Influencer Management Company / Record Label Analogue

[Rörik]

I had written most of this initial post in my introduction and realized that I should probably have it in its own thread with the execution tag:
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Because of my personal tendency to drop out whenever things get hard, and since my job is good enough to pay for my living expenses so that I won't get homeless again, I figured I could spend a year dedicated to a single business idea.

If it fails after a whole year of repeated failure and pivots to try and create value despite the issues arising, I figure worst case scenario is I build some tougher skin, get to spend a whole lot of time practicing problem solving and hopefully some solutions I solve become applicable in future business as well.

Me not being the greatest student of the fastlane and MJ, I might misrepresent or misunderstand the terms and models from the book, so forgive any discrepancy and please correct it if you think it might be detrimental to my progress!

The idea is essentially to become a record label company but for influencers. My thinking is this;
1/ Everyone my age and younger wants to be an influencer. It is the most wanted job and thus the business of helping people become an influencer should be more profitable than the heavy competition of being the influencer themselves.
2/If I was to be an influencer, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't tried already. What I constantly would be asking, and did ask, was "What am I supposed to do?" and "How do I make money from this?". So I figure that if I can create services and solve those issues, then everything from aspiring influencers to already successful ones would pay for the solution.

My main issue is that I can't really pin point on what exactly to do now.
My thinking is that a record label provides value by 1/helping produce content 2/Helping build and maintain an audience/community and 3/helping to monetize the content and audience assets. But I worry that if I focus on ALL services of a label company, I'm tricking myself into thinking I'm providing value. I think I need to focus on only providing a single one of the dimensions to begin with, to really solve that issue before moving onto the rest. - Is this stupid perhaps? I'd love feedback on that actually.

Furthermore, my only real idea right now is to cold call micro influencers in Stockholm and try to sell myself as a helping hand without trying to get payment. My thinking is that if I can get access to a single micro influencer, and I can be free helping hand, then I can more accurately pinpoint exactly where the problem arises for influencers, and I can figure out a solution for that influencer which I can then work on repackaging into something to be scaled for any and all influencers and from that point build out to be a label company.

So to begin with I'm trying to just be a manager for a single influencer and try to use what I know from selling advertising to instead try and put together ideas for him to monetize his audience and content. Then to work with him through his problems to help solve them at twice the rate he could otherwise, thus giving him value while also allowing me to understand that value better to then build the business around.
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I have no frame of reference for what a high-paid sales job is. If I stick to the job I have now it's expected to put me at about 8k usd pre tax / month. After a year they also have options for me to set it up so I work as a consultant purely on commission which will be way higher. At that point I should have recurring customer stock and I can reduce the tax from about half to a quarter, so it'll go from 4k -> 6k post tax IF I even get to that point to begin with.

The record label is definitely a big gamble, but I spend only time on it, no money, so I'm not sure I'm risking much. And I plan work only after my normal job hours and during weekends. Like I wrote; I think it might fail, but I intend to at least lock myself in so I'm forced to solve as many problems as possible and then by the time the year has passed, I'll either have the start of a functioning business or I'll have lots of experience to help transition me into the next idea.
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Since I think the gold rush is that everyone wants to be an influencer rather than everyone being, I guess the next goal, if nobody answered, is to find a literal nobody and give them the same spiel and then work together to create solutions which can then be repackaged and sold towards influencer-want-to-bes and current influencer who want to upgrade. If literally nobody answers, I'll try to see if I can build a moderate audience myself and do the same. This is what I mean by I'll try this idea for a year no matter how it fails, I'll try to do what seems to work best, but if that doesn't, I'll try to do that which is simply available.
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Primarily I'm going to propose I do what you're doing for me but for him. That is be a supporting voice in the back of his head that helps and is genuinely interested without feeling like there's some catch or motive behind it.

Secondarily I'm going to basically say that my primarily value offered is that if he needs to finance something, anything, I will be the guy to come up with the money and do the work in the background. Meanwhile he can focus on the creative aspects, and I'll try to be the backend of logistics and finance that makes and keeps his production value and makes sure he can live off of the creative pursuit. While also being in a constant feedback loop so that I don't diminish his creative works by just selling the absolute shit out of his brand and ruining his connection with the audience.
So basically, if he needs the money for something, I will figure it out. This is the primary value I think I can provide, but at the same time I'll offer my ear and words if he wants someone to help figure out audience retention or the film technical stuff. I'm just less qualified in those areas, but extremely interested and willing to help out.

basically I want to focus on proposing benefit to him without trying to talk to much about details, because the details are not what I offer him anyways, just the solution. IF he asks however, I think I want a more detailed list ready. That is what I'm trying to figure out now. I want to have different solutions, but at least just one, ready for:
- merchandising
- renting/buying production assets at the best price
-getting crew/hiring for the production if that is needed
-getting location permissions / dealing with red tape that could get in the way of an idea
-different CPM programs from various influencer marketing agencies ready to offer
-a sponsorship program for companies to act as patrons for his art
-a program for how we would set up direct brand deals without an intermediary agent
-the different crowdfunding setups we could explore, if he felt uncomfortable with pure corporate sponsorship
-the techniques to increase his already existing ad revenue (no swearing, no guns, no politics, bla bla) Increasing CTR ( thumbnails, video ideas, titles) or viewer retention (subtitles, better formatting, higher production value, etc)
- how to utilize his media assets across more social media platforms and how to manage those from a single point (thus increasing reach and the total amount of content over different mediums, visual, audio, textual as well platforms)
EDIT: - also how to use platforms and other programs to promote his own profile and videos in a strategic way to increase both CTR and Retention.
2n EDIT: - how to fix his webpage to be something more like a landing page directed at brands since it's pretty garbage right now, just a white background with a picture of him and contact information.
-How we can more accurately track and collect data on his audience, partially so we can get better deals but also so he knows his audience more personally and know better how to serve them
-proper accounting for his company, set him up with an accountant that is a very niche man interested in "odd" small companies
-setting him up with a PR agent that I know if he wants that to manage that end

There is probably more I SHOULD be able to do with what I already know, and I'm sure once he says a problem and I have to figure out the solution I will eventually find that out - but for now these are the things I think I could get to work on right now provided he wanted it.
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This is most of what was in the intro thread, first reply will be the first weekly update.

 

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[Rörik]

Update 4th jan 2023

As of today, my initial influencer has agreed to work together with me. I'm focusing on offering value in a single area to begin, and then building to offer more as we become closer.

He had some ideas that required money, as well as expressed the desire to gain more revenue via brand deals so he could go youtube full time. We talked about where I offered to help monetize and finance, and he was super interested.

That is to say, it went off without a hitch. He even thanked me at the end for reaching out to him. At the very least there is perceived value done, now just to do the work.

Out of all my prospects, he has the most potential to become something big. My research on record labels also says that you basically lose money on 9 out of 10 people you sign, so to start with a good one is definitely the best!
It's a game of tailends, where only the few generate lots of revenue and ultimately profit.

So my current plan is:
1/ Provide the value that has already been perceived and get the influencer some money via securing some brand deals, either through cold calling companies I think I have an interest or by going to influencer marketing agencies and seeing what they have already prepared.

2/I will reach out to people from the record label industry and try to find a mentor or two for my business, whom I am willing to offer 0.5-2% each of the business in the future. Not because they need it, but purely symbolic to show I will sacrifice a piece of mine for them and that they will be part of the business venture.

Stick to the one influencer for now until I have value which can be repeated, at which point I start figuring out how to manage 10 at once and aim for that. But that could be months to a year from now.

 

[Rörik]

Ten days after update - was thinking I would do weekly but time goes by fast.

So my plan is technically still on track, but the execution is lacking. While my idea was that I could just cold call like I do for work, I forgot the fact that I work the hours that people would respond on the phone. This means that my job actually takes almost the entire window of opportunity for me to call labels for my influencer.

To add to this, my work was going so well they added me unto another account which means I sell both for an industry paper and for Dun & Bradstreet in Sweden. The company I work at is just a sales bureau and so we sell more than a single thing. This was good since I can now make more money at the job, but the time and energy it took to figure out the new system was more than anticipated and my post work has suffered. Next week though this should no longer be as new and I plan on making more time for my own business. I'll be calling my own clients on breaks, at lunch and in the short window right after work before people leave their jobs in Sweden.

Since I made basically no progress other than this, this is all I have to update for this week. Hopefully the update will be better next week.

I am IN the transactions already happening as the middleman, once I have executed the job, then I can start adding more value than simply being a time saver for my influencer. At that point I think only taking payment remains before I can move on to packaging the value into a CENTS system.

 

[Rörik]

I'll count this update as a week, since something relatively big happened.
Overall I've noticed that I am not very productive, but even if I get a spurt after work, I can't call.
I discussed my idea with my bosses, the co-owners/founders of the sales bureau, and they liked it. They made me a deal that if I can manage a certain budget every day, once I reach the budget I can work on my own company in their office with their equipment during my work hours, which they still pay me for. Of course, I won't get commission from them on those hours, but it's still huge.

So now what's left is to prospect and mail at night, then in the mail put a set time to call them up, then I'll call them during work hours, and hopefully I'll be able to sell a couple of brand deals using my influencer and then finally have hard proof. My bosses are also essentially mentoring me, even helped me work on the script that I use and how to prospect better - they've got about 30 years collective as actually salespeople and have been both top sellers and sales managers for almost 10 years each now. At this stage, these are literally the best mentors I could have, and I essentially have a rent-free office with all the equipment to start my business with.

Literally the only bottleneck for this is my own procrastination, laziness or unwillingness to do what is required to move forward.

Step 1 is still
1 influencer, 1 brand, 1 deal = hard proof of value
then at that point I have my first sale and the rest is just repeat, systematize and automate. Then I can start expanding towards the other value offerings that would traditionally come with the record label.

Ideas are so easy, action is so much harder, I find it so easy to just lurk on this forum and dream about being some of the success stories I see. It's so much harder to actually just get something done. Even though I already call 20-100 companies every day and close 1-5 of them each day, doing it on my own with something new just comes with more resistance from my mind. Hopefully journaling this now means that in a couple of months I can look back and laugh at myself and the noob I was.

 

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[Rörik]

Not much of a weekly update but relatively big updates. Nobody is reading this post so really it's just for my own mental structures. I'll just post whenever a milestone is achieved.

-Continuing to call brands to try and get them on
-Will make a shopify for my influencer to get some merch on, been reading up on how the apparel business works, basically we're trying to make an actual business within his merch de facto so it needs its own CENTS framework. Value wise we're focusing on hype, exclusivity, etc. elevating his influencer status for this
-We're setting up crowdfunding solutions such as patrons, trying to figure out a content schedule for that which he can conceivably do, have time for, and still do well enough for it to be worth something, and then strategically combining that with his normal output so that they synergize rather than fight against eachother.

-I've been reading a lot of Cecil Rhodes' biographies recently and I was inspired to attempt combine the DeMarco framework with what I understand of my historical interests (Augustus, Patricians of Rome, Aristocrats, Rhodes, etc.).
I figure that the more I can get others to do which aligns my interests with theirs, the more I can get done without even doing anything. So now I've sort of refocused my efforts on selling people on the business rather than selling brands on the influencer. What I've gotten so far is
1/ two developers willing to do develop the software service for free in exchange for shares in the company. But they're shit at negotiating and understanding business structures, so I will find a way to basically give them shares equivalent to their work but without letting them in on something that could grow to be a billion dollar business simply for giving me some help at the start. I want them to be paid fairly, but fair for both them and me.
2/The sales bureau where I work has expressed interest in selling my product for me, so I'm currently redeveloping my product to something which would appease them into selling for me on a purely commission basis. Which means I lose nothing and can keep selling on my own if they don't work out
3/I managed to get a spy in another influencer marketing agency, one of the biggest in the nordic at least, and I've set my eyes on poaching their best salespeople by trying to offer them something which the already established multimillion dollar company can not. Possibly shares again.
4/I've also started negotiating with a businessman I know that helped my cousins company go from startup to publically traded. He seems willing to work advisory role for advisory shares. I want him as a mentor
5/I know tangentially people who tangentially know pretty much every key and small influencer in Sweden now. I've started expressing to these people that if they can get influencers on board, they'll basically have a guaranteed job and a cut on every business the influencer can produce. A way to give "shares" without actually selling of the company.
6/I'm also trying to connect with another mentor who would be the best guy possible for my vision of the company, but he's a lot more inaccessible than the other guy. I'm scheming to give him a gift related to a personal obsession of his, something that literally can't be matched, thanks to a fortunate coincidence of knowing the right person without knowing I did.


So as much as possible, what I'm trying to do is being the middle man of the middle man company. I want to bring in as many people as possible that are as competent as possible and then manage and coordinate their efforts along my vision, and trying to appease them for what they want in return in a way that costs me nothing. Basically trying to redistribute from one part to the other in a cycle that creates the company.

Is this a crazy way of doing it? Is this even CENTS? I honestly have no idea, but I like Cecil Rhodes, and I think this sort of approach fits my personality and intuitive thinking more than what I had originally planned. The whole desert of desertion thing expressed in DeMarcos book, where you spend all that time grinding away without reward. I honestly think my grind is just becoming a better schemer, persuader and strategician, and then putting that into work by placing others in their positions like chess pieces.
At the very least I see how what I'm doing is fitting into the CENTS framework.


Obviously if this goes to shit maybe I'll reconsider, I'd appreciate it if someone actually read this and responded as well lol.

 

[Rörik]

Main reason I stopped updating is because I feel like nobody is reading this or cares, but I'll still write something of an update since I've gone just about 180 degrees.

The sales job I had started going a lot better, and so I had to choose essentially wether to double down on it or make a business of my own. Because I think I am sort of retarded and not the best administrator, I tend to lean on delegation whenever I get something done. I can make great decisions, but execution has always been my weak spot. The result of this is that I tried to build my business mainly be delegation, and when I couldn't find the right people for it, I decided doubling down was the easier.

I make about 7k usd a month, which is not something huge but is pretty middle class and stable for now. I have ways to slightly increase this over the course of a year or two, but I still calculate that the maximum in this position is about 20k a month, and that's assuming I solve all the issues related to increasing it.

So I figured if my cash situation is stable, and I don't think I can go for the RLA business - and I think this goes against the fast lane method really - I started thinking instead of how can I create a project that is meaningful to me and then try to transition into finding proper cash flow in that project.

The result is I've been looking at farmland to try and start a farm, since I find that lifestyle attractive and meaningful. I'm also looking to start a local mens club that I hope will become something bigger over time.

So really you can say this project of the RLA is closed and new horizons have opened. I'm just trying to maximize my sales job and savings and then I'm trying to find ways of converting this into extra time to be used on more important projects.

Like I said in my intro, that nobody read or knows I am referencing to of course, I come from a background of politics and philosophy. Business never really caught my eye except for the fact that obviously there is massive freedom from lots of cash, and I found the fast lane method to be really epistemologically satisfying. It seems true and like a very clear blueprint for how business works. So I wanted to try it. But I think the resultant is now that I will be using it as a guide for something that isn't even going to make me any excess money. Ideally just cash flow enough to keep it going until it provides me with the meaningful non monetary results that I am truly after.

 

[Rörik]

The fact that Big Rome Dawg emoted is why I am writing this again lol.
New update: I managed to make it so I get 10k usd salary (but in sweden I only get 6.4k after taxes).
I talked to the bosses and since I've been taking record salaries for the firm instead of being an employee it would be better if I was a consultant.
This way I will basically get 15k for that same result which gave me the 10k usd salary(since 5k of that is paid in sweden as employer tax, roughly explained)
I can now also deduct a lot of costs on the company, which means my purchasing power has increased disproportionally to the same income I produce.
It's a little bit more paperwork but seems to be very manageable.

So I guess I got my company now, a consulting firm for the sales firm.
Now I guess I will just have to figure out how to make this consulting firm into a fastlane business.
I was thinking of making my own product, as I've essentially figured out how to prospect for clients and sell to anyone, so I could pretty much sell any product. I just now have to figure out what kind of product I can build that can be built on evenings/nights while I sell in the day. Right now I'm thinking of more or less just ripping off the existing products I sell but using the value equation to try and make every small piece of it better. I know exactly what the client wants by now since I can essentially always shape the pitch to the client and I've figured out the central "profile" of the clients for this product. The real reason to make it myself is not to increase value, but to make sure I have control over it and can't lose the right to sell the product, and increasing the value for the customer is just really an added bonus.

I have some background in programming and I've recruited one of the other sales guys in the firm to come with me, who also has a programming background. So mix that with what I've learnt selling the product and now I just have to learn the missing 10% or whatever it is and then I can probably outcompete the guys I'm currently working for.
I'm just trying to be careful not to lose my right to sell in the process of securing my right to sell lol. Hopefully this complexity of coding/bookkeeping/network/experience will serve as an entry barriers to other newbies and leave only the big guys.

I have not figured out the time or scale commandments really but I figure if I solve the first three the second two will be the final piece of the puzzle, so just focus on the thing at hand.

Could be good.

 

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