Eric Berman is the founder and CEO of Brandetize, a full-service, performance-based digital marketing agency that helps experts build their empires.
Additionally, with a passion for networking, relationship building, and investing, Eric has served as a mastermind host and consulted for venture capitalists and successful companies at all levels, like Club Med, Vessel Health, Fenix Space, and more.
When he’s not busy helping other entrepreneurs and companies find growth and success, Eric spends time with his lovely family and watches the horses run at the race track!
And now here’s Eric Berman.
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Podcast with Eric Berman. Helping Experts Build Their Empires.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, brian tracy, big, brian, company, business, horse, money, started, called, learned, entrepreneurs, fanduel, guru, thought, career, clients, building, ultimately, pay
SPEAKERS
Eric Berman, Mike Malatesta
Mike Malatesta 00:05
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the How’d It Happen Podcast. So happy to have you here and I am fulfilling my promise to you today with another amazing success story. I’ve got Eric Berman on the show today. Eric, thank you so much for joining me.
Eric Berman 00:24
Yes, thank you so much for having me today.
Mike Malatesta 00:26
So let me get you excited about Eric. Before we get started here. Eric Berman is currently the founder and CEO of Brandetize, a full-service, performance-based digital marketing agency, helping experts build their empires. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to him because I’m an expert that wants to build an empire. Yeah. You like it? Yeah. So he’s worked with very famous clients like Brian Tracy Jack Canfield, Vistage International, which has probably a ton of people wrapped underneath that, and the list goes on and on. Additionally, Eric has a passion for networking, relationship building and investing. He has served as a Mastermind host and consulted for venture capitalists and successful companies at all levels like Club Med Vessel health, Fenix Space Fanduel, which really got my attention, and more. When he’s not busy helping other entrepreneurs and companies find growth and success. You can find him where he should be spending time with his family and watching the horses run at the racetrack. I’m not sure they’re your horses, or are they?
Eric Berman 01:40
No, I’m part of a syndicate. I’m in the horse syndicate. Yes, perfect.
Mike Malatesta 01:43
Okay. Well, that’s another good thing to dig into. I haven’t spoken with someone who’s been in a horse syndicate before. So that’s cool. So um, Eric’s contact information. He’s got his own website, of course, with his name, ericberman.com. And, of course, the company’s – brandetize. Let’s get started here. As you know, I start every show with the same simple question. And that is, how did happen for you?
Eric Berman 02:31
Yeah, well, interesting question. And thanks again, for having me. You know, is interesting. Look, my career starts graduate at UC San Diego. And when I was a 21-year-old kid out of UCSD, full of inspiration and ready to run through walls, not really knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up, I found myself not moving towards the direction of a lot of my colleagues, which was, hey, it’s a career fair campus, why don’t you come work for some financial firm and you know, get paid X and blah, blah, blah. I just wasn’t feeling it. I went on a little trip to Europe came back. And what did appeal to me was a buddy said, Hey, we got this cool little thing that we’re starting up this this guy, you got to meet him, he’s doing this thing in the college market. And he’s been successful. And I went and met with them. And he was telling me his vision. And I immediately got attracted to this vision of this idea of building this technology to aggregate college, you know, college, the College market, the whole premise was, the company that owns the eyeballs of the college market ultimately wins the big prize, because it’s the most coveted industry for advertisers. And after that, maybe an hour meeting of sitting down hearing the vision, I was so inspired about just starting something I said great, where’s my seat, we’re gonna get started, I’ll be fine. If you find that it goes, you know, it’s a startup and, you know, we’re not really have a lot of money. So I can’t really pay you anything right now. But if you want to help do something cool, and build something great, you know, love to have you I said, Great. Where do I sit? And that led to in hindsight, me being an entrepreneur, not really understanding what it meant to be an entrepreneur, you know, willing to risk a lot of time and, and sweat equity, if you will, for a bigger prize. And funny enough, I was attracted to doing a startup and building something cool, making no money, versus going out there making a job and maybe getting paid 50 $60,000 Back in the day at a college. Fast forward. spare you all the crazy details of that. And fast forward. And you know, 18 months later, I finally received my first paycheck. And that was a very interesting time having conversations, my parents and family who were like, What the hell are you doing? We just, you know, help subsidize some of your costs for college as an amazing campus. And you’re, you’re now like, why are you not getting paid and what’s going on? And I remember to this day, that really difficult conversation was mom, I said, I said, I got the education I’m getting right now. I’ll be able to go get any job I want for way farther money than I would receive working these things and I’m having a blast. I always know I could go back into the market and go get a job. But this is fun. So that led to Let’s call it five more years of us going from three people to 400 people. And us having raised close to $100 million in what was ultimately the first social media company, the first Facebook Facebook’s called College club.com. And clearly, we didn’t know we were building the first Facebook or anything like that. But we were dead on and we’re doing all the right things. And to give you some context, we went, we were the number one ranked website for the college demographic. And we are the number 14 site on the entire internet back in year 2000. That’s how big we got. And we started getting acquiring companies left and right, and really how it happened. For me, my career was just being in there figuring stuff out, I wore so many hats, you know, from running marketing, to bizdev, to sales, to investor relations, to corporate development to ultimately, you know, we filed to go public and I was the GM on the S one filing. And it was such an incredible journey, the first six, seven years learning how to run companies and build stuff, and I would never have gotten that education anywhere else. So learning about building culture, teams, et cetera. And then of course, I learned about going from what you think you’d be invincible to massive downfall. And that occurred when we had our first vacation in five years, celebrating the fact that we just found our S one filing and we were two months from going public. And I was retired at 27. If I wanted to be retired to that big stock market crash of April 2000, where we went from thinking everything is going to be great into holy smokes, we have this $10 million bridge loan to take us public that was supposed to be hitting our bank accounts, the Tuesday after our vacation, all of a sudden went away, and there was no money to be had. And we went from, you know, basically our color pants down. And that in that timing, to having lost everything, ultimately, you know, selling the company for peanuts through a bankruptcy, and learning all that information and even trying to acquire the garland company out of the bankruptcy and, and you know, just having that experience was insane, insanely, you know, fortunate, even though I didn’t necessarily get the big upside reward, I’d like to share and tell people that, you know, it’s a lot easier to lose paper money that you never had in the first place, I never really had any money versus actually, you know, having, you know, 10s of millions of dollars that somebody actually pulled off of your bank account. Because I’ll never, you can’t take that experience and learnings I got away and I had to sort of walk away from that attitude. That was really the first phase of my career. And I’ll pause for a second because I just threw a lot at you.
Mike Malatesta 07:46
Well, as you were talking, I was thinking myself, okay, so your parents, you know, questioning you and you what you were really doing was getting your MBA and then your doctorate in business. How’s that? So, at that time? Where were a lot of people that were graduating when you graduated, were they were they willing to take those kinds of risks? Or were they willing to make that kind of, I’ll call it an investment in a startup like this? Or was that something really different, real different path for someone to take?
Eric Berman 08:22
I mean, I think the time at the time, you know, most, I’d say yeah, most people wouldn’t take that risk. You know, most people are out there, and hey, I’m working here. I’m working there, and what are you doing? And yet it was interesting, because it feels like almost everybody was more inspired by what I was doing, like, Wow, good for you go forward. You know, that’s cool. I mean, you know, I’d saved up some I look back and I don’t know how the hell I did this. But you know, I saved up enough money to be able to live off of a whopping you know, $1,200 a month rent – isn’t that what they were back then. And you know, eating a lot of ramen, ramen and pizza and you know, doing a lot of it. But in those days, it was a lot of I mean, 15-16 hour days in the office, we’d ordered dinner for everybody in the office and all that kind of thing. So I just live in real cheap and make it happen.
Mike Malatesta 09:05
So there’s probably no one listening or maybe very few people listening who have had anything close to you know, that kind of experience, you know, rat starting, you know, when as employee number three or four whatever you are not taking a check. Betting on the future, the future appearing to come true where you get this massive growth, massive funding. Just about to go IPO and yeah, so for people who can’t even fathom that, I mean, can you talk to talk to me about just how you felt along the way was it? Always like, this is awesome, or was it like, what times? What was it like?
Eric Berman 09:57
Well, I mean, I mean, during the journey, it was like Well, I mean, you know, going back to first of all, there was like, we were close to missing payroll probably 1520 times along the way. In fact, one time, we did miss payroll, and then you had to have the conversation. And, you know, there’s just so many different stories I could tell you within that seven years, you know, how do you get through that time and go through that, but, I mean, I think part of it was, it was just, you know, it was almost like, you’re just building this is just this game, we were playing, like, We’re gonna win this, this war was a battle and, and I also wouldn’t, that was naive enough and young enough to not know what I didn’t know. And literally, like, my whole, I didn’t really have much of a social life outside of, you know, my years 21 to 27. It was like, Oh, wait, doesn’t everybody just work like 677 days a week, I’m young and hungry, let’s just, let’s just as all I know. But I think it was always, because when you had a mission and a vision, and you really felt like you were changing lives, and doing things that are affecting, you know, you know, affecting others, not just yourself, but others, and you’re really making a difference in the world, by building something that cool, it kept you going, you know, that’s what, that’s what enabled us to work like crazy hours, and you know, you’re gonna make this thing happen. And of course, the reward would come and you’re on the verge, and you’re this close, and then when you get the validation from investors, obviously get a lot of validations along the way, it just keeps you so fired up and inspired. Of course, having lost everything. I mean, you know, that was certainly a, you know, devastating time, you know, going through what you thought were there to, to wait a second, you know, I thought I thought, you know, as Brian Tracy teaches the law of sowing and reaping, you know, at some point, you’re going to reap what you sow, I still believe that I just feel like it’s going to come to me soon. So we’re grinding, I’m gonna, you know, I’ve had a lot of successes along the way. But I think that the big hit, you know, I’m still gonna have from all that, and I feel confident in that. But, you know, it’s, you know, part of it could have just been, like you said, whatever, whatever, get that experience in my 20s, unless I’m going back to college, I did an MBA, so that was part of, you know, looking back what I gained, so there wasn’t a total loss from that standpoint. And, and I all I can do is control the way I react to situations. And, you know, you go through all that, you know, you know, fortunately, you know, funny we’ll talk about Brian Tracy in front a little bit, but he’s my, you know, top client I’ve had for 20 plus years, but I actually met Brian before I met him live I met him on on audio cassette, back in the day, I met him and Tony Robbins in a room at 6am every day by feeding my brain with personal development. And you know, on another side, that’s sort of my dream in the future, if I ever give back would be how do you start teaching personal and professional development to people in you know, when they’re in middle school, high school, and, you know, versus some of the other stuff. I wish they had taught me that but you know, getting my brain right and setting up my mental state to go through these things is so important so that I could recover from something so big like that, you know, something so devastating.
Mike Malatesta 12:48
So, I’ve got three questions for you. I’ll ask them one at a time. I put too many things together, and it gets lost. Yeah. The first question is, I was just at a YPO event yesterday where it was called the war for talent. And they were basically we were talking about how to, you know how to how to have a brand for your employees, as well as a brand for your business, which, ya know, way more about this than I do. But I’m wondering, in that organization, college club, I don’t know if it was called that all the time. But as you were, you were bringing in all of these, these people, Eric, what were you? What was the mission? What was getting them excited? And I’m assuming it wasn’t the like, hey, you’ll get rich here. Eventually, there had to be something more what was what? What brought everybody what, what, what made people want to be a part of it?
Eric Berman 13:42
Well, I think it was the vision of us connecting, you know, college students and aggregating and building this, this mega community to help college students, which was such an important, and then eventually we’re gonna expand from there to help them with what
Mike Malatesta 13:55
for what purpose? It was,
Eric Berman 13:58
it was a communication and just help them communicate, help them get discounts, help them just aggregate their collective act to act, the collective power of the college market. It was sort of like giving them services that would make their lives easier, helping the advertisers because they were able to connect and have a relationship with them. And we didn’t say it like that was more like engaging, you know, the students with a more targeted group of people that can help them. And, and I don’t remember the exact mission statement we had at the time, it’s been it’s been a while, but you know, the vision of building that out and you know, what, really got people excited. And plus, they could be part of us building this big thing out that we were doing.
Mike Malatesta 14:36
Okay, and thank you. And then you said something, when you were talking you right through that you said all I can do is control the way I react or something like that. That’s very, I guess that’s very mature and profound. Is that something that has developed in you over time or is that something that you remember back to even those days
Eric Berman 14:59
probably a call donation of I mean, I think that I believe that now all the time, and I tried to, you know, teach that and train that where I can I mean, I mean, I, my favorite quote that I live by is a branch, at least I got from Brian Tracy is I am responsible. And I think about that I think about them everything you do. And that also includes you’re responsible for the way you respond to situations. And so, you know, I can’t really control the outcome I like to do is learn from what’s going on here and try to take that that information and move forward. In the end of the day, you know, for better or for worse, the person that cares most about me is going to be myself. You know, of course, as you get older, you know, you have a wife and family and all that. And you can make that argument that they do just as well. But at the end of the day at that time, you know, when I’m 2728 People empathize, but you know, me sulking and crying and being frustrated, wasn’t necessarily going to get me any farther; what I need to do, and I guess I did learn that from probably some of the personal development and listening to different programs and getting my head on straight in just trying to move forward. Okay. It was easy, not saying it was easy to go through it, but it was, you know, what else could you do? Right,
Mike Malatesta 16:01
so yeah, I think I mean, I think a lot of people’s natural reaction in situations like that is, first off, it’s like, who can I blame for this? Instead of looking at yourself and taking responsibility? It’s like, who’s, whose fault? Is this? Because it makes me feel better if I can assign the blame to someone else, even though I know where it belongs, which is right. You know, right here. Yeah. Third question is the, you know, you said, Well, you know, it’s paper money and all that stuff. But man, oh, man, when you’re that close, it is probably not feeling like paper money anymore. Right. Yeah. So when that happened? Yeah. You come back from vacation and the bridge loans? Not there. So that’s a that’s a holy crap. sort of moment. Right.
Eric Berman 16:52
It was a scramble. I mean, I mean, I think I remember, well, first, I think we were so bad alone. Were always like, it was like, Okay, it’s just another massive obstacle we gotta get through. What does it mean, you know? Yeah, how are we gonna get through this obstacle? I mean, this is like, it’s, I mean, it’s so many war scars, and so and so. Okay, well, this, and then I think that’s really where it started getting scary, was when we’re like, Okay, wait a second, what do you mean, we can’t, there was always a one of our core values was, was WTA. Where there’s a will there’s a way, it was one of our core values at the time. And always forget that. And we said, Okay, well, we have the will, there’s got to be a way out, we always use that, that that battle cry. And in this case, it was you know, really, and I’ll get a little more specific, and I can share this with the audience, because this is where you learn about the importance of board control. And ultimately, the founder, you know, the, I should say, the main, the main founder, CEO of the main person who started the company, you know, over time, and after going through Series C, and multiple rounds of the last series C, essentially had us lose board control, when I say us, the founding group, the original people, and so it all of a sudden turned to four, three, you know, this has gone. So I feel like I think we I think me and the other founders all that feel like we would have found a way out at some point, even if it meant massive layoffs and getting through the storm, we would have done it. But at that time, we ultimately lost the decision-making process. And the board decided to take their losses and with the ruins because this was at a time when the whole world was panicked, and what would happen with the first crash. So it was like, Okay, we don’t care what the what the founders want, we know we like their mantra was founders think they’re always going to figure out a way out. And we don’t want to trust that we don’t want to risk it. We’re just going to try to get out whatever money we could get out. Let’s just take this thing through a bankruptcy and you know, take whatever money we can get out, especially the last round of people. So that’s when you learn like, oh, wow, we actually really don’t in fact, we even went so far to we almost were able to buy it out of bankruptcy, the founders, and then we got we got to a point where the money we found that the person who’s going to invest, his wife had a stroke, like a week before we were gonna go to bankruptcy court with an offer. And at that point, that’s when we said we may have to listen to something else out there, that’s telling us something, there’s a message for us, like something is telling us it’s time to move on with everything we’ve gotten and when that when you slow down that that that far down.
Mike Malatesta 19:21
So what did you end up listening to? What got your ear
Eric Berman 19:26
as far as to move on? I think it was, like, you know, I think when you need exhausted that many possibilities, and everything, everything at that point was just, you know, going against us and it was just like, you know, maybe there’s a signal that says our talents and skills need to be moved somewhere else. And just now’s not our time. And you know, at some point, it was almost like Okay, what else is there to do at this point? Or is it really worth that continued battle? And maybe let’s spend our energy elsewhere and start with a fresh start and, you know, not have to deal with a lot of other negatives that we were dealing with at that time?
Mike Malatesta 19:58
Yeah, so that’s what I meant. Once you once you’ve made that determination? What was the next thing you heard?
Eric Berman 20:06
what? I mean? Like, what did you next?
Mike Malatesta 20:08
Yeah, what got you here? Yes. Right, what caught your attention?
Eric Berman 20:12
I think I think just, you know, all of a sudden it was like, Oh, wait, we’re free to think about new ideas. All of a sudden outside of this, you know, what else do we want to do in office? And I think that got you enthused to say, well, we can just do it again. Now, you know, and we can start clean, fresh and think of the next big thing, yes, this battle, maybe we lost this battle, but the wars is not over by doing something else. And there’s other parts of our career. And that’s why it’s just constant trying to keep that positive mental state to say, look, you know, I still have my, my, all the learnings I have, and maybe that didn’t work for this one venture. So what’s going to be next and, and, you know, for me personally, that was also an inch, a very interesting, pivotal time in my career, because my partner CEO at the time, you know, he had an idea, and I started finally kind of collaborating with him again. But also in the back of my mind, I had an idea for something else, which actually had to be happen to be a Club Med related idea. And all of a sudden, I got excited and inspiration, saying, Well, wait a second, I want to go chase my dreams. And it was also interesting time for me to learn that, that the first guy I did work with, he was sort of that mentor, but there was that relationship where he was always the mentor, and I was always the next guy in. And at some point, I’m like, if we’re gonna start something new, I need to start my own thing, I’m ready to be the I’m ready to be a lead myself and take all my learnings. And so it was interesting time, because it was a seven, eight year relationship with a partner that was such a good mentor along the way. And there’s things I loved about him, there’s things I didn’t necessarily wouldn’t do that he would be like. And so I got to, I got confidence myself, to start the next phase of my career, which is to go out there and do it myself and be my own consultant. And, you know, I have a bunch of ideas to let me go chase those down. And, and, you know, and the herein lies the next phase of my journey.
Mike Malatesta 21:50
So let’s, before we talk about the next phase, I just want to say that, you know, as you were telling that story, I was thinking to myself, me, I would be I think I would have been in a cave for a little bit after that, like, I gotta recover from this because, you know, to build something so big and so quickly, and to get so close to something so meaningful. And then, you know, have the board say, we don’t agree with you anymore. Right. So your idea is not the best idea anymore. Sorry. Even though it may have been I don’t know. And then I just I think I would have I would struggle with that for a while. It took me a while to rebound from that.
Eric Berman 22:28
Yeah, I think I don’t remember how much time I think just I think there was definitely time away from the grind, because it was a different battle at that point is the battle of how to buy this thing out of bankruptcy, which was a little bit of a pivot. And after that, I think we got inspiration by brainstorming new ideas. And that gave us a newfound energy. Probably that combined with the fact that I had this, you know, my personal finances to try to figure out, so it wasn’t like I had, I wasn’t like flush with all this money. I could just go sit around. So I’m like, Okay, well, what’s next? I gotta go make some money here.
Mike Malatesta 22:57
Okay, so let’s talk about what’s next.
Eric Berman 23:01
You Yeah, so what’s next is, I had an idea for a camera, what came first chicken, or I think it was first actually. I started consulting for Brian Tracy. So a friend of mine, and I came over watch us first, to be honest, this are a club that idea I had, I’ll share both. Those are at the same time. A family friend of mine was working with Brian and she’s like, Hey, this internet thing I know, you’re good at it. Brian needs help building a website. I’m like, Okay, this 2001 So, you know, I met with Brian and and I studied, you know, studied his business, what he was looking at, I knew his business, I say, because I was a huge fan of his forever. And I listened to so many of his audio programs, I come in there and you know, you sort of, you know, meet the star with my, you know, drill coming into my mouth and eyes, you know, eyes wide open, like, Oh, my God is the Brian Tracy. I’m like in an office for them. And I came in there probably like, you know, just probably overly hyper. But I said, you know, Hey, Brian, you know, blah, blah, blah, I’m a fan. I know what you need. And I said, Listen, Brian, and this is something else I share. That’s been really good for me for the years. And this is this could have come from my first you know, from the startup. When you think about the startup it was I invested my own sweat equity to get myself an opportunity. And when I went to Brian, I said, Brian, you know, I’m gonna help you do this business, but I gotta be honest with you. I’m not an employee type. I go, I’m an entrepreneur. So I’ll build this for you. And I don’t want you to make I don’t want to make any money until you make money. He’s like, but it’s like, you’re my, you’re my kind of guy or this is great. It’s like, okay, so I said, I said, that being said, there’s a little couple out of pocket expenses, I do have to pay some people like a designer stuff that I don’t have the skills for. But you know, I’ll make sure we keep the cost effective. And I’ll make sure that you know, again, I’m not making any money until so I’ll keep the cost down because we got to make some profit so I can get a piece of the action. Is that great? Let’s do it. So that started what is now a 21 now year plus relationship with with Brian. And I was able to, quote get in with a big whale like that based on the offering to say, you know, let me prove myself you have no risk by bringing me in and I had obviously a little bit of credit ability because I knew the internet space, and it ran a company. So that’s really helped to. So that was that opportunity with Brian. And then so I started consulting with him and get your quote on that. And I’ll share the other thing too. Yeah,
Mike Malatesta 25:12
yeah. So for people who don’t know who Brian Tracy is, could you just let us know who he is?
Eric Berman 25:18
Yeah, so I’ve mentioned a few times. Yeah. So Brian, Tracy is is kind of in the group of people that are considered some of the original quote gurus on the personal professional development side. So if you think of the names like Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey’s Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, the quote legend, Jim Rohn. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, there you go. So, the legends, if you will, this is, you know, back in the day, when there’s audio cassettes, in people’s cars, and the sales guys would drive around, and Brian was very proficient at selling Yeah, exactly. Me you. He was big on personal development, goal setting, personal achievement, sales, etc, etc. So, I was listening to him in Tony Robbins, start at 21 years old. And really, that was a journey from the first few years of my career, and I owe so much to them for helping, you know, get my mind straight, you know, just doing the right thing. Just a lot of positive things there. Same time working with Brian, I had an idea, this is the first time I was able to actually take an idea and push forward on it, I had a different Club Med. And I saw a big opportunity and a big thing that they were not doing. And it sort of was the first of me having my own set of ideas where I continually kind of throw ideas around words, every time I see something that doesn’t make sense, or, or a pain point where I look at it, I’m like, Well, why aren’t they doing these basic things, I’m like, Well, that is an idea for a business, let me go pursue that. And for them, it had to do more with the fact that they, as a consumer of club that I didn’t think they were doing a good job of, of maintaining relationships with people that had such a good relationship at their, at their villages, they could have done a better job using social media to connect with their, with their loyal, you know, travelers, and they were missing a big part of it. And so we pitched them. And ultimately, we got a fun gig with Club Med building something called nightclub bed. And that lasted for a while. But I think more from being my career gave me confidence to say, Well, I had an idea, I put it together, I went and pitched it and I want a big contract with a cool company. I could do this, you know, this is where like, Okay, I’ve now made it myself, by leaving from being the sort of protege you know, the, the Prodigy of the mentor. You know, the protege, lungwort, the mentor in the first company to having the idea and moving forward on the second one that’s kind of continued to build my confidence off of that.
Mike Malatesta 27:41
And that the club minute thing was that, did you see the opportunity there? Because of your experience? As a as a customer there? Or did you?
Eric Berman 27:50
Yeah, it was a pain point. And I think that’s where a lot of these ideas come from. And always hear that, like, when you see, you know, say pain. For me, the pain point was, I just had an amazing trip. They’re taking pictures, I just met people from all around the world, they sort of form a club that sort of, I don’t know, if you’ve been on a Club Med..
Mike Malatesta 28:07
It’s kind of old, maybe, but it was a time ago.
Eric Berman 28:10
Yeah. So part of what they do different than other sort of resorts, this all-inclusive, if they really go out of their way to ensure that everybody that the people at the resort meets each other. It’s very social, like you’re doing things where like, you know, it’s like, every time you sit down for dinner, they’re putting in a different table. And they’re like they’re engaging you into to meet with others. And so you walk away after a week having some great relationships with you know, 1012 new people from all around the world. But then it just ends. And I think Club Med, I was like, Well, this is this is terrible. Like I just did this, they spent all this money bringing me here to try to bring me into their clubs. I go there, and it’s just like, buy everybody nice video, maybe I’ll talk to you, maybe I won’t, I’m like, club has got such a great opportunity to keep the connection. But they’re travelers and obviously, then they can continue to sell more trips to them. So they just weren’t doing a good job in my mind from a social media aspect. And this is, you know, really early on to the social media days of understanding how to leverage the social media connection. So I was fresh off of that with our first company. And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you a funny side story here just to close the loop on that first company, my brother, who went the route of jumping out of college, two years old, jumping out of college, and going into that first job in the financial world of price, Cooper’s Waterhouse and hitting his job and being inspired by his little brother doing a startup, decided to go his own way and do some of his own startups. And he started a little company called MySpace. So no kidding. So my brother, with three of his friends, started MySpace, and they ended up getting the big hit on the social media side. And now he gets the Big Brother ends up being a little brother, you know, and this battle, so it’s a fun sibling rivalry we have there so that’s a whole other story. I can tell you that. Yeah.
Mike Malatesta 29:49
Yeah. My Space is still alive and well, right. I thought it was like very nichy now and it was still but okay.
Eric Berman 30:00
Yeah, I think I think so. And really, they got hurt big time when that’s a good story and another conversation, Miguel, how have you had my brother on but, you know, a lot of the a good lesson in there from what happens when culture changes from startup to the big, you know, News Corp, you know, you go from, you know, startup culture to, you know, big company culture, massive, massive shift. And it’s just, it’s just crazy how much things are different? In that kind of environment?
Mike Malatesta 30:29
Yeah, I have, I have a bit of small appreciation for that, because I sold my first company to a publicly traded company, and it was a I got a little flavor of, you know, what it’s like, it’s definitely not the same as a sort of an entrepreneurial, innovative, you know, break things kind of, kind of thing. So amazing to me that people like Elon Musk, for example, can survive and public companies, because and I know, it’s been tenuous for him time to time, but voting, voting helps having all the votes, but it’s very, very different. It’s yeah, my experience is that it was very, very different, in good ways, in in good ways to like, I learned some stuff that I could apply to next entrepreneurial, you know, endeavor to make.
Eric Berman 31:29
I think if you compare, it’s interesting, you talk about Elon, this company’s I mean, it’s his baby, his vision that people are buying into, and they’re driving, it still is the one company that’s built up this big company versus, let’s say, a News Corp, acquiring a small company that has a vision, right? So they’re like, trying to say, Great, we’re gonna take on this company. And now we have our own set of rules and procedures are red tape. And you know, the guy, the guy leading the charge is not the subdivision there, they just have a different, you know, different Mo, you know, and oftentimes you find these guys at big companies, you know, all they’re caring about is okay, I just got to worry about my title. And what’s next, you know, where am I going to be a year from now? Versus really having the heart and caring about the long-term vision?
Mike Malatesta 32:08
Yeah, and it can be easy to get into a situation where, on the dating side, like before, your bod, it’s like, oh, we just love what you’ve built. And we want you to hear and we love once you, you know, your team and your thought processes and all that stuff. And you get in and, and it’s like, what, what did you say we don’t all of a sudden, we get we have the best ideas now. And maybe they do I Yeah. But yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. So, so that was your, what was that? What was that business called? When? For branded ties?
Eric Berman 32:44
Right? Which one? We’re talking about the
Mike Malatesta 32:47
this in this one where you started working with Brian, and you started working with? Oh, got it.
Eric Berman 32:51
Got it. Okay, so I was consulting, and I was consulting with Brian club and others, and then just kind of and I did that for a while I was working on various projects, doing some consulting with some venture capitalists and others, and ultimately, where the next pivot for my career was, a lot of people came to me and said, Hey, what you do for brines, other authors and speakers and experts, they say, Hey, what you do for Brian can you do for me? And I was just like, kind of ignored it, you know, like, well, you know, because I had because essentially, what was happening is, I was hiring and running the digital team behind Brian Tracy. I didn’t, I didn’t, I wasn’t touching Brian’s books and speaking gigs, but everything online, Brian tracy.com, I was managing a team of about eight, nine people that were technically Brian Tracy employees, but I had hired them. And I managed everything. So I was like, Well, I wasn’t really sure how I was going to take another, you know, expert, and the employees or Brian employees, how’s that going to make sense? But eventually, after you hear that about 10 times, I’m like, Well, wait a second. Let me sort of reframe my thinking here. Maybe there is an opportunity with for me to work for others. And that became essentially the yearlong or two-yearlong transition in conversation with Brian Tracy to say, Hey, I no longer want to have a monogamous relationship with you anymore. You know, I want to take the staff or work on other people. And that’s when branded ties essentially was born because what we did is we essentially we essentially flipped it on its head where rather than Brian taking in all the revenue and paying the staff and the rent and all that I said, Brian, I’ll tell you what, you know, especially for him as he was you know, getting older in his career he didn’t need any liabilities So Brian, I’ll take over all the employees all the rents and everything and I’ll pay you a royalty fee if the sales I’ll do all the revenue and then I’m gonna want to take on other clients and really his fear was I would have been you know, he never wanted me to abandon him you know, that’s what I ultimately found out for him was you know, as long as you take care of me and you’re always be there for me and I said, Brian, you’re always my first my first love I’ll always take care of you and you know, kept that word you know, to this day. And so then with Brenda’s house was born where we started working with other thought leaders and speakers and now we have somebody like you know, letter names like you mentioned, Jack Canfield from chicken soup, Phil town and a few others. Big names and then it was all about the last I would say, since that was about 2015. So that was, you know, six years ago, then it was all about, well, what do you want to be when you grew up now that you’re running his agency and then talking a lot of agency owners, it’s kind of the ongoing job that you don’t necessarily go into your entrepreneurial journey to go be an agency owner, you sort of end up backing into it somehow. And so that’s how we kind of backed into this this world. And then the last six years, you know, you’re still learning every year. I mean, every year, there’s something different, you know, what are you gonna do this year, you know, what’s, you know, versus the pricing model, the positioning, what types of clients, you take on this on and on? And I’ll pause there for a second.
Mike Malatesta 35:39
Well, I like I, you know, at the beginning, in the in the bio, you know, we said that your company is helping experts build their empires, and it’s kind of, I love a couple of things that I heard there, one, you start working for Brian, you say, Hey, is like a guarantee, right? I’m not going to ask you to pay me a bunch of money for something that doesn’t work. But so instead, I’m gonna build you something that works. And as it becomes successful, we both become success, more successful together, right? And then, and then you start working with him, and you say, well, with his team, and you say, hey, there’s something bigger here. And it’s really like a byproduct of you working with his team on his stuff, you’re like, hey, wait a second, there’s more that we can do here and still help him. So then you go to him with a proposal that helps him but helps you, as well, right, because you can actually grow a business instead of just staying there with him. And then you’re, you know, as you go down the road, and we talked about this a little bit, before we started recording how, you know, you sort of have determined that getting more Nietzsche with higher value, you know, results for clients, like, like helping experts build their empires is, I mean, I think it’s a way of like, not only to create a lot more value, but to, to people like to commoditize things that they think they know about right, when so when they say digital agency, they probably think, Oh, I know what you do, you know, that kind of thing? And am I on the right track there with your thinking? And,
Eric Berman 37:10
yeah, I mean, so there’s a lot in that I’m gonna cut shares, the bigger stories I’ve learned last six years, and you’re talking about almost a full cycle I’ve been in and literally even as early as this last month, we’ve gotten into full circle into niching. Down. And some lessons you learned, well, first of all, talk a little bit about the pricing model, because you referenced that and some of the growth and learning I mentioned it earlier, I think it’s a great positioning, to be able to walk in there and say, hey, I’ll do the services. And you know, I’ll bet on the back end, I’ll do performance. And we’ve been mentioned that still that we do some performance marketing, but let me share with the big learn and win from that was, is that not work well of Brian. And in hindsight, that worked well, Brian, because he already had a proven business and back end, meaning he was already had a name a brand, and he was already selling, we get ourselves in trouble, because we started doing that others who talk to big game, thought, you know, there certainly had a little bit of momentum, but they were nowhere near where Brian was. And when we went out there, and we tried that same model, you know, got us in the door, it gets you to certainly get you in the door almost anywhere. It’s very appealing. But what would happen is if they didn’t have skin in the game, they weren’t necessarily moving at your pace, and things would take longer. And also, the results weren’t necessarily there as fast as you’d hoped. As somebody who doesn’t have as much of a proven back end that converts like you know, you know, doesn’t have a big of an audience or offers or products that you know, is going to convert. So we learn a lot about that. So, you know, fast forward after lots of mistakes, you know, our newish model is more of a hybrid that says, hey, let’s date before we get married. And this is something that certainly would share with others, you know, how can you apply this to your business. And what I mean by that is, is, you know, let’s take a normal relationship, we’ll work on a typical retainer. And in fact, Mr. Mrs. Client, I know that if you don’t pay me money, you’re not going to take this serious, and you’re not going to value the work, I’m doing so. So let’s have a normal relationship. But one thing I can tell you is that if we like working together, and there’s a, there’s a good you know, you have to like working with us, and we have to like work with you, let’s assume we get past that important obstacle. It gives us a chance to explore the business and establish if you really have something that can scale. And you really have a proven, let’s call it sales funnel or funnel of growth based on a saying you leads and customers, once we see that, and we know that we can scale this business, we’re at that point, let’s go ahead and partner up, we can actually, you know, you can get to a point where you can stop paying us and at that point, we’ll take a percentage of what we build together. Because the other thing that we find out is at that point, we can understand the true numbers and the KPIs of the business. When you sit down with a client and say, Hey, how do I even negotiate in month one, what percentage of the Business Route even take I don’t even understand the numbers of what they send me on a spreadsheet? And of course, all 10 times clients, I mean, the client would never misguide you or live out their numbers, would they? Of course not. They’re never sort of telling you and embellish. They’re, like, best month ever and say, Hey, I’m running a million dollar business, when that’s like, they take their best month and multiply by 12. And tell you what their what their businesses and, you know, try to negotiate a deal off of that, you know, that doesn’t make sense. So, so yeah, so it’s more about like, it’s almost like a hybrid venture capital, like, if you know what we’re gonna invest our own sweat equity into a client and work on performance, we have to like them. And we have to understand the business and the true metrics of the business to be able to take on that risk, but it’s still an appealing offer on the front end. So it’s kind of a fun way that I could share with you in the audience here and how you can still leverage that offering, but do in a way that’s way smarter and learn from the mistakes that we’ve made along the way where we would offer that start with that kind of relationship and never catch up and lose a lot of money in the process.
Mike Malatesta 40:55
Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go through it.
Eric Berman 40:58
No, no, no, I’m saying that that’s, that’s part of the deal with you offline. Yeah. So that’s. So that’s the model that yeah, so that’s the model that would that work, though, is to say, hey, we’ll do you know, we’ll do a little bit of upfront. And if it works, you know, then we can go into performance deal. So that’s how we sort of stay with the performance. And that was some big learnings we had along the way. The other thing I’ll share, is we talked about the focus. And, you know, I read it from the something you talk about your great work you hear about all the time, and I gotta tell you, some of us entrepreneurs are so some entrepreneurs like myself, and others are just so thick headed, and stubborn when it comes to the magic word of focus. And it’s like we all intuitively know about it, we all know we need to do it. But our egos get in the way of wanting the shiny object syndrome is real. We want to do everything we know we could do everything. It’s tough. I get to as an entrepreneur, it’s very hard to want to niche down and focus and all the world. We went from being working with thought leaders to all of a sudden feeling like well, let’s just go wider. Let’s work with all sorts of people. Because maybe thought leaders isn’t what we want to do. Maybe we want to do other stuff. Maybe it’s not as sexy as working with, you know, other types of businesses. And it’s not that not that cool econ product or something else. So we went wide. And we went very wide, and we went everything. And then we said, well, let’s just maybe we eliminate b2b. And we go wide and do b2c and try to be a full service agency to all sorts of things. But you keep getting asked like, you know, what are you best at? You know, what are you good at? Well, we’re gonna think the whole team and being strategy. And it’s just, it’s just hard for, you know, in hindsight for people to turn around, and you gotta remember, people are out there trying to talk about their friend, Eric, who’s running this company, and what are they going to say about me? You know, how are they supposed to sell and talk about me if I don’t make it really simple and focus on one thing? You know, if somebody asked me, What am I best that I can barely even answer that myself, because I have too big of an answer. It’s not the smartest thing. So you know, we’re finally making that that decision, which I’m going to kick myself for, to go back and really niche down and just go back full circle into just honing in on experts and, and doing a lot more with that. So I think it’s a painful lesson that I’m gonna look back and wish I’d done sooner. Um, you know, we, we all share that we share that problem as entrepreneurs, of course, you
Mike Malatesta 43:27
know, it’s every, every journey is about experimentation and shifts, you know, yes. Especially, I mean, you’re shifting all the time, not because you don’t think it’s the right way to go because you think it is the right way to go. And the only way to know is if you shift right and, and move towards it. And then now, I get like, in my book, I call it being selfish. You know, this is what I call being selfish when you start to really look at, okay, these are all the things we could be doing. But what are the things that are really moving the needle? What are the things where we think we can really go to someone with, with way more than 100% confidence, if that’s even such a thing, that we can help you the way that no one else can help you? And that’s going to help us get where we want to get wherever that wherever that is? Yeah, yep. I have a goofy question for you. Yeah, you having worked for so many of these? You know, thought leaders, what did you use the word guru or what? Like, what makes a good guru? In your experience?
Eric Berman 44:31
That’s a good question. What makes a good guru? Well, I think ultimately, first you got to start with at the end of the day, does the end customer love what the gurus talking about? Because a guru likes to hear themselves talk and you know, but at the end the day doesn’t matter. What is the what’s the end customer feeling? Are they rabid about the content? Are they making a difference? Are they changing lives? Are they making a positive impact? So that to me was what makes a good guru; they’re making a positive impact. They have their community and tribe that are rabid fans that can’t wait to get more they want to share or what they learned about that person. And there are many of them out there, many of them out there. I mean, unfortunately, some of them, you know, it’s almost like the musician, right? You know, some of the best talented musicians never get found, there’s probably a lot of gurus and experts out there that just don’t know how to market themselves and don’t know how to get there and get their voice to be heard. And they still may have rabid fans for, you know, the small communities they serve.
Mike Malatesta 45:22
Yeah, I’m sure they’re 1000s of really, really great coaches, really, really great thought leaders who are only known by a small number of people, not because like you said, not because what they’re teaching or what their knowledge is, wouldn’t be very, very valuable to a lot of other people, but it’s because they either don’t know how to market or they’re uncomfortable with B being, you know, perceived as a, as a as a guru. And Guru is sort of, I don’t know, sometimes it’s like a term of endearment. Sometimes it’s kind of pejorative to I guess, depending on But you bring up a good point, too, about people talking. Sometimes, you know, once you start to get well known you, you know, had this thing that this guy had a Vistage meeting said, you know, he had this thing called Wait, you use that talk? What Tata or whatever it was, yeah, he had this thing called wave, which is which stood for why am I talking? That should be a question you’re asking yourself, like, why am I talking? And sometimes I think there’s a lot of people out there who can’t answer that question. They just, you know, they just go, sorry, I cut you off. What were you gonna say?
Eric Berman 46:32
No. I was gonna talk about I think I forgot, but I’ll catch up on that one. Okay. Oh, I do. I do. Remember, I think I think you asked the other part of the question you asked was, What else? What makes a good guru? I think the other thing is, is also knowing, you know, I learned a lot about and I’m sure I’m sure where you know, the term the genius matrix, where you really understand what your your area of excellence is. And I think if a Guru can stay in their lane, and then think bring people around them that can serve the other areas, and in a good guru, I think is the person that is just, you know, they just love talking about and writing about and speaking about that thing that they’re great in, and doesn’t make mean, they’re gonna be great in other areas, meaning oftentimes, they don’t make great operators and their businesses. They don’t make great entrepreneurs in some ways, because they just constantly want to, you know, change things around and you know, sometimes it’ll make great and they’re not very marketers and stuff. So I think them staying in their lane. And so that’s where for us what’s worked well is when like, you know, okay, they’re doing their thing, we’re doing our thing, and we just sort of get out of each other’s way and say, great, you do your magic and, and I just need as much content from you all day long. Get in front of a camera, get for that, sir. Genius. Just please go do that and let us handle everything else. So that’s kind of what also is helpful.
Mike Malatesta 47:48
Okay, let me shift gears if you don’t mind, I want to talk about two things. One I want to talk about first, I want to ask you about the horse syndicate. And I want to I want to, I want to understand your why you’re doing that. What you like about it, or what you love about it. Tell it. Tell me about that?
Eric Berman 48:04
Yeah, well, you know, growing up with my dad, I just remember he used to take me to the racetrack out. And I’m in California. So that can be I grew up in LA even though I’m in San Diego now. And I went to Santa Anita. I think it was even other trail Hollywood Park back in the day, that’s no longer there. And we just filled the races. And I always thought it was so cool these racehorses. And one day I was on a vacation with a big group of people. And one of the guys I was talking to was from Kentucky, and he’s, he’s a horse equestrian lawyer, and he was into horses. And he was talking about, you know, you know, how they have a horse and like, God, how do you get a horse? That seems like so out of reach for me, like, you just think it’s super expensive, these beautiful horses? He’s like, Well, you just get a syndicate and there’s all sorts of horses and you know, like, well, how much does it cost? He’s like, Well, depending on the people 510 grand, like, what I’m like, I can be a race, I can be a horse owner for like five to 10 grand, I’m, like, count me and I’m in. And so that lead to really, uh, I kind of was an inspiration with him as well, where we built out this syndicate in San Diego and now we never partner with guys out of Kentucky and all over the place. And now we’re a part of a group of people that just, you know, each year you pony up some money and you get horses and it’s been it’s been a blast one of the races and you know, it’s fit for networking, and it’s entertainment. And, and in my one tip, if you will, I’ll just add to that story, what I learned through that from an investor point of view, is yeah, you go into horse racing, realizing a lot of its entertainment and business and all that and, and sure you could win some money, but really where the success has been in that investment in the horse racing world is I like to say is, if you’re going to do it, try to find a syndicate that’s getting bigger horses that are more expensive, because it’s very hard to win money in the horse racing world when you’re buying 3040 $50,000 dollar horses and when you’re taking a smaller piece of a six figure horse and from a business perspective, you can easily translate it to the cogs the cost of goods to manage a horse is more or less the same whether you’re managing a $10,000 horse or a million dollar horse, hey is Hey, as a mouse will get a mouse will have a horse that’s not going to be as expensive on you know, Ken has a chance of winning money more frequently in bigger purchases of money. So it’s been a fun, fun ride. It’s a fun experience.
Mike Malatesta 50:18
And is it a bet on the back end as well on the stud part of it? Or is it just on the racing,
Eric Berman 50:24
it’s all it’s all different criteria. So like some people will, like our group gets tends to get female horses that if they get if they get what’s called a stakes win and the race, well, it’s a black type stakes win, then the value of that horse goes up because when they go to breed, you could say you have a steaks horse, a female that’s going to breed, you know, so there’s that sort of as part of our strategy from our group. So but there’s different groups have different strategies. So it all just depends on what the key is. It’s just trying to you want your horse to hopefully get some steaks wins behind them. And that increases the value, in addition to addition, of course, is a person that they win every time at the races.
Mike Malatesta 51:00
My friend is big into horses, but I don’t know that he’s acquainted with this horse syndicate thing that sounds like a good idea. I’m in like a number of investing syndicates, like early-stage syndicates do and yes, sort of the same thing. But it’s a great way to not write a huge check or take a huge risk on, you know, one horse or one company or something. But yeah, but, but be involved and support entrepreneurs. And that’s the second thing I wanted to ask you. Because you’ve, you’re also an investor in, in a number of companies, and including some restaurants, which I kind of that’s kind of interests me, because I’ve, I’ve never invested in a restaurant and everyone says to be, you know, run away from investing in restaurants. So how did you decide? Because a lot of times to people in your, you know, that you don’t start investing in these things until after you sell a company or, you know, how did you how did you decide to get into the investing year into
Eric Berman 52:06
so the horses in restaurants, I’d say it’s more of the entertainment side of things. And it wasn’t like, Hey, I’m gonna do a 10 Extra on these deals, I’ll kind of my investment strategy. And I’m not saying it’s the smartest or the best one out there. It’s one that works for me, because I know what I’m getting into. And a lot of it’s just for entertainment. The restaurant side, admittedly, the two biggest things I’ve learned from that is, you know, when you’re not controlling your own business, it’s very scary, like so for me, my strategy with restaurants is the best the least amount possible, to have skin in the game and enjoy the benefits of being a restaurant owner. So the reality is, I’m not sitting there putting in 25 30% of a cup restaurant, it’s like I’m writing a small check, just to have skin in the game and to have fun with it, you know, it’s entertainment, it was certainly more exciting in my single days, you know, that, you know, being able to, you know, have a piece of a restaurant. And being able to get the benefits getting discounts, getting comp meals, bringing clients there is really good for business. And, and so that’s part of what lied as far as investment strategy on that. If Funny enough, it’s the same fundamentals of almost any other business, you know, the number one thing you want to look for as management, industry management, you know, who’s really buying this company, what’s your success rate with other restaurants, and, of course, the restaurant industry Location, location, too. But, you know, if you get the right location, the right management, it definitely has a good chance of being successful. And that’s been, you know, probably the 1015 or so investments I’ve made in that space. It’s almost every time that’s that that’s what I’ve won, and when I’ve not when I’ve lost has been based on that.
Mike Malatesta 53:36
And what about some of the other? Or I mentioned FanDuel, and some others. Yeah, I
Eric Berman 53:43
think similar, a lot of it’s just to, uh, you know, and I think similar to you, there’s so much deal flow that comes all over the place, and I happen to be love networking, I’m connected to so many people, people, I’m connected to others. So I see a lot of stuff. I need to arm myself with people that are better at saying no than I am because I suck at it. And everything looks everything looks exciting to me. So fortunately, I’ve learned that hard lesson along the way. So I think I think again, it’s the same model. I mean, those that are that are successful, I’ve been I’ve been the ones that had really great leaders behind it. I’ve had a few and for me, I don’t have the ability to go put, you know, huge checks. So I’ve had fun writing smaller checks, you know, just to 1015 20 $25,000 checks to get in on some companies and, you know, hopefully over the time that I’ll be able to increase that number with some more wins and more money in the bank. I can, I could try taking on riskier investments, but I’ve had a couple of nice really hits on on some of those that the FanDuel one you refer to was actually pre FanDuel is a company called Alpha draft, I believe was somebody who got acquired by FanDuel. And you know that that was one of those you thought it was it was it was a done you wrote off the I think it was like a $10,000 check I wrote but it was like an acquisition upon an acquisition upon an acquisition by a public company and, and let’s just say that, that 10,000 turned into a really nice return of beyond I could have imagined But it’s stuff like that, that makes those fun. And it certainly pays for some of the less fortunate ones, but more but I’ve been blessed. And then I’ve done a few big, big returns on a few of these smaller ones. So I’ve been able to hang in there. And a lot of it, again, has been based on. I’ve gotten to know the entrepreneurs pretty well. And I feel like those that have a good success record are the ones I keep betting on.
Mike Malatesta 55:22
Well, I, I love entrepreneurs that are helping other entrepreneurs that are supporting them, no matter it doesn’t matter, the cheque size, it just matters that you’re helping them, you know, bring their ideas and bring their businesses to life. And yeah, and sometimes it pays off big and sometimes you lose it all. But it’s still I just feel like that’s something we should all be doing. All entrepreneurs should be doing that. Yeah, you’re putting the money you’ve made as an entrepreneur, at least a portion of it into the hands of other entrepreneurs and given them a chance to run with it and support them.
Eric Berman 55:55
Yeah, yeah, and one fun thing I’ve done and I can share this as well, and I talk to people and I’m surprised that people don’t realize this, I’m sure I know you do probably is that, you know, even if you get an opportunity, you’ve been successful as an entrepreneur, it’s fun to write a small check and then also get a advisory shares as well. And that’s easier to get than you know, easier to ask for than you might imagine, you know, all entrepreneurs, especially younger ones, they love having people that have gone through the battle. And it’s a fun way you know, especially when you’re wondering as a small check, because it shows you’re serious and you like the business and you get then you have some skin in the game. But then you can almost like double your double or triple your investment by putting in a little bit of time. And that’s another way for entrepreneurs as you said to you know, help others and you know, by giving a little bit of time and your knowledge and also certainly it’s nice to get paid for it and stock and one day that can turn into a nice win as well.
Mike Malatesta 56:46
I’ve never done that I’ve never asked that’s so that’s a good idea. It’s worth it there
Eric Berman 56:50
you go. There you go. Yeah,
Mike Malatesta 56:52
look at that. Next guy is bringing value value value value. Thank you. Yeah, well Eric, this has been a ton of fun. Thank you so much for coming on the show I I’ve enjoyed learning more about you and everything you’re doing this helping experts build their empires is really exciting to me and should be too many people. How do people I mean, I mentioned some ways to get a hold of you. Is there other ways you want people to reach out?
Eric Berman 57:16
I mean, the best is just you know, our website branded ties, which is a combination of branded monetize. So brand e ties.com. And there’s a contact and you can always just mentioned my name and then they’ll find me you know, and I think the other ways you mentioned as well so I’m happy to share and be able to assist indefinitely just wants to run an idea by me I’m and if anybody that’s your fan is my fans. I’m happy to help any way I can.
Mike Malatesta 57:38
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah.
Eric Berman 57:42
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
