Mastering Photography: Growing Your Business and Beyond

The episode features a guest who is a photographer and entrepreneur. He shares his journey in photography, starting from high school and eventually building his name in the industry. He also discusses his expansion into graphic art and working with artists. The guest emphasizes the importance of networking and building a clientele. He then talks about his transition into business consulting and the lessons he learned from previous business ventures. The conversation also touches on the importance of self-reflection, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and the significance of business structure and funding. In this conversation, the importance of a solid foundation, clear roles and responsibilities, resolving conflicts, having uncomfortable conversations, building a team, and the need for more conversations on business management are discussed.  

Transcript

demille (00:06.407)
Ugh.

demille (00:15.695)
 All right, what's going on, what's going on? Welcome back to the Millennial Mogul Mindset podcast. I'm your host, and along with my hosting partner, Railway to Success, what's going on, Alex? So, you guys, another great episode. We've got another great guest here, so really excited to get going.

demille (00:34.078)
Yes, as we said, another great episode and we have a special guest today. We have a guest who's entrepreneur. He's a photographer. Um, how long have you been photography? 10 years. Wow. 10 years. Okay. So, uh, you know, I'll introduce the guests. Yeah. So this is my man right here.

demille (00:56.714)
What's up, family? Nice to meet y'all. Thank you for welcoming me. You know, on the show and everything. My name is Mark Hill-Gale. A lot of people know me as Shot by Kill. Like I said, I have been in photography for the past 10 years. I have built my name up in the DMV area, also around the nation. But I've also moved into financial literacy space and I have started business consulting. So I help people start their own business from the ground up, structure it properly.

build up their credit profile, not repair their credit profile, but help them enhance their credit profile. And then from there we take them through the steps of either properly getting business funded or grant writing, all those steps. And then I take them through like a mentorship program to where I can help guide them and help them optimize their business fully. Wow, that's dope, man. That's dope. Wow. So, okay. So where are you from and how'd you get this? Like you said, you started in the DMV area, are you from the DMV area?

born and raised DMV yeah born and raised in DMV I got started um actually in high school where I met uh the co-host you know what I'm saying Mr Alex here yeah uh started in high school doing photography um I want to say it was like sophomore year we had to choose like an elective or something and my dad uh let me use this camera uh for the class because we wasn't trying to spend no extra money you know being in private school so you're now a photographer yeah he uh never

He did it as sad gigs and stuff, but he never really tried to take it to the professional level. I didn't think I would take it to the professional level either, but people always loved my work. Rest in peace my guy AG, but he saw something in me and he was a rapper blown up out of the area too. He asked me to be a part of his group and everything and I was in the studio with them like every night and that's when I actually fell in love with the camera and

for everything because that was like the point in time like you know it kind of connected like art and music all in one because I always had always loved music whether it's old new you know so I think so it connected both of those and you know it now it shows up to my work today I love showing concerts and you know working with a lot of major artists today

demille (03:23.555)
And I would see a lot of people posting on Twitter and just like...

demille (03:33.876)
different shots. I'm like, wait a minute, that looks familiar. I think you were doing cover art at one point for a lot of the big stages and stuff. Talk about that and some of your projects. So yeah, definitely started out doing graphic art. Was never perfect at it or specialized in it. No way. But it just was a part of that whole art gimmick, I would say. And that just connected me with a bunch of artists. And being able to go to the studio, shoot with them,

being able to pull up to this show and work with them. That just led to even more stuff. So they all started at McNamara, honestly, like football games, little projects on the side here and there, just taking pictures in the hallways. Man, I was like, yeah, that's where it really started. That's dope. All right. So you guys started with your friend from school. But how did you get started professionally? How did you build up your clients?

to your clientele professionally? That's a tough question. I want to say the best way I built up my clientele was just networking. I started out doing a lot of stuff for free. Oh, okay.

I would definitely say I was just pulling up anywhere. I went to some of the trenches of DC, worked with some artists. I don't even know if they're even still here with us. I had to wear like the 50 Cent bulletproof vest. Man, no, it was literally like some places I walked to, like, they're like, who you here for? I had to literally get escorted through some places. So yeah, like, you know, just taking that leap of faith, that just, you know, that person connected me with this person. Oh, who shot that fool? You know what I'm saying? And, you know, now like this year,

city rolling loud. Well, this is probably my third year working in broccoli city, but this is my second time working rolling loud. But this time I got to release you like all the major artists like my favorite artist Travis got, um, did a team saw it and picked it up. Thanks to my guy Ray, he works with their team on a consultant basis and sent it through to him. And, you know, we've been locked in, you know, ever since. So how did you get into something like that?

demille (05:42.216)
music. No, I love music. So, you know, music, art, fashion, all that coincides in one. So, like, I used to just, I used to be DMing these managers.

Man, whoever I would see like the artist tag or like was in their bio, like, you know, contact so-and-so for a feature or, you know, something. All right, bet. I'm gonna contact all those people I've seen. I used to even scroll over to see like, you know how you can see who tags you in a post? I'm even going over to people who tagged them in their posts. I'm DMing their friends. Man, I DM everybody. Just going through the tags and the hashtags. Yeah, man, I'm trying to find it. Yeah, who knows? Like get in contact with this person,

gonna take a leap of faith on me, you know, and let me like do my thing. Yeah, I'm gonna do my thing. You know what I'm saying? So when it comes to somebody, let's say somebody in high school or who's just getting started in the industry, what would be your advice to that person for them to, one, get started, to start making those connections and to eventually get to the point where, let's say, where you're at now? Oh, for one, if you're getting into photography, I would say go shoot, like just shoot any and everything, like...

You gotta practice, work on lighting. YouTube University helps a lot, but.

I would say look at some of the top photographers in your area or wherever you're from and ask them to take you under their wing. That's where I would start now because it's kind of hard to just post stuff or grow genuinely how we did. How fast social media and how fast trends move. You've got to really perfect your craft and somebody's going to notice you.

demille (07:32.08)
Like definitely like keep studying, like always be a state student of the game. Like don't ever think you have because somebody else is going to just come and become hotter than you. So yeah, I was just saying always stay a student and you know, just keep trying to learn more information. Okay, so I've got a question because let's go back to, because you said you started because you saw your dad was a photographer but he didn't take a service.

But I'm assuming, so what's photography like, your passion when you was a kid? Like how did you grow into wanting to do it professionally?

I saw the money from it. I saw the business aspect of it. So you saw it like, it wasn't really a passion, like you just love to do it, but you saw it was a way to like learn. It became, like, I'm not gonna lie, like when I first started, nah, it wasn't a passion, but I grew into it, I grew to love it, it definitely became a passion after that. And then, like, I saw the business side of it, or the hustle aspect. Now, I would say I'm more sourced on the late, the business foundation of everything, but, you know,

Yeah, that's what I was saying, like, yeah, ooh.

Yeah, that was my start. What would you say are some of the secrets or things that you wish you would have known about the business side versus just the hobby side? What's the major differences that you see? Well, not just the, let me add on to that, not just the business versus the hobby, but it's like the business side versus the art side of it. So the business side of it is making the money. The art side of it is, I would say, your passion projects.

demille (09:12.184)
I should have done more like, you know, the projects where you just go out and shoot. You might get your friends together or you might literally plan something like thoroughly out where you need props, you need scenes, you need X, Y, and Z. So you literally got to plan like the concept of the shoot out and like, you know, it might be a scene or something like, you know, that's some really dope stuff. Like, you know, I wish I would have got more into. But I would say like on a business end.

demille (09:41.086)
Our community lacks the education of properly setting up a business or...

I would leave it at that. You're an entrepreneur. Yeah, I wish my parents, and it's not their fault, I'm not saying that at all, but I wish my parents was taught, that's a better way to say it, the stuff that I know now that they could have had me set all that stuff up when I was first in high school and then I could have my money going to my business accounts. I would have been taking deposits, so I'm not getting, I'm not trying to curse on here,

on shoots and I appreciate that. But yeah, so I ain't getting messed up. Like, bro, I had people like try to run off on me. People like BS, didn't show up, wasting my time. It's a lot of stuff that I would say like kind of drove my passion away too. Like, because I didn't have the business in set up. So that's like something I would stress to anybody. Get the business in set up. You ain't gonna have to worry about the BS. So you mentioned that you showed people how to start getting into the business.

demille (10:48.942)
What are some of the things that you're now saying now that should be like a solo training in photography or just in general, what are some of those core things that they should have in place so that they don't get messed over or have these misacts basically? So some things I would say, so definitely set up your LLC, get your EIN number, go get a business bank account, and then get a merchant account. And your merchant account is like a Stripe, PayPal.

No, we ain't doing zells. We not doing cash out. We not doing, you know, Apple Pay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually get you like a proper merchant account so people can't do chargebacks or, you know, also get stuff in writing contracts is important. Like, yeah, man.

demille (11:42.734)
I also can talk about those things I've done. So I've had a charge box that shut down my version camera.

demille (11:50.606)
Puerto Rico, as I was taking off, to go to Puerto Rico, I found out that my account was getting shut down. As I'm taking off, so I got a four hour flight that I just can't do nothing. I just gotta sit there and just lie.

stuff so when I land now I'm scrambling to figure stuff out in this nighttime I'm trying to get all this stuff going so like we were talking about the importance of contract having a contract in place is gonna be so important because like most people try to go cheap try to keep out and just go on Google and stuff like that that's not gonna work because somebody's gonna like a real finaster is gonna figure out how to finesse that right they already looking and now with chat

demille (12:33.268)
You can upload the whole PDF of the contract and now be like, all right, well, how can I get around this thing and start doing whatever it needs to do? So paying that money for that contract, because with mine, I partner with people. I was like, yo, all three of us, four of us, we going in on this contract because we need this. We need a merchant account because it like.

You don't want to start intermingling your money with your personal finance. Right? Because you can definitely get into big shit with that because now you're doing what's called piercing the corporate veil. Right.

start piercing that corporate bail now it's like all right that person can come to sue your business and then sue you because your business and you are one and the same so yeah I'm glad you brought that up it's just like having those things in place to make sure they're there. I would also like to add this once you get your EIN your LOC and your merchant account definitely have a business address as well

demille (13:38.672)
I personally stay away from the virtual office, depending on the business and what you are trying to accomplish. But if you're looking for business address, go to iPostal.com. Make sure it's not Staples or...

Google the building before you purchase. Make sure it's not one of those like Staples Home Depot or like just like, make sure it's an actual office building. So yeah, yeah. Make sure it's in a office district. Yeah, like you said, you wanna have a proper business address, proper business email. I'm not talking about Gmail, Yahoo. I'm talking about like. Yeah, you'll buy that in your domain. Info at your business or support at your business or your first name, last name at your business.com. Like get a proper website too. Like. Correct.

It could even be a landing page like yeah, yeah have something Right, yeah Oh and a business phone number my bad, but it's one number 1-800 number. Oh my goodness

demille (14:44.558)
So I'll talk about that. Yeah, I called someone, that's what I started with, was at a Staples Center. And it actually worked for a little bit, but then they started switching things up. Regis is another one. Yeah, Regis is a really good one. Call, please call, because I got myself locked into a two or three year contract. Oh wow. And I don't even use that business no more. And they're like, well, you won't have to either pay the full balance off, or just keep paying monthly. I'm like, well, why did it charge?

small box that you got to check off at the end or something like that that's just easy to miss. If you don't, then you basically say, all right, I agree to contract. Yeah, Regis almost got me with that, but I definitely hit the month to month. You got to be good on that one.

demille (15:31.106)
See you at Regents, I also work for the mailbox.

Grasshopper or Rain Central for your phone number? Yeah, I love Grasshopper. Call A is another good one. Call A is K-A-L-L-8, the number 8.com. Yeah, that's another one. I actually use a company called, I believe it's Uno or something like that. Oh, I'm going to have to add that to my rubric. Yeah. So I actually have my local number and the 800 number from that company. So.

like $15 and off every day. So that's a dope, affordable way to get your numbers as well. And then for website, you have Wix, Squarespace, and then to create one real quick, durable.co. I heard about that. Yeah, you ever use it? Yeah, I haven't activated it, like, activated, like, line the domain and then suddenly get up, because I already had the website. But if I want to do a quick line...

from my business, I automate business. It's a small business. Like the follow-up process, the messages, the emails, all that stuff, I automate that stuff so you don't have to keep doing that. But if I wanna do a quick demo, and like, hey, here's a sample website, go to durable.co, it's free, you can mark that up, and then like I pay a guy and packs in, you know.

couple dollars a day to create that same website. Okay, I can see this now I can go ahead and do it myself. So yeah, that's just a way to keep things in house. I wanted to put that out there so like, because people, it's normal to us, but somebody was getting started on this journey, they're like, what? Also talk about the EIN, because people will pay to get an EIN. For real? Yeah. People will pay just to have people see it. Hey, hold on, wait, y'all know that your EIN is free? Like, go to IRS.

demille (17:24.57)
Yeah, you just gotta pay the fees that's associated with Paying your state fees You don't need a lawyer or anybody to sign up for LLC in your state Look, this video will come out before the end of the year Hit me up, I'll help you set out, I'll walk you through the whole process for free We'll definitely link your info into it And actually check out one of my older videos

Getting your LLC EIN getting your their numbers and Your virtual office or an address so as in one of my older videos, so go check that one out I'll link that in the video please um, but let's get back to like your story So see that you started in school started with local artists They you branched out into like bigger events but now you say you're pivoting or not pivoting but you're

opening up new strings of income with coaching, was it coaching? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how's that going? Like how did you get started in that? So actually I got started, me and Alex had this thing, we like to be very transparent. So I got started just from multiple years of trying out multiple businesses. Like I then did Legal Shield, Forex. Are you the Forex guy? I wasn't one of those, I actually like trading.

demille (18:51.588)
If you actually learn how to trade, please get into it. Day trading or just regular trading? Just trading foreign currencies. And it actually teaches you how to do day trading. And that's actually real trading, give me no idea. Like them quick setups. They're cool and all, but the real money's in day trading. Learning about stocks and stuff, all that stuff is very important. I would never knock it, but the whole business, Forex, the signing people up part, it's never for none of that. Give them out.

Yeah, that used to throw me off. But I tried that, was part of a yacht rental business where we purchased our first yacht. Did Amazon, FBA. I don't wanna touch on that yacht business, but we'll keep going. No, you definitely touch on that. I was photography for the past 10 years. I'm a travel agent. So like just...

doing all those things and it was like literally just a hustle because I never had foundational pieces set up. But it wasn't until like I got into the yacht rental business, the Amazon FBA and then I had made a fitness investment as well and I was doing the work on the back end for that where I saw that not having those business foundational pieces set up and not having the business financial education.

behind it can really put you in a hole. So I went into debt, messed up my own personal credit score, like just not knowing I had access to business money. Like, Think a lot of new entrepreneurs fall into that trap. Man, I was putting all, I used all my money, like every paycheck or from every gig, I'm putting that straight into these businesses, like every week, paying the minimum on my credit cards. Like, I mean, I still got to live my life, so I'm still using them, but I'm just paying the minimum

All my money's, I'm all in. But also one thing I realized, those weren't my ideas, those were investments. I was all in on other people's ideas. I hope y'all catch that. I was all in on other people's ideas. I had to literally have a self-reflection moment and literally sit down and was like, all right, when am I gonna be all in for myself? You know what I'm saying? So I literally invested into me. I'm selfish now.

demille (21:12.784)
I only do stuff like that I want to do. Everything is about me. Like, so it wasn't until I did go through a dark point, like I was like, man, I don't want to do no more businesses. I just want to work regularly nine to five. I don't knock, I never knock working nine to fives either. I have an IT job, I'm blessed. I telework five days a week. So it allows me to do everything for my business and I get great benefits. So I would never knock a nine to five, but yeah.

I was ready to just be normal, nine to five guy. But I had a lot of friends coming to me asking me for business advice and business help. Helping them out, I'm not thinking none of it. One day I got my man's like 17K in business funding. Wow. He sent me a 500 dollars, just all the strength. Nobody else like sent me nothing, like I ain't knocking them. Still love you guys, but yeah, he sent me 500. Hey, get down, send that invoice, come on man.

He sent me 500 and I'm just like, yo, what's this for bro? Said nah, bro, you really know your shit, bro. Like, fool, you should monetize this. Like, really looking to monetize this. So he said it, like I read it, like a light bulb just went off in my head. It couldn't have been nothing but God, cause like, I literally just started doing a whole bunch of research.

Shout out to my mentors, Darius Benda, Deon Coopwood, Damon P. Dillett. I found them through, shoot, research on YouTube, TikTok. Everything on just how to actually start this as a business and then how to properly optimize it. My mentors really showed me and gave me all the tools and everything I need to help the people out. And I'm all for just, really just helping the people.

demille (23:02.12)
And some things that we talked on before, the last thing was the important benefit of having a mentor. But also you said there were times where you was betting on other people's dreams, but you had to learn how to bet on yourself, which is an important thing for all entrepreneurs, I think, when you're new. Because I think we're influenced by a lot of other people's dreams. We see YouTube, Instagram. We see what other people are doing.

learn how to identify what we're good at, what our passion is, and how to better ourselves. And the last thing you said was I definitely identify with being in a dark place and just wanting to just say I don't want to be an entrepreneur no more, I just want a regular life, you know. And I think that's another thing that a lot of entrepreneurs go through, young entrepreneurs, because we took a chance, we gambled, sometimes we better on ourselves, sometimes we better on other people, you know.

And so, like, when it didn't work, we all go to, like, try to find safety, like a safety net. And I feel like the nine to five is the safety net, you know. So, man, all those things are great, man. I'm glad you touched on those things. You got something you want to add, Alex? Oh, wait. Hey. Therapy. Hey. I don't care if you're not even going through nothing right now, go get your therapist. I promise you, it'll change your world, change your life.

ever happened to me.

Like I call my therapist my black auntie. She is the one like that. Dr. Johnson. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But yeah. You know it's crazy you saying that because I definitely agree with that as well. And we have a special episode coming up. We're gonna shoot real soon. And we're actually gonna have like My Therapist. Oh, I love that. Man, I like that, man. I was telling Alex about My Therapist earlier. Like he just finished a TED Talk recently. He's been a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

demille (25:03.704)
for, been on National Syndicated Podcasts, but not even just his accolades. It's just, man, I was in a dark place recently and like you said, man, batting on myself and looking for a safety net like, yo, my therapist came at a really, really good time because, yeah, I've dealt with all those things you just said. And that's the life of an entrepreneur because a lot of times the

on Instagram, social media, whatever. Just wins, they only show the wins. Just wins, just wins, right? And you don't really get to see those losses or what happens and then you get, well those losses happen because of reality and stuff. Now it's like, all right, you get discouraged, you get down, you start doubting yourself, you start doubting your abilities, who you are, what you got going on and stuff. And you come to this low point where it's like, man.

maybe other people weren't right. You start letting all these other people start influencing you and what you got going on and stuff, but. And your self-doubt starts creeping. Self-doubt starts creeping, your insecurities and everything you got going on, but in those moments, those are really.

Those are really the moments that you should not look forward to, but embrace as a whole. Amen. Self-reflection is so important, bro. But also along with self-importance, you gotta become self-aware to get through those dark places or overcome whatever you're going through. If you're not aware of who you are, like...

and you don't know who, like you don't know yourself, that journey just gonna continue to be a struggle. But I think that's one of the benefits of that time period when you're just doubting you're in a down place. That's when you really learn who you are. Like that's when I finally figured out, yo, I'm trying to be like people who influence me instead of learning like who the hell I really am. That's powerful. You know, so like,

demille (27:08.216)
Yeah man, and now you learn how to deal with your emotions. Don't self-medicate on drugs, alcohol, things. Just be still, be in the moment, and just learn yourself. Meditate. You gotta listen. Exactly. That's a hard part. I remember having that conversation with you when you let me know what everything was going through.

demille (27:34.606)
things that you're going through now is a quiz, right?

school you had quizzes, you had a pop quiz, you had a quiz, you had a test, right, then you had your finals, right? And most times when we have challenges in life, those are just the quizzes, those aren't even the tests. The quiz is to see are you ready for the test? Because that test is that next level, that test is that moment when you go and stretch yourself more than you've ever been, pause, right? And now you're super

demille (28:10.712)
and talked about this even when I was young, right? When I was 19 and stuff. Crazy to say that now. But I'd be like, yo, you gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Cause the minute that you're comfortable with being uncomfortable, you're a dangerous person. Every time I like, every time that I got into a situation, it was for me, it wasn't.

fact that it was just like oh man it's bad but it's like it's okay and it's okay because I'm gonna make it okay because I'm comfortable with me I'm comfortable so I put myself in this situation right and a lot of times we have life happen to us I was like fuck that I'm about to switch to flip the switch I'm about to make myself happen in life make myself create that life so like last year we were talking about last year I

bought a car, next month bought a house, next month I bought a Tesla, next month I bought another car, one time I bought another car, right? And then I was stressed out and

It was because I put myself in that stressful situation because I'm like, if I created this situation, I could get myself out. Because I'm the creator of that situation. So now I'm going to be the solver of those problems. And once you start solving those problems that you have, now you become more resilient and you become more savvy to problem solving. And like you were talking about, I mean, you always talk about trying to figure out your who am I. I think every man.

goes from boyhood to manhood. And in that instance, when you go from boyhood to manhood, you're trying to figure out who they are. Like, you're late teens. You lose that, what do they call it, that adolescence, that innocence. That's when you lose your innocence. When you lose your innocence, now you start trying to, gotta borrow. When you lose your innocence, you gain your cognizance. Right? Because you become cognizant of the world around you and realizing that the world around you.

demille (30:18.3)
is not what you used to bottle up. Yeah, it's not all peaches and green. Nah, that was a bottle. Nah, I was just joking. I love what you're doing. Let me tweet that real quick. I'm still in there. Hey, Mike, put that up. Nah, but just stay right there. We use that one uncomfortable. It's crazy that you said that. So...

All right, we all go through these uncomfortable moments, especially when we hit those lows or those dark places, right? Right. When we get out of them... Are you obese? Correct, but a lot of us revert back to our old ways and those tendencies where we were as comfortable at first again, like once we get back to being comfortable, like our back isn't against the wall no more, we start fighting. I had to realize that, all right, once my back get off the wall...

I have to keep putting myself in uncomfortable positions, not necessarily saying like, oh, I got to keep up with the Joneses. Yeah, keep up with the Joneses. But I'm saying I can't just live life at leisure no more. I got to do all the stuff that.

I would procrastinate on or I would just put off till tomorrow because I had a knocked out five things off my to-do list. Like man, them other three things, because wait, when I have time to do those other three things, but now I'm just trying to go chill, go to the joint, go watch a movie, go partake in some extracurricular activities. But let's go time. Like we don't got time to waste. Like, nah, it's time to get uncomfortable. Stop, man, stop doing everything that you used to doing. Like man, go get in the gym and go to work.

I used to lose a lot of French.

demille (32:02.926)
because people would talk about the game, sports, and fashion and all these other extra stuff. I'm like, bro, that's cool and all, but I'm worried about the money and the grind and stuff. A lot of people are like, bro, you gotta have that fine balance.

And I heard this one earlier, Leisure, where they were just like, yo, when you're getting to it, there's no fine balance, there's no work-life balance, there's no four-hour work, there's no, there's no, none of that is, there is a big imbalance. And you need that imbalance to grow because when you have balance, that means you're content. You're comfortable, well, no, I'm sorry. When you're balanced, you're comfortable. And when you're comfortable, long enough, you get content. Amen. Right? Mike, clip this up. Right?

We got you on the clips, bro. I got you on the clips. Opens, clip this. I got you. So we have all these moments where it's like, like you said, we knock out our biggest to do this, or we knock out our biggest thing, and it's like, oh, I got to celebrate the small wins. It's like, yes, but there's ways that you can celebrate, but still keep pushing forward, because what happens is, imagine that you're on a plane traveling, right? You're Markel.

Chief Keef, right? Doing the biggest rolling-on-the-lot concert. You're on the airplane, the airplane starts and then guess what? Cut the engine. Right? Now all of a sudden you roll to a slow stop and now guess what? You gotta fire back up the engines, you gotta prep everything back again, you gotta do all your checks, make sure everything's good to go, and then you gotta get all this momentum built back up just to move an inch. And I think a lot of times we get so used to that starter style.

back to the comfort because I'm not making no progress. And a lot of times we're not doing something. I made a real of this yesterday. You gotta do 10 times more, 10 times longer, right? The $10,000 rule, right? It's 10 years.

demille (34:06.766)
There's a reason you're having the success you're having with the photography industry is because you stuck it out long enough, put in the reps, put in the hours, put in the mess up, put in the dollars that have been burned, the time has been burned. Both y'all in the photography industry, y'all making y'all moves and y'all cutting y'all teeth, as the older saying, cutting teeth. But you're getting these reps out the way because you're learning everything but not to do. Right?

best offense is the best defense so you got to take these punches and you got to learn oh okay I keep going this way I keep getting jabbed that way maybe I should go that way and it's a lot it's a lesson that as boys turning into men we don't really get enough of that tough love just like yo look you

Yes, there's this fast life that you can take. You can take this fast track. But what ends up happening is, as fast as you come up, you go even faster on the way down. It's like, I don't think we talk enough about what's not sexy, right? What's not sexy is putting in the time. You go to nine to five, and then you need your five to nine, right?

And if you're really getting after it, you need to go until 11 o'clock at night sometimes. Sometimes you need to be able to vibe with the boy. Yeah. Right? And you know, the editing hours, you're getting crazy. You feel me. You need to put in those hours, those long hours.

But you need to put in enough long days in the week to add up to the month to add up to the years. Right? Because if not, then you're not going to get enough reps to really realize what's working and what doesn't work. And we talked about the Al Jomose jump yesterday where it's just like you have to...

demille (36:00.918)
Like start testing all this stuff. You gotta test enough times to be like, yo, this is what I like, this is what I don't like. And you're talking about the whole yacht business, right? I think that's how we got back to talking to one another because we saw each other in the gym all the time, just like hot and vibe, then we told me, y'all were in the yacht business. That's how I was like, wait, right, all right, let's talk. So go ahead and talk about that, like your progress on that,

all that was gonna happen versus the reality. How did y'all come up with the getting into the office? So, let's piggyback. Let's go back a little bit. He said that, you know, you was talking about the conversations piece, bro. You wasn't like that, like I said, I've known him since high school. Lord, he never had none of those type of conversations with us, bro. Oh man, yeah, you was definitely like probably considered the weird kid, but like, fool. I was locked in. But yeah, like, I mean, just like, all right, like, bro, it wasn't until like, all right,

And I think it's a difference between going from a kid to a teenager and losing your innocence and seeing what the real world is. But going from a teenager to an actual real adult and actually navigating and seeing how the real world works. And just popularity, shit ain't nothing, bro. Yeah. Yeah, or gossiping and how we talk about sports all day or-

What celebrity did what? Bro, this shit ain't important, bro. Man, I done wasted so many arguments and conversations. Who's a realer rapper? It's a distraction. Bro, that shit not. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I just had to definitely commend you and get you, bro. I think I always get you flowers every time I see you. But yeah, bro, you like, yeah, bro. Listen.

Like I said, you lose a lot of friends, a lot of people you just play. What?

demille (37:55.682)
Yeah, like you just don't make a lot of genuine connections and it's a lonely world when you get into it Cuz like I think that's for the best though. It is you keep fake people from around Yeah, cuz who wants to be around? Who wants to be around motherfuckers who only want to use or only want to take from you They don't want to pour into you So I think that's a great thing Honestly, like even myself with the content like sometime I'd be slacking on posting the content

to my main Instagram. Like, I'm like, I don't know. I'm fearful how people are gonna judge me and all that. Because they see me do this, they see me do that. But I had to talk to my therapist today about that. And I had to realize, fuck them. Yeah. Fuck them. Like, really?

demille (38:46.883)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I fucking read that, John. Or it was something like that. Well, let's get back to the yacht. Yeah, so, yeah, bro, with the yacht.

Call it the dumbest and smartest investment I've ever made. I literally tell everyone this. Smartest and dumbest investment I've ever made. Smartest because of how much potential it had. I actually do wanna get back into the, you know, the out-rental business when the time is right. But why I say it was the dumbest is because the lack of education and, you gotta know who you're going in the business with.

You gotta know the business that you're going into. Yeah, oh my goodness. Yes, you gotta know the business that you're going into. And just how to properly set it up. That's why I say having a mentor, or it don't even gotta be a mentor, but find somebody in that niche that is already successful or already has the knowledge. If we would've just even got with...

someone who really knows boats and like literally like, you know, sat down with them for like a month and actually like study art. You know, this is everything that need like that's needed. Like stuff went at dawn, like how it went. But uh, only thing, like the reason why things went, how it went and I, I would never blame, uh, my business partners for like, like I would never put the full blame on them. Like everybody had their part to play. Um,

Slack just wasn't picked up in certain areas. A lot of stuff, they end up starting to fall on me a bit. And a big thing was money just kept going in, but we wasn't seeing a return because we just didn't have that structure. We didn't know the business. We didn't know everything that went into it. Sounds real familiar. Yeah, I feel like my business partner, I still love them to death. Those are my boys and everything, even though I walked away from them.

demille (40:45.052)
But like I feel like they just wanted the more so looks sweet instead of like really monetize it and everything and really like Understand and know the business of it and honestly I when we first got it I did not want to do it up our palm show. I was like, bro Why are we getting the boat like we went to the Annapolis boat show and it was just like a see it touch it Feel it obtain it, you know that whole manifestation snip, so

That's what we was gonna do, like, you know, get prizes, see what it's like, all right, this is what we gotta build up to next year and everything.

demille (41:20.556)
I was good. I was good, I heard a deep sound. Yeah. When I tell you, I had to the whole day anyways, man, they found it, but I had stepped out to go get some food, man. Like they had found it, giant calling me like, where you at? Walk up to the giant, I'm like, oh snap, like this giant like, heard the price. I'm like, that's it. Man, called the finance company up. They like.

Oh, it's only gonna be like this much more? That's like enough over here. And it's only three, it's three of us, so we can split that? Oh, man, over here, bro. I'm basically wiping my ass with that money like a month, you know what I'm saying? I don't mind, like that's a great investment on my end. Like, you know, that's how I'm thinking, like, all right, bet, let's do it.

Bro, like I said, the structure was fucked up. People just wasn't doing it. We supposed to have cleaning ladies, we supposed to have captains, we supposed to get certain licenses. Business structure and foundation is so important. And then, I'm not gonna lie, bro, business funding, bro. Not knowing about business funding. 813th grade of school, bringing in over 100K a year. Why couldn't I, I walked in the bank 250K, not once, but twice.

half a million business funding we could have used that to fund a business. Me just keep throwing my own money into the joint and like we could have set up so many more systems we was like BSing on certain stuff because we was like oh we gotta wait for money to come in oh we gotta wait for this book and you know pay the deposit oh then we could bro it was just too many moving pieces like that's why I say like having funding like business funding is like so important. That's a good catch. I just want to say this.

In the moment, I felt it was tough, right? I don't know if I ever told you this, but it was very tough in the moment to ask the question I was asking you. I was like, how is this set up? What does this look like? What are these numbers? What is this going on? How is it? Oh, during this time you had Alex asking you these questions? Oh yes, bro, come on. I know you were thinking, oh, I don't. Come on. I feel like me and Alex probably had this conversation. I was like.

demille (43:30.538)
Bro, what the hell? Like, I think he saw it on my face. I'm like, bro, what the hell are you talking about? Like, he's asking us about, like, bro, business. I knew that was an uncomfortable conversation. He's asking us business literary stuff and business financial literary stuff. And I'm just like, bro, it was so bad to the point where like, all right, we was like, all right, we need to sell out like weekly meetings, like, cause like, you can really got teachers and stuff. Like, bro, we're like lost in the sauce, bro. And from that point, like just that, like little stuff right there, like, he saw like what.

He had a lot of potential, but he's so deep into the future. All right, bro. Eventually, this is going to only last so long, because y'all don't have the foundation set up, bro. I've had the same conversation with everyone. I'm about to say, bro, when you going through some shit, this is the best and worst dude to be talking to. He going to let you know. Oh, damn, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm going to ask those questions that need to be.

demille (44:32.35)
It's like, but it's so enlightening because I'm like, yo, I'm only asking these questions because either one, I've heard something or two, I've gone down that route and personally blew something. I blew a bag myself, right? Like, I've blown bags route, baby, 50K a year and I was blowing more bags than I had because I was like, nah, I need to get.

I need to get this and that. I was just always learning all the time. And then like for the both of y'all, when I started hearing certain things, I was like, you wanna do this, but where is this at? What's this thing that's supposed to be in place? Why don't you have this? And it's like those uncomfortable questions. I remember, we was downstairs, and y'all were just like, yeah, who? Like you.

Like we know you but, bro, who do you think you are? I was like. Bro, hell, I'm probably, like I said, I'm real transparent, y'all. Fuck that. We ain't have an operating agreement. If you don't, you probably don't even know what that is. Ooh, if you got partners, please have that in place. We ain't have an engagement agreement, bro. We ain't have a...

Bro we don't have anything, bro oh we don't have a contract between each other as partners bro. We, bro, we have nothing like literally nothing like bro. That's what, like that's where my family, like bro. Did you have anything to protect yourself against any litigation? Bro. I was about to ask him, I was like, I was asking him cause that's my thing. Bro, you wanna know what was funny bro? Like.

It's not even really funny, like not. It's just me. Actually, F that. I even take that back. It's not funny because it's fucking up our community, like, you know, black people. Bro, that shit wasn't even in the business name. So it went under one person's name, bro. That's why I was black. That's why. It wasn't in your name? Why you think I was able to walk away? Whoo! No, it wasn't in my name. Damn. That's what I'm saying. That boy sick.

demille (46:30.686)
Okay, I'm gonna go back, because when you said, y'all, and you said you were in photography production, I'm like, y'all, this seems like a good idea. Like, you're in production, you do music videos, like, and y'all, that sounds like...

Money, like I'm sure all these up and coming rappers wanna do music videos on Y'all Sister. So I'm like, yo. Bro, so when I tell you, I was literally like the investment piece and I did like some of the back end stuff for that, like my main focus was the Amazon then you know, I had my other stuff like the travel business, the photography business, like that was like, and I had my job so I had my, I'm like focused on these other pieces and I like literally said before we got the drink, like.

Yo, this is y'all, like, this is y'all gonna have to like really run this joint. Like, I can't like, you know, invest my time. I can do the money thing, but the time, like, I don't have.

demille (47:27.394)
Bro, them systems are so important.

demille (47:32.438)
Yeah bro, like man like For me, I was like understanding real estate, right? If you build a household sand, what's gonna happen? It's gonna sink, it's gonna fall Cause you don't have a solid foundation And I realized early on Like yo, your business has to have a foundation I'm not saying that me personally All my businesses are perfect, right? None of them are perfect At all

But the things that I realized, I'm like wait, because I would always ask lawyers and experience people and mentors, because I had mentors since I was like 16, 17. I praised my mom for that for me, because she forced me to go to get a mentor. And.

I would always talk to them and I would always hear their failures and their mess ups and stuff. And that's what allowed me to be so confident in making mistakes because they're like, you know, I made all these mistakes, I'm still here. Right? And I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm like, damn, alright, cool. So there's a lesson in that. But at the same time, I can take their lessons and learn from that. I don't have to deal with a lot of that stuff. So, yeah, like I was saying with Markella, I remember having that conversation with y'all at the studio. And I was just like,

I was like, I need to see your financials. Right? And like you were talking about, it was messing up the community. We oftentimes go on this trust-based faith system. Like, oh, you're my man, so I trust you, you trust me, so we don't need no paperwork and stuff like that.

But you really don't know who you're getting into business with because you don't know how that person manages the finances. You don't know how that person manages their time. You don't know what's the conversation that's happening up here in that person's head, that the reason why they're getting into this, right? You all may just have a session over like some blunts or whatever. You know, it would be great to do that, right? But you have to really like work.

demille (49:34.978)
forgetting the fact that we're playing grown men games. And you get either grown men prizes or grown men business. Grown men business, too. And so when you start playing those games, you play a dangerous game. Because now, money is not the root of all evil, but the love for money.

And so when you start intermingling your finances, your emotions, the way that you manage it, like you need to have set things. A good book for this is Traction by Gina Whitman. Right.

where he's like, yo, you gotta have the shot collar in place, you gotta have the organizer in place, you gotta have these different buckets for people to be and stick to that role. Right, yeah. Because like you were saying, you thought they were gonna manage it, and then they turned around and said, nah, Markel's gotta do it. Like, he's already doing all the business stuff, so he might as well keep doing it. And when you don't have those established roles, internal conflict starts happening.

And now you go through, that's my man, so yo, hey bro, we cool. To then in terms of, hey bro, I'm not playing no more like. Now you start burning bridges and stuff. That's where I felt like I personally deal with a lot of friendships. And I'm coming back to like mend a lot of those because I realized, like, I was out of it too aggressive, too rash, too like direct me in just the way that I approach things. So I was too militant to go after certain things.

And it's just like, it doesn't need to be that way, but at the same time, those conversations need to happen. Those uncomfortable conversations need to happen.

demille (51:08.554)
Let's get a couple more questions. But we're coming up on an hour, so if y'all just want to wrap it up in the year, we can fix one conversation. Yeah, now I'll make this part quick. But back to the partners, why I can't say it's all their fault is because, like I said, we didn't know, all right, back to the system. All right, how you say it, everybody has to have a role. And well, I got to be subsets of people under that. So if somebody's managing the yacht, you know what I'm saying? All right.

Well, they got still higher on cleaning company, captain company. Uh.

even a bookkeeper, someone that's gonna manage the book. Yeah, the book, cause shoot, we lost out on a lot of money just cause niggas kept mentionin' them, oh damn, oh, people reachin' out. For like either a consultation or an inquiry, man. Like shoot a music video, family wanna go out for July 4th, you know what I'm sayin'? Like little stuff like that, man. Just kept talkin' about it. That where money could be comin' in. Okay. That's why we're goin' down, cause I really.

demille (52:12.91)
That's how much people just overlook that. People want to do the business, the face of the business, where there's an old man, you got your IT department you need to have, and your legal department, your finance department, your marketing department. Cause that sounds like something like a virtual system. Yeah, BA, oh my God, BA's are so important, I love it. Yes, oh yeah, go ahead. Now that's all I got for this episode. I think that this was a great conversation that we should definitely have more of these conversations.

demille (52:47.312)
than these aspects because people our age don't talk about this shit. I would love to come back. I think we should definitely do a part two of this conversation. I have some more questions. But thank you for coming on. But you want to... How can people reach you? Yeah, what is it, man? So y'all are looking for the third page. That's like my... It's my personal page too. I'm not going to lie to y'all. Shot by Kale is K-E-L. Shot by K-E-L.

And then if you're looking for the business consulting side evolve that BSG it stands for evolve business strategies group so evolve that BSG and that's where you can find me Appreciate it man. No, no, you don't do this again Appreciate y'all man. This was very informative

A lot of gems, a lot of gems. Yeah man, thank y'all for coming back for another episode. Again, this is the Millennial Mindset, excuse me, Millennial Mogul Mindset Podcast. Thank you for coming back and see you in the next video. Peace. It's hers. Indeed. Man, that's your food. Just give me that, I'll talk about the champion.

He got to come out and change his name again too bro. Remember I told you like three other podcasts I seen that has the same name or really similar names. Like we got to come up with something that's real. Yeah, I knew this bitch was going to die. It die? Honestly, I was trying to um... What's my unplugging though? Oh, hold on.