- You think I'm popular now,
wait 'til shit hits the fan. (hip hop music) You've got more perspective. I just want to be happy. Don't you want to be happy? (electronic music) What can I answer for you? So I've got a good
concept of where I think most of your people are. - [Man] Two pronged really. Number one, how do we
hit big, big businesses in terms of getting in with a
person you need to speak to. - Well, why do you want to
get into big businesses? - [Man] Because that's the people that are already paying money to
the government right now. - So, I think, I totally understand. So, I think you do it, you know, it's going to be interesting. There's going to be a
lot of similar answers. I would do unlimited LinkedIn content with paid LinkedIn ads directly
against the people you want. So if you want RBS Bank, I would literally make a video or a white
paper or an article that would write, "Does
the banking community", so you don't go directly RBS.
- Yeah. - Because you can get others. "Does the banking community in the UK understand on average
they're throwing away 3.7 million pounds". You've got to do some homework. You know, this is crazy, just last year, blah, blah, blah, HSBC wasted two million. We've got the solution and literally I would target those ads
against the CFOs and HR. It's interesting to have
Allen here and his HR friend. Like literally the HR exec, Allen's my CFO, CFOs and HR people against the company's that
you're trying to reach. - Yeah.
- And I would do that 50 times. So it's funny to have Andy here. We were filming something the other day. Like to me, it's all contextual content against media spend, so what my team has done very well is they
take content I naturally do, hence I'm filming it,
and then we do ad spend. But then once in awhile
they'll ask me to film something and they're like,
hey we need an Instagram swipe up ad for this
and I, like every time yell at them and say,
"Guys, I'm right here." So let me, instead of like doing swipe up and buy my sneakers, they
can be like, hey Mexico swipe up and buy my sneakers,
because just by doing that and then targeting Mexico, the
ads are convert differently. So, if you noticed, what most people do is hey London, or Britain or Europe, did you know that there's this law? What I want you to do is make literally the same video 87 times. Does the banking community,
like you start with. If you notice what I'm
doing with the video. I'm not giving anybody a
sec, I've got three seconds. - Yeah.
- Hey banking community, boom. Now they're stopped. The title says, the wording is banking, this is banking and they're a
banking HR and CFO executive. Do you understand?
- Yeah. - It's literally that. And by the way, as you can
imagine, works for most of you. You want to get distribution
on a cruise line because you don't have
it for the corn yet. You go, hey cruise executives. Like literally, it's
really scary how universal that advice is, but
that's what I would do. LinkedIn ads, which are
overpriced in my opinion, but are so, actually be unfair. I call them overpriced
because they have a floor. It's not a marketplace
the way Facebook is, so you can't, you know. (laughs) It's overpriced in the fact that, what's amazing about
Facebook and Instagram and Google and all the
things quant advertisers, somebody who spends six
million on something. Whether it's eye ads back in the day or end game or whatever it may be. Him and I are always
going to love something that starts at zero and the
market makes it go to 80 dollars because moments in time allow for things to be grossly underpriced. What we hate is the way that you know, New Corps sells, which
is you try to buy an ad in the Sun and it's $15,000. They've inflated the floor. LinkedIn is an inflated floor, however if you are a B to B marketer
there is a disproportional value prop and in that
sense, I'm correcting myself if it's inflated, but it converts, it's not inflated by definition. I think it will work for you. Media always, being a content-- (missing video) - [Man] He wants to be a personal trainer. - Unbelievably. First of all, you
immediately leave LinkedIn. You go directly into Instagram. You go to Instagram
stories, because I think they're grossly under-priced and you do swipe-up campaigns against trainers. And as I think we all know, the entire fitness community is living in Instagram. - [Man] Yeah, definitely. - And then again, you can do something, literally the content or the spokesperson addresses a female trainer,
a part-time female trainer, a full-time female trainer,
a full-time male trainer, a part-time male trainer,
trainers that work at gyms and you're trying
to encourage them to leave. I mean, as you can see. The big thing that I don't
think people understood and to be very frank, is now
becoming a new conversation, even amongst my team and
definitely VaynerMedia itself, is the vulnerability and
the thing that everybody has to close the gap on
is the volume of content. - [Man] Yeah. - It's the content, right. Like again, I'm using him only
because he's so quant based. If you know anything about gaming, it's like, it's fucking math. What the math kids, why math
kids lose to a guy like me that doesn't rely on math
is I know that the art is a much bigger factor
than they want to admit because math kids don't want art to matter and art kids don't want math to matter. But they both matter
and they matter equally. When I say equally, if you
actually disproportionately respect the math and the art equally and you make them play
together, like a diamond in that friction, is all the magic. For you two, the next frontier is math. Is running your paid media better. Is targeting employees. Employees is back on Facebook, right Andy? - [Andy] Yeah, I was going to jump in. The (muffled) is fluctuating, but they introduced some (muffled). - Right, so you're going to be able to use employees like LinkedIn. You guys can literally
get every single person that works IDO to know who you are. Tomorrow, you could. And of course, 80% of them
are going to be elitists and be like "fuck these
gals", but 20 are not. - Yeah.
- And in those 20 is a lot of opportunity for you of people you want to recruit to
work for you one day because they're tire of that or they just love you and
it's a gal executive who like somebody comes in
and IDO is too expensive and they're like "you know
who you should go check out". You know how it works, got it? - [Man] Planning is the key,
but isn't it making sure if I'm giving one person for one day an influence, for example, to do filming I need to know prior
what bit to send content, how many times and what I need to do. - To that person if you
want to use them as the ad? - Yeah.
- 100%. - Yeah, so planning is the key. - So, planning up front is the key. It's a modern day production
schedule that doesn't exist. That we're trying to
introduce in our company, which I used an example
with my Budweiser team the other day, I'm like,
you're going to have Adam Driver the actor and
you're going to do this incredible video, which they did. I'm like, but when you're there, my team knows now to make 80 pieces of content, not just one, but I threw
a curve ball at them. I'm like, no, no also bring a soccer ball that has nothing to do with anything and just like, I don't know,
like kick a soccer ball at a bottle of Budweiser
and film that too. You're there anyway. Like the volume is the
game, so I first got them from okay, Adam Driver's here,
let's make a one three-minute film that's amazing, but
$300,000 also while you're there take 80 pictures with him,
take the scenes of it, create the collateral, the sawdust, make 94 pieces of content. Cool, so we're at some level
there to not there at Vayner. Now, I'm introducing cool
and while you're there bring an umbrella, a soccer
ball, bring four actors. You know, African-American,
Latino, you know Pacific Asian, like leave
there with 947 pieces of content around 37 pillars of different, like brand pillars, not
just the interpretation of the one thing you're doing. We're filming a Super Bowl
spot with Charlize Theron for Budweiser, but while you're
there for two fucking days instead of everybody looking at each other and fucking jerking off and doing shit, which is what happens. I mean, I literally can't go
look at a production shoot for VaynerMedia or any
other production company in the world because it is the
stupidest shit of all time. Like, I don't know what else to say. There's tons of people,
I mean, doing nothing. (laughs) I don't know what else to say. - [Woman] How much of what you're making are you actually distributing? Like is it--
- Me Gary, or Vayner? - Uh, Gary.
- Both, me. Uh, that's funny you bring that up because we were just
having that discussion literally as I was walking in here. I would say, first of all, the
team has control of things. So there's certain things
that are being posted. I'm completely 100% in
control of my Instragram. I am, for the first time, only
98% in control of my Twitter because I'm doing this, if
you follow me on Twitter, this add your two cents. It's longer form Twitter,
you can't upload natively anything over a minute in video, so they have to do it
for my four minute clips and this got me to the first time very, I'm like you know what, you guys post it. I can't post it anyway, you'll post it. But in that sense I'm
100% in control of Twitter and Instagram, of that,
probably I would say 70, 60% of what you guys
are sending me I'm posting. Instagram is the funny debate because I'm spending a lot of time there
and I have to really feel it and in their production a lot of times they'll miss what I'm feeling
and thus I won't put it or I'm cool with it,
perfect, which is easy or I figured out how to
support it with the copy that I write to make it post, but you asked a very important question. One would say, oh my God,
I have 20 people working. Designers, video people,
they're working all day. They're making stuff and
I'm only posting half. Half, let's go with that. That's unbelievably inefficient. I would argue it's not,
I would argue the fact that we're just making,
it's unbelievably efficient even if I don't post
it and then that's why we created the Team Gary V
account because we're like, fuck we have it, let's post it somewhere. So, that's been working. To me, versus me coming in
and being the bottleneck up front, I'd rather just
be the toll booth at the end and then be thoughtful
and see how I evolved by me being smart of not
being the bottleneck up front, which is what everybody
does because it's all ego. And as a human it's really intense, but even as brands,
Adidas or Juice or Corn. It's all ego, things don't get posted. People overthink the living shit out of the content they post. It's completely insecurity,
it's overthinking, it's ego. It's all bad. What we did is we evolved and realized, oh shit, even in the 50%
that we're not posting we figured out a way to
innovate and create Team Gary V to post that, so we
became less inefficient. That's your answer. - [Woman] Yeah, yeah. (whispering) - [Woman] So, you've talked a lot about not monitizing your audience.
- Yes. - [Woman] And (muffled) leaders in that, but like--
- You've gone there and I think, and listen, I know that. I really wish I could have told everybody what I thought your
question was going to be because I knew this was
going to be your question and you'll never believe why. It was why I listen up front, you know, there's a post out where I'm
really interrupting somebody and I always laugh, I'm
so good at listening it makes me seem like I'm not listening. I'm always interrupting
because I want to get to the value punchline. Like, I knew you were going to ask that because you said that people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars
on the back of your thing, so I knew that you cared about it and you were worried about and that was your justification to why it's okay. - [Woman] Exactly, yeah. (laughs) (laughs) - I know I'm right. But it makes me happy because it means your intent is right and that
already means you're good. So, I talk about not
monetizing my audience, but I need to do a better job of clarifying it and
that's why these settings are good and that's why
my evolution is good. For example, a video
I'm about to post, oh. A hack we came up with
literally just a week ago was we realized, and we
brought it up before, but we got serious about it
just maybe a week or two ago. They are no longer titling any of my Instagram meme content, I am. That's where I was getting hurt. It didn't feel right and all I have to do, which takes time that I don't have, is now they're sending me the raw videos, I'm titling it, sending
it back, then they're sending it back and
we've seen real success. In that, I titled on
yesterday on the way to London called, "When You Give, Give. When You Sell, Sell." So, couple things, one, I
don't monetize my audience, but I'm very comfortable to ask for people to buy sneakers, books
and soon soon now wine. So, I do, it's just I
don't want to monetize my information, which is a clarity. You're monetizing your information, which I don't think is a problem. I think the reason I feel
so good about what you're doing is I can tell your intent is right and the only vulnerability you have, and I don't sense that either from you, is you just have to not be full of shit. - [Woman] Yeah. - That's all.
- Yeah. - I don't know what else to tell you. Like, the reason I've pushed so back on people monetizing, is I'm
going after the lowest common denominator, kind of life coach, who has nothing to bring and
went to a top of the funnel conversion conference and
wants to be just that guy. - Yeah.
- We know what we're talking about. You guys are professionals,
you did something. Look, this took me years
to do this, what I'm doing. I don't feel unbelievable
about everybody here pay ... It had to be VaynerMedia, not me. You're all here because of me. I then coerced it to be more VaynerMedia, which on that 10,000 that
I could keep for myself, I'm getting, you know
187 bucks after profit. You know, and that as important for me. - Yeah.
- I'm okay with that. But I needed that, even
though this could be a 50 million dollar business. Like, my whole life could be this. More, like I could have the biggest mastermind of them all. So, A, you have to be okay with it. I'm okay with this and I'm
not okay with a 50 million dollar mastermind.
- Yeah. - I feel like if you feel
like you have a skill set, I think Design Sprints
is a very good genre. I think what you need to think about is where you're going to get
caught, and a couple of you, is always think about brand over sales. So, for instance, your busy now
and you've made hundreds ... You know, how long have
you had the thing overall? - The online, the company?
- No, the whole company itself.
- Like six years. - Right.
- But only in the last like. - I know, I know I'm about to jump in. In six months for you to
generate something that creates half the revenue that
something that's six years old. And think about how easy it is versus how hard the other half is. What you're going to go through is what I go through everyday. This whole thing, the
entire Vayner X World, not just VaynerMedia, the
Pure Wow stuff, the 137. And you'll be seeing me
announce a lot of companies in the next six months,
it's all not smart, in the short term finances for me. None of it. This has been a waste of my
time for the last seven years in the prime of my career. You don't like giving up 36
to 43 during an economic boom. The discipline it's taken
me to know that I'm building a framework for 50 years
during a very good time in my life, which has
also forced me to travel while I have kids, I'm in my
prime, I have plenty of energy, I'm not sick, everything's good. This is golden years, like
you can do a lot of damage and the economy's been frothy. Scum buckets are making tens of million on crypto currency fraud, right. So, I will never, I will
be so revered in 40 years when people look back at
the level of discipline that I deployed during
the amount of opportunity that's in front of me. That's what I want you to do. What do I mean by that? While you make your product better, run ads to convert more
and all that stuff. You equally, to really
answer your real question, have to allocate one to two hours a day to do podcasts to put a flag in the ground around Design Sprints.
- Yeah. - Which bring you zero
ROI in the short term. - Yeah, my podcast is doing really well. - Not your podcast.
- Oh. - You need distribution, you need to go on other podcasts and spread your message. It's okay to sell, as long as you're not disguising it as you're
trying to help people. - Yeah, right.
- That's what we've done with (muffled).
- That's it, I love selling, but just don't be full of shit. Like, I love when I go into sales mode because some of my fans get really mad. They're like "Ohhhh!" I'm like. I laugh, I'm like, no, no,
I'm not making you buy this. I'm not one of those funnel people where you come in, it seems
like I'm giving you good information, then it stops and then says if you want the real, real good stuff, put in your credit card and get the next to hours of this video. No, no you're more ... I'm pumped that people have never bought a bottle of wine from Wine Library, a sneaker from K-Swiss, for Ds. I'm trilled, don't even know. Don't spend a second on
it, have no knowledge. Just know how big my audience is compared to my conversion, that I
know a whole lot don't. Doesn't even cross my mind. Got it.
- Yeah. - When you give you give,
when you sell you sell. - Yeah.
- Don't mix them. That's why I wrote Jab,
Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Some people, most people, sales people needed to learn about jabbing. - Yeah.
- But ironically, a lot of very awesome
people and very sweet people and very good people, really
need to learn how to sell. They're like Gary, your
model doesn't work. I'm like, did you ask to sell anything? Well no, I'm uncomfortable to ask. I'm like, that's your problem. (laughs) I'm like, if you always
give and never ask. It's not take, it's not
steal, it's not manipulate, it's not cohort, it's not trick, it's ask. Like in a month you're
going to see I'm starting a wine project, I'd like you to buy it. If you don't, you don't. Like I don't know, we're
back to our scheduling regularly program of like
free content around business. If you buy wine. Why I like sneakers is
people buy sneakers. So, if I've brought you value. If there is a brand association, if you like the way they
look and it's a 50/50 toss between you'd normally wear Adidas and you're willing to buy
K-Swiss, well that's a good thing. That's how I can get that sale. But it's not like all
of the sudden tomorrow I'm no longer putting out the level of, like all the sudden you
notice I'm not putting out content anymore, it's
not as good when I do, if feels more promotional
to something that's coming. And that is to be paid for. It'd be like what you're
doing, all the sudden if that was a pay-per-view
show, not just the way, got it.
- Yeah. - If all of the sudden, you're doing this. If you're doing it for just brand, which it seems like you
are, and it's going to be on Youtube and Facebook,
then that's great. But if all the sudden it wasn't and it was 9.99 to subscribe to it. That would be like, oh
shit, that feels a little like you did all ... What people don't want is
you did all this, for this. You were tricking me. So sometimes people interpret
that when I'm selling sneakers and I jump into the comments. I'm like, you're a fucking idiot. (laughs) I'm like, that's why I went so hardcore between, you know, my content
and the things I sell. That's why this was harder because this is far more associated
than sneakers and wines. Which is why I had to
make it Vayner, not me. Make sense?
- Yeah. - Seeing the patterns.
- Can I ask a kind of selfish question?
- Yeah. That's what this is for.
- Um, so I, Laura and I work with our CEO,
directly, and he is a person who is quite similar to you, so he is. - Handsome.
(laughs) - Yeah.
- Modest. (laughs) - Wait, wait, wait, talk to me about this. This is a new dynamic,
there's a CEO to this company? You're both employees of this company? - People (muffled) two different parts of the company, directly
under the company order. - I understand, you have no equity, either one of you in the company? - (muffled)
- Understood. (laughs) Go ahead.
- We're working on it. - Go ahead.
- So basically he is like high energy, like very
intelligent, super ... - Switched on.
- Switched on all the time, has a lot of ideas, right. A lot of people in the company, I think everyone.
- How many people in the company?
- Like 18. - We are like 15 to 18 (muffled). - Keep going. - A lot of people in the
company find it actually quite difficult to work with him. - Makes sense.
- Because he comes in, he bulldozes, he runs around.
- It's disrupting, yeah. - And yells ideas at you
and you're like great I only have 800 other things going on. - Yes.
- So, what I'm wondering. - Does he do anything practical? I mean this, this is a
really important question. We won't use it, I need
the answer to this. I do that, but what makes
me palpable to my team is I also do practical
things, thus it offsets. It becomes more creative
and entrepreneurial versus disruptive and a
clown and a caricature. - Do you mean practical. Like, do you mean that you're
in client meetings, like talking and that kind of stuff. - Mm-hmm, I'm in HR meetings,
I'm in finance meetings, I sell.
- Yeah, yeah. - Like people take credit for
things that I actually did because I did a meeting
at 10 o'clock to midnight to get us that business.
- Right. - When put, when we go
naked, all of the sudden everybody will realize, for example, it took people a little while. People like you guys in the outside would say Gary as the CEO of VaynerMedia, has people running that
company and he's Gary V. What people on the inside know is not only is that not true and
I'm the CEO of the company I'm also really the COO,
like if you asked Allen. You know, you know we're seen. If you ask him, he'll tell you. Like I'm the COO and CEO. That's what makes me
being ridiculous palpable. I'm actually executing. - Okay.
- That's a very important thing. - Yeah.
- That's where people like me are accepted
by the org, versus not. - So what would be your
advise for somebody who's in our position, like we're both, we're very hard working,
we're super dedicated, we want to do a really good job. Like what's our best way to, I don't know, do best at the company if
we're constantly kind of feeling like --
- What does best mean? Does that.
- Like worst best with you. - [Woman] Work best with someone like you. - Why do you want to? (laughs) - I think the company is
completely similar to your, like completely independently owned, so everything is at the, like
there's a lot of opportunity. - [Woman] Opportunity to, and also we can come with like, we can
literally change the face of -- - Well, is he, this is where you know. It's really interesting. Somebody, I made a decision yesterday on the flight out here
to never say that I have narcissistic tendencies
because I say that at times about being like an extrovert
and being out there. Somebody left a comment in a Youtube video that I was reading yesterday that said, "Fucking narcissist,"
right, in a negative way. I was like, huh, sometimes
I say that about myself, it might be a good idea for me to actually look up what a narcissist is. (laughs) And when I looked it up, I was like, oh shit, I'm only four of these 12 things and the eight of them are terrible. Like insecure, fear, like
I'm like I'm not that at all. And so, I'm like I'm not
going to use that anymore. I'm going to stick more with extrovert, because I'm giving permission
for people to believe that truth, when wow, I
didn't realize how off that is for what I actually am. This is leading me to this question. That's why I painted that picture. Is this an individual that
you can gave a canderous conversation with or
will that be the worst? - I do feel like I can.
- Yeah. - Well then you have to.
- yeah. - That's your answer. The answer is we don't debate it here in a conversation, the
answer is you sit down and have dinner and say
we're at a crossroads where we think this company's
going to the next level. We, us, maybe there's a third, we think we're a big part of it. I want to be, like I like
you and you're likable and I want to be here,
because my main question is why do you want to,
because my main thing was like why don't you go do this yourself. But if you're going to do it with him because you do see the values
of it, you articulate it. Whether he changes or
not, it's on the record. It's something you can
point to on Thursday. If you and I have dinner and you're like, Gary, you get a little
ridiculous sometimes and then I come in and
start getting ridiculous and you can look at me
and I'm like, oh shit. You're talking about last
Thursday's dinner aren't you. (laughs) It helps. You haven't laid down the context. - Yeah.
- The answer to your question is radical candor.
- Yeah, (muffled). - Yep, so I think you have to do that. I think the question becomes,
that can go one of two ways. It unbelievably works with me. I love when people come
with radical candor with me for two reasons, one, 25%
of the time they're right. 75% of the time I can tell them what's actually happening that
they're confused by, right. When you have employees. Everybody here judges me,
but they have no context. It's not their fault, I
don't think they're stupid. I think I'm looking down
and they're looking up. When you look down from
an airplane at the UK, you can see a lot more than
when you're in this office. So, I love it because 25% of the time, they can see my humility
and I'm appreciative and I can see their
smarts and we move forward and it builds a real relationship. 75% of the time it re-enforces my genius or uniqueness to them. Because you think
somebody's smart who cares, who's willing to give you radical candor and then you throw something
at them that they never thought of and they're like,
fuck that's true, shit. It gives them confidence in their leader. I only, I tell my company all the time, I want to be the reverse of
the emperor with no clothes because the second you walk
into my office, we've won. It's either going to be
25%, you're 100% right and you can see my humility and acceptance or 75% of the time
you're going to walk out being more confident in me. You should have that meeting to figure out if that's the framework or if it's insecurity, which leads to
get the fuck out of here, you don't know what the
fuck you're talking about. When you own your own business,
it manifests different. - Yeah.
- I can say when you own your own business, you'll understand, in a far more professional
way by bringing them respect and explaining it to them versus being hyperbolized in that moment. - [Man] That's difficult. - [Woman] Yeah. - Yeah, and I think it is difficult, but I think for me it's
why I'm successful. Everything good should be difficult. You know, when people
are like, man you deploy so much humility for your position. I'm like, yeah, but that's
why I like just starting. The hardest things lead
to the best results. - [Woman] Morgan was worried about, and you're team kind of (muffled) kind of organization,
what's your biggest worry? - I mean, my biggest
worry is losing somebody who's good because they're
confused on what's going on. But that's on me, not on them. - Yeah.
- And just knowing that I can't get to everything,
all the time, always, but I can to the best of my ability. And that's that. But at 18, it's like,
I would rip my arm off to have 18 employees, it would be so easy. (laughs) - [Woman] Yeah, it's
nice, we're a nice size. - [Woman] Yeah. If you could build a social media, if you had to build a social media team of three people, what
would their roles be? - Writer, creator of video and pictures and distributor of the content with a backbone in paid distribution. A writer, a creative, who
does video and pictures. (laughs) Everyone's super happy. One person has to write.
- Yeah. - One person has to create
the videos and pictures and one person has to
know how to distribute it contextually to the places
where they attention is. - [Woman] With paid (muffled). - Yes, I would have that
person grounded in the paid. I mean, everyone's
ideological about organic. But to me, it's like when
there's something to buy that's a deal and you
have the money, buy it. And that's what I think
Facebook and Instagram ads are right now.
- But are you looking for people who can do all of these things? Like someone like.
- D Rock. The way I look at D
Rock is I do think video and pictures.
- Graphic. - What do I look for?
- Graphic. - Graphic, thank you. I think video and graphic,
I think people separate those two, I put them in one, but I do not think somebody
that has a creative eye or is a designer, a
videographer or designer, let's go very literal, I do think should be in one predator, right. You know, produce, edit, in one. I do think, and I've seen
with D Rock and others, Caleb. You can video, you can
post produce a video, you can also make pictures. I believe that is one person. It is more rare for
that same person to also be a great copywriter.
- Yeah. - It is more rare for that person to also be able to be great at
Facebook and Instagram ads or distribution.
- (muffled) - That's right, so I'm comfortable in those being, your very literal
answer, that is the triangle. And when I talk, once
in awhile depending on how do you guys watch my content about my 20 person team,
I know I only need three. I do 20 because I want
them to all disperse into other parts of
the company eventually. And I'm doing some other
shit, like random stuff. - Cool.
- Yeah, when I hear people like, that's the team.
- Yeah. - That's the triangle.
- And writers they're writing captions, they're writing titles, they're writing descriptions, all that. - They're transcribing from videos into a LinkedIn article.
- Right. - Like, you know, that kind of stuff. Somebody had to write that
88 page dec that we put out. You know, you've got
to put words to things. You've got to put pictures
and videos to things. You have to know how to
get people to see them. Very basic.
- Cool. - [Man] So you're saying that
one person does all of those things?
- No, I'm saying three people should do those things. Listen, there are, you know what's ironic. I was that person. I was that person at Wine Library. That's what was so hard
for me at VaynerMedia. I did everything. I didn't know there was,
and then there's also strategists, like probably
the most impactful thing I do and I think the
thing that Andy has developed into is, there's a strategy too. Like what are you doing? And then there's macro strategy of like should you guys work there. It gets really, like. Or you could see where I'm going. I'm already like, cool I know
what you're about to ask, but also like strategy is like dude you need to create a product
line named after your grandfather or daughter
and fucking put real 20% energy always because
what if Adidas sells to fucking Supreme in six years and they cancel your contract. - [Man] Yeah, that's why we
have stock in it actually. (muffled) CEO last year, 18 months ago a lot of uncertainty,
first reaction (muffled). - Always, by the way, I hate when uncertainty is the driver to that. It always makes sense, but
in my keynotes I always say raise your hand if
you're having your best year. People raise their hand, I'm like, you're the ones I'm most worried about. Notice how uncertainty
got you to, oh shit, we should have a hedge, I'm most worry about everybody here who's doing the best because they're not thinking about hedge because it's working. That sales machine is feeding me. That company signed a
six year deal, bless you. Six years is like fucking six minutes. - Yeah, you're right.
- I'm aware, like I see it every day. You know, what I'm good at
is (muffled) recognition of business over the last
25 years, mine and others. I've done, bless you, small
business, family business. I was in Silicon Valley. I did Madison Avenue for a reason. I knew nothing about corporations. I couldn't speak smartly seven years ago about Nike and Adidas, now
I can tell you everything. Now, I'm dangerous. Now I've got the blueprint across all entrepreneur, SMB, Silicon
Valley tech and Fortune 500s. Now I understand everybody's
strengths and weaknesses. Now I can start my career at 50. That's the plan, so when
I talk about patience, I'm like, think about what I just said. And all the while, the
most important thing that I want people to learn
from me, I didn't make money. Built a business for my dad, had no money. VaynerMedia, my brother, Steve Ross, not making any margin, not making money. Not making money up to 50. I am, people are like cool, how do you have a Hamptons house,
how do you have like? Yes, I'm making money, but I'm leaving 90% of the economics on the table. And so cool, I'm talented,
so I add bigger numbers. But it's still the thesis. So, if you're not as talented as me and you're making 50k,
when you're worth 400k, but if you follow my model you're
going to make four million. Now, you can get hit by
a tree, you could die. I understand, you can get
divorced and lose half. And like change your, there's
nothing that's foolproof, but there are, I always use fitness because it's easier for people to grasp. If you eat right and exercise,
yeah you could get cancer. You could, you might have a body, I don't have a body type
for a chest, DO does. There's certain things
that are going to happen. I'm putting in the work, but I'm not going to have a nice good chest. DO does like one push up and has a chest. (laughs) He's putting in real work,
but there's body types, we all know it, right. Like some people starve themselves and still are chunky and big boned, but, but, but the reality is there is somethings that are
black and white, right. Learning, contexting, understanding. My biggest concern in this macro room is the economy's been good.
- Yeah, me too. - The economy's been good for a decade. Globally, you know, every
market is a little different. In the UK it's a little different in London and in the US, but like, in the macro the whole world
has become full of shit and doesn't want to pay the piper. And that's going to,
like we should absolutely on merit have a global depression because the whole world is full of shit. - Yeah.
- And that could happen. Like I think a whole lot about, the biggest thing that
keeps me safe is I'm willing to love in this room with
my family and that's cool. That's why I'm pushing
everybody not to be fancy because I know they're about
to have to not be fancy. They're not going to worry
about fucking Yeezy's and Supreme's and gold
watches, they're going to be worried about fucking
putting food on their table. That gets real, that's a --
- A spectrum. - That's a spectrum boy. Like go read the Roaring
20s, go look at how everybody lived in the 20s, you'll
get real scared, real fast. You'll get real scared, real fast. Because you know how the
30s and 40 played out. We're headed, so I think
about a lot of that shit. - [Man] That's keeping me
up at night a little bit about next year where
we're marching onto Brexit, whatever your views on
it are, there is a lot of uncertainty.
- Yep. - I'm in the service business.
- Yep. - That's why I'm trying to
pivot very quickly into a products business, but even
that's going to be impacted. - Let me tell you why I'm so heavy to push everybody here on
building a personal brand. It is the best asset to
have during a shitty time because you'll be able to get a job. Like, what will work
for you by building HR personal brand, is God forbid
when it all hits the fan, IBM still may hire you
for 50 cents on the dollar of their last HR Executive, but you'll be at the top of the list.
- Yeah. - If you really play a
depression, immigrant, doomsday model, like I do. I'm like old school
fucking Eastern European. I have cash buried in the backyard shit. (laughs) I do, my financial
advisors get so mad at me. They're like you're so
right about so much, you could be making so much more money if you didn't take that ... Why don't you take that cash. You're publicly saying
to invest in Netflix and Amazon, you're sitting
on cash with no interest. If you would have put that
into Amazon and Netflix, you'd have twice as much money. I'm like, yeah but guess what,
I slept really good at night. Because if the whole
fucking world collapsed I'd know I have a million bucks in cash, which could be worth $38, but it's still going to be better than
zero or negative zero which everybody else is going to go to because everyone's over-leveraged. - [Man] Yeah. - That's the vulnerability
of a young kid that hit the right timing.
- Yeah. - Like you're not going
to find any investor. You're not going to be, the
property that you invested in that was prime goes to very low. God forbid you have any loans. Like, people don't get it. I do not want to talk about that shit. - [Man] (muffled) - Yeah, and then the other thing is. That's why money's one
thing because if all the money's worthless, there's that. It's mindset, it's like
really getting to a place where you're okay in
living a peasant life. I mean it.
- (muffled) yesterday when he told me you have investor. We built the business, we have
no loan, me and my father. - That's huge.
- 1994 we started, we are (muffled) since day one.
- That's huge, huge. And the biggest thing that happens in CPGs in today's world, the biggest
reason I left VC Silicon Valley and pushed against it, is everybody thinks that's the right thing to do. It's not that they, they don't even, it's not that they, they
don't even know any different. There is no under 35 year old in the world that thinks that going to a
bank for a loan is the move. Everybody over 50 thought
that was the move. - [Man] Everyone's obsessed aren't they with raising money.
- It's slavery. - Yeah, because they don't
realize what's happening. Like, Gavin will tell
you, I was in nourish. Like you get kicked out
of your own company. People don't understand
what actually happens. - What should you do on the--
- And I apologize real quick. And also what happens is your building a company in a fake environment. You're losing money every month, but you think you're building something. Then something bad happens,
you have to raise more capital and it changes the cap table
to you getting paid last. And then you're company
sells and you made no money. People are not smart, I
don't know what else to say. So, like I have a communication style that penetrates, so I'm
trying to use it for good. Like to help people because
you think I'm popular now, wait to shit hits the fan. I'm going to be the most popular. Because the 10% that are
alive are going to be alive because they listened to me and did something completely different and the 90% wish they'd listened to me. - [Man] Charging 100,000 for 4D. - Or six dollars just to like. You know, yeah, or just to. That's how much the market
is in a melted down world. But guess what, six dollars
acts like a million because everything comes down together. And I think it's 12 dollars, not six. You know, my great
moment in my career will be the next economic downturn. - Oh sorry.
- Yeah, please. - I was just going to
ask, why are you smoozing with the agency model
when the model is like such lower margines.
- Because I'm not building an agency. Because I'm building this for internal IP and then I'm going to
convert it inside out. So, here's what's going to happen. When the world melts,
ATT and BMW and Avion and Tesko are all going
to hire VaynerMedia because what's going to
happen is their marketing budget is going to go
from 100 million to 12 and they're going to need
that 12 to work really hard. And we're established as
knowing how to do that and the only reason people
don't go with us now is because money is easy
and they don't have to do the right work, so they can
give the money to their buddy or the person that takes them to fucking, the Manchester United game on the field. Got it. When they can't do that anymore they're going to give it all to us. I'm going to get all that, so this machine that is stupid now, gets really smart because we'll go from 280 to
590 in revenue in 24 months. It'll be profitable
revenue because the world will melt and I'll be able
to hire all the people from other agencies for
25 cents on the dollar. At the same time, a bunch
of companies are going to be over-leveraged and they're
going to go out of business and I'm going to be able
to buy those businesses with the cashflow of the
590 at higher revenue. Then the economy will
turn back in 12 years and I'll be able to sell those businesses at the frothy end and buy the Jets. (laughs) - [Woman] What's happening after the Jets? - Super Bowls.
- I see. - You see what I'm doing? I'm playing the reverse game. So everybody thinks
it's stupid now because they don't understand it's over valued, then it's going to seem very smart. Then I'm able to show this video and be like it wasn't an accident. Which will only compound the smarts of it. And I'll be 62 and have 40 years to play all on the equity of like
pulling off a billion dollar thing on smarts, not luck. On humility of eating shit
for a decade in my prime. Right, kids are going
to watch these videos and be like, he was fucking 39, he was 42. Like, I'm 26, and he was patient. That's why it worked. I'm going to do that. Nobody's ever seen anybody play it. We didn't get to watch Steve
Jobs' first nine years. Not that I'm that or this and that, it's just like we didn't get
to see Bezos' packing books. You know how powerful
it would be right now. How many views do you think.
- 89. - How many views do you
think if Jeff Bezos was doing a blog, those first 50
episodes of them packing books in a fucking garage would have. 80 million, maybe 14 billion, right. Everybody would watch it. I mean everybody.
- Yeah. - Yeah, so how'd you like
to watch Michael Jordan's first three off seasons
and the work he put in. So, there's a lot of thought
that goes into what I do that I don't speak
about or I show glimpses of in things like this. My team talks a lot about
like me not talking about being smart, as you guys
know, none of my content is predicated on being smart. That's just going to speak for itself when it's all said and done. I don't need people that think I'm smart. - [Man] Can we talk to you about
that family that you talked about obviously coming
to you (muffled) and now give us a roadmap we've
been looking at (muffled). - Yep.
- Debt to capacity. Someone actually approached
us to value the company. We said we're not ready.
- Yep. - And they said, how
about we value at a small percentage, could we get a cash injection. We have zero debt and
cash through January, but if we bring them in we'd say. - Yep.
- I can scale, like hyper scale this year and (muffled). - Yeah, I mean, look
I think it all depends on the terms of the deal.
- Okay, yeah. - Like haven't, VaynerMedia,
you know Steve Ross owns fucking 40% of my company. It's just I've never
had a meeting with him about the company.
- Yeah, I'm with you. - So, like if you take a
million quib and you never have to answer to anybody, like to me, the biggest reason not to take an investor is prepping for a meeting every quarter. Allen will tell you that I
don't even want to talk to him. He's my own CFO, so I want to navigate. And not answer to anybody. If you have to answer to
them why you did anything, that becomes an energy suck
and was it worth the quib. - Okay.
- Because all you're then talking about is
generating your own cash. And just being slower, which nobody wants. Because they always
things it's a land grab. I never think it's a land grab. I think that when you're
good, abundance is always the answer.
- Yeah. - Everybody always justifies to me like, no, no Gary, you don't get it. This moment in my business right now. I'm like, yeah cool. I'm like it's never a moment, dick. There's always a moment,
there's always an angle. Retail is changing, cool,
retail will change tomorrow. There's always a fucking moment. You know. - [Woman] We're getting some (muffled) companies approaching
us about our agency side about doing creative capital projects where we work with them and then we get essentially an investor
because we've created the strategy and there's no
financial exchange there, just like creative capital. So, we're essentially could be. - When you say "we", the
company or you two individually? - The company, our agency.
- I think that's trading the special sauce for a percentage of the upside that you don't even control after you're gone, don't love it. - [Woman] Yeah, it doesn't
seem super compelling. - Let me keep going with questions. What do you have?
- Yeah, I have a question. We have one of our three
countries right now (muffled) of distributors.
- I see, understood. (beeping) Go ahead. - (muffled) reached his limit and US for us has always been a problem we have always failed in
the US from distributors. I guess I need to cancel distribution in the US and re-engage
with our own distribution channels and our own distributor so we are (muffled) distributing. - Interesting.
- And only focusing on one sport
- Which one? - Boxing, because it's
on the up for retail. - Yep.
- And we can control it if we go into all. - Understood.
- Too many expenditures. - And what are you guys
doing direct to consumer in the US?
- I mean, we're going to open our on Spotify and focus on Amazon. - That's exactly right. - Right now we are rebuilding the brand. So I'm spending plenty of money. - Rebuilding Adidas boxing?
- Yeah, basically. So, we are sponsoring athletes, sponsoring Charity Evans, trying to engage with the community. Question is, where should
I put most of my -- - Facebook and Instagram and Youtube and pod casts and long tail influencers. So, there's a trend
obviously in the US right now in boxing around things like Rumble, like pretty girls boxing. Like you getting, you giving
$3,000 to a pretty girl with 900,000 followers on Instagram versus you giving it to
Anthony Joshua or Wylner or fucking, you can't
even imagine the delta. There's no up and coming,
even Oscar De La Hoya in his most up and coming moment, there's no boxer that
even remotely comes close to the arbitrage of building brand that you'll get from four
attractive people on Instagram. - (muffled) - Right, you're just building brand. You just want attention. - So influencers?
- Influencers at scale and original content at scale created and distributed on Facebook. What VanyerMedia does.
- The problem we have that we haven't discussed
is that we're every (muffled) by Adidas on our
Facebook and Instagram. We aren't corporate and
sometimes being corporate and (muffled) you lack authenticity. - Yep. (laughs) - [Man] The difference is though, you played in the sandbox
that you play in because you think it's what Adidas wants. If you blew it up and
did something destructive that looked completely
different and then started a precident new, you would
reinvigorate the relationship. Right now we're trying
to create things that you think we'll say yes to, but in reality you haven't approached it
through a creative lens that doesn't look like
how you've approached it - Or, you put in all that
effort to counter your point, which is right, or you
put in all that effort and they say no because Karen
at corporate is like no. Hence, why it's not
fun to be at that mercy of somebody else.
- True. - That's it because you're right, but you're both right. I don't know and Karen
might say it's awesome. But she might not, but
that is what you should do. And I think ultimately,
that's what' so great about entrepreneurship versus corporate. The reason a lot of small companies do win is they do what you should do. And big companies do what
you're supposed to do. - (muffled) - 100%, 100%.
- We're fighting like we're on a speedboat and --
- But one more time. You are Adidas Boxing in America. - Yeah.
- For all intents and purposes.
- Yeah. - So I think, you have an upfront meeting with a plan that is really compelling. Like you have an upfront meeting. Of like, we need a meeting
and specifically about social media content in the
US around Adidas Boxing. We want far more creative control and let's just have a
meeting to be aligned on what's yes and no because we're, this is you now, we're playing
the zeitgeist of old rules but we may not even know,
but we know we want to go somewhere different, so
let's have that meeting. Like who's approving the content. - (muffled) HQ.
- Has to approve the content you post on Facebook.
- On Instagram, not Facebook. They don't give a shit
about Facebook anymore. - Good, then you should
take advantage of it because that's the best
thing that's going on because Facebook ads for
business have never been better. And the fact that people are
walking away from it is great. Organic may not be better than ever, but ads are fucking amazing. - And the layoff complexity
that we have to report (muffled).
- I know man. I mean, VaynerMedia doesn't
do anything I believe in. I'm being dead serious,
clients have too much control. That's the game.
- That's the game. - But that is what you should do. - Patience and --
- No, Facebook and Instagram and Youtube. Content unlimited, contextual to the paid media distribution against it. Content unlimited to the
paid distribution against it. That is the fucking statement. And nobody's doing it and I'm as a human probably doing it the
most out of any human and I'm not even, not even remotely close to what I should be doing. I should be running, Andy,
how many pieces of content do you think, if you've
been listening for the last three minutes, in this context, how many pieces of content
should I be running as Instagram ads, swipe up
right now, do you think? How many singular
different pieces of content and then media plans against it? - It's infinity.
- That is exactly right. Actually infinity. We're running how many
Instagram ads right now? Swipe ups, right now? Zero, one, yeah right this second. - Three.
- Three, we should be running 987,000. No, no this is like real talk.
- There's three pieces of content that we're driving to, which is why I said three, but in those three pieces of content,
there's 50 different ways you can splice it. There's that keynote tab available. Him saying, hey college
athletes watch this. Or, hey students of this
college, watch this. - But literally, I should
be in studio right now like LSU fans, watch this. Auburn fans, watch this. University of Michigan, watch it. Literally, that's where
this is going to go. Which is why machine
learning and AI and all these other things in content
will play out over time. Because the level of scale. The problem with those
things is you're going to lose some authenticity.
- Yeah. - But maybe not, because for
example if it's voiceover. If I have voiceover
technology that can basically make me say anything because
we have so much record ... Like there's a lot of reasons I do the things that I do that I never talk about. Why am I in perpetuity being filmed? I believe we have an audio database now that can manipulat me saying anything. So, now you can imagine
I can have an intern make 478,000 college
logos where you can hear my voice say, hey UNLV
Running Rebels fans, you should watch this video. Though I've never said it, but
you can see where I'm going. It's very powerful. - (muffled) like ad fatigue
how often are you guys? - Well ad fatigue doesn't
happen in the way that I just played it out
because I'm so contextual. With that, you're only seeing it once. That's what he runs in to. He has ad fatigue because
he only has one to seven, to 19 to 33 units. People are getting hit
with the same stuff. It's fatigue, but if it was
contextual in the first place like, hey Gennady, you
were born in Belarus we want you to play this
game from the Ukraine. I'm like, oh shit, okay. It was so contextual.
- Yeah. - Not play the cat neo geo game, you know. You don't get fatigue when
you're contextual at scale. God forbid you actually get it mapped, then you hit me with the seven
things I give a fuck about, all contextual, now you
can't not not get me. - [Woman] If you were
to just do one platform, like you had to choose
one that you could do, would it be Instagram. - Um, I think it depends on the business. For you, I would probably, I wouldn't. Uh, it's tough, I mean I'm
very bullish on Facebook because of it's pure scale. Instagram's there too. Depends on, I'm always thinking brand, so you know, it's like moments in time. - [Woman] Yeah, we're super focused on Youtube and Instagram.
- That makes sense. - [Woman] We're kind
of neglecting Facebook. - Huge mistake because if you run ads against your content, you'll
destroy it on Facebook. Alright, let's keep it going. - [Man] Gary, quick
question, quite specific. We've got, of course, (muffled) our video. Of course, six module,
takes you from a live (muffled) to an action plan. We designed it for individual. As an HR Director, as I was designing, I realized I have (muffled) value as well and for HR Directors, CEOs.
- Yep, makes sense. - Big layoffs.
- Yep. - We just signed (muffled) use it as part of their (muffled).
- Love it. - [Man] So my challenge is, I still want to sell to individuals. - Yeah, you're B2B and B2C. No different then him,
two separate audiences, two different executions.
- Yeah. So, in terms of B2B
enterprise using LinkedIn as the platform.
- And Facebook because you can now
target based on employees, so imagine running an ad. So you make a piece of
content, video or picture. Now the copy says, dear
financial service employees, make sure your Chief
People Officer sees this. And you run it against the
seven biggest financial employees of the seven biggest
financial firms in the UK. And so now I'm a finance
manager at Barclay's, but I see it on my Facebook
feed and I'm friends with the head of HR and I
literally just forward the link. That's why it works,
but notice what I did. Creative that is contextual
to the distribution. I know that I'm going after
employees of financial services. Not just the HR individuals, thus my copy said, hey employee make sure your HR. Do you see where I'm going? This is why copy is the
great underestimated part of the current state of creative. We've become so visual,
we grossly underestimate the copy.
- I've been doing that. - You and everybody else. That's, if you notice, it's so subtle. Why some of the content
worked, because I could figure out the copy to make
it work for my audience even though the visual didn't
support it as much as I wanted. That's why when I post when I'm not tired, when I'm fresh, it always does better because I'm unbelievably
thoughtful of what I've just watched, the current feeling that I have to my audience, the copy. That's why my copy has
gotten progressively longer on Instagram, if you've
followed me for a long time. All the sudden, I made that
switch a year and a half ago. You know, but I keep breaking it up. I just did something
the other day with just one word and it worked. So I'm just really trying to, you know. - [Man] But we're copy run it into audio as well.
- Well, audio is only copy. - Yeah, (muffled) what Nick said yesterday because I was listening
to your podcast last, but that's copy that's taken from us, not from them brought into that. Well, you wouldn't know it.
- That's right, which is why it ended up working, right. That's right and it would
be way better if I had time because I would record something original. My podcast would explode if I had time and maybe I'm trying to
convince myself right now to do it, but if I would record literally just a minute or two to
set up what you're about to listen to because I could
use the moment in time. You know, on Monday I
can use the zeitgeist. I can say something like, you know, I'm trying to think about
the world right now. Like, the Jets are one
in three, and I'm pissed. Talk about being pissed,
that's going to matter to the audience because it feels fresh. - [Man] Yeah, right (muffled). - [Man] (muffled) - [Man] Antwan, did you
have anything specific? - Yes, so the biggest
struggle right now for me is user position and (muffled) the engaged users who.
- Especially off of the one that you've just had because we've lived through the a
golden year of opportunity and some of it's getting corrected. - Yes, right now.
- And we're all playing one big game of Cack and El TV, he's just playing it literal. Cost of acquisition, lifetime value. It's true math. Which is why he can get to 100 because when it really works,
you can't spend enough. - Yes.
- You spend it all. It all pays back.
- If you know the (muffled). - And what you'll love and
this will make sense to you and this is probably where
maybe I can take you to a place. That's basically what I'm doing as a brand in perpetuity because I
have no short term metric. - I have actually two questions. One is, influencers
- Yes. - We just started working with them. - Yes.
- Especially for pocket product, which is pretty
small in comparison with all the others. What's the best strategy for our business to work with influencers. - Your best strategy
on influencers is just brand long tail arbitrage. They won't convert, like even if they're. Well, you'll find people like. Like if I did an ad right now, hey Vayner Nation, like
straight up being authentic. Let me play it out exactly. Hey Vayner Nation, being
authentic, you know I never pitch anything,
but the fact of the matter is I love this wine app. They're my homies,
known them for 13 years. They're paying me $200,000 for this. I want to be authentic with all of you. But, you fucking know me,
like I've never done this. I'm doing this because this is the best wine app I've ever seen. Link is in my profile,
you should download it. It would convert, what I
just did would convert. Still not that great. Definitely not to what
you would care about and I'm extremely rare,
thus you can imagine why I'm worried about
influencers for people that are deep, deep quant
based around gaming. I like it better for fashion/retail. I like it better for
consumer packaged goods. I don't love it as much for gaming because the natural
influencer isn't there. You know, the fashion blogger gal. There's a billion of her. The food people there's a billion of them. The I'm a casual gamer
influencer, doesn't exist. You're not going to get
e-sports people to convert. So you've got a, do you see where I'm going?
- Yes. - Sure, there's people you can do. Sure, some of them will
work for math for you. None of them will work the second time. None of them, none of them. They don't have a second post in them. I think you need to look at
Instagram story swipe up ads. Have you guys looked there?
- Yes, yes (muffled). - I think what you need to
do is optimize creative. - That's what I'm.
- Yeah, I saw you. That's your.
- Contextual. - Contextual at scale.
- Yes, yes. - At scale.
- Yes, I'm building brand. - And building brand. I think the two things that if I was, and I think you already picked up on it. I think you're here and I want you here. - Yes.
- I want you to spend more money on brand, which will always work. And I want you to go way more long tail contextual, creative and paid. This worked, but it's starting not to. Which is why this matters.
- Yes, that's fair. - That's it.
- And our market is pretty funny, I would say. (laughs) - Funny is always an
interesting adjective. - So we're doing social because you know, there is no real money involved the people are spending
real money, but the are buying tokens.
- That's right. - And spending tokens in the game. - That's right.
- The market is growing. Why it's growing, because
people stop flying to Vegas, they stop playing in the real casino, they stop paying thousands of dollars and start paying hundreds of dollars for the same emotions, the same dopamine. The only struggle is where
to find these people. We tried the influencer who are filming themselves in the casino
and I won, I had the big win and stuff, but it doesn't convert. - Similar to what I was telling him which is you're going, too
many people go too literal when all you're trying to do
is buy under-priced attention. - Yeah.
- Right. - So for example, I think
you would do so much better with, you know, and
this is for your business and this is for your business. The person I'm most obsessed with is the alpha woman in the suburb. I'm obsessed with this woman. I really got to, I'm going to name her. Maybe Sally, you know. (laughs) - [Woman] Sandra, Sandra. - I just am obsessed
with the following woman. Specifically because it's
more, this is very general. High net worth suburb of a big town, she's the alpha of her 39 friends. Because there's a million of her and she's so influential
and if you can get 39 of them in a concentrated area, you can get the whole damn thing. Got it.
- So 55 plus, this is our. - Whether it's 28 or 55 or 72, there is a 42 year old woman
who is the alpha of her neighborhood which means 19
other women look up to her. She says, they say, they're
also influential, boom. And it will work for a lot of people. There's a term in American politics. It's called soccer moms. It was during, I don't
know if it was Clinton or Bush or Gore, but it was like, it was categorizing the
swing of this election is soccer moms, which is
really in a lot of ways what I'm referring to now. The influential suburban woman. How she voted and how
she impacted the vote. I think that person right now
is extremely relevant to me. Here's why I love it, all
of them are on Instagram. Here's why I like it more. They all have between 700 and 7,000 fans, which means nobody's paying attention. It's not fun because it's long tail. It's a lot of hand-to-hand combat, but what you end up realizing
is you hire three people to do the hand-to-hand
combat at $45,000 a year. Hand-to-hand combat, DM, DM, DM, DM, but when you amortize out
the cost of $150,000 salary. It's what I'm doing right now. I have three full-time
employees right now, Dming with me cc'd on it
to every single person that follows me, that
either has 100,000 followers on Instagram or is verified,
which right now is, how many people do we have left, Andy? 6,000 or 12,000? - [Andy] 12 is the total and we-- - Right, so right now in my, right now I'm being cc'd with influencers where they're being sent to
fill out a form to create a first party CRM for me to
be able to activate them. God, I mean, God forbid whatever I choose to activate them on, it's
going to be really good. It's going to be really good. The best part for me is I
have leverage with them. Unlike you going or you going cold, these are people that follow me that I've probably brought value to, so whatever I ask is going to convert at least the first one. You know, I have to find my
cadence of not asking too much, but it's going to work building that out. Scaling the un-scalable
is always the answer once you hit--
- Yes. - attrition. And it's super counter-cultural to people that are quant oriented. I'll get to you.
- When you talk about personal branding are you
talking about the company brand or my own personal brand?
- You the human. - Okay.
- Because you the human then has inperpetuity to leverage
and then all of the sudden the platforms are courting
you, not you the platforms. - Gary if you've got three--
- I do. - Did all have to have a platform to take or is it--
- Well, I would say that you need to both go, you
both have to do the same move, which is you need
to go to your partner and be like, look I went to go see Gary V. I believe his is right for our business. I would love for you to do it as well. I don't want to do this
and you think I'm trying to do something for me and not you. And, I'd love for you to do it. And you may or may not want to do it. But I'm doing it because
I think it's leverage. It's leverage for our
business, but it's leverage for me in case of, who knows what. You should do it too. They'll be like, well you're fucking extroverted, I'm introverted,
this is bullshit. Or they'll be like, cool you do it. Yeah, I'll do it too. There's a million things that will happen. - In my case, I've actually got a personal (muffled).
- Yep. - Should I need to
build up to this reason. On the personal side,
I'm like a recovering addict and I've got a--
- That's amazing. - You know, because of stuff like that. - I would put it all in one place. - Okay.
- And nobody wants to, but it's where all the action is. - (muffled)
- Brother, I have good news for you. Anybody who doesn't do business with you because you were a former addict, also has somebody who's
going to do business with you because you're a former addict. (talking over each other) It's a net score, of course, I get it. And everybody's got their version of it. Everybody.
- Yeah, yeah. - The only reason not to build a personal brand right now for real,
is if you're doing something terrible in the shadows of society. (laughs) No really, no I'm serious. If you're cheating on your husband, if you've raped somebody,
if you stole money. The only reason to not
build a personal brand today is if you're currently
doing something bad. Because as you get awareness,
you'll get exposed. - [Man] What about that
mental state though because I was doing my
master's and I (muffled). So, I port my fans and video clips easier, put it on Youtube, it's
easier than writing for me. So I did that and some of
the feedback I was getting was, oh it cut me deep. (laughs) It cut me deep, and now I
said then, I don't think I'm going to do this again. Is that just ego or--
- Yep, insecurity. - Yeah, but.
- It's value. It's valuing other
people's opinions more than your mission.
- Yeah, but see in real life, in real
life if someone said that to me, I'd be like--
- It's not true. - Yeah.
- Because that it is real. - It's not true, it is real life. - [Man] See, on a one-to-one
basis if someones said that to me I could discuss with them and I'd feel comfortable because
I could discuss with them. - I understand, I understand. - Why it is and what's--
- You can discuss with them too. If you go look at my
first book, Crushing It. There's a ton of negative reviews and then you'll read me
replying to that person. - Nice.
- You're more than welcome to reply, you can discuss with them. It's real life. You could reply to their reply and everybody gets to see
it, which shows humility, confidence, empathy. It's a powerful trait. I love feeding my trolls. I think you should feed the trolls. People tell you to ignore them. I don't, because if you ignore them then you can become delusional and get high on your own supply. I love the negative feedback
because it keeps me, not in check, because most of negative feedback is an exposure
of their insecurity. If somebody takes the time in their life to consume your content and
then leave negative feedback, they're in a really bad place. I have nor the time to
consume anybody else's content or the interest in
making somebody feel bad. That's the punchline. So, I think it's, I would
tell you it's a strength. - [Man] Yeah, okay. - First of all, it's a truth. Second of all, it's
nothing to be ashamed of. Third of all, it's inspirational. Fourth of all, there's
other former addicts who are decision makers who are going to support you in a tie.
- I think a lot of it came from in the past I've
kind of made (muffled) on Instagram and then
another one on LinkedIn. And all that shit where
now I need to centralize the whole brand.
- Everybody's been trying to be full of shit, like,
it's just not going to work. - Okay.
- There's nowhere to hide. - [Man] So that in terms of
like actual business things. So, how much would you, is there a number you'd say people should spend in terms of percentage of revenue
on brand and (muffled). - Mm-hmm.
- What do you think that looks like?
- As much as they can afford. - Just as much as you can.
Mm-hmm. - Literally, I mean it. As much you can afford on brand. It is the, it's the most ownable thing. - [Man] Do you think there's
going to be a play where, like I talked about earlier,
like we're having today people do conferences, events,
webinars and stuff like that. Whereas I think now because
of the younger generation coming through and just
seeing management positions there's going to potentially
be this play around maybe Instagram or something like that, or even maybe the video
content on LinkedIn. But something different
like people at MySpace, come scroll on Linked
in and see a funny video or a cool video about our product doing. - Yes you do, yes you do. Nobody's doing it and every
time somebody does it, it works. - Exactly and that's kind of where-- - People are humans.
- Yeah. - People are people. Just because they're on LinkedIn, like it's because
they're not being fed it. Guys, I'm one of the
fastest growing accounts on LinkedIn in the world. I'm cursing my ass off. Go to my comments on LinkedIn. Half of them are people
mad at me for cursing. - I struggle with that
because I swear a lot life anyway, but then
I don't put on a video on LinkedIn with that because
it's a professional platform and it's kind of like a
getaway to like tie that line across--
- Well, listen, listen. By the way, I just said that, meanwhile I just told D Rock and Andy, go literally, literally this is so crazy, so meta. Guys, I want somebody
on the team to go look at the 50 best performing
videos of my career and I want you to beep out the curse words so we can distribute those,
because you've go to respect the context of the
platform, but I'm scared. Literally, I'm going to do both. Literally, I'm going to post on LinkedIn the fuck you and fuck that and fuck this and then the same thing like a week later of like beep, beep, beep. (laughs) Because they both work. You know how many people
don't work with VaynerMedia because I'm Gary V, a ton. Do you know how many people do, a ton. Gotta let the chips fall. In your uniqueness, it is your strength. - Yeah I agree.
- The more you vanilla down, the more you're
like, oh you're that guy. Oh, suit and tie and
good school and you're a professional and like, okay cool. You know, people are running
away form their leverage because we're trying to
be like everybody else. - (muffled) So, the type
of business we're in we (overtalk) we manage, like that thing like right now we're closing
up this year on double luxury for example and
then the next year we go to double again, we could be half. Do I just sink all the
money in and throw the chips on the, or roll the dice I guess. - I think it comes down
to spending less money on dumb shit and dumb shit a lot of times in the early days is your own salary. - Okay. (laughs) Yeah, I know sometimes
you've got to take a cut. - The biggest mistake,
the mist, the biggest mistake, the biggest mistake
small businesses make if you're company is doing
less than 10 million dollars a year and you're the sole proprietor, the biggest mistake is
extracting the money out and buying dumb shit.
- Yeah. So we stopped, like I knew when I actually thought we were
going to take all the money out. We're going to have
loads of fucking stuff. - Right.
- Not really because I got CFO in to stop me and he straight away, this
can't be a lifestyle business. All this money needs to go
back in to grow some stuff. So I think we've, I've toned back mentally where I'm not going to
have everything today. This will be in like
five or 10 or 50 years. So cool.
- Cool. - Thank you.
- Yes, so we touched on (muffled) Shopify versus Amazon. - You have to do both, aggressively. - So the reason we
decided Amazon in short. - I know why.
- Yeah, because we don't have the budget.
- You have to do both. - To get people to our website
to let them know about it. - You still have to have it in your DNA. I don't care if anybody,
I don't care if nobody buys a single thing fromm you. I need you to have it in your DNA, because Amazon will put
you out of business. - Yeah.
- You will get sucked into Amazon and you will die. - So, I (muffled) on
Shopify and then what? - A huge focus in all three. Your own DTC, Amazon and retail. All three fronts you have to play. And you have to play them like this because I know you don't
have unlimited resources. You have to play them like this. (scraping) You understand?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Moments in time never ever. I didn't say what most people do. (scraping) You understand?
- Yeah, yeah. - You have to or you
will lose, that's right, but you saw how I did it, right. It wasn't like, I also didn't say. Right, the first example is the example. You know, the first
example is the example. Got it, and if you're not committed to all those three, you will lose. I believe you will lose,
I believe you will lose. Because the other two
have too much leverage. - Then a company of our size.
- Yes. - How do we work through
VaynerMedia or Vayner X because obviously you're working big-- - I was just telling Nick this morning I'm trying to really think about starting a company under Vayner X built for SMBs. Because VaynerMedia's not built for it. Beta is, Mentors is, like
we have versions of it, but they're nuance is
part of a bigger machine. I think they need to be a
separate machine built for, so I'm spending a lot of time on it. But there's another way, look. Listen, I think one
thing you'll appreciate I don't need anybody
here to work with Vayner. Like maybe we help you hire somebody Maybe Robbie Deeks who's here and is really the ecom guy of our team, maybe he just gets a drink with you and Nick will set that up. So like we're, you know.
- Yeah, yeah. Of course, we'd love to, but like I'd rather help you introduce somebody for 45k that can be your Shopify,
Amazon expert internally. Like, I'm not, you know, that's not something I'm super worried about. But I'm unbelievably
worried about you not being deeply religious about retail,
Amazon and Shopify equally. Period.
- And then going back to where at a state where
we need to raise money. - Yes.
- So you raise money through two ways, either.
- Can I tell you how I think you should raise money? From high net individuals,
high net worth individuals who don't want to say a lot. Everybody is going VC.
- How do you get them. - VC, in your network, your network. You just live life, you take a step back. First of all you have to
recognize that's the right move. Strategy, now that I've said it now you go okay, how do I do that. Okay, I can join a country club. You could. Uh, my uncle's rich, let
me ask him and his friends. Uh, my mate from University was employee number four at Instagram. Uh, got it. - [Man] And what's your
views on raising money versus equity versus debt. - Um, I think it comes
down to the individual. I think the number one
thing in the current state, the new VC that took
away from being a bank is high net worth individuals who
don't want to say anything. Let me give you the perfect person. Trust fund baby, Barry. Trust fund baby Barry, to
me is the number one person. He's 29, his granddaddy did it all. He's super insecure because
all he's done is hook up with chicks in Abiza,
but he wants to make pretend that he's done something. So where does trust fun baby Barry go? Investing. What does trust fund Barry
want to possibly invest in? Something cool, that is super up his alley because all the pretty girls
like that kind of stuff. And he gets to say that
he's the investor of it. Trust fund baby Barry does
not want to go to meetings and look at Excel sheets. He just wants to be on a boat in Mykonos saying, I'm the investor
in that corn shit. (laughs) Trust fund baby Barry is
your number one target. - And then how--
- And a hundred thousand pounds to him is like what he spends on sneakers in a week. And he has no context for money. I'm a tough high net worth individual because I came from zero and
it all means a lot to me. Though I spend it like a trust fund baby, I get mad at you when you lose. He won't even remember because the ROI was just being able to say
that he was the investor. - [Man] I suppose you put
yourself in an environment where you can meet these Barrys. - That's correct, that's right. And it could be through networking or it could be going to cool places. It just can, like I was, this
is where I love strategy. If you're telling me you're
an entrepreneur and you don't have a lot of money
and I make fun of the Hamptons and Abiza and Mykonos, but if you told me I'm spending $4,000 to go to a music festival
in Abiza strictly to find six trust fund,
now I'm like (snaps) you're smart, you know what I mean. So it's all strategy. Entrepreneur that goes there to like, goes to the Hamptons to take
a fucking photo on a swan because it's cool, I hate
that person because they literally did it just to be cool and they're enjoying their lives while they're losing money each
month on the back VC's money. Going to Mykonos to get
four people to write you $250,000 check because
they're insecure and they need to make pretend
they're doing something with their lives, that's
really interesting. - Did you need to raise
money for VaynerMedia. - I didn't, my brother wanted money. I want to buy the Jets, Steve Ross owns the Dolphins offered me money
at a very high valuation that allowed me to extract money out, so my brother could get
some money and I didn't. It was the worse business deal I ever did. - In hindsight you wouldn't have done it? - Of course I would. It just not a good financial deal. But it was the deal
that I needed to do for checking two boxes, one getting
into the NFL family early and getting that fraternity to really accept me in 39 years
because I'd been around. Because just like Adidas, it's so funny, I just know what the game is which is even if I make seven billion dollars, which I will because that's on me. They may vote me out and I'm a character. I'm going to be very public to get there, so I need them to like me, not hate me. Mark Cuban doesn't own
the Cubs for one reason, the other business baseball
owners didn't want him in. Mark Cuban should own the Cubs right now. He made a bid, he had the money and they kept him out.
- The (muffled) guy. - Mm-hmm, so I made the
deal because I know what I'm doing with my life. Macro strategy, right, kill
two birds with one stone. So, my brother got
money, I got a valuation that was way higher than an agency or a VC would have given me,
so it felt a little better on a bad deal because I knew
exactly what was happening and what I was going to do. Ross is the best, he's an
80 year old version of me. Best mench, super nice
guy, doesn't give a fuck, pure entrepreneur, like
doesn't want to talk about anything in detail, it's
all macro, macro, macro. Everything's fucking we'll kill everybody, there's nothing to talk
about, there's not detail. - [Man] Does he like corn. (laughs) - [Man] We've got like two minutes here and I want to snag a group
photo before you have to run. - Okay.
- Can I get one. - Yeah, go head. - I just want to.
- What is my next thing? - Uh.
- Allen. - No, just the whole.
- The what? - Lunch, with the incomer.
- Oh shit, okay yeah. Yeah, sorry.
- Yeah, thank you. Firstly it's been awesome,
so thanks so much. Every time I've ever done,
I've followed your advice, it's always worked pretty well. In regards to personal
brand, I'm really excited. - By the way, on that note, because it's important,
there's a single reason why I'm winning, I've only
given advice I've lived through. It is the best way to go about it if you decide to build
your brand in any way. Don't reach, don't assume
or guess or borrow. I know nothing about
what anybody else says, I know nothing, like you'd be blown away by how much is ... I've never consumed anything of anybody. Just always give advice you've lived. That's why people get benefit from it. You've already seen it work. And then when you get good
and realize what you're unique about, so you can hedge it, because I'm like oh I'm extroverted, so this wouldn't work for an introvert. Or I'm high risk, this,
and then you get better at the way you give it
because you start nuancing it. Go ahead.
- So in regards to personal brand, I'm really quite
excited about the challenge I'm going do to it next month.
- Yes, yes. - I've got a lot of people
really excited about it. I have no idea how I'm
going to document it. I don't know whether I'm
going to do it by vlog style or make it more of a professional
documentary with Nick. - Do both.
- Yeah. - Get Nick a Rick, have
two different films, with people and make both. Have him post produce a documentary and have Rick do the vlog. - Okay, and do it twice.
- Yeah. - Would you put it out
there along as I'm going or would you do it like all (muffled)? - I think you could do both man. - Yeah.
- I think what you'll need to do for the documentary or
the thing that's a longer production is find an angle
that isn't being played out in day-to-day in vlog so
that it makes the core group want to watch that as well. It needs to be a behind the scenes maybe. Maybe, right.
- Yeah. - Maybe you're Gary V on the vlog, but Gary Vaynerchuk in the documentary. Like the documentary of me, you even, I've given you a lot
of glimpse to it here. Like all of you are like oh shit. Right, the smartest of you in this room are like, what a minute. Like it's way more serious
than I actually thought. - Yeah.
- Because I've given you like four or five
data points to show you. I'm like showing you a little like, - Yeah.
- Got it. - You might be able to do that. - Yeah.
- You might be able to star in the vlog and be the mastermind behind it in the doc.
- Yes, that's awesome. - And what you can do in the doc then is also say, and
look, let's not forget I did come with my knowledge. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I started zero. I can start at zero and win every time too because I've got the IP. That's the difference.
- Yeah, okay love that. - Without you acknowledging that, it undermines your entire premise. - Yeah.
- Like cool, you start at zero, you fucking have
ten years of experience. You know exactly what to look for. That's why I can't do it. I'm kitchen mom Susan
and I don't know shit about ten years of experience. It could also be a launching pad for you to put off free content of
the nuances of the ten years. - Sure, okay.
- See where I'm going? - [Man] I love that, really,
really serious question. - Yeah, go ahead.
- If you don't mind. - Yeah.
- For my videographer. Would you be able to give a
shout out to my followers? - Sure, no problem. We'll do it right when
when we do the group photo. - Thank you so much.
- Cool, cool. (pounding drums) ♪ Who, who, who ♪ ♪ Who, who, who ♪
