Podcast Description

All of us here at AGM are super excited to tell you about this one! In this podcast, listen in as Manuel is interviewed by the one and only People’s Shark, Daymond John on his show, Power Talks.

Manuel answers several questions including: What’s the best way to get started with social media marketing?

What’s the quickest way to build your business online?

How do you find your superpower and use it to take your business to the next level, even during a global pandemic?

Listen in and I hope you enjoy this podcast!

 

Podcast File

Interview with Daymond John, Founder of FUBU & Shark Tank Co-Host

Click here to download this Podcast >>

 

Podcast Transcription

Jules: Hey guys, this is Jules. I’m Manuel’s Creative Director. So I’m super excited to tell you about this one.

In this podcast, Manuel’s being interviewed by the one and only People Shark, Daymond John.

Manuel answers several questions, including what’s the best way to get started with social media marketing, what’s the quickest way to build your business online, and how do you find your superpower and use it to take your business to the next level.

Listen in. And I hope you enjoy this podcast.

 

The Shark’s Intro For the Marketing Ninja

Daymond: Here’s the next person I’m going to bring on now. I’m going to read the background before… Prior to bringing him on because I want you to hear who he is. The name is Manuel Suarez.

And his background is.

• He launched his own brand with no business background or training. Within a year it became a multimillion-dollar company because of his study and application of social media advertising. And he sold it a few months later.
• He helped his father to take his own company from making 2 million in revenue in one country to making 40 million in eight countries in just four years.
• Started taking on clients.
• Has helped generate over 2 billion, and that’s with a B, views across different channels and helped generate millions of followers.
• Started his own agency, Attention Grabbing Media. It’s called Attention Grabbing Media with his own course on social media marketing.
• Relationship with the Shark group, he has a relationship with my group.

He and his team built our ManyChat Messenger bot. If you go to daymondondemand.com a chat bot pops up and this was Manuel’s work, and helped set up our webinar launch in April. All right.

Now, you’re gonna learn a lot from him because I’m sure the things he’s going to say right now, are…you’re going to be able to apply to your business. In your online and social media. This man has forgot more than I’ve learned. Let me see. Here we go. Manuel. Boom. Eh, alright. What’s up brother?

Manuel: Hey, Damon. How’s it going, man?

Daymond: It is going well. You’re in the office.?

Manuel: I’m in the office. It’s it’s a ghost town over here. But we, we’re in the office space right now.

Daymond: Where are you based?

Manuel: I’m in Clearwater, Florida. That’s Tampa Bay area. Do you know the area?

Daymond: My fellow Shark, Kevin Harrington, is from that area, and half of the wrestlers live in that area, and the Bella twins live over there as well. So anyway. Yeah. Cool.

Manuel: Nice, nice. So I’ve been here for several years.

Daymond: All right. So let’s get right into it because people gonna wanna know about how to become, as everybody is saying, you are a marketing ninja, they’re calling you on here.

 

What is Digital Marketing?

Daymond: Just, break that down.

Manuel: Well, Daymond, it’s something that you can educate yourself on not like the traditional world that you have to go through college.

In my case, like you said on the intro that you were talking about me, I have no business background. I didn’t have a clue what being an entrepreneur actually was.

Actually, I go back to watching you on TV many years ago, before I even knew that I had any indication, that I had potential to be a businessman. I enjoy watching the show. Once a week, we used to binge-watch Shark Tank with my kids.

Alright, my man. I have three kids. Yeah, man. I have four kids now. But back then 10 years ago when you were just getting started on Shark Tank… What is it now? 10 years ago, Daymond?

Daymond: Actually, yeah. A little over that. Yep. We’re about to shoot our 12th season.

Manuel: Oh man. I used to watch all your shows and it’s funny because at that point I really didn’t have a desire for entrepreneurship. I don’t know if you’ve seen this.

Daymond: What were you doing at that point- yourself?

Manuel: I actually was a consultant for a church. And I used to, nonprofit organization, I used to work. Used to earn, I don’t know, $600, $800 a week helping the church. And my wife had a business. We created a business 12 years ago, but I was almost like, my attitude was very different, Daymond. It was almost like, we joke about that, right?

Today, I used to say, well, maybe she’s going to make me rich one day, you know? Or I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll get an inheritance. I had no desires for entrepreneurship.

You know, there are people that talk about entrepreneurship being in the DNA – you either have it, or you don’t. I’m a living evidence that it’s about you waking up a desire to do something better and be stronger and just going at it.

I’m actually reading your book right now – The Power of Broke, and every single word of it is so true because I come from that background, you know? I was never homeless, but I was always like, I never had enough. Ten years ago I declared bankruptcy. And today I’m running some very powerful companies and growing and expanding.

It’s a self-made path.

 

I figured things out along the way.

…how to get an area and become good at it, just obsess over it, just want something bad enough. And I think that’s something that probably most people that are not making it out there, that’s what they’re lacking. How bad do they want it?

Daymond: Everybody right now, whether they’re doing great, if they’re doing great in their company and let’s say they’re selling things to people that are at home and you know, they’re coming along great, they want to do better, right?

But a lot of other people, they may be getting laid off. They may be wanting to be an entrepreneur right now. They may have been an entrepreneur and all of a sudden the doors are shut in their retail and now they want to be able to sell online and digitally market. What do you say to them?

 

Where do they start?

Because it’s a big world out there and it’s confusing, right? Do I take out Facebook ads? Like do pay-per-click, you know? There are so many different areas.

Can you break down some of these areas where people should be going and what should they be thinking of doing? Of course, we’re going to talk about your curriculum, then your assets, that you’ll be able to get to them.But just give them some simple nuggets that people just may be like, “Holy crap.I’ve never thought of that.”

Manuel: Totally. Daymond. I think there’s a lot of opportunity right now. If you look the economic meltdown and the COVID-19 that has struck the entire planet, right? At the same time, you look at a few companies that are booming. Facebook highest ever numbers, Amazon breaking records, all these e-commerce guys, right?

And then you have traditional retail companies disappearing, right? Nordstrom closing 16 stores. JCPenney -bankruptcy. GNC, one of the biggest supplement companies of all time, bankrupt. And the list goes on.

What I tell people, Daymond, is that what’s happening right now, it was already going to happen. It was our destiny. It was going to happen. It was inevitable. We just didn’t know that it was going to happen this fast. And I’m not talking about COVID. I’m talking about the evolution to the internet.The acceleration to an online-only, not online first, but online-only. That was going to happen. It’s just skyrocketed.

Like in my case, the reason that my office is empty is because there are some people that got sick. So I sent everybody home for the last week and a half just to stay safe. You probably know that Florida had a huge peak in cases and we’re in Florida. So everybody’s staying safe.

But as long as you have a business that can operate remotely, you’re golden. And that’s what I think you should be focused on right now because this world that we’re all living on right now, I think it’s going to be here for a while.

I saw you talking to Swen, amazing, very difficult to follow up to her. And you’re saying about how, you know, there are all these things right now that are happening, “Hey, I wish I could give you a hug. But hey, here’s a virtual punch”, right? That’s the way it’s going to be for the next several years, right? We’re not going to be able to get too close. There’s going to be a lot of fear of walking into places and doing traditional business and doing events. So I think it’s a great opportunity right now to take whatever you do and transition it over to the online realm.

Daymond: What are the first steps they can do? Because I’ll tell you, you know, if I happen to not, and of course, you know, my business has changed. You know, now I’m doing virtual speaking gigs and all kinds of stuff like that. But ,if I was, right now, and I didnt have anything besides…not Daymond John. Just you know, Daymond John who wasn’t on Shark Tank.

I know that there are so many businesses like the Nordstroms of the world and all that. Now, they’re going to have places to go. Nordstrom is going to have what we call a second door.

That means they’re going to be able to sell this up to Burlington or to you know, other third parties who are going to get rid of the inventory, or they’re sending inventory back to somebody.

But,there are a lot of mom and pop shops and the mom and pop shops are struggling. Nobody’s walking by their doors. These people are anywhere from, ya know, 30 to 60. They’ve been doing it all their life, but they never really understood the power of social media conversion and things like that. But yet, they’re sitting on a bunch of inventory.

I don’t care if it’s perishable goods, if it’s lotion, if it’s sponges, or if it’s great blouses, or whatever the case is-furniture. And if I didn’t have any money, I would just call those guys up and say, “Hey, I know you need to move that inventory. I have a great following while I’ve learned Facebook advertising, stuff like that. If I, whatever I move, we’ll split the profit 50-50 to get rid of that inventory, all right?”

Because now you’re helping them. They’re getting rid of old inventory. If they’re going to be able to survive, you yourself don’t have to lay out capital. But you’re using, you know, this amazing thing called the Facebook’s of the social media platform, or the Instagrams of the world, to get that out. And I know I’d make money. I know I’d make money.

 

The First Step to Your Digital Business

What would you say to somebody is the first step that they should take right now to start doing things like that? Because if they take your course or anything else, they’ll start being able to find people who need to move things.

Manuel: Right. Right. Daymond, my advice today is the same advice that I had nine years ago but more with an urgency. And this is what I would tell them right now, because right now it seems like the world needs superpowers, like people with skill.

One thing that I’ll give you as an example: When I logged in today to your Instagram, I don’t know if you know this, but you have 4,999 posts today. You’re going to get number 5,000. I don’t know if you guys even knew that, but that’s volume of communication.

 

Capturing the Most Important Asset

ATTENTION

What are you doing with those 5,000 posts? You’re talking to people about your superpower, about your ability. You’re helping people. You’re keeping them motivated.You’re keeping them fresh.You’re bringing experts in different fields. You’re providing value.

When you’re doing that, you’re capturing the most important asset that we have in this world, which is attention.

 

You can’t go wrong if you have attention

No matter what the era is. What I think right now anybody needs to do- everybody needs to do out there before they start thinking about monetizing selling products or selling services. The first thing that they have to do is figure out how they’re going to capture an audience.

 

What is their superpower?

I know what your superpower is, Daymond. I mean, man, we all know it, right? I know that you have this business skill when I’m on Daymond on Demand, because you teach a lot of things that otherwise, I wouldn’t know – your business experience, and your roadmap, and all those things.

In my case, I’m marketing. I do 300 posts every single week talking about marketing, how to use social media, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram TV, how to do volume of content, how to communicate and get attention. Because when you do that, the way that I see it is that you’re really earning a right to sell them something. And until you haven’t provided value to people first, giving them something that is actually tangibly valuable to them, I don’t feel, right now more than ever, you have the right to sell them something.

 

When Can I start Selling?

If you want to be able to sell them your products, your services, your offers, do something first. Give them value.

Direct response marketing and social media, it’s not what it was 10 years ago. It’s not what it’s been in traditional marketing for a hundred years. Right now, direct response is met with a lot of skepticism because people are like, well, what’s in it for you, right? It’s not about them.

So what… My strategies for my clients, for myself or anything that I do today… I didn’t get a project for your own Messenger channel, Daymond.

 

It’s all about

providing value

 

It’s about positioning the individual as an expert. What is your superpower? Like if you’re into beauty, well, teach people how to look beautiful. Make them feel better about themselves. If you’re into designing, if you’re a genius like yourself that you built FUBU, right? From the ground up, well, teach people how to dress better, how to do better with their style, right? Any subject.

And I always tell people, look, if you cannot figure out your superpower, you don’t really have a business and you have to figure that out because you can be a tax accountant. You might think that you’re boring as heck as a realtor. It doesn’t matter. You have a certain skill, you have a certain superpower and value.

And what you’ve got to do is that you’ve got to get over the hump of having considerations or thoughts or feelings about what your neighbors think about your mom, about your wife, about whatever, and just have to start doing volume of content.

And it doesn’t happen, as you Daymond, it’s not something that, “Oh, I did 27 posts yesterday and nobody listened. It’s not about that. It’s about putting your head down and doing it. And while you’re doing that, using Facebook every day, Instagram stories, Instagram live and all these incredible opportunities that the world has given us for free. Then at some point, you’re going to have audiences built that you can make your offers to sell them your products. But only then.

Daymond: How do you self reflect though, to find your superpower? It took me years to find out what my power was and my power was, I think because I grew up as an only child, I always wanted friends around me. And, I also learned not to be judgmental. I learned to say how that person is acting is that person’s problem and that person’s just trying to win.

But you know, I want to get people around me. So I want to have my crew, my Keith, Carl, and Jay. “Let’s all start FUBU together”. Because traditionally, designers were always one person, a Tommy Hilfiger, a Carl Kenai, whatever. It’s not about me. It’s about us. Come on, guys. Let’s all do this. And I always felt that everybody I knew their superpower, I realized that I wasn’t the smartest guy.

But if this guy, this girl had something and even though they were lacking in other areas, I didn’t highlight where you’re lacking. Oh, you’re whack. You can’t do this and that.

I highlighted where I thought they were great. And I said, maybe we can fix some of those things that we have challenges on, but who am I to judge you? You know what I mean? Only God can judge you. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to find the good I can take out of it. And let’s keep working on, instead of cutting them off, I tried to.

 

Work on it

Because you’re going to have the same hiccups or hurdles with the next person you work with.

So that’s my…My power goal has been trying to tap into people.

How do people right now find out what their power is?

Like, you know, they’re right now going, “All right, man. All right, Manuel, I hear you. But I’m just too nice to people.”

Is that a power? Or is that a weakness? And if it is a power, how do they tap into the niceness of who they are?

Manuel: Right, right. Very important question. I think it took me a while also Daymond. And I think that people have to pick one area, right? I can break it down into three separate areas in which how are you going to communicate to people, right?

You either entertain them. We have a lot of people that are incredible entertainers killing it in social media today. Right? They have so much attention. These people are never going to lack any money or they’re not going to have any problem selling whatever products or services they have.

 

Entertainers, people that inspire, people that educate

In my case, I try to revolve around education. What is something that I know businesses are lacking?

Like right now I was fortunate. I have to look at the silver lining, right? It’s very difficult to look at today’s world and say the word “fortunate.”

But hey, Daymond, imagine going through COVID-19- (You’ve been in business for ages) in 1990 without the internet. Damn, we’d be in trouble, man. I mean, what the heck would we be doing with our lives? We wouldn’t be able to be here, right?

So I always try to take people like, Hey, just take a deep breath and look at where we’re at. 2020 COVID-19 we’re able to operate.

In my case, I have 65 staff. Before COVID-19 I had 51. Instead of losing 40 million people, I’ve added people to my payroll. I’m lucky. And I’m never going to take that for granted. So you’ve got to look at- back to your question- you got to look at, what are you doing?

Are you educating people? Like on taxes, on real estate, on design, on style, on gardening or whatever it is. And that could be your superpower. Because what you take for granted, the knowledge that you talk about with your wife during your dinners and your parties and this is your casual conversation every single day. Other people will love to have that knowledge.

So you either entertain them. You’re a comedian, or you’re an artist, or you’re a musician, or you are inspiring people, or you educate them. You’ve got to find one of those things or maybe you’re all of them. And you’ve got to start doing that.

Now, it’s the fastest road, Daymond. There’s nothing faster to be able to penetrate a world than what we’ve been given access to today. I mean, especially if you’re an old school entrepreneur, which I was lucky that I became an entrepreneur during the internet era. But before then, it wasn’t this fast that you can create a following, you can create a mission, you can create attention that could be monetized along the way.

So I would say that it’s a pondering for a day or two and thinking about what information do you have, do you possess that, you know, there’s people out there, even though you take for granted, but you know there are people out there that would actually pay for it, or that would actually use it to improve a particular area, aspect of their lives, right?

Daymond: Well, let me ask you something else. Also, at the same time that the world is moving so fast that people are swiping everything, right? And prior to this, you know, I told people, and I get what you’re saying. Obviously, you know, I have a great footprint on social media.

But I said to people, “Don’t discount other things”, you know? If you want to advertise and market it, you know what? Billboard is becoming more effective because you can’t swipe that when you’re stuck on the highway back three months ago when you were driving.

Or do you think retailer is dead? Well, retail and airports are booming because Amazon can’t get to the airport in a way so. Now, we don’t have either one of those – traffic or airports booming, right?

But information is moving so fast. I’m somebody who wants to communicate with people. And I want to communicate about my good services or entertainment.

 

How do I catch your attention when it’s moving so fast?

Because I remember back in the days and I’m sure you’re a master of probably doing this.

Now, back in the day, they used to be this old TV ad. And the guy would say, “I took 10 ads in 10 local newspapers. And each one of those ads cost me $30. And I just put 10 different 1-800 numbers down. And I used as we call [an item] and she copied different copies.”

So in one of the ads I said, “Would you like this red dress? The next day the ad said, “Do you remember when was the last time you wore a red dress?” The next day the ad said, “You know, red dresses are the new black.” The next ad said, “Imagine you fitting into this red dress.” And then this next ad said, “Nobody else has this red dress, but you.”

And I wait to see how many people call the 1-800 number and this one got four calls. This one got 20, this one got 700. And the one that got the 700 calls, I now put that ad in 3000 local newspapers. And I know people do that as well on Facebook and on Instagram. They put a hundred dollars up, a hundred dollars up, a hundred dollars up on these. And they see what’s getting more responses.

A lot of these people didn’t have time to build a relationship with the consumer. They’re just throwing things out there, right? So, where is that middle ground of somebody saying, “Listen, Manuel. I know what you’re saying. But man, I don’t got time. I got to get my goods and services out there. I don’t got time to build this community over two months, six months, nine months.” And you know, can they walk and chew bubble gum at the same time? Do the growing under advertising while building.

You know, I’m just trying to, I want people right now to walk away with something to go. “I can do this one step right now and I can work on the bigger picture that Manuel is talking about.”

 

The Marketing Strategy on Steroids

Manuel: I can give you the marketing strategy on steroids, Daymond. Like this is something that we have taken off. Like right now in the last six months, we have expanded more, many of the brands than in the last five years, any given period. And it’s based on a marketing strategy.

I know it’s obviously with how to transfer a wealth a lot more into the internet, companies that were more established. So I was lucky to benefit from that myself.

But I’ll tell you the strategy that I put together, that I think anybody can actually, put their own, if they figure it out, they spend a few days figuring this out and structuring it. For any entrepreneurs that are here, listening, that you have products and services and you want to get more attention.

 

First thing that you need to know!

This is not a time for you to monetize directly. It is, but in the world out there, you don’t sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, because it looks bad because the world is in trouble. I’m telling you my opinion, all right? Everybody can have a different opinion. My strategy has not been to sell, to sell, sell, sell.

On the contrary, I do not sell to people as a policy that don’t know who I am. If they have not seen me first in my videos, they’re on my list, on my Messenger channel, they’re not somehow connected with me, I don’t make any offers to them.

So this is what I do. I give something of value for free that generally would be sold to the public. That could be a digital product. That could be a service. That could be a one-on-one. That could be a consult. That could be a product. That could be anything that you have…

Daymond: And that stuff is free? You do the same? You give free stuff up?

Manuel: Free.

Daymond: Okay.

Manuel: I give stuff for free out and I call them my, “Humanitarian offer. “

So for example, my father, a huge social media superstar. I built that guy out from the first video that I ever uploaded in 2012 – two years of getting nobody to see the content to now in the month of June, we got 400,000 subscribers new. We’re crossing 3 million on YouTube. We’ve got several million on Facebook.

Daymond: What businesses that is that?

Manuel: He has a supplement business, Daymond. We sell nutrition and we sell education and we sell like vitamins and things like that.

We don’t sell anything for COVID. We don’t promote like, Hey, get cured. We’ve been exploding more than ever, but it’s because we’ve been promoting health. So that’s been the approach,right?

The point is what we did for my dad, which was the greatest marketing strategy that we’ve ever done, and I’ve actually repeated this several times already, and it’s been successful every single time is we came up with one single product that would generally be sold and we structured it into a humanitarian offer.

And we said to people, “Hey, just because I really care about making the world a better place… “

Now, this is the fact, Daymond. You’re a good guy. So am I. You’ve got to mean it. You can’t just be like, I’m going to give you a product because I want to sell you something. You’re really giving them something of value because you really care about them because it’s somehow going to help them.

Now, if your product does not help somebody, chances are you’re not selling a good product because any product out there is going to somehow improve the quality of an individual. If it doesn’t, you don’t have a good product, right?

So what we did was that we structured one of his digital courses. And again, we have done this for physical products, services and everything. And we created an offer and we put a lot of content out there, social media, talking about health and talking about this and talking and communicating and doing an Instagram live every day. A YouTube live, Facebook live, content on YouTube, on Facebook, and Instagram TV, everywhere, right?

But we put together an offer and that offer was like, “Hey, because we want to help people during these difficult times, we are not going to be selling you something. We’re going to be giving you guys something of value. And I want you to do me a favor and opt in because I want to make the world better. “

And in order for you to qualify, you need to just do three things:

1. You need to help me spread the word.
2. You have to stay active and use it.
3. If you like the product, send me a testimonial video.

And I’m going to make it all easy for you. And if you do those three things, this product is yours.

When we did that, we have gone viral. I’m talking about eight, 10, 12 times the numbers and people talking about us everywhere. Why? Because we’re showing that we care about people during this very difficult time. Again, it’s time to prioritize, not to monetize. So the focus has been to do that.

And what has happened, Daymond, is that our revenue, even though we don’t directly make offers has exploded, digital products, physical products. We have a call center with 75 consultants all over the world, answering from the people in the U S and these people are missing out 400 to 500 phone calls every single day, of people looking to make orders of supplements.

Why? Because he has gone so viral and we have a mega massive list now that there’s more people that we can sell to. It’s just the analogy of you know, you got two ponds. One of them has a hundred fish and the other one has a thousand fish. You got more fish on the other one. So you can go ahead and get more fish, right?

So the strategy, the focus, Daymond, is to build a massive list, massive list and take advantage of the attention-the enormous attention on this subject. And the fact that humanitarian offers to provide something of value to the world are so much more receptive right now because people know that we’re in trouble. And because they know we’re in trouble, they’re not automatically assuming that this must be a marketing scheme.

Oh, this guy, this small family owned business. This individual really wants to provide value. He really wants to educate. He wants to give something out to the world. He wants to contribute. So we use social media channels for that.

Daymond: So, all right. And in closing, I know we’re going to get cut off soon. So supplements is, and sometimes they’re not costly to make, but somebody right now who has a fashion company, that they cannot give, you know? It’s just too costly, right? They can’t give their product away.

What do they give to people then? Do they give them styling advice? Do they show them great other products out in the world that they can go and get that may not be theirs and say, you know here’s how you can look like this. Or like what other stuff can they give that doesn’t necessarily cost them an arm and a leg to then get people’s attention to say, “Thank you? I get it, you know? You helped me.” You know what I mean?

Manuel: Right. There’s a couple of options.

• If you have an Amazon brand and you have a clothing brand, well, that’s a great opportunity for you to get massive ranking on Amazon, because Amazon will love the actual love of people purchasing your products and maybe getting a rebate, right?

If you have an eCommerce channel I would actually figure out how to do a small gift card that they can actually just claim like a $10-$20 gift card, something like that, that you can afford.

Or the easiest way, and Daymond, the best possible way is for every entrepreneur to force themselves, to create a digital product right now that teaches people about fashion in this example, right? Like a seven-step formula to increase your own fashion sense or whatever it is.

If you put something like that together very easily, and you give it away for free, you can position it as like, Hey, this is something that I would generally sell because I’m teaching you my knowledge acquired over 20 years. But because of the era, I want to give it to you for free. And that could be a list building engine for you. They can actually be something that you use to blow your business up later on.

Daymond: All right, man. So thank you so much. And I appreciate all the information. Where can they follow you at?

Manuel: Daymond, mrmanuelsuarez over here in Instagram, mrmanuelsuarez, social media all over the place. I’m always providing value. Same as you, I’m trying to give a lot of content out there on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram. Just search up Manuel Suarez and you’ll find me.

Daymond: All right. All the best, man. Thank you and stay safe.

Thanks, Daymond. Appreciate you bringing me in.

 

 

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