Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - How Entrepreneurship Will Change In 2022

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Christmas gifts, Hitler and Social Media Influencers… All things covered in this episode! Craig and Bedros look into their experience-filled crystal balls, and put in their predictions for what's to come in the world of Fitness, Entrepreneurship and Social Media for 2022. As we all know, it’s been a wild push and pull the first 2 years of the “Roaring 20’s”.. Think fitness, restaurants and hospitality to name a few.. Listen to this episode to get a leg up on what to expect to change for those in AND out of business.   Enjoy these points and take notes!    We here at The Empire Show, want to take a minute to wish a Merry Christmas to you and your family, and also a grand Happy New Year!   To your success in the New Year,   Bedros Keuilian Craig Ballentantyne Joan A, VP of Empire Inc. Ed B, Head of Media Julian R, Social Media and Content Writer   00:00 - Introduction  01:11 - What can Craig see businesses doing differently in 2022 04:22 - How Bedros expects influencers to operate differently in the next year 06:41 - What about the fitness industry? 10:23 - How will the employment and labor shortage affect the fitness industry? 13:32 - Where does Bedros see the nutrition and supplement space changing? 16:21 - How does our younger generation consume marketing and content? 17:33 - Any non-marketing / non-business predictions? 24:28 - Bedros touches on what we’re actually seeking when it comes to uncertainty in the future 26:32 - What you can expect out of society in times of change Connect with Craig Ballantyne :    https://www.craigballantyne.com/ https://twitter.com/craigballantyne/ https://www.instagram.com/realcraigballantyne/ Connect with Bedros Keuilian : Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ Facebook -

Going back to what we said earlier, like influencers are being used. And the reality is some people are influencers and don't even realize it. Welcome to the Empire Show. My name is Bedros. That is Craig Ballantyne. He is back in the studio. And this is an awesome episode because every year about this time, we give you the predictions and the trends that you might want to look out for in terms of business, making money,

and, of course, growing your empire for the upcoming year. So 2022 is around the corner, Craigie. and obviously we're coming off a crazy ass two years with 2020 and 2021. We saw industries shift and businesses go out of business. I read somewhere that at one point, Yelp reported that 62% of the restaurants on their platform had officially shut down and gone out of business. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, that's nuts.

So looking into the new year, 2020, two, what predictions and trends do you see for entrepreneurs who really want to crank up their business to the next level? All right. So I think that we're going to see some crazy advertising stuff. Like crazy, it's almost going to be creepy advertising. So we, you know, just the other day somebody spent a lot of money with us. And they said like the, they felt it was like really weird how our Facebook ad showed up. And I was talking to my marketing department just yesterday. And they said, like the ads are going to become so specific. They're going to be referencing your name.

They're going to be referencing like something that you just did with all the data that's getting fed to it, that it's going to seem like, you know, your phone has been watching you and reporting back to the advertising. And so as an advertiser, you should be making sure that you're staying on top of everything that you can and can't do. The best ways to do your video ads, the, you know, the targeting, the, you know, the, you know, the geo placement, all that sort of stuff. Because if you don't stay up with it, other advertisers are going to come across and they're going to be more specific than ever. And they're going to be showing up almost like it's, you know, the phone is reading the

consumer's mind. And the person who does that is going to get further and further ahead. So you've got to be super update with your targeting and your video content and your ads. You know, to that point, four days ago, I texted Joan. Yeah. And I say, hey, Joan, I want to buy custom pens for the project instructors, right, as a Christmas gift. And that was that. And then about a day and a half later, as I'm scrolling through my Instagram feed, I see these awesome pens that have these tritium little inserts at the back of it, which emits light. but it's like a nuclear thing of my jig so it's no batteries required and we'll limit light for like 10 years and I was like holy crap Joan these are the ones and I sent her the link and I'm like wait a minute

I've never been advertised pens right right pretty like I know if I was advertised pens but in reading my text message it wasn't even a DM it was a text message not but not an email through Gmail through Gmail yeah not through Gmail is exactly stripped text message to Joan. And then I realized that I was being targeted very specifically based on what I was typing onto my phone. Now, we've always known. Our phones are listening to us. And I do remember telling my wife one time, like, hey, I'm going to go take your car for an oil change. And next day I saw, I said, I'm going to go take your Land Rover for an oil change. And next day, I saw an ad for Land Rover dealerships. But nailed it on the head. Oftentimes, people find

themselves behind the eight ball. They're like, well, I'm not going to do geo-tracking. I'm not going to do this kind of, you know, text follow-up or email follow-up or specificity in my marketing, not realizing that you're getting left behind and someone in your industry is doing it. So that's a very valid point to make. Yeah. What about you? What's the, what's the number one thing or big things that you're going to see predict for next year? So one thing I'm going to predict next year, especially in 2022, more than we've ever seen, is the use of influencers. in a more savvy way. The truth is, influencer usage has been kind of hit and miss because someone might have a big

following because they know how to post great content or they know how to exploit their body or their physique to their... Yeah, right? But they were never really the best at doing that. But now we're seeing, like, there's a small handful of influencers now making, like, good money, like multiple six figures, kind of like a month kind of money. and we're going to see the rise of the independent influencers who are going to be very savvy in doing deals like where they're going to ask for some kind of perpetuity.

They're going to ask for some kind of equity in whatever it is they're promoting. And I'm already starting to see this come up as I'm dealing with the Fuel Hunt brand and we're using that. But also to say, don't be afraid to do that because it seems so foreign and so strange. like, wait, why would I give some kind of equity? If you've got the right person, like if you've got the right UFC fighter or the right TV personality who wants to promote your thing aggressively and is asking for some equity on the back end if you were able to sell or some stock shares or something, you might want to consider doing that and built it upon expectations.

Like, hey, you will have this on the back end so long as these expectations are met and these milestones are met because they help you grow the brand. why wouldn't you throw them a bone or two? You mean like the island boys? Have you ever seen the island boys? I have seen the island boys. Yeah. What about them?

Do you think you'll be hiring them for a fuel hunt? I don't know if I'd be hiring them for fuel hunt, but I know somebody would be hiring them for something. Yeah. I think Dana, well, I think they use cameo a lot, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I think Dana White got them to do a UFC promo. That makes sense. Yeah. They're so good. The island boy. Are they real? I don't know.

Well, I mean, they're real, real. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, is that how they sound if I met them on the street? All great questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll hire them through cameo just to be able to ask them to that. Yes, exactly. All right.

Okay, what about in the fitness industry? In the fitness industry, as we talked about it a lot on the last episode, expect a hybrid, more than ever, of in-person gyms, boot camps, boutique gyms, working with technology platforms from trainerize to all the wearable stuff, you know, whether it's the whoops. Yeah, exactly, or the Fitbit or whatever. But there's going to be a big crossover of what we're seeing now in the fitness industry that Mrs. or Mr. Jones, who work out at the gym for that 30 minutes or 60 minutes,

three to five days a week, they want to know what else they can do the other 23 hours of the day, that you're not with them. And so the expectations of the consumer is changing, and it's changing because technology is saying, and all these, you know, the companies that are marketing these technology pieces and the fitness, health, nutrition, like, dude, Avatar Nutrition, first off, great platform, great product, is so easy to track your macros on and is with you all day long that it has now set the expectation of, like, if you work out at a gym and then the gym, the trainer at the gym assigns you a nutrition plan, and you're not using a platform like Avatar Nutrition. Here's a plug for Avatar Nutrition because it's a great platform.

I have zero equity in it or anything like that. but if they don't assign you an easy to understand platform where you could literally say all right today I'm going to cheat on my diet therefore it goes hey let us help you adjust your macros for the week to make up for that cheat where at the end of the week you have a balance and you're still on track to lose X amount of fat per week right like that is the level of service that's expected your trainer at the gym is never going to sit down and do that on a piece of paper so if that gym owner isn't using something like avatar nutrition and there's something like whoop or fitbit or what was that ring that you wear or a ring or a ring or whatever to start tracking your sleep

and how does your sleep affect their training habits and their fat loss and their metabolism all those things are going to work together more than ever in 2022 and gyms that choose to not do that are going to be left behind now if you're an old school you know rusty dusty gold's gym at venice beach you probably can get away with it, not using it, but for the rest of us, like, you better get on board. What's going to happen to the planet fitnesses and 24-hour fitnesses and L.A. Fitnesses? They are the ones that are most likely to go extinct because what people are realizing now is either want high touch or, which is like going to be the boutique gyms, which involves

so much technology and so much coaching and mentoring where you know, like you signed up for a class and so they're expecting you. 24-hour fitness, L.A. Fitness, Equinox, all those big brands LA Fitness don't do that planet fitness etc don't do that and so they have to change their model but how do you change a model of a 60,000 square foot facility that pays an obscene amount of rent and then is known for charging either $9 or 19 or $29 a month they're not in the 147 $167 a month programs 24-hour fitness about four years ago tried putting in little CrossFit type sections into their gyms and thought that they could charge more for this CrossFit area where they have a coach running a class,

it failed miserably. Right, because it's expected. Exactly, exactly, because they've conditioned people that classes are included and it's free. So if my spin class is included, my cardio class is included, my Les Mills body pump classes included, why am I going to do this thing for an additional fee? So they are the highest on the most likely to go extinct in the fitness industry list. Yeah. Another thing, so a lot of my clients struggle with labor shortages. What about in the fitness industry? Do you see that that being a problem?

Because I was talking to a lot of other gym owners and not just gym owners, but people who help gym owners build their businesses and stuff. And they found that a lot of trainers don't want to go back to the gym. So, you know, they were shut out of the gym. At first it was panic mode. And then all of a sudden it was they found a way to make money at home or they found a way to make money one on one going house to house. Do you think it'll be hard to get trainers back into the gym and into the boutique gyms? Yeah, yeah.

It's been hard since the 2020 lockdown. And it's going to be hard moving forward because when the lockdown happens and when these guys and gals are out of a job or working in a gym for eight, nine, ten months, they have to learn to fend for themselves. And they realize that, you know what, now I have to reluctantly try and accept online coaching or going to a new industry. And they realized online coaching isn't so bad. And if I find the right person who can teach me how to really market myself, grow my brand, be able to sell, market, get clients, I can do it from the comfort of my own home. Why am I going to go back to a gym and work in a gym and train clients one-on-one? And so this means these gyms have to start using, again, going back to technology more to replace humans. But what they could also do, remember, all of life is about, you know, making things convenient and affordable.

Like in all of life, the computer used to cost so much. Now we can buy a high-end MacBook for like $900, right? And so the idea of all business is to make, can you make it more convenient and affordable for your clients and customers? And so technology is going to allow coaching to become more affordable, especially coaching not only in the business, but outside of those four walls. during the other 23 hours of the day because you are not going to have access to. In fact, McDonald's, Burger King, Chipotle

is experiencing the highest level of vacancies in positions right now because they're seeing that even these young generation who are supposed to go work, like our generation would go work at a fast food joint. They're not. In fact, Andrew is 16. He's, he's, he's,

starting to make about 1,500 a month on some crypto stuff that he's doing. No way. Right? Yeah. Now, why would he ever go and get a job at a Starbucks or wherever? In fact, the Starbucks is here in town. They'll put a sign on their door saying the lobby is closed. Sorry, go through the drive-thru, and no mobile orders.

Because they don't have enough people working in the lobby when I went to the drive-thru. I asked. So all this is to say that technology is going to have to replace humans in places like gyms, food now is being delivered to your door, right? And so how long before the autonomous car just delivers it, drops it off and off you go? Pizza Hut was already testing that out last year. So technology and businesses are getting tighter and tighter together more than ever. In 2022, I think, is going to be a big leap forward. What about in the nutrition supplement space, what do you see for next year? Where the nutrition and a supplement is concerned,

it's going to be more about what brands you're associated with versus like hey is this grass-fed way is this way isolate like more people are social media has done something so crazy man it is starting to create and politicians knew this a long time ago that if i can get craig to align himself with an ideology either democrat or republican or whatever then you start showing loyalty to that party. Well, social media now, if you have these fans, if you're a fan of these particular people, these athletes, if they're using a very specific brand of supplements, you're going to be more attached to that brand than the actual same product weight protein from another brand that might even be cheaper. And so going back to what we said earlier,

like influencers are being used. And the reality is some people are influencers and don't even realize it. They just naturally influence the people that follow them. And so supplement industries have to think up different ways to market, and that is to figure out maybe you're not the way protein or the greens for everybody. Maybe you're going to have to be very specific to who you want to be the way protein for, and then find the people who represent those, that segment of the population, and get those people to start promoting your brand and using your brand and product. Got it. What about on social media? You know, before you came down here, I was joking with Ed behind the camera there about, you know, people don't even watch, don't even watch, can't even watch a 20 minute YouTube video, a 10 minute YouTube video.

Like, you know, people, it's just like, if it's TikTok or nothing, it seems like, are like, does Trulene used TikTok or is it just? No, we don't, we don't use TikTok now, but it's so funny. The reason I was late coming down is I was reviewing two video ads that we're going to be using on YouTube. Both of them under 30 seconds now. Right. Like these are Trulene supplement video ads. And it's for everyday fit, our hydration product, which has a lot of benefit bullets, both under 30 seconds and both very TikTok-ish in very quick cuts and quick edits.

Because that's how TikTok and Instagram has conditioned users. And I have no doubt that those ads are going to convert when AdSense starts running it for us on YouTube. but I share this because previously we'd be going for like a two yeah we would go for a really good hook in the first five seconds to stop them from hitting skip but we'd go for a good minute and a half two minute video to

properly demonstrate the product and then give a call to action now it's like under 30 seconds man that's where we are that's the industry do you ever sit with your kids and watch them use their phone like in in how they view social media

or like sit down and talk to Andrew and his friends about how they play video games or anything like that in the world that they've gotten into? The video game part, yeah, because I walk into Andrew's room and I'll hear him like hooting and hollering and he's got the headset

on and him and his buddies from all over the place are playing video games together. They don't, while once 16, once 14, both have iPhones. They don't have social media yet, so I don't know their social media behavior, but I could imagine it's going to be very quick because when I see how quickly

they type a message, like when they're texting to their friends. Right. Pro, I'm like, I need 19 more thumbs to be able to type like that. Like, how do they do it? But attention span is very quick. Like, hey, Andrew, watch this video and he'll start, he'll put his finger on the timer and start scrubbing through. Almost like, if he just watches little chunks of it, they just need to get the jest of what the video is. Yeah. Whereas maybe our generation was like, I want to see the whole video. I want to see the nuances in the video. Yeah. No one cares anymore. All right, what about non-marketing and business-related predictions for 2022? You got any?

Non-marketing. I don't want to sound like some weird prepper or whatever, but I think more than ever, people need to be prepped with water, food, a way to defend themselves for an extended period of time. 30 days plus more than ever. I don't think that the supply chain issues, those cargo ships that are floating around all over the... I mean, I see them every morning in Huntington.

Right, right. Yeah, where you're staying in Huntington Beach right now. You see the cargo ships out there. All used to see is the Catalina Island back, you know, when you stand there. Now you see the Catalina Island in the backdrop, cargo ships in the foreground with all this stuff on there. Well, I don't think that's because, you know,

Well, we all know why. They're getting paid unemployment, and unemployment is equal to the pay of the dock workers who are going to empty the cargo ships. And so why would they go back to work and when unemployment is extended? But that is intentional. That is intentional, just like if we just need to look at history, we go back and we go, how did Hitler get into power again? That's right. Before he got into power, when he was just like a kind of mid-level politician, he, when he, when he, when, into all these little villages and went went into these villages and he would stop the supply chain

supply train about four or five days before he got to the village they would literally his people his soldiers would stop the supply train to that village four or five days before that he'd show up to that village and go hey i see that you know stores are going empty that there's no supplies uh i'll see what i can do for you guys and he would of course then say all right let the let the train go the train would come and now Hitler was hailed as a hero. So if we have boats, giant cargo ships floating around out there, and by the way, the school children of that era who heard that when no one else could get those supply trains

into the village, Hitler did, those kids, if you look at history, Hitler was voted into power by the youngest generation ever. Those kids, as they grew up, they voted him into power. And so what you're seeing now is the supply chain being disrupted on purpose and it will be released when we all comply, whatever compliance looks like. It might be the old poke. It might be whatever it is, right, a digital passport. But once we all comply, and so that's, and if you're not willing to, and if you're of the mindset that I am and that a lot of people are,

that I will decide what's going to go in my own body and my kid's body. Well, then you might be without food for a period of time, without water for a period of time, just to pressure you and to compliance, and you have to be willing to be able to prep for yourself, have chickens, have whatever. Like, I used to think that was silly until I found myself going like, holy crap, my friends who are doing this are on the right track. Yeah.

And maybe I need to start prepping as well. Yeah, I mean, even if it's not that, I mean, up in Vancouver, we just had crazy floods. And, you know, there was people without power and food for multiple days. Well, Texas last winter. Right, exactly. Dallas. Yeah. And basically, a lot of people that I read say that civilization is really nine meals away from total chaos because most people have

no food in their house and nine meals is three days and after three days of not eating people become totally different people they become almost animals and and then the question is what will they do or not do right and you know so just take care of yourself now it's very difficult you you got a lot of neighbors and they know you got a lot of food it's very difficult i actually interviewed mike dillard um for my podcast oh that had to be a good one it went it went down a lot of rabbit holes that I wasn't expecting and and he said actually I was asking about like generators and he said the worst thing you can do is actually have like a gas power generator you may as well have a bullseye on you so he said get solar powered jackery generators uh because is jackery the brand jackery's a brand

oh got it and so is that a new source of power jackery jackere jackalopes jackalops get jackalops jackalops power yeah and um you know because you can just charge those things up and they don't make noise and don't uh that makes a lot of sense yeah but then then it was just like you know he the the whole thing is like he's got he's got like a group of like 20 of them and they've got a place like an hour and a half away big ranch and all that stuff and he's like but then i got to be able to fill up my truck and drive back and forth to supply this place like an hour and a half and i live in texas where everybody's got a gun so over the course of like three or four trips.

Like he's, and then he's like, and it's the 20 people, and we all have extended families. And then so now it's basically like 160 people. And it just becomes like, oh my gosh, like this is not going to work for it. Like anything else you get carried away. This is not going to work for the people who are most prepared. It's not going to work for anybody. So it's like, how can we avoid this in the first place? That's really what it comes down to is how can we avoid this in the first place.

And I think the world has beaten that to death. But imagine if everybody decided to just not comply for like one. week. One week of no masks, one week of, I'm just not going to go buy gas. One week of not buying gas will lower the gas prices. We'll absolutely lower the gas prices. But people are willing or are not willing to break their little comfort and their patterns of life. Because, well, that's just what I do. That's my morning routine. I buy gas and I go here, drive there, whatever. I tell you what, it's, you know, I love reading history and, you know, reading about, you know, you look back and you go, yeah, if you're Jewish and living in Germany in 1936, like, why would you have stayed,

you know? And, but now, like, you know, whether you're moving from state to state, like, I know a lot of people who are like, man, you know, but we've got family here. And it's like, you're just moving, like, one or two states over, and they won't do it. Like, we're moving two countries over, because we think that's the right thing for us. But it is a pain in the butt. Right. You know, it's a pain and it's pain to have the conversations with people who don't see your worldview. And it's... But isn't it funny? Because what are we all looking for?

At the end of the day, we're looking for peace of mind. Whether you have, like, a ranch that's an hour and a half away where you've got 20 people who are each going to bring one item that's going to make your own little mini civilization work, it gives you peace of mind knowing that that's how the plan is going to go. And that gives me peace of mind that I got 30 days of food. And that gives him peace of mind that he's got 19 different generators that are... powered by jackalopes. And whether you're moving two countries away or not, we're all looking for peace of mind.

And when you think about it, my son, every night after we work out, we go on the hot tub together. He's like, hey, dad, who decided there's going to be borders? Like the Canadian border up there and the Mexican border down there, like, it's a piece of land. Like, we're just animals on it for a period of time.

And then we go, I'm like, fuck, dude. You're on point. It is a piece of land. And we just have to be good to the land and get to the people to our left and our right. And then we starve our time on this planet and help as many people as we can and we move on, right? He goes, yep. But instead, like, and then they have rules and stuff.

I'm like, yeah, but son, if they didn't have rules, then I could drive on the side of the road and smash right into you. That's why they have lines on the thing. And that tells me, I got to go this way. You drive this way. We don't smash into each other. But somehow that and that led to, well, we need someone to create the rules. And so we put people into power and that the power gets to their head. And this is how we ended up.

It makes sense how we got here. Right. But it's like, holy fuck, how do you unravel this and go back? to what Andrew was saying, which is, why can't I just come and visit you in Canada when you lived up there? Right. Yeah, I mean, like, without this little passport with a picture and somebody looking at me with fucking little black rubber gloves on, you're going to fucking put a finger up my ass, motherfucker?

What he got gloves on, right? Like, what, like, I've always wondered when I'd come up, wherever I travel to, like, I'm on this fucking planet. I'm an animal that's on this planet free roaming. What do I mean in this passport and you got to stamp it? Who the fuck are you to stamp it? All that said, here, motherfucker, stamp it. So I can go see Craigie.

Right. But it just, the kid has a point. Yet we don't have a solution to the people that we gave power to, you know, whatever, two generations, three generations, four generations ago. Yes. Yeah. But we are definitely at a very interesting time in history. Yeah. We're going to see a lot of changes.

We're going to see some tough times. Mm-hmm. But what's your little, what's the old phrase, right, about tough times, make strong men? Yeah, tough times. make strong men because strong men create good times good times create weak men

weak men create tough times right tough times yep so somewhere along the way we throw in interesting times in there but you know I'm an optimistic dude but well that's what I was going to say right is like let's not forget just in our little

generation here in our in our lifetime 9-11 was a pretty scary time you look at D-Day was it 1914 something 44 44 right then you go back to like the great depression you go back to civil war civil war i mean there has been some very unpredictable i mean holy crap what was japan thinking when we dropped two nuclear bombs on it right like like this might be the end of our country i'm sure ran through a lot of people's minds um and at the end of the day humans are eternally resilient we do have to be optimistic, as you said, we have to be optimistic, but also optimistically prepared.

Finding the balance is that key. Yeah, and I think the last thing I'll say in this is, I've probably been to like 40 states now, so I've been to more of America than most Americans. And at the end of the day, most people are generally the same, whether you're blue or red, Democrat, Republican, or whatever you want to be. everybody just wants like for their kids to have better a good life and safety and I think that maybe in the last 20 years they've things have really swung one way and now parents are like whoa whoa whoa you know I don't want that for my kids and they want and they're really going to stand up for them

and take care of them so I think that's what most people want at the end of the day and people are more alike than they're disalike so Hopefully that smart people come together in the end. I think smart people always do come together in the end. And if you, my friend, are smart, then you will take a screenshot of this particular episode and share it on social media. Be sure to tag Craig, tag myself. And please do us a five-star review on iTunes. We love you to pieces.

Peace.