1:14

it got me thinking about how branching

1:17

out it, I think is important to, even though

1:19

I have like this formula that works, start doing

1:21

these other little things to see what people

1:24

might be interested in. I

1:25

think that's genius. All

2:12

right. Welcome back to the something businessy podcast.

2:14

I am really excited to bring

2:16

back for, this is actually the first

2:18

time we've had a repeat guest on the podcast and

2:21

I know you're going to like him because his

2:23

first episode with us was one of our, it's still

2:25

one of our top downloaded episodes. So

2:27

welcome back to the podcast, Eric Rhodes.

2:29

We're so happy to have you back.

2:32

Yeah. I'm glad to be back. Um,

2:34

it's been like a year and a half or so, uh,

2:38

but yeah, like we aired your podcast. Heck

2:41

yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm all about it.

2:44

Yeah. We aired your podcast episode back

2:46

on May 31st, 2022.

2:48

I think we recorded it just a couple of weeks before

2:50

that. So a lot has changed.

2:52

What'd you said? It's been, yeah. So it's been about a year and a

2:54

half since then. And

2:57

last time I chatted with you, you had just kind

2:59

of like gone through this crazy blow

3:02

up on Tik Tok, gone from pretty much nothing

3:04

to almost a million followers

3:06

in less, what was it? Less than a

3:08

year. Right. Right. That first. First million

3:11

just a little over a year. So I, yeah,

3:13

I started on in May, 2021. So

3:16

it was about a year.

3:17

Okay. Awesome. Well, yeah.

3:20

So I am just super excited to

3:22

kind of like get the part two

3:24

and see where you're at now and how your life

3:26

has Changed and I have a couple

3:28

of questions related to tick tock

3:30

versus Instagram and kind of how

3:32

you're navigating those differently I've

3:34

kind of noticed that you're using them a little differently

3:37

and We'd love to know some

3:39

kind of thought process behind that and just

3:41

check in and see how, what this

3:44

ride's been like. Cause gosh, just trying

3:46

to get you, you're, you're traveling all the time.

3:48

You're like. Doing all kinds of fun stuff. It

3:50

looks like,

3:51

yeah, it's been a, it's been a wild

3:53

ride the last year

3:55

and a half, two years. Um,

3:58

as you said, I went from basically

4:01

zero followers on Tik TOK and, you

4:03

know, 1500 that I've been sitting on,

4:05

on Instagram for years. I

4:07

couldn't grow. And then from

4:09

2021 to 2022, I had a

4:11

million followers and that garnered me a

4:14

lot of attention, um, nationwide.

4:17

And. I started to

4:20

get opportunities to travel here and

4:22

there just a little bit through Tik Tok, but

4:25

what happened was, I think what

4:27

really changed was I took, this

4:29

was September 2022, I

4:32

started taking all of the content that I was posting

4:34

on Instagram, excuse me, Tik Tok, and

4:36

I started putting it on Instagram, like

4:38

my viral videos and ones that I just

4:40

thought were good. I just started posting those and

4:43

It wasn't long before, um,

4:46

I had a hundred thousand followers on TikTok.

4:48

It was only a few months. So from like 1500,

4:51

or sorry, I keep getting my, my, my sites

4:53

mixed up. Instagram. So

4:56

from like September 2022 till.

4:58

January I grew to, to like

5:00

50 or a hundred thousand. I can't remember what it was. And

5:02

now I'm at 400,000 and Instagram

5:05

is where I feel like once that

5:07

started to grow, that's when I started to receive

5:09

a lot of, uh, big leads

5:12

and opportunities to travel and, and do some

5:14

pretty amazing things.

5:16

Oh, that's really fascinating. So you

5:19

had a million followers on TikTok. You were starting

5:21

to kind of get some interest and some actual, like

5:23

real life benefits coming from it. But

5:25

when Instagram started hitting those six

5:28

figure counts, you

5:30

saw actually even more opportunities coming

5:32

from Instagram?

5:34

Yeah. More, um,

5:37

I don't want to say serious, because I've had serious

5:39

opportunities from TikTok, but I just feel like... I

5:43

mean, you know, Chevy reached out

5:45

to me and said, Hey, we want, we, we love what

5:47

you're doing on Instagram on, on

5:50

social. We'd love to have

5:52

you at CMA fest, repping our brand all

5:54

week in Nashville, um,

5:56

DJing, you know, on the,

5:59

one of the main boardwalks. I was like, Oh my gosh. And,

6:01

but that was from Instagram. It wasn't them finding

6:03

me on Tik TOK. So I felt like Instagram has

6:05

really brought me. The higher

6:08

end corporate type of

6:10

leads. Yeah.

6:12

And, gosh, how cool. Did you do

6:14

that? Heck yeah, I did it. It

6:16

was amazing. It was amazing. It was amazing. So Chevy

6:18

had this, uh, very big sponsor of,

6:22

uh, CMA Fest in Nashville

6:24

every June and they had a big display,

6:26

it took over pretty much a whole block

6:28

of their, like, hybrid electric

6:31

cars. And they put me up on this big, um,

6:34

shipping container and

6:36

they made banners with my name and face

6:38

and like all of this stuff, like, so I DJ'd.

6:41

For four days, um,

6:43

on and off, they had me like certain sets,

6:46

like four, four hour set or four,

6:48

one hour sets. And I was just outside as

6:50

people were walking by, it was like just tons of

6:52

people there. It was a, I don't know. It was a blast. It was just

6:54

a great opportunity. Um,

6:57

Oh my gosh, that is so cool. Uh,

7:00

yeah, I mean you have had, so

7:03

you've had some really cool things happen. Like can

7:05

we talk about the, and I don't know

7:07

the, all the ins and outs and the details of the story.

7:10

So I just want to like, let you. Tell

7:12

the story, but what ended

7:15

up happening between I saw that you were

7:17

actually had created

7:19

buzz with Warren G and

7:22

With this like Warren G Morgan Wallen situation

7:25

like where he was actually trying

7:28

to get publicly get Morgan Wallen

7:30

to like record Uh, your

7:32

mashup together. That's

7:35

insane.

7:35

This is a great story. Oh,

7:38

sorry, go ahead. Start from the

7:39

beginning. No, yeah, you take it away.

7:43

Well, it ties in, again, to

7:45

how when I started putting stuff

7:47

out on Instagram from

7:50

TikTok, that's when great

7:52

things started to happen. And one of the things that

7:55

helped me take off was reposting

7:58

my Warren G. Morgan Wallen

8:01

mashup. People started

8:03

to share it, react

8:05

to it, and it just, it was like a viral,

8:07

it went mega viral on lots of people's pages.

8:09

Um, that sound that I made. And

8:12

Warren G. caught wind of it, cause I, I posted

8:14

that video like three different times. Because

8:17

I believe in reposting your, your content

8:19

that's good, because there are a

8:21

lot of people that don't see it. You

8:24

know, if I have a hundred thousand followers and my video gets

8:26

50, 000 views, that's 50, 000 people,

8:28

probably more of my followers that haven't seen that

8:30

video. So I repost stuff and I

8:32

think I reposted it the second or third time

8:35

and Warren reacted to it.

8:37

And then when it went mega viral, he

8:41

hit me up through the DMS and

8:44

was like, let's make this a hit. No,

8:46

what he did is he posted it. He reposted the

8:48

video, tagged, um,

8:51

His people and I saw it and then

8:53

I dm'd him and I said hey Warren I

8:55

saw that you want to make this a song like what

8:58

what do I need to do to help and that started the conversation

9:01

and then eventually He

9:03

was all on board and eventually

9:05

he ended up with you

9:08

know, I don't know we ended up doing some facetiming

9:10

and talking

9:12

about how it could work, but

9:15

We had, we heard nothing from Morgan Wallen,

9:17

absolutely nothing. And

9:20

it never actually happened, which is really disappointing.

9:22

But the fact that I

9:25

was having conversations with somebody

9:27

I grew up listening to and,

9:30

you know, idolized as a kid from a musical

9:32

standpoint was pretty amazing. Just

9:35

to be on that. That level. Yeah.

9:38

I mean, I saw the, I saw

9:40

the video. I

9:43

think it came across my feed

9:46

from Warren G. Like

9:49

not from you. Like I follow you. I don't even

9:51

think I followed Warren G at the time, but that video

9:53

went so viral of him

9:56

basically like calling out Morgan Wallen

9:58

to like do this together. Uh, I was just

10:00

like, holy crap. And it said

10:02

your name on there. I know

10:05

him. This is crazy.

10:07

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been

10:09

fun. It's been a fun ride. Um,

10:12

and I've had, I've had conversations with other,

10:15

uh, artists

10:18

and I don't want to say a bunch of names, but like people that

10:21

you would probably know, like we've had

10:23

some talks on DMs, like about making

10:25

certain, you know, mashups and things.

10:27

It's pretty, it's pretty cool. Yeah.

10:29

Is it, has it gotten to the point where you have, um,

10:32

artists that are kind of up and coming artists that are like,

10:34

Hey, will you use my song? Yes.

10:37

Help me get stuff out there. Like has that been happening?

10:40

Yeah, I've received some of that. Um,

10:42

that's a tricky thing that for me to navigate because

10:44

I don't know, I

10:46

don't know. I don't know what to charge. Sometimes.

10:48

I don't like the song. I'm like, I don't, I don't wanna put

10:50

something out that doesn't feel right. And so

10:52

it's, I, I'd be, I'm pretty picky

10:54

about. Yeah.

10:58

Because I still want to, I don't want to just like, because

11:00

it's exciting, like kind of sell out if

11:03

you will, and just take anything that comes my way.

11:05

Um, but, but I do have people reaching

11:08

out, brands reaching out all the time.

11:13

I mean it's just, you can tell that it's just you

11:15

doing your thing and having fun and using

11:20

music that you enjoy and that you think is going to go well

11:22

together. It definitely would change

11:24

it a lot if you started like having to

11:26

do all this weird music that people,

11:29

you know, don't really resonate with. So yeah,

11:32

good for you for just, you know, staying

11:34

authentic. Um,

11:36

okay. So are, you're not sharing

11:39

every single video to Instagram, just the

11:41

ones that you think like, like every few, cause

11:43

you have, um, on

11:45

Tik TOK, I noticed like you

11:47

do the same format, the it's you at

11:49

your mixer,

11:53

whatever you call it. And you

11:55

do your mashups or you do your, like the,

11:57

the two songs. Um, so,

12:00

but on Instagram, you are more,

12:02

it's more of a Eric Rhodes kind of personal

12:04

brand. Like there's some stuff about your family

12:06

and your, Vacations and like

12:08

life in Boise and stuff like that too. So

12:11

I was curious, have you experimented with posting

12:13

any other types of content on TikTok? Um,

12:16

or are you like, no, I'm just gonna do this format

12:18

for TikTok, and what's kind of the decision

12:20

process there?

12:23

Most of my content on

12:25

Instagram, that is part

12:27

of my other pillars, if you will, personal

12:30

life, um, like

12:33

family working out

12:35

or things like that. Other things I'm interested in besides

12:37

just the music, those are all

12:39

typically. Pictures

12:41

or like a carousel of pictures.

12:45

You can't put those. I could,

12:47

I could make it a TikTok video. I suppose

12:49

that are, you know, the pictures move.

12:51

I could put that on TikTok. Um,

12:53

but I don't, I don't know. It

12:56

just seems easier to just post

12:58

like, cause you can post pictures and people will see

13:00

them on Instagram, whereas you can't do that

13:02

on TikTok. So I've just kind of treated

13:05

Instagram like a multifaceted

13:07

kind of, I don't know. Uh,

13:11

what is it? Projection or what's the word I'm looking for? Um,

13:15

I don't know. Oh, just who I am. Yeah.

13:18

Yeah. And then, and then TikTok

13:21

is insane with Facebook. My Facebook

13:23

fan pages has grown a lot too. So

13:25

I treat that the same way as Instagram. But,

13:28

um, but yeah, TikTok, I've just kept

13:30

it. I've kept the one formula and honestly

13:32

my page hasn't grown a whole lot lately. And

13:34

I think that's partially due

13:37

to the algorithm. Cause I know Like

13:39

six months ago or so, a lot of big content

13:41

creators lost a lot of views and

13:43

their pages haven't grown much. Um,

13:45

and that's happened to me, but maybe branching out

13:47

is a, is. Something

13:50

I should do and start showing more

13:52

of that, that side of me, but

13:54

I always thought of TikTok as like this,

13:57

you're, you're going to go, you

13:59

should go viral on TikTok and you should, you

14:01

know, those videos are just going to hit random

14:04

people, whereas

14:06

Instagram, I see it as like, I'm trying to nurture

14:08

my fan base and then also grow,

14:11

um, But

14:13

maybe that's, maybe that's a bad strategy. Maybe

14:15

I do need to be, you're making me think about these things.

14:18

I

14:18

don't think, oh my gosh, I don't think you're having

14:20

a bad strategy at all. Are you kidding me? You've got um,

14:22

1. 2 million followers, highly engaged.

14:25

Uh, group of people on TikTok

14:28

and 410, 000 on Instagram, Eric, I think you're doing

14:30

just fine and you should be the one teaching

14:33

the classes over here. I, uh,

14:35

yeah, I'm just so in awe of what you're doing

14:37

and I love how I ask you this question, like, what's

14:39

the strategy behind it? And you're like, Oh, it's just

14:41

easier to like do that. It's

14:43

like you are just doing

14:46

what feels good. And

14:48

it's just, it's, it's all guided by

14:50

just what feels like fun for you. And I think that's

14:53

why it's working so well, because you're not overthinking

14:55

it. You're really consistent with creating

14:57

content and making sure that, you

15:00

know, like you actually are really valuing the time that you're

15:02

putting into that. And it really shows. And it's totally,

15:05

even, even when the, when the views

15:07

slow down or the reach

15:09

slows down, you still show up and you still

15:11

put the videos there. And I think it's just awesome. I

15:13

was just curious if you've ever, if you had experimented

15:16

at all with. Trying different

15:18

types of videos about your life or anything on Tik TOK,

15:20

and maybe they decided not to do that for some

15:22

reason, or if you just haven't really

15:24

ever gone there.

15:26

I just have never gone there. I don't know.

15:28

I, I've never really thought about

15:30

it. I just thought Instagram was the one where I show

15:33

all of my. Different

15:35

sides of, of who I am and my brand

15:37

and tick tock, which is the tick tock, the,

15:40

the, the mix videos. So you really

15:42

got me thinking about this. Like, I think I need

15:43

to, I'm like, okay, let's come up with a

15:45

new strategy. Let's like mix it up a little bit. I

15:48

mean, like it's, it's really

15:50

smart though, in a way, like, because I

15:52

love how you have a different persona

15:54

on Instagram because not a different persona,

15:57

but like. You're showcasing other parts

15:59

of your life because your fans

16:01

on Tik TOK will go and click

16:03

on your Instagram link on from Tik TOK

16:06

and they'll go over to Instagram and be like, Oh, he's sharing

16:08

something different over here. This gives me

16:10

a reason to follow him in both places. I'm not

16:12

just going to get like a regurgitation of

16:14

the exact same content every

16:17

day. So I think it's a, it

16:19

makes sense to me. I figured it was. Part

16:21

of the strategy to like get people to follow

16:23

in both places But

16:26

you know when you do your fitness stuff like

16:28

but you don't at the same time It's like do you

16:30

want to be like creating videos all day

16:32

every where you go all the time in

16:34

every aspect of your life? probably not like

16:37

you You know, you have like quality

16:40

of life in those areas that you want to preserve.

16:42

And I, making videos

16:44

takes a lot of time and you have a system set up

16:47

for these types of videos you make,

16:49

where you probably have it all super easy

16:51

to push record and go and

16:53

you don't have to set up a tripod and like

16:55

at the gym, like

16:58

you're not going to have to do all that work. Every

17:01

time. Yeah.

17:01

I'm really not that kind of content creator

17:05

that Mm-Hmm. like if you look

17:07

at my videos there, there's, there's no editing

17:09

really. It's just a static shot, like

17:11

all the work goes into the,

17:14

the, the mix itself. And

17:16

then Mm-Hmm. on the ones that I talk.

17:19

Making sure that I'm, you know,

17:21

connecting with the audience when I talk. But it's pretty much

17:23

one static video, which makes it very

17:25

easy to do. Um, I'm

17:28

not doing these cuts and, you

17:30

know, tricky video editing. Um,

17:32

but I do want to go back to what you said about

17:35

this. I did, I actually did strategize

17:37

getting people to Instagram. Um,

17:41

when I wanted to grow, like

17:43

I said, late last year, I

17:46

was doing lives a lot on TikTok

17:48

and telling people, Hey. If

17:51

you want to learn more about me, like I'm doing all this other

17:53

cool stuff on Instagram. So there was a strategy

17:55

to get people over there and I've, I have moved

17:58

a lot of people to

18:00

that side. I have super, some

18:02

super fans that are super cool.

18:04

Um, and they, they're like, I don't even use Instagram,

18:07

but I did, I now do because you,

18:09

I followed you over there. And

18:11

so, uh, it is a good strategy

18:14

to, to have different content.

18:17

On each platform so that people have a reason

18:19

to go over there if that's where you want them to go. So

18:22

I, I didn't mention that, but you're, you're right. I

18:24

did do that. Yeah,

18:27

and okay, so as far as repurposing

18:29

the videos, um, from TikTok to Instagram,

18:32

are you, um, are you recording

18:34

them just like into your phone and then posting them

18:36

natively to each platform? Or are you

18:39

downloading them from TikTok and uploading them to

18:42

Instagram?

18:43

So what I do now is

18:46

I record the video on my phone. I

18:49

typically will edit and adjust the

18:51

volume and different things, sometimes

18:54

add captions in CapCut, which is

18:56

an editing app. And then I'll download

18:59

that, that one, and

19:01

then share it on all the platforms

19:03

from my phone. Okay,

19:06

yeah. Yeah, so I use CapCut

19:08

to edit.

19:10

Okay, so you're adding the, the, like,

19:12

overlay text in CapCut, not natively

19:14

in the apps.

19:16

Sometimes. It

19:17

depends. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm just super

19:20

curious about that because there's all kinds of speculation

19:22

about like what the apps

19:24

want you to do and what's going to get you the better,

19:27

what the algorithm likes to see and everything.

19:29

And um, the, the chat

19:31

on Instagram, I'm definitely more, have

19:33

more knowledge about Instagram is that the.

19:36

You know, like the words that are in the captions

19:38

are like metadata

19:41

that is searchable and like, it helps it get

19:43

delivered and everything. Um,

19:45

and so a lot of Instagram

19:47

coaches and stuff will recommend that you use

19:49

the native, like caption

19:51

things. But I've always kind of wondered, like, it

19:53

doesn't really matter. And

19:56

I, I don't know, I've always just kind of gone to like,

19:58

if it's another barrier of difficulty

20:01

for you to like get something posted, then

20:03

it's not worth worrying about, in my opinion.

20:07

You know, do you kind of feel that

20:07

way? Yeah, I'm

20:09

not, you know, it's funny. I'm, I'm

20:12

not big on, I

20:15

don't dive into strategy, like I don't listen to podcasts

20:17

about how to strategize on, and, and I never

20:19

really did. I just, not got

20:21

lucky, but in a way, I just, I found something

20:23

that really worked, And people love me for it

20:25

and it's, it worked for me. And so I haven't had

20:28

to really dive into like using certain

20:30

hashtags and certain, text

20:32

and such.

20:33

Yeah. Yeah. You're just, you're

20:35

such an enigma. I, you're such a, like an inspiration

20:37

because you're like, no, I'm just intuitively

20:39

making content that I like and that I want people

20:41

to see. And however that happens, I'm not going to,

20:44

you know, waste so much time worrying about

20:46

all of these little. Yeah.

20:49

I mean, I do, I do, I do experiment.

20:51

So some of my big viral videos, I was

20:54

telling a little story ahead of time. So

20:57

I'd say, Hey, cashouts talking about,

20:59

I'm going to steal your wife and Chris

21:01

Stapleton saying, you know, you should leave.

21:03

We shouldn't be doing this. But then I'll say it goes together

21:05

perfectly, check it out. And then I mix

21:07

it. So I do this like little narration in the beginning

21:11

and I stopped doing that for

21:13

whatever reason. Um, I

21:15

think I felt like people just want,

21:17

didn't want to hear me talk. They just wanted to get to the point, which

21:19

was the music. And then. I

21:22

did some traveling this last week and

21:25

talked to a couple people who were like, we

21:27

love they were, no, they weren't even telling

21:29

me this. They were describing me to their

21:31

guests. One guy in particular,

21:33

I was doing his wedding and he's

21:35

like, this DJ is so great. He. What's

21:38

great about is not only the mixing, but his, his

21:40

narration and I'm like, man, I haven't narrated in a long

21:42

time, but I heard a couple of people talk about that, how

21:44

that's one of the keys. So I, I came

21:46

home and all this week, you'll look at

21:48

my videos and I'm saying something beforehand.

21:51

So I'm experimenting to see if that

21:53

helps and get, keep people more

21:55

engaged. Um, I even did a

21:57

video where I said, Hey, I posted

21:59

it this morning. I said, Hey, I need you

22:01

to help me solve a problem, like a debate

22:03

between my wife and I. I think

22:05

this one's fire. She doesn't like it. What

22:07

do you guys think? So now I'm trying to get more

22:10

engagement that way. Let's just see what, see what

22:12

works, but I'm still doing my, my

22:14

mixing, but trying to incorporate.

22:20

Yeah, I think that's, oh yeah, experimenting

22:22

is really fun and yeah,

22:25

I'd have to agree with the people you were talking to.

22:28

I love when you talk at the

22:30

beginning and it's

22:32

like so

22:34

many things where you're the expert

22:36

at what you do and the people watching don't really

22:38

know like what, how much thought

22:40

goes into why you choose

22:43

these songs or, you know,

22:45

what's similar about them or if you're talking about

22:47

how, you know, you juxtaposed

22:49

the lyrics or like whatever it is. And

22:52

it kind of like adds a little bit more kind

22:54

of authority for you too. It's

22:56

like, Oh, like that makes sense. There's actually like,

22:58

like. You know, a lot of thought

23:00

that goes into this and kind of makes people realize

23:03

how How

23:05

great you are and then how it's not just something

23:07

that everybody can do, you know,

23:10

yeah Yeah, for sure.

23:12

I didn't just whip it up

23:15

just to make a video. It's like I yeah

23:18

to be creative here Yeah,

23:20

I mean, I don't think anybody thinks you're just whipping it up

23:22

But like if I'm watching like somebody

23:25

make I don't know anything that I don't know how

23:27

to do like make a latte or something Like you don't realize

23:29

How hard that is or what goes into it until

23:31

they're like walking you through the steps of like a real

23:33

artisan thing You're like, oh my man, like

23:36

okay, I'd like to see it broken down

23:39

sometimes and

23:41

good. Yeah, so Yeah,

23:44

sorry to interrupt you. Um,

23:45

so I think we have a little bit of a lag Yeah,

23:48

so I have

23:53

a radio show now on wild 101

23:56

in Boise and I

23:59

pre record it. So what I've

24:01

decided to do is Pre

24:04

record it live on TikTok. So

24:06

on Fridays, typically Fridays, I'll go

24:08

live on TikTok and just record it from my, you

24:11

know, mixing studio in here. And

24:13

the last couple times, at the

24:16

end, I've decided

24:18

to have this, like, experimental

24:21

mixing mashup session

24:24

with the people that are following. So I got a couple hundred people

24:26

in there and they're watching me and I'm like, Hey, let's... Um,

24:28

let's try some things out and they,

24:31

people actually love it. And I explained what I'm

24:33

doing. I'm like, okay, I'm going to cut the vocal

24:35

here and just, we're just going to play the beat and I'm going to add

24:37

whatever. And I kind of explain it. And

24:40

it's made me think, cause they, they love watching

24:42

it and they love watching the process. Like maybe

24:44

I start posting more of those kinds of videos,

24:47

um, of how I came up with it

24:49

and, and why. And I'm.

24:51

It, it, I don't know, it's a, it got me thinking

24:53

about how branching out

24:56

it, I think is important to, even though I have

24:58

like this formula that works, start doing these other

25:00

little things to see what people

25:02

might be interested in. But, um. I

25:04

think that's genius. Do you have those, like

25:06

all of those, those are prerecorded, so they're actually

25:09

recorded and saved somewhere. They're not just living

25:11

live. Right.

25:14

The live, the TikTok lives get saved

25:16

for 30 days in your TikTok TikTok

25:18

TikTok account. So I could, I mean, I could,

25:21

you could just go back in there and cut out a little

25:23

chunk and try it. Yeah. Oh, you

25:25

should do that. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait.

25:27

I'll be watching.

25:28

Carefully. Be my consultant.

25:32

Well, I think it's just, I'm just so fascinated

25:34

with how far you've come in this like whole

25:37

adventure for you. Like I just

25:39

think it's so cool how cool, I mean, you're like a serious,

25:43

like influencer. You

25:45

know, um, we,

25:48

we just were shooting weddings and,

25:50

you know, doing weddings together a couple years ago. And,

25:53

and both of our businesses have changed in

25:55

so much. So it's just really fun to catch up

25:57

and like, see where you're at, but

26:00

I love that you think about

26:02

it that way. You're like, okay, I'm going to do this radio show,

26:04

which I did see that announcement. So congratulations.

26:07

That's really fun. Um,

26:09

but you're like, I have to re record

26:11

this. So why not just also

26:13

go live on TikTok at the same time and

26:18

serve my audience there as well,

26:20

and like, keep making content. Like

26:22

anytime you can just turn your camera on and make content,

26:25

it's. Like, I don't

26:27

know. It's just so smart to, to kind of like, the

26:29

people who are listening to you on the radio and Boise are probably

26:32

not the ones watching your TikTok lives and

26:34

vice versa. Those are people all over

26:36

the world. So

26:38

yeah, it's just, it's so smart. Just

26:40

brilliant. Like right now, like this podcast,

26:42

like we should be. Live streaming this on

26:44

Instagram, but I haven't figured

26:47

that out yet. So maybe someday.

26:49

You know, it's like, I know.

26:51

Yeah. So many things. Are you doing,

26:53

uh, are you doing YouTube at

26:54

all? Maybe we do it again. Maybe we do it again

26:57

at some point, but it's not for a podcast.

26:59

It's just like. A live

27:01

conversation. Just talking. Yeah. Yeah.

27:04

And um, I can help you build your social.

27:07

I would love that. I think, um, I

27:10

think we should, you and I should probably just get together

27:12

and like have some coffee or have a beer or

27:14

something and we can just brainstorm for each other's

27:16

um, content. For

27:18

sure. For sure. It's always more fun helping other people come up with ideas.

27:22

But no, um, have you experimented with YouTube at

27:24

all? Um,

27:28

it's kind of on my list of things to do.

27:30

I, I've grown my YouTube to, I

27:33

think I'm at 000

27:35

subscribers. And that's

27:37

just pretty much

27:39

through my Warren G.

27:42

Morgan Wallen. Um, I, I posted

27:44

that as a YouTube video

27:46

and a couple others, and those went somewhat

27:49

viral and those grew my page.

27:52

So

27:53

that's amazing, but I have, are they just the

27:56

YouTube shorts? Like you're just reaping. Sorry,

27:58

we're doing the thing. Are you just repurposing the TikToks

28:01

into YouTube shorts? Or are you making, like, YouTube

28:03

videos?

28:05

Yeah, so I'll... So if I say shorts,

28:07

they'll be shorts. If I say videos, they're, like, full

28:10

length videos. So

28:13

I'm reposting some of my, uh,

28:15

and posting some shorts. Those

28:17

don't perform very well, so I haven't been very as active

28:20

as I should and I'm just not as excited about it, but

28:24

But the YouTube videos I would take like

28:26

I would get in Canva and create

28:28

You know get one of my branding photos and

28:30

put my name on it with you know

28:33

Warren G Versus Morgan Wallen

28:35

and that would be my cover photo and

28:37

then I would just play the whole track full version

28:40

And just upload it to YouTube

28:43

And, um, those

28:45

kinds of videos have helped me grow that page,

28:48

but I feel like there's more that I should do or

28:50

could do, uh, because my, like,

28:52

I think that's the best place to monetize

28:56

your actual platform.

28:58

Um, because there's

29:01

like ad dollars there, but I

29:04

don't know what that looks like for me yet. Um,

29:08

so, I mean, it's pretty cool that you've grown it

29:10

to 60 something thousand followers

29:12

with. A pretty minimal like

29:15

amount of, it feels like Noah, you know,

29:18

That's insane. Yeah. I feel very fortunate. I

29:20

know like days of my industry who have hustled

29:22

for years to get to like 20,000.

29:25

Um, yeah. So I feel, I feel very fortunate and

29:27

I feel like I need to take advantage of it, but just

29:30

haven't had time. Well, yeah.

29:31

So do you have, do you have a team at

29:33

all now or how does that

29:34

look like? That's

29:37

the next phase for me. Um,

29:39

I have like a couple weeks of travel left and

29:41

then it's. It mellows out

29:43

and I think that's when I need to decide what to do.

29:45

I had, I almost hired a talent

29:48

manager who works with, um,

29:50

other DJs. I

29:53

canceled that because I wasn't quite ready for it. So

29:55

I don't know, you know, I'd love to have somebody

29:57

that. Um, helps manage

29:59

all my content on social posts

30:01

and engagement and think, cause it's

30:03

very time consuming. Um, someone

30:05

that books my flights and deals with

30:07

all the leads and like I'm doing everything

30:10

and it's, um, it's taken away

30:12

from me being creative a

30:14

lot. Um, so

30:17

I definitely need a team and I don't think I can

30:19

grow any further without it.

30:21

Yeah. I, I'm so surprised

30:23

to hear that you don't have anybody like helping

30:25

you. You've got to have so many. Like

30:28

DMs and emails all

30:30

the time. Are you, like,

30:33

do you respond to all of that?

30:35

I try my best. To DMs? Oh

30:38

my gosh. I

30:40

try

30:40

my best. If I open up, if I open

30:42

up my Instagram DMS and there's more than like

30:45

10 or 15, I'm like, ah, I

30:48

don't know what to do. I bet you have

30:50

hundreds and thousands of them.

30:53

Yeah. And across all platforms too. It's like TikTok,

30:55

Facebook, um,

30:59

Instagram.

31:00

Yeah. Hire somebody, Eric. Come on.

31:02

Let's go. You need some, yeah,

31:04

you need some time back. Uh, okay.

31:07

I have another question for you. I want to know about the

31:09

Tik TOK lives. I think Tik TOK lives are

31:11

so interesting because there are a

31:13

lot of times when I just go on Tik TOK live

31:15

and I, you know, you scrolled the live feed,

31:18

a lot of the things that are on there are

31:20

the most mundane, like yours are fun and

31:22

like you're doing, you're mixing music, but sometimes people are

31:24

just. It's just like literally doing

31:26

nothing. Cause I think it's so fascinating.

31:29

But like, what do

31:31

you, do you just turn it on and,

31:33

and. Do you have something planned?

31:35

Like, do you, um, do you respond

31:38

to people? Are they asking questions? Like, what's

31:40

the strategy for maybe not strategy, but like,

31:42

what's the format for TikTok lives? And then

31:45

are you getting like, are people giving

31:47

like the gifts and, and stuff like that?

31:50

Is that, I don't, I feel like such a, a

31:52

boomer right now asking this. Cause I've just never done TikTok

31:54

lives, but what is that about

31:57

for you? And how do you have fun with that with your

31:59

audience?

32:01

Yeah, so I was last

32:03

year, I was very even earlier this

32:05

year, heavily into TikTok lives before

32:08

I got really busy. And

32:10

back then I would Try

32:13

to be very consistent. So I'd show up maybe

32:16

whatever night of the week and

32:18

it'd be my usual time or

32:20

an afternoon. And I just mix for an hour or

32:23

two, but I'd make sure

32:25

I had a mic on and I could talk to people.

32:27

So it was very engaging

32:29

responding to, um,

32:32

cause there's a whole chat that happens. It's,

32:35

it's, it's whole little culture. It's

32:37

wild. But, um, but

32:40

you can be really engaging with them. They

32:42

send you gifts, they'll put like, and

32:45

the gifts are like, I don't know what you call

32:47

them. Um, like

32:49

little animated things

32:52

like all the people put, people spend like

32:54

five bucks and put a cowboy hat on me or,

32:56

uh. One

32:59

time I got a, one time I got a, um, a

33:01

baby lion and apparently a baby lion

33:03

is like, it was like a couple hundred

33:05

dollars. So everybody in the chat was

33:07

like, somebody just bought you a lion.

33:10

So I earned 200 bucks by just doing

33:13

that. Now, I feel

33:15

weird about asking

33:18

people for money. So a lot of people

33:20

on TikTok that go live, try to

33:22

do, find ways

33:24

to make money off their followers. So

33:27

I'll be like, you know, I will play

33:29

this. 80 song if

33:32

once I reach X amount of gifts,

33:34

so you can have these goals that you want. Um,

33:38

I, I'm trying to, I don't know, for me, I'm trying

33:40

to play a long game and I feel like asking

33:42

my followers to give me money

33:45

feels a little bit like begging and it feels a little

33:47

like, I don't know, I

33:50

want to just give, right. And just give, give,

33:52

give. And then maybe if something down the road is like,

33:54

Hey, I've got this merch that

33:57

I'm, you know, that, these hoodies,

33:59

I'd love for you to buy one. I always go live, I always do this

34:01

stuff, um, pick

34:03

up a hoodie, or whatever that is. Uh,

34:05

it's kind of like the jab, jab, jab, jab,

34:07

right hook from, um, Gary

34:10

V. Mm hmm. Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk.

34:12

But yeah, so, but lives

34:14

are fun. It's a great way to engage people.

34:16

It's also a great way to grow your

34:18

following because it pops up in

34:20

the For You page. And

34:23

I, every time I do a live, I gain at

34:25

least a few hundred followers. Um

34:29

And yeah,

34:31

they're just fun and you can get people to learn

34:34

more about you. You just get these random people

34:36

come in, you have your fans and then random people.

34:38

And I, and I just tell them, I'm always

34:40

plugging like, Hey, you know, go check out my

34:43

mix cloud page or whatever, Patreon,

34:46

and people will go do that. So it's a great

34:48

way to grow your brands. Um, sometimes

34:51

I'll just go live and talk late at night.

34:53

Just like, Hey, what's up? And chat and

34:55

they like that to ask me questions.

34:58

Um, yeah,

35:01

cool. Yeah. It's super fun. It's, it's,

35:04

it's really a interesting modality.

35:06

And I think just to kind of like jump in and be

35:08

able to chat with people and if they

35:10

respond to your comment, you feel really special and,

35:13

um, yeah, I think it's awesome that

35:15

you do that and all right, well, I

35:17

can ask a million questions about tech talk, but I,

35:19

I kind of want to just ask you one more thing. Um,

35:22

you, you just reminded me cause you mentioned,

35:25

uh, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk and the, and

35:27

his old school good old book,

35:30

um, what you're, I know that

35:32

you're very, you

35:34

know, into personal development and,

35:36

um, growth and reading and all

35:39

of that. So what are you on right now

35:41

and like, what's, who's, you know, your inspiration

35:43

and what are you, um, are you in any,

35:45

uh, programs or like working

35:48

with any coaches or anything like that that are really inspiring

35:50

you at the moment?

35:52

Um, right now I'm re

35:54

reading, um, Relentless

35:56

by, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting his name.

36:00

Um, anyway,

36:03

it, it, he was Michael Jordan, Kobe's,

36:05

like, Um, personal

36:08

trainer, but he, it's, it's a mentality

36:11

of being a certain

36:14

type of winner, basically.

36:16

But the book's called Relentless. Tim Grover

36:18

is his name. Um, so I'm rereading

36:20

that just to get my mind kind

36:22

of, I don't know,

36:24

I just feel like I always need to

36:27

be reminded about why I'm doing things

36:29

and how to have like, I never want

36:31

to settle. So that book's helping me not

36:34

settle. Um, I do

36:36

want to join. Andy

36:38

Frisella and Ed Milets are

36:40

a taste syndicate pretty soon. And

36:42

that's a big, I don't know

36:44

if it's a mastermind necessarily, but it's a big

36:47

group that learns from them,

36:49

but they also network with each other. So

36:51

you're getting like high level entrepreneurs, um,

36:54

all kinds of, you know, great minds and driven people

36:57

in this group. And you can start building relationships

36:59

there. So that's, that's the next thing I want

37:01

to, like group I want to get into.

37:04

Um, Yeah,

37:06

I'm doing 75 hard again. I'm

37:08

on day

37:08

three. How are you? Oh,

37:10

congratulations. Uh, yeah,

37:12

Nicole, Nicole is doing it right now too.

37:14

So she's, she's

37:17

about halfway, she's about halfway through it. Yeah.

37:20

Um, cool. Well, that's awesome.

37:22

Um, you're always such an inspiration and

37:24

I know how hard you work and how you

37:26

just, yeah. And you're always so positive and

37:28

chill. So thanks for being, um,

37:31

just. You.

37:34

Yeah. Thanks. Um, I appreciate

37:37

that. Um, I always like our conversations.

37:40

We need to, need to do it more. Yeah. Okay.

37:42

I know. Well, what's next? What's next for DJ

37:45

Eric Rhodes? What

37:47

can we be watching for? Uh. Any

37:49

cool, uh, big opportunities that you're going to be

37:51

like hosting or anything

37:53

like that?

37:56

Yeah. You know, nothing major

37:58

right now. It's like my goal. Like

38:00

I got this radio show and

38:03

I want to, I'm trying to like learn and grow

38:06

from that. And I'd love to get that

38:08

eventually syndicated, go

38:10

nationwide, and who knows maybe end up

38:12

on like XM radio, maybe end

38:14

up on TV. Like I just

38:16

want to do, I want to take this as far

38:19

as I can. And so I'm just

38:21

really trying to just go, go

38:23

all in on. Any

38:26

possibility I can with this social media

38:29

DJing opportunities that I have and just see

38:32

where it goes. One of the things, I mean, I'm

38:34

just going to close this out because you kind of reminded me of this,

38:36

um, with asking

38:38

the question about the book I'm reading personal development.

38:41

Um, One of the things

38:43

I want to do is kind of re reassess

38:45

my goals. I feel like

38:47

I haven't, even though I'm doing lots of cool things,

38:49

I haven't really sat down and go, what, where do

38:51

I want to be in like a year or two or five

38:54

years? And so I'm going to have this like deep dive

38:56

with a business coach of mine. But, um,

38:59

when I did that several years ago, I

39:02

went from, I had

39:04

a multi op, I had a, uh, four DJs

39:06

working for me. And I

39:09

spent the whole year doing like in 2019

39:11

kind of unhappy because I was Not

39:15

doing what I loved which was DJing and

39:17

I was being a business owner

39:19

manager And I didn't I found out I didn't

39:21

like it and so I left that

39:25

And let all the guys go they were all great But I just

39:27

didn't want to do that anymore and I decided I'm gonna go all

39:29

in on what I'm passionate about

39:31

what I love To do and loved why

39:33

I like to be creative and when I did that

39:36

and I started setting goals attached to that like hey

39:38

I don't want to have to set up a DJ equipment

39:40

anymore I don't, I want to make DJ

39:43

a wedding or some sort of event. Like I just

39:45

started dreaming big and I

39:47

wrote those down almost every day. And

39:51

when I, and I didn't know how I was going to get there,

39:53

but I knew that if I just worked hard and

39:55

committed to somehow getting

39:57

to these goals that I would eventually get there. And

40:00

I didn't know that social media was my avenue, but,

40:02

um, I really believe that like,

40:04

if you're going somewhere and

40:06

you're not quite sure how you're going to get there, that you will eventually

40:09

get there if you just commit to that. That, that

40:11

path and commit to working hard every day

40:13

and just sticking with it. So um,

40:15

I think for me to get to another level,

40:18

like even farther, I have to redo

40:20

that and, and kind of reassess

40:22

and, and reach bigger,

40:25

if that makes sense. Oh,

40:27

it makes so much sense. You were speaking my language

40:29

big time. It's. When

40:32

you just focus on what

40:34

the end goal is or not end goal, but

40:36

like what the next big thing

40:38

is, because that's when you start

40:40

to notice the doors opening and the opportunities

40:43

showing themselves that you might not have

40:45

noticed before. You might not have. So

40:49

I think that's what you were doing and when

40:51

social media was like, um, hello, this

40:54

is working. You're like, oh my gosh,

40:56

that could get me there. It's like, just

40:59

kind of knock a notch. Yeah. So love

41:02

it. Love

41:03

it. Love it. Manager thing.

41:05

Yeah. It might not have ever happened.

41:08

Right. And you had to try that to make, to find

41:10

out that you didn't like that, you know, like. We

41:13

all do things and go, go a little bit

41:15

down one road and then we're like, Oh, nevermind. Just kidding.

41:18

Command Z. Let me get out of here.

41:21

For sure. Like that.

41:24

Yeah. Cool. All right.

41:26

Well, I think that was an awesome little check in.

41:28

So we'll do it again and, uh,

41:30

see where you're at when we have this, uh, nationally

41:32

syndicated radio show or something,

41:35

something like it. Before

41:37

you know it. Um, but just, we

41:40

love kind of watching from afar and,

41:42

and cheering you on always. And

41:44

yeah, thanks for coming back on the podcast.

41:48

Absolutely. Thanks, Frannie. Appreciate it.

41:51

All right. Talk to you soon.