Show notes
In this episode, Brian talks with Peter Yobo who is an Innovation Strategies Consultant and former USC Trojan football player. Peter grew up over seas in Ghana and has an incredibly story of coming to the U.S. and starting his own business. Follow Peter on Twitter @PeterYobo Follow Yobo on Instagram PeterYobo You will learn about... Peter's unique journey from South Africa to Southern California Peter's passion for USC and how he prepared for going to the University long before he was ever accepted How Peter learned life lessons from going up against NFL All-Pro Tyrone Smith each day in practice at USC What Peter believes to be the 4 traits of successful people How to add value to those you know and those who follow you PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Yobo: I would look at the pictures and I would imagine myself walking on campus high-fiving folks, talking to buddies, and experiencing USC. I did that from Ghana. From West Africa. There was this obsession. Cain: Hey how are you doing? Brian Cain your Peak Performance Coach here with the Peak Performance Podcast. Today our guest is Peter Yobo. Peter is an innovation strategies consultant with the Yobo Group where he helps professional athletes and celebrities leverage their brand so that they can make more money off of their brand. For example, did you realize that Steph Curry last year made 10 million dollars off the court by selling $2 emojis that people use in social media and on their cell phone? I didn’t know that. That blew me away. Peter is going to share with us some of the other things out there that people are doing to help leverage their brand. First, Peter, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Would you take us and our listeners through your journey from where you grew up and your experience with athletics to where you are right now leading the Yobo Group? Yobo: Brian, thank you. Thanks for that awesome introduction. It’s a great opportunity to be here on the podcast and share my story. My story starts in New Jersey actually. I was born in New Jersey (New Brunswick). I lived in New Jersey for three years then my mom moved us back to Ghana, West Africa, where my family is originally from. Growing up as a kid I was that kid who couldn’t sit still. I was always running around having fun and breaking things, breaking bones. I couldn’t sit still in class. I had teachers say “this kid is not going to amount to anything, he is always in trouble.” The funny thing though is I always got good grades. I was the kid who never studied but some way somehow I had this visual memory so I was able to remember answers to questions because I would remember what my professor was wearing the day he spoke about it. So it was just this funny thing because I would throw these teachers for a loop. I was so stubborn and caused trouble all the time but then on the other hand I was doing very well in school and very well in sports. My mom right after high school, she was like “Peter we need to figure out if you’re going to go to high school in the US or in London or here in Ghana.” Something had happened about a year before that question came. I was watching a clip of US running back Reggie Bush. I think it was the 2005 Rose Bowl. [Stayed in bounds, airborne, touchdown, Reggie Bush] Yobo: I was pumped. I was excited. I just loved the whole atmosphere I saw in the coliseum. I said “I am going to go to that school.” Well guess what? It cost $56,000 per year to attend USC. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for that, how much more to just even attend four years. So a lot of folks started saying “Peter it might serve you well to not even focus on that, that is too big of a goal, that is too lofty.” So what I did was every day during lunch I was so enamored, I was just attracted to the school - and today I realize what I was doing but then I didn’t understand it. I was so attracted to it that every day at lunch I was so excited I needed to go sit behind - we had about 2-3 computers in our computer lab that had internet and I would sit down and had my buddies go pick up my lunch. I would just go on the USC website. I remember it like it was yesterday, www.USC.edu. All I would do was look at the pictures. I would look at the pictures and I would imagine myself walking on campus high-fiving folks, talking to buddies, and experiencing USC. I did that from Ghana. From West Africa. From a small little computer lab in my high school. I did that every day. Every lunch break (apart from the weekends). Every day. There was this obsession with having to go to USC. So fast-forward. I decided “hey mom I want to take the SAT.” I took the SAT. I did decently well. I moved to the US. I took a year off. I honestly couldn’t afford to just jump into school so I took a year off and I became a California resident. I was living in the San Jose area, the Silicon Valley area, and I just figured “you know what, I’m a California resident now, I finally made enough money to buy my car, I’m just going to go to San Jose State University.” Just something that is cheap. I’m an American citizen so I don’t have to pay that much. Everything is taken care of. So I did that for a year and a half. I grew restless. Today I understand why. I was being drawn to my purpose, my destiny. I was just restless. I was restless, I was struggling, and finally I decided to transfer. I was going to go to UC Riverside for basketball. All my other applications - I mean I mailed it, I did everything right, wrote all the right essays - then it comes to USC. I was like “you know what I’ll just apply, I probably won’t get in, it’s probably too expensive.” I literally would say if I can get that application back that would have been the most heartfelt - I didn’t hold anything back. I wasn’t trying to be professional. I just said what I cared about. I spoke as if I was speaking to a friend. A month or two later I got a packet - “Peter, welcome to the Trojan family.” Some way somehow an internship with PWC and a few other scholarships made it easy and financially affordable to go to USC. I started off playing - in fact this is where it gets crazy. I walk on campus for orientation and I’m walking and I look to my left and I’m standing right in front of the USC Floral Gardens. That is the picture I had been seeing day after day after day about three years ago. Mind blown. I am here. I am high-fiving folks. I am living that story. I went on to do track and field. Coaches saw me thinking “oh my goodness who is this big guy out there doing track, come play football.” So I walked on, played two years of football at USC - best experience ever. Mind blowing experience. In fact going to USC was a mind blowing experience. Since then I’ve graduated. I’ve been planning to go pro. Well I attempted to go to the Canadian Football League but that didn’t work out. I would say I didn’t have enough years or the freakish athletic genes to make that leap. Then I did about five years working for Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) in innovation and technology consulting. Then about a month and a half ago I decided to go out on my own full time. Like you said I work with athletes and celebrities, high net worth individuals, but we also do a lot of work with companies. We do a lot of work for small to midsized businesses ranging from 10-100 million dollars. Our goal is very simple. We fight for the company’s future. We help companies fight for their future. What we’ve started to realize is a lot of companies, a lot of athletes, celebrities, individuals, they do what they have to be today to make money. But we look at the Fortune 500s and they are investing money in R&D, investing money in their future, and they’re fighting for that because that is what keeps them with the competition or ahead of the competition. Our goal is to come in and be that arm for companies and celebrities and athletes and high net worth individuals. We become that innovation, that research and development arm allowing them to see into the future, build strategies to get there, and then execute on doing that. That is my story. Cain: Peter, it sounds like you have been doing this your entire life. I can only imagine sitting in a computer lab in Ghana looking at USC wanting to go play football there and then all of a sudden you made that happen. Did they have football in Ghana? Yobo: No. The closest I came to playing football was rugby when I was maybe 9 years old. Cain: So the first time you ever put on a football helmet was when you put on your USC Trojans helmet? Yobo: This is true. Let me preface that. It was I put on my helmet and I had lined up across from Tyron Smith. Tyron Smith of the Cowboys. He woke my butt every single day, every single day, and it was so frustrating because in Ghana I was the guy - basketball, swimming, soccer, you name it. Every sport I played I was the athlete, I was my high school’s athlete of the year, all of that. Then I came to the US and this guy, Tyron Smith, is huge and the coach says “just get around him and go tackle the quarterback.” I was playing DM at the time. Every single snap this guy punished me. But that is what taught me what the game of football meant. I started to realize just running and just going hard is not going to make me successful. I need to have the right techniques. I need to have the right moves. I need to go in the gym and get bigger, get stronger. I’ll tell you what after three months going against Tyron Smith I probably put on about 30 pounds and maybe even shaved off a second or two on my forwarding time. Because you’re going up against someone who knows he is going pro. He knows this is just the audition for the job he is going for and he means business. I said “man sometimes you need to have some pride in yourself, you can’t be on your back every single day,” so I had to develop, I had to learn the game, and I did very fast. Cain: That is unbelievable. Was Pete Carroll the head coach there when you were there? Yobo: No it was Lane Kiffin. Cain: Lane Kiffin. Okay. Excellent. So you got to go there, you played USC Trojan football. Matt Barkley was the quarterback there I assume at that time? Is that right? Yobo: He was, yep. Cain: Unbelievable. What are some of the things that you noticed with these guys that you’re playing in one of the greatest universities of the country, you’re playing in the Pac-12, one of the best leagues in the country, what are some of the characteristics that you noticed in those athletes at USC or the guys that you work with now in helping them leverage their brand that are characteristics that our listeners are going to want to develop so that they can become more successful? Ultimately, Peter, probably what I’m asking you is when you look in the mirror what are the characteristics that you see that made you successful? Yobo: That is a great question. The same competitive edge that I had at USC, even though I didn’t go pro I know I can list a full on hundreds and hundreds of folks who I went to USC with who have the same drive be it at their job, be in their business. I think having that edge, being able to have that edge - when I say “edge” if you imagine if you see a lion, when the lion is hunting down the gazelle there is a look in the lion’s eye that says “this is dinner, this has to happen,” and there is a look in the gazelle’s eye that says “I must disappoint.” Those looks are different because the determination that you have when you say “this must happen,” you leave room for multiple scenarios. I might escape. I might escape hurt. I might not escape. But when it has to happen there is one vision. So that is what I saw with the athletes. When I got to USC I got there for education. I came to this country for education. But the reason I tried out for the CFL was because you’re in an environment where everyone has one goal and that is to be successful and go pro. They have the vision. I think that is the point. You need to have the vision. Folks like Matt Barkley, you will not see him at parties every night. He is at home resting, rehabbing, getting ready. Tyron Smith, even if you saw him at parties he wasn’t drinking. They had that vision and they knew exactly what they had to do. So step one, have the vision. Step two, have the strategy. Know exactly what needs to happen. What steps do I need to take? Don’t go here, do this. How do you manage a brand this way? Do XYZ. I saw folks who knew exactly where they were going and then they had the method or the map, the plan of action. A lot of that comes from surrounding yourself with the right people, talking to the right people. Then the last thing is just that edge. You need to have that competitive edge that says “I’ve seen the vision, I know exactly what to do, I will put in the work, nothing will stop me, I am going to get it.” I see some of these guys today and they don’t entertain conversation with people who kind of - when I say “entertain conversation” if I surround myself with folks who are not hunting, who are not out and ready for the hunt, I may lose my desire to hunt. I think that is what you see a lot of. So surround yourself with the right people, having those three things in mind, having a vision, having a strategy and methods to get that you can find from people around you and mentors and people who have been there, then just having that grit, that competitive fire to go get it. Cain: Man that is outstanding. I love it. Absolutely love it. Peter, tell me about some of the things that you notice. You mentioned earlier that athletes work today to get paid today whereas the Fortune 500 companies are projecting into the future of what they’re trying to do there. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the maybe strategies for the people that are listening to this that might be on the treadmill of paycheck to paycheck that are trying to set themselves up for the future? What are some things that you find that can be easily implemented and are useful for those people that are just trying to kind of get it going? Yobo: I’ll use athletes (given we’re talking about athletes) and then I’ll talk about just regular folks who are working regular jobs. The key thing that athletes have is an audience. If you played college ball, if you are playing college ball and you have a following of about 200,000 people or even 20,000 people and you realize that every time you post something you get about 2,000 likes, that means you are about converting at 10%. What people don’t realize is that is an opportunity to serve that audience. There is something about you that they like. There is something about you that adds value to them be it they’re living vicariously through you, them just enjoying seeing your feats and having special access to you. That is something where I think a lot of athletes are losing out right there because you are leaving a lot of money on the table. I was consulting with an athlete from the Rams just recently. This guy has about 180,000 followers on just Instagram. Just one platform. On that platform every time he posts a picture he gets about I would say maybe 5,000 likes. He has nothing to offer them. When I say “nothing to offer them” it’s not saying you have to sell, sell, sell, but you’re either offering a free workout program - there are people who are giving you their eyes and their attention and that comes with responsibility. You have to serve them in some shape or form. Sure they like seeing your picture but what else can you give them that adds value? Once you realize what you can give them that adds value you start to prep yourself for when you retire or you’re done playing. If you at practice for a couple years and you used to be the number one guy when you were in college and you still have a lot of a following and an audience how can you leverage that? When people come to you and say “hey here are my new clothes will you wear them for free and put them up online and I will give you clothes when…
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