Watch This if You Want to Go Viral in 2024 [Adley Interview]

We're doing over a billion views a month it was like printing money a lot of people think that we only go viral because of our personality it is a Formula not a personality I was waiting for a suit behind a desk to give me permission to be successful if you have a Caren and she takes a giant slurpie and throws it on somebody's car that's going to grab you and then if she takes chalk paint keeps shaking it but doesn't Do anything but she's just yelling at you you're like what is she about to do

with that that is the difference in good creators and the best creators in the world their ability to hold suspense 2017 to now 2024 who did you need to become to deal with this level of success adley thanks for having me in your beautiful beautiful what do you guys call it a Creator house or viral house viral house that makes sense of course it's viral is you know not every Video but is at least is that's so cool well I mean obviously do we first meet on clubhouse was that back yes yeah I wondering where

that was it was Clubhouse yeah 2021 um I remember after I don't even know what the conversation was but we messaged each other on Instagram afterwards and kind of I always knew I wanted to connect with you and we were coming to Nashville and um I think Sam had saw something and connected us through Ryan Megan I Believe so I'm pumped him here right off the bat you guys do a billion views a month do a billion views a month that's conservative I'd say now really yeah yeah cuz I mean with with the content you're

putting out there I mean you can you know go up 20 30% like it's just it can fluctuate based on the day based on supply and demand of ads yeah you know and so it's it's very unpredictable but we've learned how to manage our expectations and manage that at skill so I asked you earlier off camera about you know CU I knew you were a cheerleader did you always feel like you'd be an Entertainer and I know you there there's cuz your videos go viral because you're trying to figure out what is the culture can

we do what is the formula for you to create a viral video like can anybody do or do they have to be somebody like yourself that has that kind of personality this may sound cliche but a lot of people think that we only go Viral because of our personality I've taught people to make faceless videos people who are have terrible anxiety because it is a Formula not a personality a personality is just icing on the cake but ultimately it's your authenticity that has to come through I'm silly I'm very very goofy people will see that

and be like I couldn't make viral videos as a job and then I just want to show them all of our other channels that you would not even know Our RS my such just so everybody knows what they are what what are the other channels oh you could look at my husband's my husband we gave him a challenge my husband Blake we gave him a challenge to grow a million followers on Tik Tok and this is a great example of just the formula at work my husband is terrified of being on camera he doesn't like

to speak he has camera he just has anxiety about being on camera so we said all right you're going to grow a million Followers on Tik Tok and you have to use the formula and you can't speak so you box him into like this is the creative format it's what we teach people yes you have to use it and you can't talk because we want to that's the the the challenge forcing function yes and so that anybody can do this and you have to pick a smaller Niche like DIY okay and he did it in

29 videos come on 29 videos how how much time did it take him to do a million followers I bet five months 20 29 videos 5 months9 shot 29 videos milon followers on Tik Tok I want a million followers we got you let's do this do I collab with Blake is that I got to do find in the kitchen yeah like let's hang um but do you mind sharing the formula or pieces of it no not at all okay cool I I want to know yeah so it sounds it sounds simple right this is storytelling

101 but we've adapted it in a really unique way for social so first obviously there's the hook oh and we have seven Elements of a great hook then we go into suspense and suspense tension create tension and that is the difference in good creators and the best creators in the world really is their ability to hold suspense and then we have the payoff we have engagement tactics and we have what's the other one probably called action stakes and raising the stakes and so those sounds so surface level and people are like that's that's it yes

but it goes in really deep of how You're going to hold the psychology of attention second over second over a second how you're going to emotionally anchor somebody and we see this in sitcoms we see this in the best movies you see it in Mr Beast you see it in Mr Beast yeah if you actually know what you know cuz like I love this I think everybody listening is going to get a master class today and how to create better content even if their desire isn't to get a million view or followers On Tik Tok

or go viral it's just better like if you're a presenter you should learn this stuff you know if even oh my gosh I would actually enjoy listening to boring PowerPoint presentation if you understood hey kick it off with a great hook tell me what the payoff is going to be create the suspense but it's interesting because um I've been doing content for a while and everybody's got thoughts let's just start with the hook and you said you have different Formats do you always script your videos out or do you sometimes shoot and then have the

person prompt for different hooks because I've done both I've done scripted and I've done prompts based on what I'm sharing am I losing the ision by not scripting everything is there a way to not script and still nail the hook I would say if you want to go predictably and sustainably viral you script it you increase your chances at bat every single time but let your Authenticity come through still but you have your parameters you have your bullets and you're just a little bit more wellth out because even if you have your boundaries you can

play inside those but you know that you've anchored the emotion within the first three seconds what's an example of that the first three seconds so anchor of emotion so Golden Rule is in the first three seconds you're going to create an itch that does not pay off until your last 3 Seconds and your suspense is the bridge in the between and that holding that tension is what separates good creators from best creators in the world two three and it sounds like a lot to do but if you can accomplish 90% retention on your first six

seconds you're off to an Inc is this where people say things like uh these the four things that most people get wrong and the fifth one's definitely the thing you're not doing that's one way to do it yeah okay what's Other examples of that um let's use the oldest trick in the book if somebody's sleeping on a couch and I put shaving cream in their hand you immediately know what you're waiting for and I could hold that moment 30 seconds we did that to each other growing up so yes and you can choose hold that

moment for 30 seconds hold it for a minute in our case for optimizing for Facebook monetization policies currently we're holding that moment for 3 minutes or 18 minutes which Is how if you've ever watched a video and wasted 3 minutes of your life that's what our specialty but you would do it too if you knew how much it paid well yeah no shame in the game it's so it's so interesting you but what's funny talking to you adly is that you say you know it's the oldest trick in the book and and I'm like a

I'm a kid in a candy shop like I'm like oh I didn't know that like it's it's so good what you're sharing is so good and you talked about Like kind of the concept of entertainment and also education kind of the Mr Beast meets a Hermos how do you do that what where are you looking for hooks that are similar in a business context or do you still do something as silly and then fill with the business lessons I think if you're going to go here's how I would do it if so you do a

lot of thought leader content if we're going to why if we're going to unn ourselves and that's really what we Teach people how to do I don't care if you're a small Candle Company you have to unn yourselves to get past your existing audience so say was a small Candle company and we wanted to use the oldest trick in the book of shaving cream in the hand sleeping guy waiting for him to hit his face I would have sleeping guy here and I would have the candle company right here and his face is here and

as you set up that shot you get The Branding of the candle but it's Very seamless and then this is our first 100 million view video and here's how I would advertise a small Candle Company okay we're making this up but I would have my head here uh for the actor here and then the narrator the person who's filming um they're going to get that candle there okay so it's established it's a piece of it and The Candle is lit so you're adding a moment of tension with a candle burning by somebody's hair and head

right here oh the hair too see You just got me with the hairing a little bit of tension and putting by the way you're film you're increasing a possibility that that could happen because this person is sleeping we're obviously playing with them right so then me as the actress back here I would maybe pick this candle up over the sleeping guy and be like should i d it should i d it on him and he goes no no that's my favorite candle whoever's holding the phone that's my favorite Candle this one Essentia say the brand

he goes yes I just got they're two for one at Target I just got 30 of them put it down you know and this is the person behind the camera getting the messaging out there saying there's social proofing cuz you stocked up on it telling me where to get it yes there two want a Target I just got 30 set it down now wow so then that's somewhere in the middle of the 3 minute video then later as I'm messing with this guy I have a fly app So I'm just buzzing over his head so

he thinks there's a fly and we he's about to slap himself any moment but then as I'm doing this above his head I would be like go this smells so good you know just to edify this is the best smelling candle out there then that's how it get 100 million views for free then if you have a media buyer you can retarget viewers of specific videos so then they're going to see that again and attach a coupon for where to go get it Advertise the sale use min chat to put in the caption or the

payoff of the video of where they can go get that candle and you just hijacked 100 million views for free that would have cost you a fortune that's interesting so I love the product placement and uh I'm going to come back because I got a hot sauce question for you it's kind of my new passions I eat a lot of plain food but I got to get some low cal hot sauce um what how would you do content that is Viral and like thought leadership like how would you do both like a little bit more

I feel like I'm a little to education and not enough entertainment so where where does that balance come into play I think you could do so we have different formats and different buckets that we play but would you start with the education part and then try to figure out the entertainment angle no you have to start with the viral entertainment yes cuz if you start Saying here's how to save 30% on taxes at most of us are out right I mean the large part of the population this is why I paid 1.2 million in taxes

and then people what's that or here's how I lost 1.2 million in taxes or right yeah and I'd say I mean this is how viralist does it so we most people when they describe a video they're describing the outcom MH we do every video In Reverse if you're going to pitch a video to me you're Going to pitch the first end in mind or sorry you're going to pitch the first 3 seconds you're going to say I'm going to crack an egg into a thing of Quaker Oat Quaker Oats in the middle of a Target

and then if I'm interested I'd say keep going because that mimics the viewer's experience you literally like you wait to feel say say what it is yeah I would say I'm going to crack an egg if I'm pitching you an idea I would say I'm going to crack an egg into A thing of Quaker Oats in the middle of the aisle at Target and then I'd say I like it keep going because you just pitched me the scroll you pitched me in opening three and then I would say okay now I'll hear the rest of

your idea but most people say here's my idea I'm going to show people how to SA 30% on taxes I'm going to show them the best three ingredient brownie recipe with all due respect even if you make the best video out there less than 20% of people are Maybe making it to the end so they're never going to see that amazing tax strategy they're never going to look at the amazing brownies they're never going to learn how to save money on real estate CU they're not making it to the end so we have people describe

a video by the opening shot if we like it they can continue telling us the video in sequence cuz that's the viewers experience so good it's so interesting because um I think I spend too much time On like how can I help people so I want to create enter educational content but I would help a lot more people if I could figure out that because then I get more views and more people learn cool things what if you did we've done this before for an educational piece it was how to save money on taxes yeah

and it was a paper towel roll because that's interesting and it has writing on it and it says the first paper towel says if you saved a penny dot dot dot then you Pull the next thing down it reveals the second piece of the paper tow every day for a year no first one it says first paper towel roll says would you rather oh yeah would you rather have a penny every day for a year now I need to know what the second one is or whatever that other stat is yeah you know and you

just take them line by line through this paper towel roll um of laying out a story and you educate them but it's something visual 82% of people are Watching without sound it's interesting because I even watch like some of these Tik tokers that are sitting there making tea and singing yes and I'm like they could just sing but there's something about watching them make their coffee or their tea that it's kind of like I'm curious what they're drinking today yes it's so I'm like why why am I that just some visual it's a part of

our brain that wants to know yeah or a part that represents a Piece of you like I like tea it's giving you some emotional tangible thing to be like I like that person rather than just sitting in a chair talking and a lot of people are substitute sitting in a chair talking they know they need visual so they're just substituting with editing but if you can create a physical anchor that has suspense even better say you were a trauma psychologist yeah how would you do that you could have a balloon filling it I'm making but

you Got have a balloon fill it up with shaving cream with a great verbal Hook second sentence has a ton of suspense and you're like what's she doing with the shaving cream though it's a visual demonstration that's the thing it's like I heard what you said but what are you doing with that yeah and so I'm continuing to tell you and I'm never going to let my voice drop down like this and finish a sentence because if you finish a sentence then people have a Second to swipe away so you're never going to just end

it and leave a moment where somebody could swipe away cuz then they would so you it's how you speak too to where they like can't find a moment to to get away and they're anchored with a visual the whole time it's interesting because you keep bringing your G like the genius you keep saying is like even the suspense the anger the the the emotional second thing or the hook and it's fascinating because I went down The rabbit hole of studying Mr Beast videos okay cuz if I'm I'm going to create YouTube videos I got to

study the best and I found a lot of people that have dissected I mean to the level of edits where they show how he raises the all the stuff you said yeah and I'm like watching this and to a normal person to my 10 11 year old boys they're just like this is a cool video and to me now I cannot stop seeing the jump cuts the the the the frames like whatever these Things are called and it is a master class in just what are some of these things people could consider even language patterns

like words you don't say I think it was like don't say but say and or something like that like yes so talk to me about some of the ideas around creating High retention through a video because at the end of the day that's one of the metrics that kind of tell the algorithm to you know the kind of completion rates yeah how do you how Do you create tension suspense engagement it is creating that itch I mean number one thing is creating that itch in the first three seconds that isn't going to pay off and

then relatable moments like say that's why politics works so well or controversial things a protagonist and an antagonist and these are things that you can plant in your video Karma videos Karens it's a whole psychological play of say more what do you mean by Karen's you know Karen's like in a I know Karen I had an HR person named Karen and she was that's right she was the Ken I don't even know how she got the job but yes it's good to have a Karen if she's your Ken she she wasn't a good Karen okay

sorry Karen it's all good bringing you into this um but if you have a Karen and she takes a giant Slurpee and throws it on somebody's car that's going to grab you and then if she takes chalk paint or something and then just keeps shaking it But doesn't do anything but she's just yelling at you you're like what is she about to do with that you know you're creating a moment that you're not waiting out you're going to hold on for that moment the entire time but she could be saying something that you want to

learn that you're educating being educated about politically so say she's taking the why political the videos do well is because she's acting doing a thing that Psychologically speaking we will want to watch play out but she's screaming a point of view that we're indirectly not realizing that we're absorbing that and you're either going to hate her and you're going to want to see her fail and you're going to want to see Karma so we always Karma to a or we either identify with her like yeah she's right you did take her parking spot you did

you are in the wrong so we would create videos that cause tension and Who's right who's wrong and we would pin two characters against each other but you're going to see yourself in one of those characters so good in my husband and I's videos you're either going to see I you're going to identify with him or you're going to identify with me and we lean heavily into those characters they're real to us but we lean into them because we're representing audiences that are bigger than ourselves the level of sophistication is awesome like you're Really it's

very thoughtful like you're literally saying these are the audience want to appeal to and we got to say these words and roll them into this narrative that we're creating tension around um and then to me it's the payoff because I mean you say you got to pitch the first three seconds but there needs to be a purpose and eventually you got to release the tension and if you do that well do you get a second view if you don't do that like how does cuz what If if I don't do it what if I never

do the payoff am I penalizing myself in the future for like do people get mad and like and then thumb it down part two yeah yeah yeah everything follow for part two and then all your search is like I've done this I'm on Tik Tok and then my search it's like third video and I'm like oh I don't have the third video cuz sometimes I can't they do that now they got me now I know why they do that they cut up a 15minute video in these Shorter ones to make me keep looking for the

next one and they have a winning piece of content they know it so they're just know they're going to take one they could have had one video but now they have five and they're going to make more money they're going to get more followers milking a winner instead of just I did it once up yeah that's so crazy so so is is there any downside of not doing a payoff well I think it depends on what you're optimizing for Are you optimizing for people to like you or that's fair or get followers are you optimizing

to get followers and earn most money from the platform are you optimizing conversions I don't know that I would do that then I think you need you would want to be lazy you want to make sure the payoff actually gets delivered sometimes I start stories I forget to finish them all the time I I think I've done it three times it's like uh want to buy a bike It's like what squirly brain um but you know when you think of the metrics as you mentioned this a few times and I'm I'm a software guy so

I'm a bit nerdy on this like obviously well maybe not I'm not going to assume anybody knows this stuff but I've gone down the rabbit hole I studied what are the numbers that the algorithm or you look at on a video to know this is a banger a marriage of watch time and Percentage completed say more if you do a 6sec video of course you're going to have a high percent completed you may even have 112% completed cuz they rewatched it but there's creators that are better than you that are making minute three minute long

videos that are not just getting six seconds they're getting 15 they're getting 45 second watch time so they're trumping your sixc all day so we teach people at virales to hold attention for longer so take that Sixc and we'll show you you could have paid off that fly prank smack yourself in the face you could have done that in 30 seconds we're going to hold you for 3 minutes and we're going to have a higher percent completed maybe not a higher percent completed but relative our watch time is going to be significantly higher interesting I

wouldn't do a three minute video if it was going to have 90% completion at a minute 20 yeah that makes sense yeah you just it's it's kind Of like the average watch time per viewer has to be the highest because then you know that there there's engagement on the video yes so that's interesting and then what about like um clickthrough rates because obviously the the hook is going to get at least I mean is it do you look at 3 second pass like what's a percentage of people that watch more than 3 seconds and know

you had a good hook like do you test I know on YouTube we have click-through rates yeah Cuz there's thumbnails but with a lot of your Social content it's more of a scroll right so we're not playing to Dedicated audience like rolling it's yeah yeah I'd say 35 million followers 99% of our views come from non-followers so we don't play a dedicated audience cuz we're trying to get more we we know that they like us we're trying to get outside of them and find more new ones so we're constantly un niching ourselves to where if

we were going to sell a Tie-dye kit you're not going to know that I'm selling you a tie-dye kit until the very end I wouldn't lead with here's five things you should know about tie-dye yeah you're out I'm out it's very you know we would find a to different and engaging way to back you into caring and then by the end you're like oh my God I love that tie-dye kit where can I get it you know yeah I could buy for somebody else even if I'm not in the market let's talk about the business

Of virales in this this house like how big is this team cuz I met so many people as soon as I walked in and this is a calm day yeah this is a calm I I don't know where you park I mean it's a big house but I mean do they go into the street and stuff like I know I would love to have a Batman thing we pull into that Circle all under the house our neighbors would love that too um we've had as many as 20 in the house but right now in and

out of the house we Have staff creators yeah and then we have creators that we manage so depending on the day anywhere from 6 to 15 in this house how does the business let me stay on your business then we'll talk about the business of managing creators so how long have you been doing viral is for publicly a year we've been in business creation and distribution I'd say since 2020 yeah that's so crazy congrats That's amazing I love it and then um uh how do you monetize what's the is it brand deals no it's completely

opposite than every creator influencer that we know and and we're switching this model a little bit but all of our money to date 90% of our money to date has been made from platform revenue and just dominating the news feeds and recommendations and what's interesting about these platforms like a meta like my understanding is they don't really Give you rep right do you have no so like we do at an Enterprise level but I don't specifically as a Creator so so I mean there's things that could happen that do happen yes and do you ever

feel like concentration risk of the business like is yes how does how do you resolve that in your mind how do you deal with those emotional swings so my main 10 million follower page has had a penalty wrongfully for a year and a half so we have 40 pages now you know and some of Our brand new pages because the content knows how to hold attention we have brand new pages making more than my 10 million follower page and that was in IR response to somebody you know obviously wrongfully um penalizing you guys but it's

interesting because in that what probably was a moment of like oh no you said let's go diversify which today is a better business is a much better bus much better business because we didn't always my husband and I we didn't want To dance for our our dinner and during Co we were having the time of our lives we went from averaging 20 million views a week to 200 million views a week and all of our friends and family were really struggling this's the music industry down here you know it shut down and we were like

we can teach you how to make videos we can teach you how to hold attention people need levity and comedy right now so let's teach you and they started making millions of dollars and We're like holy crap what have we all stumbled upon here so that's how it started and then but you can't but even on the back end of a global pandemic you found this thing attention so cool body was here so we were like we got to be there the consumption went just through I mean everybody's numbers Netflix everybody Clubhouse I mean it's

just yes people wanted like entertain me I'm home entertainment we got nothing to do we got you everybody used to work stop Working start consuming and so you had this kind of like not artificial but enhanced demand which probably made it easier at first to have these hits right that in the past might have only had a fifth of the views but it gave you the confidence to be like hey this is really cool it gave us speed it gave us quantity and I quantity breeds quality talk about this say what you want to say

but quantity does breed quality because if I sat here and I was like I'm putting Out a video this week I'm going to put out a video every week one then I have so much emotional weight on that single video and it may or may not be good it's subjective right and so you had all emotional weight on that video and it flops or it did okay but I'm putting out 80 videos a week and not all are going to be great but when it was Co time and we had all the time in the

world and it was profiting as much as it was it was like printing money so we're making Every type of video imaginable so we get data faster than anybody else and we're studying 40 pages of data to see what's working and then we double down we create double of that the next day and we're just learning at a scale that most people couldn't replicate and that's what we still do today is let the quantity lead so so I'm I'm just curious if we go back four years and and you you know publish what was the

first viral video this was pre-co but I put chickens In a bathtub um it was a 19-second video I was a touring musician at the time I put chickens in a bathtub and it blew up it did tell in 2017 why did you did was it plan or you just happened to record some chickens in a bathtub both okay so I was creating it never occurred to me I should put chickens in bathtub oh you totally sh but like this is what's beautiful about your mind is that you you're just like I want to be

yeah so you must have had Some previous experience with how crazy chickens are this was my first well I had chickens and I love them so this is the story it was 2017 and I was creating content for a meme page at the time it was horrible I had no idea how to work at camera lighting do anything and or act and I was doing it all on a GoPro so I couldn't even see what I was doing and I had to turn around a new video every morning by 6:00 a.m. and so I'm writing

scripting that was all I could do every Single day why did you have to turn around a video that was my deadline for this meme page uh and so I would do that you were freelancing for this page okay just trying to figure it out while I was a touring musician but I was waiting for a suit behind a desk to give me permission to be successful and they were saying ah you're good but not now not entertaining enough and I was just getting frustrated so I was like I'm going to do this on my

own terms I want To entertain people I think that's why God put me here is to represent who I am so not so not cuz I'm so cool but so other people can see pieces of themselves in me in this success that we had from touring I was touring with Blake Shelton at the time so cool it was awesome but my footage was destroyed one night it's 1: in the morning and I got to turn something in by 600 and I was just crying I was like what am I going to do and my boyfriend

at the time was Like go get those chickens in the backyard and do something with them they make you happy and I was like I have no other option so okay I went and got the chickens and I put them in a bathtub and I pretended like I was curling one on the counter's hair and we had him bust them and go what are you doing why is there a chicken in the bathroom and I'm like he was lonely and then I pull back the curtain and there's all my chickens in the bathroom and they

had funny names Want to watch chick Norris Ellen deenis oh come on H Kim kardashi hin chakira chakira they look alike and so people are just like I want to be this girl every comment was just a tag and this is so me this was so relatable we just become best friends like they're just like I want to hang out it was that and so that was did 19 million views overnight which in 2017 was huge and grew me ,000 followers and I was like that's it I Quit trying to do What everybody else was

doing on this meme page I was put back against the wall and I just did myself I just did what made me happy and that's what resonated and that's been my Northstar can I share something with you because I've been actually talking to Sam you know creative director Sam workouts yeah lifts heavy stuff puts him back down picks it up again Sam and um I said this to him on the flight down here I said Sam every person is one creative project Away from being a superstar I believe that and and the only way that

ever happens for them is if they allow themselves to actually listen to their heart which is a scary thing to do it is the and it's it's like scary because it's the hardest you literally have to say I want this I love this I don't know why I know my family's going to judge me I know there's a chance that everybody's else is going to hate it but for some reason I just keep thinking about this Thing and I'm going to do it what would you say to some somebody who doesn't know what they want

to do I ask them what they don't want to do and when they tell me that I go it's the opposite of that because that's how everybody want because everybody tell you what they don't want yeah and if they tell you what they don't want it's actually what they do want right so what do you not like what's the opposite of that perfect go Do that I don't know I just I just find that like such a fascinating concept and I've studied this cuz like the Oliver anony Oprah with color purple you know the a

lot of the musicians there was always John Maxwell's book 21 year leadership number 13 for him okay every and it became the number one he's the goat of leadership like everybody that is the tip of the spear from The Rock to whoever what we admire about them is they allowed themselves to absolutely Honor their personal preferences and I think it's interesting because we can sometimes get caught in after that incrementally improving and we get away from the creative part right and we don't have the collabs like a Lincoln Park and a Jay-Z for me personally

that dude that that album I was like I needed that in my life and that's like that Numb Encore is like one of my favorite songs in the history of the world I knew I liked you I like you so much more now Because I shared with you who I am isn't that crazy yeah and I think that's what happens a lot of people walk around the world they're actually Fascinating People but they're wearing a mask yeah they love chickens let your fre see I love yeah I like you more tell them about the Shakira

Shakira that's funny chiraa chakira that's just they great yeah so you do that that brings you into the world and then Co is this beautiful blessing for you now I don't know about You I'm in software software went awesome MH and I had to feel a little bit of guilt cuz while the rest of the world was melting you're so I'm just curious like you went for a a tour musician and mo most people music don't make money I was bankrupt okay actually bankrupt so you're there and now you're making money mhm like like how

did that feel were you worried it would stop tomorrow did you did you put it away did you carpay DM it a Little bit like how did you respond to invest it immediately is the real CU you just got so nervous this may not last yeah and I still have that bankrupt mentality of this isn't going to last so I need to make hay while the sun is shining and then past that I feel like this is just the human experience that once you have your immediate needs met the immediate next thing you want to

do is go show everybody else how to find the level of joy that you found Especially because my success was tied intrinsically to who I was as a person I'm pranking my husband every day and I'm playing with my chickens and I was like this is the best most authentic gift I could ever be given and I want everybody else to learn how to make videos learn this formula so they can make videos around whatever makes them shine and have authentic like have just trust in their own authenticity in their own abilities because they see

me living Out mine and mine's way sillier and less meaningful than yours my mission is really silly you know but you have important missions and important messages and products and services that need to get out in the world so let me tell you how to story tell them let me show you this formula that works seven out of 10 times that's a pretty good batting average that's crazy I don't know baseball but that seems Prett I don't know it either but it sounds good I don't even think they do seven out of 10 I think

it's out of a thousand and it's got a 0 point something in it yeah okay 700 yeah 700 we just got the people watching like that's not even a thing Dan adley what do you guys stick to your chickens yeah um but let's let's talk about cuz a lot of people follow me know about the concept of buying back time yeah you don't build this if you're doing everything and I met I think I met some of your staff so like how did you Who is the first hire like how did you think you're you're

making money and you're obviously like I got more creative projects I want to do I'm assuming were you editing the videos at the beginning I still edit the videos cuz I'm so particular um but what were some of those first hires first hire well so we were we started managing creators I taught my brother and I taught my friends how to do this first so could change their lives and then I Was like I can't make my brother work more make more videos that doesn't work too well not to family members not to family so

that's not scalable so that's a definition of not scalable I was like make my family member work more right and so we were just taking a percentage so that was not scalable then it was hire staff creators uh we saw security footage popping off well I can't pretend to be a robber or an Amazon delivery driver at this point but I could hire Someone to be to take ADV anage of that opportunity and what that means what you see you just said it as if you think what what do you mean staff creators in security

footage good point okay so have you ever watched a video of uber camera yes Uber camera ring cameras porch Pirates um restaurant security footage catch someone doing something they shouldn't be doing people love watching CCTV because you're getting to watch people do things they don't think people Are watching so we were like well let's just stage them you know let's recreate wild things caught on camera dude change our let's filter let's do some CCTV vids yes let's do it wow wow let's do it cuz that it just takes formats that people love watching in movies

or sitcoms repackage them for social and people think they're they're real or at least they used to they did for many many years wow but you know what's crazy to me is people will get so Mad at us for scripting videos but we watch scripted reality TV we watch scripted entertainment like WWE and you're fine with that but I think we were so early to scripting social media entertainment but that's I'm not going to lie I honestly thought all those videos were real it's fascinating now that you say that I know you're just like oh

poor poor you Dan did you think that was real so so don't break my heart but what Percentage of videos you think that I watch it go viral that are fake a lot is it more than 10% oh my God more than no what about the one the police officer and the other person is that not real either oh we had a police car for two years bought a police car police outfits it all look so real no it makes so much sense I know because the entrepreneur of me is so proud of you but

the consumer consumer is like my life is a Lie but it works so you can play on themes like unboxing videos or super super hot so we're like all right what's a new take on an unboxing video cops finding something strapped to a girl's leg like maybe we don't know we have to unbox her everything we do is PG PG-13 but it was a cop pulling somebody over and saying what are you hiding so was ripping open the Jean or whatever and unboxing a body cuz we love the human body so creative and we would

just have Is this your concept I I don't remember your husb just take credit you're very good it all happens you know awesome but we would just unbox a human body you know but it's same thing but just more of what people we just try to blend three boxes together so so when you say staff Creator you hired them put them on salary and then worked with them on scripts and they would just produce yes cuz we need them to be an Amazon delivery driver I've never heard this so That's F but my you know

what my boy watch is Darman you know Darman I love Darman we tried to do Darman videos and it was just cool for me because I knew Darman before he actually the the previous version of who he was right yeah the internet guy and then he came out with these Darman videos and they all have a great message and my boy and they were like eight seven eight years old wanting to wanting to watch it yes I was like oh everyone does exactly what You said they have like uh you know tension and then they've

got the Caren and he's like you have no money you can't buy this car and then it's like and then he realized he didn't know who he was and you know and it's just I don't know I think it's cool that that Darman created content for my kids that they actually wanted to watch and learned important life lessons everyone has a cool life lessons it actually watching that video sounds funny and Even watching Paw Patrol it made me realize that growing up I was being taught things through Astro Boy and He-Man and like in Stimpy

it never occurred to me it isn't that crazy it never occurred to me as a kid the shows I watch were all teaching me life lessons they were wrapped up in entertainment and you can it's still wrapped up in entertainment it's still that's the format look at the taken series we it was you learned about Trafficking and what a problem that is and we were educated by way of entertainment and suspense a huge part of that it was we were all hooked right away but we would have stopped watching if Liam niss had rescued his

daughter halfway through the movie yeah you're not resue till the end and the stakes were very high because we wouldn't watch the movie if he her stuffed animal was stolen or wasn't his daughter right well we watched Taken because she was Trafficked to the other side of the world he had to get her within 3 days and 100 people in the process so we take Stakes we take timing we take dispense the way that we traditionally know them but pack them in a way for social media and make them relatable make yourself be able to

see yourselves in the character even if it's really thumbed down and simple so great yeah I heard one time somebody say the quote they said the bigger the monster the bigger the hero I Think that's what it was I like that yeah cuz essentially the the bigger the monster the bigger the villain yeah the bigger the hero has to become to so it's like that's why when I watch like uh X-Men or whatever these movies are like a DC movie and it's like what whatever the guy the the bad guy's name is like you know

Domin you know it's like this crazy Multiverse bad guy it's like he's got all the powers ever created it's like it's got of a little silly like He's undefeatable and then they're like you know then the all the X-Men have to get together to fight him but again it's like the bigger the tension the bigger the evil then the more the transformation has to occur yes so I I think it's a fun concept when when I tell stories I I I try to remember to talk about how bad it was yes because if I do

a good job there I guess what I'm I'm getting the tension because it's it's like a meaningful thing an obstacle That has to be overcome yes and every story has a villain kind of whether you want it to or not devel the villain in our stories our old selves were the villain my past was tell how bad you were in the past or the thoughts you had in the past it actually doesn't make the story as interesting as it could be right that's you're undervaluing your testimony and why did you go through all that to

be here and the people who are still stuck in that need to hear that You were there too because look at where you are now and that's the light they're looking for so on the staff creators do you have any that you produce that are their own creators and you do the percent fee or you don't do that at all we give them a percentage of the video's earnings cuz if we just said hey you're going to be an Amazon delivery driver in this video you're going to be pregnant in the next video the third

video of the day you're going to get evicted then They can just run through them and not care not say stop restart and I'll stop and restart you eight times I'm crazy if I'm camera and I need them to have that level of consideration for the psychology and so we started incentivizing them based on the videos performance okay so but you've never done like an agent model where you you produce other people and they do it and then that you take care of some aspect of the business you still do the St That's the only

model you guys currently do no we do have staff and management so so for some of our managed creators okay so YouTube do you do the Facebook do you manage all their social channels they do no they do the uploading still cuz they need to learn it they need to learn the editing cuz if you learn editing it makes you a better Creator cuz you're seeing wow I shot that horribly or I should have said this then you're going to get way better if You have to look at what you did yeah if you're just

in front of the camera and then phoning it in for someone else to deal with you're never going to see all the mistakes so that's fascinating and I was you know obviously I'm all about buying back my time I've never edited a video yeah but I realized I got a great Sam in a team of bodybuilders though but um what but I'm not learning like you just said cuz what you're getting is you're seeing where you had to edit Around you to know next time hey complete your thought yes announ at your words yes Sam

has to probably feel I'm sorry dude like I know how bad I can be sometimes where he'll be like bang he forgot to close the story and I'm just like all right well so we go volume game but um when when you work with these other creators where you're doing the management side that starts to look potentially like what the music labels do with their artists right yes So how do what have you done something different around that the way you do it is it traditional like is it like I don't know cuz I've seen

I've seen a lot of people like a Bradley Martin and he had a person he produced and got pissed off because they built them up and they left and they they get in a lawsuit like that part's always fascinating me when you work with other creatives cuz we're all crazy I'm just a little crazy I don't know if you okay cool we're all I'm totally normal I don't know what mind business um but what what is the model like what do you do is it how do you do it so that everybody stays friends if

somebody doesn't want to do business with us anymore we we let them go it's that plain and simple okay you don't worry too much about it no no one's left yet like we'll cross that bridge when we get there but I in the music industry I always wanted a seat at the table yeah Always and now I have a table and I want to pull up as many chairs as possible so I'm going to create the best table where everybody's invited you have to be really good but once you're here we want to see what

do you need how else can we serve you how do we build that out and if we don't have that model yet go elsewhere or if we're not serving you as good as so and so could then go go figure out that and see if that makes sense to you but so far uh we're still Young we still have a lot to learn but if we take care of our people they take care of us that's the way to do it yeah my philosophy is as long as I help my team members achieve their dreams

I've learned a lot from you you want to know the biggest thing I've learned from you recently I would love to hear it the difference between traditional and transformational Leadership you said that and I oh it rocked me I was like I'm what is it traditional leadership uh Transaction transactional is transactional leadership and I am such a transactional leader I have a big problem delegating and so I would just task oriented task oriented which just kept me having to do the work and not buying back my time out you get maxed out and then you

get burned out on the work that actually is beautiful if you just get this time back and they can see an escalation process for themselves too and it intrinsically binds them more to The mission and vision of the company when they're attached to the outcomes so the day after you said that I gathered everybody in the living room and I told them no you don't never have to give me credit I just love that you learned that I learned something it was Radical for me that's exactly what I needed to do to buy back my

time was turn into a transformational leader and attach them to the outcomes and then let them go and then when they came to me with the issue 131 one three I did it was so good I've learned a lot you helped me become a better leader you just made my day thank you I love you know you put work out in the world and you hope it it kind of resonates with people and just hearing how it has especially watching what you've created here is just so inspiring like it really inspires me um you're doing

the Lord's work when people come up to me and say I love your work I tried to make ribs on my car engine Too it doesn't feel as good yeah I have a bath full of chickens too yeah um but the um the business side like when when you look at advertising versus brand deals why do you not do brand deals then so in the last year we have okay so we were like we're doing over a billion views a month why are we not putting Brands into our content we're leaving so much money on

the table so we started viral X about a year ago now and that's doing really really well and our blue Ocean with that is mass visibility and mass awareness Landover real Brands HP drumstick tool companies who aren't looking for the immediate click through yeah in Revenue St straight to transaction or CPAs that is so cool um what do you think like 10 years from now what what happens I want to create shows yeah I want to create what we do now but I want to verticalized some of our YouTube channels we have YouTube channels with

Three two three million subscribers we've been on YouTube 11 months and we have almost 10 million followers I don't know what's happening or what I'm doing so looking to figure that out and get into long form because we're very good at top of funnel but I want to take all this attention and really understand why did God give us this unique ability to grab and hold attention and make people watch videos they don't even want to watch what a superpower so why don't we Use that for good and actually put more meaningful content back into

the world because for the two years that we ran we ran a fantastic experiment on Facebook for two years yeah nailed it learned it grabbing attention and and getting people to watch videos that they didn't even want to be watching so how do we translate that now how do we step out of that amazing experiment and the difference between what people say they want to watch versus what they actually Pay attention to so now it's taking that attention currency and knowing how to translate it for people who have messages missions or amazing brands so good

I got two questions left okay the fir the first one is who are some of the I I will say women cuz my wife's also an entrepreneur and I know a lot of women um you don't have as many role models to look up to that's true yeah because like for you know I know why there's a bunch of men That are top of the but the you know if you actually look around it's the women that run the companies I'm not an idiot my whole team um what who are some of those women for

you when you think like entrepreneur role mod models where you're like I love the way she does business I love the way she does life I love the way she is with her friends who are some of those people that come to mind it's sad that you say that now because a lot of my role models are dead Um but we can go we can go dead Lucille Ball okay a lot of people just know where is the silly goofy Entertainer but they don't know that she ran a Content Empire go with her husband but

it was that Dynamic that was the top of the funnel and the fuel and the attractant to that allowed her to build and scale and get people jobs and all that so she's a big role model for me that's amazing um and then lately the last several months oh now I'm curious our Life has just it's been transformed since we literally started running ads it's been a whole different level of introductions and people that are some of those I'm just curious is there any any specific names like I think Sarah Blakey is one of the

coolest I was going to name Sarah I don't know her personally but we'll get to know her I don't know her either I'll get to know her I'll make sure you get to know her I'll race you yeah if you get there First send the elevator back down I'm just saying but um yeah I mean I just posted on Instagram recently about the thing I do with my boys every night we ask them what they failed that and that came from that came from Sarah really 100% she said her dad used to do that with

her every day hey would' you fail at today I love that yeah we celebrate our failures what a simple frame change that I think will have a profound impact on my two Boys I have I have no doubt so one say it's okay it's expected and normal celebrate it and you celebrate and and when they don't have something I'm like oh that sucks yeah you didn't try enough yeah what what next time what do you what do you think you try what did you know um is there anybody else though I just want one more

uh Lori grineer all right you got to be close with Lori during quarantine like we talk every night for three hours on the phone type Of friends and Blake when he still had a real job he would come home from a squirt job and I was like Lor again and then he's going to bed 5 hours later he's like I guess good night what did you guys talk about everything we talked about business a little bit but we talked about shows we talked about attention we talked about you know how the QVC Journey um customer

Journeys we just talked about family about kids that's so beautiful um it was a really Really wonderful friendship she loves comedy enjoyed I'm going Andrew Schultz tonight are you really yeah I'm I'm like comedy Is My Jam anyways uh last question adley when you look back at like you know 2017 when you first viral video let's start there 17 2017 to now 2024 who did you need to become to deal with this level of success you can't be a people pleaser and do this business and I was a people pleaser when I first started making

Videos and the comments would tear me apart because they would misunderstand who I was what I was doing I was like no I'm not that person I didn't say it like that you took it like that so I would change my next video to do everything right then nobody could have any room um to be condescending towards me and then I would still get torn apart and there would be two comments back Tob back this is the best video you've ever done the second one was you're absolute trash This video is trash take it down

and I was like I can't please everybody and now I'm just getting more and more inauthentic and even when you try to do everything right you're still going to upset people and so learning how to just care about what I think what do I think of me because if I think I'm doing okay and I'm happy then that's going to resonate and then other people the right people are going to be attracted to that and that's who I'm doing this for that's Who I'm trying to represent possibility for so that's been The Guiding North St

so beautiful I love that where should people follow you where's your favorite platform to get to know you I'd say Instagram perfect Instagram I think Instagram is my fave um everybody go find Ali on Instagram give her a follow she's incredible creative and here's the deal if I was and I am bet if I could buy stocked by stocking her she's going to create a massive portfolio production Company shows I have no doubt no doubt I like know it I've already I can kind of already see it and it's because of the people you're talking

to the mindset you've built the willingness to take risk and build out the pieces of the Empire and that you stay close to the creative which is just awesome so thank you for having me thank you a lot coming from you appreciate it means a lot have an amazing day