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Gary Vaynerchuk
Hey everyone. We're counting down to 2025 with our top episodes of 2024.
Christian
Here's episode number seven. The first question I think is how to balance personal branding versus business branding, especially from a social media perspective and then also across multiple brands. If you're trying to do more than one company like you did.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. So one of the cool things about this format is a lot of times one question helps everyone. So there's so much to that. First of all, I think that we out academia ourselves a lot of times, so we sit in this room and think about the strategy of personal brand versus the business versus multiple businesses when the consumer on the other side doesn't care about what we're doing in a boardroom. That's always been the case. It's now been compounded by how social media now works. The reason I wrote the latest book is social media's really changed in the last two, three years. So best practices on how many handles do you need? What's personal brand like? All those best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene and made it about the individual piece of content. Literally. Oh, I don't have it. Literally. Can you go to my account on TikTok? Literally. This is like the best. It's just happening right now. There's something just happened on my TikTok that I think answers this question better in like me, I'm going to show it to you for him in a second than like how I can explain it, which is as I scroll to my TikTok, this video right here got 1.9 million views, right? 400 trillion to one. First of all, it did below average on Instagram. Let's start with that. So this got 1.9 million views on TikTok. I'm looking at this one right here. It got like 500k. In a world of 700k for me on Instagram, that's one different content, different platform. Big part of the thesis. Here's the most remarkable part. This got 1.9. The next post which crushed on Instagram. This new format I'm doing where like the water hits the phone and it does, it's a lot of fun. We're really excited about it. 5834 views. So the social media I grew up with, that you all grew up with was as many followers you had was an indicator to the general range every post would get. I would call it like email marketing. Right. Get a million emails, you get 60%, 30%, 40% open rate, you Kind of know what you're gonna get. Of course, there's outliers once in a while. Social media today now is down to the individual piece of content. And I think it's gonna continue to get more extreme. Cause it benefits the platforms. The more we stay on it, the more money they make. The more you see things you wanna see, the more you will stay. The more you see things you don't wanna see. A lot of you follow me, but you may not want the wine content or the crying about the jets content. You might want the business content. You might want the silly content. I don't know. But as you all know, I do a lot of different stuff. Compared to most people, I would say, good news, my friend. It doesn't fucking matter. That's right. So if you decide to go one platform under your name and do half of the content about the business and half yours in another business, that individual piece of content's gonna find the audience. If you wanna have seven different accounts, I'm like, even thinking about new strategies for clients. Like, if they're a cereal brand, let's just use Cheerios. They're not a client. If we get Cheerios. Cheerios. Should I create another account called Orning Breakfast so that I can just post on it with Cheerios content just so they don't have to deal with the like, it's so crazy what happened. And all of you should take advantage of this. You should no longer be paralyzed by any of the ridiculous things we think about for strategy, including even the name of the handle. It's like all out the window. It's now the individual piece of content. Whether you post on your account, your account, or the company's account, the individual piece of T porn content is gonna be the punchline.
Unknown
We have this. A T shirt, T porn.
Gary Vaynerchuk
There you go. So that's the answer to that. Christian, I don't think you need to cripple yourselves. The three of you, on this issue. One account, five accounts, one for each of you. What you need to do is be fucking psychotic about the individual piece of content.
Christian
Super focused.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Next. Yeah, you got time.
Christian
Okay, cool. So we've been. We've been.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's longer and shorter than you think.
Christian
So we've been really active at putting out content for a few years in different places. We started with the podcast and we've done that for a few years, and we've just recently kind of started to focus on other areas. But it never goes as fast as you want. It's always like really, like, slow Going Right. So my question is maybe really specific to financial companies. Is there anything you're seeing, either good, bad or otherwise, that companies like ours who are focused on, you know, helping people better their financial lives? Anything you're seeing out there?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, of course. But let's, let's break this down a little bit. So what would you like them to do after they've been affected by your good content to make their financial lives better? Like a non profit would just like it to be good. A profit, like what? What do you want them to do?
Christian
What do we want? What do I want them to do? I want them to be happy and live their best life. Like I don't think that I have like grandeurs of what they should do once they've built that. I would say a lot of them want to, you know, pass it on to charity. Pass on.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Makes sense. What about for what is your business KPI? What would you like them to buy from you?
Christian
Oh, mostly we sell life insurance. Just like sophisticated life insurance based strategies.
Gary Vaynerchuk
How much LinkedIn content do you put out a day?
Christian
One post a day?
Gary Vaynerchuk
What kind?
Christian
Mostly video.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Mostly video?
Christian
A clip from the podcast sometimes and other times Originally it's just like a short that I've done. We have had like outside FMOs, third party FMOs doing most of it for the last couple years. And so we've mostly done what they said until more recently where I'm like, I gotta own this more.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That part's good. How's it been going? Slow.
Christian
Not very well. Not very well.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I would say because it's challenging to get views on it or because you're challenged to come up with ideas to.
Christian
Make content for, I think more challenging to get views. I mean like, you know, when I put out a short, I get like a, you know, sometimes a short as in like a YouTube short or like, what about LinkedIn? Okay, sorry, back to LinkedIn please. I would say every once in a while I'll get like a good post that has like, you know, 10,000 views. But for the most part it's, you know, I'm getting like a few hundred impressions on it.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And that's per day. One a day? Yes. Or you're being kind. Or that's what we're doing. Five a week. Five a week.
Christian
We are dedicated at least to that at this point.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We're understood. Have you thought about where are you based?
Christian
Salt Lake. But we are totally virtual.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Understood. So we, and the consumers that you're trying to reach can be national.
Christian
Yep, that's been a Huge advantage for us because we started doing that 10 years ago.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think a couple things. If I was to join the business, the first thing I would do is pitch the idea of hosting a dinner within Salt Lake. Running ads on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn on a 10 to 15 mile radius of our office. Where the video was an invitation to fill out a form to join this dinner in a private room in one of Salt Lake's nice restaurants where you would send them to a Google form to fill out who they are. And what you're gonna talk about is overall entrepreneurship in business. A little bit of like Salt Lake local entrepreneur in business and Salt Lake life. Cause that's obviously such a tight knit community. I know it pretty well. And for this lovely dinner we're all gonna have, you're gonna have to bear with us. We have a five minute halftime show commercial for what we do for a living. But the general thing is, I Christian, we would like to be more, more part of the community and the business community and the growth of the city and the energy of everything that's going on. We have a hockey team now.
Christian
Yep, we do.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We would like, you know, again, I don't know, like, you know, whether it's steak dinner, whether it's alcohol, no alcohol, whatever the dynamics are, we're gonna do this nice dinner. There's only 12 seats. We're just running this ad within 20. Like you're literally, this is literally the video. We are running this ad for like minded, ambitious people. Footnote, we're also doing this for our social media content. So this dinner is going to be filmed. You don't need to be in it. It's for my content. So your face can be blurred. It could be back of your head, by the way. You can be in it and can get a nice little plug for your local business. I believe what you're doing in that scenario is a couple things. One, I think it would explode your local business. I think scaling. This is for everyone. I think scaling the unscalable is the move right now in a world of AI. So like a monthly dinner with 12 to 20 prospects who don't forget filled out a form that you're going to ask the questions you want to know answers to. Are you happy with your insurance provider? Yes. Okay. You're not invited. You know, like, like you could, you could do whatever the hell you want in that form, but you will create an engine for your content. My team, as John may know, like, yeah, the other day, literally, yes. As many of you May know if you follow me closely. Yesterday I did Tea with Gary V. I brought it back. It was a show I did a lot during COVID I did it for two reasons. One, it's one of my best format shows. Like people like it the most for me. Cause I'm providing real depth. It's what this is at some level. And two, I really believe in social media shopping and I wanted to do it on whatnot to show people that you can do it on these platforms. There's a lot of. I'll definitely get into it with them. But here's the punchline why I'm telling you that story because I put myself in my best position to make good content. We made a piece of content. Like I made a piece of content in reaction to the question. My team clipped it yesterday. We normally go into testing, we test under different accounts how well the content does and then do it on my main channel. I felt so good about it intuitively. We ran it last night. It was the one where I ranted about like nobody gives a fuck about you. Humility's the key, right? That video, that is the first video that wasn't tested that got over a million views in years. And the reason I think it did that, cause the other 50 I've done that way I thought were gonna hit. But this morning when I woke up I was like, it's. I put myself in a position to make that video, right? Like I'm putting myself for an hour in my best spot. I get most excited when I talk to a human and I'm just trying to break through to them and that gets me to a different place. I think you in that setting has the chance to make better content.
Christian
Yeah, that makes sense.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So you're gonna get local and by the way, you're gonna run ads on Meta and LinkedIn to the tune of about $200 in media spend. Because when you're in a very confined area of a 10 mile radius, you don't need a lot of dollars. Yeah, that's what I would do.
Christian
Very cool. Thank you.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think you'll get the right kind of content. And by the way, your production day is gonna be a sales pitch. You see what's happening for the low, low cost of like, listen, I don't underestimate covering 12 people's dinner. Like I view that, you know, couple hundred, like I think you're gonna win. I think you get, I think it's gonna work. I like this non scalable local physical to film to then scale. Got it. Putting all of you have to put yourself in a position to make the best possible content.
Christian
Good stuff. Thank you.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You got it.
Lexi
Yeah. So I say we're here because we are growing really, really fast. We want to like make sure we have the right plan.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So is it all direct to consumer?
Lexi
Yes. And Shopify? Yeah, all Shopify and I'd say like 75% through Shopify, 25% through Instagram and Facebook.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Lexi
Direct buying?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Direct in, within it. Right. Like you're doing it by hand or you using shop or what's happening?
Lexi
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So is it like DM if you want to buy and you're like kind of hand holding it Also just through.
Lexi
The meta ads we're running, like meta will get give them the option to either buy through our website or buy just in platform.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right. So they're buying in platform. It's passing on to your Shopify.
Lexi
Exactly.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And they're taking a rake.
Lexi
Yep. And so we basically just for context, like we did 250,000 in sales last year and I think we're probably, we're on Track to do 2 million in November.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Amazing.
Lexi
And we're growing 30 to 50% month over month. And most of it is on just meta ad spend, of course, in that meta ad spend and it's been really profitable too, so.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So that's good. That means you have a product that's fit the market against the attention.
Lexi
Yes, exactly.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Who's running those ads? You?
Lexi
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay. And how good do you feel about your capability in that? Well, like if you had a self guess because you probably don't have a lot of. I have a thousand social media buyers literally in this company, so I can assess like Ronnie versus Sally. I'm aware that you don't have a context point, but what's your gut tell you?
Lexi
So I'm 100% self taught, which is good. Yeah. I think Advantage plus ads have made me feel a lot smarter this year than in the past. So like basically all we're doing is we're testing a bunch of creatives, but we're like 100% of our ad spend is in Advantage plus campaigns, which has been working for us.
Gary Vaynerchuk
How much organic social are you doing?
Lexi
Probably two posts a day on Instagram, just Instagram on TikTok, but TikTok's just not going very well. But we're still.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, it's not going well because you look at all of this as like conversion funnels, right?
Lexi
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So you live in CAC and LTV life and that's your rendering back to what I just showed you. You do know that you could go from 2 to 8 million in sales in a year based on one organic TikTok post. So that's a good thing for everyone to hear. Like you noticed if you followed along of how we were just talking, where they'll eventually go is eventually the math won't work. That's what happens to everybody. That might be 6 million, that might be 11 million. I don't know. Right. I'd have to like look under the hood. But by the way, if they're destined to do 20 million before the math doesn't work out, people are gonna watch them and figure it out and do the same thing and then it's gonna slow down. Like the copycat thing will happen very fast.
Lexi
And what I was going to say is that's kind of where we're getting to the point where when I said 2 million in November, I mean the month of November, we think we'll do 2 million. And so we think like next year we could hit 20 million.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay, I see. That's staggering. So you're not going from 250,000, 250 to 2 million in revenue, you think you're going from 250 to 20 million?
Lexi
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So a couple things real quick for the rest of the room. This is what's happening in social media. When you do it right, just like so everybody wraps their head around it. It's that real. But keep going.
Lexi
Yeah. So I'm just getting kind of nervous that like, okay, we've been riding this wave all year. I feel like we were pretty early on, like the advantage plus ads powered by AI, like getting really good targeting. But now I feel like we kind of have experience with a couple other small businesses where we've run them up to like maybe 5, 3 to 5 million in annual sales. Getting to this point where we're like.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Did you come from like that angle? Were you like servicing other businesses and then started like when you say that, why did that happen?
Lexi
So like I owned a business with my dad and my brother selling like really niche horse related products.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Awesome.
Lexi
And so we've grown that business. It'll probably do about 5 or 6 million this year, but that's kind of like the biggest business we've ever been involved with.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So. And this one, just the products hitting and the nature of how social is. Right. The addressable market's bigger. Just given the nature of all women are in play. But then just the way women are shopping, like just the reality of the business.
Lexi
Okay, so Basically I'm coming to like, okay, we're on Track to do 2 million in November. I think it's really realistic. We'll do 20 million next.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So let's go backwards instead of like what you're gonna do in November. Cause I've been through that rodeo. Let's talk about what you did do in August.
Lexi
So like sales wise, I think we hit close to 600,000.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And you're anticipating by just putting more dollars into the machine. Cause you're reinvesting what you're making. That's how you see it, right? Yes, because for everybody like the game, the reason when I said this is how it works, the reason not everyone does it is if your first hundred thousand doesn't work cause you weren't good at it, then you're out. If you only had 100,000 or 50,000 or 10, like these are small bit like, right? If you got 10,000 and you go and spend 10,000 on social ads and you don't convert, then the game's over. On the flip side, if it does convert, you see what's happening, right? If your 10,000 makes you 40,000, you take 20,000 and then all of a sudden you just like see what he's doing? He's stacking. Got it. But this is why I wanna talk about. This is why I wrote the book. This is why I'm yelling from the loudest way I can that organic social is important. When people don't think it's important because they're in one in two places, one, they're advanced and paid. And so like why guess he's just fucking running it, right? You can see, think about being at 600,000 in August and sitting here and having confidence. And I believe him by the way, that, that he's gonna do 2 million in November. That's just like, okay, I know what works. But then things change too. And so that's why creative's the whole variable. The targeting's there, the people are on social. Keep going.
Lexi
So I guess my question is like going into next year and thinking like, okay, we could take this business to $20 million. It's just so open ended. I feel dumb almost asking it. But how would you be thinking about.
Gary Vaynerchuk
No, I don't think it's dumb. I think you're. First of all, you need to reconcile something. You're in the sales business, not in the brand and marketing business. Notice what's happening here. It's all math. So he's selling. So the biggest fear I have, brother Lexi, is Are you building a brand? Cause if you're not, you're gonna get copied out. Somebody's gonna buy something close enough from China and start pounding against the same audience for half the price. We see it happening already. That's right, because people are watching everything. Got it. So my number one recommendation in the way I hear everything is don't worry about 20 or 30 or 18, worry that you're in trouble unless you build a brand. Do you know how many people have social media agencies and want to be Gary Vee? Half the people on social media. But the brand is what allows me. I gotta back it up by being good and like, I gotta show up in this room and bring. But it's all brand. Everything is a commodity besides brand. Everything. So by far, what's obvious to me is brand, brand, brand. What does that mean? You know, first off, I think the biggest asset you have is Lexi and her sister. So, like, to me, that's not replicatable. There's only. What's your sister's name?
Takel
Takel.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Takel and Lexi. Or Takel and Lexi. There could be other sisters doing like. But like they're them, you know. I don't know you like that, Lex, but if you and Takel are willing to go out in front, I think that is a very important part of the next step. You know, joint podcast, original content, showing them in the field. Like you're gonna. What's the name of the brand? Oh, Clem. Oh, Clementine. Oh, Clementine. You've gotta make people give a fuck about that. That like, jingle. Like, this is some Mad Men shit. Like, what's the. Like, oh, Clementine. Like there's like a song you should make. I'm being serious. Like, I think you should make a jingle. And that jingle should be an organic post. And maybe the first three seconds of every video or at the end of every video, the jingle should play, you know, 1-877-car for kids. Like, if you're from the Jersey, New York area, like PC Richards, the whistle. Like, everything is a commodity except brand. So I think the biggest thing that's obvious to me is for you to go all in on organic and all in on ownable shit. But, like, I would give up a lot of money if I ran the business. I would give up. Instead of pouring, like, what you're just going to do is pouring it back in. Pouring it back in. I would take some of that money and bring it to zero. I would, I would level out your CAC. I'd pay more. I'd take 100k of it. To be awesome at organic, to be awesome at brand building.
Lexi
Mostly investing that in like basically a team to help us do more.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's right. External or internal building at the best cost association against the results. To get as many views organically with a complete lens on brand. The other thing you're gonna fall in love with, and as great as the AI is for Meta, it's the same AI that gets an organic post to a lot of views. And then that one, that one on organic will outperform the AI generated testing. So there's double benefit from organic social. The organic ad. The organic post that gets 3 million views when you bring it back and slightly tweak it to make it a conversion ad. So just a video of the two gals walking down the street talking about something. It just hit you taking that video back. And at the bottom put, you know, maybe they just tell a story about their pet. I'm literally making shit up right now. Their pet dog, Carol. In the video, it gets 14 million views, 4 million. Now you run it again as an ad, but at the bottom, you take the bottom of the video and you put used at checkout, put, you know, code Carol to get free shipping. Because you know it's gonna emotionally hit. It may end up being your best CAC ad. The thing that fucks up all the mathematicians is in the game that I play is when I get an organic thing going viral and I convert it into performance, it outperforms all their best shit. And they're like, how the fuck did this happen? Cause it's the fucking creative.
Lexi
Yeah, okay, Got it. Totally.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Thank you.
Takel
Napoleon Hill.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's so good.
Takel
Hey, Gary.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Hi.
Takel
So Matt Higgins was the one connected us. He's coaching me. He said that, that we're sitting on a very valuable asset, having rights to think and grow rich. And Napoleon Hill. The first question I have is, so we have the rights to use the name, the material, the content, everything he's ever created. Napoleon Hill. Should we be going with Think and Grow Rich or Napoleon Hill?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Both, both and both and okay. And so much of the world we live in now, life is about life. Business is about distribution. And we used to have to make choices because the Internet and social didn't exist. So, like, if you were going to open up stores in 1987, you had to pick one because it's fucking expensive to open up duplicate stores. But when you're talking about what I'm talking about, which is building brand in a modern social world, the answer is, and Cause some people would like it goes to cohorts.
Unknown
Some people would resonate with Napoleon Hill.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Some people would resonate Finko Rich. Plus, if you go Napoleon's route, you have unlimited upside. Do you have the rights to his image? Is it name, image and likeness?
Takel
His everything.
Gary Vaynerchuk
His is much bigger upside. Napoleon in AI form should be competing with me right now and has a lot of leverage against me. It's all historic. Like, I think this will play out like if you own the I. So if you're sitting on the ip, you need to probably stand him up. So something a little far fetched that I want everybody to hear is virtual influencers. One of the biggest conversations of the next decade is going to be influencers that aren't real people that you all own. Now they're sitting with gold. They're owning something that's real. You, you're gonna have to make up your third sister Carol. That's right. Or the dog. Should that be the voice? That was our question too. Cause we had the voice tone of like. You have his voice on record, right?
Takel
Yeah, no, no, no.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I meant like the voice of our brand. Yeah, I mean, you're gonna find with me in the audience, like, voice and tone become. It's subjective. Let me, like, okay, what's. I mean, I watch people on my team that have been with me for 10 years trying to capture my voice and send me stuff. And I'm like, I would never say that. Yeah. So like, you have to remember voice and tone, like brand talk. The reason I've always pushed against brand talk is it's subjective. Like, what's a brief? I'm gonna give you a brief. Oh, the brief is bad. A brief is a piece of paper with words on it and how you interpret it. Like, you know what else is words on a piece of paper? The Constitution. I don't know if you heard. Half of America sees it one way, the other half sees it another way. So, you know, you know, voice and tone is subjective. You four ladies leave and four other people come in and they're gonna judge if it's on voice or on tone. Got it? You need to really reconcile that truth.
Takel
Okay, so as we bring Napoleon back.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Whether it's AI virtual, that's what I would do if I was in this seat. I would bring him fully back. Like, actually, he's the one. Like, actually in a year, I just want like. And by the way, it looks like he's a lot. I don't know if you guys have seen the AI.
Takel
Yes, we have Created characters.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We talked to him on the phone, we asked him questions.
Takel
We asked him a question. He talked to me yesterday. Okay, so now you know. Think and Grow Rich is a heavy read.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Takel
And it's been thanked by many entrepreneurs.
Unknown
Right.
Takel
So what we want to do is we want to launch an easier REIT called Think and grow rich. 10 minutes a day.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Takel
Make it more sexy, more modern for younger crowd. What did you do with this?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Meaning how do I. How would I get people to know about it?
Takel
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
By making unlimited social media organic, creative across the seven platforms that matter to society to me, basically. Let me take a step back that might help all of you. I believe your phone is the television and I believe that Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, to some degree are the seven channels on the platform. Just like your great grandparents had. Six channels, three channels. You know, I'm 48, we were pretty poor, so I was in the 13 channel world. Pre, pre cable. Some of you can stick around that and remember it. Those seven platforms, those six platforms are the channels on the television. Unlike the way Hollywood worked, everybody here is allowed to make a show on the channels. If you were trying to be in everyone's home in 1984 or 1963 or 1949 and you could, why wouldn't you have a show on every channel? This channel, choosing that so many of you are doing is. That's a strategic nightmare to me. Not the tone of voice, the not making content on all these platforms. To not make content on LinkedIn, YouTube, YouTube, Shorts, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat Spotlight, which acts like Instagram. And I mean for you, Snapchat Spotlight could be the golden goose because no one's fucking there, no one's even thinking about it. You know, who is there? A fuckload of 15 to 30 year olds. So to not make content on every one of them, just choosing the cliche Instagram and TikTok only Facebook's the most fertile opportunity. How much damage do you guys do on Facebook? I'd say Facebook, yeah.
Lexi
I'd say over meta ads probably like 75% plus is going through Facebook.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Say it nice and slow for everyone in the back.
Lexi
75% of our ad spend is going to purchases through Facebook.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And what he knows that I know because we're in it is I'm selling to 20 and 30 year olds on Facebook, not Facebook. So, you know, I would say the strategy you need to do is bring him to life. That book to life. The mini 10 minute version, book to life. All of them to life on all six platforms.
Takel
We've never done an ad.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You don't need to do an ad. You can do an ad.
Takel
Just stay creative.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Organic and paid both work. I believe we're now in a world where you go organic first and when things do well, then you go paid. That was done in platform for ad people before. Now what I just. That nuance I showed him to add is another element that affects the thing that they really need to worry about, which is brand. You start with brand, you start with juice that none of us started with. You're sitting on brand and.
Takel
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
How do you question to answer where you're about to go? You have to be so I just told you that you should play basketball. Just so everybody knows. I just told everybody here you should become a professional basketball player. Why did I do that? Because out of all the major sports in the world, the way the new collective bargaining agreement for the NBA is and how big the media rights are, basketball only has 12 to 15 players. But the players are gonna get 50% of all that money. So the money is so extreme. But unlike football, where there's 53 players and you divide by 53, in basketball, you divide by 12. So you're gonna hear from your buddies that are. Either you're into basketball or you're gonna hear from your buddies in basketball. I can't believe this player just got $400 million and they're not even good. And you'll be like, how is that possible? That's how I just told you to be a basketball player. I've given you the answer to how everything in society is working. Those six platforms dictate everything. The presidential election, the temperament of our society, everything that is popular, what is famous, what sells the whole. It is absurd how much social media is underrated now you've got to get good at it. That part. That's where you're about to go. How? That's why I went textbook on the new book. But it's an everyday game. You all must get as good. Notice the first question I asked him. How good do you think you are? Because the delta between him being. And I was listening. If he's a 7.8 against the world, which is very high, the delta between him being a 78 and an 88 is 4 million in November, not 2. I. If you go look at my organic social. John, you know this cause you're on a team. I've been complaining to the team for the first seven, eight months. Nine months a year that we're not good anymore. That's been the energy on my team. Because it's true. And we had all sorts of excuses. I'm not making as much original content. We've been a lot better, right, John, You've seen the numbers the last two months. We've been a lot better. We're just better. We just got better. We just got refocused. Would you go lifestyle or personal development first? Yes.
Unknown
Lifestyle.
Gary Vaynerchuk
No. The biggest liberator of strategy is. And humans in boardrooms are obsessed with or. Or is comfortable or is school or is having a job.
Takel
And so it's just about throwing everything at the wall.
Gary Vaynerchuk
But not that. Yes, because I'll explain. No, no. I love what just happened. It sounds like it's throw against the wall and see what sticks. It sounds like spray and pray. It sounds like test and learn. It sat. Right. But none of it is illogical. You're sitting there and you're thinking about who am I trying to reach? You're thinking, who would Napoleon resonate with? We have historic data. What he means for 18 to 35 year old dudes. You know that. So obviously you're gonna make different content for that crowd versus a 63 year old female immigrant from Hungary. Because you want everyone. Right? So it's just. That's what's great. The rest of the day and book and team and before. And maybe even before, like cohorts, if you're already talking about that. Like, that's the game. But you have to get good at the craft. Like the first three seconds, the thumbnail, like all, all of it, the copy. Like until you're great at the craft of the video or the picture or the written words in social. Everything will be hard, I promise you. Because everything else is getting more expensive because they're all losing market share to this machine. Newspaper ads are more expensive than they were five years ago.
Takel
Would you, if you had this brand.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I got it. Go ahead. I'm good, I'm good.
Takel
Sorry.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Go ahead.
Takel
If you had this brand, would you modernize the message or keep it traditional Napoleon style?
Gary Vaynerchuk
I don't. So I haven't read the books, but obviously I've been very. Especially because of who I am. Like I have a general sense. It sounds like a lot of the principles are tried and true. Would I make the examples contemporary? Yes.
Takel
Thank you.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You got.
Unknown
Okay, great. Hi, Gray.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Hello.
Unknown
My first question is about our podcast.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Unknown
We started it four years ago.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Unknown
And we choose our target audience to be founders, operators and tech VC backed investors, smart. And we got a lot of them in the show, like the most important in the region, in whole Latin America. Yet then we found out out that that's not actually a target that we want to sell to. So now we have this podcast that has a lot of authority in the field and some recognition on it, but it's not working. So we can invite like, it's not.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Working because those guests and that energy is not directly impacting your business.
Unknown
Exactly.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Great. Yeah, it makes sense. What I would do is back to the theme of this whole meeting is I would go into and I would cut back the kind of guests that represent that by a lot, but not completely kill it because you got equity there. So instead, how often do you do the podcast? Weekly. Great. I would probably do one guest like you used to every two months. But the other seven guests would follow the path that you figured out and you heard you just need new guests that do address who you want. Do you see what I mean? Yeah. This goes back to and.
Unknown
Okay, great.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Does that make sense?
Unknown
Sure. Other question that we have is more tactical, please. Our social media team has one graphic designer, one video editor, one community manager, and one copywriter. Okay. How much content should we expect from the team to produce?
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's a very fun question because to your point, it's complicated. Let's talk about that. So, number one, there's so much here. Number one, are you doing predominantly videos or pictures? Both.
Unknown
A mix of both, but mostly video.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Because of the clicks of the topic. So first of all, back to the rant I just had and I saw you guys talking. How many platforms are you putting social out on?
Unknown
We were on everywhere. Then we just decided to focus on LinkedIn.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Unknown
That sounded smart.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Unknown
We say like, okay, let's crack LinkedIn.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And is your audience B2B?
Lexi
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay. Minimally, you need to be on YouTube, shorts, LinkedIn. So Twitter is about to become much more like everybody else. So I believe in the next couple weeks Twitter is gonna unleash a video tab and it will look exactly like this is the game. So I think Twitter is very, very going to be very fruitful for a lot of people and first movers. Same old shit won't be as good as conversion if you're just cac ltv. But for brand, it could be completely crazy because of the viral nature of the platform. I'm aware that there's a lot of energy against X, but like, for example, I live on Twitter and I do no politics and have plenty of fruitful Situations, you're in control of what you consume and what you put out. So I think X will be good for you. YouTube Shorts is very important cause of the way search works. And I do think there's strategic things you could do on TikTok that could really find the right audience. But I think it's about. Let me give you this one. On TikTok, I'm a big fan, especially if you're B2B. But it could also be if you're niche, like tee or earrings, make content that is kind of positioned as, hey, send this to your person in your life that's into T. Hey, if you know anybody who's in this small business, like send this video. Like literally the name of the video is send this to someone that's into. Cause there's a viral loop there on TikTok that could work. Keep going. So to answer your question first, when we take a piece of video, what all of you have to be best at is post production for the platform. Notice how I started speeding with an example of a video that did 2 million on TikTok but underperformed on Instagram. Same video, I change the copy, but sometimes that's not even enough. But minimumly, minimumly, when you make one video, you're actually getting four pieces of content. If you're on four platforms by changing the copy that supports the video based on what platform. If I'm posting on LinkedIn, I'm going to reference people that are traveling for business, sitting at their desk. I may make that reference. Like if they make a video, I'll just use them because it's going to be easy. If they're making a T video and they post it on LinkedIn, which I think they should. Which nobody who owns a tea brand or retail store would ever think about. But I think LinkedIn has become like Facebook. There's just people on it and they're just seeing shit in theirs. I would put like, like a video, could be them in it, whatever it is. But the copy would say tired of the shitty tea they serve in the office. And then comma into what they have to say. I wouldn't put that on TikTok. I would just go into like average chamomile blows, here's oolong, here's you know, like whatever they're gonna do. So I think that. How much content should you expect? Minimumly, you should expect whatever the output is. It should be times however platforms you have. But don't take the same video and post it everywhere. Cause it's gonna act different. The copy minimumly should be changed. I'm not even living my same life. Like, we should tweak the first second or the thumbnail. We do that half the time. Not 100%. It's even like, you know, like somebody who's good at fitness. Sometimes you have cheat days. We're not perfect. On my team, every video should be slightly different on every platform based on the audience that lives in there and the temperament of the room. I'm gonna act differently in this boardroom with all of you than if this was being done at a private restaurant. Like, this whole meeting would be slightly different if this was from 9pm to midnight with wine at a restaurant. Same meeting, different. Different room. Right. My slang would be different. The energy would be different. It would just be different. Y'all would be different. So, you know, I think for you two, you have to, like, watch them work for a day, because everybody's different. Like, look, the number one goal you should all care about is views achieved organically. So let me give it to you this way. There's people on my team that are fast. There's people on my team that are slower. But if player one got me three videos a day, and those three videos got me 100,000 views, but player two was slower, but she fucking made badass shit and only made me one, and that video got 4 million views, which one do I like better? But when people play well, but, Gary, my shit's good. I'm like, no, it's not. You took a day and your video got 8,000 views. And over here, they got me three videos at 8,000 a piece, and that got me 24,000 views. When you make views achieved gross and per post as a North Star, it's going to help you answer a lot of these tough questions. Understand? You like that, right? You can hold. I could see you reacted well to that, but I get it. It's hard. This will help you ground the game in something. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Unknown
Because sometimes I feel that we're, like, just throwing darts to the hair.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And that's okay, too. If they can explain the dart, it goes back to that. If I could explain to you the reason I'm making this video is I'm going after women that grew up with entrepreneurial fathers in California. Well, then when you look at it, you're like, oh, shit, I see what you did there. You made a surfing reference, you made a daddy reference. Like that. You had a concept. So back to. It's not like everything I make has a Thought it's not just to get views. There's a reason. And sometimes that is like, hey, I've been heavy. And talking about heavy, like, you know, like stress management. Let me post a video that I like blueberries to fucking switch it up. But there was logic.
Unknown
Sorry. Isn't it hard to do that when you have. When you're clipping a podcast? Like, how do you decide?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes, yes, it's hard to do that. Which is why just clipping podcasts can't be your only source of content. Right? Yeah. He's filming right now. 4Ds is different than T with Gary V. It's different than I give a keynote. Too many people became one dimensional. Putting yourself in a position to make content. Look what I told Christian to do. Do local business for me. It's a huge win for him because it's like when you notice how I broke it down, like, you might get some local business. You're gonna learn. You're gonna listen to people, you're gonna going to get content. So even if he doesn't sell a single thing to the 144 people that he has in a dining room 12 times 12 once a month, he just needs one clip to pay for the whole thing. I mean, to this point, I would tell you that I'm still doing 4Ds. I'm sure all of you are smart enough to know this was not the best use of my hour financially. If you really thought about what's worth my time or when I give. Even giving a speech now for a quarter million dollars. Not thank God, very blessed. Should be running my businesses, but I need the fucking content. But it's not about that. I want to get you under the hood so that you can make your version of it. And you got to be self aware. I love this. I hope you can tell this is enjoyable for me. I could do this all day again back if Lexi and her sister, maybe they like running. Well, then fuck it. Find a running cameraman with you. Or like a GoPro again. Maybe I pitched to Christian the dinner thing, but maybe he loves golf. And maybe the video says, I'm taking a foursome out to my course and we're filming it. I know it's weird, but some of you get it. It's 2024. Like, I don't know what's right for y'all. Maybe they're doing like. Like think about what their business. We're about to go there. Like, they could just invite people to the shop and Phil, we're doing a Saturday. Got it?
Unknown
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Thanks.
Unknown
Keep thinking this knife.
Gary Vaynerchuk
All right.
Unknown
Yes. So it's almost the opposite of everything you just said. Okay, so our most popular content is Jamila and I, but we are a tea room, a tea shop. We just got into Target, so we're doing CPG now and we are the bottlenecks for our content.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Makes sense.
Unknown
So unclog the toilets.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You're doing everything. Yeah, I lived. I lived that life for seven straight years with wine library.
Unknown
Yeah.
So really it's. How did you get from, you know, you being going on YouTube from Wine Library to patience producing enough content.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Patience to do it. Patience.
Unknown
Okay.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Like, you know, you've got a lot of things going for you. You've got emerging AI so you could late night learn how to use AI tools to help you make more content. You could. You've got the coolest job that everybody wants to do as a teenager. All of you have that. The amount of people in Brooklyn. Here's a great example. Just knowing where you're at, where you live, who grows up there. Cause I talk to all sorts of kids from beside Brooklyn, all everywhere. Do you know how many people would do this shit for free to be your social media person for credits for school, college, or, or you guys are. I can already tell you're lovely. Like if I'm 16 and I met y'all and you're like, yo, you come and intern for us and help us, you're gonna get real life experience. We know who Gary Vee is. We can tell you. Like, I'm serious. Like, you're gonna have to be gritty. This is gritty life. So like you just might need young kids to do it for very little or free. But you could also use your employees with the tea shop. Do you have any employees in the store? 12 part time and we have used.
Unknown
Them to do it.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That those 12 part. I almost stood up. That's always when I know I get excited. That's the answer. Just so you know, those 12 part time employees, half of them must also moonlight as the social media people. You can't think about this if you have 12 part time. If it's a tea shop, I'm assuming there are some people standing behind the register at times when nobody's walking in. Correct. I grew up in that world. I turned my cashiers into being productive. You have to do that because you don't have the monies not to. So if that means you have to, and this is not fun, have to, unfortunately, maybe fire one or Two or three people who can't do anything else besides just being there. There's plenty of youngsters actually. Ironically one of my favorite places to look at for something like this is somebody who's retired and just looking to like still enjoy life. There's an incredible back to ageism which is still not really being talked about because of the way technology has worked. I think we're sleeping on people 50 to 90, 60 to 90, 70 to 90. You know, like you'd be shocked on some like, you know back to like the way our heads work. We don't think a 68 year old can work the register and edit our videos. There's plenty of 68 year olds who are taking online courses to do social media fucking post editing. So I think for you when I hear you always, I always think about what are your assets. When I was doing it myself, I took one of the stock guys, one of the computer guys to like do wine, library, tv. We didn't have anybody else. I wasn't hiring somebody new. So for you, those 12 part time, two or three of those people have to help you. They've got a double bubble. And think about what you're representing to them. You're like, hey, we're going to let you do this. This is going to be part of your downtime. You're going to use this to leave here and get a job in social media. Does that make sense?
Unknown
It does mean that we to rehire. So in the beginning I think that's really like attack the strategy. Because in the beginning we have people who have had natural inclinations and they thrive there but then sometimes they fell off in the store.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Makes sense, right? That's right.
Unknown
To fall off in the store. But they're not social media and by.
Gary Vaynerchuk
The way that's fair. And so there's a couple ways to think about that. But I think the way I think about it is to not fall off in the store. There's just a line where they don't need to be an 11. If they're an 8 or a 7, you're good, you know what I mean? Like the definition of falling off, they just have to be like, you know, you gotta find that person and you gotta find ambitious kids and the beautiful part of where your store is and you know this, there's unlimited young talent coming up that are just looking for an opportunity. Right. And like honestly and I'll ask that about to take the lead on this real talk, I would be thrilled that to set up a true partnership that they can email. And she'll be like, yep, that's true. Fuck. I'll make a video and say it's true that if they work for y'all doing social along with their work stuff, that if they do it for 18 months, that becomes a feeder to getting a job here. If they pass some sort of minimum thing, I think that puts you on heavy. That's awesome.
Unknown
Absolutely.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I want to hire practitioners. To me, I'm more excited about a kid that works in a tea shop doing Socho for 18 months than somebody who learned it at BU. So that's an example. But that's the graciousness and selfishness that I'm saying. But you can go to St. John's and say, hey, do you want a tea? We're all in power of everything. It's strategy in action. You could go to other places and make. Now you got four options for those kids. Then you're gonna have a line out the door once people know it's happening. Next question, please.
Unknown
So we are creating the unscalable.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Unknown
Intimate moments where doing a. A loyalty tour. All right, so we. We're having one this Saturday.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Tell me about it.
Unknown
So basically you come in, you show that you have your Target receipt and you get free tea.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You get free tea. Right. Cuz you've done this CPG partnership with Target. You're trying to support that. You say now a Target receipt that you bought our stuff or anything at Target. Respect.
Unknown
Well.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay. How are you letting people know about that?
Unknown
So we've used mostly Instagram. We've used it. And so it's.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's happening.
Unknown
It's happening. The RCPs are beyond what we expected.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Did you run ads locally or was it all organic?
Unknown
It was all organic. I think the thing is though, it was here in Brooklyn, but we are in stores all over the country. Country.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That I understand.
Unknown
Yeah. So like how we reproduce this in Iowa?
Gary Vaynerchuk
You don't.
Unknown
So what do we do for Iowa? Because that's. I think our problem is, is because we got put into place into cities and rural areas that have no knowledge that we. We even exist.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Unknown
We thought we want to get a soft launch pad of starting. We didn't get started. We didn't even get launched in New York until this upcoming November. Right. So what do we do do with those places who don't even know to follow frequency? We're doing some ad things. Ali is a digital marketer.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Tell me about that. That's where I want to look under the hood. So we do, you know, the how many doors in Target are you going to be in?
Unknown
We're currently at 104. About to be at 168.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So I would run five mile radius ads on all 168.
Unknown
Yeah, we did zip codes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We did zip codes. And are you in the content? No. Mad. So here's what I would do. If I own this company and we were three partners. I would say we've gotta make 168 videos or use AI to capture our voice and replicate it. And literally it is us. And literally it is us. Your story is so compelling. It's not super complicated. It's an awfully compelling story to rural area, 5 mile radius. People. Let's understand why Target did what they did. And that's good for you. You make videos and say, hey, we're us. The opening line of the video is hey, let's just pick a town. Where do I know where there's a Target? Clark, New Jersey. There's a Target in Clark, New Jersey. I know that cause it's my dad's former shopping center where he had in his liquor store. Literally. The video is, hey, Clark, New Jersey, Target shoppers. We. Hi, it's me, it's me. We are running this ad within 5 mile radius of that Target. You will not believe this. We have our product in the store. Then tell them the tear jerking story or the emotional story or the human story of how hard you've worked. How long have you had it?
Unknown
Six years.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, we've been painstakingly building this one store in Brooklyn for six fucking years. Maybe don't say fuck it, but it would, it would mean the world to us if you would go to Target this weekend and pick up. We promise you, it's the best tea by the way. Here's our. You could go this far. Our phone number. If you don't want to blow up your phone. Here's our email, here's our Instagram. Please DM us. We want to know and thank personally every single person that buys a teabag from us. Because this is our fucking lives. And if this doesn't work at these targets, they're not going to give us more targets. And we don't know what we're going to do. Pull at fucking heartstrings. Five mile radius. You'll know how to do that on every store, all of them. And if you have to, because you don't know how to fuck with AI. Do 168 videos, then. Do 168 videos. If you can get an AI trained on your voice where you can, like, save yourself time and just type in Clark. Like, the lips move and you're like, hi. You know, like the whole, like, Mr. Black, the Simpsons episode. But, like, like. But honestly, my thing of why I'm not even scared if you don't do the AI thing is when your life's on the line. Like, that's what's great about a small business. This is our lives, right? When your life's on the line, I just think that you'll sit down and say it. Like, you could chop it too. You could, like, literally do the first part, maybe show as you're talking. You could easily be smart about it. You just need to film, hey, Detroit, Target. Hey, you know, da, da, da. And then have, like, the second sentence be a voiceover with, like, maybe showing your store. This is our store. And then you kick in the rest of the video. So you only have to film, right? You got the. You see where I'm going? Five mile radius is 50 bucks. Boom, boom, boom. It will work. It will work. One more quick one, please.
Unknown
You didn't mention threads.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
Unknown
Why?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Threads deserves to be mentioned. It's just waning users so fast that I'm scared. Threads and Pinterest are, like, on the shelf over here. I'm for it. I'm just trying to make sure y'all really go to 5 and 6. Even though threads keep showing up that it's doing well. Facebook's just vigging it by forcing people to download the app like it's. The audience is declining. Not. But I'm not against Threads. Threads by. By the way, for most of your businesses. Even though Pinterest would work for y'all. I like it more than Pinterest, by the way. On the record. Add it. But the virality in there, I don't see as much. And all of you are gonna rely on the virality, but I'm not against it at all. And to be just getting the threads post from your Instagram post is an easy way to just see if it's there even though it's not contextual to it. Plus, I don't have it fully mapped. And I like to speak from a place of, like, expertise. But if you're feeling comfortable there. But look, TikTok has the most virality chance. I wasn't kidding. What I said about 8 million for them. TikTok has the most. It doesn't fit everyone here. Good news. Every platform is going through the TikTok thing. LinkedIn, same thing. One video. I have 4,000 next one. 400,000 YouTube shorts, same shit. First video, a thousand. Next one, 250,000. So they're all about to go through it because it's the right thing for all of us. It's the right for the platform. It's right for us. People you follow. You follow them because you worked with them seven years ago. You don't give a fuck about their dog. So, like, your interests matter more than who you follow.
Summary of Episode: "Everything You NEED to Know to Grow Your Business in 2025 | 4Ds | #7 of 2024 Top Podcasts"
Podcast Information:
In this pivotal episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, Gary Vaynerchuk delves deep into strategies essential for business growth heading into 2025. With a focus on the evolving landscape of social media, brand building, and content creation, Gary provides actionable insights to entrepreneurs aiming to scale their ventures effectively. The episode features dynamic interactions with multiple guests, including Christian, Lexi, Takel, and others, each seeking guidance tailored to their unique business challenges.
Timestamp: [00:04 – 04:08]
Christian initiates the discussion by questioning how to balance personal branding versus business branding, especially across multiple companies. Gary emphasizes the paradigm shift in social media dynamics:
Gary Vaynerchuk [00:20]: "Social media's really changed in the last two, three years... best practices got completely annihilated when TikTok hit the scene and made it about the individual piece of content."
Gary advocates for focusing on the individual piece of content rather than juggling multiple handles or brands. He highlights the importance of content quality and authenticity over traditional follower counts, which he likens to email marketing's open rates.
Key Recommendations:
Timestamp: [12:03 – 33:35]
Lexi discusses her rapidly growing direct-to-consumer tea business, leveraging Shopify and heavy ad spend on Meta platforms. Despite impressive sales growth—projected from $250,000 to $2 million in November—Lexi faces challenges in maintaining this trajectory and scaling further.
Gary underscores the critical importance of brand building to differentiate from competitors and prevent commoditization:
Gary Vaynerchuk [18:06]: "Everything is a commodity except brand."
Strategic Advice:
Gary also emphasizes leveraging staff for content creation, suggesting that employees can double as brand ambassadors, thereby integrating content generation into daily operations.
Timestamp: [22:23 – 33:35]
Takel seeks guidance on modernizing the message of Napoleon Hill’s "Think and Grow Rich" to appeal to a younger audience. Gary explores the potential of transforming historic intellectual property into a vibrant, relatable brand through contemporary content strategies.
Insights and Strategies:
Gary advises producing localized, emotionally resonant videos that highlight the brand’s journey and commitment, thereby creating a deeper bond with potential customers.
Timestamp: [33:38 – 50:30]
Guests discuss challenges with aligning podcast content to business objectives and optimizing social media content production. Gary offers strategic adjustments to ensure that all content efforts directly impact business growth:
Gary Vaynerchuk [34:11]: "What you need to worry about is brand... Everything is a commodity except brand."
Actionable Steps:
Gary highlights the importance of measuring success through organic views, advocating for a quality-over-quantity approach to content production.
Throughout the episode, Gary emphasizes the necessity of embracing unscalable, intimate business strategies to build authentic brands. He encourages entrepreneurs to foster genuine connections through localized events, personalized content, and leveraging every team member’s unique strengths.
Gary Vaynerchuk [17:53]: "The most important KPI is views achieved organically."
He stresses that in an age dominated by AI and algorithm-driven platforms, human authenticity and brand storytelling remain paramount for sustained growth and differentiation in crowded markets.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s comprehensive guidance in this episode furnishes entrepreneurs with a robust framework to navigate the complexities of modern business growth. By prioritizing authentic content creation, strategic brand building, and multi-platform engagement, businesses can effectively scale and thrive in the evolving digital landscape of 2025.
Notable Quotes:
Final Thoughts: This episode serves as a strategic playbook for businesses aiming to harness the full potential of social media and brand authenticity. Gary’s actionable insights and real-world examples provide a clear path for entrepreneurs to achieve significant growth and establish a lasting presence in their respective markets.