Billy Gene

speaker

425 appearances 2 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard May 2025

Billy Gene’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Mick Unplugged · Billy Gene: Why Authenticity Beats Hustle in Modern Marketing · 28 Apr 2025 podcast

Well, all it is is just asking more people to buy. And it was so simple. And then I let that sink in. So I started asking students' classes when I'm on stage. I say, hey, everybody, how many people did you ask to buy today? The answer is usually like one, two, five, mostly zero, right? Well, today was just logistics and I was doing my logo or whatever. I didn't ask anybody today.

So then when you kind of answer that to yourself out loud and then you go, wait, I'm trying to increase sales, but I didn't ask anybody to buy today. It's kind of like you immediately figure out how to make more money. Even people listening right now, they're like, God damn, it is simple. But how many people did I ask to buy today?

Now, the challenge is when people think of that, they're so used to the fax machine. You know, they think that means I got to call people. They think that means I have to go bang on doors. They think I have to go. They start thinking all of these things when the truth is, is just run an ad. So even as I'm sitting with you, I will still ask a million people to buy my shit today.

And I'll just be hanging out with you, right? And that's the power of advertising. And I think that is the number one opportunity for most small businesses is to amplify your asking by using advertising. Like that is it. Just run a freaking ad. And they don't even have to be crazy. Like I think sometimes people see my ads and they think they have to do all this fancy stuff.

Like I was just talking to my barber the other day. It's like, dude, just run a video showing a before and after of what you do. And at the end say, hey, first cuts half off to earn your business. I'm trying to get lifetime clients. And that's all. Like that is the simplicity. The challenge is you put out an ad and not all of them bang. Some of them lose money. People don't respond.

They don't get content. But my thing is, is if this is an asset you can create one time and then use for years and years and years to make sales, kind of in the same way you think of an asset like a home, right? You purchase it, but you're looking to get paid. I'm just like, if the ad doesn't work, which you can shoot on your cell phone in 30 minutes, just make another one.

And if that doesn't work, make another one. The reason why most people don't do it is because their unwillingness to fail and look stupid. It hurts our ego, right? You put out something, and then you see that one comment that says, oh, you look fat, or you said this wrong, you spelled this incorrectly. What makes you an expert? And we let it get in our head.

And it's like the one loud troll versus like the thousand quiet people that were watching that got value. You know what I'm saying? Like not everybody comments on everything. And so I think that's the thing that everyone needs to do. The simplest strategies, ask more people to buy by using video because video can scale infinitely in anywhere around the world. That is the answer.

A singular video ad can change someone's life like that. Look at the example of, you know, Dollar Shave Club, for example, right, Dollar Shave Club makes a funny ad, and then all of a sudden, they sell for a billion bucks. Think about, I'll give you the best example of a video ad completely changing the world.

And it's this little company that actually, I'm not a fan of, but I respect them as the best marketing company ever. And that is Apple. Now, right now, everybody listening, if I said, Hey, who here has an iPhone? Everybody gonna raise their hand. I got an iPhone. You have an iPhone?

So through marriage, got you, right? So, but I remember when these first dropped, And, you know, iMac had the big bulky computers, et cetera. And there was PC. And Apple was, if anybody remembers, Apple was so inconvenient because you always needed extra hardware and extra software to make it compatible with anything. Like it didn't work with anything. I'm like, this is so annoying.

And then they were expensive too. So I was like, it's not compatible. It's more expensive. Why the fuck would anybody buy this thing? And so, you know, all of a sudden you start seeing Apple, everything, Apple, everything, Apple, everything. And obviously there's the iPad and iPod and all this is, but there was something else that happened.

And if you could add it in the clips to show the commercials, because people will remember, but there was this little commercial that came out and it had two guys standing on a white backdrop. And one was dressed in a old crusty suit, looked like a very corporatey uncool type of cat. And then the other guy was just like a T-shirt and a hoodie.

And he goes, they start off the ad, he looks at the camera and he goes, I'm a Mac. And he goes, I'm a PC. And then the whole 30 second bit was just a compare and contrast. Like, I think one of them was like, you know, I'm a PC and you know, sometimes I have viruses and Apple's like, no, we don't have viruses. We don't actually get like, that was it. That was, that was literally it.

And they made about a hundred of these ads, maybe even more. And they put them out, put them out. And then all of a sudden, it became cool to have an iPhone, to have a Mac, to have those things. And once they started gaining momentum, boy, did they not stop. And obviously they had great products and things of that nature, but for that switch to happen, I do not believe that can happen without

a message like that. And then also they carry on this war. Like this wasn't a small thing. Even right now, if I text you or you text me, you guys know what happens. Since I'm an Android, if I'm in your guys' group text, they give me a blue bubble or a green bubble, whatever I am. So it's like, who's this person in my chat? Like they villainize the whole thing so brilliantly. And that was it.

So that's why I said it's the best marketing company ever. Like, I mean, that was maybe the hardest business challenge to ever overcome considering at the time PC had such a hold on the game. Their market share was on like, it was crazy. So for them to break in, of course, it took great marketing. Of course it did.

I think the most common is is thinking that people want something that you made up in your head. So, for example, you know, it's like I see it all the time. You know, people have the most dynamic personalities online. But when the camera's on, they think they have to be a certain way for people to accept them. It looks like it's like, you know, I'd be myself in this interview.

But then they'll turn on the camera shooting and they'll be like. Real estate agents do the best. My name is Bill Jean. And here in Southern California, we care about hope, trust, plug in word, plug in word, plug in word. And that's just our mission. Give us a call for Dada Dada. Shut the fuck up.

Like, you know, it's like it's that that that that is the number one mistake is losing the communication. And that's why I think I was able to have such momentum and impact on this game is because I came in and I was just me. I was just me. And by the way, not everybody likes me, but a lot of people do. And also people believed just, it was a breath of fresh air.

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