RV (00:00:08): Y’all you are gonna have a great time with me as I introduce you to one of my newer friends, but a guy that I’ve really come to love and enjoy hanging around his name is Tristan Ahumada. And he has someone that do the real estate space. And his personal brand is now extending out of that. But he started as an agent. So when he was in his twenties, he was rookie of the year at century 21. And quickly became one of the top agents. And still today he’s in the top 1% of all realtors. Well then in 2014, he founded a Facebook group and a popular social media page. That’s called lab code agents has over 137,000 members and built a community all around this industry. That’s some of what we’re gonna talk about. And so he still does that. And then today he’s also the CEO and founder of a brilliant tribe where he does speaking and consulting on social media strategy and, and community building and various things. And so it was an absolute, no brainer. We got to meet through success magazine. We have a, a mutual friend in Glen Sanford who now owns success magazine. And anyways, Tristan, welcome from the show, man, TA (00:01:24): Dude, happy to be here, bro. I’m happy. RV (00:01:27): It’s great to see you. So talk to me about, first of all, how did you build a Facebook group of 137,000 members? Because that applies to all of us you, whether it’s Facebook group or something else, but I know like community building has really become like one of community growth community building. I feel like has really become one of your, your superpowers. And then also one of the things that you’re really known for teaching out there in the market. So tell us how to do it. TA (00:02:02): All right. So you get a whole by bunch of Russian hackers and I’m joking. You could do it that way too. I’m sure. But the, the way that I did it was and this is where we overthink things. I defined the group that I was creating from the very beginning with the one simple thing that I was great at and that I enjoy doing. And at that time it was online lead conversion. That was it. So when I created this, I was speaking around the nation for realtor.com and I kept on getting the same questions over and over. I looked over to my wife on a plane ride and she said, start a Facebook group. And I said over, okay. And I started a Facebook group and it was just solely on online lead conversion. So the name came about by me and my friend, and he’s still our lead coordinator for our real estate team. TA (00:02:56): His name’s Jacob Fry. We sat in a room for two hours and we came up with the name lab code agents because we wanted to show the real estate world that there is a science behind, behind creating better online lead conversion. And that was it. And so when I go to people or businesses and I say, look, it’s time create a community, but don’t necessarily build it on an area, right? Like I work in this area, I’m gonna build it here or, or don’t build it around a specific business, like all for, let’s say you’re talking to attorneys, right? Let’s build it on something you love. It could be as simple as kayaking. It could be as simple as cars or the beach, right. It, and what happens is, as you start bringing all these people together around this passion that you have, everyone knows that you’re in that specific business and that’s you overthink? We’re like, well, it only has to be about this specific thing for my business. Right. And that’s, that’s the challenge that I face at the very beginning. RV (00:04:10): Yeah. So I hear a couple things in that the first, like me, your wife is responsible for all of your success hundred percent. The other thing is that, and I think this is a mistake that I’ve certainly made is just going like, oh, I, I have to sort of like build a community around like me, my business, you know, what the thing I’m selling versus building, building a community around a topic of things that you’re interested in. And I think it’s it, that alone. I think that, that even as you talk like that mindset shift makes a lot of sense to me because it’s also disarming in, right? Like if someone’s going, oh, I’m gonna opt into this group. So someone can eventually sell something to me, that’s a completely different environment versus, Hey, I found a bunch of people who like the same stuff that I like and one naturally inhibits growth and the, the other accelerates growth. So I think that’s huge. So do you, do you truly approach it? Like when you advise people on this, do you really say, like, don’t worry about the business. Like, don’t worry about making money from this. Just figure out basically how to throw a good party. TA (00:05:25): That’s that’s it, man. I, I reverse engineered what I created. I never ever envisioned making millions from creating a Facebook group. Right. And never did. I think I was building a community. I just thought I was just giving back. And so I, I want people to, to take on this community building as, as the, here, this one thing, and that’s the ability to give back, right? The ability to give back on the things that you love, this is why I’ve actually been thinking I’m like, should I, I love journals. So I love buying journals and journaling, all that stuff. And I’m like, should I start? RV (00:06:02): I love buying journals, but I don’t need to journal. TA (00:06:07): Well, dude, you and I need to talk where you buy your journals first. Cause I’m always looking. But I’m thinking, should I, should I start a group or, or a community around journaling? Because I I’ve created so many groups now at this point for different companies and we can just grow them. Right. All along the belief that, Hey, you like this, I like this. That means I’m gonna get along with you. Right. And, and then here’s the second part after you define the group. So let’s say you do the, the journal one. What does the brand look like? Nobody ever stops to think about, well, what do I believe then this is your expertise RO the branding. Right. But what is it that this group stands for? And to take it up a little bit more, let’s think all the way. And this is what I did when I created lab coats. I go think all the way to the end. What would the logo look like on a hat and a shirt on a notebook, on a banner? Would people wear it right? And would people be proud to wear it based on what I stand for? And nobody thinks on that when you’re building, even if it’s a journal community, RV (00:07:20): It’s like a sport rep, a sports team, basically it’s like, we’re a Jersey or, or something that you take you take pride in. Now, when you talk about building groups, are you, are you talking pretty specifically about Facebook groups or are you kind of, so initially in general, TA (00:07:35): Initially it was. And then I, as I started growing lab code agents, I understood that it was just, it was beyond lab codes. Now it’s a big community outside of lab codes. So it, it includes Facebook groups. It includes newsletters, which are extremely powerful, right? Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, everything. You can imagine, even websites pod cast blogs, and we just bring it all together. So I’ve, I’ve created this team that allows companies to come in and be like, well, what are you missing? Or what are you struggling with? Let’s, let’s kinda supplement that piece with us and we’ll take it from there. So we help them. If they haven’t created one, we help them. If they have, we see where they’re at, what they’re missing and then we plug it. RV (00:08:24): Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. Like we talk about what we do. I mean, brand builders is very exclusive to personal brand strategy. We take a person and we go, we’re gonna build a brand around this, which I think is an evolution from historically branding has been, there’s a company let’s brand the company. It almost occurs to me the way you’re describing this, that this is like a, a different entity. This is more of like branding a topic like, or branding an area of interest mechanically. Like I would say personal branding. Like a lot of times I tell people, they go, Hey, will you come do this for the comp for my company? And my answer is no. We don’t work with companies. We’ll work. We’ll do it for your executive or your, your, your founder. But the principles we teach apply there. And I think it’s, the mechanics are very similar, right? You launch a podcasting, you have a YouTube group, but it’s very, like, it’s literally dawning on me as you described this. And I’ve heard you talk about it before, but it’s like hitting me in this moment that it’s like, you’re branding a topic. Like you’re building you’re, you’re kind of like putting a rope around. We’re the people who all like this thing. And so that’s it, dude, is that it is that right? That’s how you, yeah. And TA (00:09:33): You know, what’s funny, I’ve never done the reverse, which is what you do. I’ve never, I’ve never done it for a specific person. I mean, I’m thinking back, it’s like, we’ve got a virtual assistant company. We’ve got a lot of SAS companies. We’ve got brokerages, like big national brokerages. We’ve got, we’ve got companies that sell products tech. Oh yeah, dude. You’re right. Never a person. Interesting. RV (00:10:01): So well I think that’s a huge and, and even so, so just to be clear, let’s say whatever company, I don’t know, home Depot hires, you, you don’t go start a home Depot, Facebook group, Facebook group, and a, a home Depot podcast. You, your advice would be like, let’s start a DIY podcast. Got it. A DIY, you know, YouTube channel and a DIY Facebook group. TA (00:10:27): Yeah, dude, I’ll give you an example. So I was approached by a company called virtue desk. And I’m, I’m telling you this one, because it’s exactly what we did there, virtual assistant company. But I said, let’s not name it that right. Why don’t we focus on leverage right. On the leverage aspect RV (00:10:46): To that don’t name, the Facebook group, you’re saying you don’t wanna name the Facebook group TA (00:10:50): That you got it. So we named it leverage and then powered by virtue desk. Right. And then we, we started a whole, every, all around leverage. And now people understand when they’re like leverage. Oh yeah, of course. Right. What, what do we need staff to leverage and tech. And that’s what we did. We, we talk about staffing, we talk about tech and then inevitably people bring up virtual assistance. And that’s how we’ve grown them over the last year and a half. And now dude, they’re on the community. It’s like the community. Then we build the team, right. Because the other part to this is, well, if I’m building a community who do I need? Right. And I think that that’s a challenge because I’ve also seen communities fall apart. When you bring in, when you bring in people that are very ego driven, that they need to be the face of it over, Hey, let’s work as a team. Everybody’s got their part. You’re great. Over here. You’re great over here. Right. And that that’s a challenge sometimes. But when it comes to a company, Rory, what I found is that you target the best users, those users that are so proud to use the product. Right. And they’ll come in and they’ll do it for free. Wow. RV (00:12:09): So it’s like, you’re targeting the super fans and saying, Hey, you you’re basically like waving giving them the badge and saying you’re in TA (00:12:16): Charge. Yep. And that’s what we’ve done. So that’s the first question I get from businesses. So how many people are we gonna need to hire? I’m like, well, hold on. Because when you run the community, you use your super fans. You just give them, give them swag, give them, instead of them having to, by the merchandise, give it to them, invite them to events, make them feel like they are part of the inside group. Right. And then you see that it starts coming up. It’s like, whoa, this is amazing. I can’t believe they do this for free hell R I do it for free. When, when Glen reached out to me to run the success magazine thing with you, I, I was like, dude, I’ll do it for free. He’s like, no, I’m paying you. I’m like, okay, well I was gonna do it for free. RV (00:13:02): Yeah. Well that, it, it, it’s almost like the difference between, you know, like who wants to follow an account on social media that is from a company. Right. And it’s like, what are you gonna talk about? Like you’re staff meetings and your staff birthdays. Like, I don’t care about that. But if it’s, it’s almost like going, instead of having a, a, an account that’s based on your company, you go start a themed account, like a meme account. Yes. On whatever the topic is. Yes. It hit me like a light bulb brother. It makes a lot of sense. It also makes me realize that have been very, very bad at this. I don’t think I’ve ever like, you know, really, really GRA grasped this perfectly. So while I have you, I, I would be Remi if I didn’t ask you about real estate, because I I’m, you’re like the guy and we have I was talking, you sharing this with you. RV (00:13:57): Before that we started that there is a brand builders group. Like our clients are basically two groups. They’re the expert, newer types, the coaches, speaker, author, consultants, and then more and more, it is professional services type people. The doctors, the lawyers, chiropractors, the, and real estate specifically is we find ourselves attracting a lot of, of agents. And you know, we, we know some about the industry, but like, I just wanna ask you directly, how do you think real estate agents should be using their personal brand in the market it today? Like, how would you say this is how, if you’re a real estate agent this is how you should do social media. This is how you should do podcasting. This is how you do your YouTube channel. What TA (00:14:50): A, what a great question. So, one of the things that I got to do over the years because of lab code agents is consult Facebook and Instagram. So I was just, I was on the phone with them. Two weeks ago, we were breaking down everything and we were going over this exact thing. And when I was looking at where the world is, and they were looking at it with me, if you look at the five most visited websites in the world, it’s Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter who knew, and Instagram, those are the five most visited websites. Now TikTok is on the rise. It’s like number 20. And it could be like number 18 as of today, who knows. But when I look at this four out of the top five are social media, and this is the way the world communicates. This is the way it delivers messages. TA (00:15:44): This is the way it builds relationships and, and communities connect this way. And this is why I was talking to Facebook about this. And I’m like, man, this is, this is branding, right? The, if you want, if you’re looking at branding, where do you go to get the most out of what you want to do? You, you meet the client where they’re at and that’s Google YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok do it. And so now you have to come up with a plan that makes sense. And now you have to understand Facebook. Well, what do you have? You have groups. You have Facebook live. You have now reels. You have some stories. You have messengers, you have rooms and soon you’re gonna have, well, you better be buying an Oculus now because that’s gonna let you into the metaverse right next, RV (00:16:34): This, this is what I’m gonna ask you about next. So you, that’s such a great segue. I didn’t prepare you for it, but I’m gonna ask you about that next. TA (00:16:41): Perfect. All right. Next, you got Instagram. Same thing, feed stories. I GTV, which now shifted to, just to just video. And then you’ve got reels is where it’s at. Right? Reels is definitely where it’s at. And then same thing with TikTok. Tiktok only really got two, which is lives. And the up to three minute TikTok feeds on your feed, but what, what are you, what are you doing? Where where’s the world heading? Right. Well, right now it’s in short video, right? That’s why YouTube jumped on. That’s why Facebook has reels. Instagrams got reels talks on the way up, but what’s next? I mean, that’s where, that’s where look at the number one most downloaded app. What, what was the number one most downloaded app on Christmas day. Just on Christmas day, it was Oculus the Oculus I’m like what? I’m like, that’s where the world is heading. RV (00:17:41): Okay. That’s so I, I wanna, okay. I, yeah, we, I wanna talk about that for sure. So I love this, by the way, do rattle off Facebook, you were talking about what are all the things, because Facebook has a, like, you’ve got a fan, you’ve got a group you’ve got. Yeah. So TA (00:17:57): The main things feed, you’ve got groups you’ve got Facebook live, you’ve got the feed, you’ve got reels, you’ve got stories. You’ve got the page. So business, right. You’ve got rooms so much, which is the copy, the copy of clubhouse. And by the way, rooms are rooms are doing pretty good. Twitter’s got spaces, same thing as clubhouse. Right. And then you’ve got messenger. And then obviously you’ve got horizon, but you need in Oculus to go into horizon, which is there for form of the metaverse. RV (00:18:31): Okay. Now, before we dive into the metaverse in which we are going to do the content wise, if I’m an agent, and I want you to answer the question as an agent, because I think whatever your answer is, is gonna be the same. If you’re a financial or a lawyer chiropractor, I think 1%. So what is the content that I should be posting? Like what can make me care enough? Because real estate agents in particular, I think are a little bit tricky because I’m really only interested in talking to a real estate agent when I’m really at, it’s more like, can at need service. It’s like, I wanna sell. I wanna buy, or I wanna refinance, or I wanna invest. Is that what, what’s the content strategy? What, what should they be posting? TA (00:19:22): Content strategy is this. And, and this is from us deconstructing all the platforms and, and the best practices over the years, and then going to Facebook and Instagram and sharing it with them. And that’s a combination of, I’m forcing you here to find your pillars because you talk to all the influencers in, in, in the social media world, they have pillars that they alternate between. So in essence, I’m saying, Hey, these are gonna be your pillar that you have to alternate through until you find a groove and it revolves around this. You sell with a story. So Rory, whatever you’re selling, right. You’re gonna sell it to me, but in the form of a story, that’s number one. The next thing you don’t, RV (00:20:08): You don’t mean the stories feature. You mean when you sell, do it through the form, a story. Tell TA (00:20:14): Storytelling we got it. Storytelling. You got it. That’s it. That’s number one. So let’s say you were only gonna post two Facebook once a day. You’re gonna go sell with a story, whatever you’re trying to sell me, tell it to me with a story. That’s number one, number two, teach. Teach me something about your industry that I don’t know about because whatever your industry is, I can guarantee you that you take it for granted by not sharing it with more people on social. So that’s number two, teach number three. Here’s where it gets a little crazy. Number three is advice. So S T a a is for advice. Here’s where you give advice on something that you love, something that you’re passionate about. And R look at my background. I’ve got a storm trooper helmet. RV (00:21:02): I’ve got super Superman TA (00:21:04): Mo Superman, right? That’s my passion like dude, besides journals, right? That’s my passion. So you’ll see me on social every once in a while. If I order something like that, I’ll be on boxing it, or I’ll talk about it, or it’ll be a piece of tech. And that’s the advice I’m talking about. If you’re great at gardening, or you do amazing over here with cars, that this is your opportunity. You just RV (00:21:27): Shine. Could you call this hobby also? Is that kind of TA (00:21:29): Like, yeah, this is you give advice on a hobby advice on, on your side hustle, advice on something that you love. Okay. And this for a lot of us are where we’re gonna go viral and we never tap on it ever. Like, this is where my friends, where I’m like, Hey, dude, you need to be doing this. And all of a sudden, they get like hundred thousand views on TikTok and I’m like, see, yeah, RV (00:21:52): See. So that’s how Gary B beat up, built his whole freaking brand. Talking about wine. Like, dude, I mean, that was how he built his whole freaking brand. Is there another TA (00:22:02): Pillar? There’s a fourth one. And it’s it’s Y so it’s S T a Y it’s stay S C Y. Why is you talk about you? Show me, show me what’s going on at home. Show me what’s going on at, with your kids. Or if you’ve got a dog, if you’ve got, what, what are you eating today? Rory, you know, you you’re at you, you just finished an amazing event. I wanna know more about that. Where are you at? What are you doing? Right. I’m in my house today. I just got to interview somebody. Well, I should tell people about that, right? Or I’m about to drink whatever. But the point is, I’ve been doing it a lot more and people connect with me more because the one thing people love to know more about you, and I’ll give you the best example. And then we can shift over to whatever you want, the Kardashians. How many selfies can they take? RV (00:22:50): I mean, it’s crazy, right? I mean, people, people, people love it or just, just the whole concept of reality TV in general, right? Like we are watching other people live. Their life is surprisingly engaging. And from a, from a, from a videos strategy, it’s surprisingly retentive. Like it holds people’s unbelievable attention, right? I mean, how many people have bachelorette parties? Well, we got one of our, one of our, one of our clients is downstairs right now. And he was we actually have two clients that we actually have more than that, but we have one downstairs who was on the, on the bachelorette and that’s cool, you know, know, and they just, people, people love that. And, and they, they, he can’t go anywhere without people stopping him in the street and taking pictures because they, like, they feel like they know him because they had this like intimate experience of watching him live his life for whatever amount of time. RV (00:23:47): Okay. So I, I love it. So basically the selling with storytelling, I love that teaching. Amen’s what we talk about, you know, in your, your, your hobby and in your kind of your personal life. Talk to me about meta. All right. Because yeah, here, here’s my here, my thing on this, I was admitting this to our team. You know, I was in college when social media came out. I should have been early, but I was late to the party because I was so skeptical. Then I got on the bus, built the social media, but then we sold the company and I lost on my, on my social media when we exited our last company. I knew about out podcasting early, cuz I had friends that were in it. I didn’t get on board. I kind of joined later, built that up, had a nice podcast. RV (00:24:34): But then we sold, sold that as well. Now we have our new this podcast, which is growing quite nicely, but it’s, it’s a lot harder. Like we had to start over in 2018 with all new social accounts, new podcast, everything. It is a lot harder because there’s so much more noise. So I feel like in many ways it’s like, I feel like I missed the wave. You know, I missed.com because I was just still in high school, missed social media, missed podcasting, then missed TikTok for the most part. And so I’m like, I’m not gonna miss the metaverse, but I don’t understand it. So right. So tell me, tell us the metaverse and how do we build our community there? What should we be doing right now? TA (00:25:22): All right. So it’s, it’s very easy right now, right now it’s easy because imagine, are you familiar with Xbox live RV (00:25:34): Or, I mean, not, I’m not a gamer. Okay. TA (00:25:37): So I’m, I’m a gamer by heart. So let me explain it through games. We’ve all played video games or at least we know about them and we’ve all played video games with other people, right? So the metaverse in essence is it’s a virtual world where you can engage with other people. Now what it’s going to look like versus what it looks like now. Cause right now it looks pretty crappy. It’s like, there’s so many different metaverses even, even E X P right? Glen, Glen Sanford’s company got one. Right, right. RV (00:26:10): They’re all pretty basic. They have success world and they have E XP world. Like I spoke at, I, I I was the key, one of the keynote speakers at the E P global shareholders meeting, speaking to, I don’t remember what it was. I think 5,000 people who were nuts. I was as an avatar in E X P world speaking to 5,000 or 10,000 avatars who were all sitting in front of me. And that was like a man blew my mind. I was like, I can’t, I, this is so crazy. But, but so that’s a, that’s TA (00:26:44): A metaverse that’s the metaverse. So that’s a, metaverse now what Facebook is trying to do because they’re the ones who hold the actual tech piece, the Oculus. Okay. For, for the virtual world that’s been accepted. Right. They’re the ones who are ahead. So if I, I, I, I would recommend if you’re listening to this, go buy an Oculus and I don’t own any of Facebook. So what RV (00:27:09): Is in Oculus is the, is the, is the set of glasses go TA (00:27:12): Buy? Yeah. It’s a set of virtual reality glasses that you put on your head. And then you’re immersed into a world where you can choose to play video games, to meet with other people, to jump into other worlds. And I’ll tell you what the metaverse is going to be. It’s going to be the future of the internet. So Rory, instead of you and I going to amazon.com, we put on our headgear of whatever metaverse is, is the, is the main metaverse that wins. And then we go to amazon.com in the metaverse and we’re like walking through, like, if it’s a mall and then we pick things out and we’re like, oh, I want that. I want that. And you’re like, Hey, Hey, Hey, RO meet me at meet me at this shop inside of side of whatever metaverse it’s called. Right? And then you and I meet there, we sit, we have coffee, I’m having coffee here. TA (00:28:11): You’re having coffee there. And, and you’re like, Hey Roy, I, I gotta go. I need to meet a client at a, at a property. So I just switch over to a 3d world, right. Property. And I go in and my client and I’m like, Hey, Joe, let’s take a look at this home. You go through the home. And as you’re going through the home in this 3d world, the difference is I can tap on the refrigerator and be like, this is how much that cost. I can expand on certain parts of the house that I couldn’t do in real life. I can be like, you wanna replace the, this tile, hold on, let me check. And all of a sudden now to see houses in the real world, doesn’t make sense RV (00:28:59): Because you don’t have to travel there. First of all, and you have this enhanced functionality of these kinds of things, and you, you, that it’ll, it’ll advance quickly to the point to where it will basically feel like it’s real life or close enough to it, that we would all go. Why if Trista, you’re where you’re in California, right? You’re in Malibu and I’m in Nashville and going, we’re talking through zoom, but we could just hop into the metaverse and we would actually feel like we were sitting next to each other. Yeah. TA (00:29:30): Yeah. That’s, that’s how it’s going to be. Now. It’s never gonna replace the in person feeling, but look, if I can show a property and I can get all of the details, step outside the home, show you the school and just be there in an instant. You’re gonna be a lot more comfortable that you’re getting a lot more information to make a quality decision on buying a home. Are RV (00:29:52): You in that scenario, you just described, you’re showing a home in the metaverse are you demoing a, a home in the metaverse that is a replica of a home that you’re trying to sell in real life? Or are you correct selling virtual property? TA (00:30:09): No, you’re not selling virtual property yet. That that’s when NFTs and the metaverse combine. Oh my gosh. And that’s, that’s a whole different aspect to this. So I think for now the meta versus just the future of the internet, and you’re gonna see a, a good adoption rate, depending on who wins. I think since the Oculus is already accepted, they have a big foot in, right. This is why everybody I talk to I’m like, look, just do me a favor, go get an Oculus, jump inside, have a meeting or two. So you can understand where the world is heading. Is RV (00:30:45): That how you get in? I mean, so that’s, so here’s two questions. What are the main metaverses right now? And how do you actually get into one TA (00:30:55): Look? So the main metaverses you’re you’re gonna find that they don’t really exist. Everybody’s talking about a metaverse and they’re like, oh, this is a metaverse over here. I’m like, no, dude, there is no such thing as a metaverse the closest thing is Facebook’s Oculus because that’s the only one that has something fully built in where you can actually submerge yourself through the Oculus. That’s it? The other ones are, I mean, if you want to talk about E XP world, which is by ver Bella, right? Ver Bella built it out. That’s how everything else is. And you’ve got Xbox live. You’ve got PlayStation live, all of these things that we’ve been playing in for years inside of a community where we can play video games against each other. That’s in essence what the Mead verse is. It’s an online virtual world where I go in, I can participate with somebody else and then buy things. The difference is they want it to be decentralized in the future. So no one company owns it like the internet. It’s a, yeah, it’s a true play. And that’s why Facebook wants to jump in early. They’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do it. We can do it. But you know, they’ve had, they have such huge distrust with everybody right now. Right. RV (00:32:13): So, well, yeah. And so like fortnight and Roblox, these are, that’s a metaverse these are, but they’re independent. Metaverses but those are attached to a game then. Yep. What is, so then have you heard of sandbox? Yep. Okay. So the, I, I think it, I don’t don’t quote me on this. I, I, I am just learning it cuz I’m going, I’m not gonna miss this wave. Somebody there’s something about somebody bought property next to Snoop dog’s virtual house and paid like a million dollars to own the property next to Snoop dog’s virtual residence. Something like this. You heard of this. Yeah. TA (00:32:54): Yep. I did. RV (00:32:55): So what is sandbox is sandbox and, and by, and also by the way is Oculus the name of Facebook’s metaverse TA (00:33:03): No, Facebook’s metaverse is called horizon. So you can go and check that out. And the sandbox is an open metaverse, but I mean, dude, the it’s it it’s like E ex P world. Like it’s not, I, I can’t submerge submerge myself into it. So right now there are gonna be a lot of different companies saying, yeah, we’re a metaverse here, we’re a metaverse there. And the, the idea behind it is just to get as many people in there to build the community so that it takes off. And we’re like, Hey look, we are, we are the metaverse whoever that’s going to be. So right now there is no leading company that has the most people in it. It’s very, very startup. So what I would do right now, if you want to understand it better, the closest thing you can see as to what it actually should be, go by an Oculus and put it on because then you can start feeling what it actually should look like. RV (00:34:01): And then you will go into horizon, which is the name of Facebook’s TA (00:34:04): S horizon inside. It’ll give you an option, but it’ll also give you a whole bunch of other options. Like I can play video games. I can have a meeting with you, Rory. I can go into meetings. Right. Or I can go into the world, the horizon world, which then functions like the success world that you and I. RV (00:34:22): Okay. So if I actually bought a pair of Oculus goggles or glasses or whatever you call them, you and I, and you have a pair, then we could have had this meeting inside of horizon. TA (00:34:32): Yeah. We just can’t record it yet. Cuz it doesn’t work as well. So yeah, we’re, we’re already looking to starting we’re we’re starting to see if we can hold our podcasts, you inside of the Oculus. Yeah. And record it and then play it on YouTube. But so this RV (00:34:46): Is what I’m asking and this is what I’m driving to is how do I start building my community in there? Right. Because yeah. You know, one of the, one of the natural things to do is to repurpose your content, right? So all of us have spent years cranking out all this content and it lives this place in that place and going you know, like I remember when I went into success world the first time for those of you that don’t know I was the interim entrepreneurship editor of success magazine for the, for about a year, Glen Hanford was one of our brand builders group clients. He owns Bel NEX P world. They bought success. We had just met. I was an, and that was how I met Tristan cuz Tristan’s the P people, editors still currently active. And, and we met and, and ver Bella built a metaverse for success offices. And so I would go in and I remember going into the success world, going into their auditorium and they had like videos of Jim RO playing. And I said, ah, I could do this. If I had, if we had a brand builders group headquarters inside of a metaverse, there could be an auditorium with a screen that’s playing our content. And anybody else basically like a, a virtual movie theater is kind of how I was thinking about it. Yeah. But there’s no way to buy property or build a building like that. Not yet, TA (00:36:05): Yet. No. Imagine I just sent you a link to horizons so you can see. Okay. But what, what the future is going to be like is if I go into video game and I wanna upgrade my just in the video game, if I wanna upgrade my gear, like have a better armor or a, or a better weapon or shoes. Right. That’s how the metaverse is gonna work. Oh, you wanna, you want to have, this is why NFTs work really well with it. Right. I want to have a play said, I actually own right. A virtual place, a house. Boom I’m there. Now I can, now in my home I can have my virtual car because I’m in here all the time. I need to, I need to have a virtual car Rori. RV (00:36:51): Right. So people are making Louis Viton virtual handbag and, and you have an NFT and then you, you, your avatar is carrying a Louis Baton and people are already paying, paying for this. TA (00:37:03): Yeah. That’s, that’s the whole world that we’re heading into. But I think we’re, we’re very early on, but I think you and I, and people listening in should really start looking at what we can do in this world, in these, in this coming world so that we can have a presence there. RV (00:37:21): Right. And I gotta tell you, you know, I don’t, I never like social media. I did like podcasting. I don’t like going live. I didn’t like getting on clubhouse live. And I don’t like the idea of a metaverse especially, but one of our, one of our brand builders group clients are name’s Tori Gordon. And she she’s blown up huge on TikTok, like has nearly a million TikTok just interviewed her for the podcast. And she said something to me that hit me so hard. If she said the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And that hit me because I said, whether I like it or not, I think this is gonna happen. This is the freaking matrix dude. Like this is half a step away from the matrix. And I go, yeah, if there’s a bunch, if in real life, there’s a bunch of broken people who are discouraged and have anxiety and fear of COVID and you know, whatever else, if they can put on goggles and escape that and go into some other place and have more joy and more freedom and more whatever. I see people doing that and going, I wanna be in there shaping that world. That’s important. That part is important to me. And I’m glad to hear that we’re early on this because we’re not gonna miss this tri no, TA (00:38:43): We’re not. Don’t worry. RV (00:38:45): I’m you have to tell me, I get like you have to I’m messaging you. Yes. I’m holding you accountable to telling me like, all right, dude, this is the metaphor. Cause this it’s very similar to almost like how, when MySpace came out and there was like MySpace and que oo and Facebook and whatever, and they were all kinda like all that stuff battling. What I hear you saying is that’s kind of what’s happening right now is TA (00:39:07): Yeah. So on that, I I’ve asked Facebook. I’m like, I, as soon as horizons or the Oculus allows for our Facebook group to be inside of whatever you’re creating, please let me know because you better believe lab code agents is gonna be in there. And the only way you can jump in is with an Oculus. So yes, we’re, we’re on it. And I have meetings with them often. And so they’ll let me know as soon as it turns on. So I’ll be like, dude, you gotta jump on. RV (00:39:42): Yeah, this is, this is crazy. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy to think, but it’s, in some ways it’s like very wild and different. In other ways it’s going the mediums change, but people’s needs stay the same. And the way you build relationships with people stays the same. And the way that you add value to other people’s lives stays the same and the way you establish expertise and authority. And in your case, the way that you build community stays exactly the same. It’s just a different environment. TA (00:40:11): That’s it? That’s so true, man. That’s very true. RV (00:40:16): Did I have love this? Like always I, you, I, you’re fascinating and stimulating conversation and ideas and thank you for sharing. This has been so enlightening and, and just invigorating for me and, and tri wish you the best. And you know, I think it gives me hope as, as I look ahead and go, oh, okay. Like the metaverse is gonna happen. You know, at some point like this ship, it already feels like it’s gonna happen. We don’t know exactly what, but knowing that people like you and Tori Gordon and you know, all these other people and are, are making sure the good people get in there so that we can all shape that world to be an awesome one. And maybe it could be in some ways better than the real one that’s that that’s inspiring to me. So keep doing what you’re doing, brother we’re we’re fans. TA (00:41:07): Thanks bro. I’m a fan of you guys too. So keep going. RV (00:41:11): Sounds good, man. All the best. Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who Speaker 3 (00:41:32): Is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders group, do slash pod call brand builders, group.com/pod. We hope to talk to you soon. Speaker 4 (00:42:01): That interview blew my mind. Oh, wow. All right. So where did we start? Tristan AHU? What a powerful interview. I wanna share with you my top three takeaways and, and my highlights. And there were some big ones and I have to tell you like, but there’s been a few interviews here lately that have really caused me to change my behavior and start looking ahead differently specifically at web three and what is coming there. And this is, this is definitely one of them. So as I think back on that conversation that we just had with Tristan, you know, I’ve got so much respect for Tristan because I mean, he’s built one of the largest communities, if not the largest community of real estate agents in the world. I mean, and that’s pretty amazing, like and that’s, that’s pretty commendable, right? So alright, so here’s my top three takeaways. Speaker 4 (00:43:03): So number one, don’t try to build a community around a company, build a community around a topic. You don’t build a community around a company. You build community around on a topic that for sure is gonna be one of the most salient things that sticks with me. It already has been just thinking back, like ever since I actually did, had that conversation with Tristan is going, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. Like every company, even if you think out like having a, a, a page, right, like a, a Instagram profile or a Facebook page or something is like, nobody cares what’s going on in your company. Like other than the people in the company. But the, if you, if, if you can build your community around a topic, then every, you know, all sorts of people are going, are going to pay attention. Speaker 4 (00:43:59): And so I was thinking about specifically how this also translates into your content marketing strategy going right, that this would apply for personal brands. Just the same is to go. If, if all I post about on social media or on my public facing profiles is information related to the products and services that I sell. Nobody is gonna pay attention. So what you, you don’t your content. It shouldn’t be based around the products and services you sell. It should be a around the problems that you help solve and around the areas that you study and around the topic itself. Right? So, I mean, if I was always, if, if my social media feed or this podcast was just a constant, like advertisement for, Hey, here’s the next event that’s coming up and he, here’s how our coaching program works. And did you know, have you heard about this, this, this new feature that we rolled out to our brand builders members, like nobody would pay attention, but you build the audience around the, the topic of personal brand strategy and helping personal brands build better businesses and all the skills and content around that are, are needed for that. Speaker 4 (00:45:11): And then people pay attention, they engage, they’re interested. And then obviously our goal is like, Hey, oh, as you get to trust me more and you trust AJ more and you see like, hopefully the quality of the, the content we put out and the people we hang out with and things that you go, Hey, what do these, these, these folks actually do, maybe they can actually help me. And that is the big difference. And so, you know, I, I think that’s, it’s a subtle shift, but it’s a major change in like the downstream impacts of understanding this, this nuance don’t build. Don’t try to build community around a company, build community around a topic. And relatedly, I think the thing that I’m adding to that as saying, don’t create content around your products and services, create content around the topic, create content around the problems that you solve and, and that, you know, the issues that your customers face. Speaker 4 (00:46:09): You know, again, I think about like the home, this home Depot example, if it was just like, Hey, did you know that home Depot has 50% off this month? No one would pay attention. But instead their content marketing strategy is all like DIY videos, helping show you how to do, you know, your own DIY projects. And then it’s like brought to you by home Depot. So when you need some nails and you need wood and you need paint where you’re gonna go, you’re going to home Depot. So that’s, that’s a subtle shift, but boy, is it important to understand? And you know, if you’re not building a community, like if you’re not growing your following or you have a following and they’re not engaging, there’s a good chance. Your content is all about you and your life, which isn’t bad, but it’s a good marketing strategy because the only people that care about what’s going on, you and your life are people who are in your life. Speaker 4 (00:47:00): Okay? So that’s not how you’re gonna attract a bunch of strangers to pay attention. So if you’re not growing, there’s a good chance that your content is either about you and your life, or it’s all about your company and your products and services. Instead of it is around this topic that people are interested in, which happens to be a space that your personal brand and or business revolves around. And, and so big, big shift and super duper powerful. The second big takeaway for me in that whole conversation, which I don’t know why this hit me so hard, and I don’t know why, you know, I just never really paid attention to this is like that four out of the top five in the world, our social media sites, like four of the top five websites in the world are social media sites. That is crazy. Speaker 4 (00:48:00): And so to realize and go, wow, Facebook, Instagram Twitter, like these in to being, you know, social media sites. They’re the biggest websites in the world. And so what it tells me is that community is an inherent part of the human experience, right? Community is integral to what it means to be alive. Like we live for the idea and the opportunity to connect with other humans. Our lives have purpose to the extent like our lives have purpose inside of the context of what they mean with somebody else’s life. Like if I just live by myself, there’s not a lot of purpose to my life. I’m not interacting. I’m not helping anyone. I’m not affecting anybody. My life has purpose in the context of other people. And so that is like, life is about this community. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s very much affecting of course, how we spend our time online. Speaker 4 (00:49:08): And, you know, social media is, you know, when does social media really come on the scene? And in the early two thousands, I mean the mid two thousands. And so you’re talking about 15 years and these are the, the most traffic sites in the world. Meanwhile, you’ve got companies that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years that have websites and, and have had money and started a lot further ahead. And, you know, they’re not anywhere in the top five to, so that is pretty wild. And, and so I think it’s just understanding, like, to me, it’s not so much like, Ooh, social media, social media, as much as it is this grand epiphany of like this bigger level conversation that to be human is to crave community, to be human, is to define our life in the context of how our lives con connects and intersects with others. Speaker 4 (00:50:00): And so as you’re building your business, how are you creating these connection points? And this is something that historically, I don’t think I’ve done very well. I’ve always viewed social media as like a broadcasting mechanism. And even when we started brand builders group, like for our members, the first couple years have been really about curriculum and content, right. And it’s like, we’re teaching, like, here’s everything that we have learned and it’s broken down and hopefully it’s world class. We think it’s world class. We hear that it’s world class. And it’s really incredible, but, but brand builders group 2.0, which is where we’re at now and where we’re going. And that’s sort of like where AJ is leading us and, and our team is the community. And what’s so, what’s so incredible is like as good as the content is. What’s amazing is like, our community is in incredible. Speaker 4 (00:50:49): I mean, we’ve got people, so many people with hundreds of thousands of followers, people who sold their company for hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, we’ve got people who are on TV, we’ve got you know, professional athletes, professional musicians. We’ve got influencers like in every different industry. We’ve got people who are mul T seven figure earners and, and like just New York times, bestselling authors and hall of fame speakers. I mean, it’s crazy. They’re all sitting in the same room together, like literally sitting in the same room together. And that is so powerful. And so I think BBG 2.0 brand builders group 2.0 is gonna be about community where brand builders group 1.0 has largely been about content and curriculum. And, and so this is an impactful message for me to receive from Tristan relevant. I would say to the direction that, that we are, that we are heading. Speaker 4 (00:51:42): So related to that, here’s my third takeaway, get ready for this. The meta of our is coming, oh my gosh, what, what am I even saying? The metaverse the metaverse is coming. Yes, the metaverse is coming in a big way. And I think it’s coming faster than we think I do, because I think, you know, unlike, you know, the stodgy companies of old, the biggest companies in the world today are technology companies. They became the biggest by being adaptable and flexible. And so they’re, the leadership is much younger and the, the, the, the environment is more innovative and technological, and I think this is coming and I think it’s coming hard. And I think it is coming fast. I mean, did you hear what Tristan said? The number one most downloaded app on Christmas day was Oculus was the horizon which is the, the meta Facebook’s metaphor that goes with the Oculus goggles. Speaker 4 (00:52:43): And I went, I did, I bought ’em. I bought the Oculus goggles after this interview. I’ve been to church in the metaphor. I’m you know, creating my avatar. I’m trying to figure it out. And I’m also very much following the world of NFTs here and trying not, I mean, I’m trying to learn and understand all of this stuff. If you’re not following me on Instagram, you should go to my handles at Rory Vaden. By the way, there’s some fake out there. Mine is just my name at Roy Vaden. And I did a post about some glossary of terms for like web three. And, and so, you know, web three is, is the, this whole new era of, you know, communication. So it’s like basically pre there’s pre-internet and you know, and then, and then you have, and then you have web one, which is like the internet and URLs and websites, which are one way communications. Speaker 4 (00:53:42): And then web two is social media is exactly what we’re just talking about this, you know, in user U U U C G user user or UGC user generated content, which is like all these social media sites was web two and, and web three is what’s coming now. And most of what you hear in web three, just real quick, again, if you go, I did a full little video tutorial on these terms on my I GTV. Now it’s called Instagram video, I guess, but you know, you have web three to me, which is like the big conversation. And then inside of that, you’ve got two conversations going on. One is the metaverse and one is NFTs. The metaverse is virtual reality, right? So this is this is the idea that you can, you, you know either through your desktop, on your computer access a a, you know, a world and the, the big ones are, you know, OB horizon is the, is Facebook’s metaverse the other, there’s a couple other big ones. Speaker 4 (00:54:46): They’re San inbox and decentral land, which, so those are like, as I process it kinda like the three predominant meta versus that are out there. And, and so there’s different ways to access them. One is one is the Oculus goggles from Facebook, which I bought and, and experimenting with. So you have this whole idea that like in web three, we will be inside of virtual reality, communicating, doing very much what we would do in real world, but we’re not restrained by geographical limitations. And especially in a world where disease has obviously affected our everyday and, you know, maybe a part of the future, the idea of being able to sit in a room with somebody in San Francisco without having to get on an airplane and without having to run some of the risks of, you know, being in physical proximity to somebody. Speaker 4 (00:55:40): I mean, I, I think this is gonna be huge. The other big conversation that you’re hearing happen right now in web three is NFTs. And, you know, NFT is a non fungible token, which basically when you hear NFT, I just want you to think a digital, like cert certificate of authenticity or the parallel in the, in the modern world, like is a, a, a title, just like you buy a house, you get a title for it. It proves ownership. If you, if you buy a paint, if you buy a car, you get a title. If you buy a painting, you get a certificate of authenticity, something that says, this is the original piece of ownership. Like this is the original version of this thing, and you are the owner of it. So it is both a certificate of authenticity, and it is a certificate. Speaker 4 (00:56:28): It’s like a title that proves ownership, well NFTs the emergence of NFTs tees, give us a way to prove originality and to prove ownership on the blockchain. So when you hear blockchain, what is blockchain? Well, blockchain is just this, this ledger this like public, think of it as a, as a, as a public ledger of a transparent sort of like record keeping of who owns what, and who’s buying what and how much it is. It’s like a transparent, you know, record keeping kind of like, I process it as like you know, this, this, the city would keep you know, all the deeds and all the titles except this is public it’s available for the whole world to just see like this record of ownership. So the blockchain gives us the ability for all of us to see and go, oh, that was the original owner, because it’s hosted in this transparent, you know, way through this net, a network of computers, which is what makes up the blockchain. Speaker 4 (00:57:30): And so we can all access and, and, and verify who are the original owners and, and the, and, and which ones are the original digital things, which before now we’ve not able been, we’ve not been able to prove what is the original digital thing. Like if it’s a JPEG, no one could say, Ooh, that was the original JPEG, or that’s a picture, a copy of the JPEG. And that’s really important, right? Cuz there’s a difference in value between something that is original and something that there is a copy of the original Mona Lisa is worth hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions or whatever. The number is a picture of the Mona Lisa ISN worth much, maybe a few bucks. If it’s a really good picture, so it’s, it’s proving ownership and now NFTs give us the ability to track original ownership. Speaker 4 (00:58:16): And this is going to matter tremendously for you and me. There’s a few different use cases. So there’s, there’s a lot of different use cases that I see coming with web three. I’ll give you a few of them right now. So NFTs really are happening right now around artwork, whether you go well, if I’m not an artist, why do I care? Well, there’s a couple things. One is because you could create a piece of art. Like one of the things we’re gonna do is take our quote quotes and we will like, I mean, we’re not actively in this, but I am looking, I am on the hunt right now for a digital artist to take my quotes and create digital art out of my original quotes. So that it’s like, it’s, we’re creating a piece of art so that, you know, we can kind of put our stamp like, Hey, this is our thing. Speaker 4 (00:59:05): This is our piece of artwork. The other thing is you’ll be able to like share royalties and your fans can become your investors if you’re gonna release like a book let’s say where like there’s a music artist right now, NAS NAS. Who’s been around for years and years who just sold 50% of his royalties to his audience, to his fan base through NFTs. So he created some NFTs, you know, these digital pieces of art, but what they represent is an ownership in his new album. And so as he makes money from the label, 50% of whatever comes to him, he is sharing with the people who bought into his NFTs. Well, he raised millions of dollars by selling those NFTs. So he gets millions of dollars now in addition to whatever he got from the record label. And then as he earns money, 50% of that goes to the fan base who bought the NFTs. Speaker 4 (01:00:04): But that also means that all of these people have a stake in making sure that album is successful. And so the fans are like owning a piece of the work. I mean, this is mind boggling. I can’t even believe the things that I’m saying out loud right now. And that’s why I’m going, this is coming faster than faster than we all think. So, so you’ve got that. You’ve got you know, basically being able to digitize your book or digitize something and, and show proof that this was the original version of it. Just like, you know, if you have the original Tom Sawyer, that book is worth a lot more than a copy of Tom Sawyer. And so the blockchain by way of NFTs is allowing us to track originals of, of digital creations, which is gonna have huge, huge implications. And then you also have the metaverse right as you’re going. Speaker 4 (01:00:58): If, if you do any type of events or even as you run your team team it’s only a matter of time. Like one of the things I wanna do soon is start having some of our internal company meetings in the metaverse. I wanna start getting our team familiar with what that feels like because our team is, our team is remote. And so if we can all be sitting in the same virtual room together, and it feels more like you’re in the same room together, then some other tools like Skype or zoom or whatever. And there’s some cool functionality you can write on a chalkboards and sh it feels like you’re in a room, right? Other than you look like an avatar but that technology will evolve and it’s so it’s crazy, but the metaverse is coming. I would recommend staying plugged here. Speaker 4 (01:01:45): I think one of the things we do is take all these complicated terms and try to make them simple. A couple other quick terms, you know, if you if you wanna buy or sell NFTs, you have to do that on a marketplace, right? So just like eBay is where you would like buy and sell used items. And, and it’s like a, you know, know a secondary market. Well, NFTs are the same way, right? It’s, it’s almost like if I had a piece of art, I have to go somewhere to sell that art. Well, in the, in, in the web three, that would be a place like open C is the big one that you hear open C is kind of like eBay for NFTs. It’s very much like eBay. It’s where you would resell NFTs that you own. Open C is a marketplace that happens to use Ethereum, which is a very it’s, it’s a type of cryptocurrency. Speaker 4 (01:02:38): There are other ones Solana. I think it is. There’s there’s like a couple other marketplaces that use different types of crypto, but they’re all based in this digital decentralized in world where we can keep track of who owns what, and it’s not dependent on government or banks, which why it’s decentralized and it’s, it’s crazy. It’s crazy stuff. So there are implications of this for personal brands, stay tuned to that. We’re learning aggressively. We’ll be trying to simplify that and make it make sense for you as we go. A lot of crazy things happening there, but the metaverse is coming. And so, you know, when I think about this whole episode, it’s going all right. Community is never going away. Right. It’s just the environment in which community happens is gonna change just like it’s happened in your life. Right? So when you think of the metaverse, you might go, oh, that’s stupid. Speaker 4 (01:03:38): Or I don’t like that, or I don’t. And that, or that’s dumb. Well, be careful because there were a lot of people who said that about the internet. Oh, that’s stupid. It’s a fad. It’s not gonna work out. Right. That’s dumb. Well, look at how much the internet affects our life. And then that happened. And so for me, I was in high school when that happened. And then a few years later in the mid two thousands, social media came on the scene and people say, oh, that’s stupid. It’s a fad. It’s gonna go away. And it’s like, well, look at how long it’s it’s been around it. And it’s, it’s, it’s controlling the world. I mean, it’s, it’s the top four of the five top websites in the world. This is where people are spending their time. Why cuz it’s community. And so I think the meta versus coming, I don’t like it. Speaker 4 (01:04:24): I wouldn’t choose to go. Yeah, let’s all learn a completely new way of life, but there are many reasons why I think it’s coming. I think it’s coming fast. And we wanna help guide you there and help you understand what’s going on and try to, as we try to figure it out ourselves and as always try to be valuable to you. But I think the principles that try and talked about a building community are not gonna change, but the practices in terms of the locations and the functions and the tactics of how very much could in a web three world. So keep coming back to the influential, personal brand podcast, stay tuned in and we’ll be, we’ll be learning right alongside you. That’s it for this one. We’ll catch you next time on the Joel personal brand.