Behind the Brand with Bryan Elliott

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Never Tell a Car Dealer Your Car Got Totaled. A Former Insider Explains Why

2026-10-2749:19

Tomi Mikula spent more than a decade inside dealerships. Now he negotiates against them for a $1,000 flat fee. Here is when to buy, where your money disappears, and how to walk out with the deal. Support the show

Adding the Right Amount of Mischief Can Make Anything GO VIRAL | Gabe Whaley

2026-10-1651:09

Adding the Right Amount of Mischief Can Make Anything GO VIRAL. Gabe Whaley's art collective sells holy water sneakers, cartoon boots, a community-owned car and a wealth-ranking ATM. Here's what his customers buy, and how you can run the same play. Gabe Whaley walked onto the TED stage and introduced himself as a traveling car salesman. Parked beside him sat a vintage PT Cruiser with faux wood side paneling. He was there to sell the keys. "I have 5,000 of these keys, and every single la...

The Lost Art of Magic | Justin Willman

2026-10-1459:55

Your Phone Taught You to Trust Nothing. Justin Willman Fills Theaters by Fooling You Honestly A week before Justin Willman sat down with me for Behind the Brand, a stranger cornered him with a theory about his career. The man kept pushing one idea. "Come on, you do this just to make people feel stupid, right?" Willman didn't get the logic. He has fooled people for a living since he was a teenager. Then he traced the idea back to the source. "Our constant feed is something the other people are...

Eight Sleep Sells a $1,999 Mattress Cover. Beds Have Nothing to Do With Its Business

2026-10-1255:08

Every afternoon during the 2026 Tour de France, a small crew from Eight Sleep raced the riders of UAE Team Emirates XRG to the next hotel. The crew, which the company calls the Night Shift, carried eight Pods into eight rooms, calibrated each one, and set the temperature before the riders walked in. The next morning the crew packed up and drove to the next stage. Twenty-one stages. Three weeks. One of those eight beds belonged to Tadej Pogačar. "He can't sleep without our product," Eight Slee...

Your Pitch Starts Before the First Slide. Most Founders Miss the Opening | Vanessa Van Edwards

2026-10-0924:35

Vanessa Van Edwards studied hundreds of Shark Tank pitches and spent nearly 20 years on her new book, Conversation. Her verdict on smart founders is blunt. Here is what her playbook says about winning the room, and how she built a business where the book is the smallest piece. Vanessa Van Edwards walked into a PTA meeting at her daughter's school and saw the problem in one glance. Every parent in the room was staring at a phone. "Now my conversation is competing with their feed," she told me....

#box-pro-ellipsis-17933567497363{-webkit-line-clamp:2;}Behind the Brand with Bryan Elliott