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Welcome.
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To the GLAMLIFE podcast, where we empower and inspire beauty professionals to take their careers to the next level. Your host, Victoria, is a certified business coach with over a decade of experience in the beauty industry, helping countless beauty professionals start and grow successful businesses. Now she's sharing her knowledge and expertise with you. Whether you're just starting out in the beauty industry or looking to take your business to new heights, this podcast is for you covering topics like community, management, branding, and much more. So join us on this journey to build the beauty business of your dreams.
[00:00:41.220] - Victoria Glam
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the GlamLive Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria and just as every week, I have another really big baller in the permanent makeup community here with us. Everybody meet my friend, your friend, Danny Tren. Hey, Danny.
[00:00:55.220] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Hello. How's it going? Thanks for having me.
[00:00:56.980] - Victoria Glam
On here. Going well. Thank you for making the time. You guys, and if you don't know Danny yet, he is the man to know when it comes to conferences and all things, marketing and visibility. Danny is an accomplished author, marketer, and entrepreneur, and I know a lot of things about him that he doesn't remember.
[00:01:14.500] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
It's so funny. When Victoria asked me if I wanted to do a podcast with her, I'm like, Yeah, 100%. I'm like, Well, what do you want to talk about? Then she brought up all of these bullet points from my, I call it my past life because I feel like we go through all of these seasons. I'm like, How do you know about this? Half the people, or I was like, 90% of the people who know me from PMU don't even know about that side. Kudos to you for digging that deep. I thought I had removed everything from online and-.
[00:01:41.850] - Victoria Glam
You got to scrub it. You got to scrub it a little bit more. You guys, Danny started off in Silicon Valley. That's where you are originally from, right? You grew up there?
[00:01:51.520] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Correct. From Bay Area, San Francisco, San Jose area, high tech startup.
[00:01:55.770] - Victoria Glam
It was always going to be tech. It was always going to be tech for Danny, I think. You started off in tech and hated it, right?
[00:02:03.170] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I didn't necessarily hate it. It's just I didn't envision that being more of a long-term thing just because when I was in high tech startups, it was like, financial technology and banking and financing. It was really boring. The thing that I got out of Silicon Valley, however, was understanding marketing. That's when I really fell in love with marketing, just understanding what makes people buy and how to make them buy it. I thought that was just such a fascinating skill set to have and being able to make people buy anything at any time, anywhere. That was one of the biggest things that I've learned in Silicon Valley.
[00:02:38.930] - Victoria Glam
It's like being a magician. You can make someone buy anything, anywhere, anytime. But I'm directly quoting you. I hated working my nine to five every day. You actually said that being let go from that job was one of the best things that ever happened to you. So he wasn't fired from misconduct or something. The company folded. A lot of startups do. They're just like, Hey, we're out of money. We're going out of business. Whatever. You know all about that because Danny is, like I said, a serial entrepreneur. You've had many companies, many of which just were not right for one reason or another. And then you hit the money with HighStoke, right? Was that your first no? You had another big company before High Stoke.
[00:03:17.670] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. The timeline for that is you did your research, Victoria. This is crazy. Sorry, if you're listening to this podcast right now, I haven't been asked these questions in years. I'm geeking out again. I'm like, Okay. Old Danny is coming back. The story is I worked in high tech startups for a little bit in financial technology. During that tech startup boom, there was just investment money flying everywhere. I had a couple of companies with their marketing and business development. At the last company I was at, the investors pulled out right before the next round of funding. At that time, I remember this meeting was crazy. The CEO calls all 12 of us into a room and he was like, Guys, we have no more money. The company is going bankrupt. Everyone is let go effectively now.
[00:04:05.820] - Victoria Glam
How did you feel? What's that?
[00:04:09.910] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
How did you feel? How did I feel?
[00:04:11.910] - Victoria Glam
First thought. Hey, what's up? Okay, ads are annoying, so I'm going to make this really quick. Did you know that the GlamLive podcast now has its own Instagram page? @theglamlife podcast. Go check it out. Give us a follow.
[00:04:25.830] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
First time I was like, holy shit. What just happened? No one expected it because we were getting rounds of funding, and so we thought the company was going to stay afloat. If anybody remembers, it was a digital credit card. It was called Swipe, where you can consolidate multiple cards into one physical card. It was a really cool product. We thought the company was going to obviously last and be around for a while. It was super innovative. But I think with a lot of the things that happened in the financial industry, the investors just didn't believe in the company anymore. They pulled out and essentially everybody was fired right then and there. I was really young. Do you know Ty Lopez?
[00:05:09.750] - Victoria Glam
No.
[00:05:10.920] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
He was one of the, I don't want to say original, but he was this online marketer where he was promoting a lot of online entrepreneurship at that time. I'm like, Okay, you know what? I'm young. Let me just go ahead and start my own business. I really understand marketing. I basically tried to do a ton of different things. It was affiliate marketing, drop shipping, networking.
[00:05:32.360] - Victoria Glam
Yeah, you made good mint in drop shipping, yeah?
[00:05:34.820] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. So drop shipping was like finding products from China and then shipping it to people. So I did okay there. I tried nine different things. They all failed. And then we found a watch company, an e-commerce company, and we were able to scale that one to multiple six figures. So that was that first sign of real success for me, right after Silicon Valley.
[00:05:57.080] - Victoria Glam
Yeah. Well, you don't have a watch company now, so something happened there. Did you sell it or did you get in trouble?
[00:06:04.600] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
This is crazy. Essentially, we scaled the watch company super aggressively. I had a business partner at that time in less than one year. We were on kickstarter, we were on Indie-Go-Go. We did all of these things. We scaled it to multiple six figures in less than one year of being in business. Just imagine as a 20-something-year-old kid, I would say, having that money, it.
[00:06:28.260] - Victoria Glam
Was insane. I'm like, this is- It might have been dangerous.
[00:06:29.940] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
This is crazy. This is real, making money online. I think we grew so fast. We ended up getting into legal issues with one of the largest corporations in the US.
[00:06:39.930] - Victoria Glam
That's what I've read.
[00:06:41.140] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, so we can mention who it is. It's actually Tiffany & Company.
[00:06:44.090] - Victoria Glam
Oh, really?
[00:06:45.210] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Tiffany & Company. We infringed on one of their trademarks because we had a trademark for watches, but they had a trademark for jewelry and then watches fall under jewelry. It was like this whole legal mumble-jumble that I didn't really understand at that time. Essentially, we had to scrap the company, return a lot of the money that we made, and that essentially went bankrupt overnight as well.
[00:07:05.940] - Victoria Glam
Yeah, you had $14 left in your bank.
[00:07:08.470] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
You had $14 left in the account.
[00:07:09.870] - Victoria Glam
I checked the files.
[00:07:11.900] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
No, I'm.
[00:07:12.340] - Victoria Glam
Just kidding. I didn't check the files. That is really crazy, though, and honestly, a truly humbling experience, because riding high is one thing. What was it? Tupac said it. He said, It's the ride up that's the fun part, because on the way down, you have to face all the people you stepped on. I'm not saying that you stepped on anyone. I'm just saying it's never fun to watch yourself go from, Wow, I'm 26 with a million dollars, to like, Damn, I wonder if I can move back into my parents' life.
[00:07:39.800] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, it was a very humbling experience. Going from the Silicon Valley job to doing all of these other companies failing with those and getting all of this overnight success with this company and then losing it all again. In just a couple of years, it was like this craziest roller coaster of emotions. From there, I actually fell into this really deep depression with drugs and alcohol for a couple of years. It was a really dark period of my life. From there, how High Stoke actually formed was... I remember I was like, You know what? I got to go soul searching. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I have no money. I'm addicted to drugs, just drinking every single day. I got to go soul searching, so where do I go? I go to Seoul, Korea. I'm like, That makes sense, right?
[00:08:27.580] - Victoria Glam
Bro, this is word for word. Carla Richeyardone's story. This is wild, but she spent six months in an ashram with Buddhist monks.
[00:08:37.020] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That's amazing. I'm actually going to do an interview with her in three hours. This is crazy.
[00:08:40.890] - Victoria Glam
You are on the same timeline.
[00:08:44.090] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, I'm like, Okay, I got to go soul searching. I got to find myself. I'm in such a punk right now. I go to Korea and.
[00:08:51.250] - Victoria Glam
With very- You are not Korean, right? You're the Vietnamese. I'm a Korean. You're the Vietnamese.
[00:08:55.620] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I'm Vietnamese, correct. I'm in Korea. I remember getting an email from a brand. They were like, Hey, Danny, were you the guy that did marketing for that watch company? I'm like, Yeah, that was actually me. That was my company. I did all the ads and everything. He was like, Well, we need somebody to help us market our business. Just run the ads. You don't have to come into work. You can just stay home and just work on your computer. This was before remote working.
[00:09:21.640] - Victoria Glam
Yeah.
[00:09:21.960] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Nobody worked remotely. I'm like, Wait, you're willing to pay me $3,000 a month to just stay at home and just run ads? That takes me an hour a day to do? Really? That's crazy. There, yeah. We don't need you to come in. You just work at home. We just need somebody to run our ads. That's when the whole world of freelancing opened to me. I'm like, This is crazy. Who else can I sign on as a client?
[00:09:43.870] - Victoria Glam
How did you meet this guy?
[00:09:45.690] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
This person was a friend of a really close colleague of mine. He knew of the brand. At that time, there weren't a lot of marketing freelancers yet. There were these big agencies, but no one-man type shows who are doing things like that. We did the marketing and I'm like, This is cool. Maybe I can make a business out of this.
[00:10:05.590] - Victoria Glam
What were you marketing for him?
[00:10:07.700] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
They were a 3D toy printing company.
[00:10:10.910] - Victoria Glam
Oh, that's very cool.
[00:10:12.220] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, they ended up being on Shark Tank, by the way. If you guys want to look at the brand, they're called Toybox.
[00:10:16.240] - Victoria Glam
I think they're still- Oh, I did see them on Shark Tank, actually.
[00:10:19.380] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, we got them on Shark Tank a long time ago.
[00:10:21.800] - Victoria Glam
That's years ago. You see, Danny's been getting results a long, long, long time.
[00:10:28.280] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Love it. It was such a different process of how my career was starting to look. What I mean by that was I was so used to working the 9:00 to 5:00, being in the office eight, sometimes 10, 12 hours a day to like, Whoa, I can stay at home and offer something that is of value and not my time and not be compensated for my time. I'm like, Okay, I can literally make this company so much money within this period of time and charge what I'm worth. This whole world of freelancing and going out and offering marketing as a service, it just started. I'm like, This is crazy. I need to create a company. Doing what every early-stage entrepreneur does, I got to create a company. Llc, let me go form my name. Everyone's always asking, What does High Stoke Media mean? I do not know what it means. I go on one of those name generators, company name generators. I'm a marketing company. I really want to help people elevate their passions to the next level. And somehow the name High Stoke came out. I think Stoke means passion, and for us, we were a bit of a higher level.
[00:11:39.910] - Victoria Glam
It's always read as like, snowboarders will say, I'm stoked, that thing. I've always just read it as high energy, we're excited to do media. That's how it reads to me. That's made up. I made that up myself.
[00:11:51.720] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That's made up. It was a name generator. I was like, That's such a cool name. How did you think of it? I don't know. A little name generator. I think we can talk about this later, but at the end of the day, the name doesn't really matter. The name does not matter. It's really the business, right?
[00:12:07.810] - Victoria Glam
I'm on a computer called Apple. The name does not matter.
[00:12:13.340] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, absolutely. And so at that point, I'm like, Okay, this is cool. How do we get more clients? I figured some of the best businesses or the businesses that typically need the most marketing are service-based businesses, like local service-based businesses. I started doing regular outreach. I reached out to doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, gyms, yoga studios. We worked with dozens of different industries. This is 2016, 2017, by the way. We worked with tons of different industries and we were making really good money. But the thing was it was really difficult to scale because how you work with a doctor, a chiropractor, is very different from a med spa, and it's super different than a restaurant. And so at that time, we were trying to figure out like, okay, well, what's the best way to scale this thing? I remember super vividly in 2018, I had a colleague. She was like, Hey, Danny, I just started my microblading business. I had no idea what the word meant. Can you help me market it? I'm like, Sure. Say yes, figure it out later, right? That's always been the mentality. If you're willing to pay me, I'll figure it out.
[00:13:18.250] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I said yes, did some research, and I think that people are paying $800, $900 to get the browse done within two hours. It was just this light bulb moment. We really want to grow and scale. Let's just focus on one thing and be super freaking good at it. From that point on, we just focused on PMU since 2018, and we haven't looked back. That's how High Stoke came to be and how we got into the permanent makeup industry.
[00:13:46.150] - Victoria Glam
So 2018, it's not like you're new in permanent makeup. You've been around, you've been building. There was buzz around you. I don't mean there was, but there's been buzz around you for some time. How are you able to maintain a good image like you're the nice guy or your company doesn't seem to have a bunch of people slandering it, when right now in permanent makeup, there's an entire Facebook community dedicated to hating marketers who, quote, take advantage of PMU. That's how it's seen. How have you avoided that connotation?
[00:14:18.170] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, I think it's a couple of things. Number one, we're really results-oriented. We always want to make sure that regardless of the situation, we want to make sure that we're getting results for our clients. But full transparency, we don't have 100 % success rate. We do have a lot of clients that we-.
[00:14:33.470] - Victoria Glam
Let's talk about it. Let's do it. Let's talk about it. So, Danny and I actually know each other because I fired Danny. Hey, commercials suck, so I'm going to make this really annoying. This podcast is only possible because of our friends at BrowSister. Com. Head over to BrowSister. Com and check out our amazing selections of the best anesthetics on the market, all of the best and most reputable pigments, needles, and anything else you could possibly want. We've got everyone from Tarrin to Shay, Danielle, and now we even have lash supplies. See you there, browcister. Com. Use code GLAMLIF for 20 % off your next order. I hired Danny, and he got me zero results. Not a single client, not one. And they continually used incorrect branding and verbiage across page after page after page. People would send me screenshots of things that they saw as ads. I was like, What the fuck is this? You're ruining the brand. I felt like I was so patient, too. We had multiple meetings where I was like, You guys team, this is not the vibe. You've got to change. You can't say, Send me permanent in Louisiana. I will get sued.
[00:15:36.400] - Victoria Glam
You got to stop. On and on it went. And finally I said, Listen, you have paid people to work on this, and I understand that we can't get the ad dollars back either. Just pay me whatever's left. And instead, Danny, who had never spoken with the founder of the company, called me and said, I've already wired you every dollar you gave us. And I want to thank you because this was a learning experience for us because he wasn't trying to get us brow clients. I think we were the first or one of the first companies he was trying to get students for. It was just a little bit.
[00:16:04.670] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Different of a ball game. This was in 2019, right? Yeah. Really early on. Okay.
[00:16:08.180] - Victoria Glam
Yeah, I just had Henry, my second child, so it was spring of 2019. And you gave me dollar for dollar every single dollar back. I think it was seven o'clock at night, so after hours for you two, that you called me and told me this. I had such respect for that that I never had a bad taste in my mouth. You know what? We tried it. It didn't work out. And on the first call, you guys told me we don't sell trainings. We're willing to give it a shot. We don't sell trainings.
[00:16:32.740] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
And.
[00:16:33.980] - Victoria Glam
Still extended me the guarantee that you would give me my money back and did. And then at the top of this year, I got an email from High Stoke that was so funny. I was cackling. I screenshotted. I sent it to my old business manager. She lives in Florida now, but she was with me when we had High Stoke. And I was like, You'll never guess who just emailed me. High Stoke just emailed me, Hey, we've fucked up in the past, but we've worked on ourselves. I felt like the High Stoke Apology tour was genuine. It didn't feel like a marketing ploy. It felt genuine, very hat in hand. And also it's been some time you probably have worked on yourself. And I've seen what you've done for other people. And also with PMU World, obviously, you're very good at what you do at marketing. It's possibly one of those right person, wrong time things, which I feel like is actually the story of me and Danny. I'm just kidding. But It's like, I want to work with you again. I feel like I love High Stoke. It feels almost like my little family. Actually, one of the people who used to work on my team at High Stoke, whoever was assigned to me, she still DMs me on Instagram all the time like we're friends now.
[00:17:44.240] - Victoria Glam
She doesn't.
[00:17:44.750] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Work for High Stoke.
[00:17:45.500] - Victoria Glam
We're friends. It feels like a company that's not just out to get you. Where I've worked with another marketer in PMU who was supposed to get me clients, and this even predates me working with High Stoke, and it felt like I was a number, and I could see the same ads being run for other people in my town. Same words and everything, same ad copy, didn't get any results, and then I was told it was my fault. So when I see people in Facebook group saying it's a scam, or I hate these marketers, whatever, I understand where they're coming from, but I've always wondered what you're doing at your company that makes it so different than these other people who have let everyone down. I don't want to say everyone, but let me down.
[00:18:27.770] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, too. I believe the biggest thing, and we'll talk about the marketing differences in a little bit, but I think that the biggest thing for us is just always owning up to the mistakes. It's not so much of like, Hey, look at us now. We're so much better now. But it's like, Hey, we fucked up a lot. Just like you starting your P in your career, you're probably not the most proud of your first 10-20 clients.
[00:18:48.090] - Victoria Glam
Yeah, I just saw Ruben say that, and I was like, Who is writing his PR? Because that was good. And it's so true.
[00:18:54.840] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I got to take a look at that. I haven't seen it yet.
[00:18:56.700] - Victoria Glam
Yeah. He wrote this one in that scammer's group. People were like, Oh, in these 40-person masterclasses, such a waste of your thousands and thousands of dollars, blah, blah, blah. And so many people had mentioned his name and tagged him that he actually came, entered the group, and commented on the post. And that's how he started out. He was like, Just like you, when you started your PMU career, I'm sure they're a brows you're not proud of, that these were my first classes you're talking about, and I haven't trained in person in two years because I'm trying to retool them and figure out how to do it in a way that gives value. So I apologize for anyone who I've let down. And please know that I'm not ready to train yet, and I'm working on it. And I don't think that Ruben was really in that group. I think that was absolutely a PR response, but it was PR 101 that was perfect. And you had already done it with that email, and I thought that was great, too. You're exactly right. There is one set of brows that haunts me. I wish I could find this lady.
[00:19:52.560] - Victoria Glam
She's in Mexico now. I wish I could find this lady and remove them for free and give her beautiful eyebrows. But I did something that I now know cannot possibly look good right now. I know that. But at the time, I didn't know that. I was like, Well, I'll try it if you want to try it. It's like the waiting over old tattoo brows.
[00:20:07.420] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, it's like the beginning. You don't know what you don't know. At that time, really early inā€”not super earlyā€”but we were trying so many different things that we weren't necessarily confident in or we've had vast experience in. It's the ownership and taking accountability and just again, owning up to a lot of that. It makes me really proud and happy to see not just you, but we've had a lot of clients that we have fucked up really badly from the past coming back to us now because they've seen the growth and the things that we've been able to learn and now working with us again and getting so much better results. I don't know, again, what other companies that you're referring to in terms of what makes us different, but I would say the biggest thing for us is always learning from our mistakes and never blaming the client for anything, always taking full ownership and looking at every experience as what did we learn from this? Even if it's the client's fault, what did we learn from this and how do we prevent this from happening ever again. That's allowed us to grow in the direction that we've been able to grow and just partnering up with so many amazing people in the industry.
[00:21:09.150] - Victoria Glam
Actually, even just hanging out the last few months, you and I, I've noticed that there are some big physical changes that I could point out to with the way that you organize your team now versus what it was when I was there. So it's not just lip service saying like, Oh, we've learned, we've grown, we're better than that now, which could be masked by doing volume. Okay, yeah, we made this much more over that year or whatever. Okay, but did you make any changes, or did you just get more suckers in the door? You didn't, actually. You don't have dedicated sales teams anymore, so you could lob things over, but they have to come through us because it's better, you said, I'm just quoting you, it's better to have them form a relationship with the artist who's actually going to be in the room than try and match branding and tone and vibe and everything with this little six-person team. I think that's actually really smart. Because before you were very much like a dollars to donuts done for you company. And now you've said, You know what? We're actually not very good at that.
[00:22:03.620] - Victoria Glam
It doesn't translate as well. That's a huge change in even just personnel. That's a huge change. And to actually admit that and say like, Yeah, we found that didn't work. We stopped doing it.
[00:22:14.660] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. One of the things that... We get this question all the time, especially for newer artists like, Hey, do you have any guarantees? Can you make sure that I get 10X my money back? For everyone that's listening to this, we were one of the first companies that did offer these crazy claims and guarantees where it's like, Pay us 25k and we'll guarantee you $100,000 out of it. Some crazy stuff like that. What we realized is that claims and guarantees attract the wrong type of people. It attracts the people that don't want to put in the work. It attracts the people who are like, Okay, well, it's just a false set of expectations. For anyone that comes to us asking for a guarantee, we actually don't, we used to. The reason being is that everything in life, it's a two-way street. You can't go to a personal trainer and say, Hey, can you guarantee me six pack apps? No, it depends on your diet, what you do outside of the relationship together. We've really changed our approach and expectations, and I believe that's truly what's allowed us to get much happier clients because we set the right expectations in the beginning, and they're also willing to put in the work and not expecting to get rich overnight without doing any work.
[00:23:23.040] - Victoria Glam
That's actually really smart, and I think that's a mature way. I think that you lead your company with backs and numbers. If it doesn't work, get rid of it. Try something else. Where maybe the difference is that some people don't even accept fault in their own company. I think it's leading with ego.
[00:23:38.270] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Actually.
[00:23:40.110] - Victoria Glam
I was talking to some of my girlfriends, some of them whom you know, and I was like, Oh, yeah. I'm having some coffee before I go. I'm recording my podcast this afternoon, but I'm recording with Danny, and we haven't had a guy on the podcast yet, but we did a live together, and he matches energy really fast, almost like a puppy. He's hyper. He's big and high-stoke energy. So I got to have some coffee before this. And I think that actually you're just very good at reading the room. If I'm chilled out, you're chilled out. I think that some people come in with such masculine machismo energy that a lot of women in a women-dominated industry feel a little uncomfortable working with them. So anytime a guy comes into your business that you built and it's your baby, I think it feels like, Well, I don't really know what the power dynamic is going to be like. And so not leading with your ego is much more attractive as someone that I want to bring into my business as a partner or someone that I'm collaborating with on projects. It's disarming.
[00:24:41.380] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Got you. Okay, I totally see what you mean in that, and I totally agree. In the beginning, when I first started High Stoke, it was so much about Danny, Danny, Danny. It was all Danny, Trane, Danny, Trane, Danny, Trane. It really was an ego thing. I'm like, Look at me, big shot CEO. I want to be known for this. Even though I still take personal branding seriously, what we do now, we don't want to promote ourselves as the one man show or the YouTube marketer. We're really a global team with all of the support and resources that you need to build the business of your dream. When you join High Stoke, you're not working with me directly, just me. You're working with amazing success managers, branding experts, and coaches. We even bring in outside artists and trainers to come in and do master classes. For us, going back to your original question, what makes us different is that we really position ourselves as this global community and a full support team, and we're really this growth partner for you versus just a Joe Schmoe's marketer that's just, again, a one man show doing everything. That's what's allowed us to help clients grow very quickly, too.
[00:25:46.640] - Victoria Glam
Danny, what is the takeover community?
[00:25:52.630] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That was so random that I thought we were going to go this direction. That was just like...
[00:25:57.790] - Victoria Glam
You said global community and it reminded me. I don't know what it is. What is the takeover community?
[00:26:03.160] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, so what year was this? In the middle of High Stoke launching, I decided to launch an educational business to help entrepreneurs get into online marketing, or people get rid of their 9-5s and learn online marketing skills and being able to freelance marketing like I did when I first started the company. We were really big into events and masterminds, and we were really this tight knit community where it was all about digital marketing and how to get results from ads and things like that. It's called takeover because at that point in my life, my mission was to help you take over all of these aspects of your life, whether it was professionally, financially, spiritually, taking over all of that back and having your life in your own hands. That's where that name came from. Okay, so many stories. I don't have one hour's enough time on here. Carly did two.
[00:26:57.010] - Victoria Glam
You can have two.
[00:26:58.470] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
You can have two? It was a great community, and a lot of the people in that community are my closest friends, my colleagues. Some of them even work at High Stoke right now. Oh, really? It was at this fork in the road moment where HighStoke was growing and the takeover community was growing, and we were growing two businesses. Highstoke was this seven-figure company with 20-something employees. Takeover was this seven-figure company with hundreds of clients that we were working with. I remember I had a friend, Philip, you're watching this German dude. I was like, Philippe, I'm getting stretched so thin right now. I'm running two companies right now, and it's just driving me insane. What do you think I should do? I'm going to butcher this German accent, but he was like, You can't chase two rabbits, right? He just said straight like, You can't chase two rabbits. I'm like, Man, you're right. I'm doing myself and all of our clients and teams such a disservice by being stretched thin like that. I made the decision to scrap the takeover business and just put all of my focus into High Stoke, which is what I'm working on 100 % right now.
[00:28:06.790] - Victoria Glam
That's so interesting. That reminds me of that talk Elon Musk did where he said there came a point when he had to choose between SpaceX and Tesla. Essentially, they were telling him there wasn't enough time or funding to have both. He said, How do you choose between your two children? That's exactly what you just reminded me of because what a tough situation to be in. My grandpa used to have a saying, like your German friend, but his was less eloquent because he is a Lebanese Cajun man.
[00:28:34.160] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Less eloquent.
[00:28:35.470] - Victoria Glam
He would say, You can't ride two horses with one ass.
[00:28:39.390] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That's.
[00:28:40.920] - Victoria Glam
True. Somebody's got to stay in the barn.
[00:28:43.690] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I love that. I'm going to start saying that one too. But the takeover community, again, we were such a close-knit mastermind and we did a lot of these events and things like that together. It's a great community. A lot of us are still connected to this day. That's probably something I'll revisit sometime in the future.
[00:29:01.140] - Victoria Glam
Do they help you with PMU World since they're already... All those people are involved in events already?
[00:29:05.840] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Some of them, yeah.
[00:29:06.840] - Victoria Glam
How does PMU World start?
[00:29:10.110] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, we're going to the PMU World side of things. I love this. We're just jumping everywhere.
[00:29:14.550] - Victoria Glam
Sorry, I have ADHD.
[00:29:16.870] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
So do I. Pmu World... Okay, let me rewind a little bit. I love events. I love going to big conferences like Final Hacking Live, Tony Robbins, Traffic and Conversion. I'm all about networking in person, continued education, and joining communities where you can grow alongside each other. I love big events. We've also been part of our fair share of PMU related events. Events are great, but I felt like there was this gap where there was no one who did this super big immersive type experience specifically for the PMU industry. What I've seen with other events that I've been to, like crazy, crazy immersive type experience. I'm also a really big music festival-goer. Whether it's EDC or Coachella or Ultra Miami or when we were young, all of these things. If you notice a lot of our marketing when it comes to the lineup, how we released the speakers and things like that, it's heavily influenced by music festivals. I don't know if everyone connected the two together. I'm like, All right, cool. This is a challenge. We have such a great community. We want to fill a gap in the industry and we want to bring the community together.
[00:30:28.040] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Why not throw the biggest event ever in the industry? We decided to create PMU World and we were like, Well, how do we make it different? How do we make it immersive? That's where the whole multiple stages and workshops and the whole choose your journey experience came to be. Because we didn't want to be just another event where it's one strict schedule. Because when you go to the music festival, you're like, Well, if you like that artist, you go there and I'll meet you after. I'm going to go to this stage. It's like artists. There's newer artists and there's intermediate and then there's trainers, there's advanced. We wanted to, again, make this experience where you can choose your journey and make the most out of that experience for you at the show. That's how the whole concept came to be.
[00:31:10.780] - Victoria Glam
That's amazing. I didn't make it, and I'm still pissed about it. I was supposed to be closing on my dream property the same day that we were supposed to leave. I already had my tickets booked and everything, and they called and said, Hey, see you at the closing table at this date. I couldn't not go. Then it got pushed. I was so pissed. But one of my girlfriends who was going with me, she still went, and she was giving me the play by play. I was like, Well, how is it? Are there really 600 people there? She was like, I would be surprised if there wasn't 700, 800 people here. There's a lot of people here. She said, And it doesn't feel overpacked because you could be in a couple of different places at any given time. I thought that was really interactive and really cool. And she said, Amazing. And then I had another girlfriend who said I felt like I didn't really know where I was supposed to be or what I was doing. I felt a little overwhelmed. Everyone who goes to Electric Daisy Carnival feels the same way. Either they had an amazing time or they were like, I don't know where I'm supposed to be right now.
[00:32:14.070] - Victoria Glam
So you did your job, but it seems like everybody wants to be there. I do. I want to go to PMB World.
[00:32:20.270] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
We're going to make something happen in 2024, as you know. I think it's also because for a lot of people, it's the first time having that experience, having multiple stages. It was like they didn't know what to expect. Again, we're always learning and we take full responsibility for that. It's like, why didn't we explain the structure a little bit better? We're always taking this feedback. This upcoming year, I think people are going to be a lot more used to the overall format because we even had some comments like, Well, if I'm watching this stage, is it rude and disrespectful if I go to the other stage? Even just thinking.
[00:32:51.820] - Victoria Glam
Like that. Yeah, that's a good question.
[00:32:53.150] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Knowing that when we do the marketing this year, it's like, Hey, don't feel like you're being disrespectful or rude at all. This is where you're choosing your own journey, so feel free to attend half of one. If the next one is starting, go to the next stage so you can experience that one too. I think it's a lot of just educating people ahead of time, which is what we'll probably do this year, upcoming year.
[00:33:14.020] - Victoria Glam
Well, you don't know until you've tried it. So now that this format exists, there are other people who have already attended the conference who can say, Oh, yeah, we'll just pop into this room. And you do what you see other people doing. It's one of those things where if no one leaves the room, you don't know if you can.
[00:33:29.570] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Sure.
[00:33:30.220] - Victoria Glam
You can float, you can go in between, you can whatever. Now I think people will be a little bit more relaxed with it, and everybody follows by example. Oh, she's leaving. We can go to.
[00:33:39.060] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. So what we did last year was we had one stage specifically for the procedures, and then we had one stage specifically for advanced business tactics. It was a really good split because let's say if you don't offer S&P or plan to offer S&P, why would you want to attend an S&P segment? When you can watch Carla, who talked about how to scale to multiple locations, right?
[00:34:01.530] - Victoria Glam
It looked like a rock star.
[00:34:03.160] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, everyone did.
[00:34:04.510] - Victoria Glam
We had a great- That red suit jacket, she looked so good.
[00:34:08.810] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
We had a great content team. We got a double- Can I tell you what I'm going to tell you? -a photo of the guys we have on site this year.
[00:34:16.140] - Victoria Glam
I want to do that 360 photo booth thing again, like we had... You helped put on WOLOP, right?
[00:34:23.750] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, we helped them with the marketing. With the ticket sales and everything. Wolob, they've been a great organization to partner with. We always loved to support them. Lina, Lydia, they're amazing people. This past one in Miami, despite all of the craziness that happened with fire alarms and- Yeah, that was crazy. -the health department, it was still a fun show.
[00:34:43.980] - Victoria Glam
Seeing everybody. Bro, the health department was driving me nuts because it was inconsistent. I was like, How are contests supposed to know yes or no? Yes, right now, but no later. It was driving me nuts.
[00:34:56.670] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That was my.
[00:34:57.610] - Victoria Glam
First experience with WOLOF.
[00:34:59.510] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I think the competition ended at 2:00 or 3:00 a. M, compared to the normal 10:00 or something.
[00:35:05.140] - Victoria Glam
Yeah, that was crazy. Tina's daughter was there first thing in the morning when I show up. She walks over to my table and she was like, Hey, you went to bed early last... I was like, Isn't she seven years old?
[00:35:18.790] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I.
[00:35:19.150] - Victoria Glam
Said, I went to bed at the appropriate time, I think.
[00:35:24.180] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Brooke is awesome.
[00:35:25.600] - Victoria Glam
She's so funny. She was giving me marketing tips. I thought that was so fun. She really knows what she's talking about. You can tell she has been in the room during important conversations, business conversations. That's the way to raise an entrepreneur. She knows what she's talking about.
[00:35:40.660] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, so shout out to Tina Davies. For everyone listening, Brooke is Tina's daughter, sweet daughter. She's like, Danny, you should do this. This is how you attract people to your book. This is the lead magnet. I'm like, What are you talking about?
[00:35:54.120] - Victoria Glam
She knows what she's talking about. Danny also had Brooke run behind him on stage with a money gun, throwing money in the air while he was on stage at Woolah, which looks and feels a little silly in the moment. But the pictures and videos probably look baller because Brooke took my phone and my little pivot that tracks you, and she videoed herself, blowing the money gun at it as she ran past in slowmo. That kid understands marketing. He looks like a badass. I was like, Oh, Tina, I'm going to airdrop you this because this is for graduation. This is for her wedding reception. This looks cool.
[00:36:31.490] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
No, Brooke is amazing. I love Brooke. I'll FaceTime her every now and then. I'm like, What's up, Brooke? What are you doing?
[00:36:37.110] - Victoria Glam
You FaceTime her? Yeah. That's funny. Okay, so you got it. How did you get involved with WOLOB? They reach out to High Stoke or did you already know Lidia?
[00:36:47.290] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Wolob. We started... Is this the second year we've been part of it? Or three? I think it's the second year. Last year was also... Well, it wasn't in Miami, it was one of those nearby cities, Aventura or something like that. Yeah. I connected it with Lena. I connected it with Lena. I think she just knew that we did marketing for events and PMU artists. At that time, they needed help filling out seats for that... Well, 2022, 2022. Then from there, we'd help them with the marketing, filling up their seats. It was such a success that previous year, let's have you guys back as a sponsor and partner of this upcoming year too.
[00:37:29.680] - Victoria Glam
That's so nice. Do you partner with other big events like this in PMU?
[00:37:35.950] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Right now, just WOLOP, we're talking with a couple of international ones that I'm actually waiting to get their green light to say that we're actually in collaboration with PMU World Two, which is really just super exciting.
[00:37:46.680] - Victoria Glam
A lot of the girls who are in our VIP right now, which is a mentorship program, we mentor skills, but we also mentor figuring out your branding and just general business mentoring, a lot of them are really discouraged with reach on Instagram right now. We're feeling like, is Meta dead? Have they killed their algorithm?
[00:38:09.290] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, yeah, let's talk about that.
[00:38:11.860] - Victoria Glam
Okay, we're talking about it.
[00:38:13.430] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, I get it. Let's go.
[00:38:15.770] - Victoria Glam
I'm just going to cut into a VIP of you.
[00:38:20.000] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, so there's this... I don't want to say it's a misconception because it's also somewhat true that reach has definitely been affected. I think this is where if you've been seeing a lot of reach and engagement over the past couple of years and now it's starting to die down, that is actually happening across the board. You can't really pinpoint exactly why. It could be the algorithm is changing. Maybe they want to incentivize you to spend money to get in front of more people, which I always think is true. The way to simply combat that, and maybe I'm biased because I'm a marketer, but my whole philosophy is that why not spend money to make money? Not spend money to get in front of people predictably and reliably versus just posting something and hoping that it gets in front of the people that you want it to get in front of. For me, it's always been paid advertising is the name of the game and into 2024, I truly believe that is going to be what you need to do if you want the business to survive. Because... Go ahead. Go ahead. Because I was going to say just to close that, we've had so many clients who are crushing it for the past five years.
[00:39:29.510] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
I've always been booked out for six, seven, eight months, even a year. Now I am playing it on a week-by-week basis because I don't even know where my next client is coming from now. It's because referrals and organic traffic, it will dry up. Especially in a world where the economy is weird now, people are a lot more conservative. The best way to get in front of people is just to spend money to put your ads in front of these eyeballs.
[00:39:53.580] - Victoria Glam
Do you feel like ad spend is better on Meta or with Google ads?
[00:39:58.860] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Good question. All of the above.
[00:40:00.640] - Victoria Glam
Are you on TikTok ads?
[00:40:03.190] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Tiktok ads? Tiktok ads also work, but it's more for engagement. I'll explain. At PMB World, this was in my presentation, I called it the holy trinity of ads and everyone was laughing. With Facebook and Instagram, this allows you to put your ads in front of people who didn't even know you existed yet. When you're scrolling through your feed, you're like, Oh, sponsored post by Victoria Glam. Who is this? Click, and you're learning more. Google is search intent, meaning somebody has to look up best market bleeding artists in Louisiana for your ads to even pop up. But that's why you get these roller coaster moments, because maybe that month, no one's even looking for it. We look at Google ads like the cherry on top. Then what TikTok is supposed to do is to drive traffic to your Instagram, which does all of the selling for you. In 2024, Instagram is your resume. You got to upload your portfolio pieces and things like that. To answer your question, all of the above, for sure.
[00:40:59.560] - Victoria Glam
That makes sense. So Google ads is like your insurance. You know, tried and true. If somebody is looking for microblading there, they can find you and they're already pretty warm. Even if they don't know you, they at least know what microblading is. Because back in the day, when everybody first started meta ads, that would be the number one question: What is this? How much does it cost? And now I've paid 60 cents for somebody to ask me what microblading is and they don't talk to me anymore. So there, that makes sense. You're right. If they're searching it, that's good. Tiktok is more like, Hey, look at me. This is what I do. If you want to learn more, go to my Instagram and then you warm them on Instagram till they're ready to buy.
[00:41:34.450] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Exactly.
[00:41:35.470] - Victoria Glam
Nice. Look at me, catching on to things fast. So what's a healthy budget to expect when you start working with ads?
[00:41:45.870] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That's a good question. So I would say with all the clients that work with this, set aside at least $500 a month. I would say that's the bare minimum to get things up and running. So you break that down, that's like $15 a day, $15 to $17 a day. It's not much at all. We see a lot of people start off too slow, meaning they spend like five dollars a day. I don't think you're going to reach enough people to get good results or have enough data to make decisions. I would say $500 a month at a bare minimum. If you are in a more saturated city like Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, expect it to be a little bit higher. It's like 500 to 1,000. Then if you want to do trainings, that's an additional budget too. Just because the amount of people wanting to take trainings, it's much lower compared to those who want to get services done.
[00:42:34.050] - Victoria Glam
So looking to the future, do we expect that at some point we'll be in bidding wars? You'll have to spend more to get seen because other people are going to say, Okay, fine, I'll pay for ads?
[00:42:43.900] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
100%. We're already noticing that now. And depending on the service that you offer, so let's say you do something that's a little bit more niche. When I say niche, it's like less... The target audience is less. For example, SMV, stretch market rejuvenation, compared to those who need to get their brows done, that target size is just smaller. That will naturally increase the amount that you need to spend to reach those people. I think in 2024, one of the biggest and most important things that you can do as a business owner is to be on top of your numbers. So meaning what is your cost per lead? How much is it costing you to get one person to inquire? And then what's your conversion rate? So meaning out of every ten messages you get, how many do you actually convert into a booking? And then from there you really understand your customer acquisition cost and it gets really fun. Going back to what we were saying at the beginning, you're a magician, right? This is how you print money. So by spending $50, you're making 500. And once you're on top of the numbers, it becomes really fun with ads.
[00:43:44.690] - Victoria Glam
How do you... Not you, because you have a degree, but how do layman who just said, Hey, you know what? I'm going to start this beauty business. They never expected even to start a business. They just thought they were going to start microblading. Now they find themselves in a business and they've had tons of leads and they've had tons of clients and now things are drying up. They're going to move to ads now. How does that person figure out their cost per lead?
[00:44:06.810] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, so first off, obviously, you can hire a company like HighStoke, number one, or you can go to YouTube and search up how to run Facebook and Instagram ads. I think it's in 2024, you can be so resourceful. There's so much free content out there. You just have to sift through what's actually going to be good. So when you're running an ad, I don't know if anyone can visualize this, but when you're running an ad, you're targeting your local area, and then you'll know exactly how much it costs for you to acquire that lead. So it'll literally just show you, okay, if your budget was $20 today, and let's just say for Simple Math, you got four leads, that means your cost per lead is five dollars.
[00:44:45.040] - Victoria Glam
Right. You're just telling people log in and look at the numbers, basically.
[00:44:49.910] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Just look at the numbers. Yeah. So- So.
[00:44:51.320] - Victoria Glam
Heisto doesn't keep a spreadsheet or something like that.
[00:44:53.980] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
You don't need a spreadsheet, especially with ads.
[00:44:57.860] - Victoria Glam
It's crazy. People are maybe over complicating this.
[00:44:59.850] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
People are overcomplicating it. It's like if you are a business owner and you've been in business for the past 4-5 years, aren't you tracking how much money you're making? How many bookings are you getting on a monthly basis? You might.
[00:45:10.280] - Victoria Glam
Be surprised how few people are doing that.
[00:45:12.670] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Now I know that. It's funny because I've always been so numbers driven and going into this industry, and I'm like, How much monthly revenue are you making? Even to this day, I just asked somebody on a call, What's your monthly revenue? I actually don't know. I'm like, Well, how many clients did you get? I think three or five. Well, is it three or is it five? And did they pay you? I think 500 to 700. Well, is it 500 or is it 700? I feel like people just need to be on top of their numbers is what I'm trying to say.
[00:45:44.610] - Victoria Glam
Maybe we need some ad help. Maybe we need some business coaching. I'm telling you right now, there are so many people who come in as a junior into business coaching. It's their first time running a business. They haven't even thought of it as a business yet. Their mindset is still hobby. I ask them these simple questions like, Well, are you an LLC or a sole provider? They're like, I don't know. What does that mean? I say, Did you do a schedule C? Or, I don't know. What does that mean? It seems elementary because we've done it so many times or for so long, but a lot of people really that's... We're meeting them where they are, and they're at the very very beginning. I think some of these more tedious questions are important because people want to know what to expect before they, Okay, I'll give you my very hard-earned $500. Five hundred is small in the world of ads because that's small ad spend. But that took somebody three weeks to earn that one brow for 500 on their own.
[00:46:38.260] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
It was.
[00:46:38.730] - Victoria Glam
Really hard to get that money together.
[00:46:41.120] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Absolutely. I think a mindset to also have is that... I think a lot of people get into the industry just wanting to be an artist. But the reality is that you're now an entrepreneur and business owner. That means you have to know sales, you have to know systems, you have to know your numbers. Every time we say this, we hear like, Oh, in the crowd. I'm trying to be like, No, I just want to be an artist. If that's the case, you can work under somebody commission based and you don't have to worry about the craziness of running an actual business. But if you're looking to get your own studio, have your own brand, become a trainer one day, these are all of these business skills that you'll eventually have to acquire.
[00:47:15.460] - Victoria Glam
You don't want to build a house of cards. You have to have a solid foundation to be able to add on products or trainings or become a travel trainer or an international speaker or whatever. You have to have a solid foundation or else everything falls out from under you. You're wrong.
[00:47:29.740] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, I think it's like, again, and also one more point to drive this home is that you got to understand... It's crazy. I'm on these calls and I'm like, Well, what's your goal? What's your monthly revenue goal? Well, it'll be nice if I can have this or this and it's still not clear. I feel like as a business owner, you should be clear as to what your monthly goal or yearly goal is. That way it's so much easier to reverse engineer. I know that's just a very logical answer, but it's just what you have to do. For example, let's just say you want to make 120k a year. We're not going to talk about overhead inventory already and that, but just for simple math. If you want to make 120 grand a year, that means you need to make 10 grand a month. That means you need to make $2,500 per week. Let's say you work five days out of the week, that means you got to make $500 per day. If you charge $500 for a service, that means you're going to get one client in per day. When you think about it like that and you set your goals and even write it down, you're like, Okay, well, did I hit my goal of one booking today?
[00:48:30.650] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
If the answer is no, it's like, what do you have to change as part of your day to day routine to make sure that you're hitting that number instead of focusing on something that doesn't really matter, like business cards and tweaking your website or spending five hours on.
[00:48:43.100] - Victoria Glam
That real- Let's just dispel that right now. Nobody gives a fuck about your business card.
[00:48:47.960] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
We.
[00:48:48.860] - Victoria Glam
Don't. When somebody hands you their card unprovoked, like someone just walks up to you and they're like, Hi, nice to meet you. I do browse. Here's my card. What do you do with it? You either shove it in your purse and you forget about it and then later when you're cleaning out your purse, you throw it away, or you set it down somewhere else so that you don't feel like a dick for throwing it away, but you don't keep it. Because the first thing you're going to do is look up their Instagram anyway.
[00:49:09.420] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah.
[00:49:11.240] - Victoria Glam
That's such a waste of your money. And people will take so much that they'll procrastinate, and that allows them to procrastinate. They're like, No, I'm waiting on my cards. I'm still getting my branding right. None of that matters. You're just allowing yourself an out from doing the work. I had a lady hang up on me today because she refused to do the work, and I refused to coach her. You didn't take my advice and I gave it to you for free. Now you're asking me for free advice again that you're going to ignore again. I was just like, Yeah, you're right. It didn't work because you didn't do it.
[00:49:40.150] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Then.
[00:49:40.910] - Victoria Glam
We sat in the silence for a minute and then she was like, Well, I didn't like the way it made me feel, so I wasn't going to do that. I was like, Well, you would know because you didn't do it.
[00:49:48.970] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. Like I said, I think we need to have another podcast, another episode where we talk about these hard truths because I feel like we got to call out a lot of these things that are happening. We talked about this last time on our live, but one of the things that we coach all of our clients to do is figure out what you're doing on a daily basis or these big decisions and then ask yourself, Is this directly correlating with me making more money for my business? What I mean by that is people are like, They're struggling. Okay, I'm not getting new clients. But instead of marketing and trying to get new clients, let me take another training because I think going from five to six X certified will make me more money. I can't see in your face. We just spoke about this, so I'm laughing. It's like there's no reason being five X certified and seven X certified.
[00:50:37.010] - Victoria Glam
Nobody cares. No one can. Your clients don't care. That's why the girl who fucking sucks at eyebrows gets more clients than you because she's personable and she shows up on social media all the time and people feel like that's their friend, so they go to her. Did she ever take any training at all? I don't actually know. She said she did, but she won't say who she trained with. I don't believe it because the brows are terrible. I think she watched a couple of YouTube videos and maybe found a micro blade at some point. But she's making more money than you. And by the way, if that's a reality, if I've just described someone you know and you're listening to this, invest in a saline removal class or a laser class ASAP because that's going to come back around. But in the meantime, you saying, I'm six times certified, nobody cares. You could say, Tina Davies herself trained me, and your clients don't know who Tina is, so they don't care. That's amazing to me, but nobody else cares. Yeah. That's not part of marketing.
[00:51:33.210] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, I think a lot of people nowadays too, they're branding themselves to attract other PMU artists versus clientele. If you're a trainer, that's a different story, right? I'm talking about those who are just starting out. For example, I just made a presentation on this where I see a lot of new artists, they'll put hashtags, #PMUartists. If you think about it, who are the people that are going to click on the #PMUartists? Right. Other PMU artists, right? And that's not the.
[00:52:01.440] - Victoria Glam
People that- Clients don't know what PMU is.
[00:52:03.380] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah, exactly. They think everything is microblading.
[00:52:05.740] - Victoria Glam
Microblading. A microblading artist. Yeah, that's funny. You're right about that. You know what else? I think that people who do these follow for follow trains' you're killing yourself in the algorithm because you're telling Instagram that the people who want to follow you are other PMU artists. You're not going to get more clients that way. It's silly to say like, Oh, yeah, I'm looking to grow my account. I'm a brand new artist. Would you guys want to follow me? I'll follow you back. You're trying to do the algorithm wrong.
[00:52:34.580] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Exactly. Or they'll look up the hashtags PMU artists and then engage with other PMU artists when, in fact, we should be engaging with people in the community. A quick tip on that is look for geotags for really popular places in your city. If you're in Las Vegas, Nevada, click on Las Vegas, Nevada. It's a lot of work for sure, but it's a grind and hustle in the beginning. But look for maybe people who are posing in your city and you're like, Maybe you should look better with some Combo Brothers.
[00:53:01.910] - Victoria Glam
I don't think I would text you. I don't think I would comment that you would look better with your brow.
[00:53:05.930] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
No, I'm not saying comment her. You have a nice- I was like, like her post, like her post, like somebody that you know in your mind that would look better with the ComboP.
[00:53:14.930] - Victoria Glam
Danny, you're supposed to be an amazing marketer. I've been hyping you up this whole time. We're invited to go to tourists on #LasVegas and tell them.
[00:53:26.010] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Okay, Las Vegas is the wrong example. There's too many tourists here. Do you find.
[00:53:30.750] - Victoria Glam
That hashtags are still driving content? I don't think.
[00:53:35.140] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
You know what? I would say yes and no. It is driving content. Sometimes people do look at hashtags and then they'll engage in common and things like that. But it hasn't been such a driving factor where we're like, Oh, my God, you have to use this strategy. We've always been the paid people, meaning spend money to make money, spend money to get in front of the right people. The way that we always like to look at it, too, is organic works really well, but we like to look at it as, again, the cherry on top. You're using paid traffic to get more people, more eyeballs into your page, but your organic content should give people a reason to actually stay. That's also another thing because sometimes we get artists with really shitty pages. It's just all before and after. When I say shitty, I don't mean to be insulting. I'm just saying it's really boring. It doesn't give people a reason to.
[00:54:31.020] - Victoria Glam
Actually- It doesn't convert well.
[00:54:32.400] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
It doesn't convert well. Yeah, nobody knows who you are. Nobody sees who's behind the chair. Sometimes it's.
[00:54:37.180] - Victoria Glam
Just- I tell you what, these are the biggest offenders. It's only before and after, so it could be anybody who does microblading. It does not matter that it's you. Nobody knows who you are. It's only before and after. And by the way, they're mediocre. And the other one is people who post their personal life to their feed where it lives forever. So when somebody comes across your profile and they start scrolling, they see your dinner, and your kids, and the outfit you bought, and that you went to St. Lucia last year, but they don't see the work that you do.
[00:55:06.060] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
That.
[00:55:06.970] - Victoria Glam
Is no brain. I think it's okay to put personal stuff in your story because that's people who already follow you. You're just keeping your warm, leads warm and building community. You can interact there, ask questions, have conversations, whatever. But on your feed, your feed is like you said, it's a portfolio. It should be what you would want to show a stranger when they said, What do you do for a living?
[00:55:27.280] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
And.
[00:55:28.000] - Victoria Glam
There are a lot of shitty profiles that don't convert. There are a lot of them. And that's the hardest thing, I think, when you're coaching is like training someone on social media. What you actually should post and what you shouldn't post. Well, you told me not to do that. I said not to do it on your feed. You still have to be a person.
[00:55:46.300] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
And.
[00:55:47.370] - Victoria Glam
Just before and after is not enough. It's not enough.
[00:55:51.340] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. I think the biggest piece of advice here, I think from both of us is you got to put yourself out a lot more. I think a lot of the people who are newer, they again have this mentality of I just want to be an artist behind the chair and not have to be in front of the camera or anything like that. But I feel like in 2024, if you're not doing that, there's no way that you're going to cut through all of that noise.
[00:56:13.650] - Victoria Glam
Listen, if that's really what you want, if you're really dedicated to this idea of, I don't want to have to actually put myself out there and do the work. I don't want to run Facebook ads. I don't want to commit to filming days for marketing. I just want to show up and do my work and go home, then get hired by somebody who will do the work. If that's not an option for you, then hire someone who will do the work.
[00:56:34.850] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
You got to cut that into a 60-second reel and pin it on your feet. I'm sorry, I just said- You've ruined it. Love it.
[00:56:44.750] - Victoria Glam
Oh, my God, I love you. All right. Well, Danny, if people are interested in hiring someone who will do all the heavy lifting for them, or if they're interested in PMU World where they can go and meet and network with like-minded individuals, where can people find you?
[00:56:58.860] - Danny Tran | Highstoke Media
Yeah. We're super active on Instagram. We post multiple times throughout the day. For the High Stoke Media side, if you are a permanent makeup artist and you want to grow and scale your business to the next level, contact us on Instagram is H-I-G-H, S-T-O-K-E, M-E-D-I-A, High Stoke Media. It's not High Stroke. Everyone thinks there's an R in it. Yeah, they do. There's no R, just High Stoke Media. And for PMU World, we're going to... Well, I don't know when this podcast is going to get released, but we have the dates locked already and we're going to announce that very soon. Pmu World Live, PMUW-O-R-L-D-L-I-V-E, shoot us a message on Instagram or you can go to pmudworldlive. Com. All of the updates are there. You can sign up for the waitlist and tickets will be launched very shortly here.
[00:57:46.870] - Victoria Glam
Exciting. Thank you so much, Danny. I appreciate you making time for us today. And everyone else, I will see you next week.
