Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Fame Engineering and Brand Positioning with Valor Media

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode on The Radcast! In this episode, host Ryan Alford discusses the importance of brand development with PR extraordinaire, Michael Valor.Today’s guest is Michael Valor, CEO of Valor Media and host of Overly Positive Podcast. Valor Media tackles personal branding initiatives, excels in their client’s Instagram growth, and more.In this episode, Ryan and Michael discuss:Fame engineeringBrand positioningPersonal branding as supported by real pressThe importance of Instagram engagementYou can learn more about Valor Media and Michael Valor by visiting his personal and business Instagram accounts: @valormarketing @themichaelvalor @theoverlypodcastIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and share the word if you love our podcast, so we can keep giving you the strategies to achieve radical marketing results! You can follow us on Instagram @the.rad.cast | @radical_results | @ryanalford | If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford. Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I am joined today by a fellow advertising, marketing, PR, you name it, add the hyperbole, the badass that is Michael Valor.

He is the CEO of Valor Valor Media. I love Valor, by the way, Jesus. It's like one or more perfect name for marketing and media. But Michael, what's up, brother? What's going on, guys? How's it going? How are you? Hey, man.

We're living the dream here at Radical and here in our podcast studio. And, you know, I'm just excited to talk to you. Been good getting to know you over the last couple years. I'm excited. Yeah. Is there have been a better, been a better named podcast for Michael Valor than the fucking radcast? When you get an invite and you're being, it says come to the radcast, it's like perfect. Perfect.

There was some strategy in the naming. Obviously, our agency is radical, so it fit right in. But I was like, it's going to be real hard as we're growing this thing. And now, you know, we've got a pretty good following. And, you know, I wouldn't say we've made it, but it's getting easier with guests. But at the beginning, you know, who doesn't want to be on the radcast? Right, right. It feels free.

It feels free. I love it. Yes, yes, yes. So it's been great getting to know you the last couple of years and appreciate your assistance with some of my personal brain. and some of the things that we've done for a PR perspective, have been watching you grow and really take Valor Media to new heights. You work with you at Hans and others on the team. But let's talk about Michael.

I mean, let's just start. Let's give everybody a little perspective, you know, where we'll give them the background, the ones and two. So tell us a little bit about Michael Valor. In business, since I could remember. I mean, my first and foremost, it's like, as you can tell probably automatically. even if this the first time you've ever seen me talk and you're watching the radcast, I talk, you know.

I'm from New Jersey. I'm from New Jersey. That tang to me. I got some Italian blood going on. So it's like always been a little bit rambunctious is probably the best way. So, you know, the traditional public schooling system of the, wasn't my best friend. It wasn't loving me, you know. It was a lot of stop talking, sit down, you know.

and I'm great at talking and standing up. Wasn't really rewarding my gifts. You were that kid in my class, weren't you? I was. People wanted to get class with me because you knew it was about to be fun. I wake up like this. I wake up like this. It's a blessing and a curse, you know?

You come out in the morning and people are like, dude, are you always like that? And it's like, yeah, hi. So it's crazy. And we got started. I was 18 in business. Two guys came into my business class, just randomly in high school. I mean, this is old school stuff, right? And they put a sheet and they were like, we're going to train you guys on how to start a business.

And we're just a bunch of kids. You know, I'm thinking this is a group activity. I'm looking at a partner with my friends. Maybe we get a good grade, you know, whatever. And, dude, it changed my life. I mean, that one was 17 probably when that happened. And it was just like you could start a business. You can just start a business.

You can just go out and start a business. And that blew me away. Like you could just start a business. You could just, you know, whatever you say is real in business, you know, a festival, you know what I mean? But like whatever you say is real. And so I just started realizing that and like that you could just go out and make things and create things and build things.

And I was naturally pretty good at sales. I moved down to North Carolina from New Jersey, which was a culture shock, as I'm sure you can, you know. What's up with the South? I love the South now. I've been here a while. And yeah, I mean, I'm just this loud kid from New Jersey. And it was like, okay, really good at sales.

I learned a little bit about business. And I was sitting there in a coffee shop. And I was talking to Hans. He's my partner. And I was just sitting there talking to Hans. And this lady was overhearing me in the coffee shop. She's just hearing me talk. And she was like, turned around.

She's like, do you want a job, young man? And I'm 17. Yes, please. hire me. I'm just saying yes. I'm just like, yes, I do. And she actually ran the local newspaper of Wake Forest, North Carolina, outside of Raleigh. And she was looking for a newspaper ads salesman.

Okay. All right. And so I didn't know anything about this, but it sounded official. Especially if it had the at the beginning of it. If it had the beginning of it, it was definitely official. Way better, way better than the Pizza Hut, man. So I'm like, yes, I want to. this job for sure. Didn't realize how hard it was about to be because it's newspaper ads.

And, but, you know, 10 years, like nine years ago, 10 years ago, I mean, that was still reasonable. Small businesses were still spending money on newspaper ads. Talk about something, the dinosaur that is newspaper now. But yes, then it was having spent my time growing in the ad agency business, sitting thousands of newspaper ads out, you know, at one time, it was the cash cow of advertising right they had budgets for it but this is a time as well i mean this is 10 years ago so it's like instagram's barely a thing if anything at all i mean it's like it's like an artistic platform at best uh facebook is young people are thinking social media as a fad this is within our decade which every time by the way i bring that up it blows my mind that blows my mind you know

like 10 years ago i used to sit down with business owners and i was pitching them to get into a newspaper and they were selling ice cream and I will sell how much ice cream does this guy got to sell to recap any amount of investment from this newspaper ad this small block that that cost $2,000 in the week weekly so that's where we got started um I did phenomenal I did phenomenal I did really well I built a lot of good relationships there was a lot of cold calling a lot of cold knocking, just walking into businesses, and just beat my face against the payment, really. But that teaches you a lot.

That cold calling, I think everyone should have to go through that. You know, whether you're an introvert or extrovert, obviously you're more of an extrovert, so you're good at it. It suits your personality. But I feel like that really, like, it gets you ready for business, like having to have those discussions, having to understand and kind of just put yourself out there. I think everybody should go through that. The good thing about it, and this is what I always say is it makes you bulletproof.

You know what I'm saying? You go sit down with the business. You're about to get shot. And after a while, you're like, okay, pass that up. And then you get shot over here. And you're like, oh, pass that up. And you get shot over here. Like, they're asking the hard questions because it's money.

And the money matters. And especially in the small business space, in the small business space as I was. But, I mean, that's where we were started. And so the every hundred dollars matters. $500 is a big expense. That's money out of their kids' mouths. or food out of money they better not be don't anybody put money in your kid's mouth yeah that i mean dude it really came down to it

like it actually affected families so it was like i'm selling newspaper ads they don't work you know what i mean they and uh the readership wasn't there and it's just like i'm building awesome relationships all these small business owners sitting across the desk from them pitching them on a newspaper ad telling them how important advertising is and they're losing money about it. And that's when I made a decision. I was 18 at this time. I was doing well. I was doing well for myself. I mean, we increased the revenue by a couple thousand percent. I mean, they didn't have a sales force prior to. So I'm pushing $2,000, $5,000 packages once or twice a week. You know, you know, I'm bringing in decent revenue for the wake weekly. You know what I mean?

Yeah. This is good revenue for them. So yeah, and I just started feeling bad about it. I went to my mentor at the time, who was my math teacher. He changed my life on business books, uh, self development. He kind of introduced me to that whole thing at 18 pivotable time for me. I mean, that was huge. I needed that. And I went to him and I was like, hey, I'm quitting the job. And he was like, what? You're quitting the job? And I'm like, yeah, I'm about to quit. He was like, Mike, that's unreasonable. People were like, that's unreasonable. My family wasn't wealthy. Like, nobody was making big money. Like for me to even be making $50,000 a year salary as a 17, 18, year old like hell yeah like that's great you know that was like that was like big time i had a button down

i thought i was legit you know and uh all my friends were like wow he's like a manager of a newspaper you know like they think that so i went in i was like i want to live an unreasonable life reasonable decisions my decisions cannot be reasonable i can't always make reasonable decisions if i want to be what i want to be and i definitely want to be that you know what i'm saying And I knew, like Napoleon Hill is a really big influence, you know. That was like one of my first big books, yeah? And he says, you want to have a burning desire. That's like step number one.

And I'm like, I've already got the burning part down. Now we just got to make it a desire. Yeah. Your boy's on fire, you know? And so just got to make it a desire and get very clear by what I wanted. And so I ended up quitting that job and starting my first marketing company called average Joe promo at 18. And that's where we are. And it has just evolved and grown and built.

And it's like a megazoid from Power Rangers. It's a beast now. You know, it's arguably, I would say, in the top 20, maybe top 10, PR marketing celebrity firms in the country. Work with the biggest guys. Yeah. It's awesome. And now we're a recognized name from Average Joe promo LLC.

We used to build website pages on businesses on Weibley. back in the day, you know? This is nine years ago. Host their links and get them like little backlinks and social signals. I was pretty big into SEO back then. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's where we got rolling. Love it.

Well, you know, a couple things there. They do say that growth and comfort do not coexist. Sounds like you kind of lived and breathe that, making that transition. You know, people always look at you. They're like, what the hell are you doing? But, you know, if you want to take a leap, if you want to get to you want to go, it isn't always going to be comfortable. No, it's uncomfortable.

And the thing, it's uncomfortable. I mean, it has to be. Like, I wake up this morning and I've been gone, you know, I've been in Miami. I've been, I've been traveling. We were in L.A. We were in Las Vegas. I was with you recently. Yeah.

We had T.O. Torell Owens. We had Wolf of Wall Street. We had Bradley. We've got more coming up. So I've been on the road. I wake up today. And like, most people would be like, okay, it's Monday. Like, cross nice and slow, you know.

And for me, it's like battle time, baby, you know, let me behind the desk and start sending me some problems. I run an agency, right? So it's like, I got finance problems. We've got operations problems. We've got marketing problems with, you know, some branding problems, infrastructure problems, sales problems, you know? And I just, I mean, that's part of being a business owner, right? It's just solving these issues all day. And they just get slapped in your face over and over again.

And I love it. And I love that part of it. Let's talk a little bit, Michael, about, you know, some. of the core of what you guys do and maybe talk about some of the trends in PR and influencing and all of those things. It's just become so hyper-reported as people are trying to build their personal brands and they aren't naturally or currently a celebrity, you know, how they leverage that. But talk about some of those core services that you guys are providing that you see trends and things that that were needed in the marketplace. Let's talk a little bit about that.

Okay. So we're at this point now where social media is a must you can't avoid it you need the profiles you need them to look good they cannot be shitty you cannot you cannot hire a random college intern anymore for 400 you know and have them running your show like that's what the thing we're transitioning out of that because that's what business owners are like thinking okay well i'll just hire like my my niece and she's going to come in and you know um if you're building a big business of any sort you need thought leadership you need brand positioning. And we call that fame engineering, impact marketing and fame engineering.

And so we've kind of coined that term. I'll use one of my clients as an example. Johnny's pizza. Okay. Johnny's pizza. Local pizza joint. You would say, you would say, why does this guy need to be famous? He's a local piece.

He should be spending money on paid ads. He should be spending money on SEO. He should be spending money on better landing pages, right? Like what? Maybe some mailers, direct mail. What does he spending money on that turns him an ROI? And I sit down with this guy, three or four goes to show you like how well we've done. If you're a marketing company and you're working with a guy for four years, what's up?

He was like, I know you can grow social media platforms. At this point, I'm like 17,000 followers. Yeah, but I'm just big in Raleigh, North Carolina. 17,000 was a lot that. It's like I'm a micro influencer. And so he sits down with me and I was like, listen, you don't want to just run. a local pizzeria. It's not just that for you.

You want to be the pizzeria. You want to be positioned as the legendary pizzeria. The one that people take their family to when they're in town. Hey, you've got to try this place. It's famous. And a lot of times with the restaurant industry, that's positioning over a long term, right? It takes years, decades.

Oh, this place has been here since 1892 or something crazy like that, you know? Everybody goes here. the local shindig. This is the spot. I like the familiarity. So you've got to know like trust funnel. I got to know the business. I got to like the business. I got to trust the business. I want to add a step to that. I want them to adore the business. I want them to, I want them to that brand ethos. I want them to feel an experience that the pizzeria is legendary. How do we do that? We frame some of the language. We start to create content that nobody else is doing. And then we take, okay?

And so what that is for us, and this is always our process when we work with people, whether it's a small business and you want to do individual targeting and try to pull in local customers or you want to frame yourself long term and we're building a brand for in longevity. You go number one, how many followers do you have? And then every business owner, this is where, oh, I hear this every single day, you know? It's like, well, I want followers that turn into money. Oh, yeah.

That's what they say every time, every time you talk to them. Well, if my followers aren't buying anything from me, then what's the good of a follower? And I'm like, Kylie Jenner's followers are all not buying from 200 million followers. But Kylie Jenner is getting paid a million dollars to post on Instagram one time. You know what I'm saying? If you look at the best of anybody in your space, what are plumbing, I don't care if you are, in a boating company. I don't care if you've got a painting.

I don't care if it's pizza. There is a peak. And there are people who are at that peak. They are managing their social media well. They are investing in it. They're spending time on it. They're making it clean, clear, and under control. They're building it up.

So my first step is always to get you to 100,000 followers. For the local businesses, you go, maybe 10, 20, 30. you know what I mean but really the main identity here is how can we get a lot of people buzzing about this business how do we do that a lot of people a lot of people on every i want every view i can get and then we start to look for okay credibility so now it's like all right let's say personal brand because that's something i specialize in okay personal brand comes to me a thousand maybe maybe 10,000, something like that. I say, okay, step one, let's get you more followers.

So we'll get you on a growth plan. There's a lot of ways to grow right now. There's a lot. You have a DM method where, I don't know if you've seen this, but like they take thousands of child accounts and they can sweep an entire state or a hashtag and just DM everybody. And that's good. It's pretty targeted, but it's expensive.

Look at it this way. You've got it. You've got to scale. Obviously, the lower the quality of follower, the cheaper it's going to follow the follower, the more expensive, it's going to be. The following the follower, the more expensive it's going to be all the way down to like, let's run paid ads and try to get your followers that way. But you're about to dole out some cash. You know what I mean?

So whatever your ratio is budget wise and however long and however aggressive you want out of followers, we can make that plan for you. All the way down to I could target your sister who is at a restaurant down the street. I can get her. But you're paying for those. You know what I mean? And it's harder. It takes longer. You got to inter relationships.

and do follow and follow and talk to them and get them in the DMs and send them the right stuff and right so we take care of the growth now you're growing for whatever degree that is then i say okay now we want you that's the next that's the next big thing and that's the question man i'm telling you nobody knows how to do it it's always changing it's been changing for eight years i've been doing this the blue check is infamous everyone wants the blue check no it everyone's questioning it's it's hilarious It's hilarious. It's actually, I feel bad because it's an industry.

It's its own product and industry by itself, the blue check. I mean, that has made me so, so many people. We've walked hundreds of celebrities through the process of, okay, you got to get some press. Yeah. You know, that verification badge is huge. We got to get some press. We got to Google index that press. We might need a Google knowledge.

We might need an IMDB. Well, I don't know what we're going to need. You know what I'm saying? And it's not up to me. I'm not the judge maker there, you know? And it keeps changing. But, and I'm sure you can attest to this, can change your business. Your response rate goes up 30, 40, 50%, maybe more.

You know what I'm saying? If you comment on a famous person's post and you are verified, get ready to get some, if you apply that $1.80 strategy from Gary V, right, where you're commenting on people's posts in your niche. Okay. You run whatever type of business, a medical spa. I don't know. And you start commenting on other medical spa post.

verified and you have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousand followers. You're about to get some responses, brother. You know what I'm saying? And that's when people look at you and then now you're credible and now they want to do business and they want to interact. Cool. So that brings me to. So now you're verified. You have hundreds of thousand followers, whatever.

You look clean. You look like a good profile. This is all on Instagram first, first and foremost. Facebook's awesome. It builds a really close tight-knit community. Build groups on there. It's great to interact and have hand-to-hand touches. But where's the social credibility there?

Because you could just boost your posts if you really want more views. You know what I'm saying? So Instagram is your Instagram. That's your mainstay right now. And that could change. But that's right now, it's currently, that's your web page. That's where people go first. Okay.

And you better have your highlights set up right and your highlight. We do all this for you, you know. Yeah. So now you're verified. You got 100,000 followers. We go to step three. Now we want to start interacting and collaborating with people in your space. So personal brand comes to me and they're in the fitness space.

We reach out for them and we'll start setting up collapse in the fitness space, one after another. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy. You know?

And guess what? They want to work with you. They want to work with you now. You are somebody to them. You apply them value. And that's the thing. People are so crazy to me. They're like, well, why don't I just reach out to them now?

It's like from a place of weakness instead of a point of leverage. Yep. But that's what it is, though. I mean, everything you're talking about is that attention. And that's why, you know, literally, I mean, we created. t-shirts says attention is currency like and that's what people don't understand it's like this isn't about being famous to be famous this is about famous for activating business and currency monetization through whatever you do whether that's you know a psychologist or a you know truck guy

I mean that's what's crazy is like people don't understand like you said like this is Is it like, oh, I just want to be famous, you know, like, and I know every 15 year old now wants to be famous. But as a business, though, it's just this is about having leverage because when you have attention, you have leverage, period. It's a must. It's a must. It's a play the game. You're about to be on the platforms. Other people are in your space and they're doing it and they're killing it.

Why are you not? And you can make it look like you're killing it real quick. And when you are, it's like you look like you're killing it real quick. You are killing it real quick. Because now you've collabed with everybody in your space. You've networked with them. You don't even know what comes from that. You know what I'm saying?

Like some people I've set up with, like I'll introduce them to Jordan Bell for Wolf of Wall Street. We're all from dropping bombs. They start shaking hands. They start talking about their problems. Now there's a name to the face. People know each other. It builds a community. You know?

Like there's. value, there's value in meeting those people, but they don't even want to meet you until you have value. The way that you do is when you walk in like a big boss with the blue check, 100,000 followers and kick ass content. They're like this guy, I could take this guy seriously now. You know what I'm saying? And that's fame engineering brand positioning. And the bigger you are, this is interesting. I love Bradley. Okay. He's, he's, he's, where I would consider us friends. I like the guy a lot. I love how he does business. Um, I love being around him, his energy. he's contagious.

He's one of the best. Let me be clear about this. One of the best framers and positioners of his brand. Okay. You walk up to him and you feel so. You're like, this guy's cool. Like this guy, he's got it down. You know, he's got it down.

You want to work with him. You trust him automatically. You know, he's only got three. What is it? You know, he's not a celebrity. Yeah. He holds himself like that. And I got to commend him for it.

It's huge because it really does change the game. People give him stuff. I've watched it just because of who he is. And that's the thing. And so the next question is, okay, now we're collaborating with all these people. Okay. And they're in your space. And then everyone comes out and they're like, well, I don't do content.

I don't know how to do content. I don't know how to get on on camera and make content. Like, how do you make content for your space? Are you specialized? Like, when you're collabbing, you're making, content automatically. It's like the Gary V thing, like document don't create. You know?

I tell people, my clients, you sit in front, write me, just a couple of topics, things you know about, things that if I asked you, you would say, oh, it's this, this, this, this, because everybody's got a specialty. You wake up and if you get out of bed, if you get out of bed, you got a specialty. Well, I don't care if you're just getting out of bed of making toast. That you making toast, you're good at making toast. now. How many times do you've done that? You know? So all these people got jobs and they got a specialty. And so I just say put a camera on, get yourself a little mic and let's write down some

topics and you talk about it. You send it to us. We'll cut it, we'll clip it, we'll make it cool, and then we'll throw it up there. Okay. And it just, it just rocks. I mean, it just rocks. Now it's in and then like step four. And what is step four? Now it's like, okay, they got a big account. it's verified the account has value okay they've collabed with just about anybody in their space they know all those people they got tips tricks that works all from that then we say okay who do we want to target to bring you to the next level grant cardone did this why do you think he had john travolta why do you think he has kevin hart on 10 you know what i'm saying it's positioning he's rubbing shoulders with celebrities.

He's big now. There are guys, there are guys that I have worked with and talked to that have portfolio close enough to the size of Grant Cardone, if not bigger. And they are not respected nearly as much. And it's because of the positioning that Grant has put into his brand. You want to respect to him. He is idolized. And it gives him so much more opportunity.

Obviously, real estate in investing is his thing. I'm sure that's his bread and butter. It's always going to stay the center path for him. But he's got leverage to go beyond Bravo. He's got leverage to go be, you know, billionaire behind the scenes, whatever it was. But he has leveraged, undercover billionaire. Like, billionaire something, you know. But it does.

But he's got leverage to choose his paths. He's not stuck in one lane. It gives you that because even the networks, like Discovery Channel approaches this guy and says, okay, we got to put, he's got a personality, you know, he's got this big brand. He's worked with celebrities, you know, and it comes back down to fame engineering. How do you position your brand to the point where people want to come to you? And eventually, where you're so big, sometimes my clients, like, they're so big after a while of just working with me that it's just like they don't need like who why do they need me you don't need me

to to you know to get introduced to big guys anymore you're you're a big guy people are trying I've had that like we're clients like we're paying for podcast placements we're paying for TV slots they're paying for Forbes and entrepreneur and we've done the fame engineering we've built their content infrastructure and I helped them with the brand the media and I and I don't know how scalable it is I don't even know if I want to scale it you know I like the fact that it's super boutique and everybody I work with gets best friend customer service. That's huge on an agency scale. It's like you could text your best friend at 11 p.m. on Sunday, a brand new idea or something.

We'll work it out. We're going to work it out together. You know, I'm your best friend. You know what I mean? I got you back. It's like that. So keep that door open when I'm working with a client. It's like best friend customer service.

You can talk to me at any time. We're going to consult. I am rocking with you on this. This isn't just buy a product from a 1-800 number. We're about to meet people when you work with me. You're about to shake some hands. We're about to connect. We're going to build a relationship.

And I have, for the last decade, kept my ear to the ground on whatever product comes out to the market. It changes. That's the thing. Business owners don't have the time, especially if they're making cash, especially if you're making a bunch of money and you're doing well and you got this big organization, what are you going to do? You're staying on top of all the new products that hit the market. One's got a new marketing gym jam scheme thing that they've got out. My job is to beat those guys down, test them, volumize that price to nothing, and then charge my clients and work with them

every step of the way. Step, step, step, step, step. Every time something new comes out, they hear about it. they get it first, you know? And then they're like, okay, like, Mike, what's my next step? What can I do, Valor? And I'm like, next step, I would do this. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. I'll write it down for you. I'll get into your email.

Come on. Like, who's doing that? You know what I'm saying? Because people are so obsessed with building this large, our business is weird. Because when you build an agency, unless you're doing, and I know, I know about this. It's like some of the marketers who are like just dollar for market. dollar for market you know it's like r oi or why that's fine you could scale that but it's a it's a dead horse i mean it's just a big fat dead horse it's the clients only care about the kPI

that's all the matters yeah you know and to me there is so lifeless and my business i feel like mimics the leader business is always mimic the leader the culture how people are handled amendment's the leader and for me i'm not a lifeless guy obviously and i like the connection i like the connection i like the warmth i like hand holding and walking them through it i like building something when a thousand followers and they really would love to meet bradley or or jordan belford or grant cardone or whatever you know yeah and uh or the miami he or the ufc we've gotten to work with which was so awesome um or NFL players whatever are lifetime accomplishments for some of these people.

They did well in business, sure, but they would have never met a Hall of Fame NBA player. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And now their kids, their kids are like, oh, my God, your auntie, that's awesome. Love it, man. Talking with Michael Valor, CEO of Valor Media at the Michael Valor.

He is the Michael Valor on Instagram. So Michael, talk a little bit. Like, I'm getting to this point now, You know, I've been in marketing for 20 years, but I actually am coming to this point of recognition that PR might be your first tactic. I mean, like, and I think that's what we're talking about. Public relations is so broad now where your personal branding, you have all this press. But an earned media sounds a little disingenuous because you do have to pay to play with some of this stuff. But PR is just, it's like it might be step one.

If you are successful in business and you're doing well, it is step one. Like, if you're already doing well, because people aren't coming to me, typically struggling to get their next bill. You know what I'm saying? Because then it's like, go focus on your sales force, you know, go make it easier for customers buy from you. I need a higher revenue count. You know, you need to be doing well.

Yeah. You know, but there are ways to work with me at like $300 a month sometimes. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they get the same attention of someone who's spending.

spends a hundred grand a month with me, which happens often. So it's like, I really try to like, it just, it's just pay to play for how fast you want. People always say earned funny. It's like earned media. But like when you pay to meet the wolf of Wall Street, that shit's earned. Chunk of change. Yes. When you talk to them and to connect with them, you get a, you get another level of service from them a lot of times.

you know, like there's a level of accountability there that is really important. You're legit. And that's important as well. When you're paying, they know you're legit. And they know that they want to work with you and they know that you do well in business. So they should try to connect with you to. And the networking aspect of it has made some of my clients hundreds of thousands of them. Well, you want to be talking with these guys.

I mean, they're there and where they're at for a reason. These are the guys you want to be rubbing shoulders with. You know, like, this is, this is the influence you want to be having. This is the discussions. This is just, you know, it's funny. Like you see certain quotes and, you know, like sometimes it's like, all right, I'm kind of over that. But the error in the conversation is just different. It just is, you know.

Having recently been on Brad Lee's podcast sitting out of the table with Brad, it's just a different conversation. Yeah. Well, they're winners. They're winners. How do you think they got there? They did this. They did fame engineering already. That's the only reason we're talking about them right now.

That's why it works. People are like, oh, I want to be like Grant Cardone. I want to be like Bradley. I want to be like Dave Meltzer. I want to be like Lewis Howes. I want to be like, whatever. They already did this. They've been doing it for 10 years.

You know, they've been doing the fame engineering before. It's just not what they called it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Ty Lopez fame engineered when he came out with that YouTube ad, I'm here in my garage. That was fame engineering. then. You know what I'm saying? He had he had rented that huge mansion. He rented

whatever. You know, he's paying 30,000 a month for this shit. It's crazy. You know what I mean? Why? Name engineering. It was credibility, but now it's Ty Lopez. Now it's Ty Lopez. And that's what people need to understand and get to. It's like, I mean, imagine how much money Greg Cardone has, has dropped trying to make 10x the position, the brand position that it is. You know what blows me away, to be honest with you. Big companies don't do it. No. AT&T,

you know what, you know if a Fortune 500 threw a budget at me, I'd make their fucking headspin. Sorry. Yeah. You want to throw a Fortune 500 budget at me? I'll boot's ridiculous.

It'll be ridiculous. You'll be everywhere. It's called omnipotence. I mean, you've got every celebrity under the sun making creative content left and right. And everyone's like, oh,

I've been hearing about KFC because they're popping off on TikTok because KF3 is throwing these influences five. KFC, five grand you know what is what is 10 grand to kFC and and how much from now market cap are they getting the the influence in in the millennials in gen z by attacking you've got all of these other marketing departments just millions hundreds of millions of dollars and they're just sitting in these

offices just talking about nothing it's like what are you guys discussing no they're so big they're so big they can't move. They're so big. And I've used this analogy a lot lately, like from Swingers the movie when Vince Fawn's talking to his buddy, they got these fangs and you don't know what to do. You're batting around the bunny. And you don't even know what to do because they're, they're so big and they're so slow and they think they've gotten better. They're still putting 30 second TVs on social media. And they're like, all right, I want to have a, let's have a micro influencer plan. And they're like batting around the bunny when they've got these claws and not figuring out like how to do this shit.

It's just like, what are they doing? It's like, and I worked with a lot of them like 10 years ago. And I was just like, I got so tired of it. Now I like working with small to medium business better because, you know, we can, we can move marketing at the speed of now, you know, not yesterday. You can move the needle. You can pivot a business when it's when it's that size. And there are faults of going super fast.

I'm not saying that you want to be, you know, but I'm saying at the same time, it's like, dude, with the budget, the deal. these guys have, they could just dominate. They could dominate. Like, why is there not a Coca-Cola podcast? Why aren't they having celebrities on it? Why aren't the Coca-Cola chat? You know, like, if Coke hit me up with a budget of any kind, it's game over. It's game over. People are going to talk about it. No problem, you know? And so I think the big race right now is how can big companies like that, ease up on the reins, give it to a small agency

that can fucking kick ass and just go out there and slam it against the in a really cool way. And that's impact marketing. That's why I love that. I'm all about it. You know? And it's just like really dominate

every single piece of content creation for an organization. You started a podcast. Me and you were talking about this. Yeah. Yep. Now you got a bunch of, a bunch of clients,

revenue, extra business opportunities from the podcast. I have a podcast. I talk about Legos. I talk about Legos. I talk about, you know, and I still get business from it. I'm sitting here for an hour and a half talking about, it has nothing to do with Valor Media. You know what I'm saying? I'm talking about the Lion King. That has nothing to do with Valor Media. But I get business from it. People are like, oh, and this guy like, he makes content, he builds a brand. And, but they get to know you. you before they have to work before working with you. Like, that's what people understand is you, you've softened the beachhead before you attack.

Like, you don't even have to attack. They're like, they're laying their guns down before you even come on to the beach because they're like, man, we just gave you a hug. We want to work with you. You know, I like this guy. No, like trust. No like trust. No like trust.

Every day. You know, you got me. Then you like me. You're like, wow, this guy's kind of cool. He's a nice guy. He's smiling. He's having a good time. A little couple jokes, you know, whatever.

And then it's like, I trust him now. I've seen him so much. I've seen his life. He does Instagram stories every day, which I'm doing. You know, I got my face on. And people come to me with the weirdest problems with Instagram, man. Like, I mean, I am the wizard. I'm Gandalf of Instagram.

Okay. Like, I got messages today from influencers. They have millions of followers. And like, Instagram and customer service is terrible. And you need someone in your corner who can handle the crazy. problems that are like no one's even seen some of these. These are glitches. But it makes sense.

It's a look how big of a system it is. How's it not going to have glitches? You know? Yeah. Benefit of, of having an agency that knows what they're doing. You know, it's like having that protection side of things because it gets crazy.

It's the internet. Yeah. The internet. What? Like, why are people still confused? It's the internet. I love her 420.

I mean, you know, there's crazy things on here. It's not supposed to be clean. It's the Wild Wild West for sure. So Michael, where's it all going as we kind of wrap things up? We could talk for days and we will. But where's this all going for you guys?

For me, I think the next step for Valor Media is going to come down to. I work with some of the biggest personal brands, period. I mean, you name a person, they've either bought products for me or buying products for me or are planning to, um, when it comes to personal brands. So we're doing a lot with celebrity clubs right now. That's been huge because it does actually in the celebrity clubs churn an ROI, believe it or not. You know, you see a celebrity working with a product and they use that on ads.

It actually does move the needle and change the game for a product, you know. Um, for me, it's like, we're like, we're, we're going to try to double. I think I can my current infrastructures, we got like a team of 16. 17 people all here in the U.S. Then we got our admin team, obviously, that handles all like administrative tasks, back office stuff. And then it's like five mil a year to five mil. And I'll be happy there.

I'll be happy there. Five mil a year, for sure. You know, but who knows? You know, when I get there and I'm like, oh. It could be 10. Yeah. What about 20? Yeah.

So we'll see. But I think we have the current infrastructure to handle five mil, which is good. It's just about getting some of these businesses who are just old dinosaurs who have a bunch of cash on hand who are in a renovation, the new space.

Because they're not even ready. The metaverse is coming out, bro. Yeah. It's like Ethereum is about to change the internet and you're still struggling to make an online presence. Like, you're about to get left behind, homie.

You need some rocket fuel. That's all my kids say is that's so meta-dad. I'm like, I know what you're talking about, kid. You're not going over my, I think a couple of these big boys eventually will hear about me. Bring me in as an outside consultant. And I'll walk them through the walk to fame, the path to fame will make creative content. I mean, if you go look at my page, you'll like, I don't, I mean, I don't want to chew my own horn.

But there's, I mean, the top 1% of creative content out there. I mean, I don't even see stuff like what I put out. You know, it's crazy. It's just crazy. But it has a brand ethos. And I'm good at, I'm really good at that. I'm making it real and then formatting it so that everybody wants to be like it. Make things cool.

I'm good at making things cool. And I've always been good at making things cool because I was kind of weird, you know, you can tell. I was kind of weird. So it's like make something weird cool, make being colorful cool. And we're going into a space into 2021 and beyond where being being weird and being little different is good, you know? And that's awesome for guys like me and Brad.

So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm really enjoying building the business right now. I'm meeting all the people like you, like Brad, like, I mean, anybody. I mean, any and everyone we shake hands with is so cool, man. I mean, we're traveling the world. We're making really cool things happen. Business and space full of a bunch of jokers.

And I think that's another big piece that people are worried about when they work with social media agencies. So agencies, you know, it's like two guys behind a laptop and Bora Bora. and all they care about is they post their images of their Lamborghinis that they bought with their clients money and, you know, and they're just stacking sales numbers. That's all that matters. And they just build these massive sales organizations and pump out products and infrastructure, its legacy.

Some of the people I'm building with, you know their names. And I'm saying I'm a part of that over and over again, which is so, so sick. So, yeah, find more part. Making more people famous. Do cool stuff. I love it, brother. Well, really appreciate you coming on. Really appreciate getting to know you and Hans better and working together.

And I know there'll be more collabs down the road and really appreciate it. And where can we find you, man? Where can everybody keep up with you? I know it's Instagram. I mentioned it earlier. But tell everybody where to keep up with you. Dude, it's at the Michael Valor on Instagram. You can click contact.

It's got my personal phone number on there. You want to give me a rank. Go ahead. Shoot me a text. Phone on there and everything. Shoot me a DM. I love voice messages. I love connecting with people. I'm so down for that. And yeah, dude, I appreciate you for having me on. The Carolina boys got to stick together.

Exactly. South Carolina, North Carolina. We'll have to meet up for a Hornets game or something. You know, up in Charlotte. We got a boat out here on Norman. So you got to come up and just chill with us for a little bit. For sure. We'd love to.

We'll make it happen. We'll really appreciate Michael Valer coming on today on the radcast. He just told you where to keep up with him. And you know where to find us. Theradcast.com at the dot rad. dot cast on Instagram. And I'm at Ryan Offord on all the platforms. So you can even find me on TikTok.

Ryan dot offered on TikTok. I am verified there. You will see me doing all kinds of cool shit. We'll talk to you next time on the Radcast. Yo guys, what's up, Ryan Offord here? Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it. But do us a favor.

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