There is frankly a lot going on here.
A year ago I was in the living room of my new house, wondering if I should stay at Car Dealership Guy, or go off and start my own venture. I had just spent the previous year proving that I was pretty good at monetizing a high profile creator. I ultimately decided to cut the umbilical chord, leave the safe waters of a business that I helped build, and venture forth to see if I could do it for others.
I really loved my time at Car Dealership Guy
My first call was to Russ Flips Whips. Freddy Media client numero uno. I promised Russ Flips Whips 5% of my new venture if he came along and helped me build this thing. Best investment I have ever made. Russ’s dealership training was our top priority, and we knew that we could make this thing huge. We wrote a curriculum, produced it, built and app, while traveling the world training dealerships how to do content. Our greatest achievement was that one time a giant Toyota group from Australia invited us to Melbourne and Adelaide to train Toyota stores how to do content.
Here’s a weird picture that Russ’s Brother’s Girlfriend made us take in Australia. I really do whatever the talent asks of me.
Shoutout to the Peter Kittle Group, those were great people, who provided Russ and myself with the opportunity of a lifetime, which the industry took note of. We have dozens of dealerships signed up for our monthly training modules, and have interest from publicly traded dealer groups. Russ’s training is a hit, thank god.
Next person to join was Chris Koerner. HOLY SMOKES, what great client he turned out to be. I said to Chris, “hey man I recently was successful monetizing a creator who spoke to a niche industry, I think you speak to a niche industry and I believe that I could do the same for you.” He said ok and we immediately began to work together.
Initially we took calls from moms who wanted to know if we had the instructions to build whatever contraption Chris was just profiling on Tik Tok, but before long, those conversations morphed into brands, banks, and CMO’s of publicly traded companies. Chris Koerner is on track to become the best business influencer in America, or at least on the Mount Rushmore next to Hormozi.
Heres a screenshot of a bad V1 Media Kit we made for him…We have come a long way
I hired Savannah Simms at this point, who I believe to be the best female executive in the automotive industry. She somehow took a chance and joined a bootstrapped startup that barely had a name. She took a steep discount in the first few months, and my greatest accomplishment so far at Freddy Media is to have made good on the promise to her that “you will start making real money within 3 months” She has been the unquestioned leader for this business, and I am glad to have her as a partner today.
Savannah Simms presenting to the executive team of a dealership group in California
More creators came like Javuan Banks, George Saliba, Benzs and Bowties, Brian Mello, Braiden Shaw, and others we grew a STACKED roster. Noah Ney, who was with me early at Car Dealership Guy hopped on board and immediately gave us that veteran support we needed to operate a modern sales org.
Subsequently, brands started coming to us asking for help with creator marketing, so we have taken that over for more than a few companies. We also were so often asked to help with all sorts of marketing that we decided to build out our real tech/marketing agency muscles. We hired Weston Ferguson to become the Chief Marketing Officer, graduating our offerings to first class. We now are a team of 9.
Here I am celebrating some of my first fixed costs and long term liabilities.
We now are building businesses with creators like George Saliba, launching apps for Freddy Media, and wading deeply into dealership services beyond just training. Our heart lies in automotive retail, it’s impossible to wash off.
Your company needs to learn how to do content.
Our job is to execute the best influencer marketing/talent agency in the world, while forging outbound on behalf of creators to secure the greatest business opportunities we can secure from our personal networks, cold calling, events, and social media. Some of the deals we have been able to make on behalf of creators lately has been incredible. We are proud to turn many of the influencers we work with into serious business owners. Freddy Media is a functional back office for all of these guys on the roster, and I know that they believe our outbound sales, customer service, operations, collections, and reporting efforts are worth the management fee.
My biggest challenges have been building a revenue engine that was not completely dependent on myself. I took meetings with a couple hollywood agencies, as well as some regular influencer marketing agencies who gave me great inspiration in how I incentivize, structure, and direct my team.
Shoutout to the Liver King’s manager who took my call and gave me about 2 hours worth of advice about what I had gotten myself into via influencer management
Owning a youngish business is the biggest thrill of my life. I am so lucky to wake up in the morning at the beach in Florida, drop my kids off at school, swing into town to grab a coffee before heading into our somehow awesome office in Atlantic Beach. I have the greatest team in the world. This newsletter should be nothing more than an on the record thank you to them. I have the best clients too. I am so thankful for our Freddy Media marketing clients and the hundreds of car dealerships who have supported the Russ Flips Whips training.
We cash flowed every month in operation this year. We did not take outside investment. We know that if we reinvest our earnings to build technology, processes, and leverage our industry expertise to go to market on behalf of creators, that we can become one of the best media companies in America.
In the short term, my goals are to take a risk and bet on some high powered AI to serve in both sales and ops. We are also building an editing and clipping company called Freddy Clips.
Editing and clipping services for large creators and executives
Finally, I am working with a team to bring an app to life. It is called Freddy Funnels, and I hope you like it. Think decentralized Linkedin, better customer acquisition and more fun networking. More to come soon.
Thanks for supporting our entrepreneurial dream.