Rigid And Jazzy With Genevieve Day

Josh: The Daily Talk Show. It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 322.

Tommy: What is going on?

Genevieve: It's a lot of episodes.

Tommy: It is.

Josh: Genevieve Day, welcome to the show. Genevieve, as we sort of say.

Genevieve: Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Josh: Oh, no worries.

Tommy: The clap thing, I think you need to clarify.

Genevieve: Yeah, we need some context into that.

Tommy: Like an applause? No, we're clapping out the syllables in names. Josh said that there's too many in Genevieve. So he'll reduce it now to Jen.

Genevieve: We're gonna go to Jen now.

Josh: Eventually.

Tommy: We're there.

Josh: Yeah, 'cause there's certain people like Daniels and Andrews, names that specifically they don't, there's some people who don't like to be Andy or Jen.

Genevieve: Yeah, totally. But they're a little bit weird about that. I'm fine. Jen's so fine.

Josh: Yeah, great.

Tommy: I'm cool with that.

Josh: You're cool with that? I'm glad we're cool with it.

Tommy: Hey, just—

Josh: Tommy gets the other way.

Tommy: It's not, you don't want me to call you Andy? I'm calling you Andy.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, part of the thing is people will call Tommy Tom.

Tommy: Yeah, I get it.

Genevieve: Yeah, that's weird though.

Tommy: Well, it's weird because when you introduce yourself, hi, I'm Tommy, and then they resort to Tom, which is a different name.

Genevieve: It's not a nickname. Yeah, that's not you.

Tommy: Yeah, my real name's Thomas, but they don't ever go to Thomas. So it's like, yeah, I get Tom a lot.

Josh: It's a rapport killer.

Genevieve: It depends on the setting. Like professionally, I'll always lead with Genevieve just to really be like asserting myself over the other person.

Josh: Yeah.

Genevieve: And then no, I'm like, yeah, cool, Jen's fine.

Josh: Yeah, well, I heard that you actually in jobs, you make more money if you have a nickname. Oh really? So I started signing off my emails JJ. I used to always say Josh.

Tommy: Interesting. I get TJ, people are picking up on that.

Genevieve: TJ's cool.

Tommy: When am I getting paid more? I mean, we own the business, but it's—

Josh: Never. For people who don't know Jen. Which is a lot of people. You've got a business called Dame Management.

Genevieve: Yes.

Josh: People would know you through the influence you have of the people in your team. Jemma Watts is actually—

Genevieve: isn't in my team.

Josh: She's not on the books.

Genevieve: She isn't on the books.

Josh: What an awkward start. This is a nightmare. You got Sarah Holloway?

Genevieve: Yeah, Sarah Holloway. We've got Tully Smyth.

Josh: Okay, great.

Genevieve: From MasterChef, The Real Dads of Melbourne, Jessa Lizzie, Kristy Hu. The list does go on.

Josh: Yeah.

Genevieve: Um, so yeah, we kind of work with a whole range of top tier.

Josh: Fucked it already.

Tommy: Is the management role like the—

Josh: she follows you on Instagram.

Tommy: The one—

Genevieve: we're good friends.

Tommy: The one Is it the position with the less pressure of the influence?

Genevieve: I would say it's way more pressure.

Josh: Oh really?

Genevieve: No, it's a different role. So we kind of connect them with the brands, you got this sponsored content and get them new roles as media personalities and MCs and taking them from just doing Instagram and doing heaps more than that as well. So kind of elevating them to be brand ambassadors and get them paid for the jobs that they love doing. But it's a whole different kettle of fish. They have to look beautiful all the time and they have to be presentable and be posting and do heaps of content creation. And I just sit at a desk. Yeah. And I'm like, here's your brief, here's what you're getting paid, make it work.

Tommy: No, that's good. I saw your, uh, your Rockstar article in the AFR.

Genevieve: Oh, thank you so much.

Josh: Have we got the copy? Where is the copy?

Tommy: I actually left it downstairs.

Genevieve: What?

Tommy: Well, Mr. 97 said I'll run down. I said no, I don't want to be too keen.

Genevieve: Oh, go and get it.

Josh: Well, it's probably good to be like dropping it in cafes opened on that page.

Tommy: Well, I did think that maybe you would then see it, be like, oh, someone's reading the AFR. Yeah, it was— I love the article because it was, um, had Jules Lund in it too. And so it was like he's representing that sort of tech space of influencer marketing.

Genevieve: Yeah, the micro content creators as he calls it, yeah.

Tommy: Yeah, and you've got that blend of the old school management in a new school field.

Genevieve: Totally, more kind of like the top tier personalities is what we kind of call it.

Tommy: How have you found since starting Dame Management, like the space? 'Cause I read something that you had said that you spent a lot of the first years explaining what the hell influencer marketing was.

Genevieve: Totally, well it was really educational 'cause we launched in 2015. Which doesn't seem like that long ago, but also is a really long time ago.

Tommy: Mr. 97 was in diapers at that point.

Josh: Still is today.

Genevieve: Can I actually clarify, were you born in '97 or that was your ENTER score? No, that was my ATAR. Oh, sorry, ENTER is an old thing. Born in 1999. Okay, so really not that different. That's fine. Yeah, so launch in 2015 and influencer marketing was really new and Instagram as a platform was really new as well in the sense that like they didn't have Instagram storeys yet. There wasn't like the backend data that we had that we have at our fingertips now. So there wasn't like a business profile. You just posted and were like, here's me in a bikini. And it was really easy to get growth on there. And so brands were loving it and no one was really charging for it or knew the value. So we didn't really have as much like facts to back up the value and the ROI what we're doing. So a lot of it was me kind of explaining to people like, hey, this will totally work for your brand. And it's a really effective marketing platform and way to go about it. But it took a while to convince people.

Tommy: Who were the hardest people to convince? 'Cause I could imagine people that are marketing managers that are spending spending big dollars on TV advertising were probably the hardest eggs.

Genevieve: It was hard. It was almost like the more corporates and the old school ad teams were really hard to convince. It was really linear in the beginning in the sense that like we worked with fashion, female fashion influencers only. And we worked with fashion brands and it was like a really obvious alignment. It's like, oh, she's wearing a dress from Forever New and that's paid on Instagram. Whether nowadays it's like, oh, we're working with a travel insurance company about her upcoming trip to Coachella and she's a fashion blogger. And it's kind of a lot more like integrated and interesting in that sense. So it was really like, yeah, the fashion and beauty were first to market and now it's like Australia Post and Officeworks and the government. So yeah, it's kind of an interesting mix now that people understand it and they come with bigger budgets and more understanding of it.

Tommy: If we had $50K to give to you, could we get Mr. 97 out there through you?

Genevieve: Ooh, okay.

Tommy: If we ran a campaign to get him famous?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, totally, that's fine. We charge an agency fee plus GST.

Josh: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, always plus GST.

Genevieve: Of course. No, we kind of work with people that already have an established presence online. Oh, that stinks.

Tommy: Oh, that's gonna stink.

Genevieve: So soon, soon, bro.

Josh: He's got 160 followers and they're a very tapped in sort of audience.

Tommy: He knows it's women. So if you need to flog a product, it's not your usual influencer, but it's maybe dating products.

Genevieve: There's definitely potential here. I can sell anything. I can totally sell you.

Josh: I mean, what's your relationship with selling things? Do you like sales?

Genevieve: Oh my gosh. I like live for the hustle.

Josh: Yeah.

Genevieve: Yeah, so I have no professional experience in sales or anything. I did a PR and communications degree and I worked in PR for 5 and a half years. And I always was like a little hustler. Even like growing up, I was that person who'd like go to the Vodafone guy. I was 13. I'm like, can you do a better price on this? That was just me.

Josh: Yeah, I think we were very similar between that and debating. 'Cause you got into debating as well.

Genevieve: I love debating.

Josh: It's great.

Genevieve: You just get to argue with people and win.

Josh: Yeah, were you big on like cue cards and stuff? Did you have sort of certain strategies around?

Genevieve: I was more about the theatrics. So I'd have a couple of dot points and be like, listen here.

Josh: Yeah.

Genevieve: Affirmative team. So yeah, no, it's just kind of like the hustle was always fun and I love convincing people. And so even in PR, it's a similar kind of ball game in where you're pitching something to them and you're like, hey, you should write about my client in your newsletter and newspaper and here's why. And now it's like, hey, you should work with our influencer and here's why.

Josh: Yeah. From your perspective, where's podcasts at in regards to actually making money?

Genevieve: Yeah, so it's really interesting because I kind of had these flashbacks when we launched the podcast this year. We launched in January with the Shameless Girls, friends of the show. We also have, yeah, Sarah Holloway's C is the A, and we just signed Danny Kennedy's The Fitness and Lifestyle Podcast, a bit of diversity there. But it's that same like educational element where we're like, hey, podcasts are now how you can market to people and it's got a 61% ROI versus Instagram 7%. But people still are a bit unsure and a bit cautious 'cause they don't understand it.

Josh: Do you think that, like, do you have hope in that, you know, being a thing? Or do you think that it's—

Genevieve: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like, it's absolutely happening now. And we're actually— I'm saying Australia's first influencer agency to launch a podcast arm.

Josh: Yeah.

Genevieve: Because I can't see anyone else doing it. Please come to the table if you are.

Tommy: Yeah.

Genevieve: And I'll fight you.

Josh: No.

Tommy: She'll debate you and kick your ass.

Genevieve: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: I'd love to do a debate segment on the show. That would be good fun.

Tommy: Who launched their podcast arm first?

Genevieve: Yeah, day management.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, no, I will back you on that one.

Genevieve: Yeah, thank you so much.

Josh: And so the— and so doing a podcast, um, what does it actually entail? What does it mean for your business? Is there any changes?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of like they're the new influencers, or they're a new kind of group of people who are influencers and have influence over consumers. So that's how we view them, as opposed to like a network having podcasts and looking at like a radio ad. We see it more aligned with their demographic and tailoring it in that kind of way and packaging it up so it's with social media and it's with the Facebook groups and Instagram and the EDMs and everything. So it's more immersive. And it's definitely working. We're seeing great results with the Shameless Girls in particular. We just had their live shows last month, which were crazy. So it shows people wanna have that interaction and get brands in the flesh and also on Instagram and on the podcast.

Josh: Yeah, well, that's what made me have the spotlight on you in regards to the Shameless stuff because they were, pulling off these massive events. And then I saw like your name being tagged in all of the stuff. The event thing, what's been the learning of putting on an event versus say, doing direct sales with a client?

Genevieve: I mean, again, 'cause my background was in PR, I had a lot of experience in that event space. So I kind of knew what had to happen, which was really great for the girls who came from a journalism background. I'm like, where's your run sheet? And how are we gonna do this? And here's your posting requirements. So yeah, it was really helpful, but I think it just shows people wanna have a real life interaction with these online personalities. And it was really cool 'cause they again were like little celebrities in a sense that there was a line down the block to get a photo with them. And I was like the old school manager being like, okay, cool, next person now, new photo.

Josh: Fuck off, you've had one.

Genevieve: Literally, I was like, no time for your iPhone selfie, next.

Tommy: Do you find you have to be sort of a bad cop of good cop?

Genevieve: Always, yeah.

Tommy: And how do you approach it?

Genevieve: I mean, the aim of the game is to keep everybody happy. And that just isn't always possible, but that's what we kind of go for. So, and if it means that I need to be the bad cop to keep the talent as the pure good cop that everyone loves, that's totally fine. It's just kind of the roles we all take on. And sometimes you have to play hardball and that's how you get the best results for our end. But it is hard 'cause you wanna make sure the brands are happy, they keep on booking you again. You wanna make sure that the talent are happy so they stay with you as an agency.

Josh: Do you find that influencers tend to overvalue themselves or undervalue? —in regards to when you're chatting with them? Do you have to be like, "Hey, you're only gonna be getting X amount for this. I know you're thinking this," or is it the other way?

Genevieve: I mean, not my talent, but I've heard it can really fluctuate in the market what people are charging as well. Some people assume they're worth more than what the market would value them at. And we kind of move away from saying influencers in day management. I kind of talk about people with influence. So whether that's people who have a podcast or on a TV show or are a traditional blogger, they kind of have that influence. And that determines what we charge as opposed to like, oh, well you have 100,000 followers, therefore you get $1,000.

Josh: Well, Facebook has that, right? Like if you wanna just reach people, it's like you can just pay directly and have that.

Genevieve: Yeah, 'cause we're kinda charging for their face and their name and that brand affiliation as well. It's so much more than just how many people you get on Instagram.

Tommy: Well, there's things like Fyre Festival that I know rattled the industry in ways, and Jules spoke about it, just that sort of negativity or just the naysayers around, that word, that term influencers. It's the same across the board, like content creators, I feel has gone a bit stinky in some regards. Just, I think it's how long it's been around.

Josh: Talent, I think probably from my perspective, talent is a hard one because I associate talent with Tommy and I working in radio and talent was typically people who rocked up, did their job and left. And it's like, everyone's gotta be sensitive to the talent. And they're difficult. Whereas I think that the people that you're working with, even— Are you talking about Jules Lang? Yeah, hang on, give me some names here. Even though they're talent in one way, I feel like they're also entrepreneurs, they're content creators. Yeah, absolutely.

Genevieve: And I think as well, people want more from influencers now. In the beginning, it was kind of like, oh, you can be a really hot girl in a bikini, that's totally fine, let's get you on Instagram. Whether now they want people that have some more substance behind them, they want people that have a business or they're, I use the term authority a lot. So if you're an authority in like the parenting field or beauty market, and so you have to be able to back that with something and just being hot isn't enough anymore.

Tommy: Sorry, Tommy. Sorry. I just bought two new bikinis. Yeah. No, but I mean, you look at the bikini could be the catalyst to find the passion for creating like Tash Oakley. Yeah. They've launched the brand, Kayla Retinas, like all these people have found something within it. Absolutely. And I think you need to to last.

Genevieve: Yeah, absolutely. And because the opportunities are there, there's so much you can do with this massive platform where you're reaching half a million people, you'd be silly not to.

Josh: Yeah. The whole bikini influencer thing, what's your perspective on it? Do we give too much sort of voice to that side of—

Genevieve: Oh, look, I still have girls in bikinis. So I don't wanna like chastise that too much because we can still do some Cefaly campaigns. Don't worry about that. Yeah, look, there's a place in market for everybody. I kind of refer to it as an ecosystem in the sense that everyone has a lot of work in different lanes. So we do like the fashion crowd who might do the Bali shoots in bikinis. We also do like the parenting crowd who'll do stuff with Woolworths nappies. And the whole campaigns aren't always like sexy and amazing. It's kind of like there's a whole range of brands that need to be sold, need to be marketed. And I often give the really trendy ones to the girls that work with me. And I'll be like, I'm working on this head lice campaign right now. Doing Omo washing powder, so yeah.

Tommy: As a woman, do the bikini models have cut through from a brand perspective to women? Well, yeah, see now that we have Instagram. Or is it just Mr. 97 looking through their profile?

Genevieve: Yeah, 'cause are you gonna buy those bikinis? I don't know.

Tommy: I mean, it comes back to ROI. Is that good spend for a brand?

Genevieve: Look, you need to look at their stats and the backend information. That's what I love. I think we're selling so much more than just a beautiful person with a beautiful feed. We're selling that data behind it. It's a lot of data analysis. And we look at their audience and it's like, cool, how many of these are male, female? How many are in Melbourne? How many are in Australia? How old are they? And that's kind of where the spend is determined. And that's really cool for us. 'Cause even if someone only has 100,000 followers, if they're 97% female and they're all 18 to 24, that's way more effective than someone with a million that's got 70% dudes.

Tommy: The ROI conversation, I mean, It's always been around and it always will be around, but it's been hard to sort of quantify in the landscape. Now more so we've got data and stuff, but there's still that sort of space of ROI that is brand equity, is awareness, is, you know, you're seeing a post and someone's thinking about them 3 weeks later when they need to buy a bikini. Yeah. Or something like that. So it's like you can't use that as the sell from a management point of view, but I feel like you Are you having conversations around educating people on ROI that is not clear or not?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, it's always brand awareness is where the starting point is, and then that should eventually lead to sales. But we can always guarantee the awareness to that targeted audience. And then if sale is a result, awesome. But that's kind of what we can 100% sign off. And then the other byproduct of that should be sales, but that's not what we can really guarantee as a first point. Like you said, you have to see something like 7 times before you might purchase it. If you're the first post of that 7, you might not get an instant sale. It'll come kind of down the track. But I think that people and ad agencies and brands are a lot more aware of that now. And they know how to use influencers effectively. So they'll run like a campaign with 10 people and kind of space it out so that it's happening all the time, but not all in the same day. And then they get a better return from that.

Tommy: Are you a fan of Seth Godin? Do you know who he is? I actually don't. Oh, golly. You don't read books?

Genevieve: I read a lot of like chick lit.

Tommy: I read that you don't listen to podcasts.

Genevieve: That was a really old interview.

Tommy: So now you're a podcast. I mean, you've got the podcast, of course. Exactly. I was trying to look for the date of that article.

Genevieve: It was 2016. Okay. No, we were saying before, I did a lot of interviews when we first launched the agency because everyone's like, oh, what's an influencer management company? Oh, you're 24, how cool. And my like day in the life interviews were so lame. I read them now, I'm like, please take them offline. 'cause I was like, oh, I go out for brunch and I like might have a nap in the afternoon and maybe a conference call.

Tommy: How cute. Well, what day do you catch me? If I'm going to Mykonos, you've got me on a good day. Yeah. Starts out up early. But other than that, today took the kid, had some breakfast with my son, went to daycare. Yeah. Now I'm here. Exactly. Having a good chat. Seth Godin, marketing genius. He talks around sponsorship and advertisement. You know, advertisement is the they need a clear ROI. The sponsorship is buying into, you know, what the Shameless girls have created, that cyclone, you know, it's more than just the ROI. Are you having those conversations about more just sponsorship into your talent and who they are and what they've created?

Genevieve: Yeah, and it's a lot more integrated now and a lot more long-term as well. So it's much more like a longer-term campaign approach rather than it's like a one-off sponsored post. And we're finding that people want influencers to then be these brand ambassadors. Ambassadors. So for example, like Jessalizzie is a brand ambassador for Spencer Outlet Center, which saw her being in the billboards throughout the entire shopping centre and in their ad campaigns and in print media. And it's more than just the fact she has like 250,000 followers. They're like, cool, you can also be great talent for us in that sense. So it's like sponsorship advertising involved in that, as well as social media posts. And it's really immersive. So we do try and integrate all those different elements in that, which would include like the podcast if it's there, or Yeah, the social media feed, or if it's an old school photo shoot going in a magazine as an ad, and we can kind of offer everything now from the same influencers. Yeah.

Josh: Do you find that you package up your, um, your talent? So do you go to a brand and say, hey, we've got 5 people?

Genevieve: Yeah, look, the party line I always say is like complement, not compete. So I want to make sure that everyone in the agency sits alongside one another and it makes sense. No one's like, oh, why are you signed with them, what's that? But they're not competing for the same work. So if a brand comes to us and they wanna work with a range of fashion talent, we definitely have people that fit their needs, but they would never be like fighting for the same jobs. Yeah.

Josh: Who was the first hire internally in regards to like employees?

Genevieve: Yeah, well, I did it on my own for a long time because I was just like a control freak and really type A, and that is not sustainable. So yeah, I think I did it a year on my own and then I hired someone which was part-time, and then again, I was still really involved in everything. 'Cause I'm like, hey, what are you doing today? And what's on your to-do list? And then now I'm like, okay, cool, we have 3 or 4 full-time employees. We have 4, that was a little count in my head. We have 4 full-time employees, and I'm a lot more hands-off now with day-to-day stuff, and they kinda do that logistics, which will be, I might lock in a collaboration with Joe Mercer Shoes, and then they will go to the talent and be like, cool, what shoe size are you? And would you like the red boots or the black boots? And that's something that I'm not involved in anymore. Much more that bigger strategy and overseeing everything and bringing it to life.

Tommy: I remember as a, not a talent, but as someone wanting to be—

Genevieve: No, you're talented.

Tommy: When I was younger, I wanted to be with a talent management company, which would mean I was coming in not as the cleaner, as a talent wanting to get onto their books. And I remember it being a case of, you know, I remember my mission to get the conversation with them. But then I heard a podcast with Logic the rapper and his manager, and the storey of how his manager hustled to get Logic as a talent early days. Have you heard that? It's on How I Built This with Guy Raz. It's so good. I think you'll love it as a manager. But just that hustle to find Logic and the pitch that he did in those early days. What's the process for you when you see some girls like, you know, the Shameless girls?

Genevieve: Yeah, it's kind of interesting 'cause it's, you have to get in at the right time. And if they are too established, they can be a bit like, well, why would I need your help?

Tommy: I'm doing it already. You want them to pop.

Genevieve: Under your wing. Absolutely, yeah, and that's totally what happened. No, I am like a mother hen though. And it's kind of nice because I'm 28 next month, but I'm still older than a whole lot of my talent. So they're like, wow, you're so wise. Oh my gosh, what was the '90s like? So no, it is kind of nice to help them through that and like take them under my wing a little bit. But I was lucky in the sense that when we started, Instagram was newer. And so a lot of these talent had like 20,000 followers. And like Jess I mentioned before is now at 260,000. We signed her at $29,000. Or like Kristi Hu, we signed her at $14,000, now at $118,000. And so we've kind of brought them on this journey over the last 3 and a half years where we've been taking them from just doing Instagram posts to be these ambassadors for brands. And again, like, seeing their faces on billboards and activations and stuff is really cool. So we do always look for someone who is kind of about to pop, and Shameless is definitely a case of that. I approached them in December where they were just starting to pop up everywhere in my newsfeed, like, as a as a consumer, I'm like, hey, they're really cool, they've got a really nice voice, and no one's really doing this whole podcast thing. So it was a great time to get involved with that.

Tommy: Do you think that's your skill that you might not have verbalised but now you realise is your ability to identify talent? Yeah, I think so.

Genevieve: I think I have really good gut instincts, and I'll see certain things and certain people and be like, I wanna work with them. Like that's gonna be the next big thing. But at the same time we have to—

Tommy: And what do you think of Mr. 97? Just gut instinct?

Genevieve: Look, I'll give you some pointers. Oh, great. And then come back to me in 6 months.

Tommy: You had that, mate. You're not— Yeah, that's valued information.

Genevieve: People are dying for that. No, it's hard because a lot of people do come to us now as well, and it has to be the right fit for us. And there's no magic follower number. So someone might come to us with 100,000 followers, and then it's not right for the agency, or they don't have that kind of cut-through that a media personality has, or something, yeah, someone who kind of has more interests or is about to explode in that same way. So it's really difficult to balance it. And at the same time, we wanna be boutique still and wanna make sure that we don't have 55 talent on the books. We try and keep it really small and tailored to everybody. So there is kind of some exclusivity about it.

Tommy: I think it's Josh's skill of being able to identify sort of getting on board with you, Tommy.

Josh: Yeah, thanks, mate. Getting me in here. Yeah, no, definitely. What's the difference between the Australian market and the international market, do you think?

Genevieve: I mean, we pay way less. Really? Yeah, I have a couple of talent who are based in LA and New York, but they're Australian influencers. So we still work with them. Like Demi Harmon was at Home and Away. And so now she's based in LA and she's got like $330,000. Another girl of mine, Charlotte Bridgeman, is in New York, but she's a Melbourne girl. So they kind of deal with the American market over there and then deal with Australian brands through me. And we get a brief in and I'm like, oh, it's this amount of money. And they're like, oh, I know it's Australia, but like, geez, can't they pay more? I'm like, no, we can't. We don't have the, same amount of budget that you guys get.

Josh: I like that, like you're dealing with numbers day to day. So like people care about numbers, how many followers. I caught myself the other day when someone started following us and we thought it was someone with high numbers. And I caught myself saying, oh no, it's just a normal. What's the term? I think I was referring to the fact like, oh, I thought they were someone of influence. It's a normal, just like us. Just a couple of normals.

Genevieve: Don't follow them back.

Josh: Do you, like, what's been the earliest that you've picked up on someone in regards, have you seen someone at the very, very, very early stages, like 5 posts in and 100 followers?

Genevieve: Not that early. I'm not that cool enough to kind of have a finger on the pulse, I don't think. I kind of, around 20K is when you start to take notice of someone. You're like, oh, is this gonna go somewhere? And I watch them for a while and have a few interactions with them and be like, hey, here if you need.

Josh: Yeah, are there certain metrics? Like, what are you looking for in regards, like,— from a charging point of view, how does the finances actually work?—

Genevieve: Oh, it kind of goes back to the whole like people with influence can charge more than someone who is just an influencer. So even like we work with Nick Davidson, who's Sarah Holloway's fiancé, and he's obviously got that whole business authority about him, like fitness guy, and he has 11,000 followers. So like not massive, but he works with Nike and the Iconic Sport and really huge brands and gets paid quite a lot for it. Sorry, Nick, for saying that on air. But yeah, it was kind of cool to see someone with a lower follower number be able to charge that much 'cause he has influence. And that's kind of the difference there. It's not always about like a stock standard model, which some talent agencies do put out there. Yeah, you can kind of set your own depending on the person.

Josh: So I'm guessing day management would have been less affected by the algorithm then by setting up like that, do you think? Did you still see a brand still talking about the algorithm?

Genevieve: Oh my gosh, I'm so sick of the algorithm talk. Yeah, I think a lot of influencers were affected by that. And some of our engagement has been affected. And some of our girls haven't grown as much in a while, but because they set up back in 2010, some of them even, they've got this brand recognition and people know their face and know their names, that they were already established, so it doesn't really matter to them. It's so much harder starting now.

Tommy: It's hard to get a follow. I mean, you have to egg a politician to get 500,000 followers in a weekend. That's what you need to do these days. I mean, there's that classic storey of Shaquille O'Neal posting about a, car dealership where he got a free car and the car dealership got nothing.

Josh: They got like 100 new followers or whatever.

Tommy: And he's got millions and millions. So it is, it's, I mean, I think my filter, if I just think about as a consumer, as a normal, as a normal, which I am. We're all norms here. But I am not willing to follow somebody just at the drop of a hat. Yeah, you gotta work for it.

Genevieve: Yeah. Do you follow me? Yes, I do. Oh wow.

Tommy: I just followed you on LinkedIn too.

Genevieve: Oh wow, nice one.

Josh: An ad or a follow? Just a— Well, it's just that, You added—

Tommy: I requested. Hasn't accepted. So until we haven't made it official.

Genevieve: No, maybe after this, depending how this goes.

Tommy: I did see though, I searched your name and then it came up like Facebook, so I clicked on that and I had a bunch of tabs open of you, but then I went on and it was— but no, research, research. And then I clicked under the Facebook one and it had the add friend, so it wasn't actually a profile of you, but I had a moment, I was like Maybe too much adding friends. Like, it's— there's that filter where I remember the early days, Mr. 97 wasn't live, but I was adding everybody. I was a mad guy.

Josh: Well, I think everyone was that guy. I definitely— unless they were just that guy.

Tommy: Is it just a guy thing? Anyone, whoever.

Josh: And they took it extremely personal. There's been—

Tommy: there's a—

Josh: there's a cafe that I no longer go to because the barista didn't accept me on Facebook. Yeah.

Genevieve: Or the worst is like the on this day when it used to be right on someone's wall and it was kind of private. And then it's like 8 years ago you said to someone like, hey, nice seeing you out last night. Yeah, thanks for the ad.

Tommy: Oh, I've gone through and deleted.

Josh: No, do you know the worst thing? I've deleted my Facebook because it was just, it was too much. Retired from social media. Too many adding friends. No, but what I, what I realized, you know, looking back 10 years or whatever, the thing that I would do is I would straight away, like say I did a photo, I'd go into the comments and the like section and specifically in the likes section, I'd scroll down to the bottom where you see who isn't a friend of you now who liked your post. Wow. Which is just so fucked up because you end up seeing like, who have I lost in the past 10 years? So many people.

Tommy: Yeah, I get anxiety like looking at people who have liked my photos and I swipe through, I'm like, fuck, I'm not following them but they liked it. And then I'm like, I can't like add them now because they're like, hang on, what the fuck?

Josh: Yeah. You know, is there, is there a pressure to, um, build empires beyond— yeah, I reckon like they are small empires, right? Beyond Instagram, like, is that an actual strategy within the business, which is like, you need a fucking website, you need to be doing stuff that you own?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, it's— it depends on the person and where their followers are based. Like, obviously people have massive YouTube empires, um, and that's a huge place that, you know, the beauty industry and gaming and everything If their audience wants to be on Instagram and they're kind of that fashion keen audience, there's no point trying to take them to YouTube where they might not all come with you on that journey. I think people don't really want blogs anymore or fashion blogs that we work with. Like it's very rare that a brand's like, oh, can we have a blog about this please? Oh yeah, sure. Especially with like swipe up URL links, you get the same backend traffic. So it's kind of the same thing. And then Facebook groups are so successful in like the Shameless example, we can build this community and it's really engaged and amazing, but it's not, for everyone. I don't think it would work if every single influencer was like, I'm now on Facebook.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The web, the blogging thing feels like it's sort of coming gone. But Ash Williams uses it as a joke, I'm pretty sure.

Tommy: We had him on.

Josh: What did you say?

Tommy: He was just like, I wrote a blog about it. But I think he uses it as a bit of a bit of a gig. Yeah, okay. No one wants a blog, but I told him I'd write a blog if you give me a free car.

Josh: Published. But there is, there is something in that building, building the other, the thing that's not owned by one of the, the big companies. What does the contracts look like when you get talent on? What's the actual obligation for them, for you?

Genevieve: So we kind of keep it a bit loose in the sense that it's a bit like a marriage. I don't wanna be locked in with someone that you hate.

Josh: Sure, not like a MAFS. No. Do you watch MAFS? No, I actually don't.

Genevieve: I'm the worst with reality TV, considering that I have so many TV people on my books.

Josh: Yeah, I'm the worst, but then the final two, Like there was the reunion earlier in the week and stuff. Yeah, I heard all about it. It was just too much.

Tommy: I got into bed last night, my wife's on her phone. I'm like, what are you watching? She's like, who are those putrid people?

Josh: Yeah, no, it's not good. I don't feel good about it. I feel like I've like eaten junk food. It's got that same vibe.

Tommy: It is the exploitation of drongos. Like, and we're laughing at them essentially. Like we're getting caught up and laughing. And these are real people, right?

Josh: They're just normals.

Tommy: They're so caught up in their own bullshit.

Genevieve: Yeah, but the thing is, they all email me afterwards. Every Bachelor in Paradise, everything. Love Island. Did Mike reach out to you?

Josh: Because Mike was the one who spoke to Ash Williams and said, hey mate, how do you get in the media? Oh God, there's a bit of that conversation. And so it's like a marriage. So with the marriage, there's the honeymoon phase. Yeah. And you're at that with Shameless at the moment. Everyone's like, pretty in love, aren't we?

Genevieve: Yeah, a lot of posts going.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely.

Genevieve: I'm going to be careful though, because my other talent and I'm like, you're also my favorite. Yeah, it's fine.

Tommy: My wife was pregnant on her honeymoon, so, uh, what is that?

Josh: What does that say?

Tommy: Sick as hell.

Genevieve: Yeah, just a couple of mocktails then. Yeah, definitely.

Josh: Yeah, he actually produced some great videos on his honeymoon. Looked amazing. Yeah, it's just him like exploring and stuff, but Amy was at the hotel.

Genevieve: Did you do the whole like holding hand over the cliff? That's my least favourite honeymoon thing.

Tommy: I usually do it as a joke.

Genevieve: Yeah, you've got to be doing it as a joke. Yeah.

Josh: Yeah, a lot of solo content on that trip as well, which is just in the hotel room. So it's like a marriage. Yes, it's like a marriage. Do you actually sign? Like, I'm curious.

Genevieve: Paperwork for sure, um, but it's almost like if it's not working, we can end it here and walk away. Um, and it's always like we say, the greatest luxury is saying no to things. You're never going to be forced to do anything or sell anything that isn't right. Um, and so we kind of set like a little wish list and like brand no-nos as well of people that we want to avoid, like the Skinny Me Teas and like the hair gummies and those things that aren't really authentic and aim for things that do align with them really well. But yeah, it kind of just goes into like commission stuff and then how we liaise on their behalf and then just the fact they're exclusive to us as well.

Josh: Have you dealt with rebrands? I've had a rebrand personally. Oh, what's a rebrand? So I used to be 120 kilos and I used to have different glasses. Thank you. And I looked quite— there's a photo of me on an elephant in Thailand. Uh, which is very different. Yeah, the poor elephant. Absolutely. And have you— because for instance, uh, Tully, did you say she was on your book? She still is. Yeah. Yeah. Um, she's someone who didn't really think much of, comes from Big Brother, all that sort of thing. Then I hear her on Shameless, I'm like, I've completely like judged this person based on being a reality— well, yeah, being like the— like how we've judged the maths people essentially, or whatever. But she's actually like got heaps of insights and super intelligent and all that sort of thing. Have you had to do specific work on, oh, this person's come from this space?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, I think with Tully, it's different in the sense that, and I'll have to preface this, she's also one of my best friends. So I'm a little bit biassed here. But no, she kind of came from a space where she was the original reality TV starlet. And she was one of the first to have the social media presence from a TV show. She didn't go in there to get that, where the people I think en masse now on Love Island, like, I wanna be an influencer, like I wanna get free bikinis. So it's a little bit different then, but she's obviously maintained it for so long and proven that she has this relevance still. So people wanna hear from her. And even if it is the Daily Mail writing about her every single day, like she's in the media, she's newsworthy. And she has a lot of substance to her. So I think, again, some education to brands sometimes being like, here's what she's actually about, here's what she actually engages with her audience about. But once they're sold, they're sold on it.

Josh: Is there an active way to rebrand or It's not even a rebrand, but a repositioning within media?

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just being careful of like who you align yourself with, what causes, what events, and then how you're portraying yourself online every single day. And with that like consciously in mind, you can shift perceptions of you, yeah.

Tommy: Well, if you ever do a stocktake on your brand, like if you just stop and like— Should we do it all now? Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I could think about mine. I mean, it's probably better for you guys to do it.

Josh: A couple of normals.

Tommy: A couple of normals doing it about the talent over here. No, but if you were to— so we are all responsible for how people are perceiving us in some respects. We're influencing the way we're being sort of taken in by others.

Josh: You've had a rebrand though, TJ. Have I? Like even I think Jules pointed out, like you've gotten— like you were, I think, positioned at the start when we started this podcast as the larrikin dude or whatever. Yeah, the loose unit or whatever. Is that still the case? Well, I think that no, I reckon it's moving to. I reckon I'm becoming more like Tommy. Tommy's becoming more like me. Like, I think we're sharing— well, no, I think that like we're like, it's a— maybe we don't have to always be— Tommy doesn't always have to be the larrikin. Maybe it's being a dad, you rebrand naturally from being a dad. Yeah, definitely. But I think like the ability to, um, to realize, oh, like I'm different. Like Shepparton, for instance, when you're in Shepparton doing the breakfast show It's not like you're doing, you know, big long interviews and all that sort of stuff.

Tommy: No, there's a relearning there, but we're a product of the people we hang around. And so if like we all develop and we have a chance to change because we actually internally have changed, we internally think new things, absolutely, we want to go down different paths. But I think my brand, if you call it, was me actually stepping over the hurdle of working out what the fuck I am about as a person. And so you kind of end up there and sometimes people land the reality shows and then they work it out after.

Josh: But there's been this, which is so much, it's like big PR push when you're 120 kilos on an elephant. Could you imagine if I was that, if I'd gone on, what was the show with the Bogans who go overseas? They do like—

Tommy: Recently, the travel logs or something.

Josh: For some reason I've had A Current Affair a lot on my TV at home. Why? I think it's like Bree is pushing back on my YouTube addiction. Okay. So I have, I always have YouTube on, specifically this guy named Howard Stern in the US. And so Bree always is like, can we watch free-to-air TV? And so there's been a lot of Tracy Grimshaw in my life. Anti-YouTube. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, there's 100% the pushback of that. But I don't know what, I don't know what question, I don't even know what the question was. There's no happy medium. Medium there. Yeah, the, um, yeah, the Bogans. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so from a branding point, talking about the branding thing, how would you describe your brand?

Genevieve: Oh, so this is so hard because I hate this whole deck. Yeah, I'm like, actually, thank you for asking me. Um, no, I think as well because I launched in 2015, like I said, and I was 24 when I launched the company. I launched on my birthday. Um, and when's your birthday?

Josh: May 18th. May 18th. What star sign is that? I'm a Taurus.

Genevieve: Taurus, very stubborn, headstrong. Yep, just like really good at things.

Tommy: Okay. Yeah, and thinks she's good at things.

Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, self-belief, it's in the stars, I can't deny it. Um, yeah, it's hard because I think back then as well you care more about like superficial things and you want to be going to like the Birdcage and the races and you want to go to the Portipolo, which I still do that, but it's like that would give me like all the thrills and like, oh my God, I'm so cool, I'm hanging out with this person, I'm a amazing. Where now you kind of grow up organically and then grow up in your business where you get more secure in that and you're like, I don't really need to go to that event to have a good business model. And I can just like hang out at home and still be okay. Like for example, we just had the fashion festival, VAMP, which is like the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival last month. And I just didn't go to any of the shows. Where usually I'd be like frothing on that and sitting front row and getting all the street style photographers like, look at my cool outfit. And now I'm like, nah, that's cool. We'll do heaps of jobs around it, like you guys can nail it, you can go and I'll just sit back here and just hang out on the couch at home. That seems like the dream.

Josh: What's the shift for you though?

Genevieve: Well, that's kind of like my personal brand shift. So now I'm more like—

Tommy: But I think it's an internal shift.

Genevieve: Yeah, but it also is reflected when like you are your business and you are your brand. So I think it's more about the business for me and I can kind of hide behind a management, not hide behind it, but just like have that being at the forefront.

Tommy: Is there more fulfilment in that than you saw in going to these events and getting that sales spike? Yeah, totally.

Genevieve: Yeah, and I think I've always been really driven in like the business side of things, and I've always wanted that kind of career push. So that's like a lot of satisfaction out of that, I think. And so that's very much my brand now. I wanna be seen as like the business authority on things as opposed to just being like someone at fun parties.

Josh: Are there people around you that are saying you're doing a disservice by not going to these events? You need to be at them, you need to be seen, you need to do it for the clients.

Genevieve: No, they're probably like, "You're cold, you're not there anymore." No, actually, Thank goodness that doesn't happen. I think I've got enough of an established name in the industry and my company name that I don't have to go there all the time. In the beginning, it definitely was beneficial that I was at like every restaurant opening and every movie premiere. It's like, hey, here's me in a media wall again, like another photo on my Instagram with my hand on my hip. So yeah, I think it's okay now to kind of take a step back and just be the business.

Tommy: There's also like what's cool, you know, when you're young. Yeah. It was very much, I was in the same, space of like, I thought, you know, being all these events with these celebrities is like by association it's cool. But so as you get older, it's like going from school to, you know, now it's like having a business is cool, having responsibility, and yeah, having a mortgage is pretty cool. Well, it does change, right? It's like what's cool once is not now cool at all.

Genevieve: It's still cool, and like I don't want to be like really taking advantage of it and taking it for granted and thinking that yeah, it's nothing anymore. Like it's still really cool, those events are awesome. But so are couches.

Josh: Yeah, couches are cool. A coffee. Have you got a good couch?

Genevieve: We have a really good couch.

Josh: Yeah, I haven't invested in a good couch yet. I'm sort of like at the sub-thousand-dollar couch. You've got to invest in a good couch.

Tommy: What's an investment? What do you have to make here?

Josh: I think like a good couch is probably around the $5,000.

Genevieve: Yeah, we hit around the $3K mark. Yeah, but again, like hustler story, they delivered the wrong coloured legs for us. Bullshit. Yeah, I called them up and I'm like, what do you mean refund? Well, we got like half the money back because of like inconvenience. We had to wait like 2 and a half weeks at the legs. They still had the legs, just were not the right color. And my boyfriend's just like mortified. He's like, stop calling them. It's okay, it's fine. I'm like, it's not okay. We paid for this, we requested it, and we got like all this money back.

Tommy: So both of you two, pain in the asses.

Josh: No, well, I think Bree is more like that, my girlfriend. Like she's at the moment like having it out with our property manager. What for? What do you want? Well, because the air— we asked about the aircon hasn't been working. Like we've got 3 aircons, just one of the rooms isn't working. Who needs 3 aircons? I know, it's a small apartment. We don't need it. One of the aircons isn't working and one of the cupboards just flings open a little bit and that was there at the start and we mentioned it hasn't been fixed, but it all came to a head this morning because— When you vacated? No, well, Bri has been like, she's like, I can't believe it. Like someone was meant to come out on Wednesday and no one's coming out or whatever. But it just feel at the same time, I feel like there's a lot of energy that's put into that. From Bree's end where I'm just like, can we just, like if you imagine like mornings for like gratitude and meditation and what's the thing, that's one end of the spectrum and then there's like a big fuck you to the property manager. And I feel like there's diminishing returns at the end, but I understand that it's not like, it doesn't bother me that much. As a business—

Genevieve: You just get the win though. Like I'm always about the win. I'm like, how can I dominate the situation to get the result that I want? And I'll put all my energy in this. And everyone always teases me because like, you have so many things to worry about. Yeah, you're so busy and this is what you're doing with your time.

Tommy: What is— I mean, outside of the chair legs, uh, what's a worry as a business owner for you? Because I think we all have them in different ways.

Genevieve: I mean, I think everyone's like, oh, what happens if Instagram dies tomorrow? Like, you'll be out of a job.

Josh: Um, what if you die tomorrow? Yeah, exactly.

Genevieve: I'm like, shut up, Susan. Um, so yeah, I think you have to just trust the industry in that we look at the trends and it's been just like doubling every single year for the last 4 years, which is awesome. And our peak period is kind of like, oh, September until June, which is most of the year is peak season. 'Cause of like key calendar events, we've got like Spring Racing Carnival and Christmas and Mother's Day and everything like that and the fashion festivals. So I think just trusting that the work will come in as well as we proactively pitch for it and it will also land in our lap a little bit. So I think there is a bit of worry there sometimes, like, are we having a quiet month? What's gonna happen? Like, what if we don't make as much? As much, but yeah, it's been really great.

Tommy: Is this a pattern that's happened? Like I know for Josh and I, we can get in this moment where we're just, okay, work, we need more, we're like blah, blah, blah. We sort of get a bit anxious about it. We get it all out. And then all of a sudden we get calls.

Genevieve: Yeah, totally.

Tommy: But it's like, that's the pattern that I've realized. And I know I've done it when I had my own business.

Genevieve: Is that similar thing for you? I think you can push and push, but unless people are ready to give you those campaign jobs, it doesn't matter. Make any difference. So as long as we're like top of mind to them, there's definitely a lot of proactive work that happens just to be considered for a lot of work. But also they'll be like, yeah, we'll talk to you when we're ready. Like, Jen, we know that you exist, it's okay, like calm down, we'll come to you.

Tommy: We want these balls up in the air. And I think that's what you sign up for as a business owner, right?

Genevieve: Totally. And like having staff, it is stressful. You've got to pay their wages and their super and you've got costs of rent and equipment and everything. So there's definitely like hard costs to consider, but I'm less stressed now than I was when I started, for sure.

Josh: Was it a big jump for you getting an office space?

Genevieve: Yeah, I used to work from home, and that was just— it was the best slash the worst. Like, I was the person that, like, you know, when Game of Thrones came out like 11 AM on a Tuesday, I was like, perfect, here we go. Like, I'd watch it straight away.

Josh: Couchlings aren't perfect, but I'll deal with it.

Genevieve: Yeah, I think— yeah, but that was more like from my bed even. I was like, why leave? I'm already here, the laptop's fine. Um, so yeah, I worked from home a lot, and wasn't super productive and I'd go to like a cafe sometimes, like, wow, I got a lot of work done there. So I do love the office for that and kind of walking in there, having meeting spaces and stuff. It's a lot better than my home.

Josh: Do you like nostalgia? Do you get nostalgic about things?

Genevieve: I mean, yeah, I think we all do a little bit, being like a '90s baby.

Josh: Yeah, 'cause Tommy's not really into talking about school. He hated school. Oh, I just love talking about school.

Tommy: Is it an '88 thing? I'm in the '80s.

Genevieve: I've actually been like waiting to bring up the ATAR thing. Yeah, how did you go? Really well. So I actually understand this guy. Like, I really feel for you because my parents told me to take my ENTAScore off the fridge. They were like, honey, we're so proud of you, but it's January. Like, January of the—

Josh: like, 2 years later? I feel like January is not that long. I got like a 40-something. What did you get?

Genevieve: Well, it's embarrassing to say it because like it's 10 years ago, but like 98.55. Oh, 98.55. Although, guys, the thing though, My sister got 99.25. Wow, so annoying. It's the two of us. I also won the Humanities Prize. Stop it.

Josh: And what did Zara get? Oh yeah, Zara and Michelle both got in 99s, 90-somethings.

Genevieve: Yeah, I want to know what they got now.

Josh: They had it on their LinkedIn and I did a LinkedIn stalk and then they took it down. That's lame. Yeah, well, that's why. Yeah, that's why.

Genevieve: They need a brand, like a rebranding for that.

Josh: You were telling us before though that at the age of 15, you were in some form of troupe. I can just imagine like, you know, in South Korea they have the big like dancing troops and they're all dressed to do it, mate, or they get killed. No, that's North Korea. Ah, yep.

Genevieve: Oh yeah, I get confused too. Yep, north and south, you know. No, so it's kind of like a little past life. People don't really know this about me, but when I explain it, they're like, we are not surprised. Yeah. So I did a lot of like performing arts and musical theatre growing up, and I was also dance captain in year 12. It's fine. And I did like the Young Australian Broadway Chorus, YABC for those playing at home. And so when I was 15, I like toured America with YABC. We toured this musical across the States and I performed at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. What was the musical? It was called The Silver Donkey. Who was this?

Josh: Were you the silver donkey or no? No, no.

Genevieve: But, um, Rhiannon Fish was the lead and she then went on to do like Home and Away and she was on Dancing with the Stars and now she's done a TV show in the States. So I'm like, pretty good calibre of people.

Josh: How long was the, the whole tour?

Genevieve: I think it was 3 weeks. Yeah, yeah. So I missed a week of school, which is pretty wild.

Tommy: It did nothing but cost your parents a shitload of money.

Genevieve: Yeah, well, I mean, it was worth my exposure.

Josh: It's totally fine.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, these are the investments parents have to make.

Josh: I went to a Pavot school, so we didn't have— we didn't get to go to the school spectacular thing. Oh yeah, were you one of those schools? Did you do school spectacular?

Genevieve: We didn't do the school spectacular. We did our own performing arts festival called PAF at Rod Laverill. Yeah, fireworks going up everywhere. No, but it was pretty fun. We all had like our house dance competitions and we won a few of them. And then obviously I was robbed one year, I didn't win. And it was described to me, one of the teachers was like, "Oh, sorry, Jenna, it's a bit like quicksand. They were just all sucking you down with them." I'm like, "Well, I know it's a group activity. It's only one star." What was university like?

Josh: Do you think you're a team player or are you more of an individual?

Genevieve: Oh, see, uni was hard because I already had a full-time job in PR. So I started working in PR when I was 18. I went straight from school into this internship. And I did like really menial tasks in the beginning. I was like packing up press kits and getting coffee and stuff. And they got me to help out with some copywriting and were like, "Oh, you're not half bad." And they got me back to do more days of the week and everything. So I kind of evolved into doing part-time work there during my degree at RMIT. And then I was working like full-time when people were on annual leave. And so I kind of didn't care about uni that much. So they'd be in a class like, oh, here's how you write a media release. And I'm like, yeah, duh, I know. So it was kind of hard. I didn't do as well at uni, which is like tough for my parents. But you finished? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, see Mr.

Josh: 97. It lasted 3 months.

Genevieve: What do you mean?

Josh: Was it 3 months or 2 months? How long did it last? 1 month?

Tommy: No, 6 months. But then he took the internship with us. Just a plain business degree. Okay. It's a similar route. He took the internship, now he works full-time with us. Yeah.

Josh: Oh, nice one. Yeah. But when you're— when you're hiring people, what, what are you looking for?

Genevieve: Oh my gosh, staff are really hard. It's, it's tricky because the skill set isn't always like on paper what it's going to be. And, you know, I came from a PR background, but some people who come from that PR background aren't that kind of like hustling savvy sales that we need.

Josh: There's really two types of PR, isn't there? Like, it's actually like PR can make me cringe in some regards, and then you have the— like, I almost feel like what you're doing, you can't even call PR anymore. Totally. 'Cause it has so many sort of, you just, I remember one PR person said, I just do the rah rah. I'm just the rah rah. Oh my gosh. And I was like, yeah, you are just the rah rah. But I don't think that that's what you need to do in this day and age. You can't just be rah rah.

Genevieve: And there's a lot of just like, oh, we'll throw an event and invite some models down and like, ta-da, we've launched your brand. So we did a lot more like the strategy and the media pitching and we, did a lot of like media famils, which is a familiarisation trip to like hotels. I worked for a lot of luxury hotels. And I actually hosted one of the first like InstaMeet is what it was called. I think I was like 23 or 22 maybe. I went to Bali and it was just me by myself with this 5-star resort chain. And we had like Lindy Klim, Nadia Bartel, Tully was there. So all these kind of celebrities and I was like, hi, and welcome to Bali, please Instagram this hotel. And that was kind of our job. Yeah, really integrated with like old school print media and social media as well.

Tommy: The degrees now that you can get at university, like the PR degrees, how much do you think they're relevant? 'Cause I know that was Mr. 97's annoyances that a marketing degree is taught by old school heads that have no idea about the new age, the new media space.

Genevieve: I think that's why RMIT is good because they're all actually in the industry and they actually are doing stuff in real time. They're not just like, oh, 20 years ago I wrote a media release. So yeah, look, I think it's nice to have the piece of paper. I'm glad I've got the piece of paper. But that being said, the fact that I had the experience got me where I am.

Tommy: Do you look for the piece of paper in hiring people? Not really.

Genevieve: No. So maybe I'm a hypocrite. Oh, I think I just want someone that's quite savvy and knows the industry and knows the trends. So if they're like following lots of influencers and they can see what's cool and what's coming up, that's more important to me than someone that's like, oh, I did like 75 masters. There's an intuitive thing. Nature to it. Yeah, totally. What you're looking for. I might just be cool, be cool, have your finger on the pulse. That's it.

Josh: What's, what's your relationship with free shit? Do you, uh, I like it. Yeah. Is there being something like— because I know that, you know, brands can send people things all the time. Yeah. And it's not necessarily expected that they say something about it or whatever, but it's a nice, nice to have. I know Bree working at a chocolate business, it's like she knows that there's people who have influence, or not even have influence, but people that she just likes who she thinks will like the brand. And it doesn't necessarily matter whether, like, she never has the expectation that it's gonna be posted about. And that's what's like quite weird because it's like, she's talking later in the week to some people about like how she does it. It's like, well, you just sort of like have to be friends with people and give people things and not expect anything.

Genevieve: Yeah, and she actually sent some stuff to our office after I stalked her and found out where she worked. And so we were like, oh, why we have the random package from this company for the Real Dads of Melbourne. And then we give it to them and I'm like, you don't have to post anything, they're not paying us. And they did anyway, of course. So it's kind of hard. If it's a good alignment, you can send free stuff and get free coverage. We usually just say like, look, they're so busy and they have so much sponsored content to shoot as well. We can't guarantee if you're just gonna send us a gift that we'll post it. So yeah, a lot of brands, if they want specific exposure, they'll just like, cool, just fork out the money.

Josh: Well, chocolate brands are so good 'cause they're experiential, right? So Bree speaking to people who are like, they might have a digital product. It's like really fucking hard if you've got an app.

Tommy: Yeah, to share. Yeah, the hard thing is it's so good, the chocolate, you could eat it before you post about it.

Josh: Then you still have the good-looking post. But there's no expectation. I remember Holden contacted me and I did this whole, I used to have a blog called Melbourne Geek. Oh, okay. And I finished it in like 2012. And then 2 years ago, so it would have been 2017, they contacted me and said, "Hey, we want to send you to the Yarra Valley and to do like content." I was like, "Hey, I haven't posted on here in like years or whatever." And they're like, "Oh, if you just post on Instagram." Like I've got like, I had no following at the time. It was just, it was a bit of a, it felt like, it just felt like a bit of a joke from my point of view.

Tommy: Don't do it, don't beat yourself up. They needed to spend that cash. It was a weird thing.

Josh: Do you remember how weird it was? It was bloody weird. You were very vague on the details because I was vague on the deal. I had no idea what was going on. Also, a car company sending me to a vineyard like on a tour.

Genevieve: The, um, drinking and driving. Yeah, it's not ideal.

Tommy: There's like that sort of—

Josh: Thank you, Holden, by the way. The Astra, beautiful car, very good. Send some more.

Tommy: Yeah, um, Frank Body are a business that built themselves around that sort of sending out free stuff. Is that on its way out in terms of the model of how Frank Body— I mean, it depends who they're targeting.

Genevieve: They do pay our influencers because they're not gonna get cut through to them for free. It's not enough for a $20 body scrub no matter how good it is. And so I think they recognise that they can send it out to some talent who will just be like, cool, I love free stuff, thank you so much. And then our kind of more higher-end top-tier people, they require payment. So yeah, the brands are recognising no matter how cool you are, no matter how much of a cult status that they have, they just need to pay.

Tommy: I think you're in a great sort of vantage point to see what works from a branding perspective as far as a product and what user-generated content will actually come from it and then seeing what influencers will do and what are willing to do. Have you got your eyes on like creating some kind of product or, you know, offering some kind of product in the future?

Genevieve: Interesting you say that, I haven't been very public about this, but I kind of, over Christmas I took 2 weeks off.

Josh: This sounds like an exclusive. I've got an exclusive. So we're just gonna get a quiet, can we get like a vertical I've got a cool video of Jess. Should I pull up some?

Genevieve: Yeah, this is awesome.

Josh: Genevieve on it. Okay, here we go.

Genevieve: So I had 2 weeks off over Christmas. I'm like, cool, I'm gonna start a second business because what's time off? How boring. So I launched like this little jewellery label with my partner and it's just like, you know, everyone's wearing those hair clips at the moment. That's my brand. Oh, great. Yeah, so I got all my talent to wear it. I just like given them some free stuff and been like, hey, no pressure. If you like it, wear it, don't worry about it. And they all kind of wore it to the fashion festival and the Shameless girls wore it to their live shows and it's been everywhere. And it's really funny to see like the real impact from that of them just posting about it really organically, like even in the Instagram storey Q&A, just being like, oh, what are your favourite jewellery products? They're like, oh, Creator Jewelry. That's the name, go follow it.

Josh: Creator Jewelry.

Genevieve: Yeah. Yeah, great. And so from that, we got like 300 follows instantly. And you know, all these sales are like Tully did an unboxing of these two products and they sold those exact two products in 5 minutes time. Amazing. So it's kind of cool to see that real life case study. But it's something like a little passion project for me.

Tommy: I think it makes you a better manager though. It makes you a better marketer, you understanding the landscape more.

Genevieve: Totally, and I think down the track we'd love to do it for our influencers, like giving them a product range that they can own and push as well, which some talent have done on their own. Like a Steph Claire Smith kind of has her own brands as well as Keep It Cleaner. So it's, yeah, it's almost a little trial and error that we'll do it for me first and see how it goes and do it for them down the track.

Josh: The idea of taking, getting stuff for free from brands, it's a bit of a paradox as well in regards to when you, having influence means suggesting things that you believe in, not just when you're getting paid. For sure. So like Zoe Foster-Blake, I think is a great example of that where she has built a business based on recommendations of things that she loves. And you can tell that like 99% of the things that she's posting about, she's not getting paid for. Their book recommendations, whatever it is. But that then gives her that 1% of clout where it's like she's influencing the purchase decision for people to then when she does have a right branding deal can do that. Is that a balance where it's like, okay, you need to not just be posting about shit you're getting paid for, we need to have organic content as well?

Genevieve: Yeah, definitely. And we say no to so many jobs that come in. We get so many really questionable things or things just aren't right. Like for example, Tully doesn't drink coffee. So when someone's like, "Oh, McCone wants to work with you." She's like, "I don't drink coffee, I'm not gonna do that." And yeah, it definitely helps them when they do flog something. I shouldn't say flog, when they do promote something authentically, it gives them more gravitas then. But we definitely think even more in the family space, like our family talent, they have to share every bit of their life because they get criticised quite a lot for putting their kids in photos and monetizing their children. So, but if they're posting every single thing about them, then it's a lot easier to believe the recommendations because it is authentic and it is true. And if they share everything and they happen to be at a certain activation wearing something that day, it's believable.

Josh: Do you have a certain filter set that you use around with certain talent that you have around? They're not going to accept things based on maybe it's like ethical stuff. So it's like, oh, it's got to be vegan or it's got to be this. It's totally—

Genevieve: and I think it's very case by case. Like some people are like, hey, it's my full-time job. I want to make bank. And that's what my prerogative is. Other people wanna do, like they won't do fast fashion brands or other people wanna do really ethical things as well. So it is a real mix there and we have a couple of vegans and stuff. So they won't do as many like leather brands, for example. So yeah, it's very case by case and we can't have like a blanket rule for everybody because everyone has different stances on things.

Josh: Do you have any experience in crisis comms? Oh my gosh, yes.

Genevieve: Well, I used to work for—

Tommy: We've got a situation with Mr. and Mrs. Emma.

Genevieve: We need help with. All right, what's the brief? What can I do to help?

Josh: I mean, yeah, what is the— 'cause I guess that's part of it when you're dealing with a bunch of talent, things can sometimes go wrong, even things could happen with brands that then negatively affect your team.

Genevieve: Oh my gosh, all the time. Yeah, I'm putting out fires constantly and that's just like part of the job and it keeps it exciting, but also it keeps me so tired. And even my background, like when I was working for this hotel chain, like someone got murdered at the hotel and I was the first person that they called and they were like, hi, can you give us a comment on this? This person, and I'm like, oh, I don't think that's what I should be doing.

Tommy: Imagine the team working at the Hollywood, um, the Beverly Hills Hotel. Like, imagine that. Yeah, totally on the ground American team that are just living in LA wanting to go to work, and next minute there's a boycott in their hotel.

Genevieve: Yeah, exactly. So that was like crisis comms, like, on steroids. And then so now in comparison to that, it's a lot easier. It's like, oh, someone's got like a naughty photo circulating, or someone did like an interesting Instagram story, like drinking in a car, and that They weren't drinking and driving, but it looked like that. So there's always things to be like monitoring. And it's hard 'cause it's their personalities and it's what they're sharing. They're sharing so much. If they share the wrong thing, it does happen sometimes. We have to be ready for that.

Josh: Do you reckon the general public, us normals, do we lack empathy for social media people and talent?

Genevieve: A friend of mine was actually saying that she went to message like an Instagram influencer's photo to her friend and wrote a mean comment but accidentally sent it to the influencer. Influencer. And she was telling me this storey like how funny I said foot face and I sent it to the influencer and she replied like, thanks for your feedback. But her stance was like, what a bitch for her replying to me. I'm like, you just called her a foot face. I'm like, that's so mean. Why would you call anyone that? Why would you put that in writing even if you do think it? And so something like that I would just never do 'cause I know them personally. What requires it to be a foot face?

Josh: I wonder like how— Foot face. Like a narrow face unless they've got like they've got toes on their head.

Genevieve: I feel like they did.

Josh: Yeah, no, it's really odd. Yeah, well, I think it is like social media. I have retired from it. Yes. Uh, and part of the reason is because I know that I was all of a sudden, I'd feel negatively towards people that I actually like. And I'm just like, you know what, in the social media world, you're a bit of a fucking pain in the ass. But I had to reflect and be like, oh, that's on me, totally my interpretation of it. And so I was like, I'm better off being off it.

Genevieve: And if you're in it, you have more empathy 'cause you see how hard they work and you see that they're really nice people. But I do get that they can be so fucking annoying on the outside. And I'm sure I've lost plenty of followers and I'm posting, I'm like, I'm in the AFR today. And like, here's me doing a speaking in a podcast or whatever it is. And like, people don't wanna see that. They're like, shut up, how annoying. And I've unfollowed a lot of people as well for like my mental health. Like I got super competitive. And so I was following like all my competitors and everyone in the industry and it just wasn't like healthy for me. So I unfollowed it and now it's like, my employee's job to do that competitor analysis.

Josh: Yeah, well, that's the problem, right? Seriously. Well, when you're in the business of it, you can easily say this is competitor analysis versus hate following. Yeah, totally. It's like this, it's pretty—

Genevieve: yeah, like, what are you doing? I'm gonna look at every single thing.

Josh: And I've got a spreadsheet, so it's business.

Tommy: Yeah, a lot of people lead with the negative. I mean, you can— it's like a trigger. Where does it come from, do you think?

Genevieve: Is it that—

Tommy: yeah, the whole like, we're not enough It makes us feel something when we look at someone and then have a negative spin on it. Like, I mean, you're seeing negative articles written that are sort of talking about different issues happening and they're juicy and they're interesting. It's like we have this news filter of going, where's the headline in this that is sort of with a negative spin?

Josh: We tell stories, I think, as well about different people in our own heads. But then we also, we try and say, oh, this is what I think of their truth is. But I think that they're actually doing X, Y, and Z. Zed, like my favourite thing to do is to look at that and say they're posting this, but I can see a little bit of sadness in their eyes.

Tommy: I mean, Josh is not the ideal person for you to manage based on getting off social media. What's your thoughts around your talent, your influencers, and their relationship with the thing that is your business? You know, like it's a—

Genevieve: I mean, they have to like respect the process and not bite the hand that feeds you, I think. If they come out and like, it's such an ugly place, like everyone's so negative in social media, but here's me with Bondi Boost shampoo. Like, it's a balance there, I think. But a lot of them are really great about it. And they understand that it is what they do full time. It's their job and they need to respect it and respect what they're posting for the brands as well and their own personal brand. And then for us, if we're selling them out there, they need to be like, I guess it's hard to explain. They have to just be cooperating with us and making sure that they're not going rogue and going crazy, even if they want to. We've all gotta be in the same team.

Tommy: As the mother hen, are these conversations you were having? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Genevieve: And some of them I'm like, I know that you think it's funny to post that, but it's not. And it's gonna affect what we're selling in for you. And it's gonna affect the jobs that you get. And some of them are just young, they don't realise it. Or like we had someone who was an ambassador at the races get a little bit too tipsy. And I'm like, I get it, it's really fun. And there's expensive champagne that you're getting for free. Like how good, but at the same time, you're a brand ambassador being interviewed interviewed by Elle magazine, like, hold it together. So there's a lot of that as well that they need to kind of keep in mind. It's work, and they do forget that sometimes, and it'd be so easy to forget it. Yeah.

Josh: How do you talk to your team and also all the talent? Do you have like a Slack channel or something? Or like—

Genevieve: oh, we have like a whole lot of group texts. Yeah, yeah, we like SMS a lot.

Josh: Um, so even— yeah, iMessage. Yeah, they're running Android or something. SMS. Are they really green bubbling it? Is it all green bubbles?

Genevieve: No, Some of my like family talent in like the 40 plus, they green bubble me. Yeah, wow.

Tommy: Yeah, no, but we're just currently working out what the fuck a green bubble is. Yeah, they don't get it.

Josh: Yeah, no, it only affects us on our side. Yeah, yeah, we're like, what the fuck?

Tommy: We got a green bubble over here, Mr.

Genevieve: 97. Yeah, really? Yeah. Oh, change that. That's tip number one, being an influencer.

Josh: Yeah, blue bubble, blue bubble. Yeah, blue bubble management.

Tommy: That is actually it.

Josh: Putting your name in your business. Yeah. Was that an easy decision? Like how much strategy did you go through?

Genevieve: Which is nice syllables. Yeah. Like Jenna Vee, then Day. Yeah. Amazing.

Josh: Oh, Day is great. Right?

Genevieve: Snappy, you don't forget it. Yeah. Although everyone's like, oh, do you work at nighttime? Oh really? It's the worst.

Josh: It's a good filter of who you don't wanna work with.

Tommy: There's not many, like I don't think all last names work within a business. Jacket. Yeah, but I don't think Jacket Productions, it sounds a bit serious. Are you making jackets? Yeah, exactly. Don't like it. No, I don't like it. It's not ideal.

Genevieve: It's hard because it's like, it's G'day, my name, like my YouTube jumper was like G'day. And so everyone's like, oh, it should be like G'day Management. I like that. It's too Australian.

Josh: Yeah, it definitely has that vibe. Has there been any learning with, say, Shameless for instance? Michelle and Zara, they are commoditizing their thoughts and ideas and they're commentating on different things in the world, which is slightly different to say other talent that are on Instagram.

Genevieve: Yes, super different.

Josh: So what do you need to do as a manager of that? Like what do you see your responsibility? How much coaching or conversations are had around that stuff?

Genevieve: We have a lot of group chat, the three of us actually. Blue bubbles. Yeah, a lot of blue bubbles in there. It's always just like, how do we walk the line? Like, what can we sell and when do we draw the line to not sell so much to that audience? Or like, how do we phrase this in a way that's still encouraging the community without always just like promoting a brand to them? And so we just have a lot of conversations about it. And even like last week, I'm like, hey, they wanna do this in the podcast and kind of have some influence over the questions you ask your guests. And the girls are like, nope, that's too much. That's going to kind of jeopardise everything we've built. So I'm like, cool, no worries, I won't do it. Yeah, so I think again, that's interesting, not being afraid to say no to things because it's not quite right means in the long term we'll have more longevity and more partnerships to come.

Josh: Yeah, that idea of brands, you know, putting in questions and shit, that's pretty— yeah, it's, it's hard, isn't it?

Genevieve: It's so hard. And it's because like they have a massive audience because they are authentic and real about it. So to then come in now and change everything They just lose it.

Tommy: Well, I've always thought like, you know, the what I want my relationship with brands who are paying me to do something to be is here's the money, you go and do what you want. Totally. But that doesn't come straight away. So is there a time where you are actually saying yes to stuff that's like, oh, usually wouldn't, but we need to build here. Your management hat's on like, no, we need to do this.

Josh: Well, it's so hard to, I reckon that's a hard one to say, right? Because you're building an authentic, or you're trying to build an audience on authenticity. It's probably a spectrum, right? Yeah. Because there's this, what you're describing, TJ, sounds like sellout. And then there's the fucking like—

Tommy: But it's also building it. You don't have, if you want a brand deal, here's our requirements.

Josh: The luxury isn't always there. There's the aspirational and then there's the shit. Yeah, of course. And then there's probably like the middle where it's like—

Genevieve: And some people wanna sell out. Some people are like, don't care, want the cash. Yeah, Ash Williams. And they're my favourite type of people. 'Cause I'm like, yes, commission. So it's a little bit different in that sense. But yeah, I think we give them the question all the time. We're never gonna be like, you have to promote this Blue Ribbon ice cream. Like, the brief's already signed, you have to do it. It's more like, hey, here's what they want from you. Here's how we could maybe make it work. Is it a bit left of center? Is it too far? Can we do it?

Josh: Maybe not. Do you think that the Daily Talk Show, do you think we're brand friendly? Or do you think it like, 'cause we're not friendly.

Genevieve: Is that really why I'm here?

Josh: Yeah, exactly. This is the place, guys. I'm curious as to like what the outside perspective is in regards to this type of thing? Are there certain things that you're like, this is brand friendly, this is not? Are saying fuck a lot in the show, does that actually, is it having consequences?

Genevieve: It does actually impact things. Yeah, I got told off, well not me, but I got told from a brand that one of our audiences, the Todd Talents audiences, they swear too much. And that in the comments, the audience swear too much. And I'm like, we can't control that. So it was all this like language stuff and it was a big company. Global and they're like, we just can't risk it. It's just too, too crazy, too much liability there. Too much liability.

Josh: I think we would have too much liability.

Genevieve: Yeah, especially that's part of it. But then some people love that, like, oh, they're so real, they use like naughty language.

Josh: Yeah. And so is there, are there things within, say, podcasts or media brands where it's just like, how do you become brand friendly? What are the, do you need to be, because the, where we're not brand friendly, we don't necessarily like communicate what you show on Instagram. Yeah, we don't. Well, I don't personally have Instagram. The— what we don't necessarily have a great way of describing what we are as a show.

Genevieve: Okay, do you want to like brainstorm it now?

Josh: Yeah, we could. We can always. But what are some of those things? What are some of the key things that you need to do to play in?

Genevieve: Yeah, I think you have a really clear audience of who you're talking to and your target market for that, and then match it up with a brand's target market. So if you're selling, um, I don't know, selling to dudes, what is your audience? Split?

Josh: Um, I think like the podcast stuff is harder to say, but on YouTube it says we're 100% male, but that's, that's because it's such a small, um, uh, I think we have quite a big female audience on our podcast stream. I think part of it is for, it's like psychographics rather than demographics. I think the types of people are, uh, people who are free-thinking, who have creative businesses, who they work on their own, that type of thing.

Genevieve: Young millennials kind of thing. Yeah. I think you have to match that up with the same type of brands that target that same audience. And that's how you make it kind of consumer friendly, because it's talking the same messaging. And then you guys do fun things like your Fat Friday. That's so easily sold. And so little like gimmicks like that, that really makes it easy to explain what you're doing and the whole message behind it. That makes it really easy to sell.

Josh: What do you think about young people who want to become influencers as a job or YouTubers. I get so many emails from them too.

Genevieve: It's the new thing, you know.

Tommy: When we were young, it was, what do you want to be? Famous.

Josh: I want to be on Nickelodeon. Now it's, I want to be a YouTuber.

Tommy: I want to be a gamer. Yeah, that's what kids are saying.

Genevieve: I get a lot of emails from kids that are like 15, 16. They have like 2,000 followers, like, okay, I want you to be my manager, like, you're gonna be my agent. And I'm like, hi, if I have more followers than you, you got some work to do. 'Cause I don't have very many with the joke there. So yeah, I think it's really interesting that they all want that, but they're not really, they don't know how to put the work in. So maybe they'll open like a school for influencers or something.

Tommy: Well, I mean, this is your entrepreneurial hat on. Yeah. I mean, it's like Josh gets to an old business of his hundreds a year. Yeah, people reaching out. CVs, like just people reaching out. And it's like, we look at that and think there is something to assist them in some way. Yeah. If you can't hire all of them, you can't manage all of them. No. There's a piece of work that needs to be done. They'll find their journey.

Josh: Something like Tribe, maybe. Maybe that's what Tribe— like, it's for the— not everyone, like, because that is a, I guess, a platform that allows people to sort of—

Genevieve: it's for the normals.

Josh: Yeah, it is. It is for the normals. And like, everyone's got micro-influencers.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, that's what they're tapping into.

Genevieve: I wrote like 9/10 of an ebook about this and then just like haven't touched it for a year. I know, I got so close. If it's—

Josh: if it was 100 pages, you wrote 90. Yeah, it wasn't 100 pages though.

Genevieve: It might've been 10.

Josh: Why is that funny, Mr. 97? I was just thinking about the promise you made, Josh. Ah, yes, I've got a promise to rewrite Seth Godin, who's the author Tommy mentioned. You love him. Yeah, we went to New York and interviewed him and he was my idol. And so it was like a very big deal. He's big in like the marketing sort of space. But anyway, yeah, I need to rewrite his book. That's another thing. But anyway, so you got through the ebook. So it's 90% done.

Genevieve: Yeah, and it's kind of for those people who are like, I wanna be an influencer, I wanna be, Instagram famous. And it was just really basic, like, well, how do you do a media kit? How do you price what you're doing? And here's how you approach a brand, rather than just being like, give me free stuff and pay me, trying to like solve a problem for them. It's like, oh, I understand that Fashion Week's coming up, I'd love to profile your brand in this amazing opportunity. So just that kind of like language tips, how you pitch yourself and yeah, be a bit more savvy about it. But I just never released it or finished it.

Josh: What's the biggest mistake that people are making in the space, do you think?

Genevieve: Oh, there's so many. No, I think that, yeah, selling out is a big one. It's hard to come back from that. And if you go too far at one end of the spectrum, you can't really get that authenticity back. And the trust from your audience is really valuable. So if you lose that, it's gone.

Josh: And I think— What would selling out look like? Is me wearing Itch Pig, which is the brand yesterday that I got this jumper for free.

Genevieve: How can they get a plug?

Tommy: You would have to make money to be selling out. Yes. That's true. You know, is that the main thing or yeah?

Josh: That's just selling your soul. Yeah, so what would be an example of selling ads?

Genevieve: I kind of see it as the people that hold up a product next to their face and do the selfie with like a really random, I don't know, something that doesn't really make sense next to your face. And they're like, I love this product.

Tommy: What's crazy is like, it blends in now. Like there is so much of that that is like, ah, fucking, I don't even register it. I just keep scrolling.

Genevieve: Yeah, and people get so mad about that. They're like, oh, there's so many ads now. I'm like, yeah, it's kind of like a magazine. There's always been ads in a magazine. You can choose to engage with it or you can choose to unfollow it, whatever.

Tommy: In that AFR article, Facebook is saying that there is no algorithm. There's no change. Is that what they said? They were saying there wasn't— weren't they saying? Was it in that?

Genevieve: You read the right article.

Tommy: Maybe I was reading another one, but Instagram have literally said there's no algorithm. There's no change. What everyone thinks is the change hasn't been a change.

Josh: Well, there was a change in regards to adding an algorithm. What people people loved about Instagram was it was this free feed of everyone that you followed. Yeah, chronological. Which we thought it was. It was, it was for a bunch of time, but I guess the risk is that there's like, there's a number that when you follow over a certain amount of people, it just becomes too much, which I think is a bit of bullshit 'cause I feel like we can self-manage, right? We can unfollow people and curate that sort of thing. But yeah, it is a, from an advertising perspective, I guess it's a lot stickier when it's, and there's a lot more FOMO built. If you're like, I don't actually know where this feed— if I knew that if I scrolled, I'm like, I'm at 10 AM, yeah, this morning, or whatever, I know I've reached that amount. Versus I could be scrolling and see something refreshing every like 5 seconds.

Genevieve: Yeah, yeah, which we all do.

Tommy: What's the influence?

Josh: I still do it. I'm on that. This is the problem. I'm on the Daily Talk Show Instagram, and so I have gone so hard on that. And so my Instagram is time is the highest it's ever been.

Tommy: Okay. As an influencer, I fucking lost my question. Not brand friendly. Not brand friendly.

Genevieve: Yeah, I'll media train you. It's fine.

Josh: Yeah, I need it. What's your, what is your relationship with your phone?

Genevieve: Oh, look, it's the whole like the screen time app. I need to delete that. I wasn't updating my iOS software for that very reason. Everyone's like, oh, what's your screen time? Like, I do not want to know that. And yeah, it's high. It's really high.

Josh: That's a way around it. It's like you can either delete the apps that are taking the time or delete screen time.

Genevieve: Yeah, like don't tell me what to do.

Josh: Yeah, I got my question, guys.

Tommy: Influencers, how much—

Josh: Just be cool about it.

Tommy: How much does— I just don't want to fucking lose it again from you interrupting. Jeez, they're both interrupting me.

Josh: Here we go, here we go. Don't panic.

Tommy: They're very similar. Don't panic. So influencers— fucking panicking. Influencers spending time because they think it's now business. It is their business. Got this point where they do this thing or they find this passion and they start sharing moments and they grow an audience, but then they realize, okay, now make money from it. How much are you influencing them to, or encouraging them to stick at the thing that got them to where they are versus go down this obsession with making money as much as you want to make money?

Genevieve: Yeah, it's a balance. Like, it has to be both. It has to be commercial. If you're super creative and not making any money, that's that's great, but don't waste my time doing that. Yeah, and so it's definitely a balancing act. You have to be true to the reason why people followed you in the first place, but also have, you know, use that platform that you've got and then use it for brands. So I think you can do both without offending people. I think it's definitely hard to walk the line for that though.

Tommy: Oh yeah, I mean, we've had a guest on the show that sort of built an audience around a specific niche, but then was like, don't really like that niche. Yeah. Not really into that as much. I don't wanna be that guy anymore.

Genevieve: Yeah, we had one of our girls, her blog and Instagram page used to be called A Broke Girl's Blog. And then she rebranded just to her name.

Tommy: Rich as fuck. Yeah.

Genevieve: She was like, thanks, day management. That cash. So she just rebranded her name and then it kind of was like, everyone was there 'cause they wanted the cheap finds. And so she still does like outfits under $100 and things like that to kind of keep that audience interaction that she had built. But at the same time now she's like, well, I can afford things, so I'm gonna post nice things too.

Josh: Are you doing anything within your business that doesn't make financial sense for you to do right at this moment?

Tommy: Coming on this show. Yeah, exactly.

Josh: Yeah, wasting your time on the Daily Talk Show. Exactly. But outside of that, like, 'cause I guess like you can look at it very transactional and all that sort of thing, but what's one of those things where it's like actually we're taking a bet because the financial reward's not there yet?

Genevieve: It's kind of, I'm very lucky in the sense that no is the answer to that question. And I really love what I do. And so I don't have to make a choice. Like all my passions over here, but my profits over there. Actually, Passion to Profit was the name of my ebook when I finally released it. Oh, I love that. Thanks so much.

Josh: Do you have the domain name? No. Passion to Profit. He just bought it. He's a robot. I think that it's sold.

Tommy: Passion to Profit. I'll double check.

Genevieve: It'll never get released. I'll never finish it. It's fine. 9/10 is just too much work.

Josh: You should get the domain anyway. I could imagine like a keynote. Do you have any interest in like building your influence?

Tommy: Are you talking in March, aren't you? Oh no, so it's already—

Genevieve: yeah, did you talk? I did talk in March. I spoke about, um, like what goes on behind the scenes at Fashion Week. I'm talking next month as well, Passion to Profit, was it? Passion to Profit. Um, yeah, so talking with a couple of influencers next month about just like female entrepreneurship and digital marketing. And it's funny because they all go there and they're like the inspiring storeys that bring in the crowds of hundreds, and I'm like, I'm like, hi guys, is this thing on? It's gonna be like a different crowd, but yeah, it's kind of fun. I like doing that part of it. And it goes back to my like performing roots a little bit, but I'm not too fussed about my personal brand.

Tommy: So there's gonna be dance in there too?

Genevieve: Oh yeah, a couple of high kicks. That'd be so good, you should. I actually like started doing casual dance class again with my friends. Like I did dance.

Josh: Is it ever casual? Yeah, well, not really.

Genevieve: I'm always at the front still. My friends are like, yo, take it easy. Where do you go? To the space. Oh, it's awesome.

Tommy: Yeah, hip-hop class.

Genevieve: Hip-hop class, a bit of Broadway jazz on a Wednesday night.

Tommy: I didn't do that.

Josh: Broadway jazz, you do like— what does that mean?

Genevieve: We did a lot of, a lot of everything.

Josh: Broadway jazz, what does that mean?

Genevieve: Hands, high kicks, there's a lot of hands. We dance to like Broadway tunes. Oh, that's fun. Um, it's really lame actually. We do hip-hop on Tuesday nights, my friends and I, and I didn't dance like 10 years and I get told off every single class for being like too rigid and too jazzy. Oh really? And I should have gone to Broadway Jazz instead.

Josh: Rigid and jazzy. That should be your Instagram bio. Yeah, that actually described me perfectly. Is there any aspiration to have offices outside of Melbourne, outside of Australia?

Genevieve: Oh, we have talent in Sydney, Brisbane, LA, New York. So maybe, I don't know. I always said in the beginning I wasn't gonna have any staff and now I have 4. And so I might say no now and in 2 years' time, You'll have 4 offices.

Josh: Well, you need to have a place for them, but I guess there's the— it's a balance of co-working spaces and shit like that.

Tommy: Well, have you worked out what your success looks like?

Genevieve: Oh, not really. I think—

Tommy: because I think some people can end up with 4 offices and realise that that's not the success that they want.

Josh: It's the same thing as going to the events, right? Like the same idea in your head that going to the events is what I need is probably the same part which is like, I need an office in the than LA and Sydney.

Genevieve: Yeah, and it doesn't always mean—

Tommy: we do, Josh.

Genevieve: Yeah, actually, yeah, I mean, like, you can make more money being in your bedroom doing it by yourself sometimes than having like 25 staff. So it's kind of always a balancing act, like, does it mean that I'll be more profitable or I'll just look better on the outside to other people? So it's kind of weighing it up, like, where the energy goes and the returns for that as well is a bit tricky. So at the moment I'm happy just to like own Melbourne. And a bit of Sydney, Brisbane, LA, New York. And we'll see, maybe in the future. Yeah, great.

Tommy: It's good. You want, I mean, the flexibility, you're here, low overheads.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, 4 fucking employees.

Tommy: Well, low overheads compared to office in New York.

Genevieve: Totally.

Tommy: There's your whole bloody rent. It's so easy. A year in one month.

Josh: Absolutely. Unless you're Jules and you went to primary school with the person. Of course.

Genevieve: He's in like every article that I do as well. I'm like, when is it my turn?

Josh: Yeah, this is great. Now I think, is there, so there is a bit of a movement to get yourself out there and all that sort of thing.

Genevieve: Yeah, it kind of happens organically, which is nice. And I don't wanna be seen like I'm the talent as well, 'cause I'm so not the talent. And so that's the difficulty.

Josh: It's such a talent thing to say.

Genevieve: I know, stop it. Don't follow me, Genevieve Day.

Tommy: You're a piece of the pie. Like, you know, you've got, I think that's where you will come in where there's a non-business savvy person who is like, I've got no idea, but I've built this thing intuitively. It's the empathy as well.

Josh: Yeah, having the empathy, just like having, you know, the, the side hustle or whatever of, you know, doing the clips is another example of that. Um, the— I was gonna ask something.

Genevieve: It was just like a bit of fun as well. I think when it's not fun anymore, I need to like rejig things. I'm lucky in the sense of the industry have grown, so my company's grown like astronomically. Um, and then if I need to pivot and shift, I totally can. But for now, it's it's, yeah, doing really well as it is.

Josh: That's what I was going to ask. Age— has age ever been a barrier in this whole thing for you?

Genevieve: Yeah, a little bit. Um, it's always a fun talking point, like I launched at 24, um, and still kind of being 20, almost 28. So yeah, it's kind of a nice talking point. And I'm lucky in the industry there's a lot of young females around and I can still be older than my talent, or most of them. But then I get a lot of like wanker businessmen who talk down to me. Really? Yeah, all the time.

Josh: Do you have a way of disarming that? Yeah, a jazz kick.

Genevieve: Yeah, I'm gonna fan you in the face.

Josh: No, I'm pretty rich.

Tommy: You finished with jazz hands?

Genevieve: Yeah. No, I am pretty sassy, and I think that I'm more than happy to, like, be a bit argumentative if I need to, like, get my point across. I'm not gonna be a doormat. Yeah, I did have one guy, like, threaten to sue me in my first year or something, and he was like, about the couch legs. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm so sorry. He was like, I hope you've got like deep pockets. I'm gonna take you for all you're worth. And I think I just said like, fucking try, Tim, and hung up the phone. And obviously he didn't, so it's fine. But yeah, all the time, like threats and everything. And yeah, people just trying to assert their authority and their power. And you just gotta shake it off.

Josh: Shake it off. That's a song. Yeah. I don't like Taylor Swift. Shake it up, shake it off. Is it Shake It Off? Yeah. Okay. It's a daily talk show. Genevieve, it would be great to have you back on. Thank you so much for having me. In the future as well. Yeah, thanks guys. Day management. And please consider Mr.

Genevieve: 97. Yeah, we'll chat off air, some tips. We're sure it means that you haven't got it.

Josh: Yeah. It's The Daily Talk Show. hi@thedailytalkshow.com is our email if you want to send us an email. Mr. 97 looks after our email, which is good. So people get responses and shit. That's nice. We'll see you tomorrow, guys. See you guys.