The Outcome of Now, with Vinnie Potestivo – Episode 440 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Emmy Award-winning media brand advisor, content coach, and podcast host, Vinnie Potestivo chats about the dawn of reality TV, the advantage Jessica Simpson had in the 2000s, why helping the underdog is cool, the real people economy vs creator economy, how clarity beats speed, the three types of creatives, strategy vs tactics, supporting vs promoting, the relative simplicity of winning an Emmy, and how Beyonce is a small business owner.

About Vinnie:

Vinnie Potestivo is an industry-leading media and talent innovator who is widely known for his inclusive and impactful approach to brand building and personal brand development.

With over 25 years of experience, including time spent at MTV, Bravo, and other networks, he and his teams have become well-trusted connectors who sell, develop, produce, launch, distribute, and amplify some of the most talked-about original series & talent brands in modern pop culture.

Personal brands Vinnie has helped elevate through the use of original content include Mandy Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Tyrese Gibson, Lauren Conrad, Diane von Furstenberg, Rob Lowe, Danielle Fishel, Peter Thomas Roth, Kelly Osbourne, Kristin Cavallari, Nasir “Nas” Jones, Molly Sims, Vanessa Lachey, Susie Castillo, Damien Fahey, Quddus, Suchin Pak, Gideon Yago, Will.i.am, Ebro, DJ Clue, LaLa Anthony, Hilary Duff,  and Leah McSweeney among others.

Corporate brands VPE: Vinnie Potestivo Entertainment, Inc. has worked closely with include Macy’s, Samsung, Nikon, MLB, Peter Thomas Roth, June Jacobs Spa, Naturally Serious Skin, Kiehl’s, Hope Fragrances, Ciroc, Dow, Lady Foot Locker, AARP, Prudential & Allstate.

I Have A Podcast with Vinnie Potestivo, a collection of conversations with celebrities and creatives who aim to inspire us in our everyday lives, can be found on Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you listen to yours. IHAP’s companion video series I Have A Podcast on Television can be seen Thursdays on DirectTV, Distro TV, and Channel 285 on STIRR via bspoketv. For more information on viewing times, current episodes, and guest recommendations please visit ihaveapodcast.com.

Vinnie can be seen on linkedin.com/in/vinniepotestivo where he shares business and brand strategies for people looking to inspire and impact with media. You can also find him at instagram.com/vinniepotestivo where he over-shares photos of his two mini-schnauzers @BeauWellington and @DudleyGreenfield.

Learn more at VPETalent.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Stephanie Maas
Hi, how are you?

Vinnie Potestivo
I’m good. Am I too early? Sorry.

Stephanie Maas
So what about you in Brooklyn? I know you’re from there. So are you usually based out of there?

Vinnie Potestivo
Yeah. I’m from originally from Staten Island. So I didn’t move too far. But yeah, I stayed in Brooklyn. I’ve been working from home for about like, five, five years. Now. Everyone’s like, You’re so lucky. And like, No, I had to learn how to work with somebody else. In a space. It wasn’t like everything just continued as as norm but but virtual producing a lot of like consulting with beauty brands and celebrities that have sort of other types of apparel brands or beauty brands, skincare brands, that was like my pandemic gig, turning like Instagram studios into podcast studios. It’s been fun, by the way of helping brand owners that don’t identify as being creators, you know, they’re they’re chemists as dietitians by trade. And now they get to be creators. And then I just give them like powerful tools, like Instagram.

Stephanie Maas
You know, there’s this new thing out, it’s called Instagram. It’s called the gram.

Vinnie Potestivo
I geek out, get excited about this. It’s like the creative toys are so much better now than when I was a kid. You know, I had to be an intern and get approved by UC and network executive. And you know, no, no, people with an iPhone are like fallen executive producers. Here I am like the pied piper or whatever, Paul Revere. Instagram guides are changing, Instagram guides are changing.

Stephanie Maas
This is gonna be like pulling teeth. I can tell. Okay, you obviously have a ton of recognition. I think I read you have an Emmy or two or three. So that makes you seem super cool. And like you have this super cool job. From your perspective. What is cool about your job? I know what the world thinks.

Vinnie Potestivo
Yeah. Do you know how I described my job just earlier to a family member, made me laugh. I said, I’ve been in unpreferred media, my entire life. Ooh, you worked for MTV? Ooh, Bravo. Really? You did that housewives thing that’s like, I got to work with awesome storytellers that had to go through a television network to get their stories heard by hundreds of millions of people globally worldwide. And MTV was a brand that had that reach. So because of where I was at the timing of when stories became an economy in and of themselves, they became a commodity. I think inherently I think there’s something cool and helping the underdog. I think that’s cool. Everything I’ve done has always been helping someone who felt under something, get over something. And usually it was a creative way to do it. And I think what might be interpreted cool about that are maybe the people that I got to help for sure, because they changed culture. So for example, the challenge on MTV, you know, when it came time to host the challenge, I knew it had to be an athlete, and we had Johnny Mosley and Dave Mirra gotta wrestle host and we met TJ Lavin, TJ was an athlete, a BMX, or at a time where BMX as the sport itself, was getting landed on the map. So he was one of the front faces for that. And we had this really probably be very politically incorrect and super inappropriate, not safe for work conversation. Once that changed our career that changed, changed our careers literally changed our careers, we’re gonna save lives, but it changed our careers. First, I felt heard and seen as a gay guy by an athlete. And I felt that in a room where I wasn’t going to be, and I had an ally and someone who wasn’t even asking to be, he just showed up that way. And there was a conversation we had that just made me I remember the feeling of being so respected and so safe at a time where in the media, well, I don’t even have to get into the sexism in the media we look at, you know, what it did to Britney and some of the females but what drove Jessica Simpson to having a show called newlyweds was literally her way of slowing the story down and TV used to give artists three minutes to tell their story and music videos. She asked for 30 No one was asking for that. So when you ask for things, you get them. And then also I learned from the audience’s perspective, the thing you know, that they support things they love, and they support things they love to hate to.

Stephanie Maas
Do you still keep in touch with Jessica?

Vinnie Potestivo
I do. Yeah. And yeah, so empowered by her story, and she’s, he’s done it again. And, and it amazes me by the way, this is the best part is if you would have asked Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, if you were to ask the four of them who’s going to be the billionaire? I promise you, Jessica most, I don’t want to say probably, she would not have been top three back then. But she, she had the gift of reality TV at a point in time where we were, we didn’t have until 2007 Social media, where we couldn’t understand feedback about things we were saying. And she was lucky to get that in 2000, where she had some control and not all but some control over what ultimately got on air.

Stephanie Maas
So let me ask you this, one of the things that is said about you is that you’re the man behind reality TV.

Vinnie Potestivo
That’s not fair. I gotta give a big shout out to Jonathan Marie Mary and Mary Ellis Burnham, who was his partner in crime.

Stephanie Maas
So I’m assuming then the inspiration for you behind reality TV came from the Blair Witch Project.

Vinnie Potestivo
By the way, that’s hysterical you said that. To be honest, my job at first was to hire hosts. So the first big moment for me beyond discovering talent was talent. We’re not touchable or approachable at MTV until my department got there. So first off, when MTV was created, the power was in creating a platform that required a new form of media. That’s, that’s cool that MTV empowered artists to be able to create these three minute music videos, MTV supported, it paid 1000s of dollars to the labels to help offset the cost of that. And then I think 20 years later, that’s when our audience left to YouTube. That’s when they found YouTube. By the way, I have to point out shout out to the first VJ, Adam curry at MTV who also created iPodder, which is the first podcast he like invented Really Simple Syndication RSS and the this idea of of podcasting.

Stephanie Maas
What have you seen from a talent perspective, talent 10 years ago that you went looking for versus talent today?

Vinnie Potestivo
Well, the economy’s funny, 10 years ago, we’re talking about the real people economy, maybe we certainly wouldn’t have called it the Creator economy, then the real people economy predated the expert economy predated the entrepreneur economy, which has now turned into the influencer economy. I think we’re currently in the crater economy right now. By the way, predicting the future. I think editors haven’t had their shine yet. And I don’t know if you’ve read the Bible or not the King James is a pretty famous name. And he’s not even in it just a really famous editor. So like the power of editing, I’m telling you, it’s out there the power of editing, what changes 10 years ago, the responsibility of networks, how about that, for starters, 10 years ago, there was lash back to what certain networks were allowing to happen on their air, and there is now a sense of, of needing more control. retention becomes the biggest issue in television. So that changes talent immediately, by the way, TV networks aren’t trying to get you to tune into their network for the first time. They’re trying to keep you on their network as long as possible. So you’re gonna see a lot more of like cross channel talent, familiar faces throughout the entire network, what Disney did with Marvel and how they built these separate audiences, right? Because you want to feel identified and recognized in the right audience. When When multiple audiences come together, that’s community, multi demographic retention, talent becomes a game that even on the agency level, agents are no longer looking for new talent to bring in new streams of ROI, they’ve got existing talent, and they’re leaning on that talent to create additional streams of ROI.

Stephanie Maas
Ok, so let’s take this a little bit broader here. Because one of the things I think I’ve heard you mentioned a couple of times, I think, is really interesting. I’m running a company, or you know, I run a team 20 years ago TV was it. I mean, we had a few other platforms. But now we’ve got all these different things. So speak to me about I have a brand now there’s so many things talk me through that.

Vinnie Potestivo
Yeah, the answer is time. First and foremost, that’s where I go to a blank piece of paper. I’m literally going to draw a timeline. I’m going to put today’s date I’m going to put the end of the year I’m going to figure out what I’m capable of creating and doing and impacting the next two to three months. And we’re gonna look at that schedule and multiply it by four. So I can figure out what an annualized plan is. By the way, this is a weird way to answer the question when I was trying to lose weight. I didn’t want to lose weight. I didn’t want to be a pound less than where I was yesterday. I wanted to be a pound less from where it was last year. It was way more fun for me to compare myself to last year and what it does is it gives me the time to refine and slowly competently and more importantly sustainably get the results that I ultimately want to get to so So you mentioned at the top of this the my I have won Emmy It is my first Emmy. I won my first Emmy last year from this guest bedroom that I’m working in now but by the way madrone I spent 25 years of my life crawling on people’s kitchen counters hiding from the you know, hiding from the camera, so you don’t see me in the shots. And I realized that the content I was working on the position that I was playing in those in those in those productions didn’t qualify me. I went in any because I went out and looked for an opportunity, I actually found an opportunity. And then I thought to myself, well, I want to be mindful boy, when we’re winning with because I’m going to be grouped with these people forever. And I also want to make sure it’s the right project, because people are going to say, what did you win it for? I want it for it’s called red flags. It’s a it’s a documentary series about a woman who comes out of rehab. And if the red flags that we might spot, you know, the 60 days that she’s coming out of it, the importance of credits, you know, I mentioned earlier, how awesome how powerful it is that as a podcast owner, not only can I can I get credit for being an executive producer and get creative credit, but more importantly, I can give it to the people who have touched my project. And that’s that’s a data point that Google will not know unless you tell it, you your podcast being on someone’s resume, maybe on LinkedIn, for example, let’s say best case scenario is not the same as IMDb owned by Amazon, telling Google that this person worked on this episode, which also had this guest connected to this award. And it’s a gigantic form of discoverability. So credits, those help you get discovered those help sustain the message making impact and reaching the people that you want. I again, I geek out about it, but that that’s what podcasting independent side of media does for us. And that’s why I’m fully leaned in. I’ve always worked with small business owners is that weird to say? Beyonce owns a small business, Destiny’s Child.

Stephanie Maas
A family business? I don’t know if I’d call that small.

Vinnie Potestivo
Well, I mean, when you look at the executives that are on her board, I would say is less than 25. You know, as as big as the brand is at that level, it’s a it’s a really tight inner circle. I think that’s where we can all relate to it’s it’s weird to say it that way.

Stephanie Maas
One of the things you just said that was really interesting, I think very counterintuitive. Most people feel okay, I have a plan. And it needs to be long and drawn out and systematic. And actually what I heard from you is the exact opposite, talking about the word hate the second, you’re a podcaster you qualify you’re in. So go, go do it all as fast as possible. That’s how you get out there.

Vinnie Potestivo
You don’t have to wait 25 years to qualify for an Emmy Award. Like I’m telling you, all I did is apply. I saw what qualify to win what I had, I had a goal I told a couple of friends. But I make these decisions now based on the future. My secrets of success has been not making decisions based on now making decisions based on the outcome of now, I don’t care about this current, you know, choice if it doesn’t get me the outcome, the larger outcome that you’ve called me in to make happen and making me realize that every room that I’m in is important, and I hold on to my name. It’s one hell of a long name. It’s not easy to say it’s like Vinnie Potestivo!

Stephanie Maas
Oh, my goodness. Okay. So one of the things you said very, very early on was most of the folks that are launching, they’re not creators. By nature, they have a passion for something and they figure out how to package it into something that can be bought by somebody else that makes them then a business owner, what mistakes do you see those folks making? Because they’re again, let’s assume they’re not naturally marketers, or they don’t know social media or what what mistakes do you see them make?

Vinnie Potestivo
Yeah, here’s, here’s two quick answers. One is they do it by themselves. And we try to learn a lot by ourselves. And I actually recommend not learning and pecking away and slow learning and going and learning I really recommend stop, learn completely in its entirety, and then implement, I think that if it takes two weeks to get a website out of the gate, because we’re learning and updating, learning and updating small little pieces that have been just shut down for four or five solid days, and gotten clear on what our story and how we want our story to be received, not just shared, not just sold or told, but received. And shared. Clarity is one of those things that I think is often overlooked in creativity. There’s a focus on how do I get something accomplished, as opposed to who could I be working with? There’s a great book called who, not how and it’s all about people in networking, and making sure they’re set up for success. And in terms of picking those people, I think there are four or three types of creatives. There’s an analytical creator, a strategic creator, and a technical creator. So you know, you might find a better partnership, if you identify as an analytical creator. If if performance marketing and Google ads and Facebook ads and all that’s important to you, you might do really well with you partnering with a technical someone who’s who’s more focused on SEO and automation and integrations or even a strategic creator who’s going to bring in one relationships and focus on the person to person component to it more so so. So just making sure that you’re complementing your creative skills. But whether you identify as an analytical, technical or strategic creators sort of up to you.

Stephanie Maas
So you do this stuff all the time. And I imagine you’re usually sitting in my seat, probably a little bit more than sitting in your seat. What is the one thing you don’t get asked that you wish you did?

Vinnie Potestivo
Oh, that’s interesting. I would want to say, there’s a lot of focus on what we’re talking about now. You know, it’s all about getting in touch and handing off. I wish people talked about sustainability a bit more, which is that after they’re done with this, what is the next thing they should do? Not? How do they get in touch with you? Like, we just started a conversation, we’re responsible for what happens next? So how do we get to help the people who are hearing this podcast do it I feel like it’s a people that people responsibility. But for us, you know, for the people listening to this, I appreciate people being sent my way. But the real, the real, I hope the real honest answer is like, hopefully, we would get to be part of the answer. I don’t, they’re they follow you for a reason that they’re learning about me through you for a reason. And I think that together, we can come up with better solutions, and I could ever do it, you know, on my own. So I wish there was more conversation about that about the sustainability about of impact more so than let me help you grow your business? And how do they buy your next product and that sort of transactional element of it. Because it’s not about strategy. It’s about tactics really, right. Like, I don’t call myself a strategist, because the last thing you need is more strategy from more opinions and strategy. I don’t care who I helped out, I don’t care what I went through in life. Sometimes strategies feel deeply like opinions to me, and I’m, and sometimes I want to remove my opinion from the conversation. And sometimes I lean into my opinion, but tactics, that’s something that I feel confident in sharing 24/7 With, with anyone, as long as you’re using them for the betterment of the good, you know, and I put, I put that energy out there as well, I intentionally make sure people know that this, these tools need to be used for positive impact, and that I won’t stand to have amused otherwise. That’s why I’ve been sensitive about working outside of the small gated talent community that I got so lucky to get to work with because I truly got to work with them and understand their intentions. And scaling. What I do with people who I don’t truly understand their intentions is scary to me, because I’ve seen the impact of what media can do to change the conversation to change the law, to give us rights, you know, hopefully back to get more out of us, you know, and I, I gotta say, I bring up Mandy Moore and Beyonce, and they fight for our rights, like they show up in places that are important for us. Matthew McConaughey, it’s weird, because I never got to work with Matthew, these talent have a role, you know, and in an impact. So how we empower them and who we select, to celebrate and turn into celebrities. That’s us as an audience that you can’t blame MTV for a certain type of show, or Bravo, for a certain type of show, because I was at the network, I’ll tell you what the network says, but the audience watched it.

Stephanie Maas
I think this is not something I’ve heard a lot out there. And it echoes your idea of sustainability of impact, which I think there’s a lot of power in that. But it’s support versus promote. Yeah, and think about how organic that is. Because if you really support something, it naturally gets promoted. But people today we’re so used to it so much coming at us when I mean, don’t you think we’re so used to it’s almost at times we put up that guard like oh, don’t come at me, Don’t come at me. But when it’s Hey, this is just a cool thing, come be a part of it, or come listen to it, or whatever. The byproduct is the promotion, but the intention is the support. And I think it makes for a much more organic response, which in turn to your point, it’s with the right intention.

Vinnie Potestivo
Yeah, because there’s cause there’s there’s there’s inspired action that’s bringing them to you there’s momentum, bringing them to you, what’s going to happen after they find you is two things one they’re going to share, maybe verbally with their team. This is a real legit way to grow your brand, without having to focus on the name, the artwork, all of the creative ways that we understand branding impacts the way that our message gets out there. But by focusing on the actual message itself, and stripping away all of that creative packaging, unwrapping the gift, and makes it easier to share and makes it easier to discover. That’s just one way that that we can help ourselves be more discoverable. You don’t need to be more visible to be discovered 20 years ago, 10 years ago more was more was more was more even that term. No press is bad press I can’t disagree with don’t tell me there’s no such thing as bad press. That’s long, long as the day when that was the truth. Now we have a choice and a decision of how we get represented. We don’t we don’t we’re not at the whim of Five public companies that have access to the airwaves, we the power of people can change that. And it stems from what we create and what we consume. So you’re watching those weird shows and then complaining about it. Guilty pleasure. Now I’m in defense of media.

Stephanie Maas
That’s awesome. Vinnie, you have been super generous with your time, your willingness to share. Very appreciative. Anything else?

Vinnie Potestivo
Thanks. No, there’s nothing I haven’t shared that I also haven’t documented. So if I can bring that up, I have a free creator hub. There’s PDF versions and the HTML version I asked for you to come and sign up for a free account that VP e.tv over 100 awards worthy of winning 60 podcast platforms I think every podcaster should be on and 20 2350 creator platforms that pay I have hundreds of tactics and links to share the power of the Creator economy, how to convert using influencer marketing, I have a free masterclass up there. So please feel free to use these resources to be successful early and consistently throughout your career. And say hi to me on LinkedIn.

Stephanie Maas
Thank you, really fun, so nice to meet you.

Vinnie Potestivo
Yea, that was awesome. Thank you.