Digital Social Hour - Building a Marketing Empire: Blake Wynn's Journey Through Family Legacy | Digital Social Hour #13

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get excited for this incredible episode of Digital Social Hour! Join me, your host, Sean Kelly, and my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, as we sit down with the legendary Blake Wynn. Talk about an inspiring journey - from a family legacy tied to the Wind resort in Las Vegas to become the mastermind behind the Enclave and Key marketing agency, which now works with over 650 NFL players!In this episode, we dive into Blake's early life and how his love for sneakers catapulted him into a thriving business on eBay and YouTube. It's not every day you meet someone who turns a passion into a million-dollar, million-follower empire! But it's not just about sneakers and YouTube fame – you'll hear how Blake's journey led him to create Enclave and Key, a powerhouse in the world of marketing that has attracted the attention of celebrities and professional athletes alike.Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn how Blake Wynn built a remarkable network around the concept of experience-driven marketing strategies. Trust us, the nuggets of wisdom shared in this episode could change the way you approach your own personal and professional endeavorsSo go ahead, hit that play button and join us on this epic journey with Blake Wynn – we promise, you won't want to miss a single moment of it! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm here with my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, and our guest today, Blake Wynn. I appreciate you having me. Of course. How are we doing? Oh, man, this is going to be fun. It's been way too long since I've seen you, so it's going to be nice to have a nice chat. Yeah, so you grew up in Vegas. Let's talk about how that was like. Yeah, so, you know, I'll say this.

I had a way different upbringing in Las Vegas than most people. You know, my family built the wind resort. So long before I was even a thought in my parents' minds, you know, my family was doing some amazing, amazing things here in town. And so when I was born from the time that I can remember, I've always had this, like this whole legacy to live up to that. A lot of people probably aren't, don't have from the time they're three or four years old. And so that's dictated a lot of my life ever since trying to uh you know when i was real real young i thought

man this could be a lot to live up to and i started my first business when i was 11 years old and then it hit me i said well i don't want to be in the hotel business so there's nothing for me to live up to i'm not going to go try and build a better building than steve ever built so now what i want to try and do is i want to build a bigger legacy than Steve ever built. Not, not in, not in knocking what he's done.

I think the world of what he's done, but in reference to the idea that I have no interest in just being the, like, Oh, that's his nephew. So you should do X, Y, or Z with him.

You know, I, if, if, if the day I die, someone says, you want to know something crazy about Blake? Steve, when was his uncle. That would be the win for me. And so since I was a little kid, that's dictated a lot of my life ever since. Wow. So yeah, you're under immense family

pressure from the success of your uncle. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, you know, it's in its own way. It's not really a pressure. No one's ever pushed me to be an entrepreneur besides Steve. None of them are entrepreneurs. You know, my dad was an operator for a while, you know, worked with Steve. My mom was originally a doctor of pharmacy before I was born. And, and, uh, when my parents got divorced, when I was like 10, I ended up being raised more so by my mom. And so she learned how to be an options trader. So she's done that for the last, you know, 10, 12 years. I was about the same time I started my business. So it came naturally to me. It's what I've always wanted to do. But, but the big thing in our family is whatever you're going to do, you got to be the best at it.

You know, my brother tried being a pro golfer at one point. And I remember my family sat him down and says, you can't be a pro golfer because you can't beat Tiger. And you're not going to be a pro golfer if you can't be the best. You know, and that's the kind of pressure and that's the kind of mindset my family has. Wow. When you started off, did you want to be the best with a sneaker trader? Or did you take a passion that you just figured out a way you can make money on? You know, I think that is the beauty of being

raised the way that I was is money's never really been much of a motivator to me, if I'm being completely honest. For me, I did always want to be the best at it. I had a passion for sneakers. And so that was a little bit different. It was also at a time where my life changed very dramatically. I'll be honest, you know, I grew up in a 15,000 square foot house. There was nothing my parents would have said no to. I mean, it was the most unbelievable way to grow up. When my family got divorced, I ended up being raised by my mom.

She got truthfully nothing. And so literally moved out of the 15,000 square foot house and actually lived in a hotel room at the Red Rock because Fertitta's a good family friend for about a year while she learned how to options trades. She could start making some money again. And, you know, and I started the sneaker business around the same time because it went from, hey, can I have an iPad shirt to all of a sudden? Hey, like you were going to have like McDonald's.

We're going to have ramen tonight. Like literally that was how on its head my entire life changed. And so originally it was kind of, OK, maybe we'll make a little bit of money. But more so, I was really into sneakers. And I didn't feel like there was any experience with it. You know, when you bought a pair of sneakers on the internet back then, remember, no stock X, no go, those things didn't exist till 2016 17. So when you bought sneakers on eBay, there was no personal relationship that you build with the seller or the rather the buyers, if you were the seller, there was there was none of that interaction. And so my thinking was, if I can come up with a way where there's going to be interaction here, I'll be the best at this.

I looked at it as well. Like for as big of a market as this is the competition to separate yourself as the best is non-existent because everyone just does it the exact same way. And so I was like, yeah, I'm 11. But literally, I'm like, so what? So what the guys that are 30 do it the same way as me at 11, same way as a dude who's maybe 78 that's doing it. So what's the difference what the ages or anything else? And so I cracked the code on that in 2016. And look, I mean, I did well selling on eBay, you know, I was top rated and stuff like that. And I had these little things I did where, you know, I'd handwrite a personal note to them. And I can't imagine what these adults that got a handwritten note from a 12 year old, thank you for buying my sneakers.

I hate to admit this, but it's not actually my parents eBay. It's my eBay. I mean, people are probably like, what is this? And they throw it away. But in 2016, we cracked the code. I had one person working with me, an assistant, the same assistant from the time I was 14 till I was 21 years old. And her and I cracked the code. We basically said, what if we start a YouTube channel where we showcase these sneakers and we make it an experience to buy it?

Because now you're not just buying a sneaker, but you're buying a sneaker that I'm showing you a video of. So you don't have to just judge the quality or whatever based on the pictures. And at the same time, if it can get viewership, well, next thing you know,

you're your own marketing platform. And, and, and mind you, this is 2016. So, you know, summer of 17 is really when the Logan and Jake Paul and all that took off on eBay, like, or excuse me on YouTube. So really the biggest thing was like Casey Neistat, at least to me, I don't know if you guys know Casey Neistat. So Casey was just, this world-class vlogger. And I thought to myself, what if you mixed sneakers with vlogging? It had never been done before. You know, like they had channels like Nice Kicks that would go and they would go visit, you know, some big A or B list celebrity and have them show off their sneaker closet. You'd have complex sneaker shopping wasn't even out yet. But when that just started at that time, same thing. They just take celebrity, they shop, that's it. What if you had someone every day, straight to the face,

Casey Neistat style vlogging, but the subject matter is sneakers, men's fashion, et cetera. And at the same time, have it come from a person who looks identical to the demographic. I was 16 years old at the time. That's the demo, right? You had people like these nice kicks and stuff with George Kiel, not knocking these people, but you know, these guys are 30 years old and, and they have tons

of money, but the market is that 14 to 21 year old that's watching the YouTube. So why not take the totally different approach? And we were right on the money with that. 45 days in, I had 10,000 subscribers. Six months after that, 100,000. Went on my first tour a year to the day after starting the channel. Met over 1,000 people in each city in 25 cities. Wow.

And ended up with over a million followers across socials in the two and a half years that I did that. And so it totally worked. I ended up stopping the reselling because it was a much better business just being an influencer and kind of creating the lane there. But, yeah. That's amazing. Sneakers hold their value pretty well, right? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to make up numbers about sneakers as an asset class. You know, they're not I would say I would say this, look, they're not it's not artwork and it's not watches, but it's the artwork and watches for the people that can't afford artwork and watches. You know, I mean, if you if you're an art collector and you want a piece, it's going to appreciate you need a Picasso, you know, Warhol, you know, art collector and you want a piece that's going to appreciate you need a picasso you need a warhol you need a mona i mean you need a piece that costs

like millions if not high six figures right right now if you're a sneaker collector and you buy perfect example i mean when the uh when the off-white jordan one chicago came out that day you could have walked into urban necessities i'm not knocking their prices i'm not saying they're overpriced but you could have walked walked into a prominent resale store and paid $1,200, $1,300 for that pair of shoes. Today, two years later on StockX, they're worth $8,000, $9,000 brand new. Wow. Red Octobers.

I'll give you a perfect example. I bought, I had a pair of Red Octobers. I just sold because it's one of those things, how do you not? I bought them for $2,900, worn once in 2016 on a YouTube video. And I sold them last year. Truthfully, I don't want to say beat2,900 worn once in 2016 on a YouTube video. And I sold them last year. Truthfully, I don't want to say beat up, but worn, worn, worn a lot for, I think, $6,900. Wow. Because one of those things that the sought after products do well.

I mean, relatively speaking as well, the percentage return you can get is pretty massive, right? I mean, if a shoe that goes from 200 bucks $240, that's a pretty substantial return. I mean, look at bonds, look at T-bills, look at interest rate. I mean, look at all these different things. 20% is a big return you can all of a sudden get. Yeah, you just got the Lamellos and they went up like right away. Yeah, I bought like the 40 Lamellos like a couple years ago when they came out. I got them right off of StockX right away.

I wore them a bunch because I wear my shoes. And I checked later. They're like $400 or $500 now. And I feel like shoes are one of the things where if you never wear them, if you never use them, a lot like other stuff, they always go up in value. Especially if it's an iconic brand, Nike, Jordan, you know, a Bape drop or something like that. Like if you don't use them them they almost always go up in value yeah well yeah it's not going to appreciate if you wear it there's there's there's i could count on my fingers the shoes that appreciate if you wear it air mags nike yeezys off-white

jord ones and they don't appreciate because you wore it but they'll continue to appreciate if worn that's more so my point but um yeah i mean you know the thing about it is is the the item needs a story as long as the item has a story it's going to go out and that's no different with art watches shoes etc right that lamello's going up because lamello's playing well and they remember man i remember when he was 18 years old and it was weird seeing him in a hornet's uniform and next thing you know he's wearing the shoe and now i've got the shoe that he wore in that first game and and that's the story behind it's why the lebron 10 championship edition when he wins that second title with the heat that shoe still to this day holds a two

thousand dollar price point but no one really cared about the season they were in the bubble and all that stuff so his championship shoes from that year are you know they're they're nike lebrons they're worth 200 bucks the same that they were worth when they first came out the story isn't there the story let's dive in your marketing agency, Enclave. Yeah. You work with some huge clients like the Chargers. How did this all happen? You know what? My life is a story of just one entrepreneurial journey

turning into another one. And it was honestly, Enclave is V2 of my YouTube channel, if that makes sense. And so what happened was, is I was the face of channel, if that makes sense. And so what happened was, is I was the face of StockX from 2016, 2018. I worked with Champs, Foot Locker, Adidas, Lululemon, Amazon. I mean, you name it. If they sold shoes, they probably sponsored my YouTube channel because I was one of the biggest in that space. And so by the time it was ready for me to go to college,

I went to Fordham in New York. I had about 4,000 pairs of shoes. My mom says to me, you're not keeping this in the house. There's no way. You know, I turned, we had an extra room in the house at the time. My mom ended up doing very well for herself. So we had a nice place and I had this extra room racks, the ceiling of shoes. She says, you have two months, like get it out. So, you know, I started selling it and it's, it's whatever, but I didn't pay for this stuff. I mean, literally imagine being a senior in high school, you come home on a Tuesday and there's nine boxes at your door. That was, that was three 65 for two years of my life. Wow. And so, I mean, it got to the point, I literally, I wouldn't open some of the shipping boxes, not out of not caring. I just like literally like I had homework. I had the film, I had to edit, I did all that stuff myself. So it went on a shelf

and that was the end of it. So finally said you know what i grew up with diehard sports fan if i'm not gonna be able to sell through all these and i'm not why don't i just give them to people and so i logged one of my buddies into the instagram account that i had now and i'm verified stuff like that so people see the messages a little easier yeah dm'd every single active nfl player said if you want shoes let me know your address and i got you let me know your size and address i got you a lot of players didn't respond but about 300 players responded about 20 of the league and some of those guys became good friends i graduated high school like i said that same summer and pac-man jones flew me and one of my buddies down to atlantis in the bahamas we spent two weeks

yeah he's funny oh he's good people uh known him a long time and he's still one of our athletes to this day um you know but there's just there's so many stories like that where i built relationships with these guys and one of them in particular was a chargers linebacker named hayes pillard and uh i was a global i'm still am a global brand ambassador for the chargers since 2016 like you said they're one of our big clients and that actually started from a place of actually interned for them when i was in high school and during that internship hayes and I got real close. And what was so serendipitous, if you will, in the context of timing is the week I get to Fordham University,

I hated it. I thought to myself, I undid everything I worked for. Now I'm in college sitting next to all these kids and I'm like, nothing against the kids, but I'm like, you know, they didn't spend the last eight years of their life doing business. They didn't sacrifice prom, homecoming, all these different things like I did to be able to be a position where I would not be sitting in a dorm right now. And I am. So I wasn't happy. And sure

enough, I get a FaceTime call from Hayes and we talked every day and he says, he won't believe us. I just got a little hurt in practice. He did something to his knee and I got cut. And he'd been in the league six, six and a half years at this point. I said, okay, well don't worry about it. You know, you've got money. He says, well, you know, if you wouldn't mind, can you connect me some of your sponsors? Because I would love to be able to work with some of those brands and, you know, makes money off the field, whatever. Sure. No problem. So I make a whole bunch of calls just cause I knew the CMOs and these

different people. Cause I, you know, I was a big part of the marketing plan. So, Hey, got this guy, Hayes party. Yeah, sure. No problem. All right, great. Made him probably 30,000 bucks in a month. And then he plan. I said, hey, got this guy Hayes Pardee. Yeah, sure. No problem. All right, great. Made him probably 30,000 bucks in a month. And then he says, hey, you know, and he went to USC, which is a big time football school. So he says to me, you know, my teammates are pretty much all-stars in the NFL. Antoine Woods, who's a defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys. TJ McDonald, who's a safety for the Miami Dolphins. Nelson Aguilar, all these different guys that he was teammates with in college. Can you get them brand deals? One at a time I like onboarded them and I didn't take anything.

I didn't mind doing it because I was infatuated by ADO being around these football guys. Hit me a week later, B-Win Sports, I'll take 20% and this will be my business. I have all these brand contacts. I know how to build more. I know how to negotiate these deals and how to structure them to where it's favorable for both sides. So why not do that? And so we started that business. That was the model for the first year. And after the first year, I realized we had the right concept, the wrong model.

We became a full service marketing agency predicated on experience building, leveraging talent, celebrities, et cetera, and then supporting it with press, with know with pr yeah with uh with social media management with ad spend with all the other things that go into marketing a business and so for the last four years enclave and key has been uh you know a marketing agency that serves clients like you know louis trez and remy martin all the way to body armor haritos wow uh sneaker companies you know we do a lot of sneaker business because I still have those contacts there. And we work with over 650 NFL guys. We got about a third of the NFL now that we work with. Jeez, you must be the biggest for the NFL though.

We are the biggest for the NFL. We work with about 2000 celebrities in total. Holy crap. You know, counting TikTokers, musicians, you know, you go down the list. Yeah, so in fact, one stands out and I'll give him a shout out to andre drummond he and i built a fantastic relationship and the last piece of what enclave has done which is something that i've had

just such joy doing these last uh see probably 18 months now two years is we have like a small venture arm of our business where we do angel deals and if we do a deal i bring it to a handful of guys that i know are savvy and like to get involved in different things. And so, uh, we own a good piece of a company called trade block, which is big in this space. Now you can trade sneakers amongst, uh, you know, your fellow sneaker head community.

You guys should check it out. If you've never checked it out, it's an unbelievable platform, uh, breakaway music festival. It's kind of a nationwide music festival. I do 15 of them a year with big headliners, uh,

who be to Lincoln bio tool for top talent. Yes. We were, we were seed investors in that. And so people like Andre Drummond who become close, why not do as much as you can for these guys? So we actually brought Andre Drummond in on most of these deals. He's an investor in all those companies I just named. Uh, you know, and it's, and that's, what's been a lot of fun is really getting to do a different level of business with these guys that most people don't care to even try and do because we're not looking at it like well how can i make money off of andre drummond investing in hubie i look at it like i'm gonna invest in hubie because hubie is a winning company and i got a whole bunch of friends who are also winners that i would like to

be involved in a win like this so let's get them involved you know and uh it's been an absolute blast we have a whole bunch of athletes that do that with us but andre kind of started basketball for us that's sick and shout out to andre drummond he actually owns a chibi dino does he really he owns yeah he owns one of the nfts yeah that's amazing i love that yeah he's a oh man is he a savvy entrepreneur i wish i could i wish i could say some of the stuff i know that he's invested in over the years because man has he done well but uh just the as amazing of a mindset as anybody, you know what I mean? He, he says, you know, I'm playing basketball because it opens the door. I mean, and to you and I, it's like, yeah, well, any, any pro athlete, it opens the door

at their pro athlete. Well, Andre is one of probably 15 out of the 700 athletes that we work with or athletes I've ever met that have ever said something as simple as that. They don't register it that way. More often than not. Austin Eckler, same thing as savvy as they come yeah you know it's not to knock anybody else but but andre is excited about the idea of doing business austin eckler is excited about the idea of doing business a lot of guys they're excited about playing football they're excited about where they're going to go vacation the off season they're excited about

training they're excited about trying to be the best receiver you know whatever it is yeah andre is a beast man he was averaging 20 boards a game for a few years right oh yeah like crazy stats yeah he's in detroit yeah he's in chicago now in fact i think he's still starting yeah he's still getting a lot of minutes for a lot of minutes at least i don't know if he's starting on a regular basis he's getting a lot of playing time for them right now uh they he got jokingly got put on shacked in a fool uh a couple weeks ago. But it was all love. And honestly, I think he's going to be around for even a little longer than people think. He's always stayed in great shape.

Well, I'll tell you this. I mean, if he gets it his way, he'll play until he's 40. I asked him, I said, how many years do you think you've got left? I asked him this this past offseason. He says, man, ideally 8 to 10. I said, what? I feel like centers don't make it to 40. No.

Never. Like, I can't think of any. Did Shaq hit 40? But he was washed by then. Yeah, he hit pretty old. He't make it to 40. No. Never. Like, I can't think of any. Did Shaq hit 40? But he was washed by then. Yeah, he hit pretty old. He definitely didn't hit 40. But I do feel like big men age better than, like, your Russell Westbrooks and your guys who rely on speed and quickness. Yeah.

Right? Because you can bang down low a lot longer than you can, you know, get up like John Morant's getting up right now. Yeah. Well, and, you know, and from a personality perspective, I mean, look at a guy like Udonis Haslam. I mean, Drummond could be one of those kinds of guys, one of those real great kind of player slash leader slash coach roles. You know what I mean? I mean, he's just – yeah, I couldn't say enough good things about him.

I was upset when the Lakers got rid of him. Yeah. Well, I mean, that team is a revolving door. It is. They're looking decent now, to be honest. Yeah. Have you seen them the past few games? Yeah. No, I mean, they're is a revolving door. It is. They're looking decent now, to be honest. Yeah. Have you seen them in the past few games? Yeah, no, I mean, they're fighting for that playoff spot.

And, you know, I mean, it's interesting. It's like LeBron is so dominant. I mean, I personally think he's definitely the greatest basketball player of all time. I think Jordan's a bigger legend. I think LeBron's a better basketball player. But, you know, in any case, it just goes to show you, I mean, the NBA has a great, great future ahead with all these young stars. That's why we're getting into it.

You know, honestly, to me, my opinion was the NBA was getting a little stale. When Katie went to Warriors, it was a stale league. I couldn't even watch. Right. I mean, a lot of people. I mean, look at the viewership numbers. It speaks for itself.

I mean, they got cut by serious percentages. If you could own any sports team or league, what would you pick? Well, I mean, that'd be by serious percentages. If you could own any sports team or league, what would you pick? Well, I mean, that'd be pretty wild to own the NFL. I would like to own the Chargers. You know, I've grown up a diehard fan. It's a pleasure to get to do business with them, get to know, you know, other guys. But yeah, there'd be nothing like owning the Chargers.

So you were a fan when they were in San Diego? Oh, yeah. Since I was six years old, first game I ever watched was Patriots-Chargers AFC Championship the year the Patriots were undefeated. I walked in San Diego. Oh yeah, since I was six years old, first game I ever watched was Patriots Chargers AFC Championship the year the Patriots were undefeated. I walked in the room, my dad said, sit down Blake, I'm going to explain sports betting to you. I was six years old and we're watching at the house and he says, I got Patriots minus eight. I'm like,

so what does that mean? The Patriots need to win, but they need to win by eight points. And I was kind of, you know, I'm six years old and I'm like, alright, go Chargers. And literally since that day I just Chargers. And I grew to love them with Damianiel thomason was like a childhood hero of mine antonio gates philip rivers i mean that that eric wettle i mean that was just such a fantastic team and yeah now i mean it's it's it's gotten to be fun because now we run like their game day experience stuff so it's it's it's amazing so you work with retired athletes too yeah so well you know

interestingly a lot of the athletes that we work with that are retired were not retired when we started working with them um some some were but a very very small percentage were and honestly there's a whole echelon of companies that are perfect for retired guys that can't even cater to the current guy like i'll give you an example like um you look at these sports betting companies right you look at like caesar sportsbook like they're probably david tyree's biggest sponsor the guy who made the helmet catch but at the same time if you're an active player i mean you can't touch that with a two-foot pole you'll get suspended i mean look what happened calvin ridley i mean he bet on his own team thousand bucks and he had to sit out an entire year cost him 15 16 million bucks geez um so you know you got companies like that companies

that aren't nsf certified right so that is So there's a barrier to entry there with the NFL. Doesn't exist necessarily with Donovan McNabb 10 years later, you know? Interesting. Yeah. So what's your goal with Enclave? Do you want to sell the company, grow it, hand it down to your kids? I used to always want to sell it. You know, I was definitely building a company that was designed to be able to scale and sell by year five to seven.

And we have absolutely done that I ended up deciding instead to do a small round of raising just because there were some creative initiatives I wanted to add to it. And interestingly, Enclave currently is a marketing agency, because I think that's the set of services that we can do that are most valuable to potential clients. But Enclave is just a network of the world's best and brightest that come to us for different opportunities, a lot of which revolve around experiences and potentially investing in some of these different things like that. But I just think Enclave is the perfect canvas and vehicle to allow someone like myself at 23 to walk in any room with anybody and have something

convincing to say, you know, like, a lot of people, you know, ask me different questions about my uncle and stuff like that. And I don't, and I don't, and I don't mind it. I mean, he's a big part of my story, the fact that, and you know, he and I are very close nowadays and it's, which is nice. And, you know, he brought me to his 81st birthday two weeks ago, or now about a month ago in Palm beach. And we sit down and it's this table full of, I'm sitting right between Tomas Petterfie, who is the CEO of Interactive Brokers. He's in the top 50 on the Forbes 400. And the guy right here is Mehmet Oz. Dr. Oz, who obviously just lost one of the biggest Senate races in recent history. And I'm sitting there and Steve says,

you guys got to hear the story my nephew's got to tell. He's got the gene. Listen to this. And it's this table of 14 people. And I'm like, oh, shit. And I share just the story, kind of how I'm sharing with you guys. And what I couldn't truthfully believe was the level

at which these people were kind of captivated by. Like they're like interjecting, wait, wait. So, so, so Hayes ended up retiring and now he's your business partner. Like,

yeah, I can't believe you care about that. You know? And it's, it's one of those things where I'm like, wow, well, you know,

I mean, if these kinds of people are fascinated by what we're doing, we're doing the right kind of thing. And I don't want to sell that because I'm not sure that I could build something again that will rival that. And I've already built something that does do that. So yeah, I think this will be a enclave is now definitely more than ever. Something I look at is like my life's work. Yeah. It's an interesting intersection with celebrities and rich people. Some of them get

really like impressed when you hang out with celebrities and known people. I've noticed that too. Yeah. Well, you know, and, and, and the interesting thing is, is they each want to be each other in a lot of cases. I mean, don't get me wrong. Well, you know, and, and, and the interesting thing is, is they each want to be each other in a lot of cases. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like someone like Steve, it's like, he's 81. Like, he's like, I don't want to be a celebrity. And he's just different, totally different mindset. And he is a celebrity, but you know, you take like, you take these athletes like Austin

Eckler, we got a fun event for him this Friday here in town. He says to me, he says, I want to get all these business guys there. And I go to the business guys and I say, Hey, you want to go to dinner with Austin Eckler? Oh yeah. You know? And it's, it's this interesting dichotomy of like, they both just, everyone wants a piece of some, some of each other, you know? And it's, and it's really, it's neat to see. That's crazy, dude. The first few years I knew you, I didn't know you were related to the Wynn Hotel. Really? Yeah. You know, I mean, I've always tried to hide it. I mean, now I'm hiding it a little bit less just from the standpoint that I know how to embrace this part of my story more.

You know, I think what it is for me personally is I didn't feel like I and don't get me wrong. I haven't done what Steve's done, but I I personally look at it like and it's not even about me. Enclave has the resources and the foundation to really do something special that rivals what he's done. And that is something that I've I feel like is true in the last two years, I would say. And until that point, I hated bringing it up because as soon as I brought it up, it's like, oh, like, you know, it's his nephew, it's this, it's this. Now I don't mind bringing it up because I'm like, you're gonna have to play these clips in 60 years when all of a sudden it's stacked like this and it's something interesting to look at. That's awesome. So do companies like CAA and UTA see you as competition? I would say so. I mean, the stack of cease and desist CAA

sent us over the years would certainly suggest that. We're getting spicy. No, I tell you, I mean, we have partnerships with almost every major agency, Octagon, Wasserman, Wilhelmina, all those, we work, we overlap talent, we do a lot of work together because we don't monetize on the talent, right? The brands are our clients. So if you're CAA, let's say, and they represent Jalen Green and we represent, you know, like I'll give you an exact example. I don't care what they think. So Essentia Water, right?

They're a company we do some work with. And I got Jalen Green and Essentia Water right before the draft because Jalen came to me and says, hey, I'm signing with CAA. But until I'm drafted, it doesn't really take effect. So I can do a deal with you guys. And I didn't care because my thing is, is you tell me you want X amount of money, I'll give it to you. We don't take a percentage. Essentia has to pay us a retainer to work with us. So it doesn't matter. So that's why most agencies are so quick to partner with us. Talent agencies, football agencies, whatever it may be. CAA is the one exception. They want

everything to be done by them. So we set up the essential deal for Jalen only to get a cease and desist the next day. Like he's not doing this deal. He's not doing it with you guys. I'm like, well, that's like Jalen. I don't know why you had me do this, but like, no, no, you know, no problem. And so, but yeah, I mean,

I don't look at them as competition and I don't think that they should look at us as competition. I think they do because from a outside looking in perspective, they look, you look at an agency that's got a ton of big talent roster. They do a lot of experiences and they're, they're growing faster than you are. It's one of those things you might look at. But like I said, we have a way different business. Marketing is our business because that's what we can do the best right now. But our business is putting together a room of 50 people that are the best and brightest and, and being a part of what comes from it you know being a part of building a business that someone's

fundraising for uh you know uh advancing an initiative that an athlete might have you know austin eckler people don't know this he taught himself how to build apps and so he's built his own app in the off season and so we're trying to get involved in that you know and so austin's become a really close friend and he lives here in the off seasons and stuff to connect you guys. He'd love to do this. Yeah. You know, it's just one of those things like how do you come into a room and provide value? CA doesn't look at it and go, how do I come into a room and provide value?

CA looks at it and says, this is our roster. This is what we do. This is the end product. Here are our numbers. You know, so I just think our approach is so different. They shouldn't look at us as competition. Absolutely. Charlielie i think we found our guy to lend us our first sponsor for the podcast so a thousand percent yeah no i i absolutely would be happy to i mean you guys i see the numbers on your instagram and stuff i mean it's it's great and you know i think

more than anything companies just want to do something that is more engaging than like i call it the bang energy approach we had nothing to do with that so more engaging than like, I call it the bang energy approach. We had nothing to do with that. So I don't feel bad saying it, but you know, it's one of those things where there's nothing wrong with the approach they took. But when you're talking about that, right. I mean, sure. It's not an approach that Enclave would ever take.

But you know, it's, it's one of those things you just, you want to figure out how to get creatively involved with a guy. So I'll give you a perfect example. Louis Trez, like I said, it's a big client of ours you know 10 10 000 bottles of alcohol so they come in and we have an event like uh like austin and austin eckler dinner they want to cater to the ultra high net worth everyone at that dinner is ultra high net worth so they come to that dinner and they have one of their guys from cognac come in and they explain the richness of the hundred year process and the aging and all these different things. And next thing you know, that integration is a marketing campaign for them.

And they're not doing it for the sake of reaching 18 million impressions and that they had personal interaction with 50 people who could easily be clients of theirs. And that is as flawless of a marketing strategy as they could possibly employ. Right. And that's the kind of thing that we can do. That's why I say C8 has a compete with that ca would have them pay them a huge amount of money and have serena williams stand there and hold the bottle up like she's on the super bowl commercial that's not as effective well and it's and it's a you know it's a different strategy of marketing but but yeah i mean we're definitely into the experience here's just more intimate there's nothing more powerful than putting a bunch of bright minds in one room in my opinion i mean

yeah and you're working more with the companies themselves whereas you know you do represent the players and the influencers the athletes everybody but your focus is on the companies and doing what's best for the companies which is going to lead to the you know the most longevity for enclave and for you to have more repeat customers more influencers because if we're all going to be honest there's going to be another batch of influencers in another 10 years oh man every year in and out You know, it's the same thing with like the athletes, right? Like we have to be so proactive about getting rookies because we're going to have 10 guys retire every year, you know, and the guys are retired.

Don't get me wrong. There's still a whole place for them in Enclave, but we still have to keep those next folks in. Right. So how do you go about getting more clients? Is it word of mouth? Is it paid ads? We've never ran any ads.

To date, we've spent $0 on advertising of any kind for us as a business. But in its own way, we have in the sense that, you know, having, you know, Hayes and I and our partnership is fantastic because it's like, you've got a guy who spent seven years in the NFL. Everyone knows who he is. You know, we throw big events at Super Bowl weeks and stuff like that. So we get, and those things, I suppose, are in their own way, their marketing initiatives,

but we're doing those on behalf of clients. It's just that if you're in this business, right? And you say, oh, this is an enclave event, for certain people that means something because that means there's gonna be a level of experience, right? Like these aren't just like dinners, like, hey, come together and have dinner. Like I'll give you an example because this isn't going to air by

friday so austin won't see this we have every time eckler scores he does his famous little air guitar celebration he's like he leads the league in touchdowns last two years straight wow right scored 40 touchdowns in the last two seasons holy uh in 30 games and so uh he scores he does the air guitar celebration so one of our clients happens to be a guitar company, Martin Kelly, or Michael Kelly, excuse me. And so Michael Kelly is sending this gorgeous guitar that we're giving Austin at this dinner. And it's like, that's the kind of way that we do marketing. You know, it's meant to be intimate,

but it's meant to be impactful. It's meant to be thoughtful. And it's meant to be something that CA doesn't offer you that. CA is not going to offer you an opportunity, an intimate 50 person setting of movers and shakers in a particular community. Say, here's this gift and here's the meaning behind it. Here's some explanation. And then, by the way, at an event like this, we have five or six major media outlets, whole livings of the world, luxury lifestyles of the world, et cetera, come out and cover the event. So the event ends up getting 30, 40 million, in some cases, impressions on the back end

because of everywhere it's getting posted and stuff like that. And it's like, that's where you get your marketing. But that piece of video content's different. It's not Austin staying there with the guitar. You know what I mean? It's, oh my God, he's gifted and the whole thing. And it's an experience, right?

Everything that we do is driven by experience, intimacy, and value. If it doesn't check one of those three boxes, it's not something that Enclave had its hand in. Wow. I love that. There's not many agencies that would do that, honestly. There's none that I can think of. I mean, who would you say is anybody else doing anything close? And actually, we don't want to give them a shout out. No, no, look, I don't mind. I mean, you know what it is? I don't really think that we're an agency in the way that we really do business. I think it's an easy label to kind of tack on things. Cause when you think

about age, the amount of times you're gonna have fun with someone and you're your marketing agency, oh crap. It's like a negative. Here comes a loss, right? Here comes a tax write off. It's not like going to a charity. It's going to like any, you know, like that's literally how people view agencies. Um, there's people that are like that. And there's P and truthfully, the reason that we're like that is because I've learned from people like that. That's why I don't mind chatting them out. Jordan Greenfield, who's the founder of Hubie, he's 30 years old and one of the most phenomenal networkers I've ever met in my entire life. Gordy Gronkowski, the oldest Gronkowski brother. No one walks in a room and makes everyone feel more special than this guy.

I mean, he walks in a room. I made a joke earlier. He's here in town now. A waiter will come up and say, what would you like to eat? And he'll say, whoa, slow down. What's your name? Guy or girl? He's not flirting. I mean, he just, he values people that way. And that's how he communicates, you know? And so witnessing all that, I'm like, okay, well take these things that work really well and are just the right way to live and spin them into a business and scale it out across the foundation that we have.

And that's really what we've done. I love that. So how big's the company right now? I mean, we're an eight-figure business. We have 22 people on our team. You know, I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, coming up on five years, I never thought it's, it's one of those things that, you know, coming up on, on five years, I never thought it's necessarily where we were going to be at this point. It's

going a little faster than I thought. But at the same time, I mean, it's growing very, very quickly, you know, because those first two and a half years was all the seeding of the relationship, stuff like that. So as much as, I don't know if those numbers sound small or big or whatever. I mean, we are an agency, so staff doesn't typically get too out of hand with a business like that. But I mean, we had six people in the beginning of 2021, you know, so most of the growth has really happened in the last two years. I love how you built it. It's through solid relationships, you just providing value and culture. Yeah, great idea. Yeah, culture is huge. You know, that's like our secret sauce. You know, um, that's, that's like our secret sauce. You know, we do something once a week called storytelling where everyone tells

a story of how they went above and beyond to do something for a client that isn't even a service that we offer. So next thing you know, you got a room full of people that are just telling stories about what they've done to advance your business that you're not paying them to do that. You didn't give them that idea. They're intelligent, they're motivated. And their vision is to be a part of something no different than my vision is to be a part of something. This isn't my thing. This really is a team thing. Hayes is a business partner of mine. Brock's a business partner of mine.

Our investors are business partners. And so there's a lot more to this than just me. But everybody is just doing so much to advance it as if it was their business that all of a sudden i mean this thing is that's why it's changing so much the last two years of having 15 20 people that look at it that way it's like whoa sick uh let's end it where we started what are your favorite sneakers to wear these days oh man comfortable because uh uh days are long so i like air forces i'm getting into the dunks they're kind of they're kind of getting popular now um but only certain colors some of them are real kind of wacky with like

the patent leathers and stuff like that like i just can't pull stuff like that off so i like the more simple dunks like i actually liked the pandas until they became like the shoe that you see like literally everywhere um let's see uh you know what i'll be honest i am jewish i won't wear yeezys anymore i got i got rid of all my pairs wow uh i can't do it i the only i'll be i'll take it back i have one pair of the nike yeezys still okay uh that i honestly just haven't thought about selling yet but besides that i i got rid of it i gave the adidas ones away sold sold the Nike ones. But yeah, no, off-white Air Forces, I think, are the prettiest looking shoe.

It's hard for me, too, at this point in my life. I've gotten into collecting different things. I collect history. That's a big thing that Buster Cher got me into. Oh, the coins? Not coins specifically. I have a little bit of a coin collection but just different pieces of history right uh like i got like just recently i got a uh the script from the pilot episode of a show called blacklist which is one of my favorite shows on netflix with james spader or megan boone i got megan's personal script from the pilot episode that she signed like i like to track

down things that have neat stories behind it i'm an an art collector, so I have a handful of paintings. So now it's like I don't want to spend $2,000 on a shoe. I'd rather save up for a year and then go get it. You already have 4,000 shoes. No, nowadays, no. I have a few hundred still, but no, I've definitely gotten rid of most of it. And I don't wear them. I only wear the same six, seven shoes every day.

I collect some weird stuff too. I have a suitcase of old president's hair. No kidding. I actually find that like really cool so it's like a mystery box so you don't know which president you're gonna get but it's labeled though yeah you don't just have like a box of hair it's just no no it's labeled you open it and then you don't know who you're gonna get that's pretty cool this will be cool for my clip i'm like such a history buff like i just found uh someone just told me this the other day and i thought it was so interesting what a sense of irony history has listen to this so july 4th 1776 obviously day america is founded right uh declaration of independence signed thomas jefferson and john adams johnny hancock all those different people 50 years to the day july 4th, 1826, John Adams is on his deathbed. And in the last hour of his life,

he tells someone, and this is like a popularly recorded thing that he says, he says, at least the world still has Thomas. And he dies. Four hours later, Thomas Jefferson dies also on July 4th, 1826, 50 years to the day, almost to the minute of America becoming a country, two of the most influenced people in it died in the same day. I just like this stuff like that, that I'm like, I want to collect stuff like that. Like sneakers only go so far, right? Like I understand the history with Jordan and certain games and flu game and 12s. Like I get that. But to me, it's like, I just think there's a different magnitude of history behind, you know, presidents and things like that. And so I've been really, really into that.

I feel that. I love it. Well, any closing thoughts and where people can find you? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Blake underscore win. I know a lot of entrepreneurs watch this. So favorite piece of advice I've ever gotten in my life. I went to someone I really respect and I said to him, I said, you know, I'm thinking about fundraising for my business. This is before we decided to do it. And he says, why? I said,

well, cause right now all my eggs are in one basket. He says to me, he says, and I said, you know, the world says you shouldn't do that and everything like that. He says, well, you can keep all your eggs in one basket, but if you do watch the damn basket and like that piece of advice totally changed the music. You know what? You're right. You can do that, right? Like, and at the same time too, you can just keep adding eggs to your basket. You're your basket

and you can add lots of eggs to it. And it was just like the best piece of advice I've ever gotten. I love that. That's awesome. All right, guys, you heard it there. That's your episode, Digital Social Hour.

I'll see you guys next week.