Join us every Friday at the Furlough Fireside Chat hosted by Michael-King Sadick. Our guests change every week and range from experts, entrepreneurs, and creatives to influencers, brands, nomads, investors, and more!

A Little About Joe

Joe Casanova is a serial entrepreneur born & raised in Miami, FL. He founded Furlough in 2016 with the goal of bringing influencers, brands, and fans together. He has now focused his efforts on disrupting the guru economy in the marketing industry.

Check out the replay here:

Mike King

We’re ready. Welcome boys and girls to Furlough Friday fireside chat feature Friday seemed to come. I have my good friend with me, Joe Casanova, who birthed this whole thing. Thank God for this man. And we’re going to have a little, little session today. We’re going to have a little brain dump, talk, talk about some marketing stuff, probably about some life stuff as well. Joe, how are you, my friend?

 

Joe Casanova

Doing good Mike King in the building! How are you, my friend?

 

Mike King

I’m all right. Can’t complain. Another day, good to be here. Ready to get this? This Furlough feature Friday fireside chat a bunch of F’s … Started. This is going to be a fun little adventure. So I’m good, man. You’re still here in Miami. I expected you to be across the world by now.

 

Joe Casanova

Yeah, I was supposed to be relocating to Bali. But this COVID stuff. Even though in Florida things are wide open. It doesn’t seem like it’s stopping and panic cases or surges are surging, they’re still making you quarantine in certain places. It’s absurd. So I’m locked in here for the foreseeable future. Until the world allows me to relocate seamlessly and effortlessly.

 

Mike King

In a perfect world, we flow right through it. I didn’t think COVID was a thing anymore. I start looking weird at people when they’re wearing masks in Miami. Now I’m kind of like,what are you doing, a walk, I walk into my building every day. And there’s a lady at the front who just instinctively is wearing your mask because she’s been trying to take that off now. I think so. That’s what Biden said.

 

Joe Casanova

It’s crazy. I mean, all service workers are pretty much wearing it nowadays, which I and I had the discussion the other day, I’m like, shouldn’t technically be but at least food handlers, right. And I’m like, I’m pro that for hygienic purposes, but your COVID side of things, I think I don’t know, as someone that my business was completely disrupted, and buying a hotel, and one of the most sought after areas to loom during this pandemic was in the forefront, I got rocked 2021. I did taxes in April. And I saw the reports and the numbers got destroyed. I don’t know how businesses are supposed to survive during this pandemic. And we got no handouts, we didn’t get it, we aren’t a major corporation employing 10s of 1000s of we aren’t federally backed or any of that. So I can imagine all the other small businesses that are just kind of experiencing the same thing. So I’m anti-pandemic. I’m anti-COVID, I think it’s absurd.

 

Mike King

Everybody’s anti-pandemic and anti-COVID. It’s a good way to put it.

 

Joe Casanova

It’s just absurd, but there we are rebuilding. Who would have thought starting a company called Furlough ended in 2016, what ended up with everyone on the planet ended up becoming furlough and put a unique time to be where we are today. And I got to say, it’s a little surreal being the first guests of this new venture of ours. And after building, as and maybe some of the viewers of this, that I was facilitating a lot of sessions and, and doing those types of things for Furlough for as long as I can remember, it is just over 100 sessions, and this is the first time of being a guest on and just beyond excited for it. So I’m excited. Right? And there’s no better person, I’d be more excited to be interviewed than you, so.

 

Mike King

Of course, now a while ago, what was it two and a half years ago, we did our first go at one of these interviews in that little shared workspace and instant chemistry? So it’s only right, we’re right back at it. I wasn’t bored with it. But no, it’s been interesting to see the evolution of Furlough right, and how it went from being focused just on influencers to then just general digital marketing, which, in the future, we’re going to have some really fun shows, pulling in some influencers and getting an understanding of what they’re doing to make revenue and then pulling some marketers in as well and getting an understanding of what they’re doing to make revenue and, matching up the similarities which I think a lot of people overlook but did you ever think that this is what Furlough would become?

 

Joe Casanova

Not at all,  Furlough really started as a way to leverage… For example, Gary Vee. I love Gary Vee, I love Tony Robbins. My only issue with them is if anything ever happened to Gary Vee and VaynerMedia and Tony Robbins and the Tony Robbins Foundation, would their legacy outlive them? And will, their brand and the business that they built, be so tied to them? And, one thing that I’ll never forget what Tony Robbins said was just like, this isn’t my island. I own it. Yeah, but this is rented. I had a friend that was married for so many years passed away, terrible, left his wife and kids. But his wife remarried! it’s like nothing is owned by anybody, and it becomes somebody else’s eventually. And using the wife as a widow, that’s just as something to the extreme. But same with the island, it becomes someone else’s Island and you know it with Furlough, it was always like I was doing stuff with the influencer space as a marketer. Coming into this as influencers, they don’t say, I’m going to get a master’s or bachelor’s in marketing and become an influencer. No, they just post their lifestyle, end up getting a following, some of them get a cold following, start figuring out brand deals, the majority of them start by DMing brands, Hey, I’ll shout this out for you, and then they realize they get paid for it. And me as an outsider and with a marketing awareness approach come in, and just completely tell them what to do. And I was just like this, there’s something here. And then we started doing the trips, we started doing, like the one out, the one-off campaigns and things like that. And I really realized that the influencer space is the Wild West. And I realize I know influencers with millions of followers that struggle with paying rent, and yet they’re so influential, it wasn’t really influencing, and from then it transcends it to be, everyone’s an influencer. And I still think I’m aligned with what the core vision was with this brand. I never thought it’d become what it is today. And the fact that we are really doing like the line, the scope of the roadmap of what we are going to be doing is going to be very disruptive. And we have barely even scratched the surface. And I’m excited to put another four years into this, or even longer…

 

Mike King

I think so too. This is even though it’s not the beginning, it is just the beginning of a solid foundation that’s going to grow, you have a tremendous community on discord of like-minded individuals, that’s inevitably going to grow even more and more and more as you continue to do your masterminds and put out content. So I think, for me, something you mentioned, when describing your process of Furlough is just that evolution and how many influencers become influencers by just doing, right? Like a lot of marketers become marketers by just doing, and even myself as a digital marketer, right? I wouldn’t say I’m the most talented digital marketer, but I try to sell things on the internet, and sometimes it works. Some people do it better than me, some people do it worse. But I’m in this interesting stage where, for the past, I guess, the entirety of my career, I would always say, I don’t care what other people have to say, I don’t want to learn your lessons. I’m just going to go do it and figure it out. And right, I think I actually talked to this guy the other day, who has a podcast where he interviews people about what they did in their 20s. But what I did in my 20s, is I just fucking worked and figured out what didn’t work and fell down and got back up and didn’t listen to anyone. And now, I start taking a look back, maybe because I’m more mature, maybe because I just don’t want to fall on my face again. And I say, okay, should I be studying more instead and doing less? And so I’m curious to know, in your mind, I think the past decade has been for influencers, it’s just been if you do anything, and you put it on the internet, it could work.

 

Joe Casanova

It’s so crazy. I mean, I know what you’re saying. I saw this was one guy and TikTok. I think it’s like dissolve the Sony player, which I was stuck with because I hate the Sony bottled water. I think it tastes like saliva. It’s the worst water in my opinion. And I look at this guy’s TikTok campaigns and I’m just like, this is so bad. And he’ll grab his phone, put it in selfie mode, and just walk up to people and just be like, Hey, what’s up! tattoos are no tattoos? And they’re like, kind of confused. What’s this guy doing? He says It’s for TikTok. And he’s actually saying there are no edits. This guy hit 30k followers and it’s just so crazy the comments people are eating it up but he does it every day. And he really…

 

Mike King

Let’s talk about this, I think because this is going to be something super interesting that we continue to dive into. We got this influencer who just goes out and tries something and does And then you have these online marketing gurus or online marketers who were literally like studying, how do I get people’s attention online? How do I get sales online? They’re almost polar opposites. At what point will they come together? Do you think there’s an influencer training program that could benefit other people? I mean …

 

Joe Casanova

That’s funny. That’s what we’re kind of laying out the foundation for here.

 

Mike King

Yeah.

 

Joe Casanova

I know, because I do believe that marketers are just as influential as influencers. And I think influencers, as one of the proprietary terms that we’ve created called full-stack marketing, incorporate one of the full stack, which is obviously social media, you need social media. But where do these social media influencers send their traffic, online, and on websites? So we’ve kind of consolidated all that to SEO and abbreviations in this space frightens people, especially if they don’t know what it means. But it’s just search engines that all you have to do is to optimize for search engines. And, it’s either you’re good on social media, or good on the web, right? And then the other two things are, well, if you have the people already there, how do you bring them back? Well, email marketing and any form of remarketing, chatbots, things like that. And then you have the top of the funnel, which is the paid version, which is advertising. And that’s really the full stack and marketers are great at those things. The social media aspect is always been so tough for marketers, and it’s if you look at any real marketer, that their social media following, it’s kind of tough, it doesn’t resonate, but yet, I know marketers with less than 1,000 followers, it’s generated millions of dollars for brands, and they’re just highly sought after. And we’re talking six-figure plus salaries inequity in order for them to consider a position as an influencer, you’d be surprised that they get a job at 60,000 out the gate. Like that’s just, it doesn’t work like that. So I think the biggest thing here is really the content element. And I always said that us, marketers, but they’re an influencer or digital marketer, right? We’re all scientists, and we’re really running these hypotheses and these experiments to test and, marketers have more data because they’ve done this for longer than they have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. And, the influencers are kind of winging it. And, it’s that organic authenticity that’s resonating. And these marketers, if they’re running advertising, they still need to come up with that content, whether it’s the creative elements, whether it’s a copy, like text writing only, or a video. And that’s what the influencers do the best. It’s user-generated content because they do it all the time. And I think, marketers have a lot to learn from influencers, but I think especially what we’re doing here at Furlough as that influencers have so much to learn from marketers, and so there’s nothing going to be a change, and I won’t necessarily say it changed, but an adaptation, and you can see it now more than ever is, especially when these TikTok came out these Instagram influencers are all in on Instagram, I find it fascinating because not like, I mean, some of them are, I have to say in generalizations, like none or all. It’s absurd, but a good amount of them is not like transferring in the sense of transferring over that they’re not able to create this TikTok content, which is different forms for channels. And they’re going back to Instagram, but Instagram right now is not rewarding to organic reach. And that guy that I just told you about who’s just posting selfie version videos, he’s doing so on TikTok cus TikTok is so rewarding. And I’ll tell you right now, marketers, and you could look at Furlough’s strategy. Furlough’s doing fantastic posts, one post of text-only post-long-form content on LinkedIn gained 20,000 impressions. We have 300 followers, how is that possible? And it’s because I mean, big on LinkedIn.

 

Mike King

LinkedIn is highly underutilized because there are just not enough people that are posting content on there similar to when TikTok started, right when TikTok started, anyone who posted content, incentivized it and pushed it to the top. And on LinkedIn, I think people are used to just viewing content that they’re going to continue to reward the people that actually contribute on that platform. I mean, that the algorithm’s powerful, but there’s a difference, right? It’s a different type of people you’re reaching out to who’s on LinkedIn, it’s very professional people. Who’s on TikTok? It’s the 16-year-old girls, probably boys…

 

Joe Casanova

Let’s be very clear. The youth is pushing this innovation here that the youth are in Gesell. And I just wanted to know I missed your face.

 

Mike King

Right? I missed you. I know you missed my face.

 

Joe Casanova

I actually cannot see your video right now. So just making sure but I do miss you, man. We should hang out sometime. But you know what I have to say when it comes down to the youth. And if you look at companies like Roblox, Roblox is a metaverse company that has a crazy user rate of kids of like 13 to 15. And they have insane valuations. And the reason why you look at something like Facebook versus something like Roblox, Facebook has an older, older demographic. The older demographic, as they get older are going to transfer their wealth to the younger ones. And the younger ones are going to be the ones that are fueling the economy, not the older ones. So betting on where these younger kids are, which I will tell you, that’s exactly why I built my community aspect. And I think, especially in 2021 with any brands, the gamers with the streaming and the Twitch stuff, have pushed innovation when it comes down to these communities. And they’ve shown how, if you think you’re liking comments, engagement, go look at how these gamers have these kids, 1000s of them staring at them play video games for eight hours talking in real-time in the chat and interacting. That’s engagement.

 

Mike King

But we’ll talk about that, that the engagement is coming from consumption. Right? And something that I wanted to bring up when we were talking and bring it up now when we’re talking about the TikTokers and the influencers versus the marketers. A hurdle that marketers have is they want somebody to consume a product or a service that costs money, right? Influencers are basically giving goodwill or free content, easy to consume products because it’s free. And we live in a consumption society, but where a lot of influencers have trouble early on, I know a lot of successful influencers that have cracked this code is how do they monetize the consumption? While the marketers, it’s their only goal. They don’t care about eyeballs. Do they care about consumption? How many people buy and consume my product? Meanwhile, I think where a lot of beginner marketers can take a lesson from influencers is to give more free stuff away.

Joe Casanova

Yeah. I know, and since we’re on, I mentioned the gaming stuff, I think Fortnite, was by far one of the most innovative and revolutionary games or ain’t the type of technologies to come out because it really transcended the freemium model. And now we live in a world where you’re not paying 4.99 in the App Store, even though I bought an app recently for 4.99 to track my habits, but that’s just absurd. I kind of laughed about it. And it’s like, I’ll spend $30 on a movie ticket, but $5 on an app, crazy! And that’s what the freemium model has done. And the main difference between marketers and influencers is that marketers are trying to use that to get conversions, right, they’re trying to run a campaign and get conversions. The influencers are building brands, and building trust, and building authority with an audience. Whether that’s the tricky part is if this fitness influencer has a workout every day, they’re building authority in the fitness space. So I guess that could translate into dieting and fitness programs and things like that, and health and wellness in general. But what about these influencer ads that go shopping all day and go to the beach and travel? Now they’re limited to their brand partnerships, right. And now they’ve kind of not necessarily pigeonholed themselves in a specific niche. But sometimes they don’t even know what niche they’re in, and what products work well in that industry that it resonates with their audience, and that’s the difficulty that you said with these influencers and monetizing is that a lot of them don’t know how to monetize. And then they go to digital products. Like if you’re a photographer, I’m going to do plugins, and I’m going to sell you Lightroom plugins and stuff like that. And you know that their bread and butter is headshots. But how do they build that? Well, let me build the course on how to do headshots. And it’s always a huge experimental game, which goes back to the scientist’s approach. This is absolutely what these influencers should be experimenting with, especially with brand deals and partnerships to see what works. And right now, it’s crazy because they’re paying what’s called CPM in the marketing world which is the cost per mill impression, you’re paying for views and attention. And I think we’re going to end up seeing a performance transition more into the performance state of actually what’s yielding conversions. And you see, Instagram did this incredible new update that basically now makes it look like they’re not competing against TikTok. They’re competing against Amazon, then you think that they’re at the shop integrations, you go to Amazon and go to Nike’s Amazon store and go to Nike’s Store on Instagram, there’s 10, 100 times more products on Nike’s Instagram shop than there is on Amazon shop. And well, you’re going to see if they haven’t done it already, because I haven’t experimented the shop actually July 1, I’m starting this new client at leisure company $170,000 a month only doing social media because they’re doing such organic stuff with these influencers, and they’re not doing any of the traditional markets. Stuff which works, especially with the law of large numbers, when you have a certain number of people, the things working the percentages, so on and so forth. But they’re there. Oh, my God, I got this. I got it right there, you know. So once I experiment, I could actually tell you what the tracking attribution of what these performances of these influencers are on the app, they don’t need to leave the app. And I don’t need to do cross-domain tracking with a specific link to see all the traffic and stuff. It’s all done in the app. So I can say my post drove 20 sales to Nike, and because of this and the friction, this journey, Nike might end up opening brand ambassador deals to people like myself, and you who don’t have a cult-like following but what we do have at the end of the day, are influencers, which is the whole Furlough thing is that we can influence 10, 15, 20 people to do a purchase. And these macro-influencers, they’re in trouble. And what do they have to do? Well, they got to build a brand, they got to own part of businesses, what you see are these influencers, like Josh Richards and all these other guys, like I missed all these TikToker names. They’re getting involved in venture capitalist funds. They’re investing in these businesses because they have crazy audiences. So it’s just an interesting space, and interesting to see where the progression of all this goes because it’s going somewhere.

 

Mike King

Let’s talk about the macro influences versus the micro-influencers, right? Do you think in the future we’ll see better engagement and conversion rates with micro-influencers posting, say something about Nike? Or about a ring-like whatever it may be whatever they’re trying to sell versus a Josh Richards? So Josh Richards Of course, it’s going to be a volume game. Mass Media, it’s like Kendall Jenner, right? Great. You’re famous. You’re young. You’re on TikTok. A lot of people look at you and you have a tremendous audience for consumption like young people consume. Do you think brands will ever recognize relatability overexposure and prioritize?

 

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Joe Casanova

I think it’s actually happening right now, I mean, with just numbers’ sake, micro-influencers convert at a far higher rate and percentage, than macro. The thing with macro influences is so great for the top of funnel brand building and that reputation and that association, but you take someone like Josh Richard, who started off on the TikTok, and now he’s kind of transcended that. And podcasting with barstool sports, as founder and CEO, Dave Portnoy, and, it’s interesting to see them cross their audiences together.

 

Mike King

But it was a genius move, by the way, by Dave Portnoy. Yep. I can’t become irrelevant. How do I not become irrelevant? Let’s go to the people that are going to be in college, right?

 

Joe Casanova

It’s going back to the Roblox commerce, exactly that investing in the youth and, I’ve even gotten to the reason why I think the sort of biggest social media platform of the future will be discord and it’s because of the level of engagement that you can have. And it’s these new shows that these kids are showing. A kid I brought high-level marketers, one person specifically that’s coming to mind just exited a $100 million e-commerce conglomerate of five brands 100 million dollars. And I’m here today revenue, team Discord. No, no, no, I brought him in. He’s separate. And I brought him into Discord. And he’s now helping me really take this brand to the next level. And he’s like, I’m not a social media guy. What’s his discord, I was like, trust me, it’s a replacement for any communications platform. Like we use slack. We use WhatsApp, whatever businesses use notion and so on and so forth. And as he understood, like, started familiarizing himself with the platform, he’s like, you’re right. I’ve never seen any Facebook communities, not Facebook groups, None. None of those, not Instagram, not YouTube. No platform is really showing the level of engagement that you can have with your and just like, you and I are face timing and talking right now, this is a private room. But if we were in a public room, other people can join in on this conversation and sessions. And where do you have that with an influencer? When influencer’s conversations seem to be one-directional to the point that they outsource their comments and their DMS and those their chat messages when it comes down to their premium subscription platforms, like Onlyfans and things like that? And, when it comes down to paid collaborations, if I were to go with a macro influencer, I would actually not choose an Instagram post on Josh Richards, feed instead, I would tell him, Hey, can you post on your story, a couple of times a week or a month just to show that you actually use it and you believe it. And or can you talk about it and your podcasts because I think podcasts and if you look at Dixie Dimellio, and even look at Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, those guys are freaking YouTubers. Those guys aren’t night talk show hosts, the televisions getting destroyed like the viewership of all that Everything’s going online, I mean, you could see it with the CNN issue with the whole News Network stuff. Now they’re going to Independent News broadcasters, but the format of talk shows is now a podcast format where you come in a monologue in, first guest viral skit, second guess, musical act, and that viral skits where they focus and hone in on so that they can create just viral content to get more exposure to their brand. And if you look at the progression of Logan Paul or Dixie Dimellio, they have such a cult-like following, fantastic! Those who drop a podcast or I think this is passive consumption where you can be doing something else working out driving a car, on a walk, and you can be consuming this stuff. And that’s really what the long-form content, especially in this form, I think is the future and because you can go way more into depth. And especially with product placement of a macro influencer, I choose BFF podcasts all day because the people that are there are actually listening. And they’re not just like mindlessly just like, dumb just, yeah. Have you ever seen yourself scroll through Instagram?

 

Mike King

Yeah, it’s a bad habit.

 

Joe Casanova

You look dumb, you’re just like drooling. And just like this, it isn’t, it’s not a book versus a podcast, you’re just into it, you’re laughing, hearing him talk. And then they’d say, a placement on a cool product or service they actually believe in because these influencers should not be working with brands that are not aligned with what they’re doing because authenticity goes too far and that’s what authority should be doing. It’s that their encouragement, their endorsement encourages behavior. And that’s what an influencer is. So…

 

Mike King

Let’s talk about the authenticity and usage of a product or service, what is something that you use every single day?

 

Joe Casanova

Coffee. I mean, but I really use it every day. I bought my phone, I got to say, my phone, I’m using it. It’s funny because I think one of them, someone asked me what’s the must-have purchase of less than $100. And I think now with COVID, it’s the fact that everyone’s … this is my office on this mount, I got a couch chair, that’s where I nap. This is where I work the majority of the time. And I think of a light and I just returned one, I have one somewhere around on my desk. Actually, I’m using it to hold my phone up. I had a camera with a light on it. I didn’t like it. And I’ve just purchased the light that comes in today. But I think if you do not have a light for your computer or something for your camera, it’s like the difference here. It’s night and day, it really increases the quality. And I think that’s something that I should use in all meetings. I always have just like because it is level, especially if you’re in a meeting with other people who are not well lit and not in well-lit rooms. You look like you’re photoshopped on them and it puts you in a level of prestige. Have you ever gone out, and you just look great and everyone around you looks bombed out? It’s a funny thing. I used to date an influencer, leave her name out of it. But it was always about her appearance. Because she was an influencer. She knew she was. I see people and there was this place in Miami called Space nightclub you’re familiar with and…

 

Mike King

Very familiar with Space.

 

Joe Casanova

Space has after hours. And after hours, people are sweating. They don’t look that great. You know.

 

Mike King

Let’s talk about that.

 

Joe Casanova

I’m going to just tell you, we’re tapping through that one. We’re not, I don’t want to talk about Space. But I will tell you, me and her, Saturday night, we would go to sleep at like 10 pm and we’d wake up at 3 am. And we’d get ready and go to space. And that’s like, we do that once every while she would get dressed and ready. And when she came in, I remember seeing her and then all the people at Space are just like they’re going through it. She’d Look, she looks so unreal. Like you could see her floating through the crowd because if she presented herself she was clean. Everyone else was sweaty, dirty. And finally, she was just like makeup, hair done, looking beautiful. And I think that’s what lighting is. That’s like the most…

 

Mike King

I can appreciate that. Yeah, I think you’re right, lighting goes a really long way. My purchase underneath $100 that’s a must-have. Jump rope.

 

Joe Casanova

Sure, that’s fine. I have a different product. This is one that I was pushing on Amazon. I can go grab it if you want me to. And I’ll show I’m going to demo it to you right now.

 

So you see a jump rope. And as you can see here I have different samples of different colors and things like that. This is a product I put on Amazon. It was doing good. It wasn’t doing bad. I thought it was definitely a product I could use and it was just a thick weight. It’s kind of a weighted rope. And the beauty about this was that I call it a fitness rope for mobility. And you grab it and the way you move The only thing to have issues with a jump rope is you still need to jump. And the jump impacts your knees. And as you can see from these athletes, they’re down, right? So with this model, there was no impact on the knees, and you get the mobility of your shoulders and the movement and the cardio. And it was actually a product I put on Amazon. And it worked for a while, but I was just so spread out with so many products that I was just like, I just kind of let it go by the wayside and let this European person who was selling rope for like, $80, a pop I rope does not cost that much. But he pretty much owns the market now. So I definitely agree with you on that one. I got to put you down this rope. I think it’s…

 

Mike King

I’m with it. I like it. You’re right. That jump rope definitely has an impact on the knees. But for me, I travel a lot, right? And I have to work out every day. And it’s the easiest way to get a nice little workout. And so push-ups and jump rope. Just keep the heart going. Yeah.

 

Joe Casanova

I’ll tell you the pandemic outside of disrupting my business outside disrupting my social life. It’s disrupting a lot. Every night, we used to see each other probably once at least every two weeks.

 

Mike King

Usually.

 

Joe Casanova

And then we went at least a year without physically seeing each other in person. It wasn’t even because the COVID is just I felt like behaviors and paradigms were installed into me stay home Don’t worry about social stuff. Don’t get drunk, stay not hungover. Wake up, drink coffee, work. And honestly it’s very fruitful. And it made me very happy.

 

Mike King

Better than me, man. You know what COVID did for me just because I have a problem with authority for me. I’m sure a lot of people do. So when they told me that everybody’s advisory was to stay inside, don’t do anything. I was like, Nah, yeah. Today, yeah, I’m going to go to a warehouse party.

 

Joe Casanova

Man, I would say that I did make my way on Halloween last year, too. I just had to. I had all the underground parties in that scene here, which was just so blown away by how they got away with it, and how a quarter-million-dollar and underground events like they were making quarter million Dollars, which is insane. That’s like, I got to see this for myself. And it was so fascinating to see. I was getting prohibition vibes. Because as you know, the alcohol industry is owned by the mob. And the only reason the mob was able to own that industry was that they laid the foundation for it during the prohibition. And next thing, pandemic happens during COVID. You had these underground parties in Miami, and all I kept thinking was the people who are doing these underground parties would have a platform to really elevate and take off when this stuff ends up becoming legitimate.

 

Mike King

We’re going to get back to space here, right, as space opened up because they couldn’t remain open. During COVID, I noticed a difference in the number of people who were actually going to space and how many other events were getting more attention and more people because they had this momentum because of COVID. Because they said no, we’re going to give the people what they want. When, when space Can’t, I mean, they’re a corporation, they could not for the life of them be open. You’re right that it definitely opened up an opportunity. It’s the idea of not having something and when you like, dangle it, people go the right way.

 

Joe Casanova

For sure! And, he said it a guy. And when this pandemic hit, I was kind of depressed, just got out of my first agency for reasons I’m not going to even talk about. And I wanted to do real-estate stuff, got rocked. And then I was just like, wow, I don’t have any clients. I think the government was paying me some money. I was that guy will hang out for real understanding. And then I started streaming and started teaching. And then the people I started teaching, you start talking to each other, and then had a community. It’s just like, Oh, I have Furlough over here, I have this community here. Let me merge it, bring it together, and see what happens. Never really worried about money. And, just kept working, I grind. But it’s crazy. I came to a point where I was just tired of doing nothing all day. And I was I got to do something. So I started talking to people. And then I started posting on my Facebook, where people know me on my like, through high school and stuff. And I would just talk about what I did, what I’m doing, and how I could help people. Next, I’m, I’m obviously the CEO of Furlough, I’m the CMO of a, a company raising a Series A round of 28 million, that if a FinTech company that’s like, right, it’s July 1 start day, just became the CMO of this insane company that’s going to take off and then the CEO of this influencer agency that I’m building everything from the ground up for them. And you said it. It’s like there’s always opportunities every… on my favorite book by far for anyone to read a book that I recommend. Ryan Holiday killed it with this one, and it’s The Obstacle’s The Way, and it shows that for every time there was an obstacle, there is a way, there was an opportunity to seize it, and opportunities are not a door. It’s a revolving door, and then it keeps coming, and if it’s not this one, That’s the next one. And I see myself now with an agency model where I’m telling people. I can’t take you. I get text messages saying, Please take my money. And I’m like, I don’t want to. Your money comes with the strings attached because you want something I don’t really want to deliver right now because that’s expectations. And I don’t want to let you down with friends, and it’s just crazy. I think that, especially in a world like my way, in the world, the little world we live in, within the big world, which is Miami, it’s a lot of all talk. And I’ll say we’re going to do this and say, we’re going to do that. And a lot of people don’t necessarily do it, or they have the appearance that they’re doing it versus actually doing it. And I see now they are really on track to be very disruptive and just do some really cool things and impactful change across several businesses, and there are so many businesses that need it. There are so many brands, so many influencers that need this stuff. And it’s just it’s ripe for the taking. And I can’t take all of it. There are so many rooms for everyone else. Yeah, you saw with the event space, there are people taking it and seizing this opportunity. The PPE has put one quick little story.

 

Mike King

My friend Oh, you want to go into stories about PPE, we need a whole podcast for that.

 

Joe Casanova

For sure, but I’ll tell you, my friend, he had a contact that needed PPE, got them PPE, and nurtured the relationship. Next thing he’s handling all the immigration, the buses for the immigrants all in Texas, guys on track to make multi-millions ten plus millions this year.

 

Mike King

Transportation for immigrants.

 

Joe Casanova

Yeah, for the border crisis. It’s insane. Like I was just like, how are you doing? How’d you get involved with the border? He’s like, I made a government contract for PPE. And just, they’re happy with me and like, what else can you do? And he’s like, I own a bunch of buses. He’s like, cool. And then he started just getting more buses and handling all transportation for all but the whole immigrant crisis at the border that’s happening right now—not going to get into that. But it just shows even with a crisis; there is opportunity.

 

Mike King

With a crisis, there’s more opportunity than I think we saw ourselves. You never let a good disaster go to waste. Right? You just don’t. Anyone that sees chaos should also see opportunity. Always, and I think you’re right. What was it? Somebody shared something with me, the amount of wealth that was made during COVID was record-breaking, right?

 

Joe Casanova

For big businesses? Absolutely. I people like myself, got rocked restaurants, destroyed gyms, same movie theaters, but then look at Apple, look at Microsoft. How did Amazon like… we got two $2 trillion companies in the midst of pandemic hyperinflation insane. You have the Fed backing companies like BlackRock that’s coming in and swiping up all real estate at 40%. Above the market, there is a winter coming. Okay. And we don’t. I don’t think the Biden Administration and the democrats will allow this winter to come during their tenure of taking office because if it does, it’ll destroy the Democratic Party. And…

 

Mike King 

I agree, I think I don’t know how long that can get pushed off. But we’ll see. Great.

 

Joe Casanova 

I mean, you printing money? That’s for sure. I mean, we’re going to see a government coin. I don’t want us to crypto talk. Because it’s, there’s a lot of hype and all these shit coins in the meme coins. But there is true functionality and technology. It’s an I happen to disrupt. But it’s just a system. It’s a precedent. There’s never been a time like this. There’s so much opportunity. And if you’re not getting that’s what I hate about unemployment, because our mutual friend PDS production, it is hard for him to find workers because what he would pay someone in a day rate of $300, which is great $300 in a day, who wouldn’t take that up, right? If you get that on unemployment, and we’re doing absolutely nothing. And nobody wants to work. And it’s just crazy. Because if you become a slave to the system and become dependent on the system, instead of seizing your own opportunities and making the most of this time, you’re going to be left behind. And…

 

Mike King 

Yeah, but I think here’s a tough lesson that I’ve learned over time: some people just don’t care if they get left behind. Right. They don’t. It’s a matter of not having to do the work because we spoke about this earlier, like, during our 20s, we just grinded our ass off, right. I mean, it was fun.

 

Joe Casanova 

I worked, and I had fun. I was 20 years old. 

 

Mike King 

Now my 20s after college, I just stayed in a really boring town and just sat in front of a computer and figured out how to make money and had nothing else to do like at all until I moved to Miami, and then it’s all downhill from there. 

 

Joe Casanova 

You’re me in 20 right now, okay? 

 

Mike King 

If I were in Miami in my 20s, I would be dead. 

 

Joe Casanova 

You’d have dreads and be living in the suburbs like me. 

 

Mike King 

Living in a house with candles,

 

Joe Casanova 

Well, you know it. I stay away from the madness. It gets distracting. You know?

 

Mike King 

Here’s why. It’s actually why I travel. I love my Miami. Miami is the best city in the world in the United States. I guess I haven’t been to every city in the world, which I plan to do in every major city, but in the United States, nothing beats Miami. You can literally have anything you want in 30 minutes, but it is very distracting. So, I just got back from Columbia, and everything. Oh, you went to Columbia? What do you do? I said I did nothing. I just chilled. It’s like I was alone. No one was calling me to go out. No one was calling me to do anything. I went to bed at 10 pm. I woke up at 7 am. I worked out; I did work. I went for a walk in the city. I did nothing great. We didn’t do anything crazy at all. It was literally a getaway from Miami. And yeah, that’s a unique problem to have. That’s unique.

 

Joe Casanova 

I’ve been instilled that I stopped like my meetings. I don’t take phone calls unless it’s like, people like yourself were in my top five and I should go look at my phone number right there. It’s 319 missed calls. And that was for me. I’m like, I don’t talk to people. Because I know, my issue with phone calls is especially the same issue I have with emails. The email is the world’s to-do list for you what they think you should be doing, and phone calls are always something that they need. And that’s why…

 

Mike King 

They want something.

 

Joe Casanova 

Yeah, 

 

Mike King 

What was the last time you got a phone call? Besides from your family? I mean, who is like, Hey, what’s up? What do you do? What’s new? Yeah, like new? vs. Hey, can you do something?

 

Joe Casanova 

Yeah, I mean, the only call I’ve picked up, I think this past week was a call from a great girlfriend of mine, and I’m looking like, what is she calling me for! Hello, I’m in a meeting. I’m getting married. Okay, that validates a call. Yeah. But usually, it’s like, I’m stranded, I need a ride. And it’s like, go Uber. You don’t need me. Good. It’s crazy. Look, there’s one thing I’ll tell you because I do want to respect your time. I know you do have to jump off after this. But um, and we’re kind of riding through that benchmark of the time we allocated to this. It’s the fact that my life changed. When I really realized how to steak, I could never forget that voice in the back of my thought was just like, Humble yourself, kid, I think, and it’s really calling myself a child. Because in the giant scheme of things, I’m a child, my 30s. Now, wait, Tom Ford. He’s in my 50s. And I have way more life experience, a lot more failures than I could actually learn from, and humble myself. Always you’re forever a student. I love how you say that you’re learning. I’ve kind of taken a step back on learning so much and taking more action because I do feel like I do have more than enough information to execute properly. And you kind of get caught through this like analysis paralysis object trying to learn, learn, learn, learn, it’s like go do I think practical knowledge is way better than theory, and humble yourself and just really realize that you, me, everyone on this planet is replaceable, just as to circle back to what we mentioned at the beginning, how Gary Vee and Tony Robbins and the branding their name, then the fact that this is not my island, even my wife is will be someone else’s wife one day, it’s so true. Even someone who’s a billionaire with the islands and impacts billions of people knows that he’s replaceable. And that’s the level of awareness you’re operating at. Yeah,

 

Mike King 

I think we’ll leave the listeners and the viewers with this. I think it’s interesting that you said, hey, you’re still a child, you’re still a kid. I was actually in Space at an engagement party. And, of course, every good story starts in Space. And I was talking to this, like, this beautiful girl. She was working for a center. She had just bought her multifamily house. She was doing really well in her career. And she was asking me, with my companies and the income that I have, and where I’m at, what’s next? Right, right, what’s next on your journey? And I really didn’t have a solid answer. But I said when I was your age, right? Thought I had it all figured out, right? I did. Like I knew everything. I knew where I was going, and I knew what I was doing. And she was like, fuck. So I don’t know if I said no, she was like, Don’t tell me that. But it’s true. You Humble yourself as you continue to grow, and you go from being young and having a really strong ego that gets you through those work moments where you’re just grinding through things and believing in yourself to then achieving and saying, maybe I don’t have it all figured out. Right? Even if you have all the money coming in, and I told her it is a battle, that it’s Not a battle, just something that I think we all go through. I don’t know if it’s ever enough, right? It’s not.

 

Joe Casanova 

I’m so done with money metrics like I, it’s not my…

 

Mike King 

Money metrics are safe metrics, but it is never going to be enough. But it protects you.

 

Joe Casanova 

Yeah, for sure. I mean, with the client-facing side, of course, you got to put KPIs for money. Always, that’s what the money talks about, okay. But on my projects that I own, Furlough, there’s no monetization aspect I’m not; I don’t really care for it. It kind of builds the best product ever. And it’s actually a product that I believe in, and I use every day, all day. And I wish I had it when I was younger because I’m solving such a key problem in this space in this industry and myself. And I’m focusing on that. And if I focus is crazy because I had somebody talk about what they want to start a community so that they can use it for the lead generation I go, you’re defeating the purpose of starting a community. A community should not have an alternative motive except servicing that community. Stop trying to monetize it. Good luck. Like, I want to know how that goes. Because I will tell you, this community, the reason why it is what it is today is that there were no strings attached. And what if these people take advantage of the units like, you cannot take advantage of me if I give you without strings attached. Because if you take advantage of me, and by me giving you the strings attached, I guess I had some strings attached because I was expecting something. And that’s the problem I see with a lot of people is they’re not giving, and they have alternative motives or restraints attached. And it’s just unfortunate. And it’s just give, give, give, do your best, showing up is half the battle. And just keep it going and constantly, constantly adapt. Take a step. I like small steps, but I like bigger leaps. And I always like every now and then, especially every quarter, as we have July coming around the start of quarter three. I think it’s important just to stop, don’t do anything. And just look at where you were looking at where you are and where you’re going, and saying this makes sense. I like this path and put my head down, get back to work. And then in three months, lift it up and be like, Are we here is this? Yeah, yeah. Because I’ll tell you the money in the bank account, just go ahead and go to your desk, go to your bank account, go to inspect, and then change the numbers. That’s what it is when you have all that money. It’s …

 

Mike King 

Mark Cuban said this is just a scoreboard. It’s just a scoreboard at a certain point. You have enough. It’s just the scoreboard.

 

Joe Casanova 

Nah, and that’s it. I’m not a fan of the money metrics. I’m not. I like the impact and the change. And I do have a goal of helping 100 people make $100,000, you know.

 

Mike King 

For anyone watching this, I’m sure we’ll add a link below, click the link below, and we’ll help you make $100,000. We’ll figure it out.

 

Joe Casanova

Just get on a call. We’ll figure it out. 

 

Mike King 

This was a great session. We have a lot to unpack here. Another session Space, crypto, more COVID maybe having really COVID out, but Space and cryptos are fun. Joe, man, I love you brother, it’s always good to chat with you. And boys and girls. We appreciate you watching and viewing. I’m sure when this is posted on YouTube, there will be a link below with some resources or a time to chat with us about masterminding on our discord channel, or maybe making you $100,000 and just look in the bio. We’ll figure it out.

 

Joe Casanova 

You already know. Awesome guy. Appreciate you, Mike. Take care, buddy.

 

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