Don’t be caught in the middle. Pick a side by targeting consumers on the value side or the luxury side.

When I started my agency Mr. Youth fresh out of college I used to pick up my office phone when it rang(which was at the foot of my bed), change my voice, and act like I was the office admin.

I would tell the caller to hold on while I went to get “Matt,” and then 30 seconds later of me just staring at my phone, I would pick up the phone as myself and start the call. I grew that agency until it was acquired although at one point during the 2008 financial crisis, I was a few days from shutting down the entire company and had to put the entire payroll on my credit card.

I’m often asked, “How do you start?”… so I thought I’d share this…

They don’t get why people will pay to carry heavier credit cards in their wallets which make a thump when you drop after the bill arrives.

They don’t comprehend why consumers pay $18k more for a Lexus when it’s practically the same car as a Toyota, manufactured by the same company … in the same factories.

Branding is all about telling the right message to the right people at the right time. It’s not a formula or an algorithm. It requires a significant understanding of consumer behavior and the right mix of IQ and EQ for optimal impact.

AI and Machine Learning are making a lot of progress, but the human’s role in branding won’t be conquered any time soon. (The below video is from a guest lecture at Columbia Business School in March of 2018)

Spend time to cultivate your network, especially early in your career. Don’t just chase the people that can help you today . Take interest in as many reputable people you can, and add always add value without expectations , and the dividends will pay off throughout your journey.

The #1 trait I look for when hiring and promoting?

INITIATIVE

The reality is, if you need to wait to be told what to do when you walk into the office your job will soon be outsourced anyway.

Did this person take the initiative to propose new ideas and follow through with them?

Did they build a new side project? Do they create art of any form?

Did they ask for permission or did they do it anyway, and build something they believed in?

I believe in putting people in deep deep water and observing how they swim. Some tread water and some found a way back to the shore.

If I looked at just their experience, I don’t think I would have had built successful companies in the past.

The market cap of Vista Outdoor, the largest U.S. gun manufacturer is only $2.9 Billion . Apple could buy them for 1% of the cash they have on hand and for a bit more in R&D use the same face or thumb recognition in iPhones to disable unauthorized shooters from pulling the trigger.

Smith & Wesson, another leader in U.S. gun manufacturing is worth $1.4 Billion… Google could take them out for .2% of their market cap and send all of their guns into space …

As for #3? Sturm, Ruger & Co. They are worth $1.2 Billion. Amazon could buy them for a week’s worth of sales and refuse to sell their products to anyone but government agencies.

I believe that this new age of tech billionaires and corporate titans whom have created untold wealth from the freedoms of this nation have a moral responsibility to turn their attention to gun control…

Our grandchildren won’t know what cash is.

They won’t know about the 99% of cryptocurrencies that existed in 2018, because there will only be a few that are going to make it.

They’ll never have to hire a wealth manager because AI will do it for them.

And they will think Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have always been banks.

This isn’t one of those “doom and gloom” type of posts, I promise. I believe fintech is heading through a major transformation, and it will be better for consumers, and disastrous for banks.

The current administration is on path to deregulate many industries. It’s causing a big impact on many industries, but deregulation of the financial services industry will probably have the biggest impact.

Here is what I see as being impacted the most.

Kylie Jenner posted a tweet today asking if “does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore”, and it may have caused $SNAP to plummet $1B in market share in a matter of hours.

 I’ve mentioned this several times before on stage, and I still stand by it: The Kardashians have had a bigger impact on media than the Beatles.

The Kardashian effect is real, and it continues to grow. If they want to sell something, with one Instagram post or tweet, the product’s website almost always goes down. It doesn’t matter what they are selling.

The current U.S. administration is on a relentless path to deregulate many industries. It’s causing a big impact on many industries .. but deregulation of the financial services industry will likely create the largest impact.. and soon.

There are robo-investment websites like Wealthfront and Betterment that allow you to automatically manage your finances and make smarter financial decisions without much effort. …

In addition to wealth management, Fintech is creating seamless avenues for peer to peer payments, creating new uses for cryptocurrencies, and lowering the barriers to global commerce.

Big financial institutions like Bank of America and Barclays need to take a long look at acquiring these technology companies if they care about servicing the next generation of bankers.

Acquiring these companies and integrating them into big banks simply wasn’t feasible just a few years back due to stringent regulation, but now it’s possible and it has opened up major opportunities in this industry. The new era deregulation is going to put Fintech center stage

The reality is we want to watch the Super Bowl our way. We don’t care if it’s on NBC, ABC or CBS. We just want to watch the Super Bowl the way we watch our Netflix: On our Roku, Fire Stick, Apple Tv, iPhone & iPad. And we don’t want to have Cable to be able to watch it.

As our TV’s become more smart, and soon to be interactive and swipeable our TV’s home screen is going to go from this:

In 2007 the NFL had 11 of the top 50 shows on television.

In 2017 the NFL had 37 of the top 50 shows on television

The decline in TV ratings is solely due to the decline linear TV viewing

Advertisers really have nowhere else to go to capture the scale that the NFL delivers every week and despite political issues, concussions, etc this league isn’t going anywhere.