16 Years of Building Brands to 30M+ Followers

Caleb Ralston shares 16 years of brand-building lessons, from filming bodybuilders at his local gym to scaling major entrepreneurial brands, and the value of bold outreach.

Key Takeaways

Ask for the opportunity: most people never work with their dream clients simply because they never ask.
Deliver value fast; speed builds trust and repeat business.
Build a portfolio with credible names early, since high-profile clients attract others.
Learn the functions of creative teams to lead them effectively.
Passion-driven businesses tend to be sustained because people work hardest on what they love.

What the video covers

Caleb Ralston began his career at 15 filming training videos for bodybuilders at his local gym, driven by a gap in quality fitness content.
Inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk's book Crush It, he decided to pursue content creation as a career rather than a hobby.
He approached guest posers backstage, including Olympia champion Flex Lewis, offering to film behind-the-scenes content despite his nerves.
Fast turnaround on his first project for Flex Lewis (about 24 hours) built a strong portfolio that led to more work.
The core lesson is that you miss every opportunity you don't ask for; rejection is rarely as costly as fear suggests.
Speed to delivering value matters: the sooner clients see results, the more likely they are to return with future work.
Caleb learned creative disciplines like video, audio, and design so he could later lead creative teams with credibility.
He describes reputation-building through dependability and overdelivering, which led to opportunities with high-profile entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk.
His career progressed through agency work at VaynerMedia and side projects such as Wild Media, which created content for Harley-Davidson riders.
Strategy around sponsorship pitches and omni-channel content distribution helps brands adapt to changing platforms.

Chapters

How did Caleb Ralston get his start in video production?

At 15, Caleb filmed training videos at his local gym with his dad, then expanded to other local bodybuilders. He was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk's book Crush It and decided to pursue video as a career.

What was the lesson from his approach to Flex Lewis?

Caleb approached Flex Lewis backstage, offered to film behind-the-scenes content, and delivered quickly. The lesson is that you don't get opportunities you don't ask for, and rejection often matters less than fear suggests.

Why does Caleb emphasize speed in delivering work?

He believes speed to value is important: the sooner clients see a product and benefit from it, the more likely they are to say yes to future work and recommend him to others.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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for the last 16 years I've been behind the scenes helping build some of the biggest brands in business. But I didn't start at the top. I worked my way up, starting with bodybuilders in my local gym, all the way up to working with some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the game.

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of the biggest entrepreneurs in the game along the way I was able to learn and recognize some of the tactics and techniques that are crucial to brands that scale versus brands that fade away and so in this video I'm going to break

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Along the way, I was able to learn and recognize some of the tactics and techniques that are crucial to brands that scale versus brands that fade away. So in this video, I'm going to break down the lessons that I've learned along my career so you can avoid the mistakes that I made and apply the strategies that actually work.

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competing in bodybuilding and I started to recognize a massive Gap in the fitness industry in the quality of online video content that was being produced I used to spend so much of my free time watching training videos with

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This whole journey started when I was 15 years old. I was really into powerlifting. My dad was competing in bodybuilding, and I started to recognize a massive gap in the fitness industry in the quality of online video content that was being produced. I used to spend so much of my free time watching training videos with Ronnie Coleman, Stan Efferding, Flex Lewis, all these different individuals that I really admired and looked up to.

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got to be something more and so I felt like this is my opportunity to pursue my career rewinding back about a year prior I was volunteering at my church working in the video production department and the head of video at that church with

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And while I got a lot of utility out of watching those videos, the video production side of me felt like there's got to be something more. So I felt like this is my opportunity to pursue my career.

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money like a full-time income on YouTube talking about the Smurfs Smurf it up and referencing if you have a passion build your business around the thing you love the most because then you'll work hardest at it but I felt

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Rewinding back about a year prior, I was volunteering at my church, working in the video production department. The head of video at that church, Sean Kel, gave me the book *Crush It* by Gary Vaynerchuk. I read that book. It was actually the only book that I read in high school. I remember Gary was talking about how people would make money, like a full-time income, on YouTube talking about the Smurfs. Smurf it up. And referencing, if you have a passion, build your business around the thing you love the most, because then you'll work hardest at it.

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actually as a career fast forward a year I was filming training videos at the local gym with my dad right just started simple then I started filming with with other local bodybuilders that were a little bit bigger and slowly started to

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But I felt like if people can do that with the Smurfs, I could definitely do something similar with bodybuilding and powerlifting. And so it gave me the confidence to be able to pursue this endeavor, not just as a hobby, but actually as a career.

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advantage of the opportunity that I had I had these guest posers that didn't live in my area they were big namers in the industry and I had access to them somewhat and so uh being an audacious 50 18-year-old with zero fear and probably

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Fast forward a year. I was filming training videos at the local gym with my dad. Just started simple. Then I started filming with other local bodybuilders that were a little bit bigger, and slowly started to build a base in the Northwest region. Being that my dad competed and knew a lot of people in the space, I was able to hang backstage a lot of times.

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I do think it kind of sucks and I think that it could be a lot better would you be willing to give me the opportunity to potentially film with you and if you like what I produce just off the next 3

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When I was backstage, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity that I had. I had these guest posers that didn't live in my area. They were big names in the industry, and I had access to them somewhat. And so, being an audacious 15-, 16-, 17-, 18-year-old with zero fear and probably more ignorance than anything, definitely more ignorance than confidence, I would approach these bodybuilders backstage when they were guest posing. I would tell them, "Hey, I think your physique is great. Clearly you work really hard. I love watching your video content. However, I do think it kind of sucks, and I think that it could be a lot better. Would you be willing to give me the opportunity to potentially film with you? And if you like what I produce, just off the next three hours that I can film some behind-the-scenes content, maybe we could work together."

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Olympia Champion James Flex Lewis and he's backstage pumping up and I again as a 15-year-old I'm holding my camera in hand you know my heart's racing and everything but I decided to push through that and I walked up to him and I told

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This worked unbelievably well. At the Washington State Iron Man one year, there was a guest poser by the name of Flex Lewis, the greatest 212-pound Olympia champion, James "Flex" Lewis. He's backstage pumping up, and I, again as a 15-year-old, am holding my camera in hand. My heart's racing and everything, but I decided to push through that. I walked up to him and I told him how much I admired what he does. I admire the amount of work and dedication that he's put into his craft. And then I told him I thought his videos kind of sucked, and that I thought I could maybe do something better. So I offered to vlog with him, basically behind the scenes of him backstage, him on stage doing the guest pose.

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something better and so I offered to Vlog with him basically behind the scenes of him backstage him on stage doing the guest posy he said yes I immediately took action when he said yes I made sure to be a fly on the wall so

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He said yes. I immediately took action. When he said yes, I made sure to be a fly on the wall, so not be too invasive, but also ask him proper questions, get some engagement, and show that I was a different style of videographer than the other videographers that had occupied the fitness space at that time. I did a 24-hour turnaround. I tried to execute as fast as possible, and the reason why is because I thought that speed to value was really important. The sooner that they see this product, the sooner that they will get value out of it, and the higher the likelihood there is of them saying yes to future work.

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[ __ ] fast as possible and the reason why is because I thought that the speed to Value was really important the sooner that they see this product the sooner that they will get value out of it and

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And that's what happened. This led to some of the best projects of my high school career. Obviously, Flex Lewis is one of the GOATs in the industry, so once you get somebody like that, everybody else kind of ends up wanting to work with you as well. And so I was able to leverage that portfolio piece to land so many other roles. Goal is to create the Mr. Olympia.

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get somebody like that everybody else kind of ends up wanting to work with you as well and so I was able to leverage that portfolio piece to land so many other roles goal is to create the M Olympia what is the lesson from this

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What is the lesson from this story? The lesson is: you have not because you ask not. You don't work with the clients that you want to work with because you're too afraid to ask. What is the worst thing that's going to happen? They're going to say no. And the fear that a lot of you have is, if they say no, I can never go back to them. But the real truth is, the moment they said no, they already forgot about you. So you could rebuild your portfolio for six to 12 months, go back, and you could land the same client.

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that a lot of you have is if they say no I can never go back to them but the real it is the moment they said no they already forgot about you so you could build rebuild your portfolio for 6 to 12

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Now, the crazy thing about life is that you continue to grow up and get older. I hit 18 and I had a panic attack, thinking, oh my God, I'm going to be moving out. And I realized that my life of doing freelance gig to freelance gig to freelance gig just wasn't going to work, because it was not consistent enough. And so at the time, I remember my cousin, Ruben Evans, was the director of video at Logos Bible Software. They are now called Faithlife, and he was the director of video there, and he gave me an incredible opportunity and hired me as an on-screen text editor for their mobile education course.

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moving out and I realized that my life of doing freelance gig from freelance gig to freelance gig just wasn't going to work because it was not consistent enough and so at the time I remember my cousin Ruben Evans was the director of

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I'm going to be very honest with you, and I want to make sure it's very clear: I was grateful for the opportunity, but it was [ __ ] boring. There were times where I'd be sitting at my desk editing and I'd be falling asleep. I was doing everything I [ __ ] could to move to any other area of the department, ideally to the marketing side, where I was working on maybe a little bit cooler content, commercials, original content, all of that. I was way more excited about it.

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very honest with you and I want to make sure it's very clear I was grateful for the opportunity but it was [ __ ] boring like I was literally there was times where I'd be sitting at my desk

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The way that I went about trying to make that happen is, every opportunity that came up, I said yes to. In the early days, say yes more than you say no. When Joshua Gray, the director of photography, asked me to come on a shoot and carry the lights and hold his lenses for him, I said yes. When Fred Sprinkle, the lead motion graphics artist, asked me to help him out by learning After Effects and animating the software in 3D space, I said yes. No matter how great or how shitty it was, I said yes. And my goal with this was one, to show that I'm down for whatever, I'm a team player, I'll take on whatever nobody else wants to do. But also, I wanted to learn.

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content commercials original content all of that I was way more excited about it the way that I went about trying to make that happen is every opportunity that came up I said yes to in the early days say yes more than you say no when Joshua

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I had this inherent belief in me that one day I would be managing a team, and part of that team would be a team of creatives. And so I felt if I were to learn, even at a 101 level, all the different roles and functions that make up a creative team, then one day when I'm leading one, I'll be able to actually speak the language with an audio engineer. I want to be able to talk to them in an educated way. With a designer, I want them to know that, like, I get at a certain level what they're working on, because ultimately we all know that one manager we've had that talks to us like they think they know what our job actually entails but have no [ __ ] clue in the world. And I just knew I never wanted to be that leader.

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animating the software in 3D space I said yes no matter how great or how shitty it was I said yes and my goal with this was one to show that I'm down for whatever I'm a team player I'll take

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So, back to Logos. I worked from Logos mobile education over to the marketing department as an assistant editor. They moved me up to editor. I got prom

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and so I felt if I were to learn learn even at a 101 level all the different roles and functions that make up a creative team then one day when I'm leading one I'll be able to actually speak the language with an audio

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engineer I want to be able to talk to them in an educated way with a designer I want them to know that like I get at a certain level what they're working on because ultimately we all know that one

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manager that we've had that talks to us like they think they know what our job actually entails but have no [ __ ] clue in the world and I just knew I never wanted to be that leader so back

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to logos I worked from logos mobile education over to the marketing department as an assistant editor they moved me up to editor I got promoted there and there came a time where the lead editor that was on the team he got

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an amazing opportunity to go work with a very big organization and so he moved on to that opportunity and that left the lead editor role vacant I was promoted to lead editor and I was loving it we were making amazing commercials but as

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any ambitious creative individual gets I started to get a little bit fatigued and bored with what I was making and I took that energy and instead of complaining and feeling sorry for myself I utilize that to go build something

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outside and that was in the Cannabis space now mind you this was within the first year of cannabis being legalized for recreational use in Washington but at the time it was brand new it was the Wild Wild West I think Washington was

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the second or third state to legalize so there wasn't even certainty if this was going to be a money printing industry and when I signed these two clients on I had literally tripled my income and I was a big shot I thought I had [ __ ]

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made it so much so that I hired three of my buddies to help me out with some of the projects on there at like kind of like a part-time probably 5 hours a week kind of thing so nothing crazy we were

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creating amazing work we were literally the first cannabis company to do a holiday cannabis campaign on Facebook and then one day the client had to cut our budget in half half literally overnight there was no warning all of a

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sudden I was met with a very tough scenario I had to go and fire these three buddies of mine that I had hired there was a lesson that I extracted from this time in my life that I will carry

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with me to the Grave never stop getting clients you land a gig and you put all you can into the gig you're focusing so hardcore on it and then the gig ends and you have to find the next one and you

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embark on a one or two month journey of trying to find the next client well that doesn't [ __ ] work right like that's one to two months of no income and so what happened was once my monthly budget

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went in half I couldn't afford the three buddies and I could barely afford my cost of living at that point and I realized that I had royally [ __ ] up because I had not been working on acquiring the next customer even if

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you're at full capacity start [ __ ] building a weit list have something on the back burner ready I almost think of it like develop a minor league team so that you can pull them up into the major

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leagues if somebody gets injured if one of your major clients if you have you know less than three like if one of them goes you're [ __ ] but if you have a wait list and one of them goes ah you

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just bring one up from the minor leagues into the major leagues but because I did not do that I had to go to some of my best friends and fire them and it [ __ ] sucked I will never do this

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again so the big takeaway is never stop getting new clients because ultimately every customer every client every partnership has an expiration date and so at some point even the best clients they will take things inhouse they'll go a different direction they won't be

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working with you forever so if you're not working on getting the next clients you're not working on building out a business you're just going from side project to side project now around the same time I had actually stopped

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consuming Gary vaynerchuk's content I started listening to what he was actually saying which was stop watching me and go do you like how many more motivational books do you need and then you know this this whole thing happened

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and I was in this kind of down state and I remember getting a text from one of my best friends Jordan vmore and it was a screenshot of Gary's Instagram story and on that story post he was talking about

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how he was hiring creatives he was hiring videographers and that if you're interested in the role to email David Rock and when he sent the screenshot he said you should apply he's never [ __ ] said anything like that to me ever I've

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known this dude since I was like 12 years old and so when I got the text I was like man for some reason it just stood out to me and so I immediately acted I grabbed my phone and I filmed a

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video for David Rock what's up D rock my name is cayb bston and I wanted to make this quick video introducing myself I just saw Gary V's post on his Instagram story about uh you guys looking for editors and video people in general and

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so I'm actually here working on a project right now eating some chicken nuggets barbecue sauce ketchup got my lacroy and I sent that email right away to David and didn't hear back and so then I sent another email uh with

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another video hey dck this is my second attempt at getting a phone call with you drock I know you're busy as [ __ ] there was many different emails that I I sent and ultimately I was offered two

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different opportunities the first one was Vayner Talent now Vayner Talent was essentially like an agency model of Team Gary taking everything that team Gary did for Gary ve and offering it as a package for external clients to help

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grow their personal brand the other opportunity was purewow which is a women's lifestyle publisher that was targeting women 35 to 45 in the midwest complete opposite of who I am as a person but I also know that that demo is

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some of the biggest decision-making power in America when it comes to CBG purchases a very good audience to know how to communicate to and I loved the idea of working in environment with more women and having a woman boss I had only

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worked for men previous to this and so so I felt like this was going to be an incredible opportunity for me to learn a lot and so I accepted the role at purewow and 2 weeks later literally two

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weeks later I moved from Bellingham Washington to Brooklyn New York and in moving out there I had a very specific goal in mind I wanted to build my internal brand within the organization of Caleb can do it I wanted

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to be Dependable I wanted to be the guy that they knew they could give anything to and they didn't have to worry about it happening I wanted to be the go-to guy and so the lesson from this phase of

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my career is become Dependable if you build that brand you're going to get so much more opportunity within an organization when I was given a project with a ton of Direction and a lot of clarity I said yes when I was giving

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projects with no direction and no Clarity I said yes when I was giving projects like a photo shoot with Priyanka Chopra I also said yes that one was a little bit easier to say yes to and Caleb can do it started to spread

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which led to me getting more shitty projects but shitty projects I could prove myself on and reinforce the Caleb can do it brand within the organization that ultimately led to me getting cooler opportunities I'd say yes execute and

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then get more cool opportunities this culminated in probably my favorite project at purewow which was working on a huge sponsorship pitch to a massive Fortune 100 conglomerate that owns [ __ ] every brand that you use day in

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and day out I won't mention the name but I think you know what the [ __ ] talking about and for that pitch purewow needed to have a reel to show previous sponsored content that we had made with

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previous sponsors and showing The Impressions and conversions that were led to that how many Impressions did we get on our content and how many leads did that drive to the sponsor's website and so we had to put all of that

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together but the conversation very quickly went to who's going to do this everyone has their normal day-to-day job this was something in addition to it my amazing manager at the time not Rush she heard about this and she came to me and

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she said hey do you want to take this on this would be in addition to your day-to-day work I was making content for social this would be something that you'd have to do in addition to that and I was like [ __ ] yes I would love to do

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this the cool thing was is that this gave me a direct line of access and communication to the editor and chief Mary Kate the director of sales Kevin stter and the CEO Ryan Harwood and so I was coordinating back and forth with

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them multiple times every single day we were refining the script iterating on the visuals I even recorded the voiceover myself and so they were giving me notes on different areas that I could emphasize Etc and so what this allowed

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me to do is truly prove Caleb can do it on the highest level this was the biggest pitch of the Year this was basically one of probably three massive sponsorship deals that would fund a lot of what purewow would do that year I'm

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just going to tell it to you straight I [ __ ] murdered that [ __ ] I executed hardcore on it what this led to was was Ryan Harwood and Mary Kate having the strongest impression that I was

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dedicated to the team and was willing to do whatever it took to move the needle forward for us now I want to kind of rewind to the very beginning of pure wow and I think that this next lesson is

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such a powerful one focus on the opportunity in front of you and eliminate the distractions now as you probably know by now I was a big Gary fan I had read his book I'm all of a sudden working for one of his companies

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and so when I started at perw about a month into it I had the amazing opportunity to have one of Gary's famous five-minute meetings I went into his office sat down we talked about you know a couple of different things and towards

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the end of the meeting he did something that was wild it blew my mind want me to give you another piece of advice I would love it up here from 6:00 to 10: p.m. my team lives here and most of the rest of

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the building goes home yeah you should come out here and like jam with them at times I remember feeling so honored and I left the meeting called my sister Victory immediately and was like holy [ __ ] Gary just invited me to hang out

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with the team what the [ __ ] is this a month month and a half ago I was in Bellingham Washington maybe listening to a Gary podcast and now I'm [ __ ] being invited by him the man himself to hang

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out with his team like what on Earth this is crazy and then I remember on the subway ride home I was really thinking about it and for whatever reason this biblical principle that I grew up with really like came to the front of my head

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I'm going to butcher I I don't remember the exact verse but it's something to the effect of being a good Steward with what you're given I was hired to work at purewell and to help build out the social content for purewell not team

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Gary and so this is where I want to tell you kind of the tale of two boys there was an individual that was hired at pwow at the same exact time as me we'll call him Derek that's not his actual name and

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to be very clear I love Derek Derek is [ __ ] phenomenal he does incredible work I still talk to him here and there to this day Derek and I were both fans of Gary and we both probably in our

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heads or in at least in the back of our heads had Ambitions of being on team Gary and working closely with Gary vaynerchuk we just took two very different approaches Gary invited me to come upstairs and hang out with the team

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and chop it up after hours right but I actually decided to focus solely on PW so if I was going to work 5 to 9 I was going to work on purewow content Dereck on the other hand chose to spend all of

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the 5 to n hours hanging out with Team Gary nothing wrong with that but ultimately I felt like if I was a good Steward with what I was given and [ __ ] murdered it with my pure wow

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work people would talk and my name would Bubble Up and eventually work its way up to Gary and he would hear about the great work that I was doing and how Dependable I was and then maybe that would lead to an outcome that I had

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desired and so 9 months into my time at pwow they tapped me on the shoulder pulled me into a conference room and basically said we don't know what the timeline is going to look like we don't know how the transition will be but if

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you're down we would like to pull you on to team Gary and of course I was like [ __ ] yes I'm down like I I'll do it whenever like if you need me to do both jobs I'll do both jobs I'll figure it

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out and Derek was never pulled on to team G and I think there's a real lesson to be taken from this you will gain so much more by prioritizing and focusing on the opportunity in front of you rather than jumping from opportunity to

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opportunity to opportunity I didn't want the brand of Caleb can do it to stop with perw and for Gary I wanted to take that to a whole another extreme to be very clear Gary never asked us as videographers to do any of this I just

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wanted to take this on and make his life easier I'm going to give you guys kind of the behind the-scenes scoop of what it's like to be a videographer for Gary Vee if we're walking through the airport I'm trying to wheel his luggage a lot of

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times fans would know that he was going to be flying into the airport and so they'd be waiting with gifts for him and so whenever somebody would hand him a gift he would then immediately hand it to me or to whoever the videographer was

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so we're rolling the suitcase we got a gift under our shoulder right operating the camera and then carrying maybe a latte and a scone for him and then also texting and coordinating with the executive assistant team figuring out

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what the next call he needed to be on coordinating when the driver was going to show up to pick us up all these different Logistics that we were managing and I always wanted to be one step ahead of Gary right I always wanted

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to see and do my best to understand what he was going to need and solve that problem before it came up so if I saw him you know on a call starting to look around I typically assumed oh he's

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looking for a charger so then I would give him a charger or I would start to pay attention to if his mouth started sounding dry when he was talking I would hand him a water being available kind of

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24/7 I mean there was a period of my life where I would get texts at 1:00 a.m. 2: a.m. 4:00 a.m. requesting deliverables checking in on an edit sometimes informing me that I needed to book a flight for the next day I was

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[ __ ] down and so if you're watching this and you're young and flexible or old and flexible in your career and willing to do whatever it takes [ __ ] be there be available 24/7 it's brutal truly truly brutal I mean I worked my

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face off during this season so much so that I actually ended up being hospitalized but I actually believe that if your Ambitions are big there are seasons in our life and in our career where it is worth the sacrifice and

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worth making yourself available all the time I mean I remember on a lot of these trips we would be filming from 8:00 a.m.

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until 11:00 p.m. hop on a flight and guess what I was doing on the flight not sleeping I was editing Clips so that we landed Gary had something to post on Instagram I was always trying to overd deliver and bring extreme value to

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somebody who brought a ton of value to my life and the next thing I want to emphasize was that I was really always trying to enable him to deliver the best content now with Gary he doesn't give a

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[ __ ] what environment he's in like he doesn't need some great space that's conducive for him to be able to communicate he can [ __ ] deliver no matter what's going on but the way that I would enable him to capture the best

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content is my follow-up questions there's literally multiple references in Daily V's where Gary talks about how great I was at at followup questions and I'm not saying that to brag I'm saying that to prove the point that's why I

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like when Caleb does dab CU he's asking me better questions than dck and Jason I always did my best to be Curious George I always wanted to find out why he said what he said what does he mean by that

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not take what he said at face value I always tried to apply kind of like a skeptic frame a lot of people in the comments on any post are going to be skeptical and push back and I spend a

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lot of time consuming those comments and by doing so I understood what the Skeptics would push back on and so instead of just taking what he said at face value I tried to respond to him in real time just like the Skeptics would

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in the comments one of the follow-up questions that actually I asked him was when he was really pushing LinkedIn and Tik Tok I remember asking him why are you advocating for people to be on so many different platforms he responded by

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saying don't be romantic about the platform just because you already have an audience on Instagram doesn't mean you shouldn't move over to Tik Tok and start to build over there and I really think that this point was proven over

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this last couple months right all the talk around the Tik Tok band and as of January 29th it's just been kicked down the Curve there's not a decision that's been made we have no idea if it's going to be here or not I'll tell you this

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much that 12-hour period when Tik Tok was no longer available and not usable the people that were romantic about Tik Tok as their platform [ __ ] panicked especially the ones whose income was purely based off of their Tik Tok

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following a lot of people had built their following and Their audience on Tik Tok because that was a platform that it was easy to get discovered and they got really good at making content that the platform preferred and the moment

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that they started to pop instead of diversifying and building Their audience on Instagram on LinkedIn on YouTube they just doubl down on Tik Tok but here's the thing even if it's not a platform being banned by the US government the

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reality is is these platforms are constantly evolving the algorithms change all the time and what's even crazier is the algorithms change differently for us Trevor might get an update before I do and so he's experiencing Instagram differently than

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I am they roll these different features and changes out progressively to different groups if you have all your eggs in one basket just like an investor would never advise you to invest everything into one investment opportunity you want to diversify your

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portfolio I truly believe it's the exact same thing with the platforms and so what you're able to do in an omni Channel approach is WEA the various storms that these platforms will introduce and they will introduce them there will be another update on

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Instagram and all of a sudden nobody is seeing your [ __ ] kind of sucks if Instagram is the only source of leads that you have and so stop being romantic about the platform just because you've built a following on one and understood

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how to create content on that one channel doesn't mean that you shouldn't go over to the next Channel learn it and build your audience there so here's a personal example for you if you were to look at my social profiles across all

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the different platforms you would notice that there is one platform that I have a significantly larger following on than any of the others it's Instagram 69,000 followers everywhere else is like probably sub 3,000 you would would probably naturally assume yeah Caleb's

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going to make Instagram content and lean into the channel where he has the most traction not so much I actually am going to be prioritizing four different platforms this year the four platforms that we are going to prioritize are

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LinkedIn YouTube Instagram and podcast this will diversify my lead flow and not make me dependent on one platform so if Instagram is up one month and down the next I don't give a [ __ ] because I have

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the other platforms that are also generating leads for my business now an easy trap I could fall into in this content creation Journey now that I'm going from behind the scenes to in front of the camera and the trap is trying to

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make art rather than content but a huge lesson that I got from Gary that I will carry with me to the [ __ ] grave is don't make art for Art's Sake make creative that converts I was that

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[ __ ] creative that was always trying to pitch some beautiful story with these cinematic shots and literally the whole goal if I'm being very very honest with you was to get a Vimeo staff pick now some of you know what the [ __ ] I'm

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talking about 99% of you won't know it's okay look it up and I literally pitched commercials to clients with that goal in mind not with sales in mind and I remember when I started working for Gary he in the nicest way possible really

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beat that out of me and I'm so grateful for it because that is not what a [ __ ] business is looking for there's probably some businesses out there wanting art but 99.9% of businesses are making content online to increase sales

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and that is it and so it was incredibly selfish of me and no wonder why I wasn't gaining much traction you'd work with a client make one video they' post it didn't lead to any sales and so why

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would they hire you again instead of trying to get your clients to foot the bill for your art use your side time use your excess time build passion projects around your art to get your creative nut off now as you can imagine in doing

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these 16-hour days and editing so much footage of Gary I love the man and I never will not love the man but I got to a point where I was kind of like gee I don't know if I can hear you in my

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headphones any longer but I mean it was a little real I was I was starting to get to the point where I was like okay I think I've gotten to the point where there's not much more I can crack on

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team Gary and I also was super interested in the agency side of things with Vayner media so were talking and he was like 100% supportive of me doing that and so I transition over to vayer media and then a character by the name

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of John Troutman trouty uh reached out to me now some context to fill you in on Gary had been building this company called empathy wines it was his wine brand that he had put together and co-founded with John and Nate Jonathan

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Troutman Nate sherat and a company called constellation Brands bought empathy wines they bought empathy because it was a very strong brand he had built a lot of loyalty with the audience but it was also a direct to Consumer wine brand to my knowledge

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there wasn't really any liquor brands that were doing direct to Consumer constellation Brands owns a ton of big brands in the space they own Kim Crawford Robert mandavi Corona Modello sedka and so the idea was we'll build a

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directed consumer team and then we'll run all Our Brands through it and so trouty John uh reached out to me and asked me if I was interested in moving to that team I have my conversation with Gary and basically he fully supported it

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he was like I think you should do it I think it makes a lot of sense now just so you know you're going to [ __ ] hate it because it's going to be slow and arduous it's a massive Corporation

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there's politics things don't move at the lightning speed that they do on team Gary for example but I think you're going to learn a lot about how big corporate works and you'll learn if this is kind of the direction you want to

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take your career or if you like more of the startup environment but it was an amazing opportunity and to be very transparent with you it was actually an opportunity not just for my career but for my personal life I just come off the back

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of working you know 80 90 sometimes upwards of 100 hour weeks relentlessly focusing on my pursuit of my career and so during this time I transitioned from those 80 to 90 hour weeks to really like 40 45 hour weeks at constellation brand

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and so this was an opportunity in my life where I was able to reconnect with family and friends I moved out to Salem Oregon lived with my mom for a couple of months that was incredible eventually moved back up to Portland with my buddy

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Jordan and we were living in Portland I mean life was great I was really enjoying it I was learning the importance of email campaigns I was the character that thought it's all about social media email's dead well that was

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a [ __ ] [ __ ] like email [ __ ] converts to this day very powerfully it was our number one channel for selling wine direct to Consumer but interestingly enough number two was pin and I learned the power of Pinterest I

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think a lot of people underestimate that as a platform but we sold a lot of [ __ ] wine on Pinterest probably 9 to 12 months into it I started feeling like I wasn't being pushed and I did feel

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like there was many different skills and experiences that I had and had developed that were not being utilized and that caused me to start to feel like I was in a season of stagnation we're supposed to own our career if we're not being

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challenged in our place of work it's not our boss's fault and so for me uh the opportunity didn't look like jumping to another job the opportunity looked like building a side passion project or a side business my best friend and I

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Jordan vmore we were living in Portland together and we built a little side project called Wild Media the whole goal was to start creating modern relevant content for the new generation of Harley-Davidson Riders Harley-Davidson's uh advertising though incredible I think

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they're one of the greatest brands in American history I'll say it they're the greatest brand in American history but their advertising was um a little old school I'll say they were very much geared towards the hell yeah brother

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kind of Rider that was a great narrative and obviously built an incredible brand but that didn't resonate with the new demographic that was buying Harley-Davidson these were individuals that were customizing their bikes changing how they looked increasing their performance these are guys that

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are taking an 850 lb bagger and going 90 mph doing a wheelie down the highway like this was a completely different audience and so we built Wild Media to service that community and the whole goal was really honestly to pursue some

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fun projects and to cover the cost of what was going to be the most expensive customization project of my life I had a Harley-Davidson Road King and everything that I wanted to doe to it and change was north of 40 Grand I didn't have that

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kind of money and so I kind of took a page out of the book from when I was doing Instagram like influencer [ __ ] and I would exchange work for a free product and Jordan and I were like we could

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probably do the same thing with Wild Media and we did I built out my whole Road King off of trads in addition to that we started picking up actual client work where we were getting paid on top of the free gear this ended up

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reigniting my passion I mean I'm talking we're going from working 8 hours a day back to the 15 16 hours a day I would get done with my constellation work and immed mediately hop over to Wild Media I'd be up until like 3:00 a.m. working

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on an edit or working on a pitch for a potential client ultimately we took this really far so far that we determined that Portland Oregon was no longer the right place to be living for this endeavor it's not as safe and it's not

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very conducive to be filming motorcycle content in the rain all the time and so what we were looking for is somewhere that was going to be sunnier and allow us to film year round we can't afford La well we can afford Vegas about 3 weeks

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after having the conversation with Jordan and having the idea I landed in an apartment in Las Vegas and moved here literally moved here just purely to ride my Harley-Davidson and film more wild media content but if you've noticed

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there's a theme throughout this video doing and being in action creates momentum and momentum brings opportunity in moving to Las Vegas I remember talking to my girlfriend cat and she was like why Las Vegas I remember saying to

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her babe I'm going to move to Vegas and a month or two in a crazy opportunity is going to pop up I don't know what it looks like I have no idea what it's going to be but it's going to be

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something big and I'm going to act on it and so I packed up all my [ __ ] loaded it up in the truck and moved down to Las Vegas and sure enough one month into living in Las Vegas I get a text from a

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really good friend and former colleague of mine Jason Marina we worked together on team Gary but before before I say what that text is let me give you a little bit of backstory Jason's first client and Mentor immediately texted

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Jason and asked Jason hey there's these two characters they're looking for their dck they're located in Las Vegas Nevada do you know anybody that might be interested or might be a good fit for this and Jason immediately said holy

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[ __ ] dude Caleb just moved to Vegas like a month ago fast forward to when Jason sent me the text hey dude there's this couple they want their dck and I actually think they're serious this is something that's worth pursuing don't

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ignore it I said yes I I would love to talk to them and so their EA at the time reached out scheduled uh our first conversation and I remember like it was yesterday we very quickly went from this

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being about hiring a dck to this being bigger we're not looking to have somebody follow them and just capture content we're looking to build a team and a Content creation infrastructure around them and so obviously the rest is

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kind of history with that story I I accepted the offer and I think such a huge lesson from this season this phase of my career is always be working on something you're proud of if it's not the 9 to5 focus on the 5 to9 build

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something on the side that you are proud of and that you can be in the action and have the momentum that builds up so that you have the confidence confidence to walk around knowing you're doing cool [ __ ] now I believe the most powerful

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Brands start with a powerful team and a powerful team starts with a powerful hiring process now hiring is an entire separate video that I'm going to make there's a lot that I can discuss about that I'm just going to really quick

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touch at a high level uh and then we're going to move on to training the team for hiring I recommend hiring Specialists and in the beginning Specialists that are willing to do [ __ ] outside of their specialty because

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that's what you need if you're building a team of two they can't just focus on one core function they're going to have to fulfill multiple different roles number two build the team gradually don't scale too fast what you want to do

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is ensure that you are bringing people in to solve problems and the only way you're going to know if there's a problem is if you stress test it meaning you're going to need some time you also want to make sure that you're building

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the team around the needs right the deficits that are currently existing and so if you're building a team for someone reverse engineer what their skills and preferences are and then build the team around those gaps that exist number

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three there's way too much more for me to talk about so I'm actually going to save the rest of this for another video if this is something that you guys would be interested in hearing really in depth go ahead and drop a comment or DM me on

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Instagram now as you're building the team gradually I recommend building out a training Cadence make it formal create opportunities for for informal training as well but I truly believe in making it formalized so that you know it's going

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to happen and it starts with being a mentor to your team it starts by finding out what is their goal what are they wanting to accomplish in their career every interview that I conducted for anybody on my team I made sure to ask

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them one very clear question what are you trying to accomplish in your career my whole goal and I would share this with them in asking that question is I want to understand where you are going so that I can give you the most amount

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of opportunities to get closer to that desired outcome my whole goal with my team was everybody feels like this is the greatest Choice they've ever made in their career they're able to compress what a lot of people would accomplish in

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10 years in 2 years in addition to understanding where they want to go do regular check-ins make sure that you're giving them opportunities that move them closer make sure that they are actually being pushed and challenged make sure

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that they are growing a lot of times on teams like this individuals are working on that team team with growth in mind the moment that growth stops they're going to leave and thirdly show them that you give a [ __ ] take note of when

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they say that they like things if they say that they're obsessed with Legos [ __ ] take note of that and give them a [ __ ] gift with Legos for their birthday if they're obsessed with going to EDM shows [ __ ] buy them some

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concert tickets for fun if they're sick send them a [ __ ] cold pressed juice or some soup or if the budgets are really tight and you can't afford to do that [ __ ] send him a nice video

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message over slack and say like hey here are my natural remedies that I like to follow when I'm feeling sick I hope you feel better it's amazing the Loyalty that you will Breed by caring and investing in your team they will match

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that energy and they will go to bat for you I can't tell you how many times that I had to ask different members of my team on a Friday night at like 8:00 p.m.

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to make a revision on a video we were dropping the next morning and I can't think of one time or they ever gave me Flack for it because I think one they knew I would never ask them to do

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something I wasn't willing or hadn't previously done in my career myself number two they knew that I actually gave a [ __ ] about them and so they knew if I'm asking them to do this on a Friday night it must be important I'm

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not going to take away from their personal lives with their partner or with their family right that was never my goal and so if I was making this ask it was serious and they met me with that same energy as powerful as it is to be a

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mentor to them you also want to create autonomous individuals you want to create an ownership mindset there's a lot of individuals that operate teams that really lean heavily into Sops and checklists and Sops and checklists are [ __ ] phenomenal they ensure quality

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control they ensure consistency they're very important but if you create a checklist Army you're creating a team of individuals who can't think for themselves and so when a problem comes up that isn't addressed in the SOP or the checklist they crumble on the other

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hand I want to build an environment of ownership of first principal thinking the shares with the team what the values and priorities are within our team and how we go about solving problems give them the tools to fish don't fish for

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them when you do this you create a team that scales your brand for you and like I said training is super important but the training doesn't always have to be from you the team lead I actually rarely conducted any trainings the last year on

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my team I didn't run any of the trainings I had the team do a training every month I had a different member of the team present a training on a different area that they were obsessed with so individuals who loved Motion

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Graphics they did a training on how to use after effects to increase engagement in a YouTube video somebody who's obsessed with sound design did a whole presentation on how to improve the sound quality and improve engagement and retention based on utilizing sound the

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beautiful thing in doing this is one you give them the opportunity to learn more we all know you learn a ton by teaching so giving them the opportunity to teach allows them to have the opportunity to learn number two you're going to find

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out some interesting things about your team you will quickly learn oh [ __ ] there's this skill or Obsession they have that I didn't know about and we weren't utilizing I can't tell you how many different members of my team would

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do a presentation on a skill they had that I had no clue existed and all of a sudden we were aware of it and we started tapping into that skill not only did that provide provide more value to

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the team and improve the content they felt more fulfilled and utilized within the team and were growing in more areas than one now that covers the formal version of training but there's also the informal side of training and what that

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looks like is when you're walking down the hallway or walking into the office and one of your editors asks you a question that is a training opportunity now what I would encourage you to do is not solve the problem for them again we

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want to create an ownership mindset and autonomous individuals that are capable of acting without somebody else giving them the exact direction of what to do or solving the problems for them what I would encourage you to do is ask leading

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questions that help them discover the answer or the solution to their problem what you'll find in doing this is you get individuals that start to solve their own problems which increases efficiency of the team and the other thing you find is they start helping

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each other solve problem s the byproduct of all of this is their confidence level goes up and so not only are they more capable in solving problems their ideation improves their confidence in pitching a new idea improves it will

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change the way that your team operates now as much as the team is a massive driver in scaling a brand it also comes down to the decisions that you choose to make and honestly I haven't heard many people talk about this so I'm very

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excited to cover it and I think this will be very valuable for each and every one of you watching this because this applies to the public figure who's building their brand in public this also applies to the employee wanting to build

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their brand within an organization and the lesson is that brand is just as much about what you choose not to do as what you choose to do a lot of people focus on the todos how I should go about

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building my brand the things that I need to do and what a lot of people don't focus on is the things that you shouldn't do the things that you should say no to and I think to help paint this

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picture I would love to share with you my definition of branding and brand branding is a pairing of things good branding is an intentional pairing of relevant things done consistently brand is when the audience inherently Associates the two things so for example

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if I'm using myself and I'm wanting to deliberately pair myself with Harley-Davidson right I wear Harley t-shirts all the time I have multiple Harley's I'm ESS right branding is pairing things okay so that would just be me pairing myself with random

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motorcycles good branding is an intentional pairing of relevant things done consistently so the intentionality is me wearing a Harley shirt a relevant thing and if I do it consistently then brand is when the audience inherently Associates the two

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so when I cons consistently wear Harley-Davidson merch and I am intentionally pairing myself consistently eventually what occurs is that the audience Associates me and Harley-Davidson and that's when brand occurs so you have the action of branding or good branding and then you

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have the byproduct of good branding which is brand now in the good branding definition we say an intentional pairing of relevant things done consistently intentional doesn't imply good or bad it's not a statement of morality or value so if we believe that to be true

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you could intentionally pair yourself with not good things consistently and if you do that consistently then what will actually end up happening is the audience will inherently associate you with the thing that's not good but that you intentionally paired yourself with

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consistently here's an example in the online content Creator space especially in the business Niche there are a lot of scammy untrustworthy characters they're saying weird [ __ ] in their content and they're selling very questionable products online a lot of these

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individuals have a podcast and they invite people on to their podcast if you go on to these people's podcasts enough time an intentional pairing of relevant things done consistently you and we'll call him the scam artist if you show up

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and pair yourself with the scam artists of the world consistently enough times the unfortunate byproduct is the audience will draw the association between you and the scam artist so you are essentially a scam artist even if you're business and your offers are

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completely legitimate so as much as you want to pair yourself with the right things very good very much encourage you do that also please be cognizant of not intentionally or unintentionally pairing yourself with the wrong things so I would encourage you be intentional

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with your pairings so you draw the associations you want and I think one of the best associations that your audience can make with you is giving value Gary proved this years ago but what I have done over the last three years really

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truly cemented this in my mind if you give give and give to your audience you will create inbound like you could never have imagined for context in my previous role we were generating the majority of our lead needs purely off of the back of

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our high value organic content that we were providing for free walk with me here as we go a little bit subterraneous here and we're going to get a little deep for a second on educational content I believe when you are creating

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educational content all you are actually doing is scaling trust if you're making educational content it is my recommendation that the majority of what you produce is case studies customer testimonials AKA share the [ __ ] wins you've had in your career what you end

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up doing is pairing yourself with the success outcomes that previous clients customers and employers you've worked for have had and over time what happens is you're intentionally pairing yourself with those success stories and eventually done consistently the audience draws the

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association brand between you and the those success outcomes those success stories and when that happens trust in what you have to say goes up and when trust in what you have to say goes up the audience goes from purely just

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listening to what you have to say to starting to act on it because if you're making educational content you're trying to change the way they act after they consume your content and so the way you change the way they act is you give them

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valuable nuggets takeaways that they can act on if they trust you they will then start to act on those valuable nuggets that you're giving over time they will act and then they will get their desired result and guess what starts to happen

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when that occurs consistently they no longer associate you with these success stories from people they don't know they now associate you with their success and this positions you in a completely different category than any of your competitors because if they start to

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associate you with their success their trust in what you have to say goes through the roof roof and when you do this consistently providing value useful content that they can put into practice immediately what happens is when you

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make your audience aware of an offer that you have they believe the offer is worth far more than what they have invested why because when they have watched your content taken the valuable takeaways acted on them and gotten their

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desired outcome guess what their investment was less than what they got because their investment in theory was time watching the content and then time executing the thing and so then you make them aware of the offer and they're like

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[ __ ] yeah of course I'm going to act on this I know it's going to be more valuable than what I'm investing in this product and so making content online I believe boils down to scaling trust so

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that takes me to the biggest lesson of all and I think rather than me trying to sum it up I'm actually going to share a quote from Steve Jobs that I think encapsulates this entire video and my career so far in one quote

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and hopefully encourages you wherever you are in your journey you can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future so for

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all the homies on a similar Journey right now I [ __ ] feel it all I have to say to you is keep it going it's not going to make sense and there's going to be plenty of times where you're going to

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doubt yourself you're going to question why the hell you're even doing this but all I can share with you is if you continue to bet on yourself choosing to bet on you above anybody else there's going to be one day where you're going

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to look up and realize oh this was all worth it and now it does make sense cuz it was ultimately leading to this moment

Topics:personal brandingvideo productioncontent creationbodybuildingGary VaynerchukFlex Lewisentrepreneurshipclient acquisitionportfolio buildingcreative leadership

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