When the path of life leads to crossroads of transformation and growth, it's stories like Dario Herrera's that light the way. As our esteemed guest, this social good entrepreneur embodies resilience, having navigated the peaks and valleys of a career that not only shaped influencer marketing but also connected deeply with humanitarian causes. Our conversation is a journey through the wisdom garnered from personal struggles, the pursuit of alignment with one's values, and the art of storytelling that resonates across businesses and non-profits alike. Daria's move from the East to the West Coast mirrors not just a change in location, but a profound shift towards new beginnings and potential.
This episode isn't just about the glitz and glamor of celebrity partnerships; it's anchored in the rich soil of authenticity and social impact. Hear how our collaboration with Generation SOS has amplified our reach, tackling the pervasive issues of substance misuse and mental health. Our dialogue celebrates the pure fulfillment derived from contributing to the greater good and shedding light on the importance of intentional living, regardless of your industry or passions. Daria's insights into personal growth and the power of legacy are as refreshing as they are inspiring, offering a compass for navigating the complexities of life and career.
As we chart the evolution of influencer marketing, the emergence of AI-driven platforms like Influence takes center stage, promising to reshape the industry. We dissect the potential and ramifications of integrating AI into content strategy and market optimization, all while fostering a conversation around the entrepreneurial spirit that drives change and creates lasting impact. Alongside this, we discuss how our unique approach to virtual CMO services at W4Agency is democratizing high-level marketing expertise. We wrap up with a reminder that every one of us holds the pen to script our life's narrative, underscoring the power of choices and the beauty of walking hand in hand with purpose, every step of the way.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
When the path of life leads to crossroads of transformation and growth, it's stories like Dario Herrera's that light the way. As our esteemed guest, this social good entrepreneur embodies resilience, having navigated the peaks and valleys of a career that not only shaped influencer marketing but also connected deeply with humanitarian causes. Our conversation is a journey through the wisdom garnered from personal struggles, the pursuit of alignment with one's values, and the art of storytelling that resonates across businesses and non-profits alike. Daria's move from the East to the West Coast mirrors not just a change in location, but a profound shift towards new beginnings and potential.
This episode isn't just about the glitz and glamor of celebrity partnerships; it's anchored in the rich soil of authenticity and social impact. Hear how our collaboration with Generation SOS has amplified our reach, tackling the pervasive issues of substance misuse and mental health. Our dialogue celebrates the pure fulfillment derived from contributing to the greater good and shedding light on the importance of intentional living, regardless of your industry or passions. Daria's insights into personal growth and the power of legacy are as refreshing as they are inspiring, offering a compass for navigating the complexities of life and career.
As we chart the evolution of influencer marketing, the emergence of AI-driven platforms like Influence takes center stage, promising to reshape the industry. We dissect the potential and ramifications of integrating AI into content strategy and market optimization, all while fostering a conversation around the entrepreneurial spirit that drives change and creates lasting impact. Alongside this, we discuss how our unique approach to virtual CMO services at W4Agency is democratizing high-level marketing expertise. We wrap up with a reminder that every one of us holds the pen to script our life's narrative, underscoring the power of choices and the beauty of walking hand in hand with purpose, every step of the way.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you?
Speaker 2:think you are All right. Everybody. Another day, another dollar. Another one of my favorite episodes because it's my own podcast. I'm biased. What if it did work? I got with me some, but talk about a blast from the past.
Speaker 2:This guy's Amanda myth, the legend Daria Herrera Social. He's a social good entrepreneur that serves as CEO for WFR agency and Influence, a start of AI driven SaaS marketplace, eliminating the guesswork of influencer marketing for the world's biggest advertisers. 20 years plus executive leadership experience you get 20 years when you're old and has helped shape the crowdfunding and influencer marketing space. He's helped drive social media strategy and execution for a list celebrity Artists ranging from it's not over Darry to Pitpole, mr 305 with the Bali Baca to little Wayne yeah, true fit to Rob Zombie director, writer, producer, the Lords of Salem and and many albums white zombie, white Rob zombie. As well as worked with small to medium-sized businesses, authors, social good professionals and nonprofits to develop their brand story and overall social media marketing strategy and execution.
Speaker 2:Is that dynamic and actually charismatic I can tell you wrote that gets like a four syllable word there. Highly professional speaker. He is most well known for his how to go from high to buy with social media. Daria is no stranger to overcoming adversity. He is Mr Adversity doing the work. I'm grateful I get to call my friend going back to ninth grade in Miami in the 80s, the man the myth. Not only that, but he taught me what my self-worth is, who I really was, and he taught me If the stove is hot, there is no need to keep on touching a hot stove. Hey bro, how are you? You see, I told you I was gonna add a little to it.
Speaker 3:I figured you would so grateful to be here with you and and obviously always wonderful to connect, and I Love so much what you're doing and the words of wisdom you share daily and I love your consistency with it. I'll be passionate for it and I'm humbled to be here with you, bro bro would.
Speaker 2:Could you have ever thought that we would be business? Not not only business, but personal development?
Speaker 3:No, I never thought that I mean I. There was times where I doubted whether I would get through high school alone. You know, go on to accomplish the things that I've been, you know, so just bless to accomplish. And it's so nice to see you in your arc, you know, I remember I think it was was it biology that we were in together? No, it was a biology.
Speaker 2:It was nice we had a couple.
Speaker 3:of course We've had a couple of class when we set, but we sat next to each other in one specific one. I don't remember exactly which one it was we did have PE in junior high.
Speaker 2:I remember wearing the very bird creeper.
Speaker 3:The Magnum? Yeah, it's been. It's been a long journey, it's been a fun journey.
Speaker 2:It's it's had its ups and downs and and I'm grateful to see on the other side and definitely honored to connect with you, buddy brother, what I love about you is You're like the Latino, like Freddy Krueger, latino like in a good way, or dude, you keep on come. You're like a modern-day Lazarus man, no, yeah, and hold you back. And man, I applied you because you know most people If they hit success and go backwards, that's it, man. You're determined, you keep on going, you keep picking yourself up and you keep on yourself, man You're. You keep on reinventing yourself, because that's what life's about. Life's about pivoting, life's about getting up. Especially, nobody wants to get up and they hit rock bottom, but you know it's the only way to do. It is to go straight up and prove all those naysayers and haters wrong. Brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I agree with a lot of that. I also think life is about learning and for me it's been learning, going in what I have to offer. What do I enjoy doing? What don't I enjoy doing? What kind of people want to throw myself with? What are what my days look like? What kind of clients do I want to serve and help and support?
Speaker 3:You know what I want to do for myself in terms of my own personal growth and Making sure that my life aligns to my values and I get to curate. You know my daily experience and it's been a long journey to learn. You know what makes me happy. What makes me unhappy will fulfill me, what doesn't, but motivates me to get about a better in the morning, what doesn't. And you know it's nice to and I'm 50 and saying this, you know, as a 50 year old man, it's nice to kind of Be hitting my stride and finally kind of have a comfortable understanding Of who I am or what moves me and and what I want to do with my life and and that you know that that's a great accomplishment in of itself and it's something that I have been very, very far away from a different journeys and seasons of my life. So To be here knowing what I have to offer and knowing that I can back that up and that it fulfills me and Aligns with my values, you know it's very freeing and very power and very humbling.
Speaker 2:Here's my question man, you move out of South Florida, westchester. You know the glorious, beautiful neighborhood that we grew up with, the million dollar cars and Vegas. You make a name for yourself in Vegas, hit a couple speed bumps, you get knocked down, but you reestablish yourself in Vegas. Why move to SoCal?
Speaker 3:Well, I moved for a couple of reasons. One is my youngest son lived in San. I moved for a couple of reasons, saying he wanted to continue. The network was in Vegas and I had done very well there. I just felt like I couldn't give tail. What he needed, my youngest son, what he needed from Las Vegas, it was important for me to be there for him.
Speaker 3:I didn't have that growing up. My father left when I was two and had a stepfather who I loved very much Disappeared overnight and I had another stepfather who was very abusive. The time we went to school together I lived out of my own for a couple of years during high school. I didn't have the ideal situation at home Not that it's ideal to have mom and dad not be married and so forth. The next best thing is knowing that I can beat it for him and him, knowing that I love him and that I can beat it for him and that I take interest in him. His dad is there anytime he needs him. It was just important for me, despite the professional challenges it was going to create. Even the cost of ligament adjustment has been pretty interesting, to say the least. He deserves it.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, to say the least, man, you went from a place affordable. People don't realize Vegas is as long as it's not the strip. As long as you're not paying 20 bucks for a hamburger at Caesar's Palace or whatnot, it's an affordable place. So Cal, all of Southern California, is just through the roof, not only real estate, where La Jolla it's like a million dollars and you can have someone chat. Yeah, but hey man, the things we do for our kids. So congratulations to you, brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I don't regret a minute of it. I'm sitting there watching him play soccer, watching him play baseball or taking them to the batting cages or just like we were last night listening to vinyl records and kind of contemplating hey, is Iron Maiden traditional heavy metal or is it just metal, or is it heavy heavy metal or is it British metal? Just those conversations and he's such a smart, creative, intuitive kid, he's so curious about the world, and just stuff like that makes all the other stuff completely worth it.
Speaker 2:Well, too, Tell him I love his musical tastes. When you posted on social media, he was listening to Metallica. He's an old soul man. Usually kids listen to horrible ass. Well, I can't even call it music, to say the least, man. So, yeah, tell him I like his style man completely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll let him know for sure.
Speaker 2:So, okay, you have now your business. You're a social media influencer, you had your agency. Is it hard to move that off your office? Or you streamlined everything and it really is a matter where you call home.
Speaker 3:Well, when I was in Las Vegas, I had a different agency and then when I moved to San Diego, I wanted to grow it and expand it and so I created a new way to raise the money, raise some capital, and grew the company and it allowed us to have greater reach into the types of clients and the type of work we do for our clients. But really I can do it mostly remotely. I mean sure, there are some in-person meetings. I still like to work with my staff person to person. Yeah, we do a lot of stuff remote, but as a creative person, my juices get flowing when we have those brainstorming, ideation sessions, when I can have a whiteboard and there's a free flow of ideas and really can just feed off one another. And you can't do that fully remotely, but we can do a lot of stuff remotely.
Speaker 3:And so, starting a new agency, that's been going well and we've worked with New York, Miami, we've worked with Life Wallet, another brand that is local to South Florida. We've worked with national brands, we've worked with global brands and it's been great and we've helped them with their branding. We've helped them with their digital architecture, we've helped them tell their story, we've helped them identify who their audience is and create constant strategy and architecture that is responsive to the audience so that they can kind of emotionally connect and be easier to find for the right people looking for their services of product. And so yeah, WFRagencycom. We've grown recently and it's been exciting. I get to develop some subject matter expertise across multiple verticals and that keeps me on my toes, keeps me excited to get out of bed and learn something new and keep applying my learnings to benefit the clients that I have the opportunity and really the honor of working with, to help them get out in front of people and help them market themselves.
Speaker 2:Well, dude, what I love about you is you're not always chasing money. You go about some of your clients are not for profit. It's just all about raising awareness, raising money for a great cause.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the secret that I had a passion for public service and, because of what happened with me when I was in public service, I found a different avenue to serve and that's applying my talents and the things that I've learned in marketing to benefit organizations who are doing good work, and one of them is Generation SOS, a substance misuse and mental health organization for teens and young adults, and it's literally helping save lives, especially with the spent in all the crisis that we're seeing. And sure, I've just got my services, but I also get a ton of fulfillment. In fact, I would volunteer for them if they weren't paying me. And the fact that they do pay me and I get to help them with their awareness, I get to help them fundraise, I get them help with event management and creation and we increase the footprint. I think over last year and I might not quote the number correctly, but it was over 500%, I think it was 500, 4% more reach over the previous year and I think the engagement rate increased 280%, just below 300% and the fundraising base grew by a few hundred thousand dollars just last year alone. So that helps them reach out to more teens and, you know, adults who are struggling with substance misuse and mental health.
Speaker 3:That helps save lives, that helps them get into more schools, that helps them reach kids at a younger age who are at risk with fentanyl and with the other stuff that's going on now with opioids and everything else, and it's a gift to be able to help an organization like that. And then, you know, we have other organizations like we have a church in Boulder that's a spiritual center that welcomes all people from all walks of life, whether it's LGBTQ, racial diversity, ethnic diversity, nationality diversity, and they're about the spiritual journey and something that's very near and dear to me. As you know, because of my challenges, I've had my own growth journey, my own spiritual journey. So you know, I get to do what I do, which I love, and I get to do it for people who are doing great work and touch the lives of others. So what a gift that is.
Speaker 2:Now here's my question to you what brings you more joy? Stuff like that or working with the pit bulls, the darty, the rob zombies, the little Wayne?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. Listen, I've enjoyed working with pit bull and rob zombie and certainly little Wayne, and they're very impactful people and they do their own social good and they employ a lot of people in disadvantaged communities and they inspire through their creativity and they show what's possible in America with a little bit of talent. But really, if I'm comparing, if I can save a life, like helping generation, as well as save a team life, we're being pit bulls a lot. You know. A greater city music hall I'll put the form over the ladder every day, you know, and twice on Sunday, you know. That's. That kind of social impact is what moves me, you know. It speaks to my core, it speaks to my desire for public service and public interest and it's also my social, my Instagram name right Social Good Entrepreneurates. If I can which I've been able to, you know carve out a business model that supports people who are doing social good and make a decent living at it and help them make a living at it too, you know that's that's the best of those worlds.
Speaker 2:Any time you just step back and go Holy shit, look how far. Look at some of the main things I've done. You do you've played golf with the president, president Bill Clinton. You've worked with celebrities. We were ever like, oh my gosh, this kid from a broken home, from a blue collar working class neighborhood, the neighborhood where pretty much everybody stays no, nothing Was there. Was there ever a time that you're like Holy shit, look how far, look at everything I've done. This is amazing.
Speaker 3:Any time. You know it's a great question and I'll say this when I got elected to the state assembly and I got elected to the county commission and got elected as chairman of the county commission and I was playing golf with the president and so forth, I had that thought more often. When I got into professional life, I didn't really have that kind of thought because I was living my authentic truth in terms of what I'm good at, what I love to do, and it came natural to me. The political stuff, I think, was born out of the need for filling that hole that I had from abandonment and from, you know, some of the wounding as a young boy, and I had this adoration and I was blessed with, you know, a certain presence that people responded to and because of that I felt accepted, even though a lot of it was bullshit, and I felt accomplished, even though a lot of it was bullshit, and I felt loved, even though a lot of it was bullshit, you know. So, now that I'm in alignment with my authentic self and I'm doing what I enjoy doing and what I'm naturally talented at, and that I hone every day and I get to serve the people that I choose to serve. I mean, there's a lot of clients that I want to work with that we get reached out all the time and if it doesn't align with us we just don't do it, and it's so.
Speaker 3:These days I don't look back too much and say, oh wow, I look what I've accomplished. So these days I look back and just with gratitude and kind of just more about the journey and really just try to do my best to be present and live in gratitude, you know, for the opportunities I have and for the chance I get to help other people every day, and there's a lot to be said for that. I'm, you know, like I said, I'm 50. And I'm finally filling my own void, if you will, with self love and self care and by stop doing harm to myself by making choices that don't reflect my values and don't come from a place of wholeness, you know. So I don't spend a lot of time looking back on things now. I spend more time in the present and growing every day.
Speaker 2:You know I love man, I love that in your bio it says doing the work. Because usually those that know it's a never ending process Either you're growing or you're dying. But most people, especially toxic people, one, you'll never hear them say they did any work, is your their job? But two, it's not like you said, I did the work. Doing the work, that is the right answer. That's the correct answer Because you know guys like you and me shitty upbringing, limiting, limited beliefs. You know the frigging, self harm, the doing, doing stupid shit, self destructive patterns. That will always be with us. But having that awareness and knowing that whenever you're going to think something fucking stupid that you're getting ready to do Now you're like, yeah, you know, I'm not going to go down, I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I you know part of the beauty in life. It gives you the lessons you need to learn and it'll keep giving you the lessons you need to learn until you learn them. And I've learned some incredibly hard lessons in the hardest way possible, as you know. And it doesn't have to be that hard. No, it doesn't. We choose.
Speaker 2:We don't choose the road like a problem. We choose the road.
Speaker 3:We've had a conversation about relationships and allowing people to treat us a certain way and us treating them a certain way because of our shame and our projection and our lack of self love and self care. And you know, we're not we're not at fault for how we are. I mean, it's not my fault that I was abandoned multiple times by my dad and my mom. It is my responsibility, though, to not allow that abandonment, to allow those wounds to continue, allow me to hurt other people and justify hurting other people because of the wounding that I have, and for a long time, that's what I did. I didn't have the awareness to have today, I didn't do the work authentically, I didn't pour myself into my spiritual journey. I didn't ask myself the question hey, how can I align myself with God's will for me today? How can I best serve you? It was about how can I best serve myself, how can I survive?
Speaker 3:And that shift is a several shifts, and it's a powerful one.
Speaker 3:So, you know, I get to do the work every day, and some days are better than others, and life has a way of challenging your, or at least my, growth, and it gives me situations to react to, and I think, part of what I'm part of myself for is situations that used to trigger me or used to bring out ugliness in me or used to bring out doubts or shame or lack of self-worth or those types of things that were destructive.
Speaker 3:I'm not recognizing them for what they are and I don't let them take away from me being present and me doing the work and that's a legacy I can leave for my sons and my daughter and my partners and my family. And it hasn't come easily but it's been worth it every step of the journey. And yeah, there are things I would do differently, and anyone who says you know, oh, I would do anything differently, but this is an effort from people and effort myself and yeah, so I do some things differently, but I wouldn't change where I'm at right now, like I love where I am in my journey and I love that I get to help people professionally and I help them achieve their dreams. I get to serve, I get to apply the talents that I've been given and the talents that I've learned and earned through hard work to help others and I get to be a present dad and I get to be a present partner and I get to spread my self-love and self-care to the people I touch every day, and that's priceless to me.
Speaker 2:Now, do you ever think God, the universe, puts us in situations just to test us, just to see if we have grown, to challenge us, to see has he finally learned his lesson? Because you know, at times, you know with me, I'm like, oh shit, yeah, I would have blown up or I would have done something stupid or I would have reacted. And now I don't know whether it's age or just experience, or just tired of going through the motions of picking things up it's like, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker 3:That's beyond my pay grade. I do know from personal experience the universe repeats to repair, meaning you do get those opportunities to show that you've grown or you get those opportunities to show that you haven't. And you know there's been plenty of circumstances in my life where I showed I didn't learn, where I didn't grow, and I got the opportunity to show that I, you know, had done some work and repaired that you know. So whether it's done intentionally or not, or whether it's by some other kind of intelligent design, I don't know. You know I don't know what where that comes from, but I can say I've been given plenty of opportunities to show that I learned and grown, and sometimes I failed. And today, more often than not, I don't fail and I'm very proud of myself for that full disclosure to the audience.
Speaker 2:There's been, not at any time recent, but a few years back, whenever I'd Dario would be my voice or reason for, for usually I would be running into the same patterns and the same behaviors and the same limiting beliefs. And really same same woman, same situation, just different name, different face. So to me that shows growth, that I haven't had to do an SOS, I haven't had to call you and tell you that I touched the hot stove and that it sure does burn.
Speaker 2:And you know you've got to tell me that I'm not in junior high or I'm not at Southwest high anymore, that I'm highly educated, successful in all my qualities and to get my head out of my ass.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm proud of you and you know, and now that you've chosen to pay it forward by doing these lessons that you share every day and how you motivate people and how you remind them that there's more to life than obsessive number of social media or hitting the snooze button seven times or living for the weekend, or waiting for the first of the year to make resolutions and live life with purpose, you know those are incredibly powerful and valuable lessons that I learned from them.
Speaker 3:I think I texted you like two or three weeks ago as a particular message that really resonated with me, based on what was going on in my life on that particular day, and I reached out to you and said, hey, I need it to hear this. And I picked myself up and like, okay, don't feel sorry for yourself. You know you're being given this to show that you've grown and to show that you can be resilient and to be resourceful and to be present and to be grateful in that presence and your message really took me out of what was a very kind of uncomfortable, almost victim mode mood that was in and empowered me to look at things differently. So I'm proud of you for paying it forward. I know you've learned lessons the hard way and yes, we had some interesting conversations and yes, it was interesting because I saw so much in me that you didn't see in yourself and I was grateful that you allowed me to share that with you. And now I know you see it for yourself and then some. So I recall those conversations very phone-wise.
Speaker 2:Well, dude, we've had similar upbringing stories, bullshit stories and all that, and a lot of times I just think my, I would go to that, looking at the reflection, I would look back as the dipshit kid from, like you know, junior high or high school and not knowing my self-worth, not knowing the value. But that's something that we all do. It's because, you know, it's trauma, where we try to relive our past, even though you know there's no frigging DeLorean. But we try to change, we try to visit, or we try to visit situations in our past that, dude, leave that shit alone, man. The best time is now, and you're right, man. Yeah, it sucks that we're 50. I wish we were younger, but you know, it's a great ride, man, everybody. It's a journey that not everybody gets, man. Not everybody gets to. Are we playing the back nine? Sure, but most people don't even get to play the full front nine. And that's the way to look at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've listened. I've played a lot of golf in my life to use that analogy and I sprayed the wall around. I've left a lot of balls. I've hit the ball, the fairway, I've eight-putted, I've done all kinds of stuff on the golf course. And if you know, there's a subtle reference to something on the golf course there that I won't get into here because this is a family show, you know. And now I get to, you know, be more careful in my shot selection. I don't always have to hit driver. Sometimes I can hit the five irons. You know, I don't have to be a superstar. I could just be present, allow myself to be me and just accept life as it comes and not have to control it or manipulate it or force it, and just allow myself to be present, use the gifts that I've been given to support others and listen.
Speaker 3:About two months ago I was lamenting, you know, with a good friend. You know it's interesting. I had the agency. I still have it, you know, it does well, but I wasn't where I thought I should be in life professionally and instead of like being angry about it, being frustrated about it, I called a friend who I trust very much and I'm like listen, I have this idea and I see this huge need in the market for influential marketing. You know, the biggest agencies and biggest brands, the world's biggest advertisers, are still guessing when it comes to influential marketing. You know, I have a solution for this. And two weeks later, we had a company built, we started fundraising, we had a brand built. You know, we're building a product now that is going to be very useful for advertisers and influencers alike. It's gonna be very objective, it's AI driven, it's tech confused and it applies everything I've been doing from an agency perspective since 2009. You know, and now you know, I can apply the lessons that I've learned, you know, personally and professionally, and conduct this company differently and scale it properly. And you know, I'm 50 and I'm building a new company and, because it's authentic to me, people are responding to me, asking them, you know, to believe in what we're doing. And agencies are responding to the business model and influencers are excited about what we're bringing to the table.
Speaker 3:And yeah, and that would have happened, you know, five or six years ago I couldn't have been in this position, I wouldn't have been in a place of confidence, I wouldn't have been in a place of authenticity, I wouldn't have been aligned with. You know my higher purpose, if you will. And now I am, and what a gift. I'm 50, playing the back nine and I'm still growing and I'm still learning. I'm still challenging myself. I'm still pushing myself. I'm not accepting, you know, a good living and had that be my final chapter. I'm pushing the envelope and I wanna build wealth for myself, for my family, generations after us and really, when it comes down to it, more than building wealth, just use everything that I've been given to do the maximum possible good impact. And that's driving for me every day. That's why I get out of bed in the morning and why I can go to bed at night rested.
Speaker 2:I love the name of the company man.
Speaker 3:It's Influence right, right, influence. Influence, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Influence yes. Yes, now people, our age, ai driven man. Should we be worried about Skynet and Cyberdyne taking over?
Speaker 3:You know there's certain, I think, benefits to AI and there's some detriments, right? Is it gonna cost jobs in the long term? Probably. Is it gonna help us solve some big problems that we as humans probably couldn't solve ourselves? Probably. So I kind of, you know, take a way to see approach and all that stuff. You know, I know how we can apply it to save money for big brands and agencies on their spend on media and who they choose as influencers so that they make better decisions, they get better ROI out of their media spend, out of the influencer marketing spend. And commercially.
Speaker 3:You know, the influencer marketing platform market is at 14 billion today and by 2030, it's gonna be valued at 180 billion 30% growth year over year, you know. So I know AI will help all of that. You know the bigger philosophical questions and what's gonna happen long term. You know, I don't know that's above my pay grade too, but I'm certainly interested in it and I know that we can, you know, use AI to improve the content people see, to get influencer marketers the value they deserve, to get agencies the return on investment for their brand and their clients. The bigger stuff, you know, I'll take a way to see approach on that.
Speaker 2:Well, daria influencers, who is your target market?
Speaker 3:So our target market for the fundraise is accredited investors and there's a very specific criteria for that. We can take roughly 30 to 35% of our fundraising from non-accredited investors and we're doing a $5 million raise right now of a total $15 million. Valuation is $15 million a dollar a share. We have a little bit of flexibility in that now. So you know, right now that audience is people who are accredited investors and who have, you know, some disposable income, who want to be a part of the future and want to, you know, have a potential. You know, public company offering. You know, give them a big return someday if everything works out the way we expected to Now. That's not a forward-looking statement, that's just, you know, my expectation. You know I didn't get into this to fail. In terms of the actual product.
Speaker 3:There's two markets. One is the big agencies who represent advertisers and brands. They need good, measurable data to find the best marketing partners, the best influencers to help them pitch whatever their brand needs in the pitch and do it in a way that's aligned with that influencer's audience. You know that's very vertical, specific. You know, if you're an influencer in European travel and you get hired for US travel, you're not gonna have as much impact.
Speaker 3:You know, if you're a software influencer and you get hired for football, you're not gonna have that much impact and you're not gonna be hired again and the brand's not gonna get the return on investment and the audience is gonna see the content that they really want to see. So we're really solving that problem. So you know, our market is basically twofold the big agencies and even the medium-sized agencies, really, that represent advertisers who are looking for influencer marketing partners, and influencer marketing themselves, because we have a marketplace where they can match up with the biggest brands and advertisers need their services. And what's interesting, really, is the disconnect that has existed between agencies and influencers and audiences and influencers solves that problem and we can do it in a way that's scalable leveraging AI, leveraging tech and really giving the audiences at home what they want to see, giving influential marketers their actual value and getting the right return on investment for the biggest advertisers in the world.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, five years out, you want to have all the accredited investors, all the angel investors on yachts, because this thing is cash-blowing positive. To quote the Ghostbusters line, you've got cats and dogs living together. Everything's in harmony the influencers, the firms, the big firms, the mid-sized firms, as well as the client, the artists.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the brands right, the brands are hired in the agencies. I learned when I was working in a different SaaS company that the best way to scale is to go to the party that has your client. I can go to a brand by brand and have it be much more time consuming, much more costly from a cost-particle service perspective. Or I can go to an agency and sell the agency and have them bring it to their clients. One agency in particular that we're going to do a pilot with here soon. They have 6,000 to 8,000 digital media clients.
Speaker 3:This kind of Salesforce I'd have to have to reach out to 6,000 to 8,000 digital clients directly. How much time, how much money, travel, effort, resources. Now, if I go to the agency and I have a successful test case with two or three divisions that will have access to the entire plethora of clients, it's just the smart way. As a marketer, I would ask myself two questions who's my audience? In this particular case, it's the brand. Who's going to give me the quickest, fastest access, cheapest access to that audience? The agencies that represent the brands is the answer to that question.
Speaker 2:This is going to save two of the most valuable resources time and money. Before, everything was a test Throw money Like if it's spaghetti up against the wall. I'll see what sticks, what doesn't. It's a success. We really can't quantify. Let's just keep on throwing money and see what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker 3:And a brand and an agency can never get either one of those things back the money and or their time. We're going to solve that problem and I'm excited about it. We built a great team. We had the right tech. We are already developing what we call MVP, which is the minimal viable product. We've got pilots lined up. There was an influencer marketing platform called Hyper that went public and sold at a very big multiple.
Speaker 3:I was very fortunate to serve as a chief advisor to Hyper in his early days and helped kind of structure the move forward plan with their CEO, who was a friend of mine, and now he's my chief advisor. So it comes full circle. I served as this chief advisor and helped him launch Hyper and ultimately had a very successful exit. And now he gets to pay it forward and work with me to get direct access to these big agencies to learn some of the ins and outs of influencer marketing and some of the things that Hyper couldn't do because they didn't have a. They didn't have the kind of tech that we have access to today. So I think we're approaching this correctly and our team is very capable and we have a leg up because of my relationship with the former CEO of Hyper, who was done my chief advisor.
Speaker 2:They're all in some love. How do you pronounce that last name, man?
Speaker 3:I am Yep.
Speaker 2:Look at that man. Congratulations brother, Good Dude. Look at the board man. You're up on top, You're the CEO, You're the founder, you can be the founder of, like a really influential something that moves the needle, something that changes just the way people market, the way people influence, and that's amazing dude. So where is the corporate headquarters here? What I mean here in SoCal?
Speaker 3:It's in. Yeah, our corporate headquarters is in San Diego and basically downtown San Diego and we have partners in Las Vegas, we have partners in Miami, we have investors from all across the country. We've raised well with the six figures now and it's being well received and we'll start to take in some problems with some institutional capital here soon. We've been approached by some pretty meaningful private equity firms and BC's venture capitalist firms to make a big investment. But we're being very smart about who we align ourselves with. We know we have a great product. We know we're solving a big problem, so we're not in a hurry to take a bunch of money and give away the right way to do this. I am confident that our team knows the right way to do this to solve the big problem of investor marketing, to create opportunity, to create value for our investors and that's exciting.
Speaker 3:And the most you know, I don't get tied up in the titles of CEO or founder or anything. I just happen to be the CEO because it was my idea. I don't happen to be the founder because I moved the needle and made this happen with the folks I talked with. I'm most grateful that I get to serve and I get to really put into action the gifts that I've been given. I get to work on my passion, I get to help others realize their opportunities and, with our investors, if I can give them a great payday, well, what a gift, what a gift. I'm blessed that I get to do well and certainly, if I can do what I expect to do through this company, a lot of people will benefit from it and I can create generational wealth for my family, and that would truly be just something that, let me just say, my parents didn't do for me. They did the best they could with their limitations, but if I could do that for my kids and solve a national problem, a global problem, really that's a win-win.
Speaker 2:Where I come from, Now, what I like about the website it's spelled I-N-F-L-U-S-C-N-C-Ecom is yes, if you're not an accredited investor, dude, there's still a lot of value, man, anybody can use these tools, using influencer marketing to drive ROI. Five steps to calculate your true influencer marketing ROI. Just all about influencer marketing and how it's a crucial and critical part of every marketing strategy. A lot of people don't understand that, dude. A lot of people don't. Even they have a frigging face. Perfect example A person I sold my companies to. Her social media business page is on private and it's like are you serious? People don't know anything. They don't know that even the basics that you have to post all the time that you have to be an influencer Not only an influencer, but you have to be able to give content and valuable content.
Speaker 2:The world's not fair. You and I, we're not hot chicks that can just get likes and views and appreciate. But if you own a business, your content, you have to be in service. You have to give people a compelling reason. If I was an AC repair man, how to change a filter, why to change? But then they won't use me. They're not using you to begin with. Brother, living in scarcity never creates more money. It's when you live in abundance and you give and you give and you give. It returns by giving you more clients and more people willing to use your services.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what we call the four E's of content marketing, right. First, you work on educating the folks that you're passionate for and you work on enriching their lives. You work on entertaining them. And if you educate them, if you enrich their lives by what you share, if you entertain them, then they're going to engage you, they're going to invite themselves to be a customer. You don't ever have to sell yourself if you are practicing storytelling through the four E's of content marketing.
Speaker 3:I've seen you do that well and that's what we teach our clients to do through the agency. We also have an offering where I serve as a virtual CMO and provide the execution team something that most small to medium-sized businesses can't afford. They can't afford a CMO my experience and expertise and history. They can't afford a full execution team what they can basically pay for one position and typically a recent college graduate they can hire a virtual CMO and execution team to help them with their marketing objectives and goals. That's an offering that's pretty unique to W4Agency and we have a couple of situations like that that are working very well.
Speaker 3:It's fun, man. I see you market all the time. I hear you say, hey, pitch yourself, put yourself out there. This is something that we tell our clients all the time and consistency. Is this as important as how compelling the content is? If you just pull content that's decent twice a week, you can post average content five times a week and you're going to get better reach. You're going to get better impact. You're going to have a better relationship with your audience. I appreciate that you espouse those and you've learned from Gary Vee and from some of the big big guys in marketing world, but, more importantly, you apply it, which is great.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, because most people they go to seminars. They go meet all these people, they wipe their ass with it, but they go. Oh man, I got to walk on fire and I got to grab ass with plenty of other successful people. It was awesome, but they don't implement. Man, that's without implementation. Who gives a shit? To me that's even worse than the people that are screaming because at least you're watching something that they enjoy or they're doing something fun. But if you're just going to seminars and you're not implementing it, you're just wasting your time, wasting money, man. I mean plain and simple. But yeah, the thing is people are afraid to post man because, oh my gosh, somebody might take me down or somebody might. Who gives a shit? There's always somebody that's in their basement. It's always somebody that their life just sucks completely because you'll never see somebody very successful, you'll never just go have somebody like Gary V anybody, anthony Robbins, grant Cardone, anybody go. Hey, this is a stupid idea, it sucks. But once you put that out there, out into mass media, oh what?
Speaker 2:a dick, or what an asshole over here. Let's poke about his past, dude, I would always remember, and you always took the high road, which is the right thing to do. But, dude, you could have been posting about anything and there'd always be some fucking idiot taking a shot about your past. It's like holy shit, I mean, is this motherfucker the pope, is this mother Teresa? Could this guy walk on water? Oh no, he's just a fuck up himself. So who gives a shit? You know, man? But yeah, that's why always take the high road post, post, post, dude. People love to post their dysfunction, their drama, their toxicity, their fucked up behavior on social media. Hey, man, why don't you just start posting what you're truly selling? We're all trying to sell something. Quit selling the drama and start selling something. Start selling positivity, because you know what you don't want your kids to go. Oh man, yeah, I love my parents, but man, there's such fuck ups.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these are my kids that have been able to say that at different points in my life, so I'm glad they have less reason to today. I have to say it's a gift to connect with you always. I love the candor in the show, I love the directives of your message and you know it's just nice to be able to do good with you, bro.
Speaker 2:And dude, the phone is always open, man, just like I know, I can fucking call you at midnight well, it would be nine there, but I could call you up at three midnight there and that's what life's about is about creating relationships, man, connecting with people, because, at the end of the day, we're not Egyptians, we're not going to be buried with. You know, somebody's not going to throw in the checking account and here's throwing a laptop and go here, man, here's your two million views and your five million likes. He gives a shit. In the grand scheme of things, man, it's all about who are you and who have you helped and have you made a world a better place? Have you made your neighborhood a better place?
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. Well, listen, it's always a gift to be with you. Let's do this again soon. Let's not let another year and a half pass before we do this again, dude, exactly man.
Speaker 2:Hey, silence doesn't mean I'm getting myself in trouble. Silence is a good thing and it's weird because I haven't done anything fucked up or anything stupid in a while. That's why I don't know whether you know my hands are tired of touch and you know I finally learned the lesson, or you know it's crazy, but I love you. Everybody knows that. Everybody in our neighborhood, all the haters will say we both suck. But you know what? They're still living in fucking Westchester or still living somewhere, fucking doing absolutely nothing with their lives. So talk to us. How do we find you, your organization, everything? How do we? How do we find it yes.
Speaker 3:WFRAgencycom WFR means working for results WFRAgencycom and Influensecom I-N-F-L-U-S-E-N-C-Ecom Influense, influence. That makes sense and you can find us there and you know we're responsive. We pay attention to folks who reach out to us and even from you know an educational perspective. If we can help you learn more about marketing, if we can help you to serve in you and give you some tips, you're happy to do that. Obviously, we're not going to go away with your entire value, of course, but happy to help small to big sized business owners realize their dreams. And whether you're applying or not, you know we'd love to have a conversation with you.
Speaker 2:Brother, this is my final question for you. Yeah, and what would you tell someone? What words of wisdom would you have for that person that's had any success and shit hit the fan? Divorce maybe, I don't know. There's so much major trauma out there. Person lost their life savings on crypto. Person went bankrupt, had success, fell down and doesn't know what to do. What words of wisdom do you have for that person?
Speaker 3:All down, sometimes stand up. A you know, I would say you have everything you need within yourself to change the direction of your life at any moment. You are the creator of your future and the things you do today will determine that future. So you can stay in victim mode, or you can believe your failure, or you can take one positive step every day until you achieve the future you want to achieve, no matter how old you are, no matter where you're coming from, no matter what adversity is in front of you. If you do one thing every day, when you look back three, five, ten years from now, you're going to like where you are.
Speaker 2:Dude, I love that and yeah, I hope to be in SoCal soon so I can. I'd love to see you Because you know, but you've noticed, it's not like I've been going to Vegas, so I know, I know, we'll see each other soon for sure, yeah, for sure. Time flies. I love you. You are like the brother that I never had my phone. My house is always open to you, brother, so I love you. Thanks for everything.
Speaker 3:Likewise, and I just have one question for you what if it didn't work Exactly? I asked myself that question.
Speaker 2:every day, man Ask yourself a question what if it didn't work? What if it didn't work? What if you took action and made it happen?
Speaker 3:and started living inside of your purpose. What if you did not want to do it? What if you didn't want to do it? What if you didn't want?
Speaker 1:to do it? What if you didn't want to do it? What if you didn't want to do it? What if you didn't want to do it? I'm gonna take action. Just imagine what if it deep world.