Over 300 Million $ In Brand Deals Revealed By Famous Agent Paul Fisher
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- Many years ago, there was 12 covers of American Vogue and 11 covers used to be models and one with celebrity. And now there's 11 celebrities and one model. - Interesting. - And every time I get a phone call from a Prada or a Gucci or any major designer in the world, the first question they ask me is, "What's the kid's Instagram?" 'Cause they know if they book one of the Jenners,

they know it comes along with 150, 200, whatever million followers. And so they're asking us the same exact questions. They're saying to us, yes, I love that model of yours or they love that kid, but what's her conversion rate as far as her online following goes? And so...

With every model that we manage now, the most important thing is... I know you've grown a company to, you know, done tens of millions of dollars over your time. What are some of the biggest entrepreneurial lessons you've learned? Well, there's a few lessons really quickly that I use. I'm not saying that they're right for everybody, but number one...

My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life.

What's up guys, welcome back to another episode. Today we have my friend Paul Fisher who has been one of the top supermodel agents for the last few decades. He's worked with some of the biggest models and celebrities in the world. The Hilton family, the Getty family has a couple of TV shows out, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, the list goes on and he's brokered over 300 of

million dollars in deals between these celebrities and brands Gucci Versace you name it he's done it and today we're talking about celebrity influence how to build brands using celebrities how to crack those deals and how you can do it as a beginner so don't switch off and think I'm not a Gucci I'm not a Versace because I'm going to talk about how you can do it even if you're a beginner Paul

Welcome to the show. First of all, thank you so much for having me here, Rudy. It's an honor. I'm humbled and I'm looking forward to rapping to you.

Yes, sir. So tell the audience if they don't know who you are, some of what you've done and are doing and all the celebrities and brands you've worked with, because I wanted you on today to really talk about that synergy between celebrities, influencers, and brands. Something that I see as the future for every type of business is merging in those big talents. And I know you've worked with a lot of those talents. So yeah, tell the audience. So I've spent the last few

few decades, Rudy, representing some of the biggest stars in the world, in my field, in the world of the modeling industry, and now moving on into the world of influencers. I've been the personal agent of everybody. Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, Carrie Otis, Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, the Hilton family, the Getty family, huge current stars. My kids and my talent has booked over 300 million dollars

worth of jobs. I think, and I'll say very, very humbly, I think I've created more stars in the modeling industry than anybody before me. Maybe not into the future. We'll see what happens there. But in the past, I don't think anybody's created more stars than I have. And now I have moved into representing because the business has shifted so much into just

you know, there is really no supermodels anymore. We can only name a couple of, you know, high fashion supermodels right now, but right now it's moved into the whole world of social media. So I represent, you know, a couple of big stars in the social media world, Swade Brooks,

who's actually been living in my house for the last five or six years. I've known her since she's been born. So I've moved now into the world of social media. So I really have two jobs, Rudy. On one hand, I manage talent and have done that for a few decades. The second thing I do for the last few years, I've been starring in a TV show called I Can Make You a Supermodel.

I love it. Yeah, I'm so excited to see how you feel the celebrity influencer world has changed too, right? Because, you know, I've been obviously in this industry about 10 years and even in those 10 years, a lot's changed. And I really became fascinated with

merging my brands and the brands I ran or managed or consulted for in my own personal companies with celebrity talent. Because one thing I've seen over many, many years is the instant trust and credibility and the instant amount of doors that open

when a celebrity is attached and all the big brands have noticed that too, right? They're paying out tens of millions of dollars for these celebrity ambassadors and even giving equity away in billion dollar companies just to get a celebrity on board. So can you explain how that world's changed and how you've seen it with all the talent you've managed? 'Cause I know you've done some big brand deals too, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to. Yes, Rudy. And there's a new business that I'm actually launching right now, which actually plays right directly into this. I was a very, one of the most powerful brand builders in the world is a man named Berndt Ullman. U-L-L-M-A-N, Berndt Ullman. And Berndt has done the biggest celebrity brand deals.

on the planet he did the Jennifer Lopez deal with Mark Anthony 3.2 billion dollars for Kohl's he's done deals for Adam Levine Nicki Minaj Steven Tyler et cetera and he came to me five months ago and he said he said Paul um have you heard about the Ryan Reynolds deal that Ryan Reynolds deal with did with Mint Mobile yeah and Ryan invested one million dollars of his own cash

And two years later, he walked away with $334 million. True story. That's a good ROI there. It's a nice ROI there. I'll get him now. He said to me, he goes, I know you manage a talent by the name of Suede Brooks, but

Are you able to put together six Suede Brooks? And what we want to do is we're doing a deal with T-Mobile and Verizon. And we're launching this company called Lit Mobile, L-I-T. It's a phone plan. And we want you to put together six influencers, creators in that space, in the beauty, fashion, pop culture space. So basically what they're doing, which I'm helping them do, is taking...

high-end, powerful influencers who have a reach in the aggregate of about 50, 60 million followers in the aggregate, and we're launching this phone plan called Lit Mobile. So the ability to kind of, it's kind of a, it's monetizing celebrities and monetizing telecommunications with the use of celebrities. It's just like the alcohol liquor lines, right? 100%.

It's all that. They slap a label on the top, right? And it makes a $100 million company because Brad Pitt's behind it or whoever. That's exactly. It adds credibility. But it also adds one more thing, which is the reach of these influencers and these social media stars. Because when they can actually push a button and actually reach 50 million, 60 million, 70 million people in a moment, it's bigger than NBC. Right.

It's bigger than Fox. You guys have the power and these influencers have the power to create a brand literally overnight, not just because of adding their huge credibility and their name to a product. But Ryan Reynolds didn't just add his name to Mint Mobile, which became a billion dollar brand.

he leveraged his 50 million followers. So A, one level is the actual brand awareness that the celebrity brings along with them. But the other thing is that huge following in the followers.

Totally. And I think, you know, I keep trying to emphasize to my listeners and my audience, like, don't sleep on this, but also don't eliminate yourself from thinking it's only going to work for the billion dollar brands. Because most of my audience, as you know, is startup entrepreneurs, right? Doing a couple of million or even trying to get to that phase. And there is a lot of potential to still do these celebrity deals at

at that early phase, right? And obviously a lot of the biggest A-listers are doing it more at the billion dollar level, but we've helped some of our clients for a minimal investment take their successful supplement company or skincare company or fashion company and duplicate it with now a celebrity face on it

and basically run it as a second company. And the way we structure the deals with the celebrity is the celebrity gets paid upfront, right? Or gets a guarantee over the first year. And the celebrity basically generates that money themselves from their own following. So for the entrepreneur starting out, they're taking very little risk because they might

Partner with a celebrity, have to give the celebrity 100K in the first six months. But then the celebrity goes and makes that 100K from their own influence, from their own following. And then this beginner entrepreneur gets all of that instant credibility and now co-owns a brand with a major celebrity.

I know you've done a lot of bigger deals with like big billion dollar companies and stuff. But for those listening that, you know, don't eliminate yourself from, you know, what we're discussing right here, because it's if you're smart and strategic in the deal structure, every single person can be leveraging the power of celebrities. 100 percent. It's it's it's it's.

It's putting your brand on steroids overnight. Yes. By the way, if I may, Rudy, I love working with the smaller brands. To be able to be there at the inception with some of those smaller brands and watch them grow literally in a six to eight month period and watch them just fly out of the gate.

because they've used a celebrity, because they've used an influencer to kind of put a power pack on the back of their, on the back of that brand. Yeah. I think is really even more exciting for a guy like me to watch their success. Totally. And I think also, yeah,

Most entrepreneurs don't learn this, so they do it the hard way, which is basically in my 20s, I understood growing a company was you start the company and you grow it from ground up, right? And I go, that works, right? I got my company to tens of millions of dollars doing exactly that, but it's hard and slow. Whereas now in my 30s, I've changed my brain on how to grow big companies to you either raise money like private equity or whatever, right? You partner with a big celebrity and grow a brand there,

or you buy a brand, right? And you take an existing brand because you're able to cut out with all three of those options, probably at least five to 10 years of that startup phase that's slow and tedious. And you're able to, like you say, put it on steroids. So I think for anyone listening, you know, there's really the three options. If you're serious about growing like a company to do in tens of millions or hundreds of millions, it's very slow and painful to just do it

And if you look at companies like Elon Musk and Amazon and all those companies, yes, they started or founded them. But most of the time when you actually read into it and research it, they acquired a company and then renamed it and it had a lot of the IP or the

the base and then they started acquiring a bunch of companies and putting it under the umbrella you know like i think facebook has had over 60 or 70 acquisitions or maybe 200 i can't remember but it's had a lot right amazon's had hundreds of acquisitions so um you know leveraging acquisitions and celebrities to grow the brands are so important and let's talk about the flip side for like um

You know, what's in it for the big billion dollar brands? Because obviously you've brokered deals and worked with, you know, your talent and those big brands. How are they structuring those deals and what are they getting out of it? What I'd like to do is talk about one thing in regards to that, which is the type of celebrity and the type of influencers that the brands are shimmying up with.

I have this concept that I believe that, you know, I'll give you an example. I manage a girl named Suede Brooks. And if you look at Suede Brooks, her social media following, three and a half, four million followers between her TikTok and her Instagram. And one of the things I stress to Suede is out of every 10 postings that you do, at least a couple of them have to be in a form of giving back.

You have to be where you're actually giving back to your community and you're actually doing something good for the planet. And I think that just kind of creates circuitry and actually creates my stars into becoming bigger stars. And how that has to do with the question that you're asking me is, I think the type of influencer

the type of stars that these big brands are going after and that are important to these big brands are those types of talent talent that gives back to the to their community talent that actually cares about the world talented you know i can get a kid a versace campaign or eve's on the wrong campaign whatever but i think that kids then it's got to go out feed the homeless do something great for the community and i think those big brands what they

What they're doing is they're actually shimming up with talent that actually has this kind of consciousness. They want to be involved with young people. I don't want to say PG, but have parental approval. But I think that they're...

the brands, what's important to the brands are, are talent that where, where they know it's not over-sexualized. It's not a lot of, you know, TNA. It's not too sexy. The talent that they're working with, um,

you know, it's just, it's just has great morals and, and are giving back to the community and doing something great for the world. So I think those bigger brands are excited about talent who are not, I don't want to say mainstream because they could be edgy. They could be cool. They could be interesting, but they're, but they're also doing something great for the planet. They're giving back their care about the world.

care about what's taking place in the world. And the kind of talent that I manage, that I love to manage, are kids who have an opinion, who give back to the world, who care about their community and things like that. So I think the big brands that I deal with, I think the reason some of my talent resonates with them is because of the type of postings, the type of consciousness they're kind of, you know, inside of their postings and of their platform.

Yeah, and I think what's interesting with someone like Slade Brooks is that it's kind of changed where some of your earlier...

you know, talent that you were managing or maybe still manage, right? Whether the typical Naomi Campbell, the typical, you know, celebrity model, et cetera. But now it's almost becoming like YouTuber influencer turned celebrity. So how have you seen that sort of world change? Because I think that's like, you know, celebrities used to be born out of TV movies or maybe sport, right? Pretty much. Whereas now they're born out of social media.

Yeah. You know, many years ago, there was 12, there's 12 covers of American Vogue and 11 covers used to be models and one with a celebrity.

And now there's 11 celebrities and one model. Interesting. And it's turned the whole business on its back because it's very hard to create supermodels anymore because they've taken the covers of the magazines away from us. If you look at Harper's Bazaar or Vogue or any of the major fashion magazines in any country around the world, it's not 11 celebrities.

you know, models anymore and one celebrity. It's one model and 11 celebrities. And every time I get a phone call from a Prada or a Gucci or any major designer in the world,

The first question they ask me is, what's the kid's Instagram? How big of a reach does that kid have? Because they know if they book one of the Jenners, they know it comes along with 150, 200, whatever million followers. And so they're asking us the same exact questions. They're saying to us, yes, I love that model of yours or they love that kid, but what's her conversion rate as far as her online following goes? And so...

With every model that we manage now, the most important thing is that they're using and they're building their platform in a very, very powerful way because that's the only way we can attract the brands. And for us, Rudy, the building of a brand for a model nowadays is twofold.

It's to attract major brands to use that GID. But then the second part of that, the second part of that is when the model is done modeling, what is she going to do with that platform? She needs to be able to move it from A to B. She needs to move it from the modeling career to building a product line.

to opening up a restaurant, to doing whatever they want to do in their life. But it's about moving that platform from A to B. So the reason for a model, for example, to build a very large online following is one, when it decides your rate, it decides what big brands you're going to attract. But then when you move it from A to B,

and you're done with your modeling career, it's imperative to have a major platform to use the modeling industry to have a huge platform for whatever business that you want to build afterwards. And they're building big businesses after their modeling career with the use of these online social media platforms.

Totally. So let's talk a little about the business side because, I mean, we've talked a lot about celebrities, influencers, you know, the models and the brand deals. But I know you've, you know, grown a company to, you know, done tens of millions of dollars over your time. So I would love, you know, and obviously this show, most of us are all entrepreneurs at heart, right? So tell

What are some of the biggest entrepreneurial lessons you've learned over growing over the years and running the business side? Well, there's a few lessons really quickly that I use. I'm not saying that they're right for everybody, but number one, put in the time. Everybody wakes up at 9 o'clock in the morning. They start working. I start my day at 5 o'clock in the morning.

You know, you got to work. You got to put in the time. I like to outwork everybody. If everybody's going to work eight hours a day, I'm going to put in 12, 14 hours a day. Because I just think that especially in today's generation, people think that they can get away with working four, six, seven, eight hours and they're cool. It's a joke. If you really want to build something, you got to work. You got to hustle. So I think working from, you know, putting in the extra hours is really important. I think number two is believe. Believe in something.

you're gonna get your you have a hundred people say no to you you got to keep knocking on doors you got to believe it's it's it's it you know to me there's one enemy and the enemy is doubt and so you have to have 100 certainty in yourself in the product that you're selling but 100 certainty who cares if you get 100 no's i i mean the way i create star is very simple i take a kid i send it to 100 of the biggest decision makers in the world i know 94 people are going to tell me i'm an idiot

But six people are going to think the kid is great. Yeah. And a simple map. And all I got to get is two or three out of those hundred people to believe in the kid. And then we're off and running to the races. So one is work really hard. Two is the enemy is doubt. Have 100% certainty. And then I think the third one is a spiritual thing that my spiritual teachers taught me, which is the following. I did this study.

many years ago and I tried to figure out how can people stay successful for long periods of time? Not five years, not 10 years, but 20 years, 25 years. How do you stay in the game for long periods of time? I wanted to see if there was a common denominator. How do you stay successful for a long period of time?

And I found a common denominator and I wanted to figure out, was it they were better looking, they were better dancers, they were better singers, they were better business people. What was that thing, that common denominator that kept people in the game for long periods of time? And that thing was

They gave back to the world. They were philanthropic. Whether it's Robert Redford or Paul Newman or now Katy Perry, Sean Penn, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt. What are they doing? They're giving back to the world in a very, very, very powerful way.

and profound way. And I think that same way about business. I think that A, you got to work harder than everybody else and put in the time. I think you got to believe more than you could ever possibly believe in anything. You have to have complete certainty. And then you got to figure out how you could take a piece of that and give back to the world and share with the world. And I think if you use those things, hard work, belief, and giving back to the world, I think that's a very serious cocktail for success. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. And I mean, you know, I think that's part of your story, right? Like most of us started with nothing. I know you said you started with 10k and, you know, help generate over 300 million now in deals and growing your own company to tens of millions. And I think that's one thing all of us entrepreneurs have in common is we have this borderline crazy arrogance, like we're going to make it and everyone else thinks you're crazy. But, you know, until you do, right, as the saying goes.

yeah they laughed at me they said how could you ever build how could you ever go against elite and ford and the biggest modeling agents in the world and you got 10 000 bucks and you got and you're 22 years old out of uc santa barbara how could you possibly pull that off i love it and i just said i'm going to work 15 hours a day and i'm going to believe with with complete certainty and then as i got older i figured out the final one which was

Share as much as you possibly can share and give back in a very profound, powerful way. Love it. And just lastly, as we wrap up, I teased the new stuff you're up to now. You have the TV show. Tell us a little about that for a couple of minutes to wrap up today. Well, I've been doing a show for the last three, four seasons now, about five years. But I do a show overseas in London.

and in Amsterdam and it's in around maybe 10 countries around the world. It's called I Can Make You A Supermodel. And so if you Google me, Paul Fisher Supermodel Agent, you'll see me, my show, I Can Make You A Supermodel. And I go into rehabs, homeless shelters, I find kids on the street. And six, eight weeks later, you see them walking for my clients, Donatella Versace, Mrs. Pratt, et cetera, et cetera. And then I manage those kids' careers.

So the show has become a big, huge hit. Eight o'clock at night in Holland and in London, Next Top Model comes on. Nine o'clock at night, my show comes on. But the new show that we're out there actually presenting to all the big streamers in the networks right now is called Confessions of a Modeling Agent. And that show, which we hope gets picked up soon, is where I tell stories about

about my clients, about me and Naomi, me and Stephanie, me and Monica Bellucci, me and Carla Bruni, me and the Hiltons, me and the Gettys. And so it's, I'm actually coming out, honestly coming out of the closet, but I'm telling stories that have never been heard before.

I'm telling stories about the OJ Simpson case when I used to represent Paula Barbieri that has never, ever been told before. The true story behind, you know, one of the biggest murder mysteries in the world. I'm telling stories about how Axl Rose blew up my freaking Jeep. I'm talking about, you know, because of Stephanie Seymour and how me and Mickey Rourke had wars and shit like that. So my new show, which is Confessions of a Model Agent, God willing, you know, people are starting to get excited about it. God willing, I get to

do that show in the coming year. Nice. I'm excited to see that. Thanks, Rudy. TV Journey is a fun one. I just film

I filmed my first show last year that comes out in a couple of months' time on a major streaming platform. And, you know, it's a great experience to kind of give back in that way, right? YouTube and socials is one thing, but I love the idea of impacting people through the TV side. So, yeah, I'm excited to see that. So just last question. I want to close with this really quickly.

I just want to close with this, Rudy. I love what you do. The ability to give knowledge to young entrepreneurs on how to become successful in this freaking war zone out there, this business war zone out there. I take my hat off to you, brother. I've watched you for a while and I'm humbled to sit and talk to you. And I think what you do

is so damn important and really, really cool for young people and older people to learn great business ideas and techniques and entrepreneurship. It's really, really great stuff, man. My hat's off to you, brother.

appreciate that i mean look just like you i do all this because i didn't have this when i started i figured it all out and just because i believed in myself push through and became successful from kind of brute force and not giving up and i always look back and how further ahead i could be if i had that lessons and mentorship right so just like you it's it's uh it's actually a privilege to be able to now be in a position to do that and that's why i'm so excited by tv this is a bigger platform or stage

for me to hopefully have that positive impact on entrepreneurship. I mean, entrepreneurship is one of the best things for the world if it's used in a good way. So yeah, that's I think the line there. So Paul, just to wrap, if people want to check you out or, you know, follow you, what's your best social? I know you're on Instagram and such.

Yeah, two things really quickly. One is my Instagram is thereal.paulfisher. And then one of my great things that I get to do in my life is I get to teach. And it's kind of a website. It's a training course where I train people all over the world. And I actually train some of the biggest modeling agencies and influencer agencies on the art of being an agent, the art of creating stars. And it's called the Paul Fisher Method.

the paulfishermethod.com, the paulfishermethod.com. And here's where I literally teach people how to become a modeling agent, an influencer agent, to represent talent, how to create stars. And I'm very, very proud of it because we've had, I think now, 75,000 people go through the course. And it's really, really exciting for me to see more

people that I've trained through my course become agents of some of the biggest stars in the world. That has been one of the most exciting parts of my journey is the art of teaching and creating the art of creating stars. So paulfishermethod.com, it's a really cool course and you'll learn how to become an agent of top talent.

Nice. I love it. All right, buddy. Well, that's a wrap, guys. Until next time, keep living the red life. Paul, thank you so much. I hope today's episode was educational and inspiring, and I'll see you guys very soon. Take care. Thanks, Rudy. Peace.