SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

[00:00:00] Billy Thorpe: And then it was after I got into Amazon that people, started saying, “Hey, there’s all these companies in China, basically they don’t have a budget and they want us to make videos. Ha ha ha.” And I was like, “Well, wait a minute. And I started thinking about Starbucks. I’m like, Starbucks doesn’t make great coffee.

[00:00:14] Billy Thorpe: If you’ve ever had great coffee, then you know Starbucks doesn’t make great coffee. But they make consistent coffee all the time, and they don’t charge the most amount, but they don’t charge the least amount. And they can, you know, just burn and churn these, mediocre cups of coffee all day long.

[00:00:29] Billy Thorpe: So I was trying to think like, how do I be the Starbucks of video? Like, how do I… I don’t have to be the best top producing person. I don’t have to be bottom of the barrel, but how can I you know, like stack the… And I’m like, if Starbucks can sell $5 coffees and have a profitable business, surely I can sell 10, 15, 20, 25, $50 videos and have a profitable business.

[00:00:49] Billy Thorpe: And I can probably make a video faster than they can make a cup of coffee.

[00:00:57] Jeff Sieh: Hello, folks. Welcome to Creator News Live. I’m Jeff [00:01:00] Sieh, and you’re not

[00:01:01] Zac Brown: And I’m Zac Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on the creator economy and so much more

[00:01:06] Jeff Sieh: Have you ever passed on an opportunity because it felt too small or too weird or a little bit beneath you? Maybe you’re tired of hearing that you need a certain follower count before anyone will pay you. Or maybe your whole income runs through one platform, and you’ve started to get maybe a little nervous about what happens if the rules change.

[00:01:25] Jeff Sieh: If that sounds familiar, you are in the right place

[00:01:29] Zac Brown: Our guest today is Billy Thorpe, the founder of Deal Billy HQ, back with us for a third time, the hat trick. He has produced somewhere around 4,500 videos in the last 44 months. Goodness. He has over 1,500 brand contacts, and he built the entire thing himself from Puerto Rico in about 25 hours a week. He got there by taking the deals every other creator in his space was too proud to touch, and today he’s showing us how to find that kind of opening in our own businesses

[00:01:59] Jeff Sieh: So sit [00:02:00] back, clear your schedule, clear your mind, and get ready for this week’s episode of Creator News Live That’s right, it’s the amazing Billy Thorpe here today. It, it was so funny ’cause it pulled that line, you actually said, “Hold my beer,” on the last

[00:02:34] Billy Thorpe: Hold my beer

[00:02:35] Jeff Sieh: so I was like, “That’s, that’s too good. I gotta leave that in.” So, that so much fun to have you here. Thank you for being on once again, Mr.

[00:02:42] Jeff Sieh: Thorpe

[00:02:43] Billy Thorpe: Absolutely, man. I, dude, I love what you do with all your guests. Like, that makes me just feel so special, and I’m now happy where I wasn’t, you know? No, I’m

[00:02:50] Jeff Sieh: What, what time is it? Is

[00:02:51] Billy Thorpe: me up.

[00:02:52] Jeff Sieh: what time is it in Puerto Rico, by the way?

[00:02:53] Billy Thorpe: I’m ahead of you. I’m like an hou- I think I’m, I’m 11:00 AM,

[00:02:56] Jeff Sieh: Okay, you’re good. Okay, not bad. All right, so

[00:02:58] Billy Thorpe: So I’m… Yeah, we’re good[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Jeff Sieh: I wanna do a big shout-out because, Billy’s gonna be there as well, but the show is always sponsored by our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them by going to ecamm.com/jeff. You can save 15% by using the code JEFF15 with your first purchase.

[00:03:13] Jeff Sieh: But we’re having the amazing Billy. He’s gonna be at Creator Camp. That’s right, Creator Camp, September 28th through the 30th, 2026. You can guys go and find out more about that at ecamm.com/camp. I’m gonna be speaking. Billy’s gonna be speaking. Paul Gowder’s gonna be speaking, Pat Flynn, Michael Hyatt.

[00:03:30] Jeff Sieh: Amazing people are gonna be there, so you guys wanna make sure you guys go check out Ecamm at ecamm.com/camp. It’s gonna be amazing. Billy, what are you gonna be talking about, by the way? I’m sure it’s something to do with,

[00:03:40] Billy Thorpe: I don’t know. Probably making money with content.

[00:03:43] Jeff Sieh: There you go, exactly, which we’re gonna be talking about today.

[00:03:47] Billy Thorpe: Hopefully Katie’s not listening when I said I don’t know. I’ll be getting an email.

[00:03:52] Jeff Sieh: exactly. but we’ve got some, some funny comments from… Rafael says, I’d be happy to hold Billy’s beer and watch him cook.” Well, there you go. [00:04:00] I don’t know. I, I, I don’t… Are you a good cook, Billy? I don’t

[00:04:02] Billy Thorpe: No. Absolutely, absolutely not. Actually, uh, no, not at all. I messed up breakfast this morning, actually. It’s sa- it’s, uh, it’s, it’s pretty fresh of sadness there.

[00:04:12] Jeff Sieh: Got it. Got it, got it. So, I wanna ask you guys, if you have, struggled with doing, like, deals, we’re gonna get into entrepreneurship. I’d, I’d love to know what’s your biggest struggle you feel as an entrepreneur, small business owner, solopreneur, what it is that you’re struggling about. Put it down in the comments, and we wanna bring it up and talk about, like, the biggest, you know, hurdle that you’re trying to get through.

[00:04:33] Jeff Sieh: But we’re gonna be talking about right now is the, the deals that nobody else wanted, and then that’s what Billy has done. So I want to talk about, first of all, kind of a thing I can’t really stop thinking about when I, think about Billy is when you were doing those $5 and $10 videos, you said, and I quote, Pissing everybody off in the creator video space.”

[00:04:52] Jeff Sieh: And people were telling you that they were, that you were ruining the industry. So take me back to that time. I remember when you were kind of, [00:05:00] you were in the same kind of circles as I was when we first started this Amazon stuff. what were they actually saying to you, and, what did you know that they didn’t?

[00:05:07] Billy Thorpe: I mean, what, yeah, what you said, like, “Hey man, what are you doing? You’re gonna- you’re messing it up for us.” Like if we all… You know, and it was kinda that whole thing, like if we all charge the same rates and we’re all super high priced, then we can, you know, we can all benefit or whatever. So, that was one of the things that people kept getting onto me about.

[00:05:23] Billy Thorpe: But it was kind of the sector of people that I was in relationship with at that time, like especially like on Clubhouse, a lot of big creators, a lot of YouTubers, a lot of people who spent a lot of time building an audience to then leverage for brand deals and sponsorship deals, and I didn’t really have any of that stuff.

[00:05:45] Billy Thorpe: So I was like, “Well, I think the one thing that I have is time, energy, and a s- repeatable system to create quality content quickly, and you guys are on YouTube, and YouTube is a whole other beast.” And so I, I think the [00:06:00] edge that I had was, was Ecamm. I mean, to be honest, like I was already producing a saltwater fishing podcast.

[00:06:06] Billy Thorpe: I got into content, you know, as a business, not as a creator, and so I was already making money from my saltwater fishing show. And so I thought, “Well, if I can do an hour show and switch scenes, I can do a two-minute video and switch scenes, and get it done in two minutes and make $10. Like, who else is paying me $10 for two minutes of my time?

[00:06:26] Billy Thorpe: Nobody. And I get a free product.” So that was, that was kinda my mentality going into it. I wasn’t a big content creator creating 20-minute YouTube videos and having all this overhead and workload. So that’s, you know, it’s understandable, but they just didn’t, you know, get the game, I guess, that I was trying to understand and play.

[00:06:47] Billy Thorpe: They… I really didn’t even know, to be honest, until I just tried it

[00:06:50] Jeff Sieh: Right. So really quick, a follow-up to that question is, do So you were doing, like, these videos and getting paid to do videos, which to me is a little different [00:07:00] than, they’re kinda like, they’re more of a sponsored video than actual getting a brand deal. So can you talk about, like, the first time you got a brand deal versus, like, just, you know, cranking out videos for the Amazon platform?

[00:07:11] Jeff Sieh: What did that look like? And maybe even explain kind of the difference between a sponsored video and, like, a, you know, a sponsored brand deal kind of a thing.

[00:07:18] Billy Thorpe: Yeah. Well, and, and I always wanna like kinda lay it out like this. Like, and I’ve been trying to make this make more sense over the years to be simpler to explain. And so I kinda think of it as like three different things. Like, and I like fishing, so I always talk about that. But like a pond, a lake, and an ocean.

[00:07:34] Billy Thorpe: And so, you know, I, I f- find that the Amazon Influencer space in particular is like a part of the video market. And the video market is all the way from home videos to Hollywood. Like, it is a huge industry, and there’s all kinds of little niche markets in between. And I, I think most people when they got in early to the Amazon program, they were thinking like YouTubers and that they were just thinking like, “This is the way it’s done on YouTube.”

[00:07:59] Billy Thorpe: And so, you [00:08:00] know, one, I think like brand deals or sponsorship deals or whatever you wanna call it, they kinda all mix and muddle together in UGC content, and you really have to go in there and split hairs yourself to understand how each one of those segments kinda work and operate. And some of this stuff is new, like Amazon Influencer Program.

[00:08:17] Billy Thorpe: And I just went and met a market where it was. So I didn’t really like create this low… I wasn’t going and saying, ” “Hey, I know this guy’s doing $10,000 videos. I’ll do it for

[00:08:28] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:29] Billy Thorpe: I wasn’t doing that. I was responding to people who said, “I only have $5. What can I get for five bucks?” And I go, “I think I can create something for five or 10, and I didn’t have, you know, anything going on there. But anyway, so before that though, I had done like a $10,400 deal from my s- podcast sponsorship, and that was more of like sponsored content, like what, you know, would be more traditional like brand deal type of

[00:08:55] Jeff Sieh: And they give you direction and that kind of stuff. They tell you what to do kind of in

[00:08:58] Jeff Sieh: [00:09:00] Okay. Okay, good.

[00:09:02] Billy Thorpe: I

[00:09:02] Jeff Sieh: You just do what you’re at. Yeah. Okay

[00:09:03] Billy Thorpe: you know, but yeah, like in more of a UGC deal, that’s more where it’s like, “Hey, here’s this brief. Now you’re gonna go through this, and we need these 30 separate pieces of B-roll in here, and it’s all gonna be smashed into 30 seconds.” And, you know, and that’s real work. I’m not really doing that.

[00:09:18] Billy Thorpe: I’m hitting record, doing my video, hitting stop, trimming the ends, and uploading it. so once again, man, I think there’s so many different, like, little nooks and crannies in this video space, and there’s so many different ways to monetize. but yeah, there’s, you know… I take a line from Liz Wilcox pretty often, where she was talking about her community, and she said, “It’s low ticket, low responsibility.”

[00:09:41] Billy Thorpe: And I’m like, I love that. Like, I do that in my own business where it’s like I’m doing video, but it’s low ticket, low responsibility. If I, you know, screw up a $50 video, I’m not getting a phone call from someone’s lawyer. Like, they’re just sending me an e- they’re sending me an email going, “Hey, can you fix this one thing you messed up?”

[00:09:58] Billy Thorpe: And I go, “No, [00:10:00] I’m… It’s 50 bucks.” So I’m, “Okay, whatever. What product do you want now?” You know? So, so yeah, I don’t know, man. There’s a lot of ways to chop up the, the video space for sure.

[00:10:09] Jeff Sieh: Very cool

[00:10:09] Zac Brown: Billy, somebody offered you the easy out recently. You know, you’ve talked about this, that, you know, that you undercut the market by accident, and you cut them off, and you were like, “No, I know exactly what I’m doing.” So walk me through, like, what was the math that you were running there? How did you know that a $50 video was a business and not just cheap labor?

[00:10:28] Billy Thorpe: I mean, to be honest with you, in the beginning I didn’t really know anything. I didn’t really know what I was doing. ’cause once again, I was on this app called Clubhouse, and I was, I was talking about sponsorship deals for podcasters, and everyone else was talking about YouTube, and then Amazon came into the, into the picture.

[00:10:43] Billy Thorpe: And then it was after I got into Amazon that people, you know, started saying, “Hey, there’s all these companies in China, basically they don’t have a budget and they want us to make videos. Ha ha ha.” And I was like, “Well, wait a minute. And I started thinking about Starbucks. I’m like, Starbucks doesn’t make great coffee.

[00:10:58] Billy Thorpe: If you’ve ever had great coffee, then [00:11:00] you know Starbucks doesn’t make great coffee. But they make consistent coffee all the time, and they don’t charge the most amount, but they don’t charge the least amount. And they can, you know, just burn and churn these, you know, mediocre cups of coffee all day long.

[00:11:15] Billy Thorpe: So I was trying to think like, how do I be the Starbucks of video? Like, how do I… I don’t have to be the best top producing person. I don’t have to be bottom of the barrel, but how can I stack, you know, like stack the… And I’m like, if Starbucks can sell $5 coffees and have a profitable business, surely I can sell 10, 15, 20, 25, $50 videos and have a profitable business.

[00:11:37] Billy Thorpe: And I can probably make a video faster than they can make a cup of coffee.

[00:11:40] Jeff Sieh: Right. Yeah

[00:11:41] Billy Thorpe: I’m like, I think I’m doing better than Starbucks. I just can’t s- I just can’t scale as well.

[00:11:48] Jeff Sieh: So tell me if this is what kind of the big lesson is. I think, you know, a lot of the big creators in the space kind of had egos on these high ticket deals, and you, you pretty much went, “No, that’s not what I’m gonna do,” because you, you [00:12:00] were making money. So how much of your advantage do you think was strategy, and how much of it was just like, “I have nothing to protect”?

[00:12:08] Jeff Sieh: Like you said, like the $50 video, you’re not gonna get a call back from a lawyer. So how, how do you balance kind of that? Is that, you think that’s why you got the success that you got?

[00:12:16] Billy Thorpe: Yeah, I think in the beginning I just didn’t have any, you know, I wasn’t like these other content creators. Like, they spent years building their brands, building their channels, building their reputation online, and I was like new kid on the block who had already pushed back against the podcast industry pretty hard that, that would say I needed all these downloads and stuff to get a brand deal and a sponsorship deal, and I already went and, and did that with a fraction of what I was told I needed.

[00:12:41] Billy Thorpe: And so I was al- I’ve always been kind of that entrepreneurial, like, scrappy, like, “Oh, yeah? Well, let me see if I can do it.” Now, I could’ve been super wrong and tried it for 90 days and, and, you know, been crying and licking my wounds, but I tried it for 90 days, and I just told my wife, like, I’m gonna go all in for 90 days, and I’m gonna just [00:13:00] see what happens.

[00:13:01] Billy Thorpe: And at the end of that 90 days, I’d made way more money than I did on that first sponsorship deals for my podcast and what I was making off of my podcast. So I’m like, all right, I’m gonna give this a few more months, and then I’m flipping the script. I’m out of here, you know? so I mean, I think I f- you know, I figured it out on accident, but then strategically built the system to meet the need in this piece of the market

[00:13:24] Jeff Sieh: Very, very cool. ‘Cause I remember cause everybody kind of pooh-poohed some of the, the, ‘ cause a lot of it came from overseas, and a lot of people were like, “Uh, it’s n- don’t waste your time on that. It’s junk,” and like, and you were like, “Nuh-uh. I can crank this out and I can make money.” So I think that was, I mean, that was really fascinating, ’cause I remember seeing it happen.

[00:13:39] Jeff Sieh: Like, I was there in the comments watching, stalking the Casio, you know, all the people saying stuff, and I’m like, “Okay.” And then, then you, I, you know, as we got to know each other and I was seeing like, “Oh my gosh, this is pretty amazing,” I love it that you took stuff that people didn’t wanna do and did it.

[00:13:53] Jeff Sieh: It’s almost like Dirty Jobs. It’s almost like Mike Rowe. Like, you know, like something that nobody wants to do, like, “Oh, you know what? I’m gonna do it and I’m [00:14:00] gonna make money at it.” So kudos to you, my friend. That, it’s

[00:14:02] Billy Thorpe: There’s a lot of guys out in the world right now, guys and girls, cleaning up someone’s else’s dog poop and making a ton of money. Like, And they don’t have any ego. I mean, you gotta just go in there. And I think that’s when you look at the numbers, when you look at the big scheme of like a b- or big picture, I guess, of any business, it’s like, I don’t really care how the money comes.

[00:14:25] Billy Thorpe: Like, s- if I’m doing what I want and being able to make the kind of money that I want and hitting all those goals at the end of the year, what does the profit look like? That’s all I really care about as a business owner. And I think that’s where I had a little bit of a edge coming into this thing that most people didn’t have, is they got into content for content and whatever their goal was with the content.

[00:14:46] Billy Thorpe: I got into it ’cause I’m like, “I’m here to make some money. I think this is a, a profitable industry

[00:14:51] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Very, very cool

[00:14:53] Zac Brown: Billy, you have this line that I love, that if you read in a blog that you need 10,000 followers of a certain follower count, [00:15:00] that that number is probably just wrong. You’ve proved it by selling a $10,400 sponsorship on 400 downloads. So how does somebody watching today you know, how do they figure out which gatekeeping rule in their own industry is fake?

[00:15:15] Billy Thorpe: Well, uh, you know, a couple things, man. I think if somebody is just harping on something like, “This won’t work, this won’t work, this won’t work,” one, kind of look at their, what they have currently going on. And so this is what I did. The, the person that I… And I’m not gonna say who they are, but the person that I was following a lot in the podcasting space kept saying this 10,000, 10,000, 10,000.

[00:15:37] Billy Thorpe: Well, when I dug into what they had going on, they had their podcast, they had some podcast business stuff going on, but they worked, like, a full-time job. And I’m like, wait, this guy does- this guy’s trying to tell me I can’t make money doing something that he did. He’s not even trying, so let me go try and just have a different conversation and figure out what do brands and sponsors and companies actually want, not just [00:16:00] what we assume they want.

[00:16:01] Billy Thorpe: And so that was the, the thing that I took into this business, was a sales background where I, first of all, owned a business that was all T-shirt sales, so if I didn’t make sales, I didn’t make money, so I had to think about how to have conversations, overcome objections, all that stuff. Then I got in the podcasting world, same thing.

[00:16:20] Billy Thorpe: The big objection that stops everyone was like, “You gotta have a huge audience. You gotta have all these downloads.” That helps. Trust me, if you have a million followers, like, that’s gonna be way easier, but it’s not impossible. You just have to find what that company actually wants. And so we had a, a saltwater fishing show on the coast of North Carolina, and they sold boats to people who lived on the coast of North Carolina.

[00:16:41] Billy Thorpe: And so the math was mathing for them and for us. And then there were some other things that you, when you have these conversations and, and it w- on a business-to-business conversation, not just a, “Hey, I need money, and I’m a podcaster, and I’m a creative, and I, I really gotta pay for my, you know, hosting plan.”

[00:16:58] Billy Thorpe: But it’s like when you’re [00:17:00] saying like, “Hey, tell me about your business. How does this work? How does your advertising budget work?” And then come to find out boat dealerships get compensated from, you know, motor companies for ads that their motor you know, presents in. So, ” Whoa, cool. Well, you don’t even have to pay for this ad.

[00:17:15] Billy Thorpe: What’s the price? How much are you gonna give you? Well, that’s the price of the ad. Let’s move on.” You know? You, you get free advertising, and we get some money, and we, you know, we’re partners, so let’s go. so yeah. I think that’s the thing that a lot of content creators are not doing, is thinking like a business owner.

[00:17:32] Billy Thorpe: And it’s ha- I mean, it’s tough. It’s not like I did either, you know? I’ve just owned a lot of failed ones to have a successful one so.

[00:17:40] Zac Brown: But I like how simple that is that…

[00:17:41] Zac Brown: so many people were just seeing the one closed door and taking that as the end all, you know, be all, end all truth and walking away. You took a second step, a second glance to go, “Well, m- what else is out there?” You know? Maybe that is true for your avenue, but you’re like, “Let’s see how this can work for what we’re [00:18:00] doing.”

[00:18:00] Zac Brown: It’s just that second step of curiosity and just asking questions to get the door open

[00:18:05] Billy Thorpe: Well, and you know, a big– and the numbers game is really because of a CPM rate. So it’s cost per milli or, or, you know, it’s like, “I’m gonna pay you $10 for 1,000 downloads.” So whatever times 1,000, right, downloads. So, that’s how everyone was selling sponsorship deals, everyone, when I got into the game. And I’m like, “Wait a minute.

[00:18:23] Billy Thorpe: I’m putting your advertisement into my show forever, and as long as it’s on YouTube and I’m h- paying my hosting fees for my podcast, I’m baking in that ad, and it’s gonna be there forever. So am I to send you an invoice in perpetuity, like forever? Or do you just wanna pay me a premium fee for a one-time ad spend?”

[00:18:45] Billy Thorpe: Like, it’s a one-time ad spend for a lifetime ad. And when I started having that conversation, even with big marketing agencies, they’re like, “No, it’s CPM or nothing.” I go, “Well, I’ll send you an invoice forever. Like, I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about

[00:18:58] Jeff Sieh: right

[00:18:59] Billy Thorpe: [00:19:00] You know? It’s like, you can pay me a premium and we can just move on and, and it’s gonna be in there f- forever and ever and ever, and those videos are gonna get watched, those podcasts are gonna get listened to.

[00:19:09] Billy Thorpe: and you know, it’s not dynamically inserted and taken away. I’m too lazy for that. I’m like, I’m not… I’m putting it in, I just leave it. I don’t care. I’m never gonna look at that again.

[00:19:17] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:19:18] Zac Brown: So good

[00:19:18] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:19:19] Jeff Sieh: one of the things, that I think that a lot of people struggle with is, you know, they, they see these gurus and these influencers and, you know, I’ve done it too, and you’re like, “Oh, I can– If I just replicate their system, I’ll make their same success.” And you’ve gotta remember, the algorithm has changed.

[00:19:37] Jeff Sieh: Like, the YouTubers who have, like, 100,000 followers, YouTube was different when they started than where you are. Now, you can take– I’m not saying don’t take anything they say, but kinda filter it. Like, okay, this is different than it was. There’s some best practices I can do, but I’ve still gotta experiment and try new things.

[00:19:54] Jeff Sieh: And, this is one thing I w- really wanted to talk about with you, Billy, is like, you know, someone watching [00:20:00] who runs a small business or makes content, and there’s an opportunity in their world that everyone agrees is, like, beneath them or too small or too weird. how do they find it? Like, what does an un- an unpopular opportunity actually look like from the outside before anyone knows it works?

[00:20:16] Jeff Sieh: Because you try to see ahead, you try to see all the different angles, and you’re not– I think the other thing is, is you’re not scared to try things, and if it doesn’t work, you move on. Am I right in thinking that?

[00:20:26] Billy Thorpe: 100%. Yeah, 100%. I, I think you have to always… If you’re gonna be an entrepreneur, you have to always try to, like, have your head on a swivel and get ready to pivot at any moment, ’cause it can just change. And the minute you think that, “Oh, I’m… This is great. My system’s perfect, and I’m gonna make money and do this forever,” something will change.

[00:20:47] Billy Thorpe: And so, you know, I think first of all, you have to be okay with the lifestyle of entrepreneurship. Like, it’s a lifestyle. Like, I’ve had wins and losses and successes, and there’s times I’m looking on Indeed going, “I’m [00:21:00] just gonna go work for somebody else. I can’t deal with this anymore.” and it happens to all of us.

[00:21:04] Billy Thorpe: And, and I think really to find those things, like, I always go against the grain just because that’s my personality. I’m pretty skeptical most of the time. Like, my baseline is like, “Nah, I don’t really know.” So if, if it’s good or bad, I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t really know.” I’m gonna go have to… You know, I’m the dumb kid.

[00:21:21] Billy Thorpe: I gotta go figure it out myself and go, you know… just to get off topic a little, we got one of those little fly mosquito zappers, right? So I got one of those. I take it home to my wife. I go, “Look, honey, somebody sent me one of these things.” I’m zapping mosquitoes, and I go, “Oh, I wonder if it really hurts,” ’cause it says, “Don’t touch.”

[00:21:37] Billy Thorpe: And I’m like, “Eh, pshew.” And I’m like, “Yep, it hurts.” You know? I’m that guy. So, you know, and so when people are like, “Oh, low-ticket brand deals don’t work,” or, or whatever, just take a, take a look at it from all angles. You know, life is like a diamond, I guess, or whatever, like a box of chocolates. Like, look at it, like, from a bunch of different ways and just see, can I serve this market, and can I do it in an [00:22:00] efficient way that will be profitable?

[00:22:02] Billy Thorpe: ‘Cause I mean, that’s all that matters is, like, are you gonna profit, or are you not gonna profit? Like, if you’re not gonna profit, who ca-… And who cares about revenue? By the way, I guarantee you, most content creators and most people in this business, they’ll be the fastest people to show you the top line, but they will not show you what actually comes out the other side after all the stuff runs through.

[00:22:23] Billy Thorpe: And so if they’re not willing to share that, then walk away. It’s crazy

[00:22:27] Jeff Sieh: There’s a lot of people who, like, they’ll say, like, “I have six-figure income,” but they spend seven, right? Like, they just like… It’s a little crazy how they, how they do that. but you and I are a lot alike. I mean, you know, you said you’re experimenting with things and, like, the bug zapper. Yeah, I peed on an electric fence when I was a kid.

[00:22:42] Jeff Sieh: it’s, it’s really bad. now whenever the microwave bell goes off I lose control of my bowels, but other than that it’s fine. I’m okay. Um,but I think we are a lot alike in some of the stuff, trying some new things. God, I mean, uh,Zac, you have a question?

[00:22:54] Zac Brown: All I’m just picturing is, “Hi, I’m Jeff Sieh, and welcome to the cow fence.” you know, Billy,

[00:22:59] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. [00:23:00] Don’t do that, man. I’m not wearing my Depends. Go ahead

[00:23:03] Zac Brown: we’re off the rails. I love what you were saying about, like, being okay with the, you know, entrepreneur life. Like, that is a mental game. And, you know, so there’s mental hoops to jump through. I’m so interested in those valley moments because we wanna do this, it looks fun, and then things get difficult.

[00:23:20] Zac Brown: Things get tricky. How do you get out? Like, what are those hoops for you, like, in all honesty, that you have to go through, and what do you do to keep going?

[00:23:28] Billy Thorpe: I mean, there’s a l- you know, there’s a lot of stuff that, that happens n- I mean, you, you don’t expect. You know, like earlier last year there was like a bunch of tariff stuff going on. All my clients are overseas. They’re in China. That’s like everything that I get into my, you know, studio to make a video of is coming from, from China, has a tariff attached to it.

[00:23:50] Billy Thorpe: And so there was at one point where I just looked back and said like, “Man, I’ve been in this space for almost five years. I’ve spent four years you know, and I’ve made over…” I [00:24:00] didn’t update the bio, but I’ve made over 4,800 pieces of content on Amazon, 4,500-plus paid, you know, paid deals, and I’m, you know, early 20- ’25 like looking at this thing going, “Oh, it’s all over.”

[00:24:13] Billy Thorpe: Like, it’s over. And, and I thought it was 2020 all over again ’cause that’s how I lost my T-shirt printing business. Like, I catered to huge audiences, and we all know what happened. And so I’m like, I just looked at my wife and said like, “This sucks, but what’s, what’s next?” You know? And I think that’s, some of it’s in your control, some of it’s out of your control, and that’s why I’m real passionate about the business model that I have because I wanna be in more control than not.

[00:24:39] Billy Thorpe: Not that I’m always in… N- we’re… none of us are fully in control ’cause we have to have other people and people do business with people and all that. But, yeah, I think it’s one of those where it’s… I mean, the first couple times you get kicked in the pants, you’re just like, “I’m never getting back up.” But then after you get kicked in the pants like 10, 15 times, you build up a tolerance to getting kicked in the pants and you’re like, “All right,” like, [00:25:00] “let me go pee on the electric fence now to train more,” you know? So

[00:25:05] Jeff Sieh: Well, the, the thing i- I think it does make you more resilient. Like, I know now, like, I’m like you, like I’ve got burnt enough times that I, I’m very diversified. Like, I know I can pull another lever if I need to, if something happens. and I don’t want anything to happen, but I think I’m confident enough, like, if something changes or I lose a big client or, you know, I can’t go on do live streaming anymore, I’m pretty confident that I can figure something out.

[00:25:28] Jeff Sieh: Like, I don’t know what it is, but I’m pretty confident that… I mean, this has happened in the past, it’ll happen again, and I’ll just deal with it because I’ve had to. Is that what kinda you’re saying there?

[00:25:36] Billy Thorpe: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, and I can always clean up dog poop. I know those people make money, so I’m going.

[00:25:42] Jeff Sieh: Exactly.

[00:25:44] Billy Thorpe: I’ll see you in the backyard, you know? It’s like

[00:25:46] Jeff Sieh: right. You do- yeah. So, in 2024 when you were on the show, you told us the mistake is niching down too far, and you said you should be the guy talking about toothpicks and electronics.

[00:25:58] Jeff Sieh: Do you still feel that way [00:26:00] two years later?

[00:26:01] Billy Thorpe: I, you know, I, well, and we’re probably more talking about the Amazon space. And if it’s the Amazon space, I still feel the same. I still feel like diversifying in that space, especially early on, creating more content’s gonna get you more, more people looking at your con- it’s gonna get you more notice.

[00:26:17] Billy Thorpe: Like, every piece of content’s my best sales guy. My next piece of content’s my best sales guy. And so I think in the Amazon space in particular, yes, that is true. I don’t know that I b- I, I don’t believe that with podcasting or YouTube or, or anything else. I think you have to, like, keep your, keep your wits about you and know, you know, like, be 80/20.

[00:26:39] Billy Thorpe: Like 80%, we know what’s going on, we know what you’re gonna talk about. 20%, you’re off the rails. Like, it’s fine, you know? But, Amazon, no, man, just do toothpicks. I made a lot of money doing fingernail videos in the beginning, so fingernail clippers, you know?

[00:26:54] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:26:55] Billy Thorpe: Not, not fingernails. I would, but I

[00:26:57] Billy Thorpe: didn’t know how to press them on

[00:26:58] Jeff Sieh: so one of the things I, I [00:27:00] wanna talk about, like I think a lot of people miss about Billy in this next section. You know, everybody hears, like, cheap videos and they think how much he’s hustling, and I really think it’s kind of the opposite.

[00:27:09] Jeff Sieh: Like he has a CRM, he has software that auto-connects his content, he pushes one button and uploads 50 videos a day, and he works 25 hours a week because, um, we’ve talked before even offline, like you want that time to spend with your kid and your family. and you told Matt Stagliano on The Generator something that stopped me, You said, “If you’re relying on the click, the algorithm, the view, the watch time, you do not own a business, you own a side hustle.” So let’s, let’s talk about that in the next section because if you are relying on the click, the algorithm, the view, or the watch time, this is gonna sting for a lot of people because e- even me, that, you know, we, we kind of talk about like that’s how important that is.

[00:27:50] Jeff Sieh: So let’s talk about what’s the actual dividing line on that and what did you mean by that quote you, you gave to, uh, Matt?

[00:27:56] Billy Thorpe: Yeah. So, you know, first of all, I think being, like I [00:28:00] said, in more control than not of your business is the most important thing. And like you said earlier, Jeff, like being able to pull the lever and have something happen for you is the most important. You know, if you don’t have leverage, you don’t have, you don’t have anything in business.

[00:28:14] Billy Thorpe: And so in my particular situation, you know, working with Amazon for the last five years, and, and they change, they change stuff in their business every, like, two months it seems like. It’s, it’s like, oh, I gotta chase another algorithm. I gotta chase another thing. Well, vertical video works, horizontal video works, thumbnail works, no thumbnail, sit up upside down on top of your head, like, share offsite, share onsite.

[00:28:38] Billy Thorpe: You know, you c- put your grandmother in the video. It’s like there’s so many different things. And then, like, even for YouTube, I mean, I f- I follow this guy who’s over at Think Media, and it’s like every two months it’s like, “The algorithm changed. What you need to know now.” You know, it’s like, okay, well, hold on a second.

[00:28:53] Billy Thorpe: Like, I just figured out what I was doing two months ago. so, you know, one, for me, I’m just not that detailed. I’m like I [00:29:00] don’t keep up with platforms that much. And so I’m like people do business with people. People don’t do business with clicks and algorithms and all this stuff.

[00:29:08] Billy Thorpe: It’s like if I can’t email someone or call them or get creative and help them solve their problems and their business, then I just don’t think it’s a good business model. And it’s a great… I mean, I call it all maybe money. You know, I’m wearing my shirt that says, “No maybe money.” It’s kind of a lie. I love maybe money.

[00:29:24] Billy Thorpe: I make a lot of, “I’m gonna upload the video. I hope it gets on the carousel. Maybe it gets clicked. Maybe it gets viewed. Maybe it gets bought. Maybe it doesn’t get returned. Maybe it gets shipped.” You know, there’s a lot of maybes there for you to make money on Amazon. But one thing that’s, like, guaranteed is I got paid for that video before I hit upload.

[00:29:41] Billy Thorpe: And so that’s where I’m a little bit more… I’ll, I’ll not make as much money off of a platform as I could because I wanna protect the future of my business, and so that’s where I’m, I’m, I’m a little dogmatic about that. Not that everyone should, ’cause some people, if you work a 9:00 to 5:00 and you got a great [00:30:00] salary and you plan on staying there for a long time, then sure, who cares?

[00:30:03] Billy Thorpe: Make all the maybe money, take all the risk. Like, if you don’t care to lose it, then invest into their business. But I’m trying to invest into mine, not Amazon’s.

[00:30:13] Jeff Sieh: Well, the, also the, the thing that you, because you’ve made that system so fast, you kind of like, even if it doesn’t work for that particular video, you’ve got another one coming up right behind it that’s already been paid for by a sponsor. So you’re not double-dipping, but I mean, we’ll get into how you make money, like, with all those videos in a little bit, because it’s really genius.

[00:30:32] Jeff Sieh: You make it on the, the front end, what the platform does, but then also selling the product later on the back end, which is genius. You got a full circle kind of way that you do things, which we’ll talk about, but, great, great stuff

[00:30:44] Zac Brown: I love what you’re talking about, Billy, about the relationship and the people, like that you’re connected with them. you know, you have over 1,500 brand contacts, and you said if Amazon kicked you out tomorrow, you would just email, you know, all the people that are following you and raise your prices.

[00:30:59] Zac Brown: So [00:31:00] practically, how do you capture and keep those contacts warm, and what would that email actually say?

[00:31:04] Billy Thorpe: That’s a great question. so I’ve been watching your guys’ podcast. I’m trying to learn how to keep those emails warm and get that email list right and nurture that. And, you know, a lot of these companies are, like, overseas, so it’s not, it’s not like they’re reading my articles trying to figure out anything, you know?

[00:31:19] Billy Thorpe: So it’s, You know, for me, I, I think it’s just about having that contact info, having that brand’s information, and then if, you know… I mean, God forbid Amazon does that. If they kick me out, I’m losing a lot of money, but I’m not out of business, and that’s my most important thing is, like, I don’t wanna be out of business.

[00:31:35] Billy Thorpe: And so, yeah, my… You know, the email would probably be like, “Hey, this sucks, but, I’ve been working with you for years and I’ve been uploading the video. Now it’s double the price. You can have the video.” And they would… ‘Cause all, all these companies want is content, right? And it’s like they either wanna use it on their platform, you put it on your platform.

[00:31:52] Billy Thorpe: Like, they all need marketing material. They all want to educate customers, and they wanna get people across the conversion line, you know? So it’s like, I will just [00:32:00] offer a different And once again, I’m with Jeff here. I don’t know exactly what that offer’s gonna look like, but I know it’s gonna be made, and it’s gonna be made thousands of times with one push of a button because I have done the work to collect those, relationships and those emails and, and especially with, you know, people I work with all…

[00:32:17] Billy Thorpe: I mean, there’s some people I’ve worked with for four years every single week. Like, they’re sending me two, three, four products. So it’s like I have some really good relationships there. or I broker other people’s deals, you know, with those relationships. So

[00:32:31] Billy Thorpe: something there’s gonna happen for sure.

[00:32:33] Billy Thorpe: I, I mean, I got a lot of outs when I have s- pay- paying customers. I got a lot of outs

[00:32:38] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, so I, well, that’s one of the things I think is so smart about what you do is, like, you’re not scared to ask for money. Now, it’s not a, you know, not, it’s not all the time, like, thousands of dollars, but you’re like, ” I’m not doing this for free.” Like, I, I think that was the, the one thing that I think both of us when we first started, like, it’s really cool to get products from stuff.

[00:32:55] Jeff Sieh: Like, when you’re first starting, like, it’s really cool to get drones and, like, all, all the [00:33:00] drones. I still have drones. that’s really fun, but that’s not a business. That’s, like, you getting stuff to fill up your house that your, your wife’s gonna get mad at and you’re gonna have to throw out later. I’m speaking hypothetically.

[00:33:10] Jeff Sieh: Of, of,

[00:33:11] Billy Thorpe: It’s a therapy session

[00:33:12] Jeff Sieh: Right, but you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta, think it through and, and not be scared to ask money, even if it’s for a little bit. Like, you were talking about brokering deals. Like, If you’re gonna broker a deal, you need to be compensated for your time. So, we’re always talking about in our mastermind, I’m al- always pushing them, like, you know, “Ask for more money.

[00:33:29] Jeff Sieh: Ask for more money,” because that’s y- if you don’t ask, then, I mean, the worst they can do is say no, right? Like, you gotta keep asking.

[00:33:35] Billy Thorpe: 100%.

[00:33:36] Billy Thorpe: Yeah

[00:33:36] Jeff Sieh: I wanna talk about the thing that I think you did this year that I think is kind of the most Billy move of all, right? so you built this Whatnot audience of, like, 3,000 buyers.

[00:33:46] Jeff Sieh: Then you moved to Puerto Rico, and that shipping math kinda broke. Like, it was three times the cost. You had no y- United States Post Office contract. And, you know, everybody else would kinda give up at that point. But you went and started [00:34:00] building, like, a local reseller network on the island instead. So walk me through that decision and what that actually looks like.

[00:34:06] Billy Thorpe: Yeah, I mean that wa- yeah, that was basically the decision. ‘Cause I was having a lot of fun live selling on Whatnot. And if you’ve never done it before, you should go to a garage sale this weekend, buy a bunch of junk, get on there and try to sell it. It’s like so much fun. And I was having a great time. I mean, I sold over like 2,000 orders on there, which some orders were multiple products, and I built an audience of over 3,000.

[00:34:27] Billy Thorpe: and it was so fun. And anyway, when I get to, got to Puerto Rico, I immediately did a show and realized like, “Oh my God, the shipping is… the contract does not include Puerto Rico,” even though it’s part of the US or whatever. And, you know, I kinda hung my head for a while and it, you know, once again, like, “God, this c- this is a kick in my pants.”

[00:34:46] Billy Thorpe: But then the product keeps stacking up ’cause I could still do the business here. So I, I would have to solve that problem, and I just started telling people like, “Yeah, I have all this product for sale.” And then a couple people would invite me to like a local market, and so I’m like, [00:35:00] “Oh, that… Okay. Well, the dominant language here is Spanish.”

[00:35:03] Billy Thorpe: Like everyone speaks… They learn Spanish and English, but it’s like predominantly Spanish. And I’m like, “I don’t even know. Whatever. Like, I guess we’ll just figure it out. Like, I’m going. Where’s my translate app?” And so I, I went and did one of these, uh, markets, and then I did another market, and then I did ano- And so anyway, so then I’m like bu- you know, building these relationships locally now to where now people come, they’ll come to my office.

[00:35:29] Billy Thorpe: Had a couple people this week just drop by and go through the stuff and figure out what they want, and then some resellers will come by. And so, a- and then also, I, I’m selling stuff here for like 50 to 75% of retail as to where on Whatnot I was probably getting like 5, 10, 15, maybe 20% of retail depending on how the show would go, uh, and then fees and all that kind of stuff.

[00:35:53] Billy Thorpe: So yeah, I mean, it was just one of those like get uncomfortable and sort of str- you know. And there’s, there’s one of my best buyers, she [00:36:00] didn’t speak a lick of English, I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, and we just use translate apps, and we have a good old time and laugh and, and just I… she makes a bigger pile and I make a better deal.

[00:36:09] Billy Thorpe: So that’s how it works.

[00:36:11] Jeff Sieh: So I, I think there’s gonna be across the country, it’ll be like Thorpe Thrift Stores, like is what’s gonna happen. Like, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a chain. it’s

[00:36:17] Jeff Sieh: it’s gonna be you’re the next, you’re the next Sam Walton kind of a thing is what’s gonna happen.

[00:36:21] Billy Thorpe: Yeah, it’s a fun, it’s fun, man. There’s always a way to figure it out. It might not be the way that you want. Like, do I want to go set up on a Saturday and sit for five hours behind a table, and try to speak a language I don’t speak? No. But I do wanna get paid, and I do wanna get rid of all this stuff.

[00:36:36] Billy Thorpe: More importantly, get rid of all the stuff.

[00:36:39] Zac Brown: Now you, you’ve said that the simpler you make it, the more repeat customers you get, and then you lock people into a rate instead of negotiating every deal. So for a service business watching this, let’s say a photographer, designer, consultant, how do you build an offer that people buy over and over without you selling every single time?

[00:36:57] Billy Thorpe: You know, and that’s, uh, I mean, for those industries, [00:37:00] that’d be interesting to, to try to figure out, especially like for a photographer. I was actually thinking about this, like, how could you… How about you prepay for all five of your daughter’s weddings, huh? Let’s do that, you know?

[00:37:10] Jeff Sieh: go

[00:37:12] Billy Thorpe: Maybe some repeat business.

[00:37:13] Billy Thorpe: a- and I’m not really sure, you know, with other companies how… But I often think about the membership model. You know, it’s like I don’t charge, like, my clients are not, I’m not on a retainer, which you could, I guess. That’d be the simplest thing for, like, consultant or photographers. Like, you know, if you’re especially like a food photographer or something and restaurant needs, they’re always adding to their menu or needing new pictures or whatever, or marketing materials, I guess you could think about a retainer.

[00:37:40] Billy Thorpe: You know, I mean, that’d be my best answer, I guess. But I, I don’t really… You know, and it’s kind of an unspoken rule in my industry, or for me anyway, it’s like I say, “Hey, it’s 50 bucks a video,” and they go, “Cool.” And I just never talk about that price again. I just send the invoice and it gets paid. So,

[00:37:56] Billy Thorpe: um-

[00:37:57] Jeff Sieh: I, I would say too, and tell me if I’m wrong [00:38:00] about this, Billy, but I think a lot of entrepreneurs think they have to be so many levels ahead of everybody else before they can give advice and charge for their services. So like f- like for me, um, Like, AI is such a new technology.

[00:38:12] Jeff Sieh: it’s the Wild West. Like, there’s no gurus. Even if they say they’re a guru, it’s not been around enough to be like a super, super, super expert. But I know more than a lot of people, right? So I can sell those services, and you mentioned retainer. I have a couple clients that h- I’m on retainer for that I help them with their AI.

[00:38:28] Jeff Sieh: I look at their products and services, and I help them streamline or give them ideas on how to do stuff, or show them how they can speed up their workflows, and I’m not really selling anything, but they pay me monthly to ask me questions. So, and I’m not a AI guru in n- in no way, but I, I’ve used it in my own stuff to make, you know, push it ahead and move ahead in, in how we do things and streamline everything.

[00:38:51] Jeff Sieh: So I, I think it’s really cool what you’ve done. Like, you haven’t figured out everything, but you figured out the next step for a lot of people that they’re not doing, and you can help them do that [00:39:00] even with your membership and stuff like that. Am I right in thinking that? And I think a lot of entrepreneurs don’t kinda think that way.

[00:39:05] Billy Thorpe: Well, yeah, I mean, I, and I think that’s one of the biggest, hurdles that I jump through every day is like, what do I know? Because, you know, you, ’cause you’re this close to it every day. You’re, you’re doing it, and you just don’t realize it. And then you jump on a podcast and, or a membership group and, you know, I have people in my, in my membership group and, and I’m saying something and they’re like, “Wait a minute.

[00:39:24] Billy Thorpe: Like, you’re just gonna brush over that? Like, that’s a genius idea like we’ve never even considered.” And I’m like, ” I, I just do that every day.” Like, you know? So I think sometimes we have to surround ourselves with other people in different industries to be able to, you know, realize the genius that’s on the inside of us sometimes.

[00:39:43] Billy Thorpe: And I, I say that like, not like I’m a genius, but, I had this happen, speaking of AI, a I met a new guy here in Puerto Rico and he has very successful business. And so we got together and he’s telling me about, his early business about selling, PDFs and e-books and things like this. And [00:40:00] so I, and I said, “Yeah, man, I’ve thought about that, but I don’t know how to write anything.

[00:40:03] Billy Thorpe: I’m, I’m a big dumb,” and, you know, whatever. I can barely read, like, more or less write a book. And then he’s like, “Well, tell me a little bit about your business.” So I’m telling him, just like we’re talking here, I’m telling him all this stuff. He goes, “Dude, you’re sitting on like a, a half a million dollar e- you know, e-book idea.

[00:40:18] Billy Thorpe: Like, what are you doing? Here’s Claude Cowork. Use Claude Cowork. Do this, this, this, and that.” So, I mean, within three days I’d used AI from his advice sitting down for a cup of coffee to build out a full offer, a full playbook and some other products and some email, like, grabbers or whatever you call, I don’t even know what you, see I don’t even know what you call them, but they’re working.

[00:40:39] Billy Thorpe: They’re on my website right now working. And so, you know, I, and then I built another AI, like an- another Chrome plugin to extract data from other, you know, people’s storefronts or whatever. I won’t talk too much about that. I’ll get beat up but, you know, it’s like, I don’t know. Anyway, so it was me being around this person who just said, “Yeah, dude, this is a good i- these are good [00:41:00] things that other people need to know.”

[00:41:02] Billy Thorpe: And here I am thinking like, well, I’m only one or two steps ahead, so I’m not, that’s not valuable information. And then this guy who’s like, “No, dude.” And so I already made 500 bucks off that e-book. Took me three days to get it from start to finish and, you know, and all I did was took content, like, I took one of our podcast episodes, took the transcript, threw it into a folder.

[00:41:23] Billy Thorpe: I did that on like five different episodes where I was the guest off my own podcast, threw it in there, and was like, “Let’s work on a playbook.” And it’s like, bloop, spits one out. And I mean, it’s everything I’ve ever done in my business in that playbook, and it’s insane.

[00:41:37] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Very, very cool. really quick, when you, you talked about that, one of the things with AI is doing things that I’ve always wanted to do but I’ve never been able to, or I’ve not had enough time, and now it’s automating stuff, and that leads right into what we have now as a offer.

[00:41:51] Jeff Sieh: It’s free. It’s totally free. You can go to jeffsieh.com/cheatsheet, and about, oh, I don’t know, an hour or two hours after a show is done, it actually takes it, makes [00:42:00] it a cheat sheet. It gives you all the takeaways, all the links, everything, the action plan, and it does it automatically, and you can get it for free at jeffsieh.com/cheatsheet.

[00:42:08] Jeff Sieh: So go check it out. Kick the tires. Tell me what you think about it, ’cause, I thought it was pretty cool. It’s always something… Amy Porterfield used to do this all the time with her podcast. She’d have, like, a download every week, and she’d have her team put it together. Well, now I have an AI team that can do it, so I’ve been really stoked about that.

[00:42:21] Jeff Sieh: So go check it out. You have a question there, Zac. What’s, what’s your question?

[00:42:27] Zac Brown: Yeah, Billy, you mentioned in January that you charge extra to put a video on YouTube. What else is an upsell that you think creators are just giving away for free?

[00:42:36] Billy Thorpe: Oh man, so much. Every platform you post on could be an upsell. the, the video itself, like if the company wants to use it as like an ad or they wanna use it in their own promotion, like that’s an upsell. I mean, I think it’s a pretty common one, but a lot of content, a lot of Amazon influencers don’t think that way.

[00:42:51] Billy Thorpe: and I went back and sold videos that I made a year ago. A company will reach out and go, “Hey, we, we wanna use this video.” And I go, “Cool, here’s the fee.” And they pay me another [00:43:00] fat fee, and then I give them the file, and then, you know, we move on from there. so I think, I think like any of that stuff, like any, any type of content or UGC stuff or, you know, vertical or horizontal, like those are all upsells.

[00:43:12] Billy Thorpe: Like vertical, horizontal, like that’s a different– same v- I mean, I’ve charged two fees for two different formats and it just, I just chop it up or create it at the same time. It’s like, but that’s two fees. You know, they don’t know. They don’t know if I spent two hours chopping that up or one second. Who cares?

[00:43:28] Billy Thorpe: and then I think like going in the live selling space, like live selling for other people, live selling for other brands, you know, anything that you can do as a talent to get on camera and make content is huge. It’s like, dude, you could just go to your local businesses and go, “Hey, I just wanna make your social media content about pizza.

[00:43:49] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:43:50] Billy Thorpe: And here, here’s 12 ideas. Let’s try a couple, see how they do, and if they work, you pay me 1,500 bucks a month and I’ll come in, eat free pizza, drink free beer, and make videos.”

[00:43:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:44:00] That’s too dangerous. I couldn’t do that. That would, that would be dangerous for me. But, by the way, speaking of something that’s not dangerous, remember, Billy’s gonna be at, Creator Camp. Uh, this show is als- also sponsored by our friends, over on Ecamm, and you can find out more about them, but we have a quick word from our sponsor That’s right. Thank you to our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them, and camp at ecamm.com/camp. Thank you guys so much for sponsoring the show each and every week. All right, so we’re gonna go into our next and final section. So Billy, I wanna know straight up, right now, this month, what are people telling you that is a waste of time or beneath you and you’re like, “Ah, I got an idea”?

[00:44:58] Billy Thorpe: Oh man, I’ve thought about [00:45:00] this question. You know what? I don’t think there’s anything that they would say that I’m doing is dumb. They’d probably say what I’m not doing is dumb. so right now in my space in particular, leveraging the Amazon Influencer program, the big move that all these top platform earners are doing is product research and investing into products.

[00:45:19] Billy Thorpe: And I just find it to be something that I, I’m not even f- because I have a proximity problem, like Amazon won’t ship a lot of stuff here, and so therefore I just kinda know my limitations and I’m okay with that. Even though I have a little bit of FOMO, even though I think I could crush this strategy, people will think I’m absolutely nuts for not doing, a ton of product research and spending a bunch of money in hopes of a product video getting on a carousel.

[00:45:46] Billy Thorpe: So that’s probably what they think I’m crazy for not doing,

[00:45:49] Jeff Sieh: Well crazy like a fox. Yeah.

[00:45:52] Billy Thorpe: ‘ Cause what I’m doing is we’ll let them do all the product research, and then I’m leveraging my 4,800 pieces of content to go get a brand deal with [00:46:00] the same company that they’re paying for the product. I’m gonna get paid to do the video and the banger product.

[00:46:06] Billy Thorpe: see you on the carousel.

[00:46:07] Jeff Sieh: I think too, people don’t understand that you’re only working 25 hours most weeks on this. Like, you have, are very, like, I know, like, you get up and you bang stuff out, and then you got the rest of your day free, which, like, man, so many people would love that. They would, they would gladly work those hours that you’re doing and making the money you, you do.

[00:46:24] Jeff Sieh: So don’t, discount that part of the equation too. That is very, very cool

[00:46:29] Billy Thorpe: That’s true, yeah. Yeah, and, and, and I think it’s a huge lesson for all of us is like in business, because in business there’s no like, “Oh man, I’m… There’s enough.” Like, if you, if you don’t say there’s enough, there’s never enough. And, and no matter what you do, you’ll always watch someone online who says what you’re doing is not enough and you should be doing more, more, more, more, more, and it’s just that, you know, mentality that we’ve, especially in the States, we’ve just like grown up with, of like just grind, grind, grind, hustle, hustle, hustle.

[00:46:54] Billy Thorpe: And you know, my wife and I looked at each other the other day, we’re like, “We live in a tropical paradise that most [00:47:00] people want to vacation in.” So we live in other people’s vacation spots, we’re debt-free, like we have cash flow, so after all our bills are paid, we’re still making money. Like, what are we thinking about so much when it comes to money?

[00:47:13] Billy Thorpe: Like, this is stupid. Like, most people would, would kill their mom to live like this. Like, what are we doing, you know? Some people have. I’ve seen the documentary. but you know, it’s like… So anyway, I think there’s a lot of times like, man, just to pause and just be grateful for the moment you’re in and the season you’re in, and it always hasn’t been this way, and I’m not flexing saying like, “Oh, whatever.”

[00:47:34] Billy Thorpe: I mean, trust me, I still gotta work. Like, just c- yeah, I… Just ’cause I have a yard in paradise doesn’t mean I can pay someone to mow it, okay? So I’m here,

[00:47:42] Billy Thorpe: I’m working.

[00:47:43] Jeff Sieh: Gotcha

[00:47:43] Billy Thorpe: Okay? So don’t, don’t hear what I’m not saying, but it’s like at the same time, just like be grateful for what you do have and the opportunity that you have.

[00:47:53] Billy Thorpe: And I’m, I have to be reminded of that every day, especially when you see people saying they’re making [00:48:00] 4 or 5X what I make, 10X at times. You’re like,

[00:48:03] Jeff Sieh: But a lot of those people are miserable, my friend. A lot of them are miserable and have horrible home life. So yeah, it’s–

[00:48:09] Jeff Sieh: you always have to dig a little deeper. But yeah, I, that’s why, that’s why I love having you on the show, man, because you, like, you tell it how it is. You work really, really hard, but you also stop and you know what you want, and you’re getting what you want.

[00:48:20] Jeff Sieh: So I think that’s really, really cool

[00:48:21] Billy Thorpe: You know what I mean? It’s a lot of fun. It’s all about the journey. There’s no destination. I don’t care who tells you that. They’re lying.

[00:48:29] Zac Brown: Billy, I know we just met, but I wanna push back on something that you said that hits a little close to home for me. You said that if somebody does not do this full time, they will probably not succeed, that a 5:00 to 9:00, not 9:00 to 5:00, a 5:00 to 9:00 will not cut it. And I know a big chunk of the people that are watching right now are part-time with a day job.

[00:48:47] Zac Brown: I want you to make the case against yourself. Who actually pulls it off part-time, and what do they do differently?

[00:48:54] Billy Thorpe: Okay, this is not hard. I don’t know why I s- I talk too much if I said that. Like, that’s dumb. I shouldn’t have said that. ’cause [00:49:00] I know a lot of people who make good money doing this. Like, I have some people in my community who are working, you know, full-time jobs actually, and they’re doing this at a part-time level, and they’re making a salary.

[00:49:10] Billy Thorpe: You know, they’re making probably, like, an average yearly salary from it. so yeah, I would probably take that back actually and strike that from the record of bad advice, or bad, bad mentality ’cause, I definitely… I mean, I’m doing it too now. Now that I’ve built this system, I- it’s… That’s what I think is the most important part of, of any of this stuff is, like, you have to build the system, even if it’s…

[00:49:33] Billy Thorpe: even if you have to do 5, 10, $15 videos in the beginning. I’ve since then, like, 10X’d my revenue as far as brand deals go, but I’m still doing the same amount of work in less time because I’ve really just dialed in the system to be able to, you know, do that. And so I think if people are working a full-time job or they’re working part-time, they’re trying to do this part-time, as long as you have the right system and you can be disciplined, and that’s for any business, [00:50:00] that’s not just for this, but it’s like you just have to have the system and show up for yourself.

[00:50:04] Billy Thorpe: And the people who just keep showing up and showing up and showing up, I mean, I’m, I’m the dumb guy who’s just like, “I ain’t quitting entrepreneurship. I will just… I’ll be homeless before I do that.” I’m like… And so anyway, I just keep showing up and it keeps

[00:50:18] Jeff Sieh: I can’t remember, uh, like, who said it. I think, you know, success, you know, half of success is just showing up, and I think that consistency, so many people don’t do it. I see so many people stop before the finish line. They like, they’re so close and they just like, “I’m done.” And I’m like, “Oh, you’re so close.

[00:50:32] Jeff Sieh: Don’t stop.” So, hang in there. If you’re struggling, you know, it can get better. I mean, I, I look at my friend Dustin Stout, who’s in the audience, who’s had this succ- huge success with Magai. He did a lot of things before he hit it with Magai, but he was consistent, he worked really hard, and it’s great to see the people who, don’t quit before the finish line.

[00:50:51] Jeff Sieh: And I, I see Dustin s- still killing it out there, so, kudos to both Billy and Dustin, and so many other people who are in the chat room. But, Billy, I wanna kinda [00:51:00] w- end with this question, because we’ve kind of talked about AI, and you said something about this in A- in, in January. You told us about an Amazon influencer whose early videos were them holding the product and showing how it worked, and whose newest videos were an A- AI avatar reading the product description off the listing.

[00:51:18] Jeff Sieh: And your line was, “I know you’re trying to be more efficient, but you actually just ruined your brand, and congratulations.” That was like, that was seven months ago. So has it gotten better or worse with this, you know, this AI avatar? I mean, we’re, we’re all using AI hopefully to help us move forward and d- and do some things we were not able to do before, like I mentioned the Cheat Sheet Club before.

[00:51:40] Jeff Sieh: what are your thoughts? Is, is it getting better or worse? Has the line moved on you at all? What are your thoughts on that?

[00:51:44] Billy Thorpe: I, I definitely think the line of, like, AI in general has moved on me. At, at first I was real like, “Man, I don’t wanna… You know, I, I don’t like this,” because, and this is gonna sound mean, but it was like a bunch of wannabes creating stuff out [00:52:00] of things they haven’t worked for or earned, and so that was what was infuriating to me, was like, okay, you’re just using this smart software to basically rip off elements of other people’s work and put it together.

[00:52:13] Billy Thorpe: It’s like you don’t even understand the elementary thing of it. And so I was, like, pretty, like I didn’t really say that too much publicly, but I was pretty much, like, anti-AI for those apparent reasons. It was just like, well, the easy button, you know? It’s, like, irritating me ’cause I’m like, you know, ’cause we worked hard, so it’s like…

[00:52:29] Billy Thorpe: And then when I saw AI kind of taking aim at something I’m doing, I’m like, now I’m even more irritated. Like, what are you doing, robot? Step back before I, you know, Terminator you. And so, I, like, had that, but then when I realized, like especially with, like, Claude Cowork, I’m like, wait a minute, I can take my work and, and, like, you know, turn on the gas and really cook with some oil here.

[00:52:51] Billy Thorpe: I’m like, okay, now this is interesting. Like, so I… You know, my perspective is always changing. I… You know, I think AI in video and especially in product video is still a bad [00:53:00] call. I think even, like, this video that I have, like, this quality and switching cameras and, you know, looking like I’m in a studio, I, I think maybe even that is not good right now because there’s so much polished, perfect, flawless, you know, content going out there, um, and I think people are like, “Wait, I want to know this person’s real.”

[00:53:19] Billy Thorpe: So I’m like,

[00:53:21] Billy Thorpe: just snot in my nose, not fixing my hair. Like, I’m real, trust me. ‘Cause, you know, I think we’re moving from that attention, and everybody says it. I mean, I’m not the, the marketing guru here by any means, but you hear all these Hormozis and, and Vaynerchuks and all these guys who are kind of at, at huge scales talking like, “Well, it’s no longer about the attention.

[00:53:42] Billy Thorpe: It’s now about the trust,” and can a person turn your video on and trust that you’re real and trust that you’re sharing a real experience about the product or service that you’re offering? And also I’ve like, I mean, immediately when I saw an AI video holding up a product and talking about it, I just thought, “Well, this is it.

[00:53:59] Billy Thorpe: I’m [00:54:00] cooked.” And so I immediately reached out to all these companies and go, ” Hey, I see the technology now is pretty much not needing me. Like, am I still needed?” You know, like, “What’s the future?” And they’re like, “No, we don’t want AI. We want real people because we realize that no one’s gonna believe that.”

[00:54:17] Billy Thorpe: You know, so I’m like, “Okay, this is good news for me.” but if I’m like a copywriter, a coder, I mean, I don’t know, man, I feel so bad. But also it’s just different markets, like you said. Like you are helping people with AI, that’s an opportunity. So I don’t think everyone who codes or everyone who does copywriting is out.

[00:54:34] Billy Thorpe: I think they just have to pivot and, you know, make a different, a different approach, a different offer, and think outside the box.

[00:54:42] Jeff Sieh: Totally agree. I always say that like, you know, there used to be blacksmiths on every corner, right? We still have blacksmiths, we just don’t have that many anymore because things have changed, technology has changed, and I think the same thing with AI. And so I think people c- are

[00:54:55] Billy Thorpe: Sh- that’s good. That’s good. I’m gonna steal

[00:54:57] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, you steal

[00:54:58] Jeff Sieh: it all the time.

[00:54:58] Billy Thorpe: credit you when I remember.

[00:54:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:55:00] right. That’s fine. Anyway, this has been great. Billy, once again, you have brought the goods, and I always enjoy our chats together. Looking forward to seeing you at Creator Camp with Ecamm. but where can people find out more about Billy? And, and Dustin actually asked the question, he goes, “I need to ask this question before I forget.

[00:55:17] Jeff Sieh: Where do we hire you to do a video?”

[00:55:20] Billy Thorpe: Oh, perfect. So if you, anybody can reach out to me at just billythorpe.live.

[00:55:27] Jeff Sieh: BillyThorpe.live, everybody. That’s where you can… You got his membership there, all sorts of things. If you have any questions, Billy is more than happy to answer those. He is very available and accessible. He’s a great guy. just reach out to him if you have any questions. And another great guy is the, amazing Zac Brown.

[00:55:41] Jeff Sieh: Zac, where can people find out more about the amazing Zac Brown?

[00:55:45] Zac Brown: Or you can follow me on Zac Brown Creative on all the socials. There you’ll find links to my podcast, The Zac Brown Show, and my new book, An Accidental Education: What I’ve Learned So Far. If you want to connect, DM me. Happy to answer any questions you may have

[00:55:59] Jeff Sieh: Zac’s book’s [00:56:00] amazing. Make sure you guys go check that out. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you much for Ecamm for sponsoring this. As always, you can go to get the cheat sheet, for all the ones in the past, but also,Billy’s gonna be coming up here this afternoon as soon as everything fires off after we upload it.

[00:56:14] Jeff Sieh: But go check that out at jeffsieh.com/cheatsheet. Thank you so much everybody for watching all your great comments because here at Creator News Live, we have Thank you guys so much for watching and your comments. We’ll see you guys next time. Bye everybody.