Ep 24: How Eli Weber Built a Business Doing What He Loves

I'm excited to have you on the podcast. It's exciting stuff. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to read this cuz I did not read this way too long to memorize. Okay, let's let's introduce Ellie Weber. Drum roll. Thank you. Thank you. >> Add that in editing. Okay. Welcome back to another episode of the What It Takes podcast. My name is Tolly Kraus, CEO of Black Rock Recruiting. Today's guest is Ellie Weber. Thank you. A young entrepreneur who's built a impressive social media company from the ground up and along the way launched his own podcast called Positivity. Yes. Does it have just Positivity podcast? Pod Positivity. Positivity, yeah. Ellie represents a new generation of founders who didn't wait for permission. He leaned into content, consistency, and creativity and turned social media into a real business. Not just views and likes, but clients, revenue, and impact. Today we're talking about how he started, what worked, what didn't, how he thinks about building a brand online, what it's like running a business while still figuring life out. You're engaged, which is very very exciting. If you're young, ambitious, thinking about turning content into a career, listen to this episode. Ellie, welcome. >> Thank you [clears throat] so much. That's beautiful. That's impressive. Very nice introduction. Okay, first of all, thanks for coming on. A pleasure. >> This is very very exciting. We've known each other for a little bit. You're a very positive person. You know that? Thank you. Like genuinely. People meet you, smile a lot. You're in a good mood. Are you Have you ever screamed at anybody? Like angry? I I think in work, probably. Cuz that's a good way to get a message across. What about your brother who's sitting in the studio? Also. Beat him up, you know? It's not a beat him up. It's it's like knowing that there's certain specific but like you have to I think you have to show a little bit frustration in order to get a message across. If not, then it means that it doesn't mean anything to you. >> ever get like As a kid, did you fight a lot? Or were you always positive? >> No, never got into a fight. Nothing none that I can remember. Um so yeah, pos The positive angle is for me natural. That's you. Yeah. I am I think generally speaking happy and smiling and just positive towards things. Keep smiling. Thank you. But then >> more Eli Webers. Thank you. But then growing growing up and growing into who I am right now, I noticed that you don't really have a choice. And so to choose positivity is is just much better. I actually made a post about it yesterday like how it is the same certain people and I had a few conversations with people back and forth cuz it was it was hard for them to hear, but it's the same people that they have their sandwich gets messed up. The the border security wants to check their suitcase or check them out, you know, extra checkup or it's it's the same exact people but that for them it gets messed up the the the things that they buy and it comes wrong and the people around them frustrate them. Um and in the same scenarios, meaning I walk into the same coffee shop or to the same airport and I'm having everything easy, they're having everything It's a mindset. >> difficult and it's a mindset. And it's it's also it depends what you're going to do because of that. Like you can either laugh it off and enjoy and go on with your day or and take responsibility, which is a huge part of it. And so you know, so this person asked me but you know, but sometimes people you know, bad things happen, whose fault is it? It's the fault of others. I said, this is not about fault, it's about responsibility. If somebody wronged me, I can out choose to go and blame them and make a make it a fault or I can choose to go in a different route and and choose a different energy. Right. So I think that that's that's been for me something that I learned early on to take responsibility for my actions, for my life. And you know what happens? I have control now. You know? So it's like I I'll never tell you, oh, this is out of my control. No, I'm very very much in control. Obviously >> Of your emotions. of my own emotions, of my own life, you know, I was I was just going to say obviously there's the aspect of Hashem and he's in control and whatever, but we're working together as a team. Right. So, at the end of the day, I think I'm I'm I try very much to be in control and that's why I do the certain routines that I do or the business routines that I have, the structures um and structure for my life is not because of the like the what Yes, it brings. It's more about what it doesn't bring. Like if I don't have a morning routine, what can potentially happen to Ellie and his productivity. So, that's why I I I think I'm You can almost call me a control freak, but I think it's in a in a in a healthy place. Um Let me ask you like this. Now, you're a business owner. Did you, going back from Let's start from the beginning. Did you When did you realize you have the entrepreneurial itch? Were you ever an employee? Yeah, absolutely. I worked for 3 and 1/2 years in construction for two different companies. Really? Yeah, my first job was managing a uh managed 500 guys, the logistics of a like literally a skyscraper. It was the tallest building at that time in Brooklyn, 123 Linden Boulevard. And I had to manage the logistics and the safety and the housekeeping of the building. I would have not taken you for a guy with a background in construction. Yeah, so I managed like 70, 80 guys per day. It was 500 units, 500 employees and the building workers that were there every day. And that was my job. I was in charge. I had a radio and I had to make sure >> it? Yeah, at that time I did enjoy it. I didn't know much better. I was making a nice amount of money. What's nice? Uh $1,200 a week. 60 grand a year. Yeah. Okay. Like it was Yeah, for a first job, you're talking 6, 7 years ago, it's very nice. And then I went up to 1,800, like it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. >> Was it crazy hours? Not necessarily. From 8 to 6 on an average day, I mean, so >> Okay, so it's 9 to 7. Okay. Yeah, yeah, 9 to 5 something, whatever, depending on the day and what was happening. Um but then after a while, I just got very bored at the job and I got I think very like I turned 24 and I got like very depressed. I was like not happy. >> boss and tell him like I feel No, I just started uh just started uh like not doing my job anymore. Like I was very burnt out. Like I was very good while I was good at it and I called myself very lazy. So I wanted to get everything right the first time and that worked for me. Um but after a while I was like this doesn't make sense and I started listening to motivation a lot and I saw that you know, everything is possible. You can achieve anything. It was the first time I hear those words like for me coming out from a system and from Yeshiva. Um when I say system, I mean the simple educational system of even public school or regular school, whatever. They don't teach you to be an entrepreneur. So it's like for me my first understanding was you want to make money, you go work a job. And for me I chose to work starting a job with my cousin so that it's familiar, it's comfortable. But then but then I noticed that it just wasn't fulfilling. There's nothing >> The construction you went to work for your cousin? >> Yeah. Like it was it was nothing fulfilling about it. Like it was what's the point? Like I'm driving in every day. Lived there already in Lakewood. I was driving in 2 hours each way. Like I didn't have a life. You drove 4 hours each day combined? >> Yeah. So >> Crazy, bro. Yeah, and then the job itself was just very hectic and a lot of yelling, yelling at people and just meeting deadlines and and again something that I didn't even enjoy. So my my little advice to people now working a job or in a career is to do something that at least you enjoy. Like for me I could have done marketing at that time and make the same amount of money. I could have been a creative director somewhere and come up with ideas that would have helped me. Um again, I'm not regretting. Construction gave me a lot of experience, but but uh my advice to people would be choose a job that actually fulfills you, that you enjoy. So anyway, long story short, I I decided that um I I can't work a job anymore. And in while all of this, I was already forming ideas in my head of what I want. Now that I knew that I can accomplish anything I put my mind to, I started noticing that okay, I want to have a nicer house and a nicer car and money and all of that, and that's not going to happen through a job cuz a job is limited. Like an average job here, the most expect the most paying job is going to get you 3, 400,000 a year, you know? Yeah, how much is the most paying job in uh United States on on average? Uh there are people that are making hundreds of millions >> few million dollars in a job? Yeah. Corporate America with 100,000 >> job in the city? Depends where you work, what your position. Like what is real estate? What's the average price of real estate? So it depends. Are you buying a house? Are you buying a building? Are you buying a hospital? Are you buying a warehouse? Are you buying a strip mall? Right. Which markets? Right. So it really varies say what's the highest paying job. In in our year this year world, what's the highest paying job? >> I know people making 1.5 million dollars as a salary a year. From working for you this year company? >> Plus bonuses, plus profit share. Okay, maybe maybe I should go find a job. So these those types of people is like the ones that I want to get in my pocket is like you're making a crazy amount of money, you're at a very high level of responsibility in this business. You know, you have lots of people reporting to you. You have a tremendous advice. How do you get there? That was you know, the people bring on or business owners. Um but yeah, there are people depends. Bookkeepers who just enjoy bookkeeping and want to do that for the rest of their life will probably cap out like 90 or 110. Um so those people can make tremendous amount of money. Right. Um but it really depends on the skill set and the ambition and like how much advice do you want to take on? And do you want to take on more challenges and more projects? More Basically, the mentality is how can I make sure that when my supervisor, my manager, my VP, when they go on vacation, they can go on vacation for a month and they don't have to worry about everything below them. Right. Like anything going on. I'll take care of everything. That's if you have mental you'll be successful whichever business you're working in. Yeah, right. So yeah, people can make good money, but it's it's a lot of hard work. Mhm. But either sales or becoming a business owner where you have more freedom. So I want to you were you were talking about like Yeah, so What made you decide to open up your own shop? Yeah, so so yeah, so at that time I was very good friends with Michoel Schnitzler and everybody knows him. Yeah, Michoel Schnitzler and he was just the energy and light that I How'd you get connected to him? Um it was I was just a fan like anybody else. >> He's a public figure. And yeah, and then my mother invited him to my uh father's 40th birthday. To sing? To sing. Paid him and that's where we became like closer friends. And then it was like, you know, he wants to go out on social media and stuff. He wants somebody to help him with it. So I said, okay, I'm young. I I can do it, you know, why not? So I started him a Twitter account and then Instagram, WhatsApp, built everything up, a YouTube channel and all. So I I never even knew while I was doing social media for him for free for so many years, I never knew that this is going to be my business and my career. Hashem runs the world in amazing ways. Exactly. It's funny. I actually opened the Instagram account Webber Media like probably 7-8 years ago. I already have an account with posts. So So yeah, so then one day I sat in his house and I said, okay, I got fired from my job cuz I wasn't doing a good job and what do I do next? And he's like, you did social media for me so many years. I made a list obviously. I had a process like of how I'm going to choose what I want to do, but he saw this idea on the list and he was like, you did it for so many years for me. Every company now needs social media. Get into this. And he actually helped me get my first client, Shloime Bond from Cleanery Cleaning. Okay. Um and the rest is really history. Like the whole getting more clients and building a team and making so much fun out of it. But But that's the story and I do encourage every person, especially in today's days, to open somewhat a business. Like sell something. Challahs, dips, cookies, day of Shabbos. I give haircuts on the side. >> Yeah, give here You do? Yeah, actually? Yeah, like there's so many beautiful things that you can do just to fill your side income and and to fill your your your needs. Like to fill Every person has a talent and capability and and something. Every person wants their life to be unique and and beautiful. And I'm telling you, I I live off fear and everything we do in our life comes from either fear or love. I think my fear of being average and my fear of not doing well in life is so strong that it pushes me to do to do good in life. Like to be a good partner, to be a good boss, to be a good uh uh to be a good person. Like and I'm okay with that. I'm okay using fear to my advantage. But I I I want to encourage people to do the same. Like go after the Like literally if if people watch my WhatsApp status where I have about like 12,000 contacts, there's a lot of people following over there and I put out almost daily messages. My number one message is every day I end my message with this. You You deserve anything that you want. You could get it. You could achieve it. Just go after it. It's that simple. Um Like that's what I've done, I feel like. Like I I'm really enjoying my life. Like energetically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, I'm really enjoying my life. I want others to have the same. I just want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor of this episode, Dabble. So if you ever wanted to sign your kids up for lessons of any sort, whether it be voice lessons, drumming lessons, piano lessons, you know, there there's the very strict schedules, the driving back and forth and you're spending crazy money on these one-on-one lessons. So, my friends at Dabble solved exactly that problem. So, it's an all-in-one platform where kids and teens can learn things from art, music, singing, photography, cooking, you can learn how to make sourdough. You can learn how to sing, you can learn to play guitar. They have a course on wilderness and even money management, which is a great course, especially for teens. And you know what? The best part without commuting to an instructor and without paying crazy money up front. And you know what? It's $25 a month for the entire platform. Not just one course, all the courses just for 25 bucks a month. Those courses are about an hour to an hour and a half, super interesting. These courses are meant to take the kids from off the screen into real life. And you know what's exciting? We were able to snag for all our listeners a code for 20% off, whether you want to sign up for a monthly subscription or an annual, the code is TK20. TK20. Check them out. justdabble.com. That's j u s t d a b b l dot com. There's no e. justdabble.com. Go check them out. I want to elaborate on that a little bit. You mentioned earlier that when you were working in construction, you were good at it, but you didn't enjoy it. A lot of people don't realize a job has two aspects. Okay. The job you can learn and become good at it, but also enjoying it. If you could find something that has those two, you're golden. Right. Right. For me, I'm a networker, uh I'm an extrovert, so recruiting is a perfect fit. I became good at it and I enjoyed it also. Right. So, with you, I hear very cool. When you got it when you started opening your social media business, Weber Media, did people around you, your family, friends, think you were crazy or they were supporting it? I thought I was crazy. I mean, after already after already quitting my job, I I I actually called my boss. It was before Pesach and Pesach went by and I was like, "Okay, I don't even have to make money to live." cuz I was living at home. And I was like, I called my boss and said, "Can I have my job back?" Like, literally. And he's like, "Yeah, you can have your job back at a starting wage." And I was like, "Okay, this you're making fun of me." Like, I was already earning at that point about $120,000 a year. He's like, here he is offering my job back at 60,000. Like, so I was like, "I'm I'm not I'm not doing that." So, you know, and my family was very supportive happens to be cuz they've seen in the past how how um driven Yeah, how driven I am, and I I was walking around the house doing affirmations. I would say all day long like, "I'm a millionaire." and whatever. They they they think I'm crazy. But, now they also do it. And, you know, just like >> Not that Now they say it. If if something money-related comes up, they'll they'll say the same thing. "I'm a millionaire." just yell it out loud, and and that's how we manifest things into the world. That's how That's how the sham creates things, right? He says it, and it happens, right? So, our dibur has the You have to If a person we we learn this in the Gemara, if you say that you're a tuma, you're actually tuma. Like, legit. You got to be super careful of what you say because your speech is what brings things into reality. So, if you talk positively, and you speak out your goals, and you affirm it many many times, and obviously you believe in it, then you'll have whatever it is that you want. Law of attraction is bitachon. Somebody just sent me a screenshot about it. I posted it on my status. Like, the first So, showed me from I think by the live like the the first level of of bitachon is to believe that anything that you want you can actually have. Just got to have faith. >> Yeah. Like, it's it's so simple. Again, again, my rebbe in cheder would not tell me this cuz he didn't know it. Like, it's okay. He was Let's remember, he was just a rebbe in cheder, which is very chashuve position. But, it's a rebbe in cheder. It's not It's It's Again, it's it's not what an average person wants to achieve and accomplish in their lifetime. So he can't possibly teach us that and he's not going to tell every kid that you can achieve and accomplish anything that you want. So that's why you need podcasters like Tolly and myself to tell people that they can achieve anything. Um you you mentioned that um Mahershala helped you get your first client. What was that like? Paying client, free client, discount >> client. No, paying full paying client. >> actually. So he was very like I >> pay you and for what? Uh $1,000 a month to manage their Instagram and LinkedIn. And the LinkedIn I don't even know why I said it cuz I had no idea what I was doing. Um the posts I made on Fiverr or something Okay. It was just graphics, no video? Excuse me, yeah. It was it was graphics and it was videos that I went down to take from the employees. Like I didn't understand social media even half of what I understand today. So the the whole idea of social media wasn't exactly sure what to do. Uh for me it was just about, you know, posting and hoping it's going to land and you have to remember the algorithm was also completely different then, right? It was only going out to your followers already and it was easier to get followers and it was very very different than what it's now. And it's actually one of the reasons why I recommend people to work with a company is because we're doing this now for 25 to 30 active accounts. So we know we know the the algorithm. Like I know what's working for someone else, so I know what's working for me. Um and and versus when you hire somebody in-house or you do it yourself, you're kind of trying to figure out an algorithm and it's and it's not it's very very difficult. So today's days the algorithm algorithm has completely changed to all of our benefits, which means that when you post something it's not going out to your followers, it's going out to random people. It's like Gary V explains it, it's interest media. It's not social media anymore. Interest media means that whichever app you open on your phone, whether it's Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube, or any other app is going to show you what they think you'll find interesting, which is a blessing for us. We enjoy it as as watchers, and it's a blessing for the actual company trying to get your attention, because if they make a good video, then people will see it. And that's how we've had videos or LinkedIn posts that are seen by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, because if it's a good piece of content, Instagram does the rest of the work promoting this piece of content, and that brings results for your for your business. So, uh generally speaking, I think it is super important that people have social media. I'll explain social media like it's not it's not about marketing, and it's not about advertising. It's really about branding. Like if somebody wants to look up your company name or or have any reason why to buy from you. Actually, I want to get to that soon. Yeah, okay. Talk about that. Um but when you started your business, how did you start, and how has the things that you offer evolved? Yeah. >> You still offer the same things? Have changed? You took away something? Added something? Different service? Correct. So, I think it was it was split in two, the evolvement of business. It was split between self-work and noticing how I how I drive or or don't drive the business. Like how I affect the business, meaning that like specifically in the beginning, I would take things super personal. Every client that came on, every client that left, I would take it super personal and go into a whole story, and it would bring me down, and then I'll try to win them over, try to go into seeing the details, what I did right and what I did wrong, instead of acknowledging that the client just wasn't the right fit, or that the client needed to move on. Like I've had literally where a client cancels and I'm so upset about it and then a week later the business shuts down. Like that has nothing to do with me. So you have to really work on your emotions when you're opening a business to understand that everything that's going to happen has nothing to do with you. And by the same goes for relationships. Like please acknowledge that the other person's moods and many things that they do or say 99% of the time it has nothing to do with you. Like it's very nice that you want to believe that it has everything to do with you. Right? But it really truly comes from an ego place. Like your ego is trying to grasp the situation by saying, "Yeah, it's personal. I'm involved over here." It's not true. It's really not true. Like that that company canceled your service. Yes, sometimes there's something you can look into and change, but majority of the time, especially if you know you did the right thing, they just canceled service because they have a budget issue, they they want to shift, they wanted to just try it out, whatever it is. But definitely don't take it personal. Like the earlier you can work on that, the easier it's going to be for you. Because up until this day, like I had a a client yesterday send an email, you know, we're pivoting direction. And I know they are. Like I know things are happening in that in that company and it's totally fine. Like, you know, I'm going to try. I'll call and ask, you know, is there anything that we could do? Do you want to downgrade? Like we'll be I'll be nice about it. I'm not just dismissing it and saying I don't need you. But to make a whole story about it, why? I In the same day I signed up a new client for twice the amount of price because that was an older client already. They were Like for me it's just a benefit. You're clearing out, making place for something better and newer. So when you can acknowledge that in business, like when you can work on yourself to not take take things personally, you're going to have tremendous growth. The second part on the physical level, on building a team and structure and all of that is the way I hired my first employee was I remember asking a friend of mine that's in business. You're already going past all my questions that I have later on. Okay. Okay. No, but you asked how I structured the business. The services. The the What I offered at that time was Instagram and LinkedIn. And today? Um today it's also Instagram and LinkedIn. We also do Facebook and TikTok. Okay. And we're looking into doing paid ads. It's a very tricky industry, but we're very much researching it and we're testing it out for certain clients to see how it's going to work. If it works, like sometimes the main issue with paid ads that I noticed is that sometimes you're paying money and the the item itself is not valuable enough. You understand? Like I we we're doing Bun Banh Burger. Like this is a great client of ours. Hold on a second. I Yeah. You're doing his LinkedIn? Yes. So >> Job well done. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I saw his post. >> First of all, if you want we can take it out on later. Some clients don't want that. >> don't think just the opposite. But my LinkedIn is not done by myself, by the way. No, but he's Does he want people Is he okay with people knowing that you're managing his LinkedIn? I think so. I think I think I think I think the client is okay with it. Phenomenal job. >> thank you. I appreciate it. And I'll tell you why, because this is a client that is very well done. I've been watching his content the last couple days. [laughter] Bam, I'm very impressed. Thank you. Thank you. He made a post about how he took out his tips from his uh his You can't tip anymore when you're buying an order. Yeah. It was a good piece of content. >> Yeah, I thought I saw it got like 500 likes. Even I don't have >> piece of content. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> it, well done. The writer that good stuff. Yeah, there's there's no I see it as just the opposite. Like it's a prestige for a client that can say "Hey, we have a company helping us with LinkedIn." Like it just shows how busy he actually is. >> No, but with him, you he's using LinkedIn, he's using Instagram. >> He's 100% using his platforms more than my team can use it. >> Which ones? But he's just But he's using us for help. You You understand what I'm saying? Like people sometimes say "Oh, somebody else is doing it for you, so it's not authentic." No, no, no. This guy is involved in every post and he's he is in the account active and whatever, but but we're helping put out the content. We're monitoring. You put out a post and it's getting hundreds This guy is is an entrepreneur. He does multiple things. Like he needs somebody to help him. There's no nothing I my own LinkedIn I have somebody doing it for me. Like it's impossible for me to I was just saying that it's very impressive. You were doing real like the type of content that's coming out from this account looks really good for LinkedIn. Yeah. Thank you. >> your compliment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank What's the biggest misconception people have about running a social media agency? That people don't realize. I think they think that it's just content. Like, "Oh, you're just going to post. You're just like" I know there are many companies like that that just post. You hire them, they come down, usually freelancers, they come down, it's one person, and they post videos. Um and another thing is that they they think that social media is Like I said, they think that social media is videos. It's not. Like they they confuse content with social media strategy. Like I've had I've just had a restaurant in Montrose. So, they called me and they're like, "We want social media. Let's discuss." And then in the end they were like, "We have a cousin that does videos. So, we're just going to use him." Like and I'm seeing the videos and it's it's it's hurtful because the videos are beautiful, but that's not their social media strategy. Not only it's not a social media strategy, the videos that he's making is not even is not even meant for social media. Like it's not performing well. Like I often say these restaurants have have a video where you see like a professional like it's a dark background and you see sauce pouring onto a steak. That's not getting you a customer. It doesn't even look real. Like the person watching it doesn't even think this is real. It's not going to make them go say, "Wow, let me go run to the restaurant." They don't even know They don't even know which restaurant it is. This is another thing that I say. >> what what type of content should they be creating? >> So, so I'll tell you this, any business if the if the content can be copied and somebody can put out their name that's a mistake. That's already a mistake. If I can't say that this is your content, that's a mistake. No matter what the video is. A person has to be able to say VaynerMedia content happens to be in many senses, people know. Like I I can be a new client, they can see the quality that it's VaynerMedia. I didn't even know if that's a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing that people see that. >> But I I think it is a prestige. Like we do have a family of clients. I I'm happy to share those clients and people see this is quality. And I have in many boroughs or areas, neighborhoods where we're doing multiple of the same type of business and there's enough for everybody. Like it's just the opposite. I think it's a prestige-ful thing to be able for companies, restaurants to say VaynerMedia is doing our social media. And there's no competition. Like a lot of people ask me, "Oh, you're doing my restaurant, you're doing a restaurant a block away. How can you do it?" I always say social media is about it's about your story. Like I just said, it's not about the videos, it's about sharing a story. And we've gotten super good at that, baruch Hashem, to identify every person's story. Sometimes it's a husband and a business, sometimes it's a it's a woman and a business, sometimes >> an example? >> Sometimes it's a husband and a wife. Sometimes it's about the the employee in the business, the manager, sometimes it's about the customer. Like you can every business can have a story. Can you share an example of when you worked with a restaurant and figured out their story and the creative strategy and what the strategy was? Yeah, absolutely. So, Bomberger's a perfect example because they were they they had a fun vibe to it. I don't think they were necessarily able to to name it or to like especially you know Gil Reynders was just an amazing guy in general. He had a certain feeling, a certain vibe that he wants the restaurant to have, but he he had nobody to actually bring it out in words. Like he knows that he has the best staff, a friendly staff. But how does he bring it out? And social media enabled him to do that. Enabled him to put out his staff, to show to the world how friendly they are. And it brought him back tremendous business by Hashem. Like it's no secret. Everybody knows they visit, you know, Monsey, they go to Bun Burger. Like it's all through the Instagram. And he How far is Bun Burger from here? From us, 10 minutes probably. So, for him actually I love this story with him because I think that this can apply to any business starting out with social media, which I do recommend people to start it on your own because that's what's real and raw and natural. Is that his story was that after 2 months he actually called me and he said he's not sure about social media. Maybe we should cancel, downgrade. And I was like, look, like you know, it it takes time. And and um I often say like it's like like giving birth. Like it takes 9 months. Like you know, like don't don't expect it should be there after 3 months. And so he I told him, give it some time. Like I'm telling you it's going to work. And then after 4 or 5 months I was he was like, well, I'm definitely seeing views and stuff and people are coming in, but I don't know if there's a real like ROI and if I'm really making the money back. Until summer happened. Like we started him right before the winter, summer came along and he's like, I've been open for 6, 7 years. I've never had clients or customers from Deal New Jersey. The fact that this is the first year that I have like thousands of customers from Deal New Jersey that are coming in here and I never advertised in Deal New Jersey. That means that they're all coming because of social media. >> How's he finding out? How's he doing getting that data? Cuz he they walk into the store and they they either say or he's asking them. >> And he's there asking them? He's there Wow. Yeah. He is He is in the store very often actually. Yeah. But but they've seen it and they've seen I I they've seen something in their sale. Like people know like I give him all the credit. I don't take credit for the fact that his restaurant is always packed and the parking lot is it's hard to find parking sometimes. Like but because I give him all the credit because he took his story and put it on the social media. Again, that's the biggest misconception. I want to clarify it. What Weber Media does is first of all, I don't show my face for any one of our clients. Like it has nothing to do with me or with my or with my social media presence with my personal brand. This is purely about taking any brand that comes to us and no matter which industry. Sometimes people call us, they're like, "We're selling white strips, but do you have experience in white strips?" And I tell them, "I'm sorry. I don't need to have experience in white strips. I need I have experience in taking your story and putting it out there." Now, it happens to be your story is a story of white strips, we'll do that. If your story tomorrow is a story of pasta, we'll do that as well. Like it's not that unique. I always say this, sorry to say this, you're not that special. Like if we simply take your story and post it on social media and we're real and we're nice about it, like we're doing it consistently, then you're going to see good results. So, that's my advice to any person right now. You don't need a company to start doing this. Put out your story on social media and document it. And and if you want somebody else to listen to the social media advice, I would highly recommend Gary V. He's incredible. He's been like personally my mentor, so I'm almost taking word for word from him. Like this is what he says. You want to open start a business, you don't know where to start, what to post, post that. Post that you don't know what to do, where to start, and get even the first 10 people to care about your service or product, they're going to be launching your business for you. I'm excited to talk to you today about United for a Health Share. If you are spending thousands of dollars every single month on health insurance, this is an alternative for the firm community. You should go check them out. It's not health insurance, it's a health share program. Me and my wife and our family, we switched over about 2 years ago. We've saved thousands of dollars. Our our premium or or the cost is $500 a month. They don't use the word premium because whatever those terminology is meant more for health insurance. But for the first 10 listeners who are watching this video and going to sign up using code blackbird, you're going to get your third month free. So that's something I'm very excited to share with you guys. Make sure to go check them out. United We Stand for Health Share. See you next time. On an earlier episode, we interviewed the Rabbi Avrum Rappaport, Rabbi Wraps. Okay. Yes. Oh, he's an influencer. Yeah, nice guy. He he said like one of piece of advice he would give to people who want to get out on social media, start creating videos. You'll figure it out later, see what works, what doesn't, what you're comfortable with. Just start creating content. Um let's talk about the challenges of the business. What What would you say is the hardest part about building a business at a young age? I mean, you're we're we're pretty similar in age, right? 20s? >> Yeah, I'm 28. Just turned 28. >> Um I want to talk about putting out content. Is that recently there's a new trend on Instagram, so people watching this can hop on, which is that you they're very back into written content. Um long form. >> Like Yeah, long form. So you're basically posting a short video with a caption of like how it feels to be Jewish, and then you post reading the comments, and then you write in the comments the whole story of how it feels to be Jewish. The reason I'm saying this is because this trend just came back on Instagram, and we're using it. First of some of my clients will still have resistance. They'll think like, "Oh, you're doing less creative content now instead of putting together a whole long video." But no, this is what actually works. I posted some videos like this on my page in the last I I I personally post three posts a day on Instagram, and that's another thing people should know. You got to post very often, minimum once a day, [clears throat] like minimum. And those videos are getting on average, I would say, between 20 to 30,000 views. Considering my page has 22,000 followers, it's a very healthy number. Some of the videos got 50, 100,000 views. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm very active still and actually posting for my own account. Like I I want to see what's trending so that we can then use it for the for the clients. Um I'm I'm going to answer your question about what I think is like the you said what's the most difficult challenge of starting a business? >> at a young age, yeah. So I'm going to answer something probably you didn't expect is that we get in our own ways. Like there's nothing challenging about opening a business. There's nothing hard. There's not You don't have to do hard work. It's all your mindset. If you have this thought and theory and belief and you've been around people and you're watching people are reading books that tell you that it's very very challenging, then so be it. The the teaching and the teachers that I've had and done were people who told me that it's super easy, super fun, super easygoing. Like I'll give you a perfect example to any entrepreneur starting out right now. Yeah. And this is what I've done. Do one thing towards your business every day. And And by the way, I'm going to also tell me this. Make five phone calls a day and then take the whole rest of the day to do nothing. There's so many people now in the middle of starting something. Take 5 minutes a day work, the rest of the day do whatever you want. I've had in the beginning of my business I had certain days I did nothing that day. That was a day for me to recharge. But this whole belief that In Yiddish there's an expression "Yedige tzu zach kumt on shver." It's It's so not true. Like it's You have to think to yourself how negative the person that made that statement and every person using it had to be to do that. Why Why is Why does every good thing have to come hard? Like there's no there's no This is not a Torah perspective. This is not a God perspective. This is >> mentality. Right. So So So And that's something people could change on their own. So, regarding business, it's not hard at all. It's just the opposite. Like, opening a business is so fun. You don't have to report to anybody. You don't own anybody responsibility. >> cost you a week or month? Um It's fun? Yeah. It's in the highest, right? It's It's a It's a lot of money. It's close to $100,000. But, it's still a month. >> month. So, that's that's a heavy responsibility, right? >> Yes, but how much are we making? Again. >> [laughter] >> But, many What if you lose your money? I care. I've spoken to people that had businesses and closed them down. No, but No, but running a business is not always fun. It's challenging. That's what I'm saying. No, no, no. It's not challenging. You know what the issue is? >> Stressful. No, it's not. They mismanaged money caused them the stress, and now they can't pay employees. How is How is a $100,000 payroll for a healthy business that's making a hun- that has to pay payroll $100,000 a month means that they're taking in three, four hundred thousand dollars a month minimum, right? >> Hopefully. Right. So, how Why is that Explain to me why is that stressful? Cuz it's not always the case. >> is making $400,000 a month. But, we're talking numbers. It's making $400,000 a month. I can pocket $300,000. Yeah, I can take for myself $100,000, put into the business $200,000 a month, and pay $100,000 payroll. How is that difficult? >> always the case. Why is it not always the case? I actually interviewed someone on my podcast. He had a construction business, lived in Lakewood. Yeah. Successful business. Was pretty out there. A client sued him for a million dollars. Okay. Needed to close his business. He moved to Monsey. Became for two years. Okay. Starting his business again. That That time in his life was very stressful, needing to relocate. He didn't run away. He's He's He's He was interested in moving. Right. But, to close down a business as an entrepreneur Right. and become an employee was a very hard shift. Right. It's not to do with mentality. It's just in general, it's not something that humans normally do. >> Correct. So, again, I'm very sorry for him. It's very sad to hear. I don't know the details of the story, and I wish him the best of luck, but I don't have to take this story as my as my inspiration or as my like okay, so now this indicates that business is hard cuz I can I can tell you now a hundred stories. It's not hard. It can be stressful at times because you take on a responsibility. Correct. >> times that are stressful or you're like ah, what am I going to do? >> I've had I don't think I have I've had I've had yeah I've had stress. I've had this I don't I don't think so, but it's fine. Maybe I maybe I'm in denial, you know, a lot of people listening to this will say oh, he's just a young entrepreneur and a lot of people tell me all the time like yeah, what do you mean? You have a huge following. Of course you can just open businesses and do everything. Like dude, I started my social media presence less than four years ago. I had nothing. I had 2700 followers on Instagram. That was nothing like just from random friends and people overseas. Like this whole following that I have now of a hundred thousand followers and that I can sell everything. I started it. Like I joined LinkedIn four years ago. I never had a LinkedIn account. Like people don't get it. They're like oh, he's he's privileged. Like no, I'm not privileged. This whole social media that you see is just so that I can be able to make business. Right. The whole podcast that I have is that I should be able to make business. People should know me and trust me. Um no, but the the things that were stressful for you at work running a business, right? You have employees. Sometimes employees don't get along with each other. That's something you need that's your responsibility. But you'll deal with it and then the next time when you when it happens again, it won't be stressful anymore cuz you learned how to deal with it. You might have other challenges. Somebody told me this I think from Steve Jobs or Tim Cook something Apple I think that like stress is is things that you didn't take care of and then they they turn into stress. Okay. >> You understand? Like this guy I don't know maybe he he maybe he could have had insurance that would pay for the million dollars that he's being sued for. >> Client didn't want to pay him. Just saying. Someone owed him money. Whatever. I'm saying yeah, a client didn't want to pay him. Who's who's fault is that? You What's another thing that stressed you out that you had to need to deal with that was like Like I'll be honest in my business, like we have we have a monthly subscription. So it's like you pay the you pay you pay money up front. You have the I chose a business like that so that I don't have the issue of money. Like I have a lot of friends that deal >> challenges. I've had a challenge I I need to hire somebody. Okay. I need to fire somebody. Like >> Okay. Firing is a big challenge? >> Fine, but that's but that's not Okay. >> Not a money challenge. >> I call the person and we're we're being honest. Like you know, you Not a It's not Yeah. It's hard. Define hard. Like what do you mean? >> Not something people feel comfortable doing on a day-to-day. So what That's what Again, that's what I said a few minutes ago. Work on yourself. These things that you think would be hard, if you work on yourself and you take care of yourself and you either build up the confidence or you build up the courage or you have the clarity. Like I was not afraid to call people for advice all the time. Like David Kohnigsberg, I'm sure you know him. He was by me on speed dial. Every question that I had, I would call him. What do I do with my special How much do I charge? I remember asking him, should I charge clients up front? Should I charge them monthly? Should I Should I take credit card? Should I take Should I Should I charge the interest Like every question that I had, I asked people. It's very important getting yourself a mentor or coach. Yeah. So when you can talk to that wants to see you successful. Absolutely. Um no, but when you mentioned earlier, I like that it is very easy to open a business today. Open a service You see something in the market that's missing. Offer it as a service. Charge people money. But running a company as it grows has new challenges. You deal with it and the next time that happens, you know what to deal with it already. So it's not a challenge anymore. You'll have other challenges. That's That's what That's the point I was trying to make. Um Talking about challenges in business and growing the company. Um Now you have a team of how many people? 10 people. Canine a horde? Yeah. What do you look for in employees? In employees, like when you're looking to hire. So >> What are the things you look for? I'll tell you something. I love that you asked me these questions cuz it makes me a little bit emotional and it makes me feel grateful and it makes me truly see that my journey is different than most people. And and that's what I keep on telling you. The same thing that to you can be a stress, for me can be a pleasure and vice versa. Like there's So it's all about how we see it. Yes, giving firing somebody or hiring somebody can be super stressful. It can also be super fun. You know, I've had two employees ask me for a raise and I actually gave them gave them a raise. I can say, "Oh my god, like it's super stressful. Like you have to give raise." Like and that means more money goes out. Or you can say the opposite. Like what do you mean? Now I'm giving them a raise. That means that the whole company can shift to whole new level. Like they're making more, we can be charging more. Like it's all about how you see things. So to answer your question on how I hired is that every person in my team that's working for us now, from our COO, who's the head of the company ready for 3 years, like she does everything in the company, Baruch Hashem. She reached out to me through LinkedIn. Which is a shoutout to LinkedIn and why people should have LinkedIn, but it's a shoutout to Hashem. Like I didn't do anything. She reached out to me at a chaotic phase in the company and asked, "By the way, I have experience running a little bit of my own business. Do you need Can you use help?" And I didn't even know at that time what I need. I just said, "Yes, we need help." I remember the first few months she worked for us, most of the day she called me. She asked me, "What do I do today?" I had nothing for her to do. We had very few clients at that point. And there wasn't much action. You know, there wasn't much happening. And same thing goes for our lead content creator, who makes all the great content for clients, ice cream and Bomberger and Sesame or Juice by Julie, companies that everybody knows and sees the content. She comes up with all these strategies and goes down, shoots and edits it. She reached out to me also on Instagram. And so is with every person in our company that's working for us up until this day reached out to us. Reached out to me. Um either by putting out a post that I'm looking to hire or randomly. Like the top the the uh COO and the lead content creator just randomly reached out to me, "Hi, are you looking to hire at this time?" What makes a good employee? I want to say what you make of them. It's truly if you give them direction, then they're going to be a good employee. You have to give them direction. You have to have boundaries. You have to teach them boundaries. It's not What makes them a good employee is a good person. You want to make sure that they are a good person. They're kind. They're nice. They're Our lead content creator is is amazing. And I went with her personally on shoots. So, I got to see how she interacts with people. She's just a good person. You understand? But in terms of a good employee for your business is what you do. What you teach them. What you tell them. Like I I told my team the the the name the word of uh the name of 2026 is boundaries. What do we do for a client? What's What are we supposed to do? Where do we draw a line? You know, someone called me one of my uh content creators, "Yeah, I was on the phone this week for three three times this week for an hour on the phone." I said, "We don't do that." Like that doesn't work. Like I spoke to another content creator. I asked, "Why is the video like zoomed out?" Something that I didn't like. And she said uh "Yeah, the client asked cuz they look better when it's zoomed out." And I said, "We don't do that. Like it's it's not up to our quality." So, boundaries is extremely. Most people don't even know what this word means. Like in relationships and personal life and in business. But if you can define your boundaries in your business, what you do for a client and what not. Right. >> I've had so many clients call me with gigantic personalities and God bless them. But I've told them one policy in the beginning. It's my show. I run it. It's your account, it's your business. You can share ideas whenever you want. I want you to know that at the end of the day we're going to run the show. We're we're >> Yeah. I would but it's literally the word I use for people to understand how our business works. I say it's your vehicle, we're driving it. It's your Instagram page and we're driving it. Like it's your story, your everything. We're driving but you got to trust me. Like I've had a client that I went many years back and forth whether we should work together or not and that's the power of the follow-up by the way. Keep in mind, always follow up. It's okay. It's okay to ask a million times also when it comes to sales cuz I do sales for my business as well. But the point is that that you got to have boundaries. I told this client, yes, we can work together but I have one thing one request. I fully run the show. And I still do that till this day. Like I'll call up a client and I'll say dude, I want to fire you unless you can do what I want. Like I have so many clients that say, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. That's where our boundaries comes in. So the same thing is with employees. If you can create boundaries and tell them what it is that you want and what to expect. In other words, don't expect for them to know always what to do. They'll they'll do it whatever you whatever you do. Whatever boundaries you have, whatever expectations you have, they can filter that. Interesting. As we're getting towards the end of the uh podcast I'd like to finish off with this. If you could go back in time and and start from scratch. Yeah. How would you do it? I would I would trust more. I would trust that everything will work out. You know, I would I would come back with this mindset and just chill. And I And I used to do this in the beginning when I started my company. Like if I had a a day and I felt like nothing's happening I would put my phone down. Instead of reaching out and calling people like for sales, I would just sit and imagine that everything is going perfectly fine. And that would work 100% of the times. Like Like just trusting the process and knowing that everything will be fine. Everybody can You can try this in your life right now cuz so many people have told me about this. Like whatever area in your life you're struggling with, just accept it for what it is and trust that it will work out just fine and see how the thing actually works out. So for me in the beginning I was very It was all about me. I was trying to control. I was trying like I said, I got in the way. Um you know, they say the only limits we have is the limits we put on ourselves. Like I would try to take away some of those of those limits. But I I I do want to say like I'm an entrepreneur. It's a word we're looking into the camera. I'm a successful entrepreneur and I'm having a lot of fun. I'm not struggling. I don't think that this is hard. I'm very grateful and yes, I ride along with Hashem. He helps me with everything. He gives me the best ideas and every day I'm grateful to him for the ideas that he gives me like just chill. Like relax. Have a good time with things. Like it doesn't have to be stressful and because you see, let's say older entrepreneurs or owners of companies that look extremely stressed and they're extremely nasty to you, that doesn't mean that for you to be successful you should be nasty to others, you know. I'm I get people reach out to me every single day on every platform for advice and inspiration. I try to help everybody. Like my my number one biggest goal is to be able to answer everybody's message. I answer literally almost hundreds of messages a day. I'm just trying to be nice. Everybody has a journey. Everybody wants to be heard. And they should they want to be they want to feel validated and and and looked at. And and you can do that. And it doesn't have to be super hard. If If you If you want to believe that Hashem has a hard journey for you and your business and your life and your relationship or whatever then that's what you're going to have. Like he follows your lead like that that's that's how Hashem is. You know this this is what what Behira means. You're choosing a life of hardships and whatever and he says no problem. Like it's it's okay. He's not going to push you one way or another. You want to choose a hard life, a life of struggles, a life of stress, you're going to get that. You want to choose a life of of everything is good and fine and that's the real Emunah and Bitachon. To believe in in you know to believe in things that we can see is very very nice. But to believe in things that we can't see that's that's real belief. That's real Emunah and Bitachon. Okay? So every entrepreneur, every person starting out, every person in a relationship struggling, every person in health struggling or whatever it is, if you can believe in something that you don't see right now, that's real Emunah and Bitachon. That's real belief and that will get you very very far. What a way to finish the episode. Um talking about Emunah and Bitachon. I like that. Okay, quickly, where can people find you? Uh thank you. So it's the Weber on Instagram, uh Eli Weber on LinkedIn. Um My other enough? Huh? It's good enough. Yeah, it's good enough. They can message me on WhatsApp. >> Where are you? Yeah, Positivity Podcast on YouTube, on Spotify, Apple, on all streaming platforms. Um and yeah, I'll be happy to get in touch. If you want you can put a link in the description here to my personal WhatsApp number or whatever and people can contact me if if you want if you need if you want to discuss social media and see if you're right for it and if we can help you um or if you want to just discuss business opportunities or just to say hello. Amazing. Okay. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Till next time, make sure to subscribe. I'll see you soon. >> Thank you, Telly. I really appreciate you having me on your podcast and your work. You're doing amazing. Love listening to your podcast every week, every other week. And um thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate it. Thank you for the listeners. Thank you guys. >> And cut.