Ryan is an author, entrepreneur and one of the sharpest marketing minds out there. He got his start working for bestselling authors like Tucker Max and Robert Greene and has since worked with folks like Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Evan Carmichael, and John Grisham among many others – and he’s something like 5 books now including TWO last year: Ego Is The Enemy and The Daily Stoic.
This episode was originally recorded back in 2012 when he was promoting “Trust Me I’m Lying,” which was his first book – and one that’s proved prescient in the current era of “fake news.” The book is subtitled “Confessions of a Media Manipulator” and it’s an incredible deconstruction of the various ways in which the media can be manipulated, with the idea being that creators can use these to spread the word about their own projects.
Today on the podcast,
- Why Ryan dropped out of college at 19 when he realized that he had better opportunities – specifically to go work for American Apparel, where he was Director of Marketing during the era in which they were on fire and really driving a big part of contemporary culture.
- He says “You are your own chief marketing officer,” a great way to capture something that only becomes more true with time, which is that creators have an imperative to PROMOTE their work in addition to MAKING the work.
- There’s also a ton of super practical, hands-on tactics on how you can get organic coverage of your work – for example how American Apparel got tons of blogs and magazines to run their ads, but not as ADS but as part of editorial content. This is something almost all creatives struggle with and ask me about, and we get deep into it.
Enjoy!
My education started the day I dropped out of school
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Some Questions I Ask:
- Where’d the title of your book come from? [10:33]
- We celebrate college dropouts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs yet also pressure people to go to college – what’s going on there? [14:05]
- Tell us about being the youngest Director of Marketing at American Apparel [16:30]
- What you fixed is an understanding of media culture [18:10]
- How many people think that their great work will promote itself? [20:10]
- What are some actionable tips for the audience? [21:30]
- How did you build a substitute for the network you would have built up in college? [36:55]
- How did you get the job working for Tucker Max and what did you do with it? [39:10]
- Tell us about “Trust Me I’m Lying” [41:45]
- How did you get work from bestselling authors at the age of just 19? [47:15]
- When you started at American Apparel, what got you hired? [48:40]
- Is there a line that can be crossed? [50:10]
- What were you doing at age 18? [59:40]
- Do you have any other examples of putting this stuff into action? [1:12:45]
- Who do you see yourself being in 10 years? [1:16:05]
- Have you had any negative reactions from the book? [1:17:50]
- Have you worked with someone who has a low tolerance for controversy? [1:21:05]
- How can people put themselves in a position to win? [1:23:45]
- Do you ever override test results with your intuition? [1:28:10]
- How much do you TELL people what to believe vs identifying existing beliefs? [1:31:10]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- Why Ryan dropped out of college to go work for American Apparel [11:15]
- “My education started the day I dropped out of school” [13:20]
- Ryan was working for Robert Greene who intro’d Ryan to the CEO of American Apparel [17:20]
- Nobody else is going to care as much about your work as you do [23:20]
- You have to make it in the writer’s best interest to cover you [24:10]
- Tim Ferriss spent 2 years on the road meeting people and building relationships [24:30]
- A complete stranger isn’t going to read 250 pages then write a whole post about it [28:10]
- Don’t ask for favors, DO favors [30:45]
- Great way to do favors is by introducing them to others who may be valuable [33:15]
- Felt being outside of the college system allowed me to build a more diverse and therefore better network [37:20]
- Met Tucker Max by writing about him for the college newspaper [39:35]
- The ideal situation is that you’re working and learning – getting paid to learn [41:00]
- Paid someone to deface a Tucker Max billboard and got press coverage for the billboard getting defaced [43:00]
- Advertising is best when it becomes content/media and transcends advertising [45:45]
- Small budgets are a good thing – forces you to be creative [50:30]
- It’s better to get good press, but if you can’t then any press is better than no press [51:00]
- The first step of marketing is saying “this thing is not like the others – here’s why” [52:30]
- You have to be willing to adjust your message – sometimes the story you want to tell isn’t one that will get traction [56:40]
- Story of the book’s amazing trailer [1:04:20]
- Hire people in order to learn how to do what they do [1:06:10]
- You can’t just make something – you need to have distribution lined up for it as well [1:08:30]
- “Who are you making this for, how are they going to see it, and why are they going to care?” [1:09:15]
- You’ve got to build promotion into the genesis of the idea itself [1:13:20]
- You should know this stuff works even if you don’t like it – so you can identify it when others use it [1:16:40]
- Don’t work with clients who don’t mesh with you and your specialties [1:21:20]
- A rising tide floats all boats – promote other people’s work and you’ll benefit [1:27:35]
- How + why the title and cover of the book changed many times [1:29:25]
- Telling people what to believe is like running into the wind [1:31:45]
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