Shock Social - F2F
Shock Social: Yo, I literally just texted you. I requested to join. What's up, man?
Chris LaFay: Hey, hold me. Put my AirPods in, bro.
Shock Social: The setup is sick.
Chris LaFay: Oh, have you not seen this?
Shock Social: No. It's just always surprising.
Chris LaFay: Oh yeah, I. I really, really freaking like my, my setup. I am a fan and it's not changing for a long time. Although I was. Oh yeah, need to practice my guitar because I am kind of solo at church tomorrow. Not tomorrow, on Sunday. And I haven't. I haven't played my guitar in a long time, so.
Shock Social: Oh, dang.
Chris LaFay: Huh? Why my calluses? Or not. Actually, you know what? Bump that. I'm going to do this. I just need to be putting my fingers on a guitar for a little while. So while we talk, I'm not going to play very loudly. I'm just going to. I need a reason to, to like put my fingers on this thing because I need the calluses back within like two or three days.
Shock Social: Oh, yeah, I understand. I got you, I got you. I got you. All right.
Chris LaFay: What call were you on until 10:30?
Shock Social: I was talking to my girlfriend. Oh, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her today and I, I didn't. So what happened was, is so my days kind of look like. I wake up at six, I get to the off, I leave for the office at 7, I get to the office at 8, I'm there till about maybe like 3. I come back, I grind work, do whatever I need to do with shock and with, you know, finishing up work at Lexus, eat dinner, then I'm trying to find housing after. I'm sure I'm like doing like house renting, hunting with my two buddies. So we're trying to find that and then trying to run the company as well as do the internship. And then I just hadn't had a chance to like talk to talk to Lauren all day. So I told her like, hey, I can push back the call with Chris till 10:30. I hope that was okay. Sorry about that.
Chris LaFay: I know that honestly, that worked out well because my wife is now actually like asleep in bed and so versus her not being in bed and then having to be like, I have to go say goodnight to her. Be back in a second.
Shock Social: I got you.
Chris LaFay: No, but I just never heard anybody talk about their conversation with their girlfriend as had a meeting run late. It's a new, new turn of phrase, needless to say.
Shock Social: Yeah, I. I've just got. Yeah, I said wrapping up a call, I guess.
Chris LaFay: It's true, it's true.
Shock Social: I. I should have Been more specific. Sorry, I. I'm in such, like, business mode.
Chris LaFay: I don't care one iota. That's not a cool chart. That's not a chord chart. That's lyrics. There are no chords on this chord chart. Those are songs with just lyrics are called lyrics. Not. Anyway, sorry, I'm done.
Shock Social: You're good.
Chris LaFay: So talk about your trying to figure out how to live life and.
Shock Social: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Chris LaFay: Two months. We're gonna dive into some numbers here. I don't have a spreadsheet open, but I'm. So I'm assuming what y'. All. What you're trying to find is some sort of rental house that you and your buddies can split through three, four ways. Is that right?
Shock Social: Yep, yep.
Chris LaFay: So what I like to start with is, like, what is the baseline? So, baseline for living? Surviving, not. Not eating ramen three meals a day. So what. What do you think? Rent. When I say you cost you, I'm not talking about, like, the grand total, and then I'm talking about, like, the divided. What is rent and utilities and all that kind of stuff going to cost you as a person?
Shock Social: So we're trying to find a house that we're where we can spend about. About 550 a person. And we found a ton of options. So rent for me, obviously, with utilities, depending on what that looks like, I'd say between 550 and 60 or 550 and 600 would probably be about the range of, like, rent with utilities and whatnot.
Chris LaFay: So. So Internet is going to cost you. These are all grand totals. More than likely. Internet will cost you 150 bucks a month, probably. Like, my Comcast bill is surprisingly low right now. I only have Internet, but I only just recently found that, and it was 100 bucks a month. So Internet, probably 150. Your water bill is not going to be anything. We'll call it 50 in total. That should be expensive. My. I have. I have electricity and gas, and between both of them, my bills are probably 200 bucks a month. Got it. So that's 400.
Shock Social: 400. Yeah. Okay, so it'd be more like 950.
Chris LaFay: No, that's in total. You're going to divide that stuff up between three people, four people.
Shock Social: Oh, oh, okay. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Yeah, we're dividing it by three people. So 450 is what you said.
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
Shock Social: So 15. So 150.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shock Social: Okay.
Chris LaFay: Room's gonna be about 550. So you're looking at about 700 bucks.
Shock Social: 700 700. So save, like, setting aside 700amonth for living. And then honestly probably would want to set aside, like, If I'm. If I'm working from home, I won't be using the truck as much. So let's just say for the sake of, like.
Chris LaFay: Is this, by the way, is this helpful? Is what, Is this helpful?
Shock Social: Yes. Yes, it is.
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
Shock Social: Great.
Chris LaFay: Because then we're going to take this information and then back into business stuff as well, too. So, like, that's, that's. We have to establish the baseline first. So.
Shock Social: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So seven. Not. Wait, what do we say? 700?
Chris LaFay: Yes.
Shock Social: So 700. And then like, let's say like a hundred dollars a week for food. Just to make it, like, simple. I can do that.
Chris LaFay: That's 400 bucks. That's 400 bucks a month in food.
Shock Social: Yep. So 1100 plus, like, if I'm only, like, filling up the tank once a week, that's $200. So that's $1300. $1300.
Chris LaFay: Yep.
Shock Social: Okay. I'd probably say, like, it'd be good to like, set aside like a hundred dollars for, like, surprise expenses that month. Maybe 150.
Chris LaFay: So 4.
Shock Social: Let's just say 1450. 1450 Would be about my budget for the month.
Chris LaFay: Now, does that include date night with girlfriend? Does that include going to a random Braves game? Is literally the only thing I can think because I was just looking at baseball stuff. Does that include, like, random stuff that you're just gonna do because you're a human and you're gonna be like, that sounds like fun.
Shock Social: No, I mean, that's with, like, the surprise. But maybe I should allocate a little bit more funds to that. So maybe let's just say like 1600. Like $1600. That's with date night and yada, yada, yada.
Chris LaFay: So what you're telling me is that after taxes, you can live fine off of $2,000 a month, which is.
Shock Social: Well. Well, that's like on a tight, tight budget.
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
Shock Social: Okay, so let's just say 2000. Let's say $2000 a month because that's what it's probably end up going to, what it's going to be.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so that's pre. That is post tax. So let's just for ease, tackle on 30% to that, because taxes are taxes. So 30 of that is 600. 20. 600. Oh, where'd it go? Where's my calculator? There it is. 2000 Times 1.1.33. Yeah. 2600. So before taxes, $2600 a month. And if you multiply that over the course of 12 months, you're looking at a whopping total of $30,000 a year.
Shock Social: Got it.
Chris LaFay: So. So the question is, how do you make $30,000 a year? But then that's actually. Actually not the question. The question is, how do you make $2,600 a month pre. Pre taxes. So let's take the. Okay, now tell me a little bit about the conversations you've had with Ben and Sebastian about how you're dividing up money that comes into the business.
Shock Social: Yes. So the way that we're dividing it up is by. So I'm taking home 40%, Sebastian's taking home 30, and Ben's taking home 10 as of right now, because that's just as much as he's able to put in.
Chris LaFay: So you're not actually dividing it on who does the. So, like, if I were to give you guys a thousand bucks, y' all would split it exactly like that?
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: Okay, gotcha.
Shock Social: That's. That's just like, what's gonna be the easiest for right now.
Chris LaFay: Okay, what do you guys have coming in in retainers right now?
Shock Social: Let me, like, check our finances real quick. Okay.
Chris LaFay: So is this annoying you, by the way?
Shock Social: What?
Chris LaFay: This.
Shock Social: The guitar. Oh, I can't. It's not even really coming through.
Chris LaFay: Go. Okay, cool. I'm not playing that loud.
Shock Social: Great.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic.
Shock Social: Let's see. So as far as, like, retainers go, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have five clients right now that are month flea. We're trying to onboard two more.
Chris LaFay: Okay.
Shock Social: And if we can get those two, which is Thomas Wade and one of our other contacts that we have, depending on how much that is, that could be, let's just say like 2, 500. If we get that 2,500, That would be about, let's say like 7,000. $7,100 In retainers that we could pretty much rely on every month in case something weird happens.
Chris LaFay: That's if you close the $2,500 a month of the new proposal. So right now. Right now it's 55. You have 5500. Plus the 2500 is 7000.
Shock Social: 4600.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so 4600. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so. And then remind me again, your percentage. What is your percentage?
Shock Social: 40%.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so with just the retainers that you have right now, you're making eighteen hundred dollars a month pre. Right, Right. Is that. Is that true?
Shock Social: Yes. Except that doesn't take into account the expenditures that go into running those different Things.
Chris LaFay: Oh, so you're. Okay, so. Okay, so let's just make the math simple.
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: You're getting retainers of 4, 600amonth right now. Right. Then let's just say that you guys have a thousand dollars of credit card expenses between your editing tools, your audio libraries, the whatever. You're taking that thousand dollars a month of your monthly costs out of that $4,600. So now it's 3,600. And then you're splitting that, right?
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: Okay. What are your monthly costs?
Shock Social: Our monthly costs. See, we're trying to dial in our budget right now, but I need to, like, organize this, let's say, like, without considering the money that was given to us. It's about two, two, four.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so it costs you $2,400 in crime, what I'm going to call credit card expenses to make $4,600 a month in revenue.
Shock Social: Sort of. We. We had, like, a couple expenses that came through this month that. That won't happen next month. So let's just say like, 2000 to make it, like, to make it, like, simple because editors and paying employees and whatnot.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. Okay, so. So that means your monthly. We'll call it your monthly profits. Let's just pretend that all of y' all are paid out of profits. Like, y' all aren't making that. Y' all are not making money. Like, you're not making a salary, salary or a wage. Your only expenses are credit card expenses. And then everybody just takes from the pot after that. So that means your 4600 gets dropped to 2600. And then your 40% split at that means you're taking home a thousand dollars a month from the business.
Shock Social: Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. As of right now. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Yes. So let's say you close those $2,500 a monthly, the two monthly retainers at 2500 in total. Are there any new credit card expenses being added a regular basis?
Shock Social: Probably the only thing I can think of would be fiverr clients or fiverr editors and adding on to, like, the social media marketing interns. I don't think there should be too much else. I think that should pretty much cover it.
Chris LaFay: What does that cost, though? What's that additional overhead? Not overhead. What's that additional cost of goods sold that you have to think about now?
Shock Social: I can't remember exactly how many. I don't have to go through it. My brain is not functioning on 100 right now.
Chris LaFay: Is it more or less than 500?
Shock Social: Let's say, for example, like, six. $600.
Chris LaFay: Okay. So that means we'll bring in about 2,000 extra dollars of profit. Right. Bringing you up to about eighteen hundred dollars.
Shock Social: Yes.
Chris LaFay: In the amount that you would take home.
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: So your baseline. So your current baseline right now is a thousand. And this is all pre tax. And we're doing all this based off the assumption of pre tax. And then we said, man, I'm really testing my memory. I'm normally doing like spreadsheets up the wazoo. You need $2,600 a month.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Pre tax. Yeah. So that means you're about. What's a TH000 divided by 2600? Let's here. Divided by 2600. You're about 40% of the way there. So the question is, how do you create another thousand bucks a month for yourself? Yeah, for yourself.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And that looks to be like another $2,500 a month. Right. Times point four.
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: That's actually around the money. So based on where you're at now, you need to generate $2,500 a month for. Of work, for the business and profit after expenses to then hit your break, your human break even point.
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: So that's the number that you're working towards. You're not working towards $30,000 a year. You're not working towards that. I like to make it as micro as possible.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And so if you need to make the business twenty five hundred dollars a month to survive so that you make another thousand dollars a month, that's what you have to figure out. Now that could be done in retainers, that could be done in projects that could do any number of things. Hypothetically, you could get five clients at 500 bucks a month. That may only cost you a hundred dollars a month to actually do. I'm kind of curious. Why are you guys paying interns and upwork folks when you have three people that could actually do the work?
Shock Social: I was gonna say because we can't. We don't have the capacity to run all of the, like, edit all the different things. We are all at a point now where we have to have a job in order to. In order to provide for what we're working with. So we're not working out of capacity for us to be able to edit like, the videos that we need to. We tried, and it's just not working. We need to be on the admin side looking at managing teams, managing interns, managing like editors in order for us to get. Get the work going.
Chris LaFay: So. Okay, so what I'm hearing is that what you're going to be leaning into is more running the, you do not want to be in the X other than actually physically being there for video shoots. Because that's kind of a, a requirement.
Shock Social: Right, right. Right.
Chris LaFay: It takes too much hours to where the, the margins aren't worth it.
Shock Social: Yeah, yeah. It starts like cutting into like we could do it but it would just get to a point where like the company's running us rather than we're running the company. And that's what we're, that's what we're trying to avoid and that's what we got into for a while. Like we were the ones who were like okay, we gotta get all this stuff done and it was holding us back. And so in order to, for us to like, in order for us to actually upscale we needed to start looking at like bringing in fiverr editors who would like edit a reel for 15 a reel or whatever or $20 reel, whichever one we were finding and was working for us to come in and like take care of that for us. And, and so what we would be is like more on admins like making sure that everybody gets what they're supposed to, quality checking and then like posting, making sure that everything's going out on time. That sort of stuff. I will say Sebastian is kind of our like if one of us is editing videos it would be Sebastian. Ben's had to basically take a pretty much like a pretty big sidestep as far as like he can't really be in person anymore to anything. He's only virtual doing like website stuff for a supplement shop that we onboarded recently. And so we. Yeah, so we're now running it. Like Sebastian and I are kind of like the ones who like are doing most like the in person stuff who are like managing like I'm mostly managing like the. That's like why I stepped into the CEO role is because like I'm kind of managing where the finances are, where we're going, like what the strategy is, where like like managing teams and stuff like that. Sebastian's on quality control and he's also like our in house editor. We all three do have like either a job or an internship that we're going through right now. And also Sebastian's going through school up until a certain. I mean I, I think he said he's going to try and have the summer off but he has some classes right now. So we're all like at a point now where we can't do the work ourselves. But we also like want to get Used to that because we don't want to be doing the social media work. We want to be running the company. Does that make sense?
Chris LaFay: No. I spent three hours today building a website, like, and I'm working on trying to figure out how to delegate that back out again. But the thing is, the stuff that I'm doing now can't be delegated out to somebody on fiber at the moment. And so I'm trying to figure that part out. So there is a commendable piece to running a business where your ability to step in and solve all the fires is minimal, which is fantastic. But that also makes it more challenging because you have money going out the door all the time. Yeah. Which is hard. So the, the question then becomes, how do you go out and find twenty five hundred dollars or more of business every month? Yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the question.
Shock Social: So that's part of what we want to start doing. I have a contact from ksu and we want to get an in person sales team going and running to different businesses and selling services that way. Ben is going through the thing that like, we're learning through like each of the different jobs and stuff is like, I'm going through the marketing thing to kind of understand like marketing strategy, whatnot. Ben's going through the sales job to kind of understand the sales stuff to where a point where we can like run a team of like marketing strategy and sales. And so Ben's learning how to do like in person marketing. Obviously he's like, he's, he's doing like B2C. So it's obviously a little different, but same kind of methodology as far as like figuring out like, how do we figure out hot leads? Well, like not hot leads but like qualified leads to where they, they would want, they would want this kind of level of work, who needs it? And delegating that out to like a team. And then with, if they get us a lead and it like closes the deal, they get 10%.
Chris LaFay: How are you going to create a staff of sales people that would be willing to take only a 10% commission for their time?
Shock Social: Yeah. So that's kind of the, that's kind of the thing we're working with when the thing is like for us like a 10 sale, you know, it could, it could range from like 80 bucks to, you know, 180 bucks per sale, depending on how much they're asking for. I mean like, if they ask for like SEO, website, everything, I mean it could be a crazy amount, but you know, that's Something we're trying to figure out, like, what's the right price we should offer out.
Chris LaFay: So,.
Shock Social: You know, if 20 is like, better or 15, like, this is all up.
Chris LaFay: Are you wanting to get college students to do this work?
Shock Social: I'm leaning towards it, yes. But I also want, like, quality, like, like, obviously, like you're gonna get like, I would love to hire young people because, like, they're, they're gonna, like, they're gonna be very ambitious and very, like, motivated. But I also want to get people who are experienced. So I'm running off of someone who I knew in college that said that they would do it for 10. And I'm like, okay, well if you'll do it for 10, I'm sure there's other people that would do it for 10. Now he's a really quality, like, he's a high quality salesperson, does it professionally. This would be more of a, like, on the side thing. And so I think for like, people who would be more serious about it, we would obviously, like, we would try and do more like 15 to 20% and just run it and see like, how it's kind of like what we're in the phase of right now is like, trying to figure out, like, how do we mitigate the risk of like, reading or like trying something out. And you know, that's, that's why, that's the whole like, thing that I'm thinking of that I wanted to like, like talk to you about. Like, all of this is just like, I, I could continue to do like, my work at Lexus Nexus, but I would much rather be running Shock. However, I am going to be getting an apartment with friends. I need to be doing, you know, I need to be alive and not behind in rent, and I need to be saving up for the future, future and whatnot. So what, like, sustain, like what is sustainable at that point and what is, like, if I were to go through, like, doing entrepreneurship full time, how do I ensure that I'm going to be stable? And obviously that's hard to, to understand and we're doing the best we can to like, mitigate that amount of risk. But still it's one of those things where it's, it's hard to judge. And so I'm, it's like a rock and a hard place. Like, do I want to stay in an internship where I'm not like, I mean, I enjoy it and it's really, it's really nice to work there. I mean, they love, I mean, I, I, it's the probably the most friendliest and most welcoming company. And it's like a place that I can like grow in or do I want to continue to do the act, the thing I'm actually passionate at, but it doesn't make quite the money right now.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so a couple things here.
Shock Social: Yes.
Chris LaFay: This is experience talking, meaning I'm not, this is not somebody else's stuff. This is what I've, what I've experienced. What you just said about the salespeople, what you're, what you're asking them to do is to go out and do sales for a company that they don't own off of 10% commission off of relatively small retainers and projects that is not going to be super sustainable for them in the long run where they don't know your business. And they also, you're not giving them a playbook of what to go and do. I've done this before. Now, I haven't deployed a team of them, but I have hired salespeople without a playbook, without knowing here are the steps on how to be successful in this role. And every one of them have fallen flat on their face. I could point you, I could put you in touch with probably three other agency owners who said they've hired salespeople and it's been a bad thing. The ones that I know that have had success with it had a playbook. They learned how to do sales, they learned how to build relationships, they learned how to do these things. And one of two things happened. One is they built the playbook themselves, then hired a salesperson and said, here's the playbook. This is what I know that works. Go do these things. Or option two is they hired somebody junior and basically paid them to ghost them and watch them for a year and then slowly ramp them up on doing stuff by themselves. Those are the two success stories that I've heard of from agency owners.
Shock Social: Got it.
Chris LaFay: Barely anything else. I, I don't think I've heard stories. I know that I have not had the only these small ex. The, the small win that I had was doing option B, which was I hired somebody in college. She worked with me for a couple of years. She was a developer. She wanted to learn project management that she wanted to get into sales. So I let her ghost me on sales calls. I let her write up my, like sales emails, like follow ups. I let her draft proposals for me. There were sections in the proposals. I ended up letting her lead, like this section of the proposal and talk about it to the client. And then randomly one day I Was like, here's a client that is not going to sign. Go. They submitted a contact form. I know for a fact they're not going to sign. Take it and just know that I don't care what happens and use this as a learning experience. And she called me up about 20 minutes later and said, sold, which was wild. So I don't say that to be like a negative Nancy on your ideas of how to grow and scale the business. No, I mean, I don't think that hiring salespeople, whether by commission only or whether you actually paid them a little bit of money, especially they're going to be college students who don't know your business. That's not going to be enticing of enough offer to get them interested. And you don't know what to tell them to do other than go find small businesses and go talk to them.
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: And that's not really a strategy. That's more of a hope. Anything else?
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: So how do. What do you enjoy doing the most? Not within the confines of the business, obviously. Running the business. Yes. But.
Shock Social: I enjoy, Like, like, like what I. What do I enjoy? Like, outside of the business?
Chris LaFay: No, in the. In the business.
Shock Social: In the business. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. Sorry, I broke up there for a second. Sorry about that.
Shock Social: No, you're good. But not running the business.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. You can't just say, I enjoy. The question is not, do you enjoy being an employee versus the runner, Being an entrepreneur. That's not the question. The question is, within the realm of entrepreneurship and running and being a part of the business, what aspects of the business do you enjoy the most?
Shock Social: I think for me, I enjoy. I don't know. That's hard because, like, I'm not, like, ironically enough, I don't enjoy making social media content,.
Chris LaFay: Like, of yourself, like, you being. You being on it, like the side that you post on the shock social channel.
Shock Social: No, like, I mean, like, I, I don't enjoy, like, like, I don't. I don't personally like social media as a whole. However, it is a digital marketing gold mine and people pay for it and it has, like, video expertise. The thing that I don't like about it is like, trying to figure out, like, all the different, like, systems and how to word things properly and if you make a fraction of a mistake, the algorithm, like, doesn't put it out. Doesn't put anything out there. Like, I hate how, like, tough it is to do well on social media. Like, that's something I hate. So I don't mind making the social media content I hate like, how the algorithm performs. So I would say my favorite thing about the business and running it is work. Like, finding and working with people who understand and like, know, okay, here's how we can. Here's how we can use this strategy, and, like, here's how we can continue to advance, like, to mitigate the amount of, like, problems the algorithm gives. So, like, I would say, like, my favorite thing about the company is. And my favorite thing to do, honestly, it is. I mean, my favorite thing to do is like to give people work and to then like, to give people. Like, I like giving people the busy work so I can focus on upscaling, financing, like, working on budget, working on the finances, figuring out pay, how to, like, take down the stuff. So, like, the financial side, I really enjoy the financial side. And I also really enjoy, like, just the research aspect and, And like, the idea of, like, creating stuff for the company. Like, I love, like, making like, assignment documents, and I love making like, like, learning modules and like, course, like, courses within the company of, like, teaching people how to do stuff. That's what I enjoy the most. Yeah. Does that make any sense? This is, again, I'm on, like, 4% battery right now.
Chris LaFay: You, by the way, am I coming through clearly? I've heard. I've heard my microphone sounds bad when I'm far away. Can you hear me fine?
Shock Social: I can hear you fine. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Okay, great. It sounds like you enjoy all the pieces of running a business that come when your business is a lot larger.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Because there really isn't any finances to deal with. There's not really any education to deal with other than, like, you got your handful of contractors on upwork that you are working with now that know your processes and your structure. Like, there's not a lot of that to do. So it all just comes down to what I didn't hear is sales. Do you not like sales?
Shock Social: You know, honestly, like, the weird thing is, like, I.
Chris LaFay: Let me actually back up a second. There's two elements to sales that people typically gloss over. Let me re. Ask the question differently. There's lead generation, which is going out and shaking hands and kissing babies. And then there is the art of taking an interested party and walking them through the sales process. Two vastly different things. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on both sides of that coin.
Shock Social: I. I do enjoy lead generation that I can do. Like, I can meet people and. And go out there and, you know, start to sell my stuff or not sell, but, like, start to, like, get them interested. The actual, like, selling process. I'm, I'm fine with doing, but it's not like my biggest thing. It's like, that's where like, Ben comes in. He's the sales guy. Like, he can close a deal and be more, more confident within, like, his selling abilities rather than mine or like, like, does that make sense?
Chris LaFay: 100%. Yep.
Shock Social: Yeah. So I'm fine with Legion. It's when it comes down to sales where it's like, okay, I like, I'm, I like to think of myself as like the jack of all trades, but I want to work with people who specialize in the different areas. Like, I can do the finances, I can do the accounting. I can do the upscale. I can do the lead generation. I can do the selling. I can do the, you know, the actual, like, social media strategy stuff. I'm, I'm, I, I'm great at the video editing. I know I'm great at the video editing and I know that I'm great at that, like, graphic design. But it comes to the strategy to like, all the other things. I'm like, I'm jack of all trades. However, I want to work with people who can specialize in those areas and I'm, that's where, like, where we've hired interns and fiverr people because we've tried to edit stuff ourselves on social media. And it's not that it hasn't worked because it has and we have had success. It's just one of those things where it's just like, it's, it's a lot to like, take in and process. And, and for me, social media is very overwhelming. And yes, as someone who runs a social media marketing agency, social media marketing or social media is overwhelming. And it's made to be that way. It's made to be like, I mean, obviously it's made to be addictive. It's made to be, it's made to be like, you know, entertaining. But when it comes to, like, when people want to get into it, like, people just tell you why they're the best best, and, and you're never gonna, like, you just, you feel so low. Like, that's why LinkedIn. I can only spend like five minutes on LinkedIn before I'm like, well, I just suck at everything. I'm gonna go work now. Like, I, I hate social media for that. I, I just, I, I don't, I don't like social media as a social media marketer. And I think 99 of social media marketers do not like social media because we spend so much time with it. And we know what it is. We know, like, we know how to use it. That's the thing. We know how to use it and we know how to, like, get into people. Like, we know how to get into people's feeds. We know how to use, like, break down the structure, the top of funnel, bottom, middle, like, all that. But I just. I don't like it, you know, the whole concept of it. So it's one of those things where it's like.
Chris LaFay: Like.
Shock Social: I'm going on a tangent and I don't remember what my point was.
Chris LaFay: I know that feeling.
Shock Social: But, yeah, it's. It's just one of those things where it's like. You asked me what my favorite part of the business is. I like everything that doesn't have to do with social media. And that.
Chris LaFay: Which is a vast majority of your business.
Shock Social: Correct. I am fine with. I love, like, filming. I love filming. It's more of, like, the scripting and not even the editing. It's more of just, like, the scripting that, like, it's more of the scripting and, like, the force formats and stuff like that that, like, I don't enjoy. I can do it and I can do it fine. And I can. I mean, I. I believe in our work. I just don't have a passion for that. Like, I have a passion for. I have a passion for marketing and I have a passion for, like, coming up with the strategy and coming up with, like, how we're going to do something or using AI to enhance stuff. But, like, it's. It's just one of those things where it's just been. It's the reason I don't enjoy it. And here's why. It's just because, like, it's hard to, like. It takes so much time to, like, get down a format and it's so stressful when it's just, like. It's. It's not working like you want it to. It's one of those. It's. It's just one of those things which it's. It's one of the hardest, like, things to pinpoint down. And once you get a system that works and you can get stuff out, it's super exciting. But, like, it just. Yeah. Anyway, that's, That's. That's a whole tangent. But does that any of that make sense? Because I'm. I'm very tired.
Chris LaFay: And we don't have. We don't have to talk right now. It's perfectly fine. Fine. So. Hold on. I have a couple of thoughts to that. Give me a second. The, the thing is right now selling just strategy without execution doesn't work anymore. Let me rephrase that. I should, I shouldn't say that as definitively as that. It is a lot harder now to only sell strategy without execution than it ever.
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: Because execution is becoming easier and easier every day that we go. Right. So the other thing is there's a pretty decent correlation between enjoyment of life and belief and, and the product that you sell. Like Mickey, you met Mickey Melon at topgolf, right? Yeah, like his whole company. He was running a sizable business with doing marketing retainers and building web, like building full blown websites and then doing maintenance for those websites, et cetera, et cetera. And he realized that, excuse me, the maintenance business part of his business was making money. Literally every other part of his business was losing money. And he also kind of like what you were saying. He hates, doesn't, he doesn't like marketing. He is a very relationship driven person. He's like, I want people to go out and talk to people and hang out and build really like build networks and circles and do stuff with each other. And that's how you should market and not worry about trying to become like the next bazillion dollar thing. And he doesn't like social media. He doesn't like all the tricks and gags to get views and all this jazz. I mean the man has written a daily blog for like eight years and posted on LinkedIn like a regular person. Meaning like here's the blog excerpt, here's the link and that's it. Like it's like every monotonous post out there about a blogger who doesn't think about how to tell a story when they post. It doesn't matter. He does it because he wants to and his business is fine. This dude actually is doing great now. But there, there is a correlation of are you like, if you're going to continue doing the type of work that drives you nuts, are you gonna burn out? I don't know. That's a, that's a later question. Just on a Today question by any stretch of the imagination. The other thought is what if you, rather than viewing things black and white of do I go get a full time job versus do I run this thing full time? Look at it differently. What if you got a part time job at an agency doing probably some of the execution stuff that you probably aren't like the biggest fan of, but you got to see the inner workings of how people do stuff. Yeah. It doesn't have to be full time. Like if you made 20, if you, if you work 20 hours a week at 30 bucks an hour and four weeks a month, that's 2400 bucks pre tax.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Like now you're not breaking even, but you're kind of breaking even. Not comfy. But like now if you literally just did take the, take, shock, take shock social out of the mix or saying it like if you literally did one of my content days a month for 700 bucks, you'd be above 3,000. Right. Like now that's obviously if you did it, you took it home, you did all the stuff. Like I get there's nuance there but like that's one small project that you have completely systematized at this point. So what if, what if life looked like that? Because that's what I did. I basically went and got a couple of part time jobs at agencies being they're like web dev gun for hire. They didn't build WordPress sites. I did. They didn't want to project manage them. I did. They didn't have designers I could. So this, these app developing companies, once they got finished with an app, they're like, oh, we need to build a marketing site. And they're like, oh, we don't know how to do build marketing sites. It's the same idea, just slightly different flavor.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: So that's a way that it could look and that would give you the flexibility but also know that you have a pretty decent, you have a, a paycheck coming in on a regular basis.
Shock Social: Yeah. And like I will say like the one good thing, I think I was probably being a little harsh on like the whole social media thing. I just, I, I do enjoy making social media videos. I don't like, I enjoy making social media videos. I just like feeling like you have to like go viral and like get views and everything like that that's what's stressful. It's like, it's not necessarily like the making the content. I enjoy that. It's the like the results that stress me out the most and like having to like, I can't guarantee results. And that's the heart that's like, that's what's stressful.
Chris LaFay: Why do you think I got out of marketing? Huh?
Shock Social: Yeah, that's, that's why I don't so like, to answer your question, I enjoy like, because I'm a film guy, I love video stuff and making video projects. Like I love that. And if, if there wasn't like some crazy like you have to do this and do this over and over again and, like, have to like it. If you didn't have to worry about the results, like, I'd enjoy it a lot more, you know, and so it's one of those things where I enjoy the work. It's just the outcome of the marketing that's the stressful part, you know, so that's where, like, that's why I. That's why I want to work with more people to ensure that, like, we can't guarantee anything, but what we can guarantee is that, like, we have a, like, a full team of people who is working through it and checking things and like, oh, yeah, I can see where this is going. This is going to mitigate the amount of stress and we all kind of, like, have a part to play. And that's what I enjoy. And I would love to focus on the parts of, like, okay, I want to make sure everyone gets to do stuff in the. That we enjoy. And, like, a team of people dealing with the stress of results is a lot less stress per person than, like, if one person was like, it was like the entire social media outcome is relying on one person. That's why we're, like, outsourcing and that's why we're expanding just to, like, just because, like, that. That stress is what would cause burnout for me. Like, the reason I don't feel burnt, burnout is because I. The reason why I believe that I don't feel burnout. It's new. It's like a year old, but, like, I, I wake up and I'm. I'm excited to do it. If I had to wake up and I had to do all the work and run it, I would hate it because there'd be so much stress to, like, perform. And so that's why we hire people, because had it, we basically share the workload and it makes, like, the working environment so much better. And I will take paying, you know, hundreds of dollars to hire people and stuff like that in order to make sure that, like, we still are positive about the company and that, like, we can. That there's room to improve. That's where. That's what I enjoy is like, working with. Working with the team and carrying the weight together. And I think that, like, everyone who works for us and, you know, between Ben and Sebastian, like, the fact that, like, we can, like, we can bounce ideas off one another and, and go into detail about stuff and really, like, figure out stuff together, like, that's something that I know we all really enjoy. So that is my spiel. And maybe it doesn't make sense, but that's what I have for you tonight.
Chris LaFay: So. My. I think what you need to figure out. Yes. At the end of the day, it's how do you make $2,600 a month?
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: Whether that's with a part time gig, whether that's going full time and saying bump it, or whether that's going all in and relying on some kind of a savings account or something else that you have at your disposal. But if, if you're not confident that you can. This, this is the part of like living on a hope. I don't really like the stories of people. Like, I risked it all, didn't pay myself for X, Y and Z. Like that's not real. I mean, some of it is.
Shock Social: No.
Chris LaFay: Yes. But like a lot of those stories are backed by some person sold his company for millions of dollars. So of course he could not pay himself for a few months or a year. Like. Yeah. I think my opinion is that over these next eight or ten weeks that you have this job, you should make it your primary goal of closing somewhere between 3,000 and $6,000 a month of recurring revenue for the business.
Shock Social: Got it.
Chris LaFay: Because if you can close another $4,000 on top of what you already have, that's not bad.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: For your cut. Because then at that point you're getting roughly another thousand dollars. If you close the $2,500 that you have in your pipeline, that's another thousand bucks. I'm sorry, if you close 4,000, it's more than a thousand. Like if you were, if you were to, you take what you currently have and you close the 25 and you close another three to 6,000 on top of that, which I realize is like doubling the business. Like, don't get me wrong, I, I fully am aware of that. You're gonna be, you would be set up in 10 weeks.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: But you also don't want to go from income to next to nothing.
Shock Social: Oh yeah, yeah.
Chris LaFay: That's the, that's the thing. And so I'm also, this is my own, this is my opinion, but it's also going to be a lot harder because you're only gonna, you're only working off of 40% of the money that comes in after everything is paid out. That's really hard.
Shock Social: Do you think that it's smarter to pay yourself at the beginning of the month or pay yourself at the end of every week?
Chris LaFay: It doesn't matter. Like, I mean, if you have weird cash flow things, then yes, it would matter. But at the end of the day, the, the net of it all is the same.
Shock Social: Got it.
Chris LaFay: Like, you could even say, like you could pay yourself out after all the bills are paid. So whenever that ends up being. Yeah, but it has to be the same for everybody because if it. Once it becomes different, my. This is my opinion. Once it becomes different for everybody, then it's going to be a lot harder to keep track of, and that's a pain in the butt.
Shock Social: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Let me ask you a different question. So Ben obviously is not doing as much. Does Sebastian want to grow this?
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: As much as you do?
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Okay. Ben, I'm assuming, has other things going on. He. He's not as adamant about growing it, Right?
Shock Social: Well, he is adamant about growing it. He just. Shock just is just like wasn't bringing in enough for. To a point where he's like, okay, okay. So for Ben's case, he's getting married in a couple weeks.
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
Shock Social: He has to bring in money, so he has no choice. He has to do the sales role. I say has to do the sales role. He has to make money for his house and his wife and, and everything coming up. So he wants to grow Shock. He wants to grow Shock. And what he's. What he wants to get away from the sales experiments experience is to learn how to manage a sales team. So we don't have like a sales. Sales handbook yet, but he, he definitely wants to, like, he definitely wants Shock to be his full time thing. Like, we all three want Shock to be our full time thing. I'm the only person right now who. Well, not the only person I'm. We had a talk of like, okay, Ben is not going to be able to do as much. He's gonna still do stuff on the side, but. And also like, Sebastian doesn't have the business experience to like grow everything. And so I, I do. So that's why it's broken up the way it is. But we all three want to grow this thing and make it our full time thing. We're just like not sure how to do that at the this point in time. We're figuring it out and like we. What. What I want to happen after all the craziness of like the beginning of the job settles down and whatnot is I want to start pouring into like podcast. Not even the. Until the craziness sets down, but like, I want to be pouring into more podcasts, like the ones that you sent. More education stuff. Like, I want to be pouring more into education. So that's about what I got.
Chris LaFay: Where have most of your leads come from?
Shock Social: Usually word of mouth or through like. Like, let me just. I, like, I'll go down through like. So next move. We met at a business event meeting. Southern Seasons was my professor. Integrate was through Sebastian's mom. Explore the spark is Sebastian's girlfriend's family. And then the herb shop was through word of mouth, through our other client.
Chris LaFay: Okay, and how often are you going out and meeting new people?
Shock Social: We are trying to go out. Well right now we've done it about once a month.
Chris LaFay: My opinion, that needs to be a lot higher.
Shock Social: Yeah, we know.
Chris LaFay: We know that because every we. Not every time. Not the first time, but the second and the third one, both with Kira. Both of those content days, there have been potential opportunities that have popped up from that. The rando dude at the. The. For the podcast studio thing and then the. The co Working space in and of itself.
Shock Social: Yeah, that. And yeah, it's just meeting people.
Chris LaFay: And so I'm not. What I. What I'm saying by that is that I'm not sure. What I'm not trying to say, what I'm not implying is that my network's amazing and that is fantastic and all that.
Shock Social: Which.
Chris LaFay: It is.
Shock Social: It is. Yes.
Chris LaFay: But though when you're going out and you're talking to people and you're showing up in places and you follow up with them on a regular basis, that's the. That's the. And that's the hardest thing to teach salespeople of what to do is how to follow up well and how to build relationships. Well, it is so hard. Which is why a lot of sales people fail at the end of the day.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: So anyway, I cut you off. We're gonna say.
Shock Social: No, I was just gonna say like. Yeah, like with. With the random dude we met, like, that's one of the clients we're waiting for to get back to us. I don't think he's gonna sign it on. It would. I just. I don't. I don't think so.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, I got you.
Shock Social: Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like just what he was asking for. It's like pretty expensive. So it's one of those things where it's like. I just. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. Anyway, so I'm waiting for them and I'm waiting for a more reliable source of income would be through my. One of my friends grandparents companies. They run like an accounting firm and they deal with like millions of dollars. So that I'm not as worried about.
Chris LaFay: Is that one of the two leads that you mentioned earlier?
Shock Social: Yeah, both of those are the two leads that I'm waiting for. I'm waiting to hear back from the random dude and we'll see what he says. But yeah, we're, we're waiting to see. But if like two, like. Because we sent them a couple options and we're also waiting for a fat check to come in this week. So we're, we're hoping to make. If like the things that come through that we. And we have like some random projects coming up were hopefully gonna make 7, 500 for the first time. Like, this is definitely like already by far the best like month that we.
Chris LaFay: Have.
Shock Social: That we've had. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, last month was. But yeah, no, this is like already, like, without, like, without any other payments coming in. This is our best month we've had like the entire year. Like that we've been running shock.
Chris LaFay: Have you thought about reaching out to the consume media people just to see if there are some like, things that you could help them with? Video production, being on set, running cameras,.
Shock Social: Stuff like that for like a experience opportunity or pay opportunity.
Chris LaFay: Oh, for. For pay. Yeah.
Shock Social: I could ask. I could see what they say. That would be fun. I'd definitely like to explore that. I. I haven't as of yet just because life's been a bit crazy. Like I had like a week of break in between, like turning in like, like having my last full week of school and starting like a full time like, internship, like position. So. Yeah, it's been, it's been nuts. Like, I like, like last week we had a bunch of like a couple different filming things. I graduated, I came back to Kennesaw. I'm on my third day of like, you know, 22. No, that's not right. 24. Yeah, my 24th hour of the week. Whatever. I don't know how that calculates out. Yeah, 24th. Yeah, 24th working out. Anyway, I'm on my third day of my internship, so it's been, it's been like a long week ever like ever since graduating. So there's a lot of things that like, I'm gonna take and people enjoy being around me, which is so annoying because. I'm just kidding. I. I hope you know I'm kidding very much. I love everybody who I spend time with.
Chris LaFay: I'm popular, I have friends. It sucks. Let's all take my time. That was jerk at the other side of the world that wanted to talk to me at 10:30 at night? Yeah. Huh.
Shock Social: No, I'm, I promise you, I'm just kidding. No, I, I, it's one of those things where it's just hard to find like time to myself to like sit down and like just strategize, especially through all this. And so yeah, it's, it's one of those, it, it's, it's interesting trying to navigate everything that I'm trying to navigate through.
Chris LaFay: So this is the closing remark for the time being is in the next 10 weeks, you need to find $2600 a month of, of your actual pay.
Shock Social: Right.
Chris LaFay: So that's the, that's the nugget. So that got it look like doing something part time for 10 or 15. It doesn't have to be like a part time thing. Doesn't even have to be 20 hours a week. It could be 10 hours a week.
Shock Social: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Like if you got paid 30 or 35 bucks an hour for 10 hours a week, it's not bad. That goes far relative to the skill that we're working with right now. Not long term, not so much. But for right now it's fine. Doesn't have to be all or nothing. So that's what you have to figure out the next 10 weeks is how do I get $2,600 of cash in my pocket, which is like 3, $500 a month of, or $4,000 a month of shock money or finding something else. Not something else, but something on the side.
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: So that's the goal. That's the marker. And then you break that $2,600 of cash in your bank like up into different buckets of like if I close a retainer of X, how many retell, like how many 700amonth retainers do I have to sign for shock to be able to make that happen? How many 1500 dollars retainers had to sign a month for shock to make that happen? Or can I find one gig that pays me 10, 10 hours a week at 35 bucks an hour for Tyler, that gives me the majority of my week available still to go do this other stuff. Yeah, because a lot of agencies can afford to pay a smart person 10 hours a week, 30 bucks an hour. A lot of places could. Yeah, that's not, it's not a big hit on many companies. P Ls. I was paying people $120,000 a year to do admin work.
Shock Social: Wow.
Chris LaFay: Dang. I was stupid. I was real stupid. But it is what it is. So that's the goal.
Shock Social: Yeah, I like it.
Chris LaFay: So the Next few weeks, what is your plan? To start thinking through that this is. This is the end, and then we can both go to bed. Cool.
Shock Social: Yeah, I would say just, like, I definitely want to work a lot with some, like, AI, like, putting through, like, a lot of this. A lot of, like, these spreadsheets and stuff to, like, get the growth. Get, like, kind of understand, like. Like, just to get it to understand, like, how your finances and stuff. I say, like, I. I want to start. It'd be nice to attend, like, a weekly business event to some degree and try and do that, to try and expand. I'll try and, like, reach out to the clients that we got. Or not clients, contacts that we got.
Chris LaFay: You talked to Mickey Melon?
Shock Social: No, I need to.
Chris LaFay: So he does a lot of stuff on your side of town. Like, he lives in Marietta, which I know what sucking, married. Not. But they're not that far. Far relative to, like, where I live. Mickey knows of a lot of events in the general Marietta area.
Shock Social: Yep.
Chris LaFay: So. And he loves making friends. He loves giving his friends crap. So you want to find stuff to go to, hit him up. Because he goes to a lot of small business things. Like, his target client are smaller businesses that are scrappy, and that's kind of what you're in the market for at the moment. So, like, that would be a great place to start.
Shock Social: Cool. Okay. Got it.
Chris LaFay: Dope.
Shock Social: I'll. I'll have to try and hit him up. I'll hit him up. I'll hit him up by the end of the week.
Chris LaFay: By Friday.
Shock Social: By Friday.
Chris LaFay: There you go.
Shock Social: And I'll see what I. Let's see what we. What he can. Or let's see what we can do.
Chris LaFay: There you go. That's what I'm talking about. I'm sending a scheduled text message to you right now for Friday.
Shock Social: Do you have a green phone case?
Chris LaFay: Nah, it's not green. No, dude, that's not great. Dude, this freaking orange, bro.
Shock Social: No, no, no. No phone case.
Chris LaFay: Oh, it's black. The lighting is weird. Yeah, it's black. Yeah.
Shock Social: Oh, I was about to say hold on, because I was like, that would be crazy if, like, we.
Chris LaFay: That's dope.
Shock Social: If we both had, like. That'd be sick. Oh, there goes my camera.
Chris LaFay: There it goes. There goes your camera. All right, you have a scheduled text for Friday. Not telling you when it is on Friday, but it's on Friday.
Shock Social: Cool.
Chris LaFay: Dope, dudes.
Shock Social: I will.
Chris LaFay: Sleep tight. I hope all the bedbugs bite.
Shock Social: Thank you. I need them, too. I need him to wake me up tomorrow.
Chris LaFay: Yes.
Shock Social: Yeah, we need to stick some like, mosquitoes and moths and spiders and things on me tomorrow, or else I will not get out of bed.
Chris LaFay: Yes.
Shock Social: But I. I appreciate, I appreciate all the help and I definitely want to, like, continue this conversation. For sure, man.
Chris LaFay: Definitely. So always available. Not. I'm not always available, but I. I love these conversations. These are great. So they're great.
Shock Social: It gets me thinking and it gets me like, I'm very like, future minded. I'm very like, plan oriented. So it helps a lot.
Chris LaFay: Oh, this is one thing. This is what? This is the last thing I was gonna say you were talking about your plan was for the next two weeks, you're about like getting like your finances into claw and all that jazz and blah, blah. Your finances don't matter. Literally the only thing about your finances that matter right now is you making 2, 600amonth.
Shock Social: Got it.
Chris LaFay: The future doesn't like long term planning and growth goals and all that jazz? No, it's just about closing clients.
Shock Social: Cool.
Chris LaFay: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. For me, I. I spend hours trying to like chart out like budgets and all this jazz, and I'm starting to say screw it and. Yeah, it doesn't. What you were referring to would be, in my opinion, because I see myself and what you're trying to do would be appeasing your own. Like, it's the things that you like to do and not the things that you need to do.
Shock Social: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Chris LaFay: All that time you feed Claude all this financial stuff, you could be finding events to go to schedule it, like reaching out to people that you haven't talked to in a while, saying hello. That stuff's gonna be more bearing a fruit than getting Claude to understand your long term financial goals.
Shock Social: Yep, that's fair. All right, cool.
Chris LaFay: I like it.
Shock Social: I like it.
Chris LaFay: On that note, I will catch you later, sir.
Shock Social: Catch you later, man. Thank you, man. I really do appreciate it.
Chris LaFay: Of course. Bye.
Shock Social: See ya.