Jimmy Farley - Hitting 1 Billion Views on TikTok

So, Jimmy, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, about the UGC network that you're building and yeah, just tell. Us what you're up to.

Yeah, pleasure to be on here. I'm the worst at these intros, but basically just TikTok marketing is my main thing. So I have like a big creator network that I assign to my own brands, to partner brands, client brands and just been in this space for quite a while. Started by being a creator for my own brand, did that for a long time, learned the game really well, started teaching others and kind of evolved into this, which was more complicated than I'm putting it out to be right there, but very much have it dialed these days and just try to blow up brands on TikTok, all organic marketing.

What are some of the brands that you've worked with?

I'm not going to get into the exact ones. I don't even know if they'd want me to. I'm sure they wouldn't care. But mostly supplement brands these days, we're very dialed in supplements. And then the second one is, like, software and apps, so makes sense with you guys.

So when you got started.

When you.

First got started, did you get started with TikTok initially, or were you doing Instagram stuff before and then TikTok came out, or were you born straight into the TikTok?

Yes.

I haven't been in this space in ecom and online business very long. It's like getting close to four years now because I'm 22.

Did it.

I was on Covid year from college home and was trying to figure out drop shipping, and I was trying to do Facebook ads, and I just stumbled on TikTok, and I was like, it should go to show you how little I knew at the time. I was like, oh, I'm just going to post on Instagram and TikTok so our Facebook ads will perform better. I didn't know anything, and one randomly popped off, and I was like, okay, wait, I can do this. This makes sense to me. No one was doing it at that time. We were like, June 2020. I didn't even know there was a brand on TikTok.

Well, I know you might not want to mention some of the brands, but just for context for the audience, because we spoke with a few people and they were like, you talk to Jimmy. He'll solve your problem. So how many views in total do you think you guys have pulled off for some of the brands? Like, on it's in total or a weekly basis or something?

Well, the first product I ran was the color changing swimwear. That was, like, our first one. That was the one I ran to, like, a million followers.

And that was your own brand?

Yeah, with my own two hands. Did all the videos myself. So that was the first one. And then sold that in 2022. It was like some bullshit, though. By the end, it pretty much died. We had a really strong top run, and then just typical. Just didn't know how to scale it.

Too young, too dumb, whatever. And then your question was, how many views? Sorry. Yeah, so that one? Yeah, well, I split them up because there's, like, one. There's like the first side where it's like the swimwear was like my own two hands. So we did like 250,000,000 with that, where I really did it myself. And then the rest were just managed campaigns, which are still like my work, but it's just two different things.

Yeah, for sure.

That one, I've done like another 751 before just recently. Probably past a billion.

So every week you guys are pulling in millions.

Dude. In creators corner now, we're doing like 15 million a day.

Wow.

Sometimes more.

Yeah.

How many creators in total are in the network?

225 right now. 225. We're going by the day, though.

That's a lot of views per creator.

Yeah.

So that's what's really changed and that's why it works so well, is because it's a coaching program. Right. That's the difference between the billows, the join brands, all that. There's no training involved in it. They're just like, it's like, hey, free for all, get in there. We'll see what you all can do.

I mean, I have the experience, like, when we built trend, we had to make it a vetted network where we had to onboard them because if you use any of these other platforms that are databases, it's BS. You know the challenges. You know those creators are going to get the product. They're going to go ghost you. That's the value of a network, which is you have the leverage and the power to say, if you mess around, we're going to kick you out.

Yeah.

And no other platform really has that because they know they have the leverage and the platform will kick out the creator. But you actually will probably, right?

Yeah.

Just definitely punishment.

Yeah.

Kick people out before, but definitely it's very key. I also think it's different from what I've seen. I guess it was different for you. But a lot of those platforms aren't. I can tell they're not owned by brand owners.

Okay.

I'm like, this is basic stuff you're missing. For example, one of the first five videos in the course is really like, if you don't post like you've committed capital murder, if you promise someone 30 posts in a month and you do 20, you will never hear the end of it. For me.

Well, let's talk about the word UGC. Because, for example, we were selling UGC, but it was just the content. So the brag got the licensing rights and they use it for ads. So distribution wasn't baked in there. But you are doing it with an angle that has distribution so can you walk us through what working with you looks like? What are you guys doing?

So yeah, UGC is just like for ease of explaining honestly, UGC is more referring to what you're talking about with probably using for paid ads.

Right.

So you're paying per video. You get one video. It's usually pretty edited. You get a good amount of, it's probably scripted too, honestly.

Yeah.

Like, that's just not the style we do. It's more of like, some people probably call it organic UDC. I call it just like, you know, just freelance creators, much more from the hip, much know, kind of wild content. Not, there's, there's not much touch point from there. It's mostly on the creators end and they're posting it all themselves. Brand accounts all like subsidiaries. It's like the tabs method kind of thing.

Right.

So I'd love for, if you took us back because you said you did this yourself, and I think a lot of the times the best way of building a business is when you're an operator yourself and you know how to do something, then you can help others be able to tap into that.

Right.

So why don't you take us back to the swimmer brand that you were building?

What was it?

What was the content that you were working? What started to pop off? Just take us back there.

So I haven't thought about it while honestly. So you're just wondering, what do you want about content? Just like, yeah.

What were you doing? What type of content were you creating that was working and made you pop to however many million views you were doing for your brand back at that time?

It was a lot of trend content was really hot back then. But the main thing I learned that a lot of the stuff I still use to this day, like three and a half years ago, but the main thing I learned was, like, emotion sparking. Like how to make people, anything that goes viral always boils down to some kind of emotion spark.

Right?

It's like, talk about a funny video. What do you do when you see a funny video? You laugh, like physically laugh. Like you feel some type of emotion. You watch the whole thing through because you're laughing so hard. You like it. You comment laughing emojis, and then you send it to a friend who probably think it's funny. Right? Obviously that's going to make you go viral. Engagement correlates with virality on TikTok.

So I was like, okay. I started to realize these videos with color changing swimwear. There were so many viral angles. There was like, what happens if you pee. How does it work? There was just like, whoa, is this real? Is this edited? What other colors do you have? All these inherent interests that would come from it, and we would just backtrack that and reverse engineer every single video.

Right.

Even if it was just a stupid little trend. TikTok, that was 10 seconds.

What did that look like, though, from scripting ideas? Because this was before you had the process. What would it look like once you figured that out? Are you like, let's come up with like 50 possible emotion triggers or something? As the founder too, of the company?

Yeah.

So every creator will say something different here, but I think most will relate to this, that at least practice my ideology in my group. You don't even think once you get it. It's really like a language you speak when you become fluent in Spanish or something. I don't know if you guys speak other languages, but I'm starting to get better. And I've realized when you really start to learn another language, you don't even translate for sure Spanish.

And people ask me, do you dream or think in Spanish or English? I'm like, I don't know. I don't even.

Yeah, it's not another language, right? It's like, it is the language, right? It's the same thing with content. I feel like you kind of just like you take inspiration from some places. I'm sure we did a lot of saving stuff to folders and certain audios we'd save, so then we'd use that. That was kind of the backbone of it, but there was not really brainstorming. It was very much just like, I already know what I'm going to do here.

Has that changed from then till now?

I'd say most of my creators are practicing that too. There's obviously the period where you got to understand it so very much. We teach people how to build toolboxes. If you build a toolbox, you can pretty much do anything. It's like, okay, you give me a problem solving product. I know I'm going to use a contrast framework. Basically say, like, here's the problem, here's the solution. Here's how I used to use this.

I used to be in this scenario before this product versus after I already have that. There's certain things you can follow, or if it's like a proprietary product, then I'll do like a storyline where it's like, I had this problem. That's why I created this. It has this features. There's like a toolbox know to this and there's different ways you can move that once you, once you get that. It's like one of my best creators, Sydney, was talking about this. She's like, I just look and you know, and it's like, that's why I have to review that. I told you guys a lot about this.

Most products I turn away because, dude, I don't, there's nothing there, there's nothing to work off. Like if I don't have something. That product is extremely important.

How do you know that? What are the core elements? You look guess, like it's basically, it's.

Got to be viral, right? So it's like, if I looked at Lacroix, like, I would never take on Lacroix as a product. What am I going to do with that? Maybe I could do some memes, but that's some big company marketing shit that doesn't move the needle on pushing products, right? When I see something like a supplement, I know I can do a ton of education around it, right? Especially if it's a new supplement. I don't want magnesium. I want like she legit where it's like wild looking. It has real benefits. Like real customers that love it can actually have some kind of education and benefit to the customer. That kind of stuff works.

Yeah.

Well, we'll have to try later, but I'm working on a supplement that I think you'll like a lot.

But the next question I was going to ask is talk to me a.

Little bit about your transition to working with other creators. Right, because you had your own company and now like you're saying you've managed a network of probably 225, some of the best creators who actually know how to create organic content that goes viral.

But, sorry to interrupt, but actually on that note you mentioned, I don't want to skip this part. You mentioned one of your best creators. You saw her and you know, but these are creators that you're spotting before. They're huge, right?

Well, I was saying that she just knows when she sees a product herself. But that did happen too, funny enough.

Yeah.

As soon as I saw her I was like, I know you.

Yeah, okay.

But also I'm sure a bunch of the creators who have come through your program like they're getting better. The content that I look great and then they blow up together. So walk me through, I guess your transition from having your own brand, knowing a couple other creators. What came next? How did you start working with others on this sort of thing?

So it started like I started posting about shit on Twitter and that's how I built my network of just, like, friends and stuff. So posted on Twitter, whatever. Grew a following pretty quickly because TikTok was like, when I first started posting on Twitter, bro, in 2021, people are like, what are you talking about, bro? You're going viral and making, like, you've done 100k in a month. Is that possible? And now we've done. It's gotten so much bigger. But they're like, what is this kid on? They're like, what's your TikTok ad strategy? I might do. This is organic, right? So I just went really hard at that. And natural build off.

That was like, I had a community, so I built this other community still runs this going strong, the collective, where it was just TikTok, drop shipping, e commerce brands, blah, blah. Just, like, had my two partners who do know my boys, Cal and Luca, who do TikTok marketing too, and we just chugged along there. The thing was, and we had this channel. Still have it to this day. It's honestly a great resource for anyone out there. But opportunities channel, right, where we just, like, people were posting jobs. I was posting my jobs because I basically had, like, a little TikTok agency after my brand and stuff that I was just doing, and people would come through. People maybe drop shipping on the side, being to creators.

And I was like, all the people that I took that went really hard on it were, like, getting their lives changed. Like, my girl Sydney, for example, she was like, a failed drop shipper. Turn creator. Change your life. Put 100k in her bank account in six months. And I was like, okay. She's 19. I'm like, okay, this makes a lot of sense.

And I'm trying to do these campaigns, and I don't even have enough talent, but every time I get someone, they get such better results than this whole drop shipping crap, which, you guys know takes three, four months of being a lunatic, like, being in the Trenches, losing money, all this. It doesn't make sense for everyone. So I'm like, okay. And a huge thing with TikTok, drop shipping is, like, the product. I'm telling you, it's like, the number one thing I look at, right? Turn away 90% of people. So now expect to be getting to figure that out. That took me three years to figure out. It's just ridiculous.

I can give you a checklist. You still probably won't be able to figure it out if you just haven't been through it. So I'm like, okay, Sydney's coming over here, tapping into these good products. I already have and these know she doesn't have to do anything. Everything's profit maxes out her commissions. This TikTok drop shipping to, I'm going to make this, like a thing. This has to be a thing. And we already wanted to do like an inner circle kind of coaching thing, but I never was hot on the drop shipping stuff.

I'm like, I'll teach it for $50 a month. I don't know about taking 3000 from someone even though I could get them some people. It's just so hard, bro. And I want to work downstream. So I'm like, let's do it for creators. Then we can funnel more talent into our own brands, put them on better products. Every single person I know for a fact, even if you're a total beginner, I can make you money as little as $300. It's really unique too, because we'll hire 20 people per brand.

Like, what other space are you doing that on? Not closers, not copywriters, not email marketers. They hire one or two of those. So I'm like, I only need ten of these and five of them I'm going to own and other partner brands and we're off to the races. So that was like the progression. I was running out of people and I was like, that's a problem. But everyone that I still get is getting results, so how do I fix that?

So you created. How did you think about the business model? Because one of the things you're thinking is like, well, Sydney's making 100 grand a month. How do I get to me making 100 or a million a month, if it's like, is it capped? It's like you can only. And so many people can join. How did you think about your business model?

Through.

Okay, to be fair, Sydney not making 100 grand a month. Sorry.

Yeah.

Just to be clear, because there is kind of like a cap, I think it's not something I wouldn't expect creators to make 100 grand a month. That would just be so much. But it's like, genuinely, I've not seen any other industry.

I mean, a year, it's good money, you're making content, you're straight profit.

Straight profit. It's the easiest way to put just cash in your bank account and make ten to 20k. That's very normal.

You have time to then start your EcoM brand or whatever it is you.

Want to do by the time they're going. And now some of my students who are launching brands, killing it, right? Because they're like, oh, I already know what to do. I just get the products like a client, boom, they already know what they're doing.

So how did you think about your business model?

Honestly, I think I got kind of lucky too. Like, I saw it and I was like, I think this can work. Like whatever. Because my goal is I was already working with Oliver. Like, that's my partner on the supplement brands. Older guy, straight Beast.

Is that the guy that works with Mo?

No, he doesn't work with Mo, no, but similar setup to what Mo does where he has the older kind of main partner funding everything. And then I'm in the operator, take equity, get a retainer. But that's like my brother Rob and he's know my mentor in this. And so I'm like, I'm already doing this and I actually wanted to scale further with him. That's why I was like, okay, how do I get more creators and also how do I generate more cash flow? Because it's know, brands are very much like an equity. Like, I have not seen very many ecommerce brand owners taking more than a mill a year ever. Even at the highest of scales, it's very much like an equity place. I'm like, want to generate more cash flow that helps the brands, gets people results, brings more people in, and then get away from the agency model.

I was like, in the agency model I was taking small cuts, like 30%, whatever, and had to still pay all my creators. And it was just like harder to manage. Communication wasn't better. So I'm like, how can I deliver a better place there? Everything just kept coming back. I spent so many nights going to bed thinking about it. I was like, everything just kept coming back to like, wait, this could actually work, right? Where the brands could get better experience, creators could get better experience. And my brands can, and I can make time. Yeah, I'm like, my photos just kept coming back.

And then talk to us a little.

Bit about, I think when we'd been talking before, you were like, kind of like the golden moment for you was when you had all your creators and you flipped the model. So you went from what was just like a network of different creators who you're sourcing deals to, to being like, no, we're blending coaching where we all level up together, but you have to pay to be in it. Just tell me how that flip switch and everything changed.

Well, that was it right there. That was just walking through and I'll even say numbers with my TikTok agency, I think the most, I already had money, so it wasn't really like, I wasn't worried about it, but the most I ever made in a month was maybe like fifteen, twenty k. I was just making like a little 1020 a month and I was like, and it was like just not fulfilling. Like, I knew I wasn't at my best. So that's like, there it is. I'm like, all right, the brands are paying me and I'm then paying the creators and taking a cut. What if the brand owners work directly with the creators? I train the creators. So basically no more brands paying me.

I'm going to get these creators to fucking pay me. I'm making Sydney twenty k a month or ten k a month, whatever it was at the time. I'm like, she's getting a more, she's getting things with the brands. I'm like, bro, I'm just going to get them. I can do this again every time. I know I can do it. So I'm like, all right, let's switch this around. And just like immediately.

And I had the full network. I've always been a big believer. My reputation matters. So I had a lot of people who were ready to do this kind of thing with me. Discord people. The launch did extremely well because our discord loves us. It just switched and now it's like one hundred k a month. It's like, boom.

Well, and one thing we always talk.

About is it's just funny from consumer psychology point of view. Sometimes when people pay for something, they value it more as well.

So it's almost like the creators who.

Are now paying to be in it, they're like, I'm paying for this. I need to level my shit up to make more.

Accountability is like the most important thing in the creator space. Otherwise it's not going to work if they don't have skin in the game. That's why I'm not a believer in any network. When people really come to me and say, where should I use for creators to post? And et cetera? It's like, don't use a platform like grin. You're just going to waste like 30 grand because there is no accountability.

Yeah, even at trend.

I think one of the biggest solutions we had is have them add their credit card so they know they're responsible and get billed if the product is taken. Because you know that what happens if you try to do this in house as a brand and you're like, oh, I just heard this podcast. I can do this.

You're going to ship 30 products.

You're not going to hear back from 28 of those creators. And if you hear back, they're also not going to post on time when you thought they were. So yeah, let's talk about that. Why should brands not try to do it themselves? Or shouldn't they?

It's hard to say. I'm going to be honest, and I'm not saying that every time. It's perfect. Has your campaign started yet? I know Xander's. Yeah, it started. Do you?

Yeah.

Like how deep are you guys?

A.

Like not even a so like ddub five.

It's never guaranteed, you know, it's content. And we've talked about your guys'product is tougher than some a month, but we'll see how it goes. But regardless, dude, I ain't going to lie if the creators aren't through us for this organic style of trying to push millions of views, whatever. I genuinely don't know a single other agency, person, whatever, that can do it without my people. Past five creators, the only brand I've ever seen do it is better brand health. The only other brand I've seen do it. Every single one. If you see an account, if you see like a brand on TikTok that has 10, 15, 20 accounts all under their name, like mo's brands, Fez's brands, all those.

They're from me. Those are my students.

I love to next kind of talk about. Because you guys are in literally the world of creators, you guys are constantly talking about trends, how to build content or whatever. So if you just had to drop some knowledge about what kind of discourse goes on in the discord right now, what are you guys talking about? What kind of topics, what are people trying to learn?

All that sort of stuff. TikTok shop, baby. See, that's a bummer. You guys can't even tap into that. But TikTok shop is unreal.

At least with this product. But maybe with the software.

Yeah.

Oh my God. That shit is no joke, man. TikTok shop is just like one of our internal brands for the only thing with TikTok shop is approvals are really hard, so they can be. There's not the greatest support with them. You have to really know someone. But one of our internal branches finally got approved after all these different takedowns. Whatever. They probably have 30, 40 of our people signed, whatever.

And it was like starting to die down. Like they've been around a while and boom, we get on TikTok shop and I just have a minority stake in this. I have like 10%. And regardless when this other guy operates it, he's like, all right, finally got approved. Let's go. So I'm, like, posting. They have their own little management discord, right? That's how all Xander probably has an internal one for you guys sent up. Right? I really don't be in the nitty gritty of those.

There's not an agency. It's a coaching thing. Like, I let you guys go, I check in on it and stuff. But posting the thing. Hey, we're on TikTok shop. Let's go. First day, and you know how they limited 200 orders? 200 orders, bang. It's like $7,000.

Okay. All right, next day, 7000. Today by 02:00 p.m.. 7000. It's just like, dude, it's so overpowered and all the creators know that their commissions are really well tracked. Orders are really, like, it's so native, TikTok. I really am convinced, and I'm not one to say this is, like, pushing those videos. I just had my highest creator commission month I've ever seen for one of my students.

So seven grand is the revenue of the products, and then what other creators get from that?

Like, 30%. 15.

And so that is how Tintok's commission program works.

No, you can change it, I think, share, run it. 15 to 20. Yeah, you can make it none. Oh, I saw it.

Yeah.

So TikTok shop is a very big focus. Like, all my creators are obsessed with it.

Right. Yeah.

And so it's capping the earnings, I guess, and then it's capping the sales.

So TikTok shop is, like, being really aggressive on making sure everything is very white hat on all the brands, and I'm extremely impressed by it. That's how you do it. Shopify, I think that was honestly a major mess up by them.

Right.

Drop shipping is not a net positive for customer experience. That's like, why do you think Shopify converts at 2% and Amazon converts at 20? That's why I love Amazon. Most of our brands are Amazon focused. TikTok Shop is like that, though. If you don't ship out within five days, you're going to hit. Really? They want you doing three and then they give you an extended period. If you don't do it, then you get, like, three, four strikes.

That's good.

It's amazing. That's exactly what Amazon did, and they're already doing FBT fulfilled by, like, eventually it'll all be like, just like FBA.

It's Amazon's threat.

Honestly, I know that Amazon is talking a lot about know and who knows? What will like, I would not be surprised if they lobby it and just try and take it to the like genuinely. But the thing is, they tried that so many times, I wouldn't even care if they did as the TikTok dude. I would go to whatever it will be on know whatever.

We are really excited to announce that DTCpod is officially part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals. And we're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests, and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers and builders of the most successful consumer brands. So anyway, keep listening to DTC pod and more shows like us on the HubSpot podcast network at.

It'S just, it's.

Just crazy to see, right? Because it's like everyone kind of knows that creators are part of the equation, but no one's handled them. So Facebook messed up right when they launched their Instagram shopping because they didn't care about the creators at all. They just made some sort of storefront and there was no integration. It wasn't about the creators. And then Amazon's about obviously their affiliate program. But it's not like a native platform.

Decent. But yeah, there's no, like, it's not social media. Exactly. No.

So, Jerry, I have a question. Like from this method specifically, you also have the method, not that you do, but there's also the method. You have two options as a brand owner. It's like, okay, I either try to create, have the creators create the content and the distribution on a new page, or I can pay influencers to post. How do you feel about that approach? Do you think it's good combining both? Or let's say I have a ten K budget, I pretty much have to choose between those two. Like, do I want to manage ten creators or do I want to roll the dice and pay a grand or so a post. How do you feel about the strategy of having influencers post compared to this?

I think they're both great. Yeah, we do both.

So on that note, I think the reason I asked you is because the negotiation aspect is the hard part of paying influencers. Sometimes if you don't know what you're doing, you can blow through 1020 grand and get no results. Or some of the challenges I face in the past is like, the creator really works for you and then they three extra price on you or something. So how do you think about what advice do you have for brands, when it comes to negotiation for posts? Do you measure it by CPM or do you just like. You just see and you know.

So when you say creators, you're talking like my type of people.

No, sorry. Influencers.

Oh, influencers raise the price. Yeah.

Let's say you do a post. Okay, well, we're going to do one test for like, 1500, and then it blows up a few million views. And then you're like, all right, I want three. I want four posts. And they're like, well, now it's like five grand. Three grand or whatever.

You kind of just get. Am I allowed to swear?

Yeah.

They'Ll find a game.

Yeah. Right.

The only way to have leverage against that is just to have a big enough volume of other talking with.

Right. Which is hard. Influencer stuff is hard. Honestly, if someone want to do this, the influencer model of someone managing those campaigns really well is not a common service. I look for those kind of not common services. Kind of like the organic stuff. Like, really haven't trained people. Having good influencer manager can really beat that.

Know, I asked Sander, I asked him, I was like, what did you do? He's like, well, I did it really well. And then also turns out that not because you're a creator means you know how to manage other creators. And so he was good at. So, like, you spotted, gave. That gave me a lot of confidence because it's like, oh, Jimmy isn't just putting him there because he was just a. Yeah, he was a creator and.

He knows how to make that the management side. And I'm telling that's creator stuff. I was talking about influencers, too. But management stuff is invite only in my group. You got to really show me the only people who get invited. I have three only people out of 200, whatever. They have to basically have never missed a post in their life. That just goes to show me, you're on top of your shit, done over 15 billion views.

And then you have to be like a really quick text responder. And I know if I do that, if you texted Xander right now, he'd respond within 30, I guarantee you. How much does that mean to you? That's the best kind of agency to work with or person to have under you is just like, on top of their shit, right? That in influencer stuff, someone who can manage product gifting and all that, that space is really not well tapped. The only options I've seen are some big twitter. I'm not going to say their names, obviously, but big twitter agencies where they're like, ridiculous budgets. They charge you per person they send out to. It's just not well done at all. I thought about, like, my friend was thinking about doing a coaching program kind of thing where they train people to do that.

Interesting.

Around product seeding at scale and the management of it.

Like thousands of products.

Yeah. Product seeding and also big influencer because it's really valuable if you can manage that.

Yeah.

And lock down the right one. I know we talked about product seeding in the influencer space a lot, but.

We do it in the software space, which it's actually something that we started. We were like, wait, why don't we create the software version of product seating? And so we use coupons and we started doing it and it's like, well, we don't have the problem of having to ship the product.

Yeah.

Silhouette, major problem.

Definitely a lot of more logistics in the physical product space. You're shipping the product, you want to make sure the unboxing is right. Communication is locked down. There's so much more to it than. Here's an email and enter this code.

Yeah. TikTok shops also making influencer campaigns a lot better.

Yes.

Why don't we talk about how are they doing it for the influencer campaign? Are they doing anything different there? Or is it just the same?

Do you guys remember TikTok creator marketplace?

Yeah.

You remember that? Back in the day, people used to talk about a lot. It was never that special.

Right?

Never leave off.

Yeah.

Now it's like they merged it. So it's like. It is TikTok shop mount. You can go in your back end and invite creators and you can see.

The data because it's native TikTok data. The sales, they're pushing.

Yeah.

So the rates are going to get ridiculous for some of these creators, probably right.

Dude. Most creators on TikTok shop top affiliates are strictly on affiliate. Unheard of. We don't do any strictly affiliate stuff. There's a whole reason for that. But with TikTok shop, people are interested in doing that because it is so.

But if you think about Ramon, like, for the. If even on, like, you're managing an entire business process, negotiating with brands, every single one, TikTok shop, you just go in there and you're like, all what I'm. Here's what I'm posting. Like, your business is right there inside your content creation platform. So that's a creator you're like, and.

They can just request the top ones. So if you get a top one, it really snoutballs I'm involved in a couple of campaigns where they're like, probably top 50 TikTok shop brands. You know, like, top ten are doing like five hundred k a day, right?

What?

No, I'm not kidding. Like, this shit is no joke, Grunanda. Half a million a day. Half a million a day. That's one rice supplements. Half a million a day.

I knew the kid from rise. Yeah, that's crazy.

But I know someone that's in the top 50, though. And one of my creators just. He was working for that brand, had the highest month. He's at, like, I've ever seen 50k month.

What's funny is that now people are engineering brands for TikTok. Virality.

Yeah.

Launching brands with the concept. Let's talk about this. Are you making brands you own? Operate brands?

So I have, like, minority stakes in all of them. Like, in like five. And that's just the best set up for me because I'm good at one thing and I let the other people carry the rest. And I'm actively launching more. And I'm going to cap out after this round, I think. I don't think you should have 20, but I'll probably have seven or eight, maybe all supplements. Yeah, that's my niche. That's my niche.

I have some friends that are all in weed products. I have some friends that are all in golf. There's skincare, there's different stuff. Supplement is my thing. Rob's the goat of it. Like, he has all that tapped help us. He sold a big supplement brand. So it just makes sense.

There's, like, network effects if you become the product maker in the niche, because now you have the creator network and the relationships, like, if you do, like, you just keep plugging products and you already have all the golf influencer relationships built out.

The hard thing is, even if you're. If you're in software, if you're in golf, if you're in skincare, the creators who are doing stuff for skincare, if you want to launch a golf product now, it's like a totally different network. So if you're in the same space and people already know how to create.

The content that's in each of those.

Audiences, you're not having to go reinvent the wheel every different.

Yeah.

And I have the same managers who run the same discord server. I put them all on the same discord server. It just makes sense. Apps is like, in software, though. I have one small one, an app that I have a stake in, and I fucking love it. Like, God, there's no competition in that space. My problem is that I don't understand it. I don't know how to dev.

I don't know how to do any of that. I would definitely get fucked if I tried to do it, but I would for sure be way richer if I did understand it and just rent that. Ecom marketers are like some of the best, bro. You know, we ever joke about it because we're like our podcast.

It's like all ecommerce focused. We're talking to the best marketers in ecommerce or selling products, and then we build software all the time. So we're able to just understand what's happening in ecommerce, what the latest trends are, and apply it to SaaS where they're operating like it's ten years ago.

So the difference is, what I've realized is that ECom, why you got to be such a good marketer is you already lost half your profit every time you ship a product. There's got margin for error. You ain't got nothing else. Like with team product. I know for a fact you maximum got like 50 left. 50% maybe when we have mob here.

He was like, marketing. No, marketing is never a problem because you just have to be a good marketer when you're doing ECoM.

Yeah, but then you go to software or whatever. All they care about is product.

Right.

Which is a good thing and a bad thing, because then they focus so much on product.

Yeah, well, it's good for us because not a lot of people are really focused on distribution. We are.

Yeah.

The main difference, too is software. You have so many different channels of growth. Like, you can do Bizdev, you can do partnerships, you can do SEO, you can do where it's like creators are a new vertical.

It was all ads or consumer products.

And products online even. Right, right. So the two, being able to have products that you're selling online and have creators creating content that's being distributed online and literally being able to purchase it there. That wasn't a thing.

That's why you guys have to cry, dude, I literally asked this. I'm like, I'm like, I didn't know that you guys fully started texting. They're like.

And we're like, dude, this is great content.

If we looked at them, we're like.

It'S just a matter.

Okay, go fuck you. Because you guys have to do it. Because now it's like, you just get one, bro. Also, software converts so high, typically you get one pace for the whole campaign. Then you funnel it back into the other people. It becomes this giant flywheel. Everyone else gets inspired. You gamify the group.

Like, bro, as soon as you get one or two of them, everything changes.

Yeah.

Okay, well, you work with the creators. Let me take a step back. How do you deal with retaining creators? And how do you advise brands to be able to retain creators? Are we going to move to a model where brands are just going to have to hire them full time or. That's also hard because they're making so much more in commissions. Maybe it goes back to what you said. It's the nature of the game. Like, you're going to lose someone.

Yeah, I really like this question because I had someone kind of have some fucking attitude with me about the other day. They were like, coming from a brand. They came from a good place, but they had, like, a growth agency, right? So they do full stack, whatever. And obviously there's no one that does TikTok well, bro. There just isn't. So they're using some of our people, and I had a creator quit on that. They're like, yo, I'm going to something else. I'm not doing that well for you.

And they were like, yo, no, why are you leaving? They're like, we want to build a long term thing with you. And then she kind of told them, she's like, yo, this is typical, bro. The longest I go is like four to six months. I max out my viral thing, and then sometimes I'll revisit it. But this is kind of how it works. And this dude was like, seems like you guys don't care. I'm like, no, bro, we care. This is why the nature of a game is, it's a revolving door, right? Where it's like, you come in, everyone's going to be there for a month.

Best ones, you resign, and you just keep going until it doesn't look like it can go any longer. And some people will go indefinitely, right? Like, for my own brand, I was a creator for whatever it was, almost two years, right? Still getting views. So some people will go that long, right? But if you don't do well, they already know. Like, all right, I'll just get another brand. The demand is infinite, right? But that's why I manage the supply of brands. I make sure only the best ones come in. They don't really compete with each other. They make sense.

If they lose one, they can go to another. I always make sure they're amply supplied there.

But what's your long term vision? With that, because you can be making three, five times as much money if you're like, oh, let them come in. Yeah. Your selection with brands, why is that? What is the long term vision here? I'll definitely be making five ton of money if you.

Yeah.

And, yeah, I don't really charge the brands much either. For example, your campaign. That made sense. I shouldn't be putting this out, but I waived it. I was like, yo, let's just see what it does first.

Right?

So I'm already making my money, bro. I've already got it from the creators. And I also don't want to be liable for things like, Xander's doing that, whatever. And Xander's the manager. But regardless, I know I'm still missing out because I know how in demand this is. I can tell the way I have people hit my phone and follow up with me and do the most and try to scout my people. I know what this is. So I've had software people reach out to me and be like, yo, I want to build this one guy in specific.

And it made me realize, I was like, this could be something really serious. And I can imagine kind of. I don't know if you're familiar with closeify. I think that's a software for salespeople.

Right?

And they had, like, a similar model where it's like, you pay entry and then you pay monthly, I don't know, for the brand side of it. So I'm thinking maybe there's some kind of way of that I would never make it a free for all because that would ruin my creator's results if I let La Croix in there. Or I'm trying to think of some of the stupid brands that hit me up. Do I get so many dumb products like skincare? I don't touch. I don't do clothing.

No skincare.

I don't do any skincare.

Why?

Unless it's, like, very specific breach stink.

Like, oh, every girl buys skincare. That is the hottest problem.

Yeah, no, it's really hard to package into videos, and it's, like, one of the most competitive ecom categories in the game. People will lose triple their just to get it out.

Yeah.

And especially there's a lot of skincare stuff that will be, like, recurring. They'll gift the first whatever subscription just to get them hooked.

People come to me all the time and they're like, dude, I'll tell them there's maybe a 10% chance this works. And they'll be like, I don't care. I'll pay to do. I'll do it all up front. And I've done that before where I'm like, all right, dude, whatever.

Suddenly you're like, it wasn't worth it.

No, it wasn't, bro. Every time I've taken the time and found a rob where I'm like, I know this can work, and can you ride with me? It's been ten x worth my time.

Basically, you've teased brand throughout this podcast episode of how good of an opportunity this is. But then you've said, nobody knows how to do it, and I don't want to do it. Let's say I'm a brand listening, and I'm like, fuck, then what do I do? Should I take a stab at doing it myself? Or what should I do if I'm a brand?

Okay, let's get this. Let's give some value here. So if you have a good product that has viral potential, you should 100% be doing this, right. Let's say you have some competitors who are murdering in this space. That would be a sign to me. If you have something that's like a massive improvement off of other products, if I can buy it on Amazon basics, like Amazon Basics made version of your product, it's not a go. Don't waste your time, bro. Don't even waste your fucking budget.

Go do something else. If you have a software that's for email marketers or closers, there's no one on TikTok that wants your shit. You don't need it. I had an umbrella company hit me up. No one wants your umbrellas, bro. Go do Facebook ads. So that's step one. Do you have the product that'll tell you if it's worth it? If I'm not doing it, you shouldn't do it like or if I wouldn't do it.

In a perfect world, you shouldn't do it. If you have that, let's say you have great budget. Hey, shit, hit me up. But if you don't, and maybe I'm not available, whatever, then you look into other options. There's other ways to go about this. You can join the collective. It's $50. Whatever.

We'll link that in the show notes.

Okay?

For sure there's opportunities channel. There you join. You can even see the ones that are in my group. They have a badge on them. Some of them will be available. It won't be as managed, but you can pick ala carte like 1234 creators. Start with some volume, though. I told you guys that every single one of my deals always has volume because that's how you get results.

Imagine if only two or three of your guys were posting right now.

Right? Right.

No, yeah, it would be.

That's what I charge.

We serve.

That's.

Yeah, I've done myself and it's like, this isn't enough momento.

Yeah.

Every day I'm like getting a video every four days and I'm like, I need more dopamine.

The thing is, the more why details here as people is they think, oh, well, that's going to be crazy because if the UGC guy is charging me 100 and 5200 video, I'm going to have to pay 100 grand. But you just got to know what to pay, right? You can pay as low as $300 if they're a beginner for 30 videos and let them ride the upside with commissions, you can find mid tier people for five to 800 and you can find really good people for. I'm going to get into the really good people in a second for 1000 to 2000. Right. All like, very affordable. You could just pick three to four of that range. And we always pick a range of those because even though it seems like, oh, well, I only want really good people. Those beginners, if they're from my group, where they're putting in the work, can oftentimes outperform those.

Everyone had to have their big break at some point, right? And that's like brief. Make a really good brief. So I don't know if you could put this in the notes, but I can send my template, even my cheat sheet. Yeah, you can just fill it out. A really good brief is easy to read, gives the creator inspiration and teaches them everything they need to know about your product. That is it. That's the formula right there.

And you, as a brand owner, you better know your value propositions that are the things that get people hooked. Because if you can't even get anyone excited about your product, the creator is not going to be able to say, right.

And the Brief shouldn't also micromanage them. It shouldn't be like, hey, one of these hooks every single video, whatever. It should just give them inspiration. A lot of times why creators don't post, actually, because I've had to tackle this issue a lot is because they don't feel like they have good ideas and then they procrastinate that and then it becomes a repeating. So, like, a lot of times before I'm on someone's ass of like, hey, why aren't you posting? I'm like, yo, you need like, what's the problem, like, if it's an idea thing, that's on me. I need to be a better manager.

Right.

Let me give you more ideas. Did you look at the brief? So another thing with the brief, I'm just going to start dropping sauce here. Make a loom. Garen, Xander. I have a loom for you guys. Yeah, that's the one I taught him, bro. You make a loom on. On top of it.

Because not everybody's a visual learner. Some people want to hear it and they feel better sitting there and they can watch it back more times and they like to go back and hear the way you said it.

Right.

And you can explain things different than just writing it. So we'll make two of those. Now the creators really know what to do going into it, and I don't just have to. If you have a really good brief, you can beat out just trying to have to find talent. Right. That can also go to upwork. I can find people there and try and scalp people. It might be kind of hard.

Know, you look through search for organic creators, try to find someone who gets it. You can probably find someone fiver, definitely Twitter. If you search UGC, organic, TikTok, those kind of. Definitely find someone on TikTok shop, looking around for affiliates, stuff like that.

The creator marketplace.

Yeah.

Try and scalp micro influencers, stuff like that. Like I said, it's really hard. That's why I do well for myself. It's possible, though, for sure with all that. And if you have a really good brief and you don't micromanage them, you have enough initial volume, right? Like you need at least three, four. And if you're just going to start with two because you don't have the budget, do it for six to twelve months, eventually you'll probably get something.

So what are the agencies that brands should say no to working with? What are red flags for an agency so they don't waste their money.

Okay, what are some good rep? Because there's definitely.

An agency that does PPC. They say they do every marketing service now. They do TikTok. They say they have a network. How do you probe the network? They have.

Okay, so here's another thing, too. Don't get obsessed with demographics. Okay? This is a huge thing. I dominate people in this. People get really obsessed with demographics because of Facebook. I get it, I get it. I know why you're thinking that just because your customer avatar on Facebook is a 30 year old female, your creator doesn't, right? I've just proved this so many times I'll put 16 year old demons, like, just guys, on female products, and they'll dominate.

You.

Don't get upset. A lot better.

Yeah.

Blaine was talking about his supplement, and it's probably mostly for girls. And then he's like, but I think Jimmy's creators are all guys.

Like 70 30 boy.

You said the demographic doesn't really matter.

One of our best internal brands. I only have 5% of this one, but my partner has 15, and he's running it with Rob and his partner. Bro, no ads, no anything. Just one product. 40 TikTok creators, female based product. Probably 30 dudes, ten females, zero to a million, 60 days, no ads. Right? I know you don't need to do this demographic thing, so don't get obsessed with that. And then you were talking about red flags, so some red flags right off the bat.

I'll tell you this one, this is my favorite one. Obvious, but still, if they say, like, six grand for six videos, bro, come on out. I told you.

Unless it's influencer posts. But still, no, it's not enough volume.

Yeah, we're not even talking influencer posts. A different game. These people have no owned audiences. These are mom and pop. They're posting nothing. I'd say is this type of content we do isn't necessarily faceless. Sometimes it is, but sometimes there's faces in it. It's personality.

You know, there's no, like, Alyssa or there's no Ramon. There's no, you know, it's like, personality. It's about your brand. It's about your business. Right? So that's the difference. I'm trying to think some other really good ones. There's honestly, like, 510 people in the space who everybody goes to, and they just end up warming the sale up for me to, like, do. I worked with these people.

I'm like, I know why you're here, so I'm not going to get into that, but trying to think some of the stuff. Okay, here's some other good ones. If they only work on affiliate basis, I'll have people hit me up and be like, yo, I just want to do strictly affiliate. I don't want to pay for it. I get where you're coming from. If someone agrees to that, they don't know what they're talking about, though. Because when you pay on just affiliate, obviously, that'd be amazing. Right?

Okay.

I don't pay you at all until you get performance. Okay, cool. Until you realize, hey, I don't own their time at all. I don't have any say over what they do? They do five videos. They can leave out they're not getting paid.

Right. And don't then demand. You need them by x date or you x.

You will get creators ready to take down your life. Some of my people were petty. I'll let you chill. When a brand gets a little too into it and it's like, okay, I'm just not going to do that. You're not going to attract. If someone knows their value and they know they can get serious retainers and work with the best products, they're not going to work with your stuff. All my people know their value, even if it does smaller. But when you pay someone even as little as 300, then you can say, you owe me 30 videos.

Right? You have to do that. I have the right to get mad at you if you don't do it. So if they're doing affiliate own lead, they'll pitch it to you like, hey.

Owe me a pitch.

Yeah, it's not good for the brand either. And they're just creating more headaches for themselves. And they're like, oh, why isn't this guy posting? It's because he doesn't have to.

It's also, if you're an employee doing that at a company, that's not a good look. And then sometimes people do this, the CEO, whatever, don't even know. And your CEO would be like, no, let's pay them. Let's do this right. You're not winning anything by trying to save your company money. You're actually making your company and your brand look worse. Yeah, and creators talk. They also are part of other communities, group chats, et cetera.

And it's a decision for them. It's not just the money. They have to like the product, understand it. Product has to have a good reputation.

Good news.

If they find bad reviews and everything about your product, like you said earlier, I have other products I can promote.

I don't need to push. I mean, and it's possible, like you on TikTok shop, but if someone's offering you as a service, I've seen that go wrong so many times, and then you just waste time. You think that the space doesn't work, but it does. You just didn't do it right. I would ask for probably some case studies. I can tell you if someone was an actual client, I'd be like, look up these ten brands. I supply all of them. You can talk to all them.

They try to keep me hidden, bro. They'll tell you it was me if they don't have good ones where they've actually pushed serious revenue or whatever. Also, if they're running, you can tell when they're running spark ads behind stuff to just get views. That's a serious red flag. If you see a million views and 10,000 likes, some weird kind of stupid video that doesn't feel viral in ten comments, right? Like, brother. Yeah. That's not a million views.

Well, I mean, there you have it, DDC. But if you can't figure out creators.

After this, I think we covered literally everything. I can imagine. So I hope that was good.

That was fire.

Thanks so much for coming on the show.

For people that want to learn about all your stuff, where do they go? Where do people follow you to? Where to create?

Hey, check me out on Twitter. That's, like, where all my best business stuff is. Jimmy Farley I have a link in bio for both the collective and creators Corner. I doubt there'll be a lot of people interested in creators Corner here, but if you got a girlfriend or anything like that, I take a lot of those. A lot of my friends girlfriends are crushing in my program, or siblings or sons and all sorts of stuff. Hey, great way to seriously make income every single month. And then, yeah, that's pretty much it. That's my one spot you can find me on discord after that.

That's where I mostly am for most of my days, but sweet.

All right, thank you, Jenny.

Hey, I just want to add one note in real quick before you end it. Blaine's crib is absolutely insane. This dude. You get on an elevator and you end up in the crib, and I don't think. Did you design? It's like. It's like futuristic aiden style.

Futuristic retro.

Yeah.

I don't even know what's going on, but I just had to touch on that. It's crazy.

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