everything
Law Smith
21:41
off. But they cut entertainment then I think entertainment like if I got you tickets to a football game, and it was to woo you as a client. You can't I don't think you can write that off anymore. It's
2
Speaker 2
21:53
Yeah, I have to look that up. But then again, I've never bought anyone football tickets to anywhere. Sorry, guys. Yeah,
Law Smith
21:57
if I bought you tickets to Joel olsteen. And you came in town, and I was like, dude, I got front row seats. You're going to be inspired dude given out cow cues?
2
Speaker 2
22:09
I would I would. I would try to sell them on how to do social ads. They have to be shorter.
22:14
Right? Yeah,
22:16
I would use Joel.
22:19
ivory castle.
Law Smith
22:20
I wonder. I want to look up how many of those have sold. I try you know, no good.
2
Speaker 2
22:25
information. Joe. Listen, if you're listening to this podcast, reach out to us. He is definitely
22:29
listen.
2
Speaker 2
22:32
If you can get past the F bombs. I'm sure somebody at some point listens to this podcast and says Hey, man, I know Joel.
22:38
Yes, definitely. That's
Law Smith
22:40
what f bombs fraud. Yeah, fucking thanks. Suck comedy. So in the COVID era, you had to pivot, which is my least favorite word now. But you had to pivot to become kind of everything by zoom. Right? Yes, you to become a pro. What people don't realize is a zooms been around for a while people are acting like this shit, right? New. And they're like, Hey, we don't have to do as many meetings in person you're like
23:09
we never did. Right. Right. Right.
Law Smith
23:10
So everybody under the age of 14, right? Like we we could always we could have always done this. We didn't ever have to show up for like, 75% of all meetings. And so I love all the reports that are coming out like, oh, offices are cutting costs, because yeah, they don't need as much space. You didn't need it. So sometimes you need something like this to go Oh, shit. Yeah, I knew it. But now we're gonna be a little bit later. But the other part is everybody has to be a better project manager. And that could be their own job. Because they're working from home, which I'd suck at I, I got the ADHD where I'll be like, I'm going to do some laundry and I'll get back on the computer. And then I'll find too many little things to do. You know, I need like, I'm at the office. I'm here. And I'm here.
23:58
I'm going to go bother Eric,
Law Smith
23:59
I'm going to go bother his office now. Well, I call that I call that wisely that we didn't get I call that inspiration.
24:07
Morning cheer, whatever you want to call it.
2
Speaker 2
24:09
So your ADHD is a little bit more under control in an office environment. Well, it's just like, I don't know, for whatever reason it compartmentalizes for me. That's why I love to have like a lot of people are like you have a digital agency. Why would you have an office? I might, because I need something separate from my house. Because there's always something to do. Oh, this is the same thing as if you got weights by go to the gym. People sometimes need that separation. This is where I'm working out and this is where I'm relaxing on. So some people need that separation.
Law Smith
24:36
I've got Shapeways at home. But, you know, sometimes the amount needed cannot be shocking anymore. ogen forums got huge. Just from the shake weights, nothing else. Yeah. But what what have you found in the last, you know, I guess it's been about a year since this. This really broke in the us of how you've had to change a lot Video Production, a lot of, you know, design or, you know, animation production any of that?
2
Speaker 2
25:05
Well, I mean, one of the main things that, believe it or not, I used to not come face to face with my clients a lot. They were always through email. And now because everyone's jumped on the whole video conferencing thing, I actually meet more of my clients, by the internet now than I ever did before, right? consulting and in the initial creative is a little bit more collaborative with the client because they're now comfortable sitting at their home, and they're all have accepted that I could be in just sweatpants and a T shirt and say, Hey, they don't judge me because I'm not in a suit. They don't judge me. Because if you're watching this on the video, you could tell but if you're on, if you're just listening, I have locks. I mean, and that's not normally a judgmental thing. So that's
25:54
why people still Yeah,
2
Speaker 2
25:54
not so much anymore. But at the same time, though, I always had to pair up my, my locks with Jackson running back. Yeah, something like that, you know, I same
26:01
exact body to Oh, yeah,
2
Speaker 2
26:05
I've 10 511 broke from the neck up. But the point is that, you know, I always have to dress it up a little bit with a dress shirt and things of that nature. And people would, you know, in the creative field, they tend to, you know, look a little bit more artistic. But you're the CEO, so you end up having to dress it up a little bit more now, people are just accepting me and, you know, literally in a T shirt, and some jogging pants, and I could actually not even have the pants on, have a full creative meetings, close the deal and call it a day. But from but from an operations standpoint, yes, project management has become vital. Your naming conventions, how you've set things up for your remote artists, because everyone's now remote. So you now have to be very detailed. Whereas before you can actually have a conversation, you can say, Hey, you know, let's just do this. Let's do that. So now you have to be a lot more detailed, a lot more specific. Make sure that your project is not just organized for this particular project, but you have to really think about, you know, another artists might pick this up. And they might be in a completely different country, because that's another thing too, I work with artists now from around the world, as opposed to just local artists. So now if an artist worked on a project, and he's in Brazil, and then the client comes back three or four months later, that artist might not be available. So another artist in Europe might have to pick it up. And so they have all the assets have to be managed in a way that it's easy. So that anybody can get access to it. And anyone can work it but still secure enough that you're not just leaving people stuff out there on the cloud. So they could just, you know, grab it whenever. So there's there's there's been some security things that had to go into play. But I think a lot of it's actually benefited my company.
Law Smith
27:39
Oh, yeah. I mean, you were going that way before this anyway, a little bit. Your I again, I think it's one of those things that kind of takes something words that necessity breeds innovation kind of thing, or because you've got no other choice, but to really hone that skill. You're going to hone it and you're wanting to anyway.
2
Speaker 2
27:58
Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, my government, court courts, you know, they came over to me and they told me what was going to happen and what's gonna go down. So I went ahead and started Yeah, my insiders just started shutting that down early. Thanks for letting us know. You didn't tell us Yeah, well, you know, they told me penalty of death. I can tell anybody, so I had to do
Law Smith
28:15
what I had to do. Yeah, but the other penalty was death. I got it. You want me to spend your mouth?
2
Speaker 2
28:24
Yeah. Hey, you know, if you would have earlier I would have probably told you. The point is that
28:30
he kept quiet
Law Smith
28:34
capacity. Right? Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
28:36
The point is that, you know, for for my type of business, especially since we do a lot of post production. Yeah, use stock footage was helpful and use of working with clients remotely was helpful in being creative on the fly was helpful and being able to work with more artists who were stuck at home as well was helpful. And ultimately, I don't ever think I'll end up having a duty Oh, for for that portion of our business again. It was easier to just hire someone in the area and say, hey, go shoot this give me the assets I need. Here's a specific shot list bring it back to me and you treat it like you would stock footage except that's exactly what you need.
Law Smith
29:15
Yeah, and like digital, there's so many segmentations of skills like everything's so fractured of being like what your best skill is like, I need a guy that can render this I needed but for this specific thing I need a guy who knows how to do lighting for a product versus you know, some kind of lifestyle bureau of people giggling
3
Speaker 3
29:38
that sort of stuff. I bet I I'm guessing like stock footage probably did pretty well there's people who make their living just going out and shooting beautiful you know landscapes whatever and then they put it on whatever website they use, and they get a vague on the backside. It's like that's their job.
2
Speaker 2
29:52
Just think about how many people went out and shot people with masks. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. thing. Yes. And you're like, oh crap. We have no stock but yeah. asks, and everyone just made a business out of Yeah,
30:02
yeah. If
Law Smith
30:03
you're someone who films or does a lot of photography, if you can get in the habit of just wherever you're doing a shoot or whatever you're doing, take extra whatever of stuff that could be stock footage while you're on the shoot. made that a passive income thing. Just keep that in your routine. How
3
Speaker 3
30:18
about just mark where that you did it? We would do that shit all the time. We're like, Oh, this could be could be roll for later on. Put on a hard drive, you never see that again. Well, that's
30:27
like, you got to
3
Speaker 3
30:28
take a minute habit is to go Yeah, you gotta take a minute and gather that together. And if you're gonna put together a little reel, or whatever you got, like, do it. Because everybody has the intention to actually, you know, try and do that stuff. But it's not that easy. When you upload your CD or whatever to your computer and you're ready to start editing, you're gonna edit what you want to edit, right? Not your B roll. Well, here's, here's
2
Speaker 2
30:48
a suggestion for anyone who wants to do that. hire someone else. Get the footage, you know, to cut some to cut some B roll. doesn't take a lot, you can probably get someone, even if you were paying him like 350 bucks or whatever. Like, look, here's a bunch of stuff. Cut this for me real quick. I don't have time for it. Get that footage, put it online. And then all it takes is what a few sales before you've made that money back in that makes money residuals for you right forever? For as long as it's up there, and it's useful. And it is way to make a passive income and delegation is one of the biggest things that most solopreneurs and freelancers don't do. They think they have to do everything themselves. And really, and truly, sometimes it pays better to just say, Okay, I know, I'm never going to do it. So let me just get, even if it's your buddy, Hey, man, here's a pizza beer and 100 bucks, just get this done for me.
3
Speaker 3
31:39
Yeah, it's hard though, with what you're doing, where it's like, so creative, and an edit on something like, you know, the tone can change if a shots a second longer it can, you know, all these like little things, that if you're going to outsource things, you kind of gotta get like a partner who understands what it is, and you kind of get this flow with each other that they know what you want, you know what they're gonna do,
Law Smith
32:05
that, they're probably not gonna be able to hit it out of the park the first time because it's like you're saying you have to be so specific part of that style and tone that's really hard to articulate. Like, I used to do anything that was creative wise, that was, you know, branding, for example, I would work with a lot of graphic designers, I would give them a typed out exactly, here's the files, here's the exact resolution, all that text part. And then I'd send them a video explaining what I want. Because there's something I'm not going to be able to explain via email. And I go, I don't know how to explain this style and tone, but it's like this and this mash together. You know, it's a masculine style of a logo, but it's minimalist. I don't want any feminists, feminists feminine style that's like, handwritten logo style, or, you know, you know, you know, saying, Yeah, there's, there's very specific and yeah, and one way I found a way to describe it a lot better. As far as style and tone, even photography video, is I would pull, you know, almost like a Pinterest board together, which I did sometimes pull those style tones together. And then I go in, like creative market or Adobe Stock dot Adobe, or whatever. I look at how they filter stuff. And I go, Okay, this is how I would, I'm going to describe
33:21
the mood character that right,
Law Smith
33:23
because it's already done somewhere formerly, over here, I just need to pull that kind of language over to be able to delegate because that look, searching for stock footage is a skill people don't realize, like I didn't, I fell into it after doing it so much, and finding good photography, like good images to use, or a good stock video for whatever. And you're like, Oh, just being able to search for the right shit you need.
33:50
That's not just stock footage, right? Anything on the internet? Well,
Law Smith
33:53
I mean, yeah, you talking how to look up a tutorial that actually isn't trying to sell you
2
Speaker 2
33:58
something right? A lot of people are sit there and go, Oh, man, I just used some stock footage and stock music. I'm like, you know, you can spend an entire day trying to pick the right song, right? Just the right song. What's the right song for this particular thing, it's like that that takes a day. There's because now whereas before you had a limited library, now you have such a vast library and so many options and so many sites. So you're you can't just stick with one because not everything fits everyone so right
Law Smith
34:22
my brand, but unsplash is still good for a lot of for people listening that want the free stock stuff to use. The important thing though, is that there are editors out there, you know, Fiverr or whatever.
3
Speaker 3
34:34
If you're running your own business, and you think I'm gonna make a video for myself, and then you get overwhelmed, I mean, consider getting just outsourcing your editing and just try and find somebody who like
Law Smith
34:45
Fiverr can be trashed, but you can also find I found people that you build a relationship with that go off Fiverr eventually and just go and pay via right or Bitcoin or whatever. If I ever hear you say that.
34:57
Matt, me Fiverr What are you going to do fire I haven't used them,
Law Smith
35:01
I've had to use them in a while, luckily, but it's, you know, or Upwork, whatever it is all these things, but you can get that stuff done. But that is a skill of project managing that and those expectations. I always tell everybody, fluff some days in there some, you know, whatever you think you're gonna go get a fiver person, you know, hedge your bets a little bit, you may want to just try to get two people to do the same thing in the beginning, until you have those relationships
35:27
don't count on them knocking it out in 24 hours, that's for sure.
2
Speaker 2
35:30
Well, the truth is, you can't really count on any new developer or any new creative to knock something out. Because, look, I I consider myself pretty talented at being able to read a brief and say, Okay, I know exactly what you mean. And I just recently did something that I went completely left, because the brief read one way and the in the way I read the brief made me think, okay, you do not want this. So I went in not made sure that it was nothing like that. Turns out, they didn't mean to go so far left, they were like, Well, you know, if this is the center, I want you to go just slightly just off to the side a little bit, which is fine. I just, I you know, I read it. I interpreted it, like go left. Yeah. So I went hard left. And that's okay. So in those cases, that's where I say that sometimes it's not necessarily that your brief was wrong, or your or the designer was completely off. It's just that the way they read it may have gone off. So that's why you have to do like the explanation. The Voice explanation is a really good way of doing it. Though the lookbooks the look mood boards and things like that is a really good way of doing it. Because then at least if they're like, Look, I showed you Blade Runner, and you gave me Mary Poppins. What and those those are no nowhere in the same ballpark.
Law Smith
36:39
Yeah, yeah. And if you have a confusing thing like that, or you're not sure I would send a video going, this is how I read it. This is the style and tone, I'm picking up from what you gave me in the brief. Does that make sense? And just send like, I tried to make like a minute video, just sending it to them. Get it back to me your thoughts whenever you can, or designer should do that. They'll
2
Speaker 2
36:59
save themselves so much time if they actually said that said, hey, look, based on your brief, this is what I saw. And even if they recorded it and send it back, yeah, people don't have time probably to do a zoom call. But if you did a I do like a woman I
Law Smith
37:10
call it a message in a bottle. It's like here, I'm gonna send you updates. I'd like a UK client, I'd be like, Look, we're not going to be on the same timezone when I'm doing your creative stuff, so I just go, here's, here's what I'm looking at, you're given what you gave me is this on the bright path? I want you to send a video back to me. That's what I had him do as a client. And it worked out fairly well in that regard. Yeah, learning
3
Speaker 3
37:30
how to record your screen and talk over it. I mean, that's takes an email that might take you 30 minutes to write to that you can get the tone right then you don't you can do you get it, you can just do it. And it takes one minute,
Law Smith
37:41
do a zoom call with Excel, you can have a free zoom account, you can just do a zoom by yourself. It'll record for you. It'll download automatically. There you go. And then you can also do the screen share where they can see you but also you can you can pull up a browser. That's what I would do, because it was the quickest it was cheap. And like the file size we can get too crazy.
38:02
Yeah, that's really good advice. If I just said I'm full of it. Is that what this is? What This podcast is about?
Law Smith
38:07
It's all the way Oh yeah. How's your giving? Have
2
Speaker 2
38:10
you ever had one big joke? How's your dick hanging out in?
Law Smith
38:14
Well, so my Do you want my vasectomy? I'm 100% clear I feel healthy.
38:19
Are you though Do you know for sure
Law Smith
38:21
Oh, no, no,
3
Speaker 3
38:22
I have to do the sample I have to jerk off at my house and then leave and then go to his house is that far
38:26
away? Is that where you make the appointment? Oh,
38:28
all the people come to my house It's already in a
38:31
business they go to your house and jerk off.
3
Speaker 3
38:34
It's a shed so part of it is that you have to bring your sample back to confirm in 12 minutes after and then they'll say yes you're good and then but there's a time period and his house is too far away.
Law Smith
38:46
Yeah, you're supposed to get it to him like within I forget 30 minutes 15 minutes or something of of doing it I was like there's a minute it's something like it's just out of like 15 minutes is so creepy. It'd be it'd be it would be a rush from my place to where all sweaty
39:02
is read.
Law Smith
39:04
I don't even
2
Speaker 2
39:06
I got just I just did it in the clinic when I had to do a test account right but they don't just literally get
Law Smith
39:12
that's trying to get pregnant does difference is the
3
Speaker 3
39:14
opposite. They don't want none of that whole opposite thing.
Law Smith
39:18
I gotta tell you I on the way out. There's a guy worried that he wasn't getting procedures just wanted to find out about like, on the way I was like, you're gonna be fine. Like I'm a pro. We're, we're jockstrap thing that you have to pick and you have to put your dick up the whole time. My balls look like a dead bat for a couple of days, like old fruit. But now they're good.
39:40
Now they're back. Going back to soft and round.
Law Smith
39:43
Yeah, and moving for whatever, like the ocean tides and doing the
39:49
talking about, you know,
39:51
looking at your balls before moving on their own.
39:54
Yeah. Well, I
3
Speaker 3
39:55
mean, walking in, you're coughing and whatnot. Sure. It sounds like they're going out. Getting liquor at the liquor store on their own talking about
Law Smith
40:02
Wow, they have a mind of their own sometimes but I'm saying like, it looks like the ocean tides go up and down recede a little bit. How
40:09
long? are you staring at your own nuts?
Law Smith
40:12
If I'm naked in bed? An hour, hour and a half? I bet you've never seen your balls move just on their own. They
40:20
sure I'm
2
Speaker 2
40:22
sure I have like a flower opening it it takes a little time. But you can watch it
40:26
right with a proper amount of sunlight.
Law Smith
40:30
I had a bit about it. I can't remember but it was just like it was very soothing. It was like watching the waves come in. Because what will go down want to go up? And
2
Speaker 2
40:39
I'll tell you what, my wife was fascinated to find out that balls moved. She was like, wait, Eric even knows. She was like say Wait, like they they weren't like that the other day? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, they dropped, they move. They go up and down. They do different things. You know, I'm saying
3
Speaker 3
40:52
the way you guys are talking about it there. It's like they've got their own life.
40:55
Well, they come on, away from you on it away from you. Like Come on.
41:00
Yeah, they crawl down your pants leg and they go do their own thing. How
2
Speaker 2
41:02
many times have you talked to your dick and said, Oh, wait, the What are you doing? What are you doing now? or whatever?
Law Smith
41:09
I yell at mine like a football? Yeah, yeah. I
2
Speaker 2
41:11
mean, every guy, every guy at some point is talking to the deck. Like it was a completely different person that said, Dude, what are you doing? You know, like, pep talks or down talks or whatever.
Law Smith
41:21
Don't embarrass me in front of everybody, right? First of all, I'm sure women do
41:25
that to somebody out of their own. But I'm talking about four guys, right?
Law Smith
41:29
Yeah, so if you want to dig stuff in, there you go. You know what, we never asked you this when you're when you're a guest, we never asked you I don't think and we're trying to make sure we ask our guests to come back on. What advice would you give your 13 year old self 13 year old balls?
2
Speaker 2
41:44
My 13 year old self? shoot first let me think about what I was doing at 13. Okay,
Law Smith
41:51
question is purposely made you up if you want to go in a silly way or legit way, you know,
2
Speaker 2
41:59
I would say that. Yeah, don't don't. Don't do there's a couple. Listen, I got a list for you. Stay with me. There's a couple of Brazilian women are crazy. And a couple women that I would probably be like, girls, I would be likely to don't date her. Okay, that's gonna it's gonna burn afterwards.
Law Smith
42:21
But why was that? Why? Why not date those certain women
42:25
as they burn afterwards, I
2
Speaker 2
42:27
tried to let him get away. The truth is actually I would have probably said stop dating certain girls and go after these ones because you missed out on opportunities. Because I'll tell you what, at 13 I was. I was the I was that romantic that was always in love. And like a week after I dated a girl I'm like, I'm in love with you. And and then I stopped that crap. And then I became an adult. And then it took me a really long time and my wife hated that. But
Law Smith
42:48
we completely the opposite. Now you have to like mine for old stuff. You're used to do romantically? Yeah, but yeah, do this.
2
Speaker 2
42:55
I gotta do this all over again. Yeah. But the point is that it was it probably kept me out of trouble. But there was like, mad opportunity through the high school in early 2008. Right before I turned 2122 because when I went to Toronto went to a tos when I finally like, had alcohol and everything changed. But yeah, I just wasted a lot of time on stupid shit. That I would have just told myself. What are you doing? I play video games way too much. swearing that I was going to be like this ultimate game person. And I'm still in animation, which is where my love from from animation started from but honestly, I would have told that bastard like get off the video game and you know, go do go do some life shit. Go do more legit.
Law Smith
43:38
Like I played so many. I would play college football, NCAA college football, make seasons in like dynasty and just wasted time. And I'm like, I could have learned Italian. Yeah, I could have like, none of us
43:50
do any of this shit. We just talking about it. All we had to do.
Law Smith
43:55
I knew it was a waste of time when I was doing it. I was fine. We could also just
44:00
be 13 I will say about the video game thing at 13. But
Law Smith
44:03
I don't think that's being a 13 year old. I think that you can do it. It's fine. Everything in moderation, right? So it's like, yeah, play video games, but don't obsess. Like, you gain no value at a certain point.
2
Speaker 2
44:15
Yeah, I was never gonna be in an orchestra and I was learning I was doing the standing bass I would have told myself man learn bass guitar that's cooler. You can do something with that later on in life, you know, I mean, but you're not unless you're gonna be in an orchestra and a four piece or five piece or whatever, you're not gonna mcaloon that bass. But honestly, one thing I will say this about
Law Smith
44:33
the worst instrument I was gonna say, Hey, guys,
2
Speaker 2
44:39
face to Oh, it was my parents. Parents. God bless them. They put that they strap that thing to the top of the car because we had one of these like little small four door they'd strap it to the top of the car just to get it places. I'm like, Yeah, dude. I can pick up the violin to throw it in the backseat. No, but I will say this and I took my 13 year old self that you know, you are lucky because at least all your friends were actually in person when you're playing video games, and you had to come over to play video games with each other, as opposed to now where I see some 13 year olds and none of their friends are actually in the room like I've seen my nephew, get into full blown arguments and full blown conversations with people he's never physically seen or met. And I would wish my experience of playing video games free to free COVID free COVID
45:27
just a little different breeze, the internet connectivity he's talking about No,
2
Speaker 2
45:30
but I'm saying for the kids now. That's I would give him a pass this year. It's kind of a mulligan here. But it hasn't just been this year, we're talking about the call of duty. I'm just yeah, it's been a while. Right. But I would I would wish that upon any kid that would be like Look, man, cool play with all your friends online. But you know, make some in the real world and play with them, you know, next door or something play with him like in the same room? Like I would wish that upon anybody.
Law Smith
45:55
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's sound guys. Don't Don't fall in love with doors. And don't play too many video games. Yeah. Eric can tell you all about the VR side of it. After
2
Speaker 2
46:09
VR, you know, I just got my new Oculus. I haven't tried any of the VR porn yet. So I've just been.
Law Smith
46:14
We should you should have you for another episode.
46:18
To get through a divorce. I'll tell you that.
Law Smith
46:19
We've got a Rhodes Scholar over here with a
46:24
scholar.
46:26
I ain't hitting the music. How about that? Okay, keep reeling me do it. Now. Let's go
