The Untold Podcast
UNTOLD Podcast is where business, family, and life collide—raw, unfiltered, and brutally honest. No fluff, no fake success stories—just real conversations about the highs, the struggles, and everything in between.
The Untold Podcast
Episode 14 | Inside the Chaos: Des Hamilton on Rebranding, Roadshows, and Building a TikTok Empire
In this raw, unfiltered episode of the UNTOLD Podcast, i decided to interview Des Hamilton my co host for a deep dive into the last 4 weeks of his life — and it’s been a whirlwind.
From rebranding his TikTok affiliate agency after a blunt meeting with TikTok HQ, to running a 200-person live event in Manchester, Des opens up about the pressure, the panic, and the power of betting on yourself.
We cover:
- Why he rebranded from TokTik to AffiliNation
- The brutal truth about growing an affiliate agency
- How free training and real community are beating scammy online promises
- Behind-the-scenes of the Des Hamilton Roadshow: planning, panic, and pulling it off
- What really happens when the lights go down and the cameras stop rolling
- The sacrifices that come with chasing a dream — and why he’d do it all again
Whether you're building something from scratch or just looking for motivation from someone who's walking the walk, this one’s full of golden insights and unapologetic honesty.
🎧 New episodes every Tuesday at 5am.
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Why did you rebrand the agency?
Speaker 2:We started our TikTok agency and we called it TokTik. The head of TikTok shop came into the office and opened a meeting with me. Who the fuck are TokTik? So we went away and came back with the affiliation. It comes down to this wider problem in society, mate, where there's so many of us who don't even know who we are.
Speaker 1:You're fighting for people that are engaged. You're not fighting for followers.
Speaker 2:Be unapologetically you. You have to be unique because there are so many people out there, especially these days, that have got a similar story. What makes you stand out is you.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is sponsored by Closer, the app that helps you discover exclusive local deals right here in Sussex. Whether you're after a pint, a haircut or a last minute gift, closer shows you where to go and what you can save, all from the comfort of your phone. It's free to download, easy to use and packed with offers from the best spots around. Download the Closer app today from the App Store. That's C-L-O-S-s-r. Save money, support local with closer. Hello everybody, welcome back to the untold podcast. I'm ash and this is I'm des, and des and chris is having a slap-up meal for his birthday at monkey business cheesy chips. Living the life. Living the life. Now. Des has been on an adventure, I'd say, the last four weeks. Oh man, he's rebranded. He's set up a roadshow. For what was it? 200 bums in seats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 200 tickets. We had just over 160, I suppose in the room yeah 160.
Speaker 1:So I thought I'd ask Des about this journey today. So, des, what? 60? Yeah, um. So I thought I'd ask des about this journey today. So, des, what, what, what, um god, I can't get my words out this morning. What, why did you rebrand the agency?
Speaker 2:right. So we started our tiktok agency and we called it Toptic. Now, full disclosure. There's three people that made this decision. I said no.
Speaker 2:I got elbowed and I had to wear it for a good couple of months. But we called ourselves Toptic and we started building the things we're doing and it started going so well. It gained so much traction we became it sounds like a buzzword, but it's true building the things we're doing and it started going so well. It gained so much traction we became it sounds like a buzzword, but it's true we became the fastest growing platform agency of our kind. On the platform, tiktok give agencies weekly awards depending on their incremental growth. We won it three weeks in a row. Everyone started taking notice.
Speaker 2:After, After two weeks, you could hear the murmurs. After three weeks, all of a sudden, the questions we were asking our point of contact to TikTok, they were being answered within 10 minutes. Then we get a phone call saying right, we need to have a chat. We jumped on a. It's called Lark, which is the TikTok version of WhatsApp. We jumped on a call on there and she said the head of TikTok shop walked into the office and opened a meeting with who the fuck are TopTik and how do we get more of them?
Speaker 2:Because of what we were doing, they held an award for agencies a ceremony about three weeks prior and we weren't invited because no one knew we were. We come out of nowhere. We weren't massive affiliates. A lot of these agencies are headed up by people that were previously massively massive affiliates, so they know the game. But here we've come as community owners, business people. I've come from a corporate background and we're like you know what. We actually know what we're talking about here. We're just applying it, applying business strategy to TikTok rather than the other way around. And yeah, they said ooh, a TocTik. And she said to us how are you onboarding people.
Speaker 2:How are you getting so many people on board? We went what are you talking about? We're using TikTok. She went well. What about your website? We went well, but everything's organic through TikTok. She went well. Your SEO is shit because people are typing in TokTik and it's coming back as TikTok. I was over the moon with this. She said we literally had a line in that boardroom saying we don't know whether to laugh at them or throw money at them. We're right.
Speaker 2:We're rebranding throw money at us, so we went away and came back. This one was my idea Ash Affiliation With. So we went away and came back. This one was my idea Ash Affiliation With. The Affiliation Nice, which is twofold. It had to be community-based because we are community first. So that's the nation and we didn't want to be TikTok specific. A lot of these agencies out there again SEO. A lot of these agencies out there, they pigeonhole themselves into a TikTok-related brand name. Well, what happens when eBay do lives like they're going to do soon? Instagram's going to pick up on Instagram shop. It won't be long. Yeah, we're an affiliate nation. We're everywhere and anywhere you know.
Speaker 1:So that was so. It was like it was just it was a strategic shift, but also one that was very welcoming to you. Yes, yeah, on a personal level, I was very happy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was a business thing. It was when the platform themselves say, yeah, your name isn't very good, like right, take notice, you know. And before we initially rebranded we sent what do you think of Affiliation and TikTok went yeah, brilliant Like get in there, yeah that's good.
Speaker 1:So what's the vision behind AffiliNation? What makes you guys different to probably, I'd imagine, hundreds of other TikTok affiliate agent or not even TikTok affiliate agencies that are probably launching daily? What makes you guys different? We?
Speaker 2:proudly, proudly put the fact that we are community first on our chest. We're the only ones that won't charge you a monthly fee to train you. That's it. It's our USP and it comes out. It bleeds out of us and if anyone listens to me and Luke Luke's my business partner. If anyone listens to me and Luke for many more than 10 minutes, you know that we bleed this stuff. This isn't something that we're just using as a usp funny story. Right yesterday I don't think I told you this I bumped into simon squibb on the train yesterday. Oh, did you? Yeah?
Speaker 1:did he ask you what your dream was? Yeah, I said, give me a fiver. I want to open a bakery he was.
Speaker 2:He wasn't in work mode. You know when you're sitting on a train we're just coming into london bridge and you look at the people on the platform that are getting on, the train slowed right down just as it went past and he looked me square in the eye right. We caught eye contact and then of course, and then sort of just you know last millisecond, then he gets on. He's only on my carriage and I'm thinking I've been trying to have a conversation with this geezer for two and a half years and he gets on the same bloody train as me. This is nuts, but he was on his own, he wasn't. He's got a work uniform and he I focus so much, mate, on personal branding. You know simon squibb, when he's got those tight trails of things and his sneakers on and that black t-shirt, that's his work mode. He wasn't in that, he was just on his own. No entourage, just go and sat down on the train.
Speaker 2:I was on the phone to my mum and I went hang on a minute, put the phone down, I went up, I went. Simon scared the shit out of him. Oh, oh what. And I was thinking you cheeky bastard, you ask people what their dream is on the street. You must be ready for this, but don't want to disturb you. I just want to shake your hand.
Speaker 2:You've seen some of my stuff, believe it or not? Because you can see who watches your stories, didn't you? Yeah, because I've tagged him in so much stuff. Oh, and I just want to say grateful to everything you're doing, but I'll leave you be anyway. No, I appreciate that, appreciate that, and I remember thinking at the time what would I have said to him if I would have had the opportunity? There's a bit another whole conversation, mate, about whether I actually manifested Simon Swift going on my train. That's a whole other conversation. But I wanted to highlight to him that everything is what he says is what I agree with the give without take. Whether it's a buzzword for him or not, he's still helped an awful lot of people for free. What we do we help people for free because we get paid by the brands if we can give them a motivated army of affiliates.
Speaker 1:So that's what we do I guess, if everybody, all your affiliates, do well, you're gonna do well exactly, mate, and that's the that's the it's.
Speaker 2:it's a. It's a double-edged sword, right especially as an agency, because there's one thing, having an army of motivated, trained, quality affiliates, but if you're not making brands any money, then it's not worth anything. So we still have to hone that army into money making machines, which is in everyone's interest and extra commission for our affiliates.
Speaker 2:We can then say to them look, if you were to not be with us at AffiliNation, you could get this bit of kit and it will give you a 10% commission. Well, we can give you 15. Yeah, it brings people in. And we say to them right, here's the product. These are the things that I would talk about if I was you about the pain points of this product in order to do these posts. Get you about the pain points of this product in order to do these posts.
Speaker 2:Get good lighting, and we train and we look at their content. We do all of that stuff. So when they have a video that pops off, they make thousands, thousands in commissions. The brand makes thousands in revenue. We get a bit of a cut of that. And then we get improved relationships with the brands. Tiktok are happy because tiktok are making money. So one of our buzzwords is the rising tide raises all ships and we truly mean it. So we can say to our community we won't charge you a penny and we have to make you successful, because if you're not successful, neither are we. What a model.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now you can take that across any business, can't you Probably?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:Any business you can't as a company owner. If the business is successful, the staff gets successful and it kind of it snowballs, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It is mate. Technically I suppose you could call us a B2B. We're a business to business. So as an agency we're saying look at all these assets we've got, you can have access to them, and we're selling it to businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah to them, and we're selling it to businesses, yeah, yeah. Has there been any point in your affiliation journey, previously toxic, that you thought I'm in over my head here? What the fuck am I doing?
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what mate it. It truly feels like everything's been building to this. It hasn't. When we got started, me and Luke, we just knew. We knew we'd be really good at it. It sounds so crazy because everything's so embedded in community and Luke and I have been building communities outside of TikTok. So I had an Amazon FBA community. So I've got my TikTok lot 80 odd thousand there my Instagram lot 20 odd thousand there and they're not just followers, you know what I mean. I bring there my instagram, not 20 odd thousand, and they're not just followers, you know. I mean I'll bring them along.
Speaker 2:The whole point is that I'm the guy just a few steps ahead of you. Even now I'm only two and a half years ahead of somebody starting today. You know it's look what I can achieve, look what you can achieve, and I I'd like to think that I helped all of these communities across the various things, but the most important one was probably the facebook one. We had 10 odd thousand in there that were engaged and I had my own podcast audience, so we had all of this. Luke himself had a school community. He had a discord, so me and him were very good at motivating people that didn't know how to start on business. My whole business plan from the very start is if I'm going to help people we talked about this before I need to know exactly who these people are. How old are they? Are they family people? So, if I'm thinking right, I know there's thousands and thousands of people like me people that were working full-time, came home from work knackered and skint, hadn't had enough time to spend with their other half, hadn't had enough time to spend with their kids.
Speaker 2:When they get to the weekend Friday night, spend with their kids. When they get to the weekend Friday night, they're usually having a blowout, either with their mates or something like that, still not spending time with their wife. Saturday that's the one day that you get with your family, because on the Sunday, by about lunchtime, you're thinking about Monday again. Then you've got all of the technical restrictions that people of our generation think they have. I don't know what I'm doing with my mobile phone. Yes, you do. I don't know what I'm doing with my mobile phone. Yes, you do. You've just not tried. And I just wanted to tap into that mentality of them and these people that have been beaten down for 20 years by this two bob western society where we are so insanely lucky to be here, but with it comes these restrictions that are put on you without your own say so. So my job was to empower these people into saying, no, I need to make a bit more money, not thousands, just a bit more money.
Speaker 2:Not thousands just a couple of hundred. Yeah, and then we built it up and, yeah man, it works. So when it came to TikTok affiliates, luke and I could relate to these people so much Because you were there.
Speaker 1:We were them, we are them.
Speaker 2:Mate. They came in their droves, we opened the doors and 600 joined in the first two hours. Yeah, Four hours.
Speaker 1:Sorry topping it up there 600 joined in the first four hours.
Speaker 2:It was unbelievable. Luke called me. We opened the doors at something like 10 o'clock in the morning. Luke called me about five past he went. Can you believe this and we were on this thing and Luke had his notifications switched on thing and luke had his notifications switched on and it was bing bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, because at the time we were charging 30 quid a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we made thousands and thousands that month and but we did it with a view going right, we're gonna have to charge them to start with because we need capital. Yeah, but we will have a timeline. We never told anyone this six months down the line where we're going to remove all fees. Yeah, so uh, yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 1:It's wicked. So let's talk honestly now. Does it irritate the hell out of you when you see people advertising their agency saying you can make an extra £5,000 a week, follow me, pay me 150 quid, to go on my course.
Speaker 2:Mate beyond belief. And it really depends on their wording. Yeah, really depends on their wording. Yeah, really depends on their wording, and I'm not angry from a competition point of view. I'm not angry. If, oh, it's another agency and they're trying to steal our affiliates, that's something else. Right, it's the ones that make the false promises. I'm not going to call anybody out on it, but, again, if anyone is listening to this and if they do run another agency and they're triggered, I'm sorry that's not me.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of young lads that we met up in Manchester who do it right. They offer a paid community, but they don't give it all that. These guys go look, what we do is we focus on lives, we focus on these products, these products here are our results. And they do talk about their own money, but they also talk about the money they're making to other people, which is what you do, right, because the first thing people say to me and Luke are are you affiliates yourselves? And we go, no, but look what we're doing for people.
Speaker 2:What we have got is really good affiliates mentoring people, affiliates mentoring people, other communities, the people at the top of the tree are affiliates themselves, but it's the ones that can show they help other people. There's one guy in particular who I'm not going to call out, not by his name, but he purports to give it all away for free, but he's not. He's just doing the community where you've got to pay £100 a winner, and he's given a whole post out and he said these are the sorts of people I want to help. And he's put the video up of a guy that he wants to help. These are the sort of people that I want to help and I want to do this and this. So I've joined this community where you can come and I'll give you help.
Speaker 1:Now, the guy that he was talking about he's in ours and he's getting help for free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this guy uses that guy Doesn't even know his real name, doesn't tag him. He's just taken a very emotional post for clout. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at that mate. I've never known anything grind my gears like that, because I know this guy and he's been through a lot of time. He's had a hard six months months, mate. He's had a lot of family bereavement in the last six months and I know what he's gone through. So for a bloke to use him and not even know what he's gone through, I messaged him and I said look, mate, I just want to double check. Did he have your consent on that before I really go to town on him? And he went, no, he didn't, but I'm happy that he did. I went. Fine, I won't roll the boat. Yeah, I was ready to go I can imagine.
Speaker 1:I can imagine, so let's just break down like what? What is the real journey like for someone for? So imagine me. I've never sold a product on tiktok. I have seen people saying you can make it within three weeks. You can be making an extra £500 a month. Is that true? Yes, but it's rare.
Speaker 2:The same way someone could win an accumulator at the horse racing, the same way they could get five numbers on the lottery. What's so important is when you get going again. This is one of the things that we do. Different is that we say to him yeah, you can make big money, but you got to get your head down for six months and be consistent and work hard. Three to five posts a day that are good quality. And when we say good quality, yeah, that could be subjective somebody's opinion, but essentially it's not good.
Speaker 2:It's not someone's opinion whether lighting is good or not. Lighting is either good or lighting isn't good. You know your ability to speak on the camera, the version of you that's showing up to your audience. That's the sort of thing that needs to be honed. And again, it comes down to this wider problem in society, mate, where there's so many of us that don't even know who we are. We're just put in categories and we're just stuck labels on us. You're a stay-at-home mum, all right, don't worry about it, I won't have any individuality.
Speaker 2:So what we do is we try and remind people. Look, you need to find the person that you were when you were a kid. You need to find this level of confidence that brings out this creativity on you. We talked upstairs Ali Abdaal's, upstairs ali abdallah's book feel good, products, productivity. You feel good, you find fun in things and it unlocks a creativity, a childlike thing that you forgot. Yeah, you find that person and in our community you are accepted and with that you then go ahead and you put creatability and you put confidence in front of your phone and you talk about it, and then you bring out the pain points of what a certain product can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then watch it go. But it takes months, man, it's. There needs to be some sort of growth in a person. Now anyone can do a post and have it go viral through luck, just because the dice has rolled on your number for four months. But there are so many viral posts out there that when you break it down, you go go. That is shit, yeah, good for them, yeah. But then what happens is they go oh okay, I'm good at TikTok shop now and they crash.
Speaker 1:And then they're demoralized to do it. You're almost better to post and post and post. Consistency, isn't it? It's the same in everything consistency.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it, because the mental fortitude to slowly scale up is a hell of a lot easier than reaching the heights, crashing and undoing everything that made you successful and trying again. That's brutal and with tiktok shot, we prepare people for that. Look, just because you have one post, go off. Don't start thinking you know it all, because it can humble you super fast.
Speaker 1:And the thing is as well with all these platforms, whether you're hosting a podcast on apple spotify, you create a new instagram account, a new all because it can humble you super fast. And the thing is as well with all these platforms whether you're hosting a podcast on apple spotify, you create a new instagram account, a new tiktok account, your first three or four posts they're going to pump out and then that sets the tone. Yeah, so we did it with a podcast. The first few videos we did, we were getting three, four, five thousand views on it. Yeah, now they give us 34. Yeah, one we posted yesterday. We've had 34 views on it. I wasn't in them and you've just, and you've just gotta, we just gotta, you've just gotta keep going. Yeah, I've been posting on my own channel trying to bring out the real me instead of trying to be someone. I'm not to think that people will not like me, etc. Et cetera, et cetera, exactly right.
Speaker 1:I had a lovely comment this morning from my main man, dapper Laughs, and he said Ash, keep going with a post, mate, I can't wait for it to blow up. He's going to get there. Keep going Consistency. And that's one point he said even if 10 people, 10 people are watching it and these and these likes, likes and comments are all right, but likes and stuff on your videos, I think it's a vanity metric. Really. Of course it is. Views is a vanity metric. If you get 1,000 views on a video, imagine standing in front of 1,000 people in a room and talking to them. You'd shit yourself.
Speaker 2:This is it, mate. I would say 160-odd people. On Friday, A lot of people were very, very nervous. This is the mate. I would say 160-odd people. On Friday, A lot of people were very, very nervous. I don't mean, this is the thing that I do. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, but I'll draw that point out.
Speaker 2:We had a call TikTok asked us to do a webinar for other creators a couple of weeks ago and we did it all on mindset and we turned up. 360 people said they would come. We peaked at about 189 that actually did show up and we did it all on mindset and we said that exact thing went look, there's 189 people on this zoom call. The difference is everyone is engaged. You could have 20 000 people watch one of your posts. The chances are you might only have 185 people engaged. You know what I mean. If you turn up to do a speech in a room and there's only one person in there, imagine the value that one person would get. Now, if there was 300 people in there, could you still hear that one person the same way? It's all perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's really important for people to understand. There are so many new accounts being created TikTok, instagram, wherever the world goes next, every single day, and you are really fighting for. You're fighting for people that are engaged. You're not fighting for followers. I don't think you could have a cat. Yeah, great. If you can get 15 million followers, then your clout within the industry is, like they say, attention is more valuable than oil. Yeah, nowadays, the more attention you can get, the more people eyes you've got on you is valuable if you can get, if you can get. Like, look at um hayley, hayley bieber, the story that's going around at the moment three years she turned a makeup brand into a billion pound business. Yeah, because it's her and she's got eyes on her.
Speaker 2:That's it, mate, and it's crazy to think that Exactly, and when that's what we say, the be unapologetically you. You have to be unique, because there are so many people out there, especially these days, that have got a similar story. What makes you stand out is you yeah.
Speaker 1:And I've done it. When I first started creating videos for the company, I was trying to be someone I'm not putting a shirt on, putting a tie on being. I can't, you can't keep that facade up forever. No, you can't. The easiest thing. And now I make videos. I'm a lot more relaxed because I'm not that worried. Yeah, I know that, I know my shit within my industry. Yeah, and if I come across authentic, then fantastic yeah, I think it's really important, mate.
Speaker 2:You need to be humble enough to know that you're starting something from scratch. And, of course, when you're starting something new and you don't know what you're doing, you're going to copy someone else, whether that's a coach or a mentor or someone you watched on YouTube. And I don't care what field you're in right, whether this is Amazon selling or TikTok affiliate or presenting live events, you're going to copy everybody else. But somewhere along it, once you start taking action and repeat and repeat and repeat, you shed that image that you're copying and you become that version of yourself and you think right, this is actually how I want to do TikTok, how I want to do Amazon, how I want to do live events.
Speaker 2:The key is getting started and being humble enough to know I'm in learning mode. Some of these are going to be shit. I'm going to get better and have that confidence in that it will get better. Yeah, so what we do, what we're really proud of, is not necessarily month one because everyone gets shiny object syndrome or two. It's more like month five and six, where they're still not getting results and no one's listening and no one's buying, and we're still there going. No, but you're looking at the wrong metrics because we've seen just how confident you've become. Six months ago you couldn't even voice note and you were convinced you were going to do faceless. Now you're standing in front of a camera for two hours going live, talking about the benefits of berberine as a supplement. You know I mean it's just incredible mate.
Speaker 1:It's such a lovely thing to see there's a lot of um, there's a lot of these people, and james smith's one of them. He's got. There's a lot of stuff going on about james smith at the moment. I really like him, I followed him for a while and his promotion is I challenge you to create 100 videos, whether you post them or not. Yeah, just literally create 100 videos for your business, for you, for whatever you're going to do. Once you've done 100, then you can decide whether it's working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you what with james smith, what was really clever. I caught him early on, before he moved to, because he moved to australia for a bit and come back, didn't he? Yeah, and his whole thing was digging out joe wicks, his whole thing was digging out jo Wicks, his whole thing was digging out Joe Wicks. But he said later on he went that was my business plan. I had to make noise, I had to punch up. He said and Joe Wicks got the ump. And I'm thinking why have you got the ump, mate? I'm tiny. I'm tiny compared to you. The smaller people are always going to punch upwards.
Speaker 2:He said but then, when I got bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, I realized just how hard joe wicks worked, yeah, just how much content he pumped out and how many times he posted youtube videos that no one listened to, and how he got to where he got to. Yeah, he said so I don't dig out joe wicks anymore and I don't really dig out anyone because I'm at the top, so I'm not punching up anymore. Yeah, if someone wants to have a dig at me, feel your boots. Yeah, can't, can't fault him, can you?
Speaker 1:No, no, I really like him and again, he's authentic. He's happy to upset an audience to get proper followers, to get super fans. That's what you need. You need to find super fans. Yeah, there's a cult-like thing with him, isn't there? Yeah, it's to be live. I'll watch it, just because, one, I want to support him and two, I find it interesting and think that he's superhuman for what he does. Yeah, um, and I'll go on there and I'll say a quick hello, mate, up your world today, and then I'll disappear again. And then three hours later, he's still there. I'm like chris, go to bed, mate. Jesus christ, um, but it's, yeah, it's, it's incredible.
Speaker 2:It is a lovely thing. We had a guy turn up to manchester, bought a ticket and he was an Amazon seller and he caught me at the interval. I went all right, he went Des. What are you doing? I went, what?
Speaker 1:He went.
Speaker 2:I came for Amazon. What's this TikTok thing? It's like a cult in here. This lot are nuts, he said, but I love it. So we had Ron up on stage doing a live, doing a TikTok live, big Ron and he went I'm here at the Des Hamilton show and he would say it every 10 minutes or so because you know, on the live they repeat themselves yeah and he came over and he went. I don't want to join this because this is amazing, mate. It was raucous is the right way to start.
Speaker 1:I'll stop you there then, because this is the next part Decided to start the Des Hamilton Roadshow. And you did Brighton and how many seats were Brighton? Was it 50?
Speaker 2:No, this was the nuts. I hired a venue for 70. I launched the tickets and we sold 140. So I had to go to my mate who was doing me a favour, and I went mate, I've got to cancel. He went, I've lost 300 quid. Doing you a favour, I went. No, I'm so sorry. Unless you can fit 140 people into this 70-person venue. Yeah. So yeah, mate. We ended up that was 150. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That was 150. So then you decided to pick the furthest city you possibly could and do one in Manchester. Yeah, how has the last four weeks been like mentally and physically? It's nuts, man, putting together the Manchester show.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to go full transparency here, right, because this is the Untold Podcast, please do. We finished Brighton and we said to ourselves let's do four in a year. We finished Brighton and we went. Jesus, that was exhausting. It was hard Fun, really good fun. But it was hard work, not just for anything else, but got four kids, we've got take care for, child care for, and everyone wants a piece of you and it's a long day and you don't eat, you're drinking all day, blah blah, you're wedding day honestly you've took the words out my mouth.
Speaker 2:That's what I said to claire, especially up in manchester, when we went away and we everyone in the hotel knew we were do you know what I mean? But, um, we said, right, okay, let's calm it down. But then, mate, outgoings picked up, the council tax bill happened and a couple of things went wrong with the car and we were like we need money fast. How do we make money fast? And I said to Claire, I went, got to sell more tickets, got to do a roadshow. So we finished Brighton in February and then in March we went all right, let's pick a city. And we were going to do like somewhere like Leeds and we went well, we've done the South. It's a bloody roadshow, can't do another one in the South.
Speaker 1:Worst roadshow ever and we've got our and we've got our second gig so we went let's do somewhere.
Speaker 2:Let's do the biggest city we can find in the North, which is Manchester, with direct links so people can come. And we said let's make it 300 people. So we launched these tickets. We again, we sold like 70 80 in march and that tied us over and paid for everything that we needed to pay for. And then the agency started picking up in april and all of the promotion I had in mind died a death and it was about four weeks out. I said to Claire, when we need to sell more tickets, this is going to be probably less than Brighton, which is nuts. So we really started building stuff up. We now had all of these new affiliates in the discord. We had all this stuff and we really started bumping up not advertising as such, just almost creating FOMO like right, we've got the roadshow coming up, this is who's coming on, we've got this, this and this. We started laying out the agenda and then we managed to sell like another 70 80 tickets about four weeks out, which was amazing.
Speaker 2:Um, and we got the venue and the feedback from Brighton is that it needed. Brighton was just one big pub. We needed it to be a separate auditorium from the bar, because we were finding, if you weren't interested in any particular panel, you're at a bar and having an hour and it wasn't fair on the others. Yep, so we separated it out and we went right. Let's go more formal. Let's have an agenda for the bar which includes networking with key people of interest. A couple of little master class ron can do a live in the bar. It's non-shoppable and then in the auditorium we'll have the masterclasses and the panels and things like that. And, uh, I'll tell you what, mate, it really opened our eyes and without even knowing it, just picking the bones out of it.
Speaker 2:We've applied the same principles to our amazon business, to our t TikTok business, to these live events Just get going, just do it. It's all born out of a necessity to make more money, right yeah? So let's just do it. We'll pick a date, we'll pick a price point and we'll just go. But Manchester was something special, mate. It was organised. Brighton was organised chaos. We missed out the podcast element. We overrun on a lot of things.
Speaker 1:It was a learning curve, it was the first one and it was a celebration, yeah, again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first event for people of us. Yeah, everything else is so corporate and so stoic and they want hotel conference rooms. No, these people don't want a hotel conference room, they want a bar and they want booze and they want to laugh and they want to make friends. So we did that and then we did it in manchester went like the bar is integral, that's the dna of a des hamilton show and in the, we want inspiration over there and we want networking over here. And we finished it and the feedback was out of this world. Everyone said different to Brian. More professional, came away with much more value. Value. Yeah, came away with lots of other bits. The audience were fantastic, because, of course, I do the feedback forms. And then we're next one mate, we're scaling up. We are going 300, yeah, maybe even 500. We want to go really big. Yeah, because what was really interesting was the people that turned up in Manchester what was overwhelming.
Speaker 1:From Brian, from Brian, yeah what was?
Speaker 2:what was overwhelming is that Claire and I travelled 400 miles and they all followed us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and that's got to be, um, that's got to be quite nice.
Speaker 2:That's unbelievable, yeah I mean, what a feeling yeah we checked into the hotel on the thursday and we told everyone what hotel we were going to be in. So a lot of people booked the same hotel and, like I say, it was like a wedding. You're walking down the corridor and I was like hi there, des, and you're thinking I don't know you want a drink?
Speaker 2:yeah, you want a drink you've got 15 stacks yeah so we arranged a boozer on the Thursday and I put a TikTok out saying right, we're going to be in the lawn club on Thursday 7 o'clock, get in there, mate. 30, 40 people showed up to this pub. Yeah, one geezer shook my hand and he introduced himself as Mark. I went, mate. I saw your name on the sheet. What are?
Speaker 1:you doing here, because I knew who I went in the Amazon circles just through the network.
Speaker 2:The list gets smaller as you go higher up the chain. You know what I mean. This guy's at the top of the tree £126 million in revenue in the last 12 months, worldwide.
Speaker 1:Jesus.
Speaker 2:Christ, £36 million in the UK alone. He's making probably anything close to 15% to 20% of that in profit. Yeah, insane, he spent £35 to come and see me talk. Yeah, insane, he spent 35 quid to come and see me talk. Yeah, what, you know what I mean Turns up on the Thursday just to have a conversation. Yeah, yeah, now, mate, I made like five figures in a year selling on Amazon FBA.
Speaker 1:He's making out like nearly eight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how am I in a network with this guy?
Speaker 1:It's podcasting and it's networking, it's doing stuff like this Well, your network is your net worth, isn't it? Yeah, a lot of people will say that, but the older you get, the more it comes to life Like, do you know what I mean? You do these road shows and you stand on stage, but there's people that are listening to what you've got to say who could be like this guy, for example. He's up there really financially, but he's still learning, he still wants to learn. He's there and he wants to learn and he wants to keep, and I think that's really important in life. Exactly, it's to fill your knowledge buckets. You don't know everything. No, you will never know everything about TikTok and algorithms, because every single day they're changing. This is it, mate.
Speaker 2:And again it's the people. You strip all of the money away. And he's a Geordie that loves a drink in a social environment and I can put on events for Amazon sellers that are in that environment and it can bring the very best in. And before you know it, I suppose you'd call it networking. We're having a beer, we're having a chat and before you know it, I suppose you'd call it networking. We're having a beer, we're having a chat and before you know it he says come up to Newcastle, come see my operation, because I've got brand deals with X, y, z, mate these brands, and I've gone all right. And then we strike in business relationships. There might be a deal made somewhere down the line. Yeah, yeah, that's networking.
Speaker 2:That is networking way down the line yeah, yeah, that's networking. That is network and you strip. Everyone says networking and it's a buzzword. It's not, it's having a beer with a geezer and a chat.
Speaker 1:Yeah more business is done on a golf course in my industry.
Speaker 1:That's it more business is done on a golf course and in a conference room that's it because people buy from people and that's sort of going back to the affiliation, going back to I mean I can talk about this from doing posts for my videos, for the company. You build that level of trust and people trust you, people relate to you, people resonate with you. We've had customers drive for two hours to come and buy tiles from us and on the way they've passed 50 different tile shops because I posted a video and they wanted to give me their money. And I think that's very and you're building trust and a network and a super fans. That's it, mate 200 people in a room that want to listen to you, that want to pay to sit there is invaluable.
Speaker 2:It really is, mate and word of mouth is spreading across the different communities. This is the beauty of it. So, one of the brands that the Affiliation represents. We're coming up to renegotiation. And they were based where were they based? Nottinghamshire, derbyshire way.
Speaker 2:And we went well, come up to Manchester, come to the show, be our guests, come and see what we do. We finished the show, luke and I went straight into a meeting. Everyone cleared out the auditorium, went to the bar. They went hang tight. We stayed in that room. We struck a deal within 20 minutes of the show ending. That was ridiculous and they said to us we see now what you do. Unbelievable, mate. That's what these events can be. It's not just come and listen to me, talk and pay me money. It's not that Friendships are made, there're solidified. They're, most importantly, make businesses done there. Uh, and for the next one, for example, tiktok themselves, they said they want to come. One of the bigger brands on the platform. They want to come. Yeah, people are reaching out to me saying can I come and speak at your next event?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's just incredible, mate that's it, so I just want to go back. Obviously, you're arranging this event, you're rebranding. It's got to have been difficult. What in your life had to take a back seat in order for you to do it? Was there anything sleep?
Speaker 2:sleep mate. It's meant I did a post yesterday, these last week, this last week, so if we take, I'm going to give you a blend of what my life is like from the day to day. So Wednesday, for example, we drove up to Stourbridge, west Midds, on the way to Manchester, because we wanted to drop the kids and the dog off at the in-laws. They're in the process of moving down to Brighton, so we went up there. The house obviously is in a state of disarray and we were helping them pack up for the move, which they're going to exchange contracts in. About a full night we dropped the kids and the dog. We slept there overnight but the dog was a gnaws, started barking because he was in an unknown house. I ended up sleeping on the sofa. Got about five hours, kip, the friday we drove up the mansion.
Speaker 2:Sorry, the thursday we drove up to manchester checked in, but before you know it we're the focal point for everyone, so we don't. Claire and I went up for a couple of hours by ourselves. Didn't get anything like that, you know. I mean, and in the same time I'm prepping because I'm talking on stage for six hours the next day. I've got I don't know my speeches and we got prints and handouts and all that that.
Speaker 2:That was a Thursday, went out, ended up drinking far too much. Shocking night's sleep. Woke up on the Friday, went to the venue by nine o'clock setting it all up. We went live at midday. We finished at eight. We went for dinner one o'clock in the morning because we're still drinking drinking all day. Shocking night's sleep.
Speaker 2:Saturday we drive back down to Stourbridge, get the kids and the dog. The dog is still being a knobhead. I end up sleeping on the sofa again with the dog, wake up in the morning and my youngest can't open her eye. So we have to go to hospital. I haven't slept in about four days, not a decent night's sleep. We're at the hospital for five and a half hours. We then have to go back, pack up, drive down to brighton. It was a three and a half hour drive. I had sing-along songs on the whole time because that was the only way it would stop me from falling asleep.
Speaker 2:Got back home, had to send a couple of emails out for the debrief, fell asleep, slept for about 11 hours sunday night. Monday had to ring the gp. First my boy went back to school because it was the first day back to school after half term. We only had the two kids that weekend the youngest. We had to book a GP appointment because that was the condition of the discharge from the hospitals that we got checked at the GP. Got to the doctor's at half nine. She got seen 10 o'clock. I'm on the train going up to London because we were at TikTok headquarters. Got back home about 8 o'clock last night. This morning I'm in here talking to you.
Speaker 1:That's been my week, mate but you'd be bored if you weren't doing all that I'm loving every minute, ash, because this is my life, this is freedom.
Speaker 2:There's a mixture of family in there. Yeah, friday I'm meeting a mate for lunch, then I'm going back up to London to watch Sam Fender play tonight. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't change it for the world, mate. No, but that's the sacrifice you give. Think about how much I've given up there yeah friends, did I mention TV.
Speaker 1:Once you know what I mean yeah, no, well, that's it and that's it. There's an episode I did while I was here and we spoke about. It'll come out in a couple of weeks, but we spoke about the amount of time you waste in your life watching telly, playing video games, or it's scary when you break it down Exactly. But we'll go into that for another day.
Speaker 2:Have you seen the feature on your phone? It'll tell you how long you spent on your phone at the end of each day, each week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll tell you how long you spent on your phone at the end of each day, each week, yeah, or a day a week. I look at it each week, yeah, and I'm trying to get it down. I'm trying to get it down, I'm trying to get it down. I won't even look, mate.
Speaker 2:It's scary. Yeah, I can justify that. My phone is my job.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it, isn't it? That's it. That would like to have never prepared a speech. How was it the build-up do you? You're quite confident speaking on camera because you've done the podcast, you've done zoom calls. What is it? Three different zoom calls you do each week where you're a host of it, yeah, but what is it like now for you preparing your speech, preparing the event the whole day for the des ham on road show? Obviously forget the setting up. Everyone's in there, you've got the mic, you're walking on stage. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mate, I don't want to sound arrogant with this, but this has been the thing that I've always been good at. Always, even in every day job, I've had Go back to cabin crew. Well, if you're doing cabin crew and you can't speak in front of people, then there's something wrong with you, right? Then even the police I was the guy maintaining the big crowds at the authority of the police In my old job. I did the training. They even gave me qualifications for training, even though training wasn't part of my day job.
Speaker 2:I was the guy that would go into boardrooms of very, very profitable financial institutions and speak to board members. So, when it comes to planning an event like this, one of the things that I've always beat myself up for was I always leave things to the last minute Forever, exams, homework, dissertations, everything beat myself up for was I always leave things to the last minute forever exams, homework, dissertations, everything. What this last couple of years has made me realise, mate, is that that's actually something I should embrace. Yeah, so before when I'm worrying I haven't done it, I haven't done it, I haven't done it and I'm procrastinating, procrastinating, procrastinating, and I'm thinking I'll do my best work last minute. That's fine.
Speaker 1:I always think that you can be as prepared as you like for something, but on the day it's going to change anyway. Yeah, and I've, I've very similar to that Always the the two and a half thousand word GCSE essay was done the night before. Yeah, everything was done the day before. Everything is done the minute before, the hour before, as close as I can possibly get to the deadline without it being uncomfortable, that's it.
Speaker 2:But for this one there were so many moving parts. So, yeah, it's the Des Amand Roadshow, so my name's on the marquee, so I'm responsible for all of it. Me and Claire sat down the day before we drove up the Stale Bridge and we went right. Name tags Are we having people with name badges on them?
Speaker 2:The running order and, mate, I'll do so much of my work through chat gpt, chat gpt and me planned this whole thing. So now I just go give me a running order and then I go right, give me a run through of the entire day and the bases I need to hit. Yeah, it already knows my speech because I've given it my speech. So it's giving me cue cards. You know what I mean. So then I just print out the lot. I have a little table with me on stage and I just have confidence that I know it enough that I can glance at it and know where I am.
Speaker 2:The whole day is planned. I would say 70%. I purposefully leave a good 30% for that for spontaneity. So, for example, in in Brighton there was a lad who drunk far too much. He went missing, ended up in the back of someone's car with his shoes missing. He was fine, he was fine. He thinks he was spiked, or like come on, mate, no one spikes you then puts you in the back of a car, nicely, to make sure you get a good night's sleep, yeah, yeah yeah so my opening gag was right.
Speaker 2:Where's Keelan? Someone's sticking an air tag in him. Tie his shoes for him.
Speaker 1:You know that was the first gag. He wasn't even there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was turned up late for the whole thing, right. So that was a wasted gag. But you need to play off because you don't know who's going to come, who might not be here, you know, someone might be sick on the day, and all that. So you can and plan to a degree. And this comes back to the wider point. If you plan and plan and plan and you strive for perfection, you just won't do it. You just won't. Perfection is the enemy of small gains. Small gains are the things that make you grow. So it is me right planning for that much. Let's just do it, bulls, let's just do it. And we have a bunch of people that are here for me not to see me fail they're here to actually support me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now what's funny in?
Speaker 2:manchester mate is that I got so drunk on the thursday night I woke up with the anxiety right. Wow, I know yeah, brutal right.
Speaker 1:So you nine o'clock you was having a bloody mary with your breakfast, but more like until we we went.
Speaker 2:The doors opened at 12 and at half past 11 I was was saying to Claire. I said I'm not nervous, but I can feel anxiety. I can feel it on me. I'm a wreck. My hands were shaking and stuff. Luke turned up. He went do you want a drink? Triple gin and tonic. And then Claire's best mate, robin, who does the voiceovers for us. She said go for a walk around the block. Go for a walk around the block. Go for a walk around the block, just clear your head. Yeah, so I did that. I went into chat gpt. I'm struggling. Give me some exercises. I've got 40 minutes before I'm on stage. What do I do? Chat gpt gave me some affirmations, gave me some breathing exercises.
Speaker 1:God love chat gpt oh, yeah, yeah, and it's so. We need to get chris into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, you don't, you don't believe in it, but it sorted me right out. Ash, ash, I went back in there. I'm Des fucking Hamilton. Yeah, this is the Des Hamilton Roadshow. Yeah, and it went perfectly.
Speaker 1:You've got to be serious. I mean all over from literally when was it? Friday, you did it. Yeah, so Saturday, sunday, yesterday, it's literally every other post that I scroll on TikTok Someone there, someone promoting it, someone saying it was amazing, it was so good, got to come to the Des Amon Roadshow. So I promise you the next one I'll be there.
Speaker 2:Yes actually Maybe.
Speaker 1:I'll even stand on a fucking stage.
Speaker 2:Well depending on the layout, because already it's going to be a much longer day Already. It's going to be 8.30 through to like 6, 7 o'clock. Much longer day Already. It's going to be 8.30 through to like 6, 7 o'clock. Yeah, yeah, full-on workshops. I'm going to do Amazon and TikTok as separate workshops. I would love to do a podcasting thing. Yeah, yeah, depends on whether we've got the time. But, mate, yeah, bloody hell, ash, yeah, of course you can come along and what we'll do. This is the thing. We're rebranding that as well tweak as you go.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it, your journey. Your destination stays the same and I've said this so many times, like I sent in the whatsapp the other day. I'm watching Stephen Bartlett behind the diary. Love him or hate him, the bloke is intelligent and what he says resonates and he said right, that's your journey, but your path is like this and you've got to allow for that, and I've learned that. I've learned that the hard way, I've learned that the fun way. I've learned that in so many ways.
Speaker 2:It's the epitome of a growth mindset is knowing you're learning, accepting it's not failure, it's feedback. I woke up the other day literally because after one of these events as well, mate, I can't sleep. Anyway, I'm on such a come down and my brain is so mentally active. For the next one, the leaving speech of manchester, was when you find what's winning, double down, stop looking sideways. At that point, if something you enjoy is making you money, then you go to fucking town on that. You don't wonder what the next person's doing or scrolling through and go. You know what I'm going to pivot because if you're building blocks one, two, three, if you then move sideways, you're building block one again. Yeah, so kick on. So I woke up and I thought what am I doing?
Speaker 2:I love these road shows, yeah they're brilliant they're not making me money yet, but I'm learning. Yeah, the next one will, yeah, and the next one's going to be even better. So I'm going to kick on, I'm going to launch it now. Now, and we were talking about Scotland and Claire and I were talking between sing-songs driving on the way back down and I said to her I went it's got to be London, it's got to be London. Where is the most accessible place in the UK? So let's do it there, let's do it massive. The Des Amourton Roadshow, just like Toptic, is shocking for SEO. Just like Toptic is shocking for SEO so what are you thinking then?
Speaker 2:make money online live with Des Amon yeah, gotta do it right my old branding. Goodbye, poor Al O'Ridge, you knew exactly who I was. Yeah, affiliation you know exactly what that is. We're affiliates with a community. Yeah, my live events are make money online. Live with Des Amon yeah, SEO someone's got to look at that and and make money online live with Des Amon. Yeah, seo, someone's got to look at that and go. That's a bit of me, without knowing who.
Speaker 1:I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there are people doing conferences, two-day things, retreats. They're not Des Amon, they haven't got the community I've got and they're making buckets and buckets just through organisation. Yeah, now, if I can throw organization behind what I've currently got, mate, it's gonna fly in it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it, I know that's it, so I think that's you. You've answered that. What is next for affiliate nation?
Speaker 2:we are growing to the moon mate. We've got a huge deal that we made off the back of manchester. We've got a current renegotiation with a very big brand. We are hopeful for this will be interesting because we should know by next week and then we are also launching our own product Hopefully next week I can tell more about that. And at the same point now we've got to support a TikTok and our brand is growing, growing, growing. We are queuing up to have a ridiculous quarter three, quarter four, making our affiliates more and more money.
Speaker 2:We had three people up at TikTok yesterday who made well over a couple of grand, ranging from a couple of grand through to over 10 grand in a month. They've been going six months and these people that we started helping back in October, they're all starting to see the benefits. Now, like I say, it's the rising tide. They're all making more money and when those guys fly, the brands will fly and we will fly. And in the meantime, we've got to convey about new ones coming through that are taking inspiration from them and, at the same point, honing their own craft. But, most importantly, they're finding out who they are themselves at this stage, the ones that started with us back in March. It's such a lovely thing, mate. So the snowball's rolling. From a personal perspective, we're not making the money personally yet, but we weren't expecting to the snowball's rolling. You know, from a personal perspective, we're not making the money personally yet, but we weren't expecting to.
Speaker 2:The snowball's rolling, you know, yeah, yeah. So we're going to see how we finish up in 2025. In 2026, man, all we can see is expansion, other countries, you know.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's good. Yeah, well, thank you, des. Sorry to drill you and go into it, but I thought it was really important that we provide a podcast with value yeah, and. I think anyone listening to this will find some value in that somewhere along the line.
Speaker 2:I hope so mate, because everything that I've done anybody else can do. Yeah, just find out who you are and play on your strengths. Yeah, I'm the geezer that talks a lot. Might as well find money while you're doing it right.
Speaker 1:That has been a deep dive into Dez's last couple of weeks Affiliation, the Dez Hamilton Roadshow, what he's been through. We hope you enjoy it, please. We're now video on Spotify, video on YouTube, listen on all the other platforms. Episode every Tuesday at 5 am. There are going to be a couple of bonuses coming in on a Thursday. That's two a week. Let's take the podcast to the moon, des.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1:Leave us a review, leave us comments, get in touch. What do you want to see? What do you want us free plonkers to talk about? Next, that's been the untold podcast with des hamilton. There's anything to say? Happy birthday, chris. I forgot about that. I got a hat for you down there, mate. Shame you couldn't make it. Joy monkey business.