Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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. 

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, add the hyperbole, the badass that is Michael Valor. He is the CEO of Valor Media. I love Valor, by the way. Jesus, it's like one of the more perfect names 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 of years. I'm excited.

Yeah. Has there ever been a better named podcast for Michael Valor than the fucking Radcast? When you get an invite and you're me and it says, come to the Radcast, it's like 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 think we've – 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. 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 branding and some of the things that we've done from a PR perspective, been watching you grow and really take Valor Media to new heights. You work with you and 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 you know we'll give them the uh the background the the ones and twos so tell us a little bit about michael valor uh in business since i could remember i mean my first first and foremost it's like i'm as you can tell probably automatically i mean even if this is 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 you come out in the morning and people are like dude are you always like that it's like yeah hi so um it's crazy and uh I was 18 in business. Um, two, 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 to partner with my friends. Maybe, maybe we get a good grade, you know, whatever. And, uh, uh dude it changed my life i mean that one was 17 probably when that happened and uh it was just like you could start a business you could just start a business you 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 festival you know what i mean but like whatever you say is real in business, you know, 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 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 at the beginning of it, it was definitely official. Way better. Way better than the Pizza Hut, man. So I'm like, yes, I want 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, sending 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.

Facebook is young. People are thinking social media is 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 thought, how much ice cream does this guy got to sell to recap any amount of investment from this newspaper ad? This small block that costs $2,000 in the week weekly. So that's where we got started. I did phenomenal. I did phenomenal. I did really well. I built a lot of did phenomenal. I did really well.

I built a lot of good relationships. It was a lot of cold calling, a lot of cold knocking, just walking into businesses and just beating my face against the pavement, really. But that teaches you a lot. That cold calling, I think everyone should have to go through that. 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 and after a while you're like okay pass that up and then you 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 that I was. But I mean, that's where we started. And so every $100 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 kids mouth. Yeah. 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? And 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 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, I'm bringing in decent revenue for the wake weekly. You know what I mean? 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, self-development. He kind of introduced me to that whole thing at 18 pivotal time for me. I mean, that was huge. I needed that. And, uh, 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 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 and 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, 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, make it a desire and get very clear about 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 what, that's where we are in. Uh, it has just evolved and grown and built. And it's like a megazoid from power Rangers. It's, 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 the biggest guys yeah it's awesome and and now we're a recognized name from average joe promo llc we used to build uh website pages on businesses uh on weebly back in the day you You know, this is nine years ago. Post their links and get them like little backlinks and social signals. I was pretty big into SEO back then.

Yeah, I mean, that's where we got rolling. Love it. Well, you know, a couple of things there. They do say that growth and comfort do not coexist. Sounds like you kind of lived and breathed that, making that transition. People always look at you, they're like, what the hell are you doing? But if you want to take a leap, if you want to get to where you want to go, it isn't always going to be comfortable. No, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. I mean,

it has to be. I wake up this morning and I've been gone. I've been in Miami. I've been traveling. We were in LA. We were in Las Vegas. i was with you recently yeah we had um to torell owens we had wolf of wall street we had brad lee 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 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? Is just solving these issues all day.

And they just get slapped in your face over and over again. And I love it. And I just, I mean, that's part of being a business owner, right? Is 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 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 work, you know, trends and things that were needed in the marketplace.

Let's talk a little bit about that. OK, 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 run in your show. Like that's what the thing that we're transitioning out of that. Cause 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. Uh, I'll use one of my clients for, 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 P. 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 spend 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 it for, 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. Okay. At this point, I'm like 17,000 followers. Yeah. But I'm just big in, 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 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. This is 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, how many followers do you have? And then

every business owner, this is where 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 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's getting paid a million dollars to post on instagram one time you know'm saying? If you look at the best of anybody in your space, whatever, plumbing, I don't care if you own a boating company,

I don't care if you've got 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 a hundred thousand followers for, for the local businesses. You go, it can be 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. Cause that's something I specialize in. Okay. Personal brand comes to me a thousand, 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 like 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 a you've got a scale obviously the lower the quality follower the cheaper it's going to quality 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. Um, 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? Um, and it, and it's harder. It takes longer. You got to enter 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 to whatever degree that is. Then I say, OK, 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, everyone's questioning. 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 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 you 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, I'm not the judge maker there, you know, and it keeps changing, but, and I'm sure you can attest to this can changes 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 dollar 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 posts verified and you have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of 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 100,000 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 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 mainstay right now. And that could change. But 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? So now you're verified. You got 100 a hundred thousand followers we go to step three now we want to start interacting and collabing with people in your space so personal brand comes to me and they're in the fitness space to reach out for them and we'll start setting up collabs 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 they, and guess what? They want to

work with you. They want to work with you now that you're, 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 him now? It's like from a place of weakness instead of a point of leverage. Yeah. 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 isn't like, that's, what's crazy is like, people don't understand. Like you said, like, this isn't 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 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 belfer wolf of wall street we're all from dropping bombs they 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 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 a hundred thousand followers and kick-ass content they're like this guy i 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 a, we're, 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 is 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 like this guy's cool. Like this guy, he's got it down. You know, he, he's got it down. You, you want to work with him. You, you trust him automatically. You know, he's only got three. What is it? You know, he's not a celebrity, but he holds himself like that.

And, and I, I, I got to commend him for it. That'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 then, so the next question is, okay, now we're collabing 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, 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 collabing, you're making content automatically. That'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, 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 and making toast

that you making toast, you're good at making toast. Now, how many times have you 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. 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 i'm saying it's positioning he's rubbing shoulders with celebrities he's big big now. There are guys that I have worked with and talked to that have portfolios 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 him. He is idolized. 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 and 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 a billionaire behind the scenes, whatever it was. But he has leverage. He's an undercover billionaire.

Billionaire something. 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? 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, why do they need me? You don't need me to, you know, to get introduced to big guys anymore. You're a big guy. People are trying to, I've had that.

Like we're clients, like we're paying for podcast placements. We're paying for TV slotsements we're paying for tv slots they're paying for forbes an 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 that 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 your 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 or as 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. Someone'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 um because people are so obsessed with building this large our business is weird because when you build an agency um 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 roi roi roi that's fine you could, 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 that matters. Yeah. You know? And to me there is so lifeless and my business, I feel like mimics the leader businesses always mimic the leader, the culture, how people are handled, mimics the leader. Businesses always mimic the leader, the culture, how people are handled mimics 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 handholding and walking them through it. I like building something when a thousand followers and they really would love to meet Bradley or, or Jordan Belfort or Grant Card cardone or whatever you know yeah and uh or the miami heat or the ufc we've gotten to work with which

was so awesome um or nfl players whatever our 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 i'm saying yeah and now their kids their kids are like oh my god you're on t 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. 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 think that's what we're talking about. Public relations is so broad now with your personal branding. You have all this press. 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 Salesforce, you know, go, go make it easier

for customers to buy from you. I need a higher revenue count. You know, you need to be doing well, you know, but there are ways to work with me at like $300 a month sometimes. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. And they get the same attention of someone who spends a hundred grand a month with me which happens often so it's like i i really try to like it just it's pay to play for how fast you want people always say earn money 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 when you talk to them and to connect with them uh you get a you get another level of service from them a lot of times you know like uh there there's a level of accountability there that 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 too and the networking aspect of it has made some of my clients hundreds of thousands 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 This is the discussions. It's funny, you see certain quotes and sometimes it's like, all right, I'm kind of over that. But the air in the conversation is just different. It just is. Having recently been on Brad Lee's podcast, sitting out at 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 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. Not just not what they called it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Tai 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 it. You know, he's paying 30,000 a month for this shit that'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 grant 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. AT&T.

Yeah. You know what? You know, if a Fortune 500 threw a budget at me, I'd make their fucking head spin. Sorry. Yeah. You want to throw a Fortune 500 budget at me? I'll boot 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 KFC is throwing these influencers five. KFC five grand. You know what I'm saying? What is what is 10 grand to KFC?

And how much now market cap are they getting the the influence in in the millennials and 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 like they're so big and i've used this analogy a lot lately like from swingers the movie when vince vaughn's talking to his buddy he 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 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 we can move. Marketing at the speed of now, not yesterday. You can move the needle.

You can pivot a business when it's that size. And there are faults of going super fast. I'm not saying that you want to be, but I'm saying at the same time, it's like, dude, with the budgets that 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? 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, you started a podcast, me and you were talking about this. Now you've got a bunch of, a bunch of clients, revenue, extra business opportunities from the podcast. 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. It has nothing to do with Valor Media. But I get business from it. People are like oh this and this guy like he makes content he builds a brand

but they get to know you before they have to work before working with you that's what people don't understand you've softened the beach head before you attack you don't even have to attack they're laying their guns down before you even come onto the beach because they're like 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 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 of 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 up.

And, uh, 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 like Instagram 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. Look how big of a system it is. How's it not going to have glitches?

You know? Yeah. Benefit 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, the internet. What? Like, why are people still confused? It's the internet lover for 20. 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 from me or buying products from me or are planning to when it comes to personal brands. So we're doing a lot with celebrity collabs right now. That's been huge because it does actually in the celebrity collabs 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 gonna try to double i think i can my current infrastructures we got like a team of 16 17 people um all here in the u.s we got our admin team, obviously, that handles all administrative tasks, back office stuff. And then it's like 5 mil a year to 5 mil. And I'll be happy there. I'll be happy there. 5 mil a year, for sure. But who knows?

When I get there and I'm like... 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 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 no you don't you're not going over my head yeah i think i think a couple of these big these big boys eventually will hear about me um bring me in as an outside consultant and i'll walk them through the walk to fame the path to Yeah. I think, I think a couple of these big, these big boys eventually will hear about me, um, 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 toot my own horn, but there's, I'm in 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 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 can tell. I was kind of weird. So it's like, make something weird cool. Make make being colorful, cool. And we're going into a space into 2021 and beyond where being,

being weird and being a little different is good, you know? And that's awesome for guys like me and Brad. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm really enjoying building a business right now and meeting all the people like you, like Brad, like, I mean, anybody, I mean i mean every 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 in a 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 two guys behind a laptop and bora bora and all they

care about is their 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 but 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 partners, make 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 working together and i know there'll be more collabs down the road and really appreciate it with it 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 uh where to keep up with you dude uh 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 ring? Go ahead. Shoot me a text phone number 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. It's, 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. Would love to. We'll make it happen. We'll really appreciate Michael Valor

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.rad.cast on Instagram. And I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. You can even find me on TikTok. Ryan.Alford on TikTok. And I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. So you can even find me on TikTok. Ryan.Alford 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 Alford here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it.

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