Retreats — people will always want an experience, one of my clients is ever-popular across all social channels and creates the most epic videos on earth. People would love to spend a few days with him in action, getting to see the experience from the inside out while making a true connection.
As part of my series about “How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand”I had the pleasure of interviewing Supermanny, Manny Patrick Vargas.
Supermanny AKA Manny Patrick Vargas is the Celebrity Brand and Sports Partner with LightSpeed VT out of Las Vegas whose vision is to connect sports and entertainment, celebrity instructed online training, to every fan worldwide, with the mission to supply fans with unlimited, on-demand, belief and knowledge, via online training.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?
I appreciate the opportunity. I was Born and Raised in Las Vegas, NV. Grew up right where the airport sits and calls the Las Vegas Strip my backyard. In fact, I live at City Center now, so it’s safe to say it is my backyard! In all fun, it’s been quite the journey. At a young age, I was pressed with my adversities, multiple near-death experiences by age 6, car accidents, broken bones, scars on my face, and even the loss of my mother by age 10. This all came before I picked up a baseball bat young, that gave me some hope into becoming someone, someday. I played for a good 9 years through the collegiate level and then quit because I lost my love for the game and choose to pick back up in the real world. I moved back home from San Francisco to Las Vegas and then got into the restaurant business bussing tables at the MGM Grand. Over the next several years I worked many restaurants and service-based jobs, moved to LA, found myself addicted to gambling, drugs, boozed like crazy, and then at 26 years of age became the owner of 3 restaurants here in Las Vegas. Short-lived those entrepreneurial endeavors were due to me being a complete mess, completely in my own way, until 2015, at 29 years old I decided to get sober and that is when my entire being turned a corner and headed for unstoppable success. Upon studying myself through elements of personal growth, mentors, tons of action, I wrote a book, started a podcast, traveled the country for two years as a speaker, and am now the Celebrity Brand and Sports Partner with LightSpeed VT. It’s challenging to put all the details into a tight well-written piece because they are infinite, nonetheless, that’s a good summary to get rockinnn n rollinnn.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you in the course of your career?
Well, over the course of the two years I was traveling the country, I would wake up in new cities every other day and it wasn’t unusual for me to literally forget which city I was in. I’d wake, look around, and then ask myself, where am I? The sort of questions I was used to after blacking out drunk for so many years before that. But in this case a much for an enlightening experience. And to that note, only 10 years before that I took a trip to Reno, NV with a buddy exploring a business opportunity at the young age of 22, and I remember, we had nothing, no experience, no idea where to start, yet we knew we wanted to make something happen there, and upon checking into the Harrah’s hotel, walking through the halls, I remember saying to myself that one day, one day I will travel around the country and live in hotels. 10 years later, I was doing exactly that and making a difference. Just keep at it and don’t stop believing!!
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I’m always connecting people that I know/have relationships with others of the same in which they go off and do big things together. Make a bigger impact, create gangbusters products for people to improve the quality of their lives, etc. In essence, facilitating power players to impact on a much bigger level with great reach and leverage.
If someone would want to emulate your career, what would you suggest are the most important things to do?
- Ask what else can I do for people?
- Start relationships not to make sales but to become friends
- Get up earlier, stay later, and in between outhustle all
- Be a worthy partner over an opportunistic profit seeker
- Earn trust through excellence
- Prepare and execute
Is there a particular person that made a profound difference in your life to whom you are grateful?
There are so many. Honestly, there is no self-made man/woman. It’s impossible without the help of great people in your corner. I have a saying “borrow to become” meaning that you surround yourself with people who have much more success than you, position yourself as the student, ask great questions, and then when they give you answers, USE THE ANSWERS IMMEDIATELY. Essentially, borrowing their knowledge, using it, and then discovering more of your unfolding destination. However, one is my father. He always believed in me, gave me the support I needed to become anything I wanted. When I was down, which was very often, the words were always the same, “Come on son, get back up. You can do it, it’s not over yet. Alright, you’re trying again, let’s get it done this time.” NEVER EVER DID HE PUT ME IN A BOX WITH NO, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST GET A JOB, STOP DOING THE ENTREPRENEUR THING. It was always an encouragement. And for him, I am forever grateful.
Can you share a story?
A young businessperson came to a neighborhood to offer his solution, a lawn maintenance service. He knocked on the door of the first house. A little girl opened.
“Hey, little girl! Is your mom home? I have an amazing offer to discuss with her.”
The girl called her mom.
The woman saw the young businessperson and quickly said, “thank you young man, but we don’t really need anything.”
Hearing this, the young man sighed and said, “please ma’am, at least let me tell you about the service. I haven’t been able to get any contract commitments today. Please?”
Then the girl looked back at him and said, “Hey mister, how many doors have you knocked on today?”
The young businessperson answered, “around 30.”
The girl continued, “do you know that Walt Disney was turned down 303 times before Disneyland got financing?
Do you know that John Creasy was rejected 750 times before he became a famous novelist?
Do you know what colonel sanders spent two years driving across all states asking restaurant owners to buy his chicken recipe and was turned down 1010 times?”
Do you know that Supermanny from LightSpeed VT has been ignored and turned down 2,379 times by agents, managers, and investors, before he supplied the fans worldwide with unlimited, on-demand belief, and knowledge, via online training?”
The young businessperson remained silent.
Then said, “dad, aren’t you Supermanny?
And didn’t you used to door knock and sell lawn care when you were my age?”
To which the father smiled and replied, “yes son, I share this story with you to remind you that you can be the hero of your own story, too.”
So what are the most exciting projects you are working on now?
Every one of my client projects is a thrill. We co-create learning experiences that are designed to give the masses an insider’s peek into the tools, resources, approach to life that has made all of these individuals wildly successful as celebrity brands in their respective fields. Some clients teaching people how to become famous, how to get their own TV shows, how to reach financial freedom after being on TV, all the mechanisms one could imagine that assist a learner during the process, with new experiences emerging daily as we are constantly discovering new talent!
What are your “Top Five Ideas About How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand”. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- I’d be outta my mind if I didn’t say online training first! Being that is what I do now and have several influencers who I am helping. Most don’t know where to start because teaching, training is not their sweet spot. But first and foremost, leveraging the audience and community they have with a product that the people are going to buy somewhere else, why not make it you? Mind map, outline, and get the creative process started. I’ve sat across the table and asked them questions in which we captured content that would end up being usable and able to be reformatted for a good solid structure of a future course that could be monetized.
- Retreats — people will always want an experience, one of my clients is ever-popular across all social channels and creates the most epic videos on earth. People would love to spend a few days with him in action, getting to see the experience from the inside out while making a true connection.
- Physical products — I was recently sitting in a meeting with the manager of several influencers and one of his clients had just launched a jewelry line. The number of units sold was in the hundreds of thousands during the first few days!
- Sponsorships from big brands — brands are forking over money left and right to have exposure to the influencer’s audience. I have a client who is a star on HGTV and did several specialty deals in the home improvement arena.
- Conferences — yes, your own. I spoke to a team of a lady the other day that has a great brand and wants to start doing events to build another extension to her thriving brand, she’s open, anxious, and ready to figure it out and execute. During the same conversation, this team asked me to start preparing thoughts for another top tier personality who is already doing live events 4 times a year to the tune of 2.5 million dollars. Not a bad way to drive additional business.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. 🙂
Bob Iger — if you are reading this drop me a line [email protected]
It would be to open negotiation and see how far we could get, and if I could hang with the king of the jungle ☺
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
IG:@therealsupermanny
Five Ways For Influencers To Monetize Their Brand, With Manny Patrick Vargas of LightSpeed VT was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.