Derek Videll is the Founder of a Social Media Consulting Firm called Social Bamboo. Derek is an experienced direct salesman turned online marketer that teaches B2C businesses how to run profitable Meta ads and increase their social media following.
Since launching Social Bamboo, Derek also began The Social Bamboo Podcast as a way to speak directly to entrepreneurs in the effort to better scale their social media prowess and convert consumers. On this episode, Derek and I talk about which social media platforms are the most lucrative, how to build an audience, how to deal with spam accounts, the value in podcasts, and much more.
What is Social Bamboo
Derek Videll: So Social Bamboo was started about four and a half years ago, but it wasn't called Social Bamboo at that time. It was started as Instagram marketing secrets podcast, which I started on a whim because I was driving around one day looking for an Instagram marketing podcast and I couldn't really find any that were staying consistent with episodes.
I think the one that was at the top had their last episode like six months before and they were, there's like seven total episodes and I was like, what is going on here? So I actually started it later that day and just started putting out episodes about how to set up your bio and hashtags. And started gaining an audience really quickly.
So I actually had no intention of turning it into a digital education company. But then once you start getting followers and people reaching out to you, you start figuring out other ways that you can help them and it's just evolved since then. So it switched to social bamboo when I was more looking to take on the social media marketing space as a whole, rather than just staying as Instagram marketing.
It's based off of fast and sustainable social media strategies. So bamboo is the fastest growing and one of the most sustainable plants there is. So that that's why I called it that. And because the domain was open, but the person who owns social bamboo, Instagram won't give it to me. They won't respond to my DM.
So I am social bamboo with an underscore at the end on Instagram. It has evolved to an education company that does, I used to try to do do it yourself services, but now I just do done with you. done for you services around Facebook and Instagram ad so businesses that want to learn it themselves.
I have a program that teaches it to them and then I can also do it for select companies mostly try to stick with the done with you because I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who are really trying to gain the skill set for themselves.
Unveiling the Differences in Marketing Strategies on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Beyond
Alex Bond: I've done some with people who are big on Facebook ads. But not just kind of the a la carte style. Is there much of a difference between marketing on Facebook versus Instagram or TikTok and YouTube, Twitter, the likes? How much of a difference is it between those platforms?
Derek Videll: Huge difference between all of those platforms. As far as just the paid ad side of things between Facebook and Instagram, it's not that much different. You set them up in the same place. You just say, do you want these to go on Facebook, Instagram, or both? So that's the cool thing about doing those style of ads. Otherwise, there's a lot of differences between all the different platforms.
You really have to reverse engineer it from what does someone do right before they buy my product and where do they go? So I think the question that is most commonly talked about is where does your audience hang out? But I don't think that's as good of a question because really everyone hangs out on all of them.
Like you never talk to someone like YouTube. I haven't got that yet. Like they all have all of them, but what do they do before they buy your product? So if it's more research question based, how do I run Instagram ads? I find more clients on YouTube and podcasts for that than me doing three tips on how to run ads and posting a reel about that and just catching someone in the middle of their day.
You really got to know, am I trying to do disruption marketing, push marketing and get on someone's feed and teach them about this product that they would never even think to research about? Or do I want to be more on the search end of things for my content?
Alex Bond: And what's usually the goal for people? I know, you know, I want to be more engaged on social media, but the goal is to build a social media following. Right. But is the end result after that to, you know, sell my products to these followers, or is it really, I'm marketing to 10,000 people, so their friends might at least see that and suggested posts and the algorithm. I mean, there's kind of a lot of different ways to think about it. So what's usually the goal of these people that you're working with?
Derek Videll: So if you think about the intention of the person that is seeing that content, so someone on YouTube that just typed in how to run Instagram ads and then finds my video, they're looking to learn how to do that right now. I convert people into customers from YouTube videos the day that they find me. I convert people who listen to my podcast a year after they find me, because they found me under the premise of, oh, let me find a social media show.
Oh, cool. This guy's good. And then they just listened to a ton of episodes. And eventually they're like, you know, I will invest in one of those paid programs. And then on Instagram. I don't really get a lot of sales from people that just find out about me that day. It's good to know that Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, most of these platforms, because the person's intention of being online that day was, let's be entertained.
They're so far away from buying that a lot of companies think They should be expecting a lot more sales from their Instagram. And I've talked to so many companies that let's say they do candles and they're like, yeah, we've been posting every day for three years. And we get less than 200 in sales a month from Instagram.
And that makes total sense to me. And I know they're so confused, but you're not catching the people at the right time. You're just posting a random reel about your candle. They might not even know that you sell them because it's just a tranquil post where you're showing yourself reading and that's what you want to create content around.
And then you have businesses that just post very promotional things on there, but their post goes nowhere. So that's why it's really not good for sales, except for people that are your past customers. And then maybe they watch your story and you can run a sale sometimes and that will work.
Or you're just always staying top of mind so that when they are ready to buy candles, you're at least in consideration, but they still have to now remember you, type in your Instagram account, go to that, go to your bio, see if you are running some kind of sale, or they could just go to Yankee Candle and buy it.
Or they're already at Target when they're in a shopping mode. Their intention when they get to Target is to buy things. And that's why a lot of these companies do a lot better when they're on Amazon or Etsy because the person's intent is to buy when they're in that state of mind.
And it's just so difficult to be like, Hey, I know you're looking to be entertaining right now, but here's my real. Using a trending audio and it's totally value based. And by the way, I sell these. And it's just so far away from the sales process that you can't really expect posting to be a marketing strategy for sales.
It's important to more see most Instagram or most social media efforts as brand awareness and staying top of mind with past customers. So the goal is you want all of the people who already buy from you to follow you on these platforms. That's how you'll actually get sales from Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. Otherwise it it's a long process. I've had people like, I always ask people when they call me, where did they find me from?
And I love it when they say, I saw one of your reels a while back. I love it when it's that, cause it's very rare, but most of the calls that I take that are actually looking to invest came from a YouTube video that day, because they were looking to learn about it that day. And that's why unless you know what does someone do right before they buy my product and then live there? If I wasn't on YouTube, I would be really pressed to be finding clients.
Rising and Falling: The Current Landscape of Social Media Platforms
Alex Bond: What social media platforms are trending the most upward and downward? You know, just from my knowledge and experience, I know Facebook ads is becoming harder and harder to actually garner a lot of attention from unless you're dumping thousands of dollars into it.
TikTok is having a weird political controversy right now. Twitter has its own verification algorithm, blue check mark policy thing. And you were actually, I saw on your Instagram recently talking about, you know, Instagram's check mark verification services.
Derek Videll: Yeah, that was satire by the way, did you pick up on that? Okay. I was like, I was trying to deliver the joke where people could get what I was like, I was like, I want them to not get that I'm joking until the very end. But yeah, I delivered that like eight times. And I was like, I think this one's the best one.
Alex Bond: So my question to you, Derek, is it seems like Instagram might be the only one out of those four that doesn't have some sort of major controversy. What are your opinions on what platforms are the best to utilize and the worst to utilize? Or hardest to utilize is a better question?
Derek Videll: Yeah. We've been at a stage of maturity for all the platforms for about the last two years. TikTok was the last one that actually had a, it's new, you'll get a ton of views just going over there at all. You'll get a ton of followers just posting it all.
I went viral twice in 2020 and gained 17K followers from it. Just doing a random ass trend. And it wasn't related to my business, unfortunately. So I actually did start a new account because those are just random people, but you could just do a trend and get a ton of views.
And more importantly, a lot of them would convert to followers because when a platform is new, there's a follower frenzy going on because they're like, I only follow seven accounts. So sure, sure, sure. And then they'll probably unfollow a lot of those accounts later once they. Find the creators that they really want to keep in touch with to more refine their feed.
But Instagram's at that phase and it's been like that for a while. I think if people looked at their own personal usage, they may have unfollowed about the same amount of accounts that they followed last year to get things off of their feed that maybe it's just a market they're no longer interested in.
They were into rock climbing, now they're not really into it, so they don't follow as many rock climbing pages. People change their interests, so their feed changes. And it's just been at a stage of maturity for a while. So Instagram reels was like the last thing that was like, yeah, post reels and you have a really big advantage.
The algorithm has more leveled out to just giving equal distribution to all the different types of content, which I think is what they should have done, because otherwise they were just turning it to trickle down TikToks. The best strategy that you can be doing on social media right now, the one that makes the most sense is doing vertical 9 by 16 content. Posting it on Instagram, TikTok, and perhaps YouTube shorts.
But I will say, as I now understand how each of the platforms works and what type of content will do well on each one, there's some like that satire post that you're talking about, where for those of you listening, I basically just talk about. The new verification subscription, how you can buy a blue check mark.
And then I talk about it's so lame that the celebrities have them. They're not even paying for them. It should only belong to those of us that pay 15 a month. And it's just a joke because a lot of people think the other way that you know, it's kind of lame that you can buy them now. And I see the merit in that. I bought it because Instagram said, we'll give you increased reach. And then you will also get live customer support.
And I think there's a couple other things with it. And then also when I try to get big podcast guests on, they, they now respond to my DMS because the blue check Mark appears and their DMS, and they actually respond to those a lot more likely.
So there's a lot of reasons that I think it is actually a good idea to buy it for business owners out there, but finding a type of content that you can post on all three. So you made one piece of content and then it went to all three is still kind of like the best organic strategy. It is still difficult to really say like, this is the trend.
There's no like clubhouse was the, probably the last thing in 2021 that was really taking off. Definitely not a good use of people's time anymore that you just listen to people share their life story in a room full of 300 people thinking that everyone wants to hear about their random problems and then you hear everyone's dogs barking in the background it.
So I see why it's not still a thing, but you really just want to ask what do my clients do right right before they would buy this type of offer and be there because if you're just trying to be like oh we need to be on LinkedIn and we need to be on Twitter because someone told me that.
Like, I have a lot of people that reach out to me and they'll hear a podcast where I interviewed someone talking about LinkedIn and how the reach is great and blah, blah, blah. And then they'll reach out to me and they're like, I'm an artist. I love that podcast. I've been posting on LinkedIn a bunch like you don't need to do that, that doesn't pertain to you.
You don't need to post your art on there. Sure. It's not a bad idea if it's not taking that much of your time. Pinterest is probably a better idea for you. There's other platforms that make more sense. So you really just want to be more focused around where are my clients hanging out and where are they going right before they would buy my type of offer and worry about living there rather than what's the new platform because everyone's on all of them.
Everyone's on all of them all the time. I think if there would be a new social media platform that would actually disrupt the current industry, it would have to be like a VR one or an AR one. I'm not exactly sure what it would be, Be real is actually the newest social media platform that's taking off.
And it's because it's based on the true intention of why social media was invented in the first place, which is, it's a place that kids can hang out where their parents aren't is really what it is. That's why all of them start out as, Oh, all the kids are on it, right? Oh, TikTok. I don't need to be on there. It's only for kids.
Then eventually those kids get older, and then eventually the adults get it. And as soon as people's moms get a TikTok, the thing's screwed. They want to be able to hang out and just post whatever they want and be themselves, be real, without getting involvement from other people.
Like you can't post on Instagram that you drank last night, because now employers look on people's Instagrams. So that's why it's like those are fading and I love talking to whenever I find someone that that's in their teens I love to ask about their social media consumption and they're not even they don't have Facebook at all now and a lot of them are fading away from Instagram.
And they just have TikTok and maybe Be Real. And then Snapchat, because they're just looking to hang out somewhere where they can just be themselves and really say whatever they want, but be real is not an opportunity for businesses.
Alex Bond: I'm glad you brought up Snapchat. I wanted to kind of break down some of the things that you're talking about there, because I think it's extremely valuable. And one of them is I think Snapchat you, you were totally right. Is the under 24 market. Problem is those people don't have any money, you know, not a lot of teenagers and people who are in college have a disposable income to buy stuff.
So advertising on a platform to people who don't have money to buy anything. It feels kind of fraught. You know, the other thing is if Be Real was smart, they'd get into like augmented reality advertising. And you could, you know, be real something in front of you.
And it's really like, I don't know, some, some, something to do with AR. I feel like would be a good out for them. Twitter is essentially like dead for advertising, right? I mean, the real question that I'm trying to ask you is, is that the case?
You know, every single time I see an ad for Twitter, it's a product I've never heard of in my entire life. And it's got a community note under it that essentially says this is a dangerous product run by dangerous people or something like that. So what are your thoughts on that?
Derek Videll: If you're into crypto, then you'd need to be on Twitter cause that's where they hang out. So it still is a matter of what type of business you are as a business influencer, if you will. I do post on Twitter just so I can screenshot it and then put it on Instagram because it's just a very quick way to get content out and people just read it.
It looks credible in their eyes. And then I have the verification over there. So it just looks like, oh, this guy. He's in a suit and he's got the blue verified. So like, it just gives you that level of credibility. And I think it also looks like that you value your time because all you're doing is screenshotting a Twitter quote rather than making this carousel infographic that obviously took a lot of time.
So I think it's more subconscious that they're processing it that way, but you do look like a true. You know, influencer in the business space when you do stuff like that. But I have been trying to like do hashtags and stuff on Twitter and seeing what kind of audience that would get me. I think I have like 20 followers on there.
So it still is difficult to stand out. I think you'd really have to be aggressive with your Posting time and everything but should artists be on there compared to other things you could be doing? No Like I I always like try to frame it. It's not that it's completely useless It's that there is a better use for your time So hopefully you can figure out what that is Even painting is probably a better use of your time than than getting it over on twitter.
There's very few exceptions that you'll find to this and I think people like to try to find exceptions and act like they're going to be that one too. Well, this artist has a bunch of followers on there. Yeah, well when did they start posting because timing matters a lot as well and for that reason, like with podcasting, I wouldn't recommend a lot of people start an audio podcast at this point.
You're very late to the game. I was getting way more downloads in 2019 than I am now. Even though I have like more subscribers or whatever, just like people don't listen to audio podcasts as much as they do, even though buzz sprout and pod bean and anchor will tell you a podcast things up. Like I have two podcasts. I promise you the search traffic is way down on audio podcasts.
Unlocking the Power of Hashtags
Alex Bond: You brought something up that I think is extremely important. And that's hashtags. You have like a resource on your website called, I think it's IQ hashtags that can help like modernize and take advantage of hashtags.
Derek Videll: Yeah, I actually should take that down. Because I don't recommend it anymore. It was really useful for finding if you've ever used a band hashtag when people said I'm shadow band, basically what it meant is you used it a band hashtag and accidentally at some point. And Facebook doesn't or Instagram doesn't ban hashtags anymore for a while.
Hashtag desk was banned. Like there's a bunch of random ones that it's like, if you used it, your account engagement was gone and people would think their shadow band, but all it really was, was you use the band hashtag at some point, and which is great to figure out because people are like, I think it's because I did a political post and now they hate me.
And like it wasn't that you did that. So that program scanned your page hashtags have pretty much no impact on your post on Instagram anymore. They do have a big impact on LinkedIn. They have a big impact on TikTok. Every platform has a different TikTok, you know, hashtagging strategy, but on Instagram in short, you want to use about five to 10 that are just very specific to the post.
The algorithm of 2014 to 2019. Your feed was here's the best hash taggers and now it's here's the best content, which is the only way that they could actually still keep up. So nowadays, like you can't get around just not having good content. However, I will tell you algorithm hacks that do still exist on the Instagram side of things really quick.
If you get, if you use an audio and people save the audio, that is a huge engagement metric. If people share it. That also means a ton likes and comments don't do really much for you in the algorithm's eyes anymore because it's hackable. So anything that people could hack before, Oh, I'll just buy likes.
And now I'm viral. They had to get rid of everything that could be faked before. So now it's more about percentage watch time, which can't be faked, right? So if you have friends that Like your post because they just want to support you, but then they don't watch it. They're actually hurting your engagement.
So you really don't want a bunch of random like friends and family for like, Oh, let me get my friends and family involved in my business. Like, unless that's what they buy, like you don't want them on your account. It doesn't help you to just have like an extra. Follower that likes your posts and never watches anything because that hurts it.
They're not counting the like as anything, but they see that they watched one second of it and that's what they're counting it on. Even people's facial expressions while they're watching your post matters. So you can't fake that. You can't be like, make a laugh to this. You can't like tell them to laugh.
You have to make them laugh. It's based on so many things like that, like if they actually laugh out loud. They'll know that and they now take it out of here. Really? Oh, yeah. Tick tock, especially dude Tick tock is way more about like your if your face doesn't show that you like the content Then they know that you can't just like, tell 50 of your friends to go like it and watch none of it and not react to it with their face and then pick it up.
That's why TikTok's algorithm is like all day, you're just going to see exactly what you want to see because the algorithms now are based off of unhackable metrics. However, when you know about, okay, I'm looking for audio saves. Like that's why you might see a lot of creators in my space. So here's top five trending audios.
Make sure you save this one. They know that boosts the algorithm a ton. The other thing is if a bunch of people visit your profile from your post, that tells them that. It's good because the only way that they go over to your profile after looking at your content is if they want to see more. So it's based off of things that can't be faked as much as they can.
Although when you know about the profile visit one, maybe that can, that's why the part one, part two, part three series. Was so big because, oh, how do I see the other parts? I have to go to your account and find them. That's more what the algorithm's looking for nowadays.
Rethinking Engagement Metrics and Embracing Authenticity in Marketing
Alex Bond: So Derek, just to make sure I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying that that raw engagement of like the like and the comment is becoming less and less valuable because that's a hackable metric is what I'm hearing you say.
And I kind of support that if I'm being honest, because a lot of people would make content to troll, to get comments. You know what I'm saying where people I don't know how many times I've seen a video of someone making some food that looks disgusting just so that people could comment saying you're a terrible cook because that would boost their content by essentially trolling the public to make their content more valuable.
But if what you're saying is accurate, then it actually could lead in a positive direction towards the marketing techniques that we see the authenticity in these marketing techniques and the actual content that's applicable applicable to me, not just air quotes has most engagement. Do you think that that actually does move things in a positive direction, or is it just a different side of the same coin?
Derek Videll: So how the social media companies think is what's the average time someone spends on our app when they open it up and they're just trying to influence that. How do you influence that? You make sure that the content is exactly what they want to see. And marketers will always try to figure out the hacks, right?
It's like my job to figure out the hacks, basically, like today's podcast, it's called Instagram algorithm hacks that still exist. And the thing is like, if I post out on YouTube and stuff, it's not like these employees at Instagram are shy of going on and just listening. What are the YouTubers telling them about?
So for a while, engagement groups was a big thing where you'd get into like a DM feed with like 20 other people. And whenever you would do a post, you'd be like, Hey guys, new posts. And then everyone would go on, throw a like on it and throw a comment on it.
Even if it was just like fire emoji, and then it would make the post go off. Content sucked. Doesn't matter. You got to like lots of likes and comments. That's what the algorithm is based around. So as soon as the marketers figure out how to hack it is when and then Instagram figures out what they're doing. They're all short lived. All the hacks are pretty short lived.
I don't think it's necessarily going to make people post less divisive content. It's not like comments do nothing in the algorithm, but they can tell. Is this a genuine conversation or did someone just drop a fire emoji without even watching the post? They didn't watch it, they dropped a fire emoji. That doesn't count in the algorithm. They watched the whole thing, dropped a fire emoji. Okay, we'll give that some weight.
The Dangers of Spam Accounts in the Social Media Ecosystem
Alex Bond: I'm interested in why spam accounts are so dangerous in the social media ecosystem. You know, I don't understand it as well as you do. I know that's just more people who aren't really necessarily engaging in my content. If like, I'm a marketer to some effect. So could you enlighten me on why spam accounts are so dangerous?
Derek Videll: Instagram is the only one that is really still really struggling to keep those down. They had a period a couple years ago where A lot of big accounts actually just lost a ton of followers all of a sudden, but it was good because they were all fake bots.
Like they had some kind of system that just deleted all of these bot accounts. So you might see if you go onto any major entrepreneur influencers comments, you'll see, I can't believe this worked. Jenny Forex helped me get my 1,200 this week and I cashed out right away. Thank you so much, Jenny Forex Trader.
And like double, like double tagged and it's like, obviously that doesn't work anymore, but it did. I'm sure that worked really well a while back when people are like, damn, you made 1,200 from Jenny Forex Trader. So now it doesn't work. I have no idea why those business owners and are still doing those tactic and paying for that.
TikTok is good at getting rid of those that you don't see those on there. Vine was destroyed by the spam accounts though, because you would get so many fake likes and followers and all the comments were totally spam and that platform. Would maybe even still be around today, or it would have had the opportunity to become tick tock.
It would have added the 15 second, the 30 second, the even 10 minute post. It would have just kept going along and now we have stories and now we have this and it would have started adapting features. Just like Instagram is largely known for for staying relevant. They're like, Oh, what's the new platform?
Snapchat, you do stories? Okay, we'll do stories. Like I remember when that came out, I thought, that's so lame. That's a Snapchat thing. And then now it's like, all right, I'll just get rid of Snapchat is how a lot of people over 24 are just like, I'll just do stories on my Instagram because I'm not posting me absolutely obliterated at the bars.
Like, you know, I can't be posting that on my Instagram. My mom follows me on there, but I can post it on Snapchat still. So that's why Snapchat is still relevant. They want a 24 hour story post that they can do that. Their parents aren't going to see. Yeah. So the spam accounts, they, they do ultimately lead to the demise of the platforms and Instagram really does need to get it under control.
Alex Bond: So how can I, if I'm on Instagram, try to take it under my own control? I mean, what's, what's the best solution to dealing with them? Can you just try to figure out who is spam and block them. Is that kind of as simple as it gets?
Derek Videll: Pretty much. So I did a collaboration post with someone recently that because he has so many followers, they are the ones that get targeted with spam accounts.
So how these people set up these spam comments is we'll be like, what's the minimum amount of followers you want these comments to go on, what hashtag did they use? And like, that's basically it, right? So they're like, all right, minimum 300 K followers. So all the big accounts are the ones that are getting.
A ton of the spam comments and I was just going through like block, block, block, block. They still don't stop like you never really catch up with it. It's annoying. It's kind of like a mosquito besides just know that.
It would be like you live the area with the most mosquitoes in the world and you can swat them all day. It's just nothing you can ultimately do about it besides just ignore them and, and know that, you know, there's better things to focus on.
Key Learnings from Derek's Facebook Ads Course
Alex Bond: What are some of the things that people can learn in your Facebook ads course?
Derek Videll: So how it works is it's done with you. So it's guided where people follow material throughout the week.
And I used to sell it as only a video course. But ads are just way too complicated and way too specific to the business that that's why I stopped doing that, do the do it yourself course, just watches because every person that went through that. No matter how many times I revised it and gave them better templates and more examples, it just doesn't matter how someone sells candles.
It's totally different than have someone right now that does Yosemite backpacking trips.
And I have another person that refurbishes people's dining room tables. Like the amount of random businesses out there is insane. So I realized I wasn't helping anyone with these video courses and I bet a lot of your listeners have probably bought a video course at some point that didn't really get them the results in the end, even if they learned a lot of things about marketing and business.
So now I do it where they go through the material, but then once a week we meet up on a zoom call and they share their screen. And the whole thing is just before you press publish on the ads, let me look over everything. Even on the website side, I think it's not just the ad has to look right where the ad is leading them to has to be completely set up, right?
So usually a lot of people need refinement on both ends of things before I can look them in the eyes and say, this is going to work. So the program is just based around. We're going to talk once a week until it, I'm comfortable telling you to turn them on. And in the last two and a half years that I've been running that I run a more lead generation campaign, not a, like, let's go on the streets and have people smell your candle and be like, Oh, that smells good.
Like we're not trying to run ads like that. We're running like lead campaigns and building follower campaigns because it's a lot more lower risk. It's a lot better for people to take on as their first ad campaign. And you can get really good results with even a couple hundred bucks when you run a lead campaign versus a try to sell something campaign, you need a lot more budget before you can expect those to work.
So I haven't had someone get less than a thousand leads in two and a half years running the model that I teach them. Throwing an extra thousand Instagram followers on your account that really want your product is, is super valuable. And then that's when organic posting actually has an opportunity to get you sales.
You first need people who are on the fence about buying from you to be following you in order for your posting to have a chance to do something otherwise, especially local businesses. When you do a post, you got just as much of a chance as someone in the United kingdom, finding it out as someone in your local town, even if you did hashtag Denver, like it just doesn't go where you hashtag it.
So you don't have control over stuff like that. When I hold people's hands throughout the process and don't let them turn it on until I'm comfortable with it is the only way I've seen that it works for people the first time.
Alex Bond: What's kind of the biggest misconception that people have about Facebook ads? Is it as simple as, you know, if I make a good ad, it'll get me sales, despite the fact that their website design is kind of corrupt. What is that biggest misconception people have?
Derek Videll: If your product is extremely good, which is so, so rare to see, like a product that people see it for the first time and say, I need that. The product means so much more than the marketing. The product itself, the size of the problem it solves is 90 percent of it.
I have someone that I worked with a few months ago, and he'd probably be the first to tell you this too. This dude just does not understand marketing. I would teach him things, just go over his head.
And I was like every call I'd revise his work and just be like, delete, delete, like re I'd redo everything for him on the calls. He was selling 50, 000 a month of product of these pushup boards because he posted pictures of guys who were super ripped doing pushups on the board and then said, pushup board on sale.
And he was selling 50,000 a month. I then have people who get everything. I teach them, understand everything conceptually, have an awesome entrepreneur mindset. They're they're ready to, they're never give up. They work all the time. They're super disciplined. And then they're trying to sell essential oils.
And you're 10 years too late to selling essential oils, so you need to quit and move on. And with that, I want to say that never give up is the best and the worst advice you could ever get. People take this way too far where they think, okay, never jump off a sinking ship. Got it. If your ship is sinking, go on another one.
It's just never give up entrepreneurship. It's not never give up every idea you have. I pivot all the time. I just made a major pivot in my podcast today. I've been doing two episodes a week for two years. I just went down to one so that I could focus more on YouTube because that's what the numbers are telling me to do.
I'd be blind to not following the numbers just to be like, never gave up. Because my ego is tied to it. Like you have to understand, never give up does not mean never pivot. It means never quit being a business owner. Otherwise everything underneath that should be changed all the time.
You should be completely fluent with your decision, always willing to question if you're doing the right thing or not, and never tying your ego to a certain way of thinking. You should always be trying to prove yourself wrong in entrepreneurship if you're doing it correctly.
