Blaze Your Own Trail - A True Marketing Influencer With Erik Huberman

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

About Erik: Erik Huberman is the founder and CEO of Hawke Media, the fastest growing marketing consultancy in the United States. Launched in 2014, Hawke Media has been valued at $75 million and has grown from seven to over 150 employees in three locations (Los Angeles, New York, and Boston). The company has serviced over 2000 brands of all sizes, ranging from startups like Tamara Mellon, SiO Beauty, and Bottlekeeper to household names like Red Bull, Verizon Wireless, and Alibaba. Hawke Media has taken home numerous industry awards including inclusion on the Inc. 5000 2020 list of “Fastest Growing Companies”, Fortune Magazine’s “50 Best Workplaces in Southern California” and Huberman was named The International Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year in the field of Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations. As a serial entrepreneur and marketing expert, Huberman is a sought-after thought leader in the world of digital marketing, entrepreneurship, sales and business. Prior to Hawke, he founded, grew and sold two successful ecommerce companies. Huberman is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including Forbes “30Under30,” CSQ “40Under40”, Inc. Magazine’s “Top 25 Marketing Influencers,” and Best in Biz North America’s “Marketing Executive of the Year.” A regular contributor to major publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur and CSQ, Huberman is also a well-known keynote speaker. In this episode we discuss: Erik's childhood Becoming an Entrepreneur at 8 Getting into E-Commerce in Middle School Becoming the Top Knife Salesman for Cutco The College Years And much more! Connect with Erik: https://www.erikhuberman.com/ Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠ Clapper: ⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast with your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice, you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hey everyone, Jordan here. Before we jump into the season three finale in episode 80 overall, just wanted to jump in real quick and say thanks so much for listening. Whether you've listened to one episode or all 80 of them, I really appreciate the support. If you have gotten value out of it and you haven't gone over on iTunes and given us that five-star rating and review, please make sure to do so and continue to share the, these episodes on social. We really, really appreciate it. Now, we're going to jump into the content with the season three finale. My guest, Eric Huberman, drops some knowledge bombs. This guy is a

true marketing influencer. I can't wait for you to check it out. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. This is Jordan Dose. I'm your host, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Eric Huberman. And I'm going to give him just a second to tell us, who he is and what he does today. Yeah, sure. Backgrounds in e-commerce, built and sold a couple of e-commerce companies. And about seven years ago tomorrow, started consulting and advising for a bunch of brands,

found that it was a, it was really difficult for companies to get access to great marketing. Like, it was, if you're a smaller medium business, attracting good talent, affording them. And then, frankly, if you are able to do that, operating in a vacuum, and all seem to be detrimental on really big challenges. So you end up working with agencies,

which almost every company, even Fortune 500's leverage agencies, but the problem with agencies, 99% of them have no idea what they're doing. And the few that are good get really expensive on contracts, high minimums and really want to focus on only the big brands. And so, again, the end result is accessibility to great marketing

didn't really exist. And we wanted to create that, which became our mission statement. And so hired a small team of people, the idea being they each have their own expertise, like a Facebook marketer, an email marketer, a web designer, etc. And went back to these companies that I was already advising for and said, hey, everything's out with part, month to month, cheaper than hiring in-house.

The idea is you can spend up exactly what you need when you need it, and it's super nimble and flexible with amazing marketing talent. And so that's how we started. Now we're just under 200 people. We've managed marketing for about 600 brands from massive Fortune 100s down to tiny startups. We have a venture fund as well where we invest in a lot of marketing technology. and we also have a capital arm where we give growth equity or growth financing to companies trying to grow their marketing.

So just continuing to march on this mission statement, so to speak. I love it, man. I love it. And I'm so excited to dive into what got you here, man. That's what my show is all about is how did you, you know, blaze this trail that you're on currently. So let's rewind a little bit, Eric, and let's find out about little Eric. You know, let's focus on kind of adolescent years up through high school.

So what kind of kid were you, man? And what kind of things were you into? Were you into sports? Was it more school that you're focused on? Love to hear some context. Yeah, I'd say not really either. So I was younger than everyone's by a decent amount. I was a November birthday, but on the young side.

So like, I should have been held back, but didn't need to be. School came really easy to me. I think my parents just were good about keeping me up to speed. And so I never had a problem in school. And so there was no real academic reason to hold me. back, but I was a head shorter than everybody. And so, you know, sports, I was always active. I was always, you know, liked running around. But when it came time for its team sports, I was, you know, if you read Malcolm Gladwell Outliers and how like every hockey player is born in January,

because that's when the cutoff was back in the day, um, on the opposite. You know, instead of being bigger than everyone and starting, you know, and then getting nurtured, I was smaller and just never got that. My favorite award I think I've ever had, but I still have somewhere is most improved halfback in soccer because it's such a cliche to be like we don't know what to get him. He got better. So yeah, but I was really into music. I always played guitar. I started when I was four years old. I thought I wanted to be a musician my entire childhood. Around 12 years old, I realized I wasn't that good and that I had been playing for years and my friends that had picked it up like six months before were better than me. And so that's when I started to come to terms to the idea

of maybe it would just be a hobby, not my profession. And then, you know, looking backwards, I was always into business. My dad did a really good job. My dad's an entrepreneur as well. And he did, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but a lot of what he did kind of pushed me into liking business, starting from doing math problem, mental math in the car with him, which that was intentionally wanted me to do math, but he'd used money. So he'd be like, I have two quarters, a dime, a nickel and a penny.

How much do I have? You're talking to a six, eight year old doing quick math in the car. and so then got really comfortable with numbers, math, and money. And then he also would convince me that it was really fun to save up for big dollar bills. So if I could save enough money to afford a $50 bill, not because I was going to go buy something just to get a $50 bill. And so I started gaining that intrinsic value of money. That was, again, five, six years old.

And then I remember at eight, I really wanted to get an electric guitar. I'd been playing acoustic. I saw Eric Clapton. He's the only other Eric I knew and was like, I got to play the same guitar as him. I need a black and white fender strat. And my dad, I went to my dad and said, I want a guitar. And verbatim, he looked to me and said, great, get a fucking job. He's like, okay. Like, you know, I've tried to use nothing, not with the swear words, but with kids around me, like, yeah, you should get a job. And most kids go, like, I can't do that. I, you know, and they push back on it. I don't know what it was about me at eight. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Then I tried to get a job, but nobody's going to hire an eight-year-old.

I actually started buying and selling beanie babies when they were getting hyped. And through a lot of encouragement of my mom and dad and friends, out of friends' dad that would take us to trade shows. And I ended up making a few thousand bucks on that, bought the electric guitar, bought a BMX, put money away for a car. And this is, again, sort of the border of eight to nine years old. And that's really what started it in terms of entrepreneurship was like, oh, I know how to make money and not like just go get it because someone's paying me,

but get it because I have something people want that they're willing to pay for. I love that. Yeah, I love that. I love the fact that, you know, you were into guitar, but and then you came to the realization that maybe that wasn't your thing. You know, it's, it's, it's always interesting when you hear people at younger ages having that self-awareness, right? Just, just knowing that, you know what, this may not be my thing, but, you know, I could still do it, but I just don't see this being my number one thing. You can see right there. I still do it, but I'm not very good still. It's just fun. Yeah, I became that. Yeah, I had the great, I, I had the great, I mean, I just,

I do believe parents have a huge amount to do and how people turn out good or bad, meaning if parents, you can have really shitty parents, but because you rebel against it or you, you know, that create makes you tough, you can still turn out well. But they have a huge effect one way or the other. And I had a mom that was incessantly building my confidence and always proud of me for doing just about anything I could possibly do. And a dad that was pretty tough and, you know, always pushing me. So I think if I didn't have my mom to build a confidence, I would have just been beat up all the time.

But if I didn't have my dad, I would have probably been a little complacent. So that balance really helped me in terms of like when I came to terms not being good at something. It wasn't like I was down on myself. He was like, whatever, I'll just do something else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easier to roll with the punches when you've got that confidence ability. You know, that's what my mom was to me before she passed as she was that, you know,

inspiring one, the kind one, the, you know, showing that empathy and teaching me how to just keep going after those things, you know. And when you have people like that on your side, you're right, Eric, it definitely, it really helps shape you. really helps shape you on the path that you're going on. So I would love to get some context, you know, for the audience. You know, I've got a lot of, you know, aspiring entrepreneurs, some entrepreneurs. And it's kind of a wide mix. But I want to get just some context for everybody because, I mean, here you are. You're eight, nine years old.

You're at trade shows and you're selling little miniature stuffed animals, right? So I want to really hear what was your pitch? Like, how did you set it up, right? Because I think this is important because I guarantee you, Eric, a lot of the things that went into that first pitch back then you probably still use today because it's about building relationships. It's about getting attention. It's about having conversations. You know, all of those things, those elements, those things don't go away. I used to do door to door stills at 14.

A lot of those techniques. Oh, yeah. Those never go. Those are foundational, in my opinion. So what could you share from back then maybe things that you did that you're still using? Yeah, I mean, I would say I wouldn't take much from when I was eight or nine. It was more I had an eye for like I just basically was, and this is even that smart. I was just like if I thought it was a cool beating baby, I'd buy it.

And there was a good chance that other people thought it was cool. So the ones that weren't as interesting and weren't as eye-catching, I wouldn't buy. And the ones I did buy three months later were worth, you know, I sold one for 400. There were five bucks a piece. It was with tax. And, you know, at the time it was 534. I remember that very vividly. And then I'd sell them anywhere between, you know, like the best one I sold was $450.

And it was a tight-eyed stegosaurus. And it was unraveling and falling apart. And if it was in good condition, it would have been worth $1,100. But that was the first one I bought. And I used to play hacky sack with it. It was like this stupid thing that my friend, like, why did someone buy me a beanbagging him on? I'd like throw it in my, I remember playing basketball with it, like throwing into my basketball hoop

and running around with it. And then a year later is when everything really took off. I already trashed the hell out of it. And that one was sitting at the top. I purposely put it on top of my bag when I was walking around the trade show. And so one of, you know, it was basically me and a bunch of women in their 60s.

Like that was, that was a crap. And so a woman said, you know, hey, let me see that one. I showed it. And she said, is this for sale? I'm like, sure. And she, you know, said $300. And that's when I was like, $600.

Like, I was, I think it was nine at that point. It was like, $600. She's like, I'll give you $450. Okay, fine. Like, my heart was going. I remember I called my dad from there. and said, I just sold one of these for $450, and he goes, I'll send a Brinks truck with the armored car. Yeah.

He was fucking with me. But at the time, I took it serious. I was like, oh, God, like, you have to be careful? Like, am I going to get robbed now that I have this cash on me? That's awesome. Yeah. So, but, you know, I did door-to-door sales with Cutco when I was 19. And that's really where I learned those more sales skills.

At that time, I think it was more just a confidence around doing it, like getting out there, wheeling and dealing with adults when I was eight, nine years old and not having any inhibition about it. That, you know, that that carried over. The idea that like I can talk to anybody, I can go and handle my own business started right there. Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, that verbal communication, man, that's, it's so huge, right? You know, there's a lot of people that start businesses, but they don't, they don't know how to communicate or sell, right? Or pitch. And that's a super foundational thing that you have to have is, is being able to communicate. with people, you know. So, so after that, so let's fast forward. So you go through high school,

right, you're playing some sports, you're doing guitar. Now you're selling, right? So you got that entrepreneurial spirit. You just mentioned at 19, you started doing Cutco. So what happened after high school? Did you end up, did you go to school? Did you not go to school? Like, what did you do? And then let me know about that Cutco experience, because I actually did that for, I think it was maybe 30 days. I was so scared I was going to cut myself. So I was like, yeah, I'm out. You know, let me get out of this.

I definitely had one point where I cut myself and started bleeding all over the person's table. But anyways, and I'll go. What a good demo. Yeah, no, I don't think he bought anything. I think I did scare the guy off. Almost positive I did. But because I kept trying to go and I was like bleeding on,

you have to cut rope and stuff. And I was like bleeding on things. And I was like, I just really wanted the sale. But it wasn't that bad of it cut. I didn't need stitches or anything. But anyways, in high school, I got a little, actually even in junior high, I got a little bit of the entrepreneurship bug. I tried to start an e-commerce company when I was in seventh or eighth grade.

I can't remember which year it was, but there was a guy one year older than me that had built an e-commerce company for computer parts and like electronics. And this was 99. And so really early, he was making, you know, $10,000 a month or something off this site. And I'm like, we're 12, 13 years old. I'm like, holy shit, there's something here. I still love music. So I started a music website, put it all together, built it in like a little editor.

At the time I used Homestead, I believe, which doesn't exist anymore. And put it up. And then I called all the different suppliers, Fender, Ernie Ball, these companies and said, hey, I need your catalog. I'm opening a store. They all send me their catalog. I then went to order and it had a place to put my seller's permit number. Oh, my gosh, shoot, okay, I need a license.

So I went to my dad and I'm like, hey, I look this up. I need a seller's permit. Can you help me get this? He's like, I'm not getting your fucking sellers permit. Okay. And there went that idea. So high school. Your dad is just so, Matt, every time you mention him, you bring something.

He's like, no. And you're like, dang it. I got to go. I got to figure something else out. Again, I get along with him great. So I'm painting a certain picture of him. But he's a great guy. But he was very,

I'm the oldest. He made, you know, he's self-made in a lot of ways and he wanted me to do the same. So, like, he used to intentionally say things like, just remember,

like, you get none of my money and scoring of the dog and things like that. So I was never coming for it. So I was like, okay, whatever,

like I'll go do my own thing. So that really helped because he's massively successful, but it's never stopped me from going and doing my own thing, which frankly helps us out in terms of relationship. 100%. Um,

Um, so yeah, so high school, I actually got really into real estate. My dad is in the waste business, but also in real estate. and liked watching what he was doing. So I actually, he had us work with one of his partners and my two best friends and I would go to their office once a week. Our school let us out

one afternoon a week to just go work in a real estate office. And then went to college, as you asked, went to University of Arizona, had a really good time. It was a fun time in college. But every summer I was really adamant about learning something that could progress for my career. I didn't work during the school year. Thankfully, my parents did pay for college and thankfully it was a very inexpensive college. But yeah, first summer, I worked in a real estate office. Second summer, I was like, I need to learn sales. Everyone I know that successful tells me that you need to learn how to sell.

That selling is like the biggest driver of success, whether you're selling himself or whatever it is. So I got a job at Cutco. They massively market two college kids looking for summer jobs. But it's just a perfect fit because I was all in. A lot of people, you kind of said it. I joined and did it for 30 days. Like that's really common for that company because they recruit so heavily.

but I was like it was kind of a perfect storm for them and me where it's like you're not afraid to bleed bro like you were taking it for the team not at all I'm getting this sale right here what I did it to learn like I was very adamant that age just I want to learn I don't care like I was fortunate if my parents like could take care of me like my parents were paying for school I didn't need to like cover bills I was you know privileged it's been the common word used in that sense and so I just needed a job that I'd learn more than you need to make money so I was like I'm here to fully buy into the program learn everything I can work my butt off and, you know, see if I can be a good seller. Turns out I was really good at it.

I broke a bunch of their records. I ended up one of their top sellers that summer. I made it, I was 19. I made 25 grand in the summer working part-time selling kitchen knives. It's been like hanging out of the pool part of the time. And really bought into the program and learned a lot about sales. And that was huge. So I did well, you know, bought myself like a flat screen and a PlayStation 3 at the time

and like had a lot of fun with it. and he went back to school and then was supposed to actually open a territory for them following someone with training. They were flying me all over the country for trainings and stuff. And two months before I'm supposed to open my office, a friend of mine calls of an idea for a new business to basically filter storm drains. It became law in California that you had to filter your storm drains. And he needed someone that could sell and market the thing to help him figure it out. And I was like, sure, I'm in. And I failed on my responsibility at Petco.

And it's funny, I was actually my old manager's manager who was responsible for my promotion that was going to be my boss. I remember sitting, I just had this flashback because he's now done very well. And I was on his podcast a week ago and flashback to me meeting him at a diner in Pasadena to tell him that I was bailing like a month and a half before I was supposed to open a territory for him. And I'd already figured it out of like I was basically in San Luis Obispo, which is like central California. And the person just south of me and just north of me, I'd already told him like maybe you can merge. meet at San Jose Vispo or one of you take it over and I was like, I've got a plan. So I went to him with a plan, not just like, good luck, but he was still very pissed off. Rightfully.

So yeah, I went and helped start this storm. It was called stormwater maintenance company, built it for a summer. And that was really fun because like I had to figure out our legal work. I like copied an alarm company contract and made it our own to be a storm drain filtering contract and maintenance contract. And like I built our little website. I designed our business cards. I like did everything to get it started.

And then I helped make our first sale. And like one of my favorite parts of that looking back was, so we were going to property managers and saying like, it's now the law that you have to filter your storm drains. And if you don't, California will find you $70,000 per drain. Like actually a thing. The issue is no one was enforcing it. So it's like it's on paper somewhere,

but there's literally not an enforcement agency doing this. So there was not, you know, people like, that's nice. Like we got a lot of people turning us away. And I remember one guy, it was the gold's gym in us. Oxnard, whoever was the GM, chased us off the parking lot calling us con artists and never fucking come here again. We're just yelling at us and like screaming. Again, it's just getting that thick skin. That was when I was 20 years old and learning like, you know, nothing happened after that. Like it was okay. Like some people are going to be crazy. And so moved on,

but anyways, got to the end of the summer and was actually getting asked if I would drop out of school to finish this and, you know, debated it. I was like, maybe I should stay. We've built this business. It was, you know, on track to do some real revenue and I was 20 years old. It could be a big thing. I liked the idea of an unsexy business, but what I wasn't was passionate about that business. My business partner, the founder was a surfer, really cared about storm drain runoff problems and all the rashes he got in the ocean. Like it was, it meant something to him. And so I left it to him. I gave up my equity in it and said, you know, this has been a great learning experience. I'm going to go finish school. And he turned it into a two million dollar business. He made, turn it

to something real. I went back to school and then throughout the year trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And it was around February, I remember before I graduated. I was like, shit, I got to like pick a career here and ended up on the phone with a distant cousin who worked as a commercial real estate broker and kind of revitalized that passion that I had in high school and watching my dad and the people we worked with on that. And so I decided to join a commercial real estate firm coming out of college and I went and got my license and I started a week to the day before the entire banking industry collapsed in the United States in October 2008. So, yeah, worked in it for a year, made $350 that year living in L.A.

That was tough. And by the way, at this point, when I graduated college, I remember my mom was always, again, the confidence boost are always there for me. My parents split when I was like 15, but I went home to my mom's house the weekend. And she's like, hey, you know, I remember right when I got home, she's like, relax, hang out for the weekend, but, you know, like Monday, you should probably, you know, start packing your stuff up. Like, huh? Like, didn't think I had to, like, pack my, like, get rid of my stuff. She's like, you got to get out. So, started a apartment hunting. She, I grew up in, again,

a small town called Oh high by Santa Barbara. So I wanted, I knew I wanted to live in L.A. started looking and moved down to L.A. a couple weeks later. And, uh, yeah, I wanted to, so that was tough because I went into debt doing that. In about six months into real estate, I started going, I got to look for something else. And, uh, I don't know how long you want this story to be, but ended up launching my first online business at that point, which was an online music company that I ended up running after. So I started working on it six months into real estate. A year into real estate, I left and went full time on working on that music company, which I spent two years building, getting to profitability and then realized it was never going to be that big of a business and hired a friend to take over, or not a friend, sorry, hired someone to take over a CEO while I moved on to start the two e-com companies I built and sold. And then, uh, realized it was never going to be that big of a business and hired a friend to take over, or not a friend, sorry, hired someone to take over a CEO while I built and sold. And then. And then. And then. brings us back up to here yeah yeah yeah no love it love it so now that's some good context so you know it seems like that you know you had a taste of the experience of sales right you know you made a couple sales in the early years eight and nine and then and then again you start to do this thing you're

starting to create this ecom business when you're in eighth grade so you're getting some more experience right and all these little all these times you're doing these little ventures it's making deposits right into your skill set, into different things that would later help you, right? Because Cutco, you already had the confidence that you could sell. You turned a $5 scruffy looking dinosaur into $450. You know what I'm saying? And for everybody listening, you know, sales is about a part of its confidence, right? Because if you don't believe in you, the customer's definitely not going to believe in you.

Right. And if you don't believe in your product or your service, people can almost smell it. It's almost like a scent, right? And so those things, man, it sounds like they were huge in propelling you to each of the things that you got involved in, right? Doing the sales for your buddy. And man, business to business sales, it could be scary sometimes because I, too, have been chased off, you know, chased out of buildings or you get the cops called on you in the neighborhood

because you're canvassing. And, you know, I've had all those run-ins. And, you know, so what do you think it was that helped you? and this will help the audience, you know, develop some of that, that tough skin, right? Was it dad that kept just pushing you and saying, hey, man, just do it. Like, figure this out, you know? And then I know you like to be a practitioner, so it might have been just getting into it, you know? It's repetitions.

It's getting, and I've actually given this, but recently, like, cold calling, which is what I did in real estate. So I was, that's one thing I kind of skipped over. Like, even though the market was falling apart, I cold called my ass off for months, 200 calls a day, like just hammering it. And I thankfully had one friend that I made through at the firm. And the two of us were like the only positive guys in the entire office. Like everyone else was used to making tons of money and was just failing. The two of us, he was two years for, yeah, two years older than me and still a close friend of mine. And him and I would just like, cold call, cold call, had fun with it. We didn't care. We'd also prank call. Like, we were just having fun of like getting

rejected. And like you get to a point where it's like, he gives a shit. Like someone goes, don't ever call me again and hangs up. It's like, okay, next call. Like, you just move on. And when you get used to that, that'll serve you so much to stop caring what other people think not through rejection. Like that's the part that I think helps with sales is getting over that inhibition. Because that's the only part that stops people. You know, if you're if you've got a good product or service and you're not afraid to make that call, you have a little confidence about it, you'll make a sale. Now, not having, selling something shitty is tough. Don't get me wrong. But if you get past that hump,

then you actually sell a product or service that's great should have no problem. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because once you could you know once like you said you put the reps in you know once you can realize it's not personal you know they're not you know telling you know they're just saying no for whatever reason once you can right you know get over that and understand that no is equals next opportunity right it's not like a no it's just you know got another opportunity coming you know so because a lot of it's it mindset's key in sales right because you know the inner game truly does control the outer game right if we don't think we can do it we're definitely not going to i mean

I've been in that situation so many times when I didn't believe in something and I didn't make sales, right? But my head wasn't in the game. And it's also like, you know, you asked what did I learn about sales early on? It's like you don't need to be pushy either. Like demonstrate value, ask for the sale, but you don't need to be like, you know, selly. Like salesy doesn't go very far. People hate that, you know, in terms of the traditional sense of the word. So focus on, yeah, just presenting value.

And the one thing that people miss, honestly, a lot of times just then ask for the sales. sale like okay you're ready to go let's go that kind of thing yeah man so i want to hear because i know you've probably got a bunch of these and this would be cool for the audience to hear what was your favorite icebreaker you know as you went into a business or you were going to knock on a door you know because i know you probably you seem very intuitive to what's happening in your environment so you probably looked at cars and flat you know what i'm saying there's probably things that you did to build rapport so do you remember any of those things that you've done honestly i never forced it Because that's the part where I think gets too salesy.

If you start like, you throw a quick wit, kind of like thing about their car or something, I think that's where you actually get, you know, picked out. It's more just like, hey, how are you? Like the authentic genuine side is actually where people gravitate towards more from my experience. Like if you're being authentic about it too, you know, but, you know, it's when you start making titchy remarks,

which a lot of people, you know, get trained to do is when you, the person kind of rolls their eyes and you're going to actually have a harder time selling the exact same product. There you go. There you go. I love that perspective from it, right? Because I looked at it from the point of, hey, if I can relate to this person through this, then maybe it'll help ease the conversation, right? Versus. And that's natural. I remember I did that in my interview at Cutco, which I was like, oh, my manager's name was Mike Bell, which was also the name of the running back at U of A at the time. So I was still in college. And I was like, oh, you have the same name as our running back. And that, like, it's something subtle like that. Yep. But it's got to be super simple, subtle, like, not forced. So, like, I never looked around for something.

It was just more, I don't mind talking if you can't tell. And it was more just if something popped up, be like, cool sneakers. Like, just something like that, you know. 100%. Yep. Yeah. Anytime you can do that, man, it really shifts, right? You can almost feel the conversation shifting into a positive state because they're like,

wow, he paid attention, right? He paid attention to something that was important. me. And so let's talk about today, you know, you're up to a bunch of things. You've got, you know, the media side. There's so many areas that you're focusing on. You've got a show. You've interviewed some amazing people. So tell me, let's talk about it from the beginning and then really how it's evolved. Sure. So yeah, the beginning, as I mentioned, was really around just a frustration in the market. And I never thought I was going to build a big agency. It was about just serving that I had you know, eight, nine clients that I was advising for and I needed a team to help execute on what they

needed. And so that was literally how it started. And then right away, my clients were like, this is awesome. Yeah, I need this help and this help. And I was like, oh, this is working. And then we had done some good work. So our reputation got out and we started getting a bunch of referrals. And then all of a sudden, it was like, whoa, we have more work than this team can handle. Like, I need to hire someone. And so we hired another person. And then we hired another person. And then it just started to grow. It was, I mean, still to this day, it's, it's very, organic and reactive and not reactive in like an urgent way, but more like, hey, that doesn't seem to be working well. We should fix that. Or hey, we're going to need to do something right here.

We, the only time we've had major mistakes in our business is when we've tried to like plan ahead and like get ahead of growth and get ahead of and try to predict the future versus just being very direct with like, this is what's happening. Let's just double down on that. Like more learning from what I'm doing. And so yeah, I mean, at this point, I think I mentioned it, but we've grown organically, no outside capital we've got almost 200 people we've got we do have outside capital in our venture fund so that that's been fun and then we you know in octa or i guess mid last year my partner that runs the venture fund was like you know a lot of these companies are looking for capital but don't need dilutive capital that's going to take ownership of their company and those companies like clear bank and brex

and some of these guys that are out there but they're charging a you know credit card level rates, why can't we just build a, you know, partner with a bank and build a debt facility that allows these companies to take loans from us. So when they're earning three, four, five times their spend and advertising, we can give them a loan at six percent because rates are so low right now. So we built it. And we were able to do it within six months and launch in October. And so that's been a fun part too. And really like what's driven the company is I constantly try to hire good people to take over parts of the company that are becoming day to day. So I can focus on what's next. And it started with my business partner. You know, my business partner,

Tony came in to basically handle client relationships and manage clients and be the strategist for him. And within like two weeks, I remember he was like, Eric, just go out and grow this thing. I'll handle the day to day. Like I'll handle managing the team, making sure they do their shit. Because he had to kind of anyways because he was talking to the client. So if our email marketer didn't handle the emails they were supposed to do, he had to deal with the client being pissed off. So he's like, I'll just manage this. So he became our director of operations and he was managing that and quickly, uh, I forgot how quick it was, but I think it was in weeks. I started him on a rev share of what people were paying us for strategy. And then it became a profit share on the entire company very quickly because, yeah,

it was like, I think within a month because he was like, hey, I'm managing everyone. Like, I'd rather have a piece of everything, even if it's a smaller piece. So I'm like, great, but then you need to help me with cost too. So it's going to be profit share. It's given profit share. And then six months in, he's like, stop taking money out of the business. Keep it in the business. just giving equity. It's like, and I'm very not flipping about equity, but six months in, I really was comfortable, gave him equity. A year later, gave him a lot more equity and he's been my partner since. That's awesome. But it's allowed me to focus on growth while he focused on the day to day and what was happening in the business. And I've, we've replicated that in a way of

like every time there's something that we need that I start having a handle, I try to hire someone to take it off my plate. I love that. I love that. And so when you're thinking about or when you do outsource, Are there any particular places you're looking? Do you use certain sites or do it based on relationships you've built? Like what's your process there? So we actually don't outsource that often. It's mostly in the house.

I mean, our employees are full time. We do have like a few sort of virtual assistants in the Philippines and things like that. But we're generally doing everything ourselves. And don't get wrong. We partner with other vendors like we have an accounting firm and things like that. So in terms of our core service, when we're servicing others, that's our core competency. So we build that in-house. Awesome, awesome.

And so as far as your team's concern, are they global or are they nationwide? You know, where do they all live in? And prior to COVID, was your team, has your team always been remote? Or did you or do you have offices as well that you have folks that are in? So we had offices pre-COVID. And so we have a really big office in LA that we're getting rid of now. It was beautiful. We won a bunch of awards and got a bunch of press on it.

And we're in it just under a year before COVID hit. We have offices in Boston, New York, and Baltimore. We've got rid of Boston. We're getting rid of L.A. We're going to keep New York, I think. And then we told our team in July that we're going to just go remote and don't worry about being in an office because they've been remote since March. But like in terms of like we're not going to go back. to it. So don't worry about it. And now we're in 21 plus different states. So people are everywhere now.

It's kind of, it's actually been really fun because I was the naysayor. My business partner always wanted to go remote. And I was always like, you can't run this business remote. And I was wrong. It turns out it works just fine remote. Love it, man. Love it. Yeah. So, so what are what are, you know, a couple of the biggest lessons that you learned in 2020, you know, you know, operating your business and maybe personal grow, you know, just kind of all around things you learned. Yeah, number one, more than anything I've learned from myself, I've learned from watching other businesses, is when there's a crisis, you've got to run at it. You can't hide. You can't turtle. Like, that's what a lot of people did in March is like, oh, God, COVID, well, we're just going to freeze up and stop everything.

And those companies got crushed because, like, we watched, you know, 25% of our clients at the time freeze. Like, we're not going to spend anything. We've got to stop. And I don't know if any of them ever recovered, whereas the other 75%, our average client doubled their revenue in Q2 this year. because digital went so crazy. Commerce went so markers. So all these companies now fell completely behind. They can't get above water now because they stopped their lifeline, which is marketing.

And it's because they made decisions out of fear. The data was showing well. Like if you looked at sales March, April, May, like companies were selling really well. It was just the fear of watching too much news or something that stopped people from acting and doing things. And so that was the advice. I got, you know, we actually hosted a conference April 7th. where like I realize nobody has events to go to anymore. People are desperate to connect.

Let's do something. And it was literally three weeks at a quarantine. We threw this conference. We got Damon John to speak, Anthony Scaramucci, Dan Price, all these cool people. And pretty much every one of them was like, yeah, my advice is to make sure to run at this. I remember Scarmucci said in the mooch that he has a posted on his mirror that says, S-O-O, stay on offense. Always stay on offense.

Love it. It's hanging on his bathroom mirror. I don't know if that's actually true or metaphor, but he's, you know, that was a good piece of advice that I really learned through this. Another thing that made me so bullish on my company was there's a cliche in marketing that that's the first thing everyone cuts. Turns out in the past decade with digital, it's no longer viable. If you have a digital-based business, you cut marketing.

It's like putting a roadblock on the road to your store. Like, you're done. So you bet you're pretty much closing up shop. And so it's not as volatile of an industry. as it used to be, which gave me a lot of calm because I've spent seven years now growing this business and about six years into it, I still wasn't sure what happened in a recession. And no me wrong, I think that there's still a chance that in an actual recession, we'd shrink and there'd be some challenges, but it's not like it used to be where it just goes, bottoms out.

So that was another piece that was really calming to me. And the last one was just, it forced me and our whole business to just get way more efficient. We didn't lay anyone off for COVID. That wasn't part of it. But we cut everything else. We cut every other cost you possibly could. We realized how fat and bloated we had gotten. And we were able, our top line last year grew like 15%.

Our bottom line almost tripled to give you an idea. So like we were able to do, and that's without cutting people. So like we were able to really get buttoned up last year, even in COVID and figure out like how to operate our business much better. And so that was, yeah, those are really the three. biggest lessons from it. Actually, in four, I would say, our team really kicked us. Like, people, most people rise to the occasion. People need to be talked through it. People need every type of, you know, coaching that you would think. But, you know, we had a really good team going into this. It really made it better. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. When you have that support system,

when you have a well-oiled machine, right, everybody's bought in. Everybody's on the same, you know, on the same side of the field, right? They're playing together. Man, that makes a big difference. And that's really what, you know, 2020 was for me as well. You know, COVID happened and I got activated. So my role for the last eight years has been in training and development. So I designed content. I facilitate the content, deliver it.

And COVID hit in the company, you know, it's property management, right? So how do people come tour? They have to come face to face. So we had to pivot quick. And so I created, I created content real quick to teach our teams how to shoot. shoot video, create a YouTube channel, upload the content to be able to share the links with prospects. And then I was like, you know what, that's way too hard.

So, and then we taught them how to use Zoom to get the prospects on Zoom calls, walking them through the apartment. So they get out, you know what I'm saying? But like what you've done, Eric, your entire life based on this 40 minutes is you've pivoted. Yep. You already knew how to pivot because you've done it, right? So for you, I think it was easy. I think the part that you said earlier was you just didn't believe that it could be as efficient.

And then you're like, man, it was way more efficient than I thought. So yeah. And it's, you know, we had an easy time pivoting. Like we what we sent everyone home on March 13th and like March 16th that Monday was like, yeah, we already use Google Hangouts and Zoom for every client call. We already use Slack. We already use all these systems for remote because we have offices in multiple states and we had to and we have clients everywhere. It was like, this was easy.

Like, we had to learn a lot of culturally how to manage it, but frankly, we paid a lot of attention to that. And I think we actually came out and doing a good job because we cared on building that piece. But we were easy. We had it easy. My favorite story I saw through this and I've made become closer and closer with this guy, guy named Curtis Christophrison, who owns a chain of gyms across Canada. And on March 15th, that Sunday, I think they closed on March 13th. And then 15th, they actually ordered everyone to close.

They wanted to get ahead of it because they knew what was coming. And he had 20 gyms for 20 years that all of a sudden are like shut down. You can't operate. Like their revenue went to zero. There wasn't like a dip in revenue. It's just like what now? And within a few days, he launched a virtual training. And at this point has made millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Yeah. Having his people be virtual trainers and has completely launched a new revenue stream that when the gyms reopened, he'll reopen. But from the meantime, he's kept all his people working. He's kept the bills paid. And he's now building a business. may be way bigger than his 20-year-old business. And so, you know, I hear people that were like, well, COVID stop me from doing this.

It's like, it's you. It's not COVID. Like, don't you wrong. COVID's hard. But welcome to entrepreneurship. It's all hard. It's going to be something else later. It's going to be whether it's, you know, trade tariffs or strikes or natural disasters or

whatever the it is, your business is going to deal with shit. And if you don't understand that, you're fucked. And that's, and I don't mean to be insensitive, but even restaurants, I have friends with restaurants that are doing just fine because they did a really good job pivoting to delivery and digital and getting people to come on and doing you know promotional stuff and then you have restaurants that didn't change a thing that are like throwing their hands up they're like well COVID it's like nope like COVID made you forced you to change your business and you didn't change so yeah yeah it was so cool too to see it's how people pivoted so amazingly to to every payment sorts it's like you can pay me

with Venmo cash app you know PayPal like we don't care we'll just take your money however you can give it to us. You know, and the ones that said, oh, no, we only take credit card. Like, think about the business, the dollars that they left on the table by being so linear and in one-sided focus. Yeah. It's like those places, I've been, we, there's still places they're cash only. I don't, I don't know how many people carry that much cash on them anymore, but I've walked into places like that and been like, okay, I don't have any, so I guess, goodbye. Yeah, right. Nice. Nice. Nice thing. Yeah. Good job saving your credit card transaction fee, but you could have probably found a way to fix that.

Yeah. Good time. Absolutely. So as we're into 21 now, you know, I mean, you guys crushed it in 2020. So kudos for you. Kudos, shout out to your team. I know it's a big team effort. None of us can do this alone, man.

So what are some goals you have for 2021? And I'd like to really just find out what some of those are. And then are there any folks that you're looking for to get on your show, man? I know you've had some really amazing folks on there so far. Is there any names that you're like, man, I would love to really just hang with this person and get to know them better? I'd say, yeah, so for the first part of the question, really this year we got, we've kind of hit a new stride in the company because of how disciplined and how diligent we had to get being remote. We now have a very clear operational system in place. And so now it's scaling it.

And so I think this year is going to be a pretty good year of growth, top line and bottom line. But like, I think we're going to see some pretty massive growth because of how many things. were alleviated. We don't have to hire in New York, Boston, LA, or Baltimore anymore. We hire everywhere. Like, our talent is not a few anymore. You know, there's just a lot of things that have been alleviated by this that we can open up. So we're probably going to be scaling quite a bit. Our capital arm is still just in its nascent, but I think that's going to end up being a really big business. One thing I've learned through launching that, general motors, they're actually, most of their value comes from their financing arm, not their car company.

So I'm excited to see that because I'm already, we've already given out quite a few loans, a few million dollars in loans. And like, I'm seeing the companies benefit from it. And it's like, okay, this is going to be something potentially really big. So, and then our venture fund, we just had our first massive exit, or our first exit period, but it was a really big win. So that's off to the races. So I think like just honestly, it feels like the year of everything firing on all cylinders. You know, we really did a lot of prep work last year because we could, had nothing else to do. And now it's just let's go.

I'm hopefully coming out with my book either later this year or early 2021. We launched the podcast. We are watching the Brandies, which is going to be brand awards. You know, that's coming out in April. We're going to have our second year of e-commerce week, LA, will be in October. So got a lot on the sort of the trajectory for this year. And it's been fun kicking it off. The past week, the first week of the year has been already awesome.

So really excited for it's coming. In terms of who's on my podcast, that's kind of, that's kind of, why I launched the podcast was that a lot of really fun connections or like one degree of separation from people that I always wanted to spend some time with and never had an excuse to. It's just like, can I pick your brain if I buy a coffee doesn't really work with the most successful people in the world? But can I have you on my podcast if you've got a few other good names? So, you know, like, and so I've actually been able to get a lot of the people I want.

And it's been awesome. And even people I never thought of that have been able to spend some time with. I got two exciting ones coming up, Rob Deerdeck and Rachel Zoe. from interviewing both. Awesome. I'm a big fan of Rob Geardick. He's awesome. And I know, again, I know Rob actually posted our Hock Fest event was the keynote at one of

them. He's a dope guy, but I've never spent an hour with him just talking about it. Man, I just want to go to the Fantasy Factory and hang. You know what I'm saying? That place looks so amazing. Oh, yeah, totally vibe with that. So hearing his story is going to be fun. Rachel Zoe work with, but I've seen things.

I don't think I've actually worked with her for years, her team. I don't think I've ever spoken to her. So know each other. But yeah, so those are fun. But Richard Branson's up there. I'd love to hear his story. I read his bio and I'm not a voracious reader. But I was just always impressed with anybody that can achieve high levels of success and do it in a really fun way.

Rob Deer, it's one of those people. Richard Branson is obviously the extreme of that. That's what I admire. It's like, you know, I'm similar where it's like success is fun, but I want to go on adventures. I want to go, you know, mountain biking crazy places. I want to go snowboarding. I want to go heli-boating. like that's me too so I resonate with that and I just love learning from those people's stories so

he's probably the icon and opinion of that yeah I think when I really found out about him is when he did that reality show I don't know if you remember the reality show in this reality show and he invited people out this island and they did all you know all the crazy things that he likes to do and and people uh and it was like entrepreneurs and then they got money towards their company it was like actually the people that developed love sack I think were on that show And then LoveSack got funded through that. You know, so, I mean, what a, like, that's just type, it's a richer type of thing, you know? No, exactly.

Amazing experience. So, funny, just one thing that I've learned from his book that was just key is, like, all he does is he finds an industry he's really excited about. He finds the second highest level person in the industry that's not the CEO, but the CIO. He convinces them to start it with him, and he's got enough credibility not to do that. So, like, Virgin America was started with him and the CO of United. guy that knew of the entire business. C-O-Os are the ones operating. And so that's how he built a lot of his companies. And so that's always been, it's just a simple idea that's fascinating. It's just go grab the great person to bet on, be the brand and go. And so, yeah, just always admired it.

Well, I mean, you know, they, you hear that all the time, you know, you're the sum total of the five people you surround yourself with. So using that strategy, he's making, he's grabbing, you know, the person that could be probably the best, but not just not there. and then, yeah, adding value to each other. I mean, how beautiful is that? So that's cool. Well, this has been great, man, learning about, you know, your journey to where you are today. I know you guys are up to some big things this year.

I'll make sure that all of your info is down in the show notes for the audience. So they can go ahead and connect with you there. Any parting words or any other things you want to chat about before we depart, my friend? My parting words are always similar, which is really just whoever is listening that's trying to figure out what to do. just go for it. Like the biggest thing I've learned through my career so far is that no one's that smart that it's just people that just fucking did it. And so if you're trying to start something, you want to promotion, whatever it is,

go ask, try, do take responsibility for it. Don't get stuck in analysis, paralysis, or thinking too much. Like, just go for it. You won't regret it. You'll make mistakes along the way. But if you keep that mentality and it's not, you just go for it once, you'll end up at some level of success. Like that doesn't take that much intelligence to be.

be successful, really takes just going for it. I love that, man. Great advice. Action does create momentum, everybody. Right? If you start taking action, momentum will get created. It might look messy. It might be weird at first, but just put in those reps because Eric is a trailblazer.

He's put in those reps, and that's why he's realized the success. So kudos to you, my friend. Thanks for coming on the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast. I know this talk is going to add so much value to our listeners, and I know we'll be in contact here soon. Perfect. Thank you for having me.