Why Leaving Your Job To Become An Influencer Is A Bad Idea.

Gary Vee says employees are quitting because they have options — TikTok, Instagram, influencer life. Juming Delmas respectfully disagrees. Hard.

In this solo episode of the Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast, Juming breaks down the real numbers behind influencer income and makes the case that quitting your job to become a social media influencer isn't an option — it's a lottery ticket. And the odds are worse than becoming a pro athlete.

With verified US creator data, five brand case studies in leadership retention, and a frank conversation about why Black bosses struggle to keep talent, this episode covers the full picture of why people really leave jobs — and why running toward "influencer life" is usually just running away from bad leadership.

Topics covered:
- The real influencer income stats: only 0.02% of TikTokers make a full-time living
- 85% of creators quit within 36 months due to lack of income
- Why Gary Vee's "employees have options" take misses the real problem
- The actual reasons people quit: toxic leadership, no growth, poor communication
- Why Black bosses have some of the highest employee turnover rates — and the psychology behind it
- Boss vs. leader: the one distinction that determines whether people stay or go
- Why companies like Toyota and Costco keep employees for decades while Uber and DoorDash have zero loyalty
- The resume trick employees think works — and why it doesn't
- Why influencers are running full business operations behind the camera that nobody shows you

The internet sold you the influencer dream. This episode gives you the data.

The Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast with Juming Delmas. Real talk. No filter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I generally do not believe Gen Z is lazy. I really don't. I think that a lot of us are spending too much time lazy and nothing coming in generation. I just need you to hear this for me. I know people that are lazy and max and the money of the people and then title. It's not a bit of a lazy and title. It's a big option.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Okay, so here's the truth, right? So all of you who think, right? All of you people who work a regular job who think that if you that you can hide your recent employment history from employers, you're sadly fucking mistaken. Employers can find out who you work for even if it's not on your resume. There's platforms out there all over that shows that the history of the person you work for, how long you work for them, and your position there. How do they find this out? If you got paid at least one fucking cent, anything from a company, there's a way that a new employee that you're applying for can find out exactly who the fuck you work for, even if you don't put it on your resume, and that's why you have a hard time finding a job because they pull that shit up and they find out hey, you didn't put this job that you only worked in for two weeks. What the fuck happened there? That's your problem. And see, you think you're gonna get away with it. You think you have options when you fucking don't have options. Good luck, guys. Good luck being an influencer. Good luck. All right, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Untraditional Entrepreneur Podcast. The untraditional entrepreneur exposes the realities of businesses, challenges the myths, and gives you the unfiltered truth the internet will not tell you. I'm your host, Jamine Delmus, and today's topic is going to be on a comment that Gary V stated where he stated employees or employees quit easily because they have options, particularly social media, influencer, blah, blah, blah bullshit. You know, people quit to become influencers, uh, creators, online earners, etc. But that's not the fucking truth. And that's what we're here to talk about. You know, we're here to talk about the influencers, odds are super low. It's basically like hitting the fucking lottery. And this is the kind of shit that I'm talking about. How the fuck do you have options thinking you're gonna be an influencer? That's like equivalent to saying, I'm gonna quit this job so that I can be a rapper. Not saying that people don't do it. We're saying that the odds are less. And he talks about, you know, you know, influencers and people got options and they can go and they don't got to work for you for $18 an hour, they can go on TikTok and make $38 an hour. People are quitting because, you know, they they got all these options. No, I I don't fully fucking agree with that. I think that they are quitting because they think they have those options, just like relationships. People let go of fucking relationships because they see all this stupid shit on social media, they feel like they can do better, and that's why we live in the society that we live in. People quit because they think they got options. That's how the social media work. It fools your ass. No, I think people are actually quitting because of leadership and because of the failure of leadership. Let's dive into it. All right, so before we get started, I want to first start off by playing a video of what I am referring to about Gary V's topic. Let's go ahead and play it.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I genuinely do not believe Gen Z is lazy. I really don't. I think that a lot of us are spending too much time demonizing the up-and-coming generation about being lazy and entitled. I just need you to hear this from me. I know unlimited people that are lazy and the boomer and Gen X and Millennial Set 2 and entitled. It's not that they're lazy and entitled, it's that they have options. They don't want to work for you for $18 an hour doing dumb shit when they can just post silly videos on TikTok and make $38 an hour. I'm saying this because I want to leave here with y'all winning after I leave. For some of you, it might be you stop complaining about these kids don't want to work and realize why. It's because they have options.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Okay, so that is part. I want to start off with saying I fuck with Gary Vee. Gary V is one of my peoples. Like, I fuck heavily with my dog. Like, I listen to Gary V all the time. But you know, this is one of those situations where I just don't fucking agree with that shit. I I think people are extremely fucking lazy. I'm sorry. It is what it is. They think they have options. That's not the case. Um, and the problem is social media has sold them the idea to think that they have, you know, they have options. In reality, you don't. You know, and we're gonna go over some fucking numbers. People are lazy. And the uh as you the old saying is in order to solve a problem, let's first admit what the fucking problem is. You're lazy, you don't want to work. You fucking think that a degree is all the fuck you need to get where you want to get to. I'm a business owner, I don't give a fuck about your degree. I swear to you, here's the truth. Here's the truth. If I'm gonna hire somebody, I don't give a fuck if you got a degree or not. My my biggest thing is experience. I need somebody who could do the job. Yes, the degree is an added-on bonus, but everybody has fucking degrees nowadays, and that shit don't mean nothing no more. The job the quest, because not only when a person comes to me and they got a degree, the only thing that fucking tells me is you're entitled. Not everybody's like that, but in reality, when somebody coming to me with a degree, I'm gonna assume that they're entitled. And you're entitled to get a job because you got a degree because you worked hard for four years. I don't give a fuck. I truly don't. If you worked hard for four years, not only should you have this degree, you should at least have four years of experience in the field that you study. Rather that's doing internship or whether you were working in the field, you should be at least doing that, at least minimum four years. But here's the deal if you got a degree at four years of experience and somebody got a degree at 10 years of experience, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna hire the other person. Let's talk about what he was talking about, how like people have options. That's why employees get so cocky with companies and jobs. When I'm telling you it's a facade, it's not real, you're only shortlisting your fucking self. Like this is crazy, it's not gonna work. Let's let's let's speak numbers real quick, all right? So when we talk about the US, this is from the U.S. data influencer success rate, the accurate plus verified information, right? Here we go. So sources, YouTube, US creator economic study shows that only 0.25 of all US channels ever reach a hundred thousand subscribers. Okay, only 0.016% hit a million subscribers in the US. U.S. creators earning over one thousand dollars a year is approximately 0.3% of all US creators. A 0.3% of all US creators are making over a hundred thousand dollars a year or up to a hundred thousand dollars a year. Let's talk to TikTok, because that's YouTube. TikTok, right? Influence marketing plus hubs, less than one percent of US-based TikTok creators are averaging over a thousand dollars a month. Less than one percent, only zero point two percent of US TikTokers earn a full-time a hundred thousand plus career. 0.02% of TikTokers can actually make a living on TikTok. Instagram, Instagram, US influencers earning 87% of US influencers make under $5,000 a year. Only 4.3% earn more than $100,000 a year from Instagram. Only 4.3%. Okay? We have over 350 million people in the United States. Just throwing these numbers out there for you. Okay, so when we talk about influencers, general U.S. influencers' income, the general source of influencers, the average US influencers' income, the average influencers' income is $1,200 to $1,600 per year, not per month. If you take all of the big major influencers and all of the smaller influencers who making a little bit of money, you are averaging $1,200 to $1,600 a year. 85% of creators quit within 36 months due to lack of income. That is the fucking truth. So this whole I have options, I I don't want to have to work here, I can go be an influencer. Good fucking luck, my dude. Good luck. I'm being honest with you because people ain't gonna do it. This is a fucking game that these influencers play because they get you guys to spend your money into their classes and do all this crazy stupid shit so that you can buy the shit. Duh. Like it doesn't take, like, come on, man. Like, like here's the here's the fucking reality of it. If somebody told me that you have a 99 98% chance of getting on this plane and this plane crashing, are you gonna ride this fucking airplane? Fuck no. I'm not gonna do it. Why the fuck would I do that? If you're gonna be an influencer and understand what it takes, think about all the people you know in high school, starting from ninth grade all the way to you became a senior. Think about all them people who are that you went to high school with that you can fully remember. You're talking about thousands of kids, thousands. How many of them became a famous influencer? Oh like how many, how many do you know? You might know one or two or three, maybe a few. Not half the fucking school didn't become it. You might know a few here and there. That's what you know. In America, the odds of becoming a fine becoming financially successful influencer are lower than becoming a pro athlete. You have a better chance at becoming an athlete than you do as becoming an influencer or social media influencer talking about some $38 an hour. People are not quitting their jobs to become influencers. They're silly. Are they lazy? Absolutely. They think they have options, and the reality is you fucking don't have options in this world that you think is like you're insane. People are not quitting their jobs because they want to become influencers, they're quitting it because they're lazy and nobody don't know how to work anymore. Nobody wants to stay. They quit because of also bad leaderships, right? Uh, workplace uh environment, toxic environments. There's no communication in the bit in the business. Bosses aren't leaders, they're bosses. What's the difference? Um, culture is unstable, burnout is high, uh, pay is low, growth is is non-existence. That's why they quit. That's why they think they got options. Fuck it. I'm gonna just go, I'm just gonna go Uber. No, you can't make a living on Uber in either. You can't, not with not in today's society, because you still have to factor in what it's gonna cost for repairs on your car when you're racking up these. You're not making a lot of money Uber and I did this shit before. It takes a lot of fucking ride to get to $200. Takes a lot of fucking ride to driving Uber to get to $200 in a day. You'd be on that motherfucker for at least about four hours, five hours or so, maybe longer, depending on locations. Um, if you look at the numbers, the United States only 0.3% of creators make enough to live off of it. 0.3% of creators make enough to live. That means that 99.7% of people trying to be influencers are not making influencer money. So no, employees aren't quitting because they are trying to be TikTok famous. Yes, the fuck they are. That's what makes you silly, that's what makes you lazy. That's what makes you lazy, but they're also quitting because of leadership in companies. That's why. So there's two foals here there's the leaderships in companies, and there's these delusional motherfuckers who think I'm fucking, I'm gonna quit, I'm gonna just go get be uh influencer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That okay, good luck, my dude. Good fucking luck. What you need to do is marry the two, find a way like they used to do back in the day, because now this shit's crazy. Back then, you would hear people keeping jobs for 15, 20, 30 years. You won't hear that shit now. You have people keeping jobs 15, 20, 30 days and be out. You know what I'm saying? And that's what's fucking crazy. People think they have options like they think they got uh for jobs, like they think they got options for relationships. And these guys are just straight out, flat out ass wrong. And these influencers are making money off poor people. Why? Because we talked about it before. The quickest way to sell to poor people is a get rich quick scheme. Like, fuck it, sell my class, sell my course, sell this. That's how we can get people to buy into our shit because the chances of you becoming an influencer is fucking slim to none. And I'm just at least being honest with you. People don't quit jobs, they quit leaderships, right? Employees aren't turning toward influencer life, they're they're running away from dysfunctions. That's that's what employees are doing. They're running away from poor communication, they're running away from inconsistent expectation, they're running away from micromanagement, they're running away from unclear role responsibilities, they're running away from growth path, they're running away from leadership ego, they're running away from toxic work environment and be sold a fake ass dream that you can become an influencer if you just go off to your job and go do this shit. Dude, grow the fuck up. You're lazy. Call it what it is, learn how to fucking work again. If you don't want to run a business, you want to be an influencer, you got a better chance of being an athlete, and if you don't got a built for an athlete and you ain't never played football, listen, I believe I'm a big person that believes in results. Results will tell you if you should still be going for the influencer route. It will tell you heavily. I don't disagree with social media. I think it's great if you're trying to grow a business, if you're trying to grow your business, if you're trying to grow a brand, whatever the case is, it keeps you for front forward facing within the company and things of that nature. But if this is what you're you're trying to be an influencer, man, you got a better chance of hitting the fucking lotto. Just 100 being 100 with you. So I'm gonna be and I don't want to take too much time on this, but uh the I'm I'm gonna be 100. Let's talk about black bosses. Really, fuck it. I'm I cannot work for a fucking black boss. It is so fucking hard. And culturally, I'm a black man, but there's a psychology behind being a black boss, which makes sometimes working for a black boss extremely fucking hard, especially if they are um running a business. Some of the hardest environments to work under are black leaderships. Look, studies show that not because black bosses are bad, but because of learned trauma, survival leadership is how they operate. Harsh, perfection-driven, fear-based, um, scarcity uh mindset, over controlling, ego-driven leadership. Uh they uh uh they they have like this threatening mindset, insecurity when people when when when employees are more talented than them. They're threatened by and by talented employees. Historical trauma created bosses, right? Historical trauma created bosses. Businesses should be creating leaders. A boss says, do what I say, a leader says, Let me help you grow. Here's the fucking here's the deal with black bosses that are business owners, bosses that I don't fucking like, right? To be fair, when you're talking about a black boss, at the end of the day, I don't want a boss, I want a leader. And just because you just because you run a motherfucking business and you doesn't mean that you're a boss. Running a business doesn't make you a fucking boss. That makes you an individual who has an LLC that you purpose for $150 who's struggling to maintain and keep their business afloat. You're an asshole. That's why people don't want to work with you. You're an asshole. And so now people are out here drifting off in the world thinking shit's gravy and shit cool, thinking that they just gonna become these influencers because you living in La La Land thinking because you write the check, you can treat people a certain type of way. No, people don't have to deal with that shit no more. Fuck that. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a difference between tough love and growing somebody, and then just being a natural-born asshole just to tote your weight around. People don't want to work with you, and then you wonder why you these black business owners have a high high turnover rate. They can't keep people, people don't want to work for you because you don't know how to talk to people, you don't know how to treat your team. That's why these motherfuckers out here delusional, thinking that they can go out here and be influencers and make a hundred million dollars a year, and that's not the case. Be be sold to these influencers thinking that be sold to these influencers on classes, thinking that they could become an influencer and shit like that. We're not saying that you can't, we're just saying that the the chances are very low. And common sense will naturally kick into anybody. Uh and somebody says that again, we'll use the plane analogy. You have a 99.7% chance of dying on this plane when you load it. Do you want to load? Your ass is gonna say fucking no. There's only 0.3% of people who's gonna be willing to take that chance, and to be fair, much lesser. Everybody's doing it because it's an oversaturated thing, influencer, social media, etc. No, what you guys need to do is sit your ass down, find a jump company you want to work for, identify the boss mentality, the bosses who had uh, you know, the this micromanage type of thing. I'm a big person, I do not want to micromanage you. If I have to micromanage you, I don't want to keep you on my team. Like I'm looking for people who are fucking smarter than me who could do the job. I'm not looking for people to micromanage. You should be teaching me something as a boss, so I learn from you. We should be learning from each other. My job is to get this motherfucker going. You do well, you get promoted, that's how it works. Not everybody's meant to be a boss, not everybody's meant to be an influencer, not everybody's meant to be an employee, not everybody's meant for everything. Know your fucking role, know what you're good at. Don't follow your dream, don't follow your heart, follow what you're good at. Whatever the fuck it is you're good at, that's what the fuck you do. Black bosses use harsh tones. Black bosses fear uh your potential. Black bosses typically didn't want you to grow past them. That's what black bosses do. Black bosses undervalue your ideas. Most black bosses, this is this is the reality. You are surviving, not growing. They don't want you to necessarily grow because if you grow, it threatens their positions, and I can't stand that shit. I've been dealing with it most of my fucking life, so I opened a fucking business. You were shrinking to make them more comfortable. You were holding back your capabilities as a person to make your boss comfortable. And if you work for somebody and this is like a CEO and a boss and they're threatened by you, that shows you their leadership because a leader actually wants you to be smarter than them. A leader wants you to be the person to know what's going on. They don't want to have to do it. If they have to do it, they're not a leader, they're a boss. Understand, bosses do shit themselves. Leaders hire people to do it and trust that these people will do their job properly. That's what a that that's the difference between the two. Use emotional honesty plus professional reflection. That's how you identify who's a boss, who's a leader. When you go work for somebody, say, is this a leader or is it a boss? Is this a person that has to do everything themselves that feel like they got to do it? No, they should trust your process, right? We talked longevity, right? Back then, people stayed in jobs because they had no options. That's the truth. Jobs were like marriages. Stay no matter how toxic it is. Today, people want to stay, people won't stay in a job that doesn't respect them, that doesn't grow them, that doesn't communicate with them, that doesn't invest in them, that doesn't value them. Jobs today are like relationships. If it's toxic, people leave. If communication is bad, people leave. If growth stops, people leave. If leadership fails, people leave. No disrespect, it's evolution. That's what's happening today. So here's a case study, right? There's uh influencer case. Many successful influencers quit because of one singular thing: burnout. Burnout. People who become influencers quit because of burnout because they can't keep up with it. Creators making content full-time often live uh financial instability. Being real, like influencers admit, if I could all if I could have stayed at a healthy job, I would have. Influencers come out of their mouth and say this shit. Business leadership cases shows that Toyota has a high retention due to structured leadership. People fuck with Toyota when they go work there. They want to work there. They have a high retention due to structured leadership. Another one, um, Costco, culture first, employees stay for decades at Costco. Um, another one, Uber, DoorDash, zero loyalty because of zero culture. Leadership equals retention, leadership failure equals turnout, uh turnover, uh, turnover, whatever. Um, so when we thinking employee, uh, when we thinking about how do you verify employees, and I know people are like, well, it's hard to find good people, and the reason why leaders just hire motherfuckers is because at the end of the day, we're hiring people just to get people in the door because we need somebody real quick. We don't need to be thinking like that. We need to be hiring people who know how to do the job, period. If they don't have a long history of work in a specific with a specific job, and you see like even when I'm looking at resumes, like I I rarely see resumes over 10 years. I rarely see it. It's like shit, it's like here, there, here, there. People don't necessarily stay. And that doesn't look good for me. That doesn't look good to me as an owner when I'm looking at people because people, you have a commitment issue, and that's something that I'm probably gonna have a problem with. So and and what people do, employees do is they get they try to get smart with the shit. They'll work for a company for like a week or two, maybe a month or so, then they quit. Never put it on their resume, act like shit never happened, this job never existed. I'll just make it seem like I worked at this current job for X amount of time, and and and you know, while I'm still looking for a job. Here's the deal, man. I'm gonna hold business owners accountable and companies accountable too. Stop fucking with that shit. Call references, do the old fashioned way. If they got it on their resume, call them, verify that these motherfuckers was working. Working there from the time that they put on their resume to the time they no longer work there. Ask why did they leave? Were they fired? Did they quit? Because everybody's gonna always say in the interview, yeah, I'm like, why did you leave the job? It seems like it's a good job, things are working. Oh, I just had to take care of my family. Oh, I just had to go to school. What the fuck does that mean? You still got bills, though. I don't know. If you mean you have to take care of your grandma or your family, that means you got bills. That means even more reason to keep your job. You got people to take care of. That doesn't make sense to me at all. So I think that at the end of the day, when you're looking at people and you're looking at their resumes and there's no longevity, fuck that shit. Look, there's tools out there for employees to use that I'm gonna only share on my Patreon. I won't share here on this live, um, that you'll be able to use for you and your company to identify um if a person's ever worked for a company. While they might not put it on their resume, you're still able to identify if they ever work for a company. And you'll find out if they line or not. Because at the end of the day, if they're getting any form of payment, whether it's a fucking penny, if they get anything from that job, anything, you can verify that that person worked at that company. Doesn't matter even if they put it on their resume or not. And that's how you expose that shit for people who are doing bad, who employees who are bad employees and ain't trying to work. That's the real truth of the matter, is because at the end of the day, you still want a good company to work for, but you also want good and decent people to work with you. So there, so we have a problem across both boards, leadership and employees. Because employees, like, I'm out, I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna be an influencer, I'm gonna find another job that's paying more. I didn't like this. Great. You here's the deal with that, employees. Quit these fucking jobs if you want to. These companies are able to find out where you worked, where you've worked, even if you don't put it on your resume and how long you've worked there. So lying ain't gonna do no fucking good for you. So when we talk about leadership fixes, what businesses must do now? First, what you guys need to do is build real onboarding processes, build SOPs, uh, weekly check-in structures, training systems, accountability systems, culture values, leadership, communication skills, growth pathways, trauma-free leadership, um, open door policies, uh, mentorship opportunities. I think that's great. I'd be yelling my ass off, but in reality, on these lives, what I'm doing is really mentoring you guys, right? I talked to my team the same way. I think the best way I can position myself is like a football coach. I am very aggressive with my message, but what I'm doing is trying to grow you as an individual and keep the and grow these employees as well. Because the objective is to stay, create longevity. Even if you don't fucking like the job, stay for your own sanity, for I mean for your own sake, because this is what's going to build you and get you to the next level of where you really want to be at, because longevity sells. And here's the deal being 100 with you, I would rather hire somebody who's still working in the company that they're working in than hire somebody who's looking for a job right now. Because what that tells me is you left it, something happened with this job where you left unvoluntarily. That's what that tells me. Because at the end of the day, it's either you were fired or you quit. But either way, neither looks good to me. And I get that some toxic, some businesses carry a certain situation. Stick that shit out till you can find something else. Don't don't quit it because it just looks bad on you. You know what I mean? You don't quit, it looks bad on you. So at the end of the day, I want to close with this here, you know. Um influencers, right? Influencers, all the people who quit their job because they had options to be an influencer, good luck. Keep doing that shit. Wait till burnout happens. Because at the end of the day, you're not going to, you're not gonna be this great old, oh, I'm doing this, doing that, man. This they're they're lying to you guys. They are lying to you guys. And I don't want to come off like a hater, but let's be real. If you're an influencer, it costs a lot of fucking money to be an influencer. It's not, it's not what you think it is. As an influencer, you have to pay out people. You like these influencers are not running this influencing company on their own. They have help, they have managers, they have teams, they have marketing teams, they have financial teams. They're not doing this shit by themselves, they are paying people to get the job done. They're not like I know it looks like they on camera and shit just glally gag and they just playing. No, motherfuckers. These guys have a full-blown team behind them, and the objective is to make it look like they're just fucking playing, like they're doing the shit themselves. If you do not have the setup that you need a team, you don't have a team and getting this shit in order, good luck being an influencer because as an influencer, you're a business owner. It's the same shit. They still have a team. Guess what? When you're watching them on the camera, oftentimes they're not just holding the camera up, there's something following them. That's somebody that they have on payroll following them. The shit that you see on their social media, oftentimes they're not posting that shit. That's somebody they're paying a team to post it to make you think that it's them. Come on, man. It's a facade. Stop playing yourself. You quit these jobs because you think you got options, you're delusional. You're delusional. You don't have options. That's why it's so hard to find a job. Because now companies are gonna make it even harder for you to find a job. Sit your ass down somewhere, find a job that you can work at, stick that shit out. Go back to the old days, work that shit out, figure out what you need to do. Stop thinking with your emotions and start thinking long term. How is this gonna affect me long term in the future as I continue to grow? I'm thinking about me. If I stay here for because you know, man, I hear this shit all the time from my elders, right? They always say, Oh, I just got four more years at this company, and I put in 30 years and I'm retired, I'm done. I just not four more years. They back in the day, people stuck shit out. They even when they didn't like the shit, they stuck it out because they had the future ahead of them. I just got three more years and I'm done with this shit. Three more years and I can I'm done. Three more years. Even in the military, they do the same shit. I just need two more years and I can I can retire with so people deal with shit that they don't want to deal with because they are future thinking. You're slow as fuck, you're idiot to think that you quit a job, gonna find another job, be happy at this job, everything's gonna be lucky, go, things gonna go your way, you're fucking delusional. Good luck being an influencer at 0.3% of a living, because not the 97, 99.7% of people don't make a living as an influencer. Stop fooling yourself. Listen, man, I'm your host, Jameen Delmans. I hope you guys were fucking with this today. I know I kind of went on this rant, but you know, I feel like we don't, I don't want you guys to fall into these traps. It's the truth. Fall, you know, fall, fall, do what you're good at, stick shit out, figure it out until you get to a place that you want to be at. Because all this shit is a dream, it's not real. I'm your host, Jameen Domus, and thank you guys for tuning in. And once again, welcome to the other side of motivation. We'll see you guys on the next episode.