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Grab your drink and get ready. This is the caffeinated hustle. The best place to learn about entrepreneurs and FTS and life expert advice and guest interviews to launch your business and NFT journey further than you ever imagined. Now, here's your host, entrepreneur, coffee fanatic and founder of the NFT project, caffeinated creatures, Ben Carson. Alright team Welcome back to the caffeinated hustle. I'm your host, Ben Carson. thanks for stopping by. Today is a great day because we're starting our Creator series, I've got my first guest, Eric Grant Hoffer, who is going to be a day one content creator. For the caffeinated creatures. What that means is that on the very first day of mint, while most projects are just minting, we've already got a $20,000 library ready to go for every single holder and Eric is going to be part of that journey. And I'm really excited to have him on to just talk to you guys a little bit. Let you know what he's about and just explain what he's making for you on day one. Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. This is really awesome. Like, I'm excited about this. Every time I talk to you, we have like we have a blast. So this is great. Absolutely. Yeah, for those who don't know, we probably talked three or four times we probably could have made two or three podcasts already. But this one's this one's gonna be a good one. Eric's an awesome guy. He's got some really cool life experiences, and he's gonna be able to do some really cool stuff. But Eric, can you just give us like a five minute walk through your journey where you were starting at and where you're at now and what you're doing here? Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how far you want me to go back. But you know, I really five minutes. That's how quick I think my journey actually started. I always really say my sec, my life began when I moved to Florida in 2015. But really, it's just a little bit before that in 2014, I started my business royal reputation. And at the time, we were called rank kayo. I just didn't really like the brand, but it worked for us then. But small, you know, helping small, medium sized businesses build websites and do SEO and I was in based in Buffalo, New York. So being in Buffalo, the average I worked for a company prior to that, that was like selling all these products and services. And that's that kind of I was gravitated towards the marketing. And just a little bit prior to working for that marketing agency. My first first actual business was prestige fitness solution. So I was I was a training firm. And we talked our way into a Gold's Gym, to let us be their trainers for the entire gym and service their members. So that's when I really got the flow of like my business sense of, hey, if I get 100 clients at $300 a month, and it's on reoccurring billing. Now, you know, what is that math? 100 at 300? What does that $30,000 Like? So, I was like doing the zeros in my head, my brains not working today. So I'm like, Okay, so now I can make $30,000 a month doing that. It's decent money, but then you have overhead, you have rent, you have your trainers, everyone has to make money. So it's like, okay, increase the package size, the money wasn't there at the time, at least not in Buffalo, New York. It just wasn't for those those bigger amounts. So I left I was doing all the marketing before like Facebook was actually Facebook, right. So this is 2012 ish, I ended up selling the company leaving and because I liked the marketing more than I actually liked to training people. And I went and worked for this first company Hearst media, I have no idea how I got the the interview, I have no idea how I got the job. I don't I really don't know, I was not qualified. I don't look good on paper, like I just don't. And then so I get in there. And you know, they must have liked me. I was miserable at this place. miserable. I was there for eight months, it was so corporately, I signed on to do online marketing. And they were having me learn about the phonebook, like the actual phone book, and I had no cell phone up to people. And what I found out quickly was their phone book had $5 million worth of revenue. And the they wanted to maintain that revenue, but still sell the digital, they kept calling it digital, which I think stupid, they still kept trying to sell digital while maintaining that $5 million in revenue. So I was going, Hey, this internet thing is really cool. We should you should put all your marketing in this but please buy the phonebook because it makes so much sense. And then I had to like it was the worst position to be in because you're they're putting you in a lose lose situation. So I got out of there and management was terrible. They knew nothing about anything. Culture was like literally depressing me like it was it was a very depressing time in my life. And then I went and worked for their immediate competition. Their immediate competition was called Townsquare interactive. They launched the company in 2012. And they went public in 2014. After two years doing the same exact service, but their company the guy was actually from Buffalo to the CEO. I'd never met him prior. They were based out of Charlotte but had locations everywhere. So I went to Charlotte for the headquarters. And I discovered startup culture, like the culture you see at Google and all these things. These guys were cracking beers. And there was The first taste that I just went from like wearing a suit and a tie and talking about phonebook in this dark, miserable place to dudes freaking crack and beers, and they had a gong in there. And every time a sale would go, and they're shooting Nerf guns at each other, and it's loud. And the, and I was like, hooked immediately, I was like, What is this, I want to be a part of it. But then that ended and they put me back in Buffalo. And I was in the radio stations, which was really cool. I got to meet all the disc jockeys and the famous people for all the radio stations and, you know, celebrities would come in, and like that was all really neat. But I was also like, it was still that boring atmosphere, because Buffalo was not like that. And the radio station, people were definitely not like that they were still, I went from not wanting to sell phone book to not wanting to sell radio, because it was the dying thing. And it was the same kind of atmosphere there. So I left that and started working for myself. So I created my business now, selling $300 A month website packages, or SEO services and just social media stuff, quit that in August of 2014 working for them left the next day as if I was going out to work, sold the $400 website didn't know how I was going to build it. But that found someone for $200 to build it, put the other 200 back into the company did that 15 more times. That's how I built it like Bootstrap and like that. Yeah. And then after I did all that, you know, we started getting these $300 month deals, you know, we were building them up building up just like I did in personal training. That's why I gave you guys that context. Let you know, like when my brain was like, and then after that was really the this little part that really changed the game for me. I made a call it was a referral of a referral of a referral to someone in Tampa. And so I'm in New York, it's 2014 November ish and selling all these $300 deals and these are big deals in Buffalo 300 a month. That's like the highest amount you're gonna get now I've been in industry for about two years. So you're kind of seeing that right. You're seeing what's what's high, what's low. So this we're really buffalo maxes out in Tampa, I get I sold them the same thing for $1,200 a month, the same exact service that I was getting from Buffalo, so four times the amount. And then I just started doing that over and over and over again. And then after I realized what was going on. I was like we're moving like we had a storm in November. I got I got trapped in my house for like eight days. They call it the November storm. 2014 eight feet of snow couldn't leave my house couldn't do anything. And then, you know, so I was doing that. And money was we were making money. But we were still scraping, like keep in mind I was doing this and figuring out how to pay people to do all these things. So this wasn't just an overnight success. It was like, Yeah, I that was the one of the saddest Christmases as a father to ever have. It's like this tree looks a little bear down here, you know. So like, it's good, because the business was building and I knew that and I could see it. But I was also like, this is real life of like, okay, I might not be able to pay stuff this month, because I'm still building up the company to $10,000 a month, like I wasn't getting hundreds and hundreds of clients. I was getting a couple clients here and there. So anyways, I get that $1,200 deal, the November storm happens, I immediately go We're leaving. I never want to be here because I hate the snow in the first place. I don't like skiing, I don't like snowboarding it's It sounds fun in theory, but it's wet. It's cold. I don't want to do any of that. We moved to Florida in April, after my wife was like safe to travel. We had just had a baby in January of 2015. Moved to Tampa in April. And I start selling only $1,200 A month deals. And we're living in a $1,500 a month apartment that had three bedrooms that I didn't see prior to living there. I just rented it over the phone. And it was four times the amount that I was paying for rent back home. So I did what I do always and I said all right now I'm going to increase the service the quality, figure out what I can do to add value to the package. Because I'm not counting people when I say I think my service was actually worth 1200. But the people that got in early got it for a steal. So I wasn't just increasing the price and not doing anything. I wasn't getting paid what I was worth initially then I was officially getting paid what I was worth. So I figured out how to be worth more. And then I increase that package to a $3,000 a month package. Then I had it created another package that was a $5,000 a month package. Then I created a package that was a $10,000 a month package. And then I'm selling Now these aren't, these aren't everywhere. Like I'm not just only selling 10,000 like I still have a lot of clients on 1500 ollars a month right now, a lot of them, it's the lowest I'll go and then they're happy and that's what they can afford. They're small and medium sized businesses, but these other businesses that make millions a year off of what I do, I'm charging them a lot of money, you know, so like $15,000 a month retainer $25,000 A month retainer, and so on and so on. So I quickly increased the package and didn't just kept doing that over and over and over again for years with a couple more businesses in there like that. Some failed tremendously a clothing burn I had failed, I liked it. But I realized I liked creating brands, building brands, and which is why when I go into like any company and help them with their marketing, I enjoy being able to dissect and not only get them leads, which is really ultimately what they're paying me for. But I like the branding part of it too, like making sure their brands represented properly online. And that's kind of where this entire thing came from. So in 2015, as I started to notice this white space of online reputation management firms, so I really kind of went that route specifically, even though we do at all, there's so much overlap of online reputation management, and branding, and marketing and all these things. So I wanted to be known as an online reputation management firm. And with that is really cool, because you kind of work on stuff like a lawyer. So I'm getting way ahead of myself now. But that's that's me that here I am. There's my five minutes. Sorry. I mean, that was like 15 minutes, you're terrible track of time, but I love it. Because the value is so much it's worth the weight. I love that, by the way, like, no, i Everything about this is awesome that the listeners are just now they're just hooked like, Wait, so what do we actually get on day one, because this is this sounds amazing. I just want to throw one pointer in there, the fact that you're offering a 25,000 Plus package, and then you're still allowing customers come on a 1500, they must feel so blessed to be able to be part of a journey where everyone else is like, Oh, I gotta pay 25,000, like I'm in for 1500, that's gonna make it like the low end customers almost feel like they don't like they just happen to be part of the journey, only if they know about it. So like a couple of people know that I have higher end clients. And it's not that I'm giving them a discount either. So like, for instance, the one I have a client that's paying 25,000 A month right now. And his stuff is I literally do his entire internet marketing service and slash I'm a consultant for him on like all his other marketing. So he has a million dollar marketing budget a year, I'm whatever $25,000 a month that is. And then I'm these people from radio and all the other advertisements. I what I took off his plate was for the owner that owns three locations, I took off his plate of having to do these meetings with people like me and became the person I'm the gatekeeper for him now. So when people are pitching him radio and spots and all that stuff, they sit down and they face me. So like the conversation was like, Hey, how many leads? You're getting a month for radio? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, how many leads you're getting a month for those the TV commercials that you're spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars on? He goes, I don't know. And I go, why are you doing it for so many years? He goes because we've always done it. And they're telling me it's good. And I go, Okay, how many leads you're getting for me? Well, it goes last month, I got 115 leads from you. And I go how many of those sold? And he goes, Well, this this is how many that sold? This is how many that you found? So I'll go through the contact form submissions at my team run through those and then line them up with his dashboard of who's selling or like, Hey, did John Smith that submitted a request Estimate form? Do you see him in the sales database for placing a purchase for what he what he put in there for the contact form. And that's how I directly correlate my value versus what I actually sold. So not only am I going, here's 115 leads, the sales are on them. I'm not worried about that. But I'm also like, we got them in contact form submissions, phone calls, requests estimates. But now they can directly see that they're getting an ROI. And I'm I'm fact they it's in black and white. He can't do that for anyone else. So now I'm like, Okay, what are they actually doing? So now when I'm sitting down with them, they're talking about impressions. I was like, I was like, what do we like? The it's such an old school mentality impressions. Oh, I had you got 3 million impressions last year? Great. How many were sales? Like, like, like it doesn't it doesn't matter. 15,000 cars drove past my building yesterday. None of them bought, it doesn't matter. So how many did we convert? And like these people don't like these conversations that I'm having with them. And it puts them in a weird position to because I'm not being rude. I don't I don't mean I hope you guys don't think I'm coming off as like rude to them. You're making them justify what they're charging. And it's it's hard to do that at all. It's just a big number. It doesn't matter. I yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. And so I love that just for everyone listening, you know, having a premium option for your top tier clients. And then a base option really could help some sales. It's a unique idea there. But let's more focus in on what we're doing for the community today. So real reputation, you build brands, you understand all sides of things. And so what are you looking to make for the community for the day one content based off your experience because it's vast and clearly you understand what you're doing? So how are you going to help our community? One of those things when it comes to content directly or Hey, like, what's day one for what I think they should do as well is like, how to start. Like, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of ways to do it. But one of those things, too, is, I think explaining my story and telling everyone where I came from is like a pivotal moment, because I'm also, I've had all these ideas for years and wanted to do these things. But I was, no one ever prevented me from doing it. But I also never had the thought of act on it and do it and just pick it up and go. So I think telling not only telling my story and going, like, I literally created this in a basement, I make all this money now, from my computer. If you would have told me that all these years ago, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have believed you because I didn't see it done, I didn't know that it was possible, I would have thought people were trying to like, lie to you just to be cool, or something I don't know, like when I started this, you know, until I was 14. So I want to like make sure that the story is there. And they know that literally anyone can do this, you have to have a good product. So you don't like find something you're passionate about. And I think that that's one of the most important things like I am really, really passionate about making content, I enjoy it. I like being on camera, I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. So like making all that content around what I do is very, very, very easy. For me talking about what I do is very easy for me, I really don't feel like I actually work. And but I always I know I also from the second I open my eyes at 6am and go to bed, I go to bed at 930. I am working all day, but it's not work. So I think the value is going to be sprinkled in there for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different things, a roadmap to, you know, hey, this is how I did it, take it for what it's worth, I'm not on my high horse or anything, I'm just saying this is what worked for me. And if you can reverse engineer anything that I've given you or talking about, do that. And then you know, content is the game. So just keep cranking that out around what you like, and make sure that your product is good. And make sure you're doing everything like respectfully ethically, like that's the biggest thing that I love, too, is like, you know how many times I've lost money because I was doing the right thing. You know if that makes sense, or like not steering anyone in the wrong way. Like I worked all these other companies were greedy companies that would lock people into contracts, and could take their money, I'd let people out of their stuff just because they asked, because it's so easy to have people on your side and do business the right way and be kind, then to literally like, someone wants to cancel with me they have six months on their agreement, I could say no. But then what we're just fighting, but the only wall for that is me. So like anyways, like, the point is you can be successful, you can be happy, and you can be a good person. And like I think that that's really what sums up everything that I'm trying to accomplish. And kind of like the lesson that I want my I have three kids that I want them to like, remember me as is like holy crap, like he really did all that he really is making a lot of money, I want to be known as like the guy that treated like, every single person no matter where they are on whatever totem pole in every walk of life, like with the same respect that I would treat anyone. And then like, I'm happy as hell doing it. For the most part, like 2020 was a very stressful year. But for the most part, just happy as hell we're doing it. I want that to be like known, you know. So that's my goal, and what I hope to share with everyone for what I'm creating here for day one content. Yeah, I love that. And I know not everyone else knows you. But we've only known each other three or four times now on interactions, you know, probably now reach but you were just so genuine. And every time you talk you don't very, it's the same style, it's the same truth, I just I think you're gonna really do some phenomenal good for our listeners. Because when you're truly trying to help people and you enjoy doing it, you can do just some phenomenal things. And that's the point of this project. And Eric gets that 100%. So I do want to talk let's let's go back for you. We're doing SEO packages, and now you're doing more content creation. Did you pivot that because so many other people caught on to the SEO game or what caused you to go from just trying to help people get noticed, to helping make the content to help them get noticed. So it's twofold. So I actually changed my SEO strategy to the only way that I thought logically made sense. So everyone does SEO differently. When I started it was a lot of backlinking and a lot of like meta tags and title tags and all these different things that people were doing. And to be frank like a lot of stuff that I didn't really understand like I'm not an IT guy I'm not like a super like computer guy like I know my way around a computer especially now but like I'm not sitting on there like knowing I don't know code, I don't know. So that to me, that's what these backlinks and all this other stuff was the way I knew how to do. It was very, very simple. And anyone that wants to do SEO on their own site, take this for what it's worth. The way I do it. It's Google is a they move towards linguistic relevance. So all that anytime their algorithm changes. If I worked on link backlinking and stuff one of the those links could be bad if they change their algorithm, which is what was happening to me in the beginning. And then I would have a bad link on a third person site. And then I'd have to go back and track that back, backlink down, and then like get rid of it, and change it and do all these other things. So the only way I knew how to do it was through content creation. So for instance, you have five services, I would create a different page for each service, make sure the website structure is proper maybe matches your competition, just make sure it's an easy website structure, each one of those services we would have anywhere from 500 to 1000 words on each one of those pages. The title of the article is the keyword that you're writing for SEO is very straightforward, very easy. So if I have, let's use a flooring company, I have hardwood flooring is my title, that's my service, right? It's my product as well. I'm going to do a 500 to 1000 words on there sprinkled in, obviously, with the word hardwood flooring, it's going to naturally be said I don't really word stuff, keyword stuff, because you're going to it's going to come up naturally. So now I have one article on hardwood flooring. Now that article has the opportunity to potentially rank because we created the page. If you don't create the page, it can't rank. So now I that's written content creation. Now what we have to do on that page, how can we make this page better? So what do we do for the page? Well, I'm gonna go to their showroom now, and I'm going to insert a video of the hardwood flooring on the page. So I'm going to make a cool, unique video for them on the on the page, put it on there, that's great. Now we have video content. A lot of the owners, they, you know, they're old school, they don't want to be on camera. So maybe you get some B roll footage, and you get creative with how you're filming. So I had to learn videography, I had to learn photography, all self taught from YouTube, I know how to Photoshop, I know, Premiere Pro, like literally just hours and hours of hyper fixating on how to do this myself. So that way, when I passed the job off, I knew what was right and what was wrong. And I my eye has always kind of been good for that stuff, too. Like I know, that's like a small weird talent that I've always known, I always knew a good picture or a bad picture, when some people, they just see a picture, you know, it's weird. So I did that. And that's how it kind of started. And then I would go make those little videos for them for social media, while talking about the hardwood floor. So that's that's how the kind of the roadmap of like it started out with written content and increasing and making my my SEO packages better through not just creating a page for each service, but doing that every single month, right. And then you have to make those pages better every single month. And then you keep doing that over and over and over and over and over again. And then now you want to do the same thing on social. And you have to get really creative about content creation and how you're going to do it. And we might have 100 pages at the end of the year on hardwood floors, but they're all titled different stuff. But just so we could write about hardwood floors, and then make those pages better to convert more people into customers. But now you've written about hardwood floors in every way that you possibly can write about hardwood floors, you don't the none of the content is duplicate content, none of the content is anywhere else online. So what Google sees is your website just got 100 pages bigger about hardwood floors, it's now more relevant. And you it sees that you're updating your website every single month like clockwork over and over. So your website's getting bigger, it's becoming more relevant and you're constantly updating it. Google loves these three things. And now they put your website up in that page specifically for when someone does a hardwood search in the search results, because Google thinks that that's what people are looking for as they're doing the search. And they know that your website is the number one writer of hardwood flooring. So to me, I came I approached it from a very common sense, like, easy the way I understand SEO approach, where I think all these other people were overdoing it. And very quickly, you know, in a three to six month timeframe, doing this over and over and over and over and over again, we're winning, like we're crushing other people, because they're not creating the content, they can't create it at that speed. Every month, you know, we would do 3040 5060 articles every single month about different services for each client. And that content game and what keywords you go after is the content strategy for them. And again, that's written, we have the same concepts and theories when we do social media and that type of stuff as well. This is gonna be exciting when because we're making this course on content creation. And the problem with only focusing on that, well, it's not really a problem, it creates other opportunities because we're going to zero in on how to make content for other companies to be an agency to do SEO, like Eric's doing. We're going to talk about tick tock in a minute. And he's doing some of that as well because content can be all sorts of thing. But content when you learn how to make content properly, Eric's journey should be just a perfect reflection because there's so many opportunities if you want to make it for yourself you want to make for an agency when you know how to do all this stuff and make the proper content suddenly you open opportunities. You have a business right there you didn't know existed that you needed. And now because I'm gonna be honest with you trying to have some old school person that just wants to run their brick and mortar get noticed on Google and tell them They need to make 50 pieces of content in a month, they're gonna laugh at you, they're like, I'm just gonna pay someone else, I do not have the time you're solving a business owners problem. And that can make you a lot of money. So this is gonna be a really interesting course to learn from because you're learning how to solve people's problems by doing this, right? Yeah, exactly. No, I love it. And you're 100% Sure, like, that's the pain that you're saving them is. It's twofold. In a sense, the like, part one is, hey, you're you're saving all this time, like you said, they don't know some of them even that know how to do it. Like if they said, Hey, I owe 150% know how to do it. I used to do it when I started, but I don't have the time. That is, that's like the number one. And then obviously, the number two is to get leads. So it's like marketing to them to branding to like, get their leads. But at the end of the day, like someone asked me what I do, I'm really just lead generation for people through content creation. That's a good point. I mean, I liked that a lot. I think we're gonna leave it right there because we gotta leave something for the course and you're gonna break down all this stuff in detail how to do it, but the the potential there should be clear for everyone, let's do a two minute tops. And let's try and keep it two minutes, a quick preview of your views on tick tock in the moment and what they should do there because we're gonna go over that in the course too, or you're gonna go over it, excuse me. And because content creation is not just for other companies, it can also be for yourself trying to become an influencer, trying to find brand deals, something like that. So what do you think you're going to talk about in the course for how to become an influencer how to get noticed on Tik Tok? Something like that? Really just finding your niche like, for me, it was really easy. Mine was like, I don't know if you guys can see like, I have all these tattoos like not bragging that I have tattoos I'm saying I just have always had to set or that they had like, affirmations on them reminders like this one's like, be more like, it's just, I've always been like that, as a kid, I would always draw over myself and like, have these little reminders on me like I would be that guy coming home from school. You know, that's kind of what these are. But so my Tik Tok turned into me basically reading affirmations like I tried this exact strategy on Instagram for two years posting quote cards, things that I thought were good pictures of me with quotes over it or something in the caption, and nothing ever sparked for me on Instagram. So hop over to Tik Tok, I literally my first couple posts that actually went viral like one of them got 6 million plus views, is literally me reading a quote card that I made in 2014. I'm not like reading it, like, Oh, hey, like I'm reading it like that. I just mean I instead of putting it on a quote card, I took that QUOTE CARD, and I just said it to the camera. And like I was like, okay, so and I got 6 million views. So that audience for whatever reason, nothing, none of my stuff hit, but I didn't, I didn't pivot for whatever reason. I may call it lazy. But I just I wanted to keep quitting. I was busy. Yeah, called busy. But I wanted to keep putting out my truth of just like, that was the most authentic me, I think the most authentic meat is posting not motivational stuff in the sense, but just quotes that mean a lot to me and helped me get through my day and things like that, that I need. Because I look for stuff like that. When I'm on social media, I'm always watching quote, like strong motivational quotes, or affirmations or things that make you think or, you know, feel good in a certain way. And I love that stuff. So that's what I started putting out. But so getting off topic here, the thing I would talk about most on tick tock is starting immediately, you only have a short window until it's going to be this good. Getting your content out, you know, four or five, six times a day, and how to do it quickly. Without wasting a ton of time. I've spent the least amount of time on tick tock than I ever have on any platform ever. And it's very, it's takes none of my time. And I have I just got up to like 166,000 followers since February since I started in February. That's like some five. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't like one post, right? It wasn't like one post that didn't like it's been a series of like, posting four or five times a day. Over the course of this last five months. I took some Sundays off because that's family time. And I'm also not new to it like I was on the platform, you know when it started and I really didn't know what to do there. And then one day I just It clicked and I just started messing around with the app and having fun with it. And not getting too romantic about what I was posting like Instagram, you got to look good on the pic. You got to look good on the picture, have the perfect picture have the perfect pose the perfect caption, this is the opposite it likes that your being your most authentic self looking like it's not the most perfect video ever done, which is great. So I like that you can just it's supposed to be sloppy in a sense if that's the how you want to put it. Well Eric, I think we're gonna wrap it up here. Our listeners are gonna be able to get all that information when this course drops on day one when we mint and I'm sure we're going to do at least one hangout where the community can ask you some questions inside our Discord when it opens up so they'll get more opportunities to talk to you but really excited to have you on for this journey and really excited for you to help everybody just grow and become the best version themselves doing this content the right way and seeing all the opportunities we're going to unlock for them all. So thanks for stopping by. If anybody wants to reach out to you directly before the course drops working find you online. Tick tock would be a good way to find me if you guys want to actually reach out to me find me on Instagram so you can DM me just at Eric Ron Hoffer on Instagram and on tick tock, perfect. I'll put those links in the show notes and we'll get them out when it drops. And then yeah, you'll get more of Eric soon and I look forward to it. So we're gonna wrap this up Eric with our last question we ask every guest on the show. What is your favorite caffeinated beverage to get through the day? Ghosts? I've never heard of that. What is that an energy drink? Yeah, so ghost is actually it's a it's a supplement company created by two guys they're entrepreneurs couple years ago they're huge they're in GNC is now a vitamin shops, but they just got in the energy game. What so they used to make pre workout and creatine only and now they're expanding but the cool thing about ghost is they do Sour Patch Kids flavors Skittles like they do candy flavors for healthy drinks. So this is sugar free. This one tastes is orange creamsicle but their brand is really cool. I love it. And this energy drink in particular has Alpha GPC, which is really, really good for your brain. So it's like kind of like an alpha brain in a drink as well. So it gives you caffeine and energy. But if you have this you won't you'll never drink anything else. I promise. That's amazing. Well, we're not sponsored by that post. But you know, you never know after anybody hears about this and they find out Eric's a content creator. He might have a new job before the time this thing drops. So thanks for stopping by and we'll talk again soon. Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate this was fun. Thanks for listening to the caffeinated hustle. Sponsored by caffeinated labs LLC. For more information or to connect with Ben, check us out online at caffeinated labs.io. Or email us at support at caffeinated labs.io. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Or give us a follow on social media by checking the links in the description. We'll see you next time.
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Grab your drink and get ready. This is the caffeinated hustle. The best place to learn about entrepreneurs and FTS and life expert advice and guest interviews to launch your business and NFT journey further than you ever imagined. Now, here's your host, entrepreneur, coffee fanatic and founder of the NFT project, caffeinated creatures, Ben Carson. Alright team Welcome back to the caffeinated hustle. I'm your host, Ben Carson. thanks for stopping by. Today is a great day because we're starting our Creator series, I've got my first guest, Eric Grant Hoffer, who is going to be a day one content creator. For the caffeinated creatures. What that means is that on the very first day of mint, while most projects are just minting, we've already got a $20,000 library ready to go for every single holder and Eric is going to be part of that journey. And I'm really excited to have him on to just talk to you guys a little bit. Let you know what he's about and just explain what he's making for you on day one. Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. This is really awesome. Like, I'm excited about this. Every time I talk to you, we have like we have a blast. So this is great. Absolutely. Yeah, for those who don't know, we probably talked three or four times we probably could have made two or three podcasts already. But this one's this one's gonna be a good one. Eric's an awesome guy. He's got some really cool life experiences, and he's gonna be able to do some really cool stuff. But Eric, can you just give us like a five minute walk through your journey where you were starting at and where you're at now and what you're doing here? Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how far you want me to go back. But you know, I really five minutes. That's how quick I think my journey actually started. I always really say my sec, my life began when I moved to Florida in 2015. But really, it's just a little bit before that in 2014, I started my business royal reputation. And at the time, we were called rank kayo. I just didn't really like the brand, but it worked for us then. But small, you know, helping small, medium sized businesses build websites and do SEO and I was in based in Buffalo, New York. So being in Buffalo, the average I worked for a company prior to that, that was like selling all these products and services. And that's that kind of I was gravitated towards the marketing. And just a little bit prior to working for that marketing agency. My first first actual business was prestige fitness solution. So I was I was a training firm. And we talked our way into a Gold's Gym, to let us be their trainers for the entire gym and service their members. So that's when I really got the flow of like my business sense of, hey, if I get 100 clients at $300 a month, and it's on reoccurring billing. Now, you know, what is that math? 100 at 300? What does that $30,000 Like? So, I was like doing the zeros in my head, my brains not working today. So I'm like, Okay, so now I can make $30,000 a month doing that. It's decent money, but then you have overhead, you have rent, you have your trainers, everyone has to make money. So it's like, okay, increase the package size, the money wasn't there at the time, at least not in Buffalo, New York. It just wasn't for those those bigger amounts. So I left I was doing all the marketing before like Facebook was actually Facebook, right. So this is 2012 ish, I ended up selling the company leaving and because I liked the marketing more than I actually liked to training people. And I went and worked for this first company Hearst media, I have no idea how I got the the interview, I have no idea how I got the job. I don't I really don't know, I was not qualified. I don't look good on paper, like I just don't. And then so I get in there. And you know, they must have liked me. I was miserable at this place. miserable. I was there for eight months, it was so corporately, I signed on to do online marketing. And they were having me learn about the phonebook, like the actual phone book, and I had no cell phone up to people. And what I found out quickly was their phone book had $5 million worth of revenue. And the they wanted to maintain that revenue, but still sell the digital, they kept calling it digital, which I think stupid, they still kept trying to sell digital while maintaining that $5 million in revenue. So I was going, Hey, this internet thing is really cool. We should you should put all your marketing in this but please buy the phonebook because it makes so much sense. And then I had to like it was the worst position to be in because you're they're putting you in a lose lose situation. So I got out of there and management was terrible. They knew nothing about anything. Culture was like literally depressing me like it was it was a very depressing time in my life. And then I went and worked for their immediate competition. Their immediate competition was called Townsquare interactive. They launched the company in 2012. And they went public in 2014. After two years doing the same exact service, but their company the guy was actually from Buffalo to the CEO. I'd never met him prior. They were based out of Charlotte but had locations everywhere. So I went to Charlotte for the headquarters. And I discovered startup culture, like the culture you see at Google and all these things. These guys were cracking beers. And there was The first taste that I just went from like wearing a suit and a tie and talking about phonebook in this dark, miserable place to dudes freaking crack and beers, and they had a gong in there. And every time a sale would go, and they're shooting Nerf guns at each other, and it's loud. And the, and I was like, hooked immediately, I was like, What is this, I want to be a part of it. But then that ended and they put me back in Buffalo. And I was in the radio stations, which was really cool. I got to meet all the disc jockeys and the famous people for all the radio stations and, you know, celebrities would come in, and like that was all really neat. But I was also like, it was still that boring atmosphere, because Buffalo was not like that. And the radio station, people were definitely not like that they were still, I went from not wanting to sell phone book to not wanting to sell radio, because it was the dying thing. And it was the same kind of atmosphere there. So I left that and started working for myself. So I created my business now, selling $300 A month website packages, or SEO services and just social media stuff, quit that in August of 2014 working for them left the next day as if I was going out to work, sold the $400 website didn't know how I was going to build it. But that found someone for $200 to build it, put the other 200 back into the company did that 15 more times. That's how I built it like Bootstrap and like that. Yeah. And then after I did all that, you know, we started getting these $300 month deals, you know, we were building them up building up just like I did in personal training. That's why I gave you guys that context. Let you know, like when my brain was like, and then after that was really the this little part that really changed the game for me. I made a call it was a referral of a referral of a referral to someone in Tampa. And so I'm in New York, it's 2014 November ish and selling all these $300 deals and these are big deals in Buffalo 300 a month. That's like the highest amount you're gonna get now I've been in industry for about two years. So you're kind of seeing that right. You're seeing what's what's high, what's low. So this we're really buffalo maxes out in Tampa, I get I sold them the same thing for $1,200 a month, the same exact service that I was getting from Buffalo, so four times the amount. And then I just started doing that over and over and over again. And then after I realized what was going on. I was like we're moving like we had a storm in November. I got I got trapped in my house for like eight days. They call it the November storm. 2014 eight feet of snow couldn't leave my house couldn't do anything. And then, you know, so I was doing that. And money was we were making money. But we were still scraping, like keep in mind I was doing this and figuring out how to pay people to do all these things. So this wasn't just an overnight success. It was like, Yeah, I that was the one of the saddest Christmases as a father to ever have. It's like this tree looks a little bear down here, you know. So like, it's good, because the business was building and I knew that and I could see it. But I was also like, this is real life of like, okay, I might not be able to pay stuff this month, because I'm still building up the company to $10,000 a month, like I wasn't getting hundreds and hundreds of clients. I was getting a couple clients here and there. So anyways, I get that $1,200 deal, the November storm happens, I immediately go We're leaving. I never want to be here because I hate the snow in the first place. I don't like skiing, I don't like snowboarding it's It sounds fun in theory, but it's wet. It's cold. I don't want to do any of that. We moved to Florida in April, after my wife was like safe to travel. We had just had a baby in January of 2015. Moved to Tampa in April. And I start selling only $1,200 A month deals. And we're living in a $1,500 a month apartment that had three bedrooms that I didn't see prior to living there. I just rented it over the phone. And it was four times the amount that I was paying for rent back home. So I did what I do always and I said all right now I'm going to increase the service the quality, figure out what I can do to add value to the package. Because I'm not counting people when I say I think my service was actually worth 1200. But the people that got in early got it for a steal. So I wasn't just increasing the price and not doing anything. I wasn't getting paid what I was worth initially then I was officially getting paid what I was worth. So I figured out how to be worth more. And then I increase that package to a $3,000 a month package. Then I had it created another package that was a $5,000 a month package. Then I created a package that was a $10,000 a month package. And then I'm selling Now these aren't, these aren't everywhere. Like I'm not just only selling 10,000 like I still have a lot of clients on 1500 ollars a month right now, a lot of them, it's the lowest I'll go and then they're happy and that's what they can afford. They're small and medium sized businesses, but these other businesses that make millions a year off of what I do, I'm charging them a lot of money, you know, so like $15,000 a month retainer $25,000 A month retainer, and so on and so on. So I quickly increased the package and didn't just kept doing that over and over and over again for years with a couple more businesses in there like that. Some failed tremendously a clothing burn I had failed, I liked it. But I realized I liked creating brands, building brands, and which is why when I go into like any company and help them with their marketing, I enjoy being able to dissect and not only get them leads, which is really ultimately what they're paying me for. But I like the branding part of it too, like making sure their brands represented properly online. And that's kind of where this entire thing came from. So in 2015, as I started to notice this white space of online reputation management firms, so I really kind of went that route specifically, even though we do at all, there's so much overlap of online reputation management, and branding, and marketing and all these things. So I wanted to be known as an online reputation management firm. And with that is really cool, because you kind of work on stuff like a lawyer. So I'm getting way ahead of myself now. But that's that's me that here I am. There's my five minutes. Sorry. I mean, that was like 15 minutes, you're terrible track of time, but I love it. Because the value is so much it's worth the weight. I love that, by the way, like, no, i Everything about this is awesome that the listeners are just now they're just hooked like, Wait, so what do we actually get on day one, because this is this sounds amazing. I just want to throw one pointer in there, the fact that you're offering a 25,000 Plus package, and then you're still allowing customers come on a 1500, they must feel so blessed to be able to be part of a journey where everyone else is like, Oh, I gotta pay 25,000, like I'm in for 1500, that's gonna make it like the low end customers almost feel like they don't like they just happen to be part of the journey, only if they know about it. So like a couple of people know that I have higher end clients. And it's not that I'm giving them a discount either. So like, for instance, the one I have a client that's paying 25,000 A month right now. And his stuff is I literally do his entire internet marketing service and slash I'm a consultant for him on like all his other marketing. So he has a million dollar marketing budget a year, I'm whatever $25,000 a month that is. And then I'm these people from radio and all the other advertisements. I what I took off his plate was for the owner that owns three locations, I took off his plate of having to do these meetings with people like me and became the person I'm the gatekeeper for him now. So when people are pitching him radio and spots and all that stuff, they sit down and they face me. So like the conversation was like, Hey, how many leads? You're getting a month for radio? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, how many leads you're getting a month for those the TV commercials that you're spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars on? He goes, I don't know. And I go, why are you doing it for so many years? He goes because we've always done it. And they're telling me it's good. And I go, Okay, how many leads you're getting for me? Well, it goes last month, I got 115 leads from you. And I go how many of those sold? And he goes, Well, this this is how many that sold? This is how many that you found? So I'll go through the contact form submissions at my team run through those and then line them up with his dashboard of who's selling or like, Hey, did John Smith that submitted a request Estimate form? Do you see him in the sales database for placing a purchase for what he what he put in there for the contact form. And that's how I directly correlate my value versus what I actually sold. So not only am I going, here's 115 leads, the sales are on them. I'm not worried about that. But I'm also like, we got them in contact form submissions, phone calls, requests estimates. But now they can directly see that they're getting an ROI. And I'm I'm fact they it's in black and white. He can't do that for anyone else. So now I'm like, Okay, what are they actually doing? So now when I'm sitting down with them, they're talking about impressions. I was like, I was like, what do we like? The it's such an old school mentality impressions. Oh, I had you got 3 million impressions last year? Great. How many were sales? Like, like, like it doesn't it doesn't matter. 15,000 cars drove past my building yesterday. None of them bought, it doesn't matter. So how many did we convert? And like these people don't like these conversations that I'm having with them. And it puts them in a weird position to because I'm not being rude. I don't I don't mean I hope you guys don't think I'm coming off as like rude to them. You're making them justify what they're charging. And it's it's hard to do that at all. It's just a big number. It doesn't matter. I yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. And so I love that just for everyone listening, you know, having a premium option for your top tier clients. And then a base option really could help some sales. It's a unique idea there. But let's more focus in on what we're doing for the community today. So real reputation, you build brands, you understand all sides of things. And so what are you looking to make for the community for the day one content based off your experience because it's vast and clearly you understand what you're doing? So how are you going to help our community? One of those things when it comes to content directly or Hey, like, what's day one for what I think they should do as well is like, how to start. Like, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of ways to do it. But one of those things, too, is, I think explaining my story and telling everyone where I came from is like a pivotal moment, because I'm also, I've had all these ideas for years and wanted to do these things. But I was, no one ever prevented me from doing it. But I also never had the thought of act on it and do it and just pick it up and go. So I think telling not only telling my story and going, like, I literally created this in a basement, I make all this money now, from my computer. If you would have told me that all these years ago, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have believed you because I didn't see it done, I didn't know that it was possible, I would have thought people were trying to like, lie to you just to be cool, or something I don't know, like when I started this, you know, until I was 14. So I want to like make sure that the story is there. And they know that literally anyone can do this, you have to have a good product. So you don't like find something you're passionate about. And I think that that's one of the most important things like I am really, really passionate about making content, I enjoy it. I like being on camera, I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. So like making all that content around what I do is very, very, very easy. For me talking about what I do is very easy for me, I really don't feel like I actually work. And but I always I know I also from the second I open my eyes at 6am and go to bed, I go to bed at 930. I am working all day, but it's not work. So I think the value is going to be sprinkled in there for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different things, a roadmap to, you know, hey, this is how I did it, take it for what it's worth, I'm not on my high horse or anything, I'm just saying this is what worked for me. And if you can reverse engineer anything that I've given you or talking about, do that. And then you know, content is the game. So just keep cranking that out around what you like, and make sure that your product is good. And make sure you're doing everything like respectfully ethically, like that's the biggest thing that I love, too, is like, you know how many times I've lost money because I was doing the right thing. You know if that makes sense, or like not steering anyone in the wrong way. Like I worked all these other companies were greedy companies that would lock people into contracts, and could take their money, I'd let people out of their stuff just because they asked, because it's so easy to have people on your side and do business the right way and be kind, then to literally like, someone wants to cancel with me they have six months on their agreement, I could say no. But then what we're just fighting, but the only wall for that is me. So like anyways, like, the point is you can be successful, you can be happy, and you can be a good person. And like I think that that's really what sums up everything that I'm trying to accomplish. And kind of like the lesson that I want my I have three kids that I want them to like, remember me as is like holy crap, like he really did all that he really is making a lot of money, I want to be known as like the guy that treated like, every single person no matter where they are on whatever totem pole in every walk of life, like with the same respect that I would treat anyone. And then like, I'm happy as hell doing it. For the most part, like 2020 was a very stressful year. But for the most part, just happy as hell we're doing it. I want that to be like known, you know. So that's my goal, and what I hope to share with everyone for what I'm creating here for day one content. Yeah, I love that. And I know not everyone else knows you. But we've only known each other three or four times now on interactions, you know, probably now reach but you were just so genuine. And every time you talk you don't very, it's the same style, it's the same truth, I just I think you're gonna really do some phenomenal good for our listeners. Because when you're truly trying to help people and you enjoy doing it, you can do just some phenomenal things. And that's the point of this project. And Eric gets that 100%. So I do want to talk let's let's go back for you. We're doing SEO packages, and now you're doing more content creation. Did you pivot that because so many other people caught on to the SEO game or what caused you to go from just trying to help people get noticed, to helping make the content to help them get noticed. So it's twofold. So I actually changed my SEO strategy to the only way that I thought logically made sense. So everyone does SEO differently. When I started it was a lot of backlinking and a lot of like meta tags and title tags and all these different things that people were doing. And to be frank like a lot of stuff that I didn't really understand like I'm not an IT guy I'm not like a super like computer guy like I know my way around a computer especially now but like I'm not sitting on there like knowing I don't know code, I don't know. So that to me, that's what these backlinks and all this other stuff was the way I knew how to do. It was very, very simple. And anyone that wants to do SEO on their own site, take this for what it's worth. The way I do it. It's Google is a they move towards linguistic relevance. So all that anytime their algorithm changes. If I worked on link backlinking and stuff one of the those links could be bad if they change their algorithm, which is what was happening to me in the beginning. And then I would have a bad link on a third person site. And then I'd have to go back and track that back, backlink down, and then like get rid of it, and change it and do all these other things. So the only way I knew how to do it was through content creation. So for instance, you have five services, I would create a different page for each service, make sure the website structure is proper maybe matches your competition, just make sure it's an easy website structure, each one of those services we would have anywhere from 500 to 1000 words on each one of those pages. The title of the article is the keyword that you're writing for SEO is very straightforward, very easy. So if I have, let's use a flooring company, I have hardwood flooring is my title, that's my service, right? It's my product as well. I'm going to do a 500 to 1000 words on there sprinkled in, obviously, with the word hardwood flooring, it's going to naturally be said I don't really word stuff, keyword stuff, because you're going to it's going to come up naturally. So now I have one article on hardwood flooring. Now that article has the opportunity to potentially rank because we created the page. If you don't create the page, it can't rank. So now I that's written content creation. Now what we have to do on that page, how can we make this page better? So what do we do for the page? Well, I'm gonna go to their showroom now, and I'm going to insert a video of the hardwood flooring on the page. So I'm going to make a cool, unique video for them on the on the page, put it on there, that's great. Now we have video content. A lot of the owners, they, you know, they're old school, they don't want to be on camera. So maybe you get some B roll footage, and you get creative with how you're filming. So I had to learn videography, I had to learn photography, all self taught from YouTube, I know how to Photoshop, I know, Premiere Pro, like literally just hours and hours of hyper fixating on how to do this myself. So that way, when I passed the job off, I knew what was right and what was wrong. And I my eye has always kind of been good for that stuff, too. Like I know, that's like a small weird talent that I've always known, I always knew a good picture or a bad picture, when some people, they just see a picture, you know, it's weird. So I did that. And that's how it kind of started. And then I would go make those little videos for them for social media, while talking about the hardwood floor. So that's that's how the kind of the roadmap of like it started out with written content and increasing and making my my SEO packages better through not just creating a page for each service, but doing that every single month, right. And then you have to make those pages better every single month. And then you keep doing that over and over and over and over and over again. And then now you want to do the same thing on social. And you have to get really creative about content creation and how you're going to do it. And we might have 100 pages at the end of the year on hardwood floors, but they're all titled different stuff. But just so we could write about hardwood floors, and then make those pages better to convert more people into customers. But now you've written about hardwood floors in every way that you possibly can write about hardwood floors, you don't the none of the content is duplicate content, none of the content is anywhere else online. So what Google sees is your website just got 100 pages bigger about hardwood floors, it's now more relevant. And you it sees that you're updating your website every single month like clockwork over and over. So your website's getting bigger, it's becoming more relevant and you're constantly updating it. Google loves these three things. And now they put your website up in that page specifically for when someone does a hardwood search in the search results, because Google thinks that that's what people are looking for as they're doing the search. And they know that your website is the number one writer of hardwood flooring. So to me, I came I approached it from a very common sense, like, easy the way I understand SEO approach, where I think all these other people were overdoing it. And very quickly, you know, in a three to six month timeframe, doing this over and over and over and over and over again, we're winning, like we're crushing other people, because they're not creating the content, they can't create it at that speed. Every month, you know, we would do 3040 5060 articles every single month about different services for each client. And that content game and what keywords you go after is the content strategy for them. And again, that's written, we have the same concepts and theories when we do social media and that type of stuff as well. This is gonna be exciting when because we're making this course on content creation. And the problem with only focusing on that, well, it's not really a problem, it creates other opportunities because we're going to zero in on how to make content for other companies to be an agency to do SEO, like Eric's doing. We're going to talk about tick tock in a minute. And he's doing some of that as well because content can be all sorts of thing. But content when you learn how to make content properly, Eric's journey should be just a perfect reflection because there's so many opportunities if you want to make it for yourself you want to make for an agency when you know how to do all this stuff and make the proper content suddenly you open opportunities. You have a business right there you didn't know existed that you needed. And now because I'm gonna be honest with you trying to have some old school person that just wants to run their brick and mortar get noticed on Google and tell them They need to make 50 pieces of content in a month, they're gonna laugh at you, they're like, I'm just gonna pay someone else, I do not have the time you're solving a business owners problem. And that can make you a lot of money. So this is gonna be a really interesting course to learn from because you're learning how to solve people's problems by doing this, right? Yeah, exactly. No, I love it. And you're 100% Sure, like, that's the pain that you're saving them is. It's twofold. In a sense, the like, part one is, hey, you're you're saving all this time, like you said, they don't know some of them even that know how to do it. Like if they said, Hey, I owe 150% know how to do it. I used to do it when I started, but I don't have the time. That is, that's like the number one. And then obviously, the number two is to get leads. So it's like marketing to them to branding to like, get their leads. But at the end of the day, like someone asked me what I do, I'm really just lead generation for people through content creation. That's a good point. I mean, I liked that a lot. I think we're gonna leave it right there because we gotta leave something for the course and you're gonna break down all this stuff in detail how to do it, but the the potential there should be clear for everyone, let's do a two minute tops. And let's try and keep it two minutes, a quick preview of your views on tick tock in the moment and what they should do there because we're gonna go over that in the course too, or you're gonna go over it, excuse me. And because content creation is not just for other companies, it can also be for yourself trying to become an influencer, trying to find brand deals, something like that. So what do you think you're going to talk about in the course for how to become an influencer how to get noticed on Tik Tok? Something like that? Really just finding your niche like, for me, it was really easy. Mine was like, I don't know if you guys can see like, I have all these tattoos like not bragging that I have tattoos I'm saying I just have always had to set or that they had like, affirmations on them reminders like this one's like, be more like, it's just, I've always been like that, as a kid, I would always draw over myself and like, have these little reminders on me like I would be that guy coming home from school. You know, that's kind of what these are. But so my Tik Tok turned into me basically reading affirmations like I tried this exact strategy on Instagram for two years posting quote cards, things that I thought were good pictures of me with quotes over it or something in the caption, and nothing ever sparked for me on Instagram. So hop over to Tik Tok, I literally my first couple posts that actually went viral like one of them got 6 million plus views, is literally me reading a quote card that I made in 2014. I'm not like reading it, like, Oh, hey, like I'm reading it like that. I just mean I instead of putting it on a quote card, I took that QUOTE CARD, and I just said it to the camera. And like I was like, okay, so and I got 6 million views. So that audience for whatever reason, nothing, none of my stuff hit, but I didn't, I didn't pivot for whatever reason. I may call it lazy. But I just I wanted to keep quitting. I was busy. Yeah, called busy. But I wanted to keep putting out my truth of just like, that was the most authentic me, I think the most authentic meat is posting not motivational stuff in the sense, but just quotes that mean a lot to me and helped me get through my day and things like that, that I need. Because I look for stuff like that. When I'm on social media, I'm always watching quote, like strong motivational quotes, or affirmations or things that make you think or, you know, feel good in a certain way. And I love that stuff. So that's what I started putting out. But so getting off topic here, the thing I would talk about most on tick tock is starting immediately, you only have a short window until it's going to be this good. Getting your content out, you know, four or five, six times a day, and how to do it quickly. Without wasting a ton of time. I've spent the least amount of time on tick tock than I ever have on any platform ever. And it's very, it's takes none of my time. And I have I just got up to like 166,000 followers since February since I started in February. That's like some five. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't like one post, right? It wasn't like one post that didn't like it's been a series of like, posting four or five times a day. Over the course of this last five months. I took some Sundays off because that's family time. And I'm also not new to it like I was on the platform, you know when it started and I really didn't know what to do there. And then one day I just It clicked and I just started messing around with the app and having fun with it. And not getting too romantic about what I was posting like Instagram, you got to look good on the pic. You got to look good on the picture, have the perfect picture have the perfect pose the perfect caption, this is the opposite it likes that your being your most authentic self looking like it's not the most perfect video ever done, which is great. So I like that you can just it's supposed to be sloppy in a sense if that's the how you want to put it. Well Eric, I think we're gonna wrap it up here. Our listeners are gonna be able to get all that information when this course drops on day one when we mint and I'm sure we're going to do at least one hangout where the community can ask you some questions inside our Discord when it opens up so they'll get more opportunities to talk to you but really excited to have you on for this journey and really excited for you to help everybody just grow and become the best version themselves doing this content the right way and seeing all the opportunities we're going to unlock for them all. So thanks for stopping by. If anybody wants to reach out to you directly before the course drops working find you online. Tick tock would be a good way to find me if you guys want to actually reach out to me find me on Instagram so you can DM me just at Eric Ron Hoffer on Instagram and on tick tock, perfect. I'll put those links in the show notes and we'll get them out when it drops. And then yeah, you'll get more of Eric soon and I look forward to it. So we're gonna wrap this up Eric with our last question we ask every guest on the show. What is your favorite caffeinated beverage to get through the day? Ghosts? I've never heard of that. What is that an energy drink? Yeah, so ghost is actually it's a it's a supplement company created by two guys they're entrepreneurs couple years ago they're huge they're in GNC is now a vitamin shops, but they just got in the energy game. What so they used to make pre workout and creatine only and now they're expanding but the cool thing about ghost is they do Sour Patch Kids flavors Skittles like they do candy flavors for healthy drinks. So this is sugar free. This one tastes is orange creamsicle but their brand is really cool. I love it. And this energy drink in particular has Alpha GPC, which is really, really good for your brain. So it's like kind of like an alpha brain in a drink as well. So it gives you caffeine and energy. But if you have this you won't you'll never drink anything else. I promise. That's amazing. Well, we're not sponsored by that post. But you know, you never know after anybody hears about this and they find out Eric's a content creator. He might have a new job before the time this thing drops. So thanks for stopping by and we'll talk again soon. Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate this was fun. Thanks for listening to the caffeinated hustle. Sponsored by caffeinated labs LLC. For more information or to connect with Ben, check us out online at caffeinated labs.io. Or email us at support at caffeinated labs.io. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Or give us a follow on social media by checking the links in the description. We'll see you next time.