It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here. What better time than now. 

Ryan Alford [00:00:14] Hey, guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford, welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I am joined today by fellow advertising, marketing, PR and you name it, add the hyperbole, the badass, that is Michael Valor. He is the CEO of  Valor Media. I love the name Valor, by the way, it's a more perfect name for marketing and media.  Michael, what's up, brother? 

Michael Valor[00:00:38] What's going on, guys? How's it going? How are you? 

Ryan Alford [00:00:42] Hey, man, we're living the dream here at Radical and here in our podcast studio. And,  I'm just excited to talk to you and it's been good getting to know you over the last couple of years.  Has there ever been a better name podcast for Michael Valor than the fucking Radcast? 

Michael valor [00:00:59] When you get an invite and it says to come to the Radcast, it's like perfect. 

Ryan Alford [00:01:04] There was some strategy in the naming. Our agency is Radical, so it fits right in. But it's going to be hard as we're growing this thing. And now we have a pretty good following. And I  wouldn't say we've made it, but it's getting easier for us with guests. It wasn’t so at the start. But now who doesn't want to be on the Radcast? 

Micahel Valor [00:01:24]  It feels great and it feels free. I love it. 

Ryan Alford [00:01:26] So it's been great getting to know you over the last couple of years and I appreciate your assistance with some of my personal branding and the other things that we've done together from a PR perspective. I have been watching you grow and take Valor Media to new heights. You work with Hanns and others on the team. But let's talk about Michael. I mean, let's give everybody a little perspective.  Let us give them the background, the ones to twos. So tell us a little bit about Michael Valor. 

Michael Valor  [00:01:56] I have been in business since I could remember. First and foremost, as you can tell, probably automatically,  even if it's the first time you have ever seen me talk, and you're watching the Radcast, I talk.  I'm from New Jersey. I got some Italian blood going on so I've always been a little bit rambunctious. It's probably the best way, though. The traditional public schooling system wasn't my best friend. It wasn't loving me. It was a lot of stop talking and sit down.  And I'm great at talking and standing up, but it's been really rewarding I guess. 

Ryan Alford [00:02:40] You were that kid in my class, aren't you? 

Michael Valor [00:02:43] People wanted to get class with me because you knew it was about to be fun. I wake up like this. It's a blessing and a curse. You come out in the morning and people are like, dude, are you always like that? I was eighteen in school when two guys came into my business class just randomly in high school. I mean, this is old-school stuff, right? And they put a sheet of paper down and they were like, we're going to train you guys on how to start a business. We are just a bunch of kids so I'm thinking this is a group activity. I'm looking to partner with my friends and maybe we get a good grade. Dude, it changed my life. I was 17 probably when that happened and it was just like, you can start a business, you just go out and start a business. And that blew me away. Whatever you say is real in business. And so I just started realizing that you could just go out and make things and create things and build things. And I was naturally pretty good at sales. I moved down to North Carolina from New Jersey, which was a culture shock, as I'm sure you can tell. What's up with the South? I love the South now. I've been here a while.  I'm just this loud kid from New Jersey. OK, I am good at sales and I learned a little bit about the business. So I was sitting there in a coffee shop and I was talking to Hanns, he's my partner and this lady was overheard me in the coffee shop and she turned around and ask do you want a job, young man? And I'm 17. 

Ryan Alford [00:04:31] Yes, please hire me. 

Michael Valor [00:04:33]  I'm just like, yes, I do. And she ran the local newspaper of Wake Forest, North Carolina, outside of Raleigh, and she was looking for a newspaper ads salesman. OK, all right. And so I didn't know anything about this, but it sounded official. 

Ryan Alford [00:04:52] If it had 'the' at the beginning of it, it was official. 

Michael Valor [00:04:57] Way, better than the Pizza Hut man. So, yes, I want this job for sure. I didn't realize how hard it was about to be because of its newspaper ads, but ten years ago,  I mean, that was still reasonable and Small businesses were still spending money on newspaper ads. 

Ryan Alford [00:05:15] Talk about the dinosaur that is newspaper now. But yes, then it was, having spent my time growing in the ad agency business, setting thousands of newspaper ads out, at one time it was the cash cow of advertising. 

Michael Valor [00:05:31] Then they had budgets for it, but this is ten years ago. Then Instagram was barely a thing if anything at all, it's like an artistic platform at best. At the time Facebook was young, and people are thinking social media is a fad. This is within our decade, which every time, by the way, I bring that up, it blows my mind. Ten years ago, I used to sit down with business owners and I was pitching them to get into a newspaper and they were selling ice cream. And I wondered how much ice cream does this guy has to sell to recap any amount of investment from this newspaper ad.  This small block costs two thousand dollars weekly. So that's where we got started. I did phenomenally. I did well. I built a lot of good relationships. There's a lot of cold calling, a lot of cold knocking, just walking into businesses and just beating my face against the pavement. 

Ryan Alford [00:06:32] That teaches you a lot, that cold calling. I think everyone should have to go through that. Whether you're an introvert, extrovert, obviously you're more of an extrovert, so you're good at it and it suits your personality. But I feel that it gets you ready for business, having to have those discussions, having to understand, and kind of just put yourself out there, everybody should go through that. 

Michael Valor [00:06:56] The good thing about it, and this is what I always say, it makes you bulletproof, you go sit down, you're about to get shot. And after a while, you're like, OK, pass that up and then you get shot over here and you're like pass that up. They're asking the hard questions because it's money and the money matters and especially in the small business space where  I was. That's where we were started. And so every hundred dollars mattered. Five hundred dollars is a big expense. That's money out of their kids' mouths or the food of money. They better not be putting the money in your kid's mouth.  I mean, dude, it came down to it affected families. So I'm selling newspaper ads and they don't work, you know what I mean? And the readership wasn't there. And it's just like I'm building awesome relationships with all these small business owners, sitting across from him, pitching them on a newspaper ad, telling them how important advertising is and they're losing money. And that's when I made a decision. I was 18 at this time and  I was doing well for myself. I mean, we increased the revenue by a couple of thousand percent, they didn't have a sales force before so I'm pushing twenty-five thousand packages once or twice a week, bringing in decent revenue for the Wake Weekly. Do you know what I mean? This is good revenue for them. I just started feeling bad for them so I went to my mentor at the time who was my math teacher. He changed my life in business, books, and self-development. He introduced me to that whole thing at 18, a pivotal time for me. I mean, that was huge. I needed that. And I went to him and I was like, hey, I'm quitting the job. And he was like, why you're quitting the job? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm about to quit. He was like, Mike, that's more like that's unreasonable. My family wasn't wealthy, nobody was making big money. For me to even be making fifty thousand dollars a year salary as a 17, 18-year-old like hell that's great. That was big time. I had a button-down. I thought I was legit,  and all my friends were like, wow, he's the manager of a newspaper, they think that. So I went in and I was like, I want to live an unreasonable life and make unreasonable decisions. My decisions cannot be reasonable. I can't always make reasonable decisions if I want to be what I want to be and I did not want to be that. And I like Napoleon Hill, he is a really big influence, that was one of my first big books and he says, you want to have a burning desire. That's like step number one. And I'm like, I already have the burning part down now we just got to make it a desire. Your boy boys on fire; So I just got to make it a desire and get very clear about what I wanted. And so I ended up quitting my job and starting my first marketing company called Average Joe Promo at eighteen. And this is where we are. And it has just evolved and grown and built, and it's like a mega Zoid from Power Rangers, it's a beast now it's arguably, I would say in the top 20, maybe top 10 PR marketing celebrity firms in the country with the biggest guys. Yeah, it's awesome. And now we're a recognized name from Average Joe Promo.  We used to build website pages for businesses on Weebly back in the day, nine years ago, hoster links and get them little backlinks and social signals. I was pretty big into SEO back then. Yeah, I mean, that's where we got rolling. 

Ryan Alford [00:10:35] I love it. Well, a couple of things there. They do say that growth and comfort do not coexist. Sounds like you live to breed that and make that transition. People always look at you and they're like, what the hell are you doing? But, if you want to leap, if you want to get to where you want to go, it isn't always going to be comfortable. 

Michael Valor [00:10:55] No, it's uncomfortable.  I mean, I woke up this morning and I've been gone, I've been in Miami, I've been traveling. We were in LA. We're also in Vegas. I was with you recently. Yeah. We had T.O. Terrell Owens. We had Wall Street. We had Bradley. We've got more coming up. So I've been on the road. I wake up today and like most people would be like, OK, it's Monday, nice and slow? And for me, it's like battle time, baby, put me behind the desk and start sending me some problems. I run an agency, right? So I got financial problems. We've got operations problems. We've got marketing problems, some planning problems, infrastructure problems, and sales problems.  I mean, that's part of being a business owner, solving these issues all day. And they just get slapped in your face over and over again, and I love it and I love that part of it. 

Ryan Alford [00:11:49] Let's talk a little bit, Michael, about,  some of the core of what you guys do and maybe talk about some of the trends in PR and influencing and all of those things. It's just become so hyper-reported as people are trying to build their Personal brands and they aren't naturally or currently a celebrity and how they leverage that. But talk about some of those core services that you guys are providing, that you see work trends and things that were needed in the marketplace. Let's talk a little bit about that. 

Michael Valor [00:12:19] So we're at this point now where social media is a must. You can't avoid it. You need the profiles. You need them to look good. They cannot be shitty. You cannot hire a random college intern anymore for four hundred dollars and have them running your show, that's the thing that we're transitioning out of that. Business owners are thinking, I'll just hire my niece and she's going to come in and if you're building a big business of any sort, you need thought leadership and you need brand positioning. We call that fame engineering, impact marketing, and fame engineering. And so we've kind of coined that term. I'll use one of my clients, for example, Gianni’s Pizza. OK, Gianni’s is a local pizza joint. You would say, why does this guy need to be famous? He's a local pizza joint. He should be spending money on paid ads, he should be spending money on SGO, you should be spending money on better landing pages and maybe some mailers, direct mail. What is the spending money on that turns him into our ally?  I sit down with this guy, three or four years, and it goes to show you how well we've done our work. If you're a marketing company and you're working with a guy for four years, what's up? He was like, I know you can grow social media platforms at this point. I'm like, seventeen thousand followers. Yeah, but I'm just big in Raleigh, North Carolina. Seventeen thousand is a lot that it's like I'm a micro-influencer. So he sits down with me and I was like, listen, you don't want to just run a local pizzeria. It's not just that for you. You want to be 'the pizzeria'. You want to be positioned as the legendary pizzeria, the one that people take their family to when they're in town. Hey, you got to try this place. It's famous. And a lot of times with the restaurant industry, that's positioning over the long term. Right.  It takes years, decades even. Oh, this place has been here since eighteen ninety-two or something crazy like that. You know, everybody goes here, this is the local shindig, this is the spot, the familiarity. So you've got to know the trust funnel. You have to know the business, I got to like the business, I got to trust the business. I'm going to add a step to that, I want them to adore the business. I want them to have that brand ethos. I want them to feel and experience that the pizzeria is legendary. How do we do that? We framed some of the languages. We start to create content that nobody else is doing. OK, and so what that is for us, and this is always our process when we work with people, whether it's a small business and you want to do individual targeting and try to pull in local customers or you want to frame yourself long term and we're building a brand for longevity He goes, number one; how many followers you have? And then from every business owner and I hear this every single day. You know, it's like, well, I want followers that turn into money. Oh, yeah. That's what they say every time. Every time you talk to them. But if my followers aren't buying anything from me, then what's the good of the follower? And I'm like, Kylie Jenner's followers are all not buying from her. Two hundred million followers, but Kylie Jenner is getting paid a million dollars to post on Instagram one time. If you look at the best of anybody in your space, plumbing; I don't care if you own a boating company; I don't care if you've got painting; I don't care if it's pizza; There is a peak and there are people who are at that peak. They are managing their social media well, they are investing in it, they're spending time on it, they're making it clean, clear and under control, they're building it up. So my first step is always to get you to one hundred thousand followers, for the local businesses. You go maybe 10, 20, 30, you know what I mean? But really, the main identity here is how can we get a lot of people buzzing about this business? How do we do that? A lot of people, I want every view I can get, and then we start to look for credibility. So now it's like, all right, let's say personal brand because that's something I specialize in. OK, the personal brand comes to me a thousand, maybe ten thousand, something like that. I say, OK, step one, let's get you more followers. So we'll get you on a growth plan. There are a lot of ways to grow right now.  You have a DM method where I don't know if you've seen this, but like they take thousands of cold accounts and they can sweep an entire state or a hashtag and just DM everybody. And that's good. It's pretty targeted, but it's expensive. Look at it this way. You've got to scale. Obviously, the lower the quality follower, the cheaper it's going to be. The higher the quality of followers, the more expensive it's going to be all the way down to like let's run paid ads and try to get your followers that way. But you're about to dole out some cash, you know what I mean? So whatever your ratio is, budget-wise and however long and however aggressive you want followers, we can make that plan for you. I can target your sister who is at a restaurant down the street. I can get her. But you're paying for those, you know what I mean? And it's harder. It takes longer. You've got to enter relationships, do follow and follow and talk to him and get him in the DMs and send them the right stuff. So we have taken care of the growth. Now, you're growing whatever degree that is. Then I say, OK, now we want you... That's the next big thing, and that's the question, man, I'm telling you, nobody knows how to do it. It's always changing. It's been changing for eight years. I've been doing this. The blue check is infamous. Everyone wants the blue check.  And it everyone's questioning. It's hilarious. I feel bad because it's an industry; its own product and industry by itself. The blue check. I mean, that has made me so, so many connections with people. We've walked hundreds of celebrities through the process of, OK, you've got to get some press. You know that verification badge is we've got to get you to press. We've got to Google Index that press. We might need Google knowledge. We might need an IMDB. Well, I don't know what we're going to need. It's not up to me. I'm not the judge maker there, and it keeps changing. But, and I'm sure you can attest to this, it can change your business. Your response rate goes up 30, 40, 50 percent, maybe more, if you comment on a famous person's post and you are verified, get ready to get some responses if you apply that dollar eighty strategies from Gary V, right where you're commenting on people's posts in your niche. OK, you run whatever type of business, a medical spa, I don't know. And you start commenting on other medical spa posts. If you have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousand followers, you're about to get some responses, brother. And that's when people look at you and then now you're credible and now they want to do business and they want to interact. Cool. So that brings me to now you are verified. You've got your five hundred thousand, one hundred thousand followers, whatever, you look clean, you look like a good profile and this is all on Instagram first and foremost. Facebook's awesome. It builds a close, tight-knit community, builds groups on there. It's great to interact and have hand-to-hand touches. But where's the social credibility? Because you can just boost your post if you want more views. So Instagram is your mainstay right now, and that could change, but that's right now it's currently that's your Web page. That's where people go first. OK, and you better have your highlights set up, right.  We do all this for you, and now you're verified with One hundred thousand followers. We go to step three. Now we want to start interacting and clapping with people in your space. So personal brand comes to me and they're in the fitness space to reach out for him. And we'll start setting up collapse in the fitness space one after another. He's working with this guy. He's working with this guy, he's working with this guy, he's working with this guy. He's this guy, you know, and guess what? They want to work with you now. You are now somebody to them, you apply value to them, and that's the thing. People are so crazy to me. They're like, well, why don't I just reach out to them now? It would be from a place of weakness instead of a point of leverage. 

Ryan Alford [00:21:08] But that's what it is, though? I mean, everything you're talking about is that attention. And that's why, literally I mean, we created T-shirts that say attention is currency and that's what people don't understand. It's like this isn't about being famous to be famous. This is about being famous for activating business and currency monetization through whatever you do. Whether that's a psychologist or a  truck guy. I mean, that's what's crazy is like people don't understand as you said, this isn't like; oh, I just want to be famous, and I know every 15 year old now wants to be famous. But as a business though, it's just this is about having leverage, because when you have attention, you have leverage, period. 

Michael valor [00:22:02 ] It's a must. It's a play-in game. You're about to be on the platforms. Other people are in your space and they're doing it and they're killing it. Why are you not? And you make it look like you're killing it real quick. And when you are, it's like you look like you're killing it real quick,  and you are killing it real quick because now you've collaborated with everybody in your space. You've networked with them. You don't even know what comes from that. Do you know what I'm saying? Like some people, I've set up with an introduction to Jordan Belfort, the Wall Street project from Dropbox. They start shaking hands. They start talking about their problems. Now there's a name to the face. People know each other. It builds a community and there's value in meeting those people. But they don't even want to meet you until you have valued the way that you do. When you walk in like a big boss with the blue check and One hundred thousand followers and kick-ass content. They're, I like this guy. I could take this guy seriously now. That is fame engineering and brand positioning. And the bigger you are, this is interesting; I love Bradley. Is it where I would consider us friends. I like the guy a lot. I love how he does business. I love being around him. His energy is contagious. He's one of the best. Let me be clear about this, he is one of the best framers and positioning of his brand. OK, you walk up to him and you feel like this guy's cool, like this guy he's got it down. You want to work with him, you trust him automatically. He's only got three thousand followers and he’s not a celebrity What is it? He's not a celebrity. He holds himself like that. And I have to commend him for that's huge because it does change the game. People give him stuff. I've watched it just because of who he is.  And so the next question is, OK, now we're clapping with all these people, and they're in your space, and then everyone comes out and they're like, well, I don't do content. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get on camera and make content. Like, how do you make content for your space? You specialize when you're clapping and you're making content automatically. That's like the Gary V thing like document don't create. I tell people, my clients, you sit and write me just a couple of topics, things you know about, things that if I asked you, you would say, oh, it's this, this, this, this, and this. Because everybody's got a specialty; You wake up and if you get out of bed, you've got a specialty. Well, I don't care if you just get out of bed making toast, that's you making toast, you're good at making toast now. How many times you've done that? You know, all these people got jobs and they got a specialty. And so I just say, put a camera on. Get yourself a little mic and let's write down some topics. And you talk about it, you send it to us, we'll cut it, we'll clip it, we'll make it cool, and then we throw it up there. And it just rocks, I mean, it just rocks. Now I'm like, step four and what is step four. It's like, OK, they got a big account. The account is verified so it has value. OK, They have collaborated with just about anybody in their space. They know all those people. They got tips and, tricks that work all from that. Then we say, OK, who do we want to target to bring you to the next level? Grant Cardone did this. Why do you think he had John Travolta? Why do you think he has Kevin Hart on it? I'm saying it's positioning. 

Ryan Alford [00:25:39] He's rubbing shoulders with celebrities; 

Speaker 1 [00:25:43]  He's now. These are guys that I have worked with and talked to that have portfolios close enough to the size of Grant Cardone, if not bigger, and they are not respected nearly as much. And it's because of the positioning that Grant has put into his brand. You want to respect him. He is idolized 

Ryan Alford [00:26:07] And it gives him so much more opportunity, in real estate and in investing is his thing. I'm sure that's his bread and butter is always going to stay the center path for him. But he's got leverage to go beyond Bravo. He's got leverage to go be a billionaire behind the scenes, whatever it was. But he has leverage, you undercover billionaire like billionaires, something you know. But he's got leverage to choose his paths. He's not stuck in one lane. 

Michel valor [00:26:39] It gives you that, and because of that even the networks like Discovery Channel approaches this guy and says, OK, we've got to put these guys out of personality. He's got this big brand. He's worked with celebrities, and it comes back down to fame engineering. How do you position your brand to the point where people want to come to you and eventually where you're so big? Sometimes my clients are so big after a while of just working with me that it's like they are like, why do they need me? You don't need me to get introduced to big guys anymore. You're a big guy. I've had that like where clients were paying for podcast placements, were paying for TV slots. They're paying for Forbes, an entrepreneur. And we've done the fame engineering. We built their content infrastructure. And I helped them with the brand idea and I don't know how scalable it is. I don't even know if I want to scale it.  I like the fact that it's a super boutique and everybody I work with gets best friend customer service. That's huge on an agency scale. It's like you could text your best friend at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday a brand new idea or something. We'll work it out. We're going to work it out together. I'm your best friend. I mean, I got your back. It's like that. So if that door opens when I'm working with a client, it's like best friend customer service. You could talk to me at any time. We're going to consult. I am rocking with you on this. This isn't just buying a product from a one eight hundred number. You get to meet people when you work with me and you're about to shake some hands. We're about to connect. We're going to build a relationship. And I have for the last decade kept my ear to the ground on whatever product comes out on the market. It changes, that's the thing, business owners don't have the time, especially if they're making cash, especially if we're making a bunch of money and you're doing well and you got this big organization, what are you going to do? You're staying on top of all the new products that hit the market. One's got a new marketing Jim Jam scheme thing that they've got out. My job is to beat those guys down, test them, volumize that price to nothing, and then charge my clients. And work with them every step of the way, steps up, steps, steps. Every time something new comes out, they hear about it, they get it first. And then they're like, OK,  Mike, what's my next step? What can I do? I'm like, up next step. I would do this. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. I'll write it down for you. I'll get into your email. Come on, like, who's doing that? Because people are so obsessed with building this large, our business is weird because when you build an agency, unless you're doing this. I know some of the marketers who are like just dollars for the market, why? That's fine, you could scale that, but it's a dead horse,  it's just a big dead horse. The clients only care about the KPI, that's all that matters. And to me, it's so lifeless and in my business, I feel like it mimics the leader. Businesses always mimic the leader, the culture. All people are handled as the leader, and for me, I'm not a lifeless guy, obviously, and I like the connection. I like the warmth. I like handholding and walking them through it. I like building something when I want Thousands of followers and then they really would love to meet Bradley or Jordan Belfort or Grant Cardone or whatever. And the Miami Heat or the UFC we've gone to work with them, which was so awesome, or NFL players, whatever. Our lifetime accomplishments for some of these people, they did well in business, sure, but they would have never met a Hall of Fame NBA player.  And now their kids are like, oh, my God, you're on TV... That's awesome. 

Ryan Alford [00:30:51] Love it, man. I’m talking with Michael Valor, CEO of  Valor Media @ themichelvalor. He is theMichaelValor on Instagram. So, Michael, you have been in marketing for 20 years, but I am coming to the point of recognition that PR might be your first tactic, I like it and I think that's what we're talking about. But public relations is so broad now, where you have personal branding, you have all this press, but an earned media sounds a little disingenuous because you do have to pay to play with some of this stuff. But PR is just it's like it might be step one. 

Michael Valor [00:31:33] If you are successful in business and you're doing well, it is step one, if you're already doing well because people aren't coming to me if they are doing well. The people who come to me are typically struggling to get their next bill.  What I'm saying is then it's going focus on your sales force. Go make it easier for customers to buy from you. I need a higher revenue account. You need to be doing well, but there are ways to work with me at three hundred dollars a month sometimes. And they get the same attention as someone who spends one hundred grand a month, which happens often. So it's like just pay to play for how fast you want people always to earn money. It's like earned media, but like when you pay to meet the wolf of Wall Street, that shit's a chunk of change. When you talk to him and connect with them, you get another level of service from them. A lot of times there's a level of accountability there that is important.  They know you're legit and that's important as well. When you're paying, they know you're legit and they know that they want to work with you and they know that you do well in business and they should try to connect with you, too. And the networking aspect of it has made some of my clients' hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Ryan Alford [00:32:52] Well, you want to be talking with these guys. I mean, they're there and where they're at for a reason. These are the guys you want to be rubbing shoulders with. This is the influence you want to be having. This is the discussion. You see certain quotes and sometimes it's like, all right, I'm kind of over that. But the air in the conversation is just different. It just is. You know, having recently been on Bradlee's podcast, sitting at the table with Brad, it's just a different conversation. 

Michael Valor [00:33:23] Yeah, well, they're winners. How do you think they got there? They did this. They did fame engineering already. That's the only reason we're talking about them right now. That's why it works. People are like, oh, I want to be like Grant Cardone and I want to be like Bradlee. I want to be like Dave Meltzer. I want to be like Lewis Howes or whomever. They already did this. They've been doing it for ten years.  They've been doing the Fame engineering before, it was just not what they called it. Tyler Lopez fame engineered when he came out with that YouTube ad, I'm here in my garage. That was fame engineering then, you know what I'm saying? He had rented that huge mansion over all of these,  and now they are paying him thirty thousand a month for it. Do you know what I mean? Why fame engineering? It has credibility, but now it's Ty Lopez.  And that's what people need to understand and get to.  Imagine how much money Grant Cardone has dropped trying to make 10x the position, the brand position that it is. It blows me away, to be honest with you. Big companies don't do it. No AT&T, you know if a Fortune Five hundred throws a  budget at me,  I'd make their fucking head spin. So, yeah. Do you want to throw a Fortune 500 budget at me?  It'll be ridiculous. You'll be everywhere. It's called omnipotence. I mean, you've got every celebrity under the sun making creative content left and right.  I've been hearing about KFC. They're popping off on Tik Tok because KFC is throwing these influencers five grand. And  I'm saying what is five or ten grand to KFC? And how much from now, market cap are they getting the influence in the Millennials and Gen Zs by attacking you've got all of these other marketing departments, just millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, and they're sitting in these offices just talking about nothing. It's like, what are you guys discussing? 

Ryan Alford [00:35:27] No, they're so big they can't move.  And I've used this analogy a lot lately; like from Swingers, the movie when Vince Vaughn's talking to his buddy, they got these things and you don’t know what to do. You're batting around the bunny and you don't even know what to do because they're so big and they're so slow and they think they've gotten better. They're still putting 30 second TVs on social media and they're like, all right, I want to have a let's have a micro-influencer plan. And they're like batting around the bunny when they've got these claws and not figuring out, like, how to do this shit. It's just like, what are they doing? And I worked with a lot of them ten years ago. And I  got so tired of it. Now I like working with small to medium businesses better because we can move marketing at the speed of now,  not yesterday. 

Micheal Valor [00:36:14] You can move the needle. You can pivot a business when it's that size. And there are faults of going superfast. I'm not saying that you want to be, but I'm saying at the same time, it's like, dude, with the budgets that these guys have, they could just dominate. Like, why is there not a Coca-Cola podcast? Why aren't they having celebrities on it?  If Coke hit me up with a budget of any kind, It's game over. People are going to talk about it. No problem, you know? And so I think the big race right now is how can big companies like that ease up on the reins, give it to a small agency that can fucking kick-ass, and just go out there and slam it against them in a cool way. And that's impact marketing, that's why I love that I'm all about it and it's just like really dominating every single piece of content creation for an organization. You started the podcast. I mean, you were talking about this concept. Now you've got a bunch of clients, revenue, extra business opportunities from the podcast. I have a podcast. I talk about Legos and I still get business from it. I'm sitting here for an hour and a half talking about things that have nothing to do with valor media. I'm talking about The Lion King and it has nothing to do with Valor media. I get business from it. People are like, oh, this guy makes content and he builds a brand. 

Ryan Alford [00:37:51] But they get to know you before they have to work with you. Like, that's what people understand, you've softened the beachhead before you attack. Like you don't even have to attack. They're like they're laying their guns down before you even come onto the beach because they're like, man, we wanted to hug you. We want to work with you.  I like this guy. 

Michael Valor [00:38:09] Go like trust. You know, like trust now.  Every day you got me, then you like me. You're like, wow, this guy is kind of always a nice guy, smiling and having a good time with a couple of jokes and whatever. And then it's like I trust him. Now, I've seen him so much. I've seen his life. He does Instagram stories every day, which I'm doing. I got my face on. Now and people come to me with the weirdest problems with Instagram and like I mean, I am the wizard, I'm Gandalf of Instagram, OK, I got messages today from influencers. They have millions of followers and like Instagram and customer service is terrible. And you need someone in your corner who can handle the crazy problems that are like no one's even seen some of these. These are glitches, but it makes sense. It's looks at how big of a system it is. How is it not going to have glitches? The benefit of having an agency that knows what they're doing is like having that protection side of things because it gets crazy. It's the Internet. Why are people still confused? It's the Internet lover for 20. I mean, you know, there's crazy things on here. It's not supposed to be clean 

Ryan Alford [00:39:21] It's called Wild West for sure. So, Michael, where's it all going? As we kind of wrap things up? We could talk for days and we will. But where is this all going for you guys? 

Michael Valor [00:39:35] For me, I think the next step for Valor media is going to come down to; I work with some of the biggest personal brands. I mean, you name a person. They've either bought out of products for me or are buying products from me or are planning to when it comes to personal brands. So we're doing a lot with celebrity clubs right now. That's been huge because the celebrity clubs turn in our [00:39:52] believe it or not. You know, you see a celebrity working with a product and they use that on ads, it does move the needle and change the game for a product. For me, it's like we're going to try to double, I think I can, my current infrastructure, we are like a team of 16, 17 people all here in the US. Then we got our admin team that handles all like administrative tasks, back-office stuff. Then it's like five million a year and I'll be happy there. But who knows? When I get there…

 Ryan Alford [00:40:39] oh, it could be ten. Yeah, about 20. 

Michael Valor [00:40:43] Yeah. So we'll see. But I think we have the current infrastructure to handle five million, which is good. It's just about getting some of these businesses who are just old dinosaurs, who have a bunch of cash on hand, who are not in the new space because they're not even ready, the meta-verse is coming out. Yeah, it's like a theorem is about to change the Internet and you're still struggling to make an online presence. You are about to get left behind homey. You need some rocket fuel. 

Ryan Alford [00:41:12] And that's all my kid says. That's so meta, Dad. I'm like, I know what you're talking about, kid. You're not going over my head. 

Michael Valor [00:41:20] Yeah, I think a couple of these big boys eventually will hear about me, bring me in as an outside consultant and I'll walk them through the walk to fame, the path of fame. We will make creative content. I mean, if you go look at my page,  and I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but there's the top one percent of creative content out there. I mean, I don't even see stuff like what I put out. You know, it's crazy. It's just crazy. But it has a brand ethos. And I'm good at that. I'm in it real and then formatting it so that everybody wants to be like it. I'm going to make things cool. And I've always been good at making things cool. So I was kind of weird. So it's like make something weird, cool. I  will make being colorful, cool, and we're going into a space into twenty, twenty-one, and beyond, where being weird and being a little different is good, you know, and that's awesome for guys like me and Brad. We'll see how it goes. I'm enjoying building the business right now and meeting all the people like you and Brad. I mean any and everyone we shake hands with is so cool, man. We are traveling the world. We're making cool things happen in space full of a bunch of jokers. And I think that's another big piece that people are worried about when they work with social media agencies. So agencies, you know, things like two guys behind a laptop in Bora Bora and all they care about is posting images of their Lamborghini that they bought with their clients' money. And, they're just stacking sales numbers. That's all that matters. And they just build these massive sales organizations and pump out products and infrastructure. It's a legacy, some of the people I'm building with, you know their names and I'm saying I'm a part of that over and over again, which is so sick. So, yeah, buy more parts, make more people famous and do more posts. 

Ryan Alford [00:43:20] I love it, brother. Well, appreciate you coming on. I appreciate getting to know you and Hanns better and working together. And I know there'll be more collaborations down the road. And where can we find you, man? Where can everybody keep up with your notes? Instagram. I mentioned it earlier but tell everybody where to keep up with you. 

Michael Valor [00:43:39] It's at theMichaelValor on Instagram, you can click contact as it's got my personal phone number on there. You want to give me a rant. Go shoot me a text boner on there and everything. Shoot me a DM. I love voice messages. I love connecting with people. I'm so down for that. And yeah. Dude, I appreciate you for having me on. The Carolina boys got to stick together. 

Ryan Alford [00:43:56] Exactly.  Tackle on North Carolina. We'll have to meet up for a Hornets game or something. 

Michael Valor [00:44:03] We have a boat out here on Norman. So you've got to come up and just chill with us for a little bit. 

Ryan Alford [00:44:06] For a little bit for sure. I  Would love to. We'll make it happen. Well really appreciate Michael Valor coming on today on the Radcast. He just told you where to keep up with him and you know where to find us. The Radcast.com, at the.Rad.cast on Instagram and I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms so you can even find me on Tik Tok, Ryan.Alford on Tik-Tok, I am verified there and you will see me doing all kinds of cool shit. We'll talk to you next time on the Radcast.