How to Create 8,000 Pieces of Content for Hyper-Targeted Ads

Summary

The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: How to Create 8,000 Pieces of Content for Hyper-Targeted Ads

Date: February 19, 2026
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk

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Episode Overview

This business-driven, Q&A-style episode sees Gary Vaynerchuk advising a group of entrepreneurs across diverse industries—solar, retail, heavy equipment, kilts, consulting, and more—on how to vastly scale up their content creation and use hyper-targeted advertising to win in their markets. Gary emphasizes adapting creative strategy by context, psychographics, and demographics, the power of contextual content, and the need to treat your business like a media company. He gets hands-on, offering individualized advice, sharing examples, and dropping signature no-nonsense insights with high-energy candor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Process of Hyper-Targeted Content

• Contextual Creativity:
  • Gary asserts that serving generalized content holds businesses back; niche messaging tailored to micro-audiences is the future.
  • Example: A reference to the New York Jets would cut through for Gary, but probably not for mass audiences.
    Quote:

    "The best way to sell to me on Instagram is, is to make a New York jets reference. That's the truth. It's my actual religion." (04:16)

• Diversity in Creatives:
  • Don't run the same creative to everyone—different messages need different targeted audiences.
  • For solar: referencing the local sports team, like the '85 Royals or Cardinals, can bond with older, higher-income Missouri homeowners.

Timestamps:

• [04:10] Why same-message creatives fail to convert
• [06:04] Using hyper-local references in ads for resonance

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2. Scaling Content: 8,000+ Pieces and Why

• Gary’s Framework:
  • Written, photo, video, and then mixing message for each demographic/psychographic segment is the key.
  • Suggests aiming for thousands (4,000–8,000) of contextual pieces, each run with narrowly targeted small ad spends.
  • Quote:

    "I literally think that you should have four to 8,000 pieces of content between written word, audio and video. And running $100 ad against it versus $1,000 ad against 12. It's reverse." (06:58)

• Micro-Targeting over Cheap CPMs:
  • "I want you to pay more for your CPMs because it's more expensive when you go more narrow. But you're actually converting on what the fuck you care about." (07:21)
  • Low CPMs for broad ads aren’t valuable if they’re not meaningful.

Timestamps:

• [06:08] Scaling creative pillars and micro-targeting
• [07:21] Paying more for targeted reach vs. cheap broad reach

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3. Brand vs. Platform Strategy in Evolving Markets

• Costume Consignment Example:
  • The rise of peer-to-peer selling threatens traditional consignment; options are to build a marketplace/platform or double down on a unique brand.
  • If shifting to a tech platform, you must have genuine tech DNA/leadership onboard.
  • Otherwise, quadruple down on your private label brand—don’t just be a reseller.

Timestamps:

• [12:19] Platform vs. retailer pitfalls
• [13:24] Why you must build your own brand
• [16:25] Building and marketing your own product brand

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4. Trust & Brand in High-Ticket Sales and New Models

• Heavy Equipment Dealer:
  • Wants to sell inventory he doesn’t own yet—Gary says trust is the only way.
  • Early customers may require personal guarantees or escrow; “do shit you won’t do for #51 on the first 50.”
    Quote:

    "Anytime I'm doing something that may feel weird, I'm always comfortable doing anything because I know I'm not gonna rip them off. You should do things for the first 50 people that you won't do for the 51st person." (20:46)

Timestamps:

• [19:28] How to establish trust when selling what you don’t have
• [20:46] Building comfort with early customers via guarantees and over-delivery

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5. Building Company Culture Through Scale

• From 80 to 800 Employees:
  • It's okay not to know everyone's name as you scale; don’t dwell on it.
  • Focus on making sure the “OGs” don’t poison the new culture—remove those who play politics or resist positive change.
  • Quote:

    "What is a winnable game is firing the 80 people that are the OGs. The three of them within that, that don't like change are playing politics... Making sure the 50 OGs, the 20 most powerful people in your company, are playing for the logo, not for themselves." (10:22)

Timestamps:

• [09:45] How scale changes relationships and key culture moves

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6. Content as the New Commerce Engine

• “Media company that happens to sell kilts”:
  • Retailer rethinks his kilt business, going all-in on content—vlogging, Q&A video, podcasts, and repurposing everything.
  • Advice: focus on embedding content (esp. at the product page level) to educate, entertain, and reassure customers.

Timestamps:

• [26:08] Recasting business as a media company
• [27:04] Integrating content into e-commerce tactics

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7. Employee Talent and Personal Brand Tension

• Acupuncturist Example:
  • Being the sole “face” of the brand isn’t always scalable or desirable.
  • Instead, build the clinic’s brand, but—if your people won’t be on camera—hire those who will up front.
    Quote:

    "You can't force people to do things they don't want to do and expect success... You either a now hire going forward where the upfront promises this is a disproportionate video recording environment." (37:42)

Timestamps:

• [31:46] The problem with business owner as sole content face
• [37:42] How to find/hire for content creation willingness

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8. B2B Content, LinkedIn, and Human Truths

• LinkedIn Paid Content:
  • It’s expensive, but you can get ultra-targeted. It’s worth testing, especially for B2B. Quote:

    "There's a reason it's $55 CPMs. Do you know how great in a B2B world, knowing the title of the person that's seeing it is? You mean perfect." (45:56)

• Content That Confronts Human Dynamics:
  • Example: A viral video on why companies should fire their top (but toxic) sales reps. Quote:

    "Your top salesman, he or she's a dick and it's making everybody else suck and you're fucking letting him and her get away with it." (47:56)

Timestamps:

• [45:28] Why it’s worth paying for targeted LinkedIn ads
• [47:37] Human truth and viral B2B content

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9. Macro Content Trends and Diversification

• Don’t Over-Rely on One Channel or Format:
  • Stay diversified; never let one channel/control go stale.
  • Written, video, audio—transcribe and repurpose for multiple platforms.

Timestamps:

• [49:20] Don’t go one-dimensional on format or platform

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10. Event-Based Content and Community

• Dance Competitions:
  • Use Facebook/LinkedIn ads to drive in-person events—small dinners or meetups that build relationships and status as the “host.”
  • Let content be hyper-contextual—serve dance content to parents who share the dancers’ demographics. Quote:

    "When there's a cute little Asian girl dancing, that clip should be targeted to Asian parents." (59:22)

• Copyright Challenges:
  • Admits there are no real workarounds for music copyright policing—accept and adapt by using formats (like stories) that are less likely to get flagged.

Timestamps:

• [55:30] Hosting B2B/B2C networking events via ads
• [59:22] Hyper-contextual creative with unlimited content

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On content scale:

  "Four to 8,000 pieces of content between written word, audio and video." – Gary Vaynerchuk ([06:58])

• On audience targeting:

  "Different message, different audience. The end." – Gary Vaynerchuk ([04:14])

• On culture through scale:

  "Not all kids have the same relationship as their parents. And there's only one or two or three." – Gary Vaynerchuk ([10:05])

• On influencer neutrality (dance comps):

  "I think that's a vulnerability for you. I don't think you should. I think retired players, players that aren't in it." ([58:22])

• On adapting to personal talent (acupuncture clinic):

  "If you with a personal brand put this out... you'll get deal flow, the people that work for you now may actually raise their hand..." – Gary Vaynerchuk ([38:51])

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Actionable Takeaways

• Create massively more creative than you think you need—segment by psychographics/demographics.
• Don’t worry about CPM as long as conversion happens with the right content and right audience.
• In B2B, be more human, honest, and direct—this is what will cut through.
• Don’t force existing staff into content roles—hire for it upfront, and make it part of your brand DNA.
• Event-based networking is a powerful use of targeted ads.
• Diversify content types and always look to repurpose.
• Pay attention to legal/content platform realities, and be ready to adapt.

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Structure & Flow

The episode’s Q&A format lets Gary riff with entrepreneurs, delivering practical brand and content strategy insights for real-world problems in his signature energetic, straight-talking way. Every answer orbits back to the core idea of endless contextual content, targeted with precision, and backed by authentic brand-building.

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If you're serious about hyper-targeted advertising and using content to build your business, this episode is a master class in both mindset and tactics.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The best way to sell to me on Instagram is to make a New York jets reference. That's the truth. It's my actual religion. I will pick jets over everything. Family religion, money, jets over everything. It's a truth. This is the GaryVee audio experience. I hope you enjoy this episode. This is more LinkedIn. This is some business. This is not motivating you. This is not business talk. Enjoy this business talk. Thank you all for being here. Let's actually, let's go backwards. Sorry, brother. Let's go right into it. What can I answer for you?

[Solar Business Owner]

So for us in these smaller markets, DNC markets, the majority of our customers are rural.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Solar Business Owner]

They're in the country. I know this to be independent, get away from the utility company, fuck the man, all that kind of stuff. So it's been interesting for us because in those, in those markets, it's easy for us to get in front of those individuals. And it's all about cost. So in this part of the country where we are, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, there's no save the world, go green. It's not like a Berkeley or Seattle where they're totally understand, it's 100%, will this save me money above and beyond staying with the utility company? And so for us, that's really what drives it. So as we move into the developed

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

areas and towns or as the process plays out, I mean, I don't know the business well enough. I assume once you put the panels on, it's hard to unwind and move to somebody else. But price is an incredible thing to play on. I built Wine Library on price. Price is incredible to play on. I think the question you always have to ask yourself with Price is can somebody come along with bigger pockets and beat you on price? You know where everybody. This is the reason Walmart destroyed Kmart and Bradley's and Caldor and those guys destroyed Woolworths. And when you are in the price game, you only have a moment in time, right?

[Solar Business Owner]

That's right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So for us, and to your point, if you want to expand, there'll be other creative pillars you'll have to play on.

[Solar Business Owner]

That's exactly right. So as we try to get into not necessarily urban, but just into the neighborhoods themselves, like into town. Right. Solar adoption is so low in that part of the country. It's not like being in a Phoenix or a Vegas in California, we see panels everywhere. We've had a difficult time breaking into the towns, breaking into the neighborhoods, breaking into the 300, 400, $500,000 homes rather than someone out in the country that, you know, they buy a solar system for 30 grand, but their house is worth 120.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right.

[Solar Business Owner]

So it's trying to craft and create our marketing and our message to break into a different group of people and talk to them about the benefits that are for them. And it's just something. It's just something we haven't completely tackled and figured out yet.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Have you tried?

[Solar Business Owner]

Dude, we have to have a certain extent. We've talked about there's a 30% federal tax credit that you can take. So we've tried going to a different demographic and saying, hey, do you want the best investment of the year? Do you want the biggest tax break that you could take? Average tax credit is 8,000. We've tried marketing more along those messages of saying, hey, maybe not so much savings, savings, savings. But let's talk about this from an investment standpoint. Let's talk about this from a long term standpoint and why you want to do it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But any rhetoric around how many different creative. So you said you built it on Facebook, then you expanded.

[Solar Business Owner]

That's right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

When you won on Facebook, how many different creatives, pieces of creative, a video, a picture did you have in that execution?

[Solar Business Owner]

Dude, probably at this point a couple dozen. All video ads of me two to three minutes long. Did you know? Educate, educate, educate. If you want to find out more, if you found this intriguing, click below. We'll reach out and do a free energy consultation.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And so what about for the three to 400,000?

[Solar Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How many different pieces of creative.

[Solar Business Owner]

We pretty much did the same thing across the board.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The same amount. But different messages.

[Solar Business Owner]

No, not necessarily different messages. We would do different messages to an extent, but we would serve them to everybody.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's the problem.

[Solar Business Owner]

Okay. Different message, different audience.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The end. Right. Like anything in life, enough of a scale of a psychographic or demographic that it's worth your time to make the creative and as many as you can. Like literally the best way to sell to me on Instagram is, is to make a New York jets reference. That's the truth. It's my actual religion. I will pick jets over everything. Family religion, money, jets over everything. It's a truth. Now that's not a lot of people. So like betting the farm on jet bans is probably not the right move. But I'll tell you that what you need to do, first of all, and this is gonna be the answer for all of you, everybody should take away from this. There's the written word, there's pictures and there's video and Then there's what you say with those things and then who you target. When you get great at that, everything changes. Vayner. The company's going through a big transformation. A new kind of strategic pillar based. You guys saw the post I made the Gary Vee content model, the 88 page deck. Did that hit your guys radar? If it didn't you should see it. It's a very like it's probably the most love I've ever gotten from the Internet because I think everybody deeply understood that I could have that people not like, not me, but people like me would charge 1,500 bucks for that ebook and destroy it. I highly recommend you look at it. But it is the answer to your question. If you live in Kansas City. Look, if you're a 45 year old, I'll give you an example. I'll give you a great example because of the hat you're wearing. If you're targeting people in Missouri of higher net worth that are of and you target 42 to 63 year olds and you make a reference to the 85 World Series, it's going to work.

[Solar Business Owner]

Gotcha. Makes sense.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And if you layer cardinal fans and say one thing or if you layer royals, it's either that was the greatest or that was some bullshit.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Do it's striking emotion to capture people's attention. Right. For example, when you make videos and you're lucky you're using yourself and you're looking in there and you're like Fort Worth, Texas, I've got to tell you cool, let's film again. Kansas City, Missouri and then you run it against that somebody from Scottish or Wales background versus an American versus you saying to yourself you're tapped out on what you've got. We gotta go younger. Getting four influencers that are cool to actually wear that to start the process of getting 22 year olds to even consider it. Cause right now the consideration is that's well you're not gonna run that ad against a 68 year old Scotland Scottish boy. You're gonna run it and so it's super important. I'm already happy that you had dozen or dozens which is already way further along than most. But it misses the mark. I literally think that you should have four to 8,000 pieces of content between written word, audio and video. And running $100 ad against it versus $1,000 ad against 12. It's reverse. Got it, Got it.

[Solar Business Owner]

Yep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I want you to pay more for your CPMs because it's more expensive when you go more narrow. But you're actually converting on what the fuck you care about. I'm thrilled that we're paying $22 to get somebody to buy this. Cause the math works. But marketing companies, Vayner itself, others, people that are, they want it to be $7 cpms, not 22 because that seems right. But then it doesn't play out because it didn't mean as much to them.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right. So even hearing your four demos, like every one of those demos needs its own creative pillars and then within it, Psycho and demographics, there's a big difference between the stage mom and the actual girl in it. And they need to see something different. Are you kidding? So like this is about the word of the day is in perpetuity. Words, pictures and videos in perpetuity.

[Solar Business Owner]

Got it. Never stops.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Never stops. And by the way, by the way, just even looking at you and this is not a joke, maybe you over index with urban. Right? And maybe you need somebody else making videos. And I would love to know how many homes is the wife of or the woman the decision maker. She's gonna need different shit.

[Solar Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Like you can't make a video that's like yo bro. But that's exactly what you should do for a 29 year old single guy.

[Solar Business Owner]

Sure.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Like this is the problem with by the way, Back to America. Everybody just wants it to be blue or red. There's just a million different variations. That's how you actually do it. Otherwise, you know, and so like, you know, can't say hey bro to a highly liberal 29 year old in San Francisco.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So like all those things, you know, that works for you in a maga world. There's subtleties within it.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And then dit duh duh duh duh duh duh duh.

[Solar Business Owner]

Makes sense. Good, good feedback. I have one other question. I asked this earlier, but you know, we're at 80 people right now. Done that over two and a half years. It's a lot of growth. You know, you're at 800 something people now. We took a little tour this morning, checked out things. You've been able to keep your culture firing intact here.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Firing rolling.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right. And so we're hitting the stage now in our organization where now there's people coming through the door that were two or three layers removed from me. Now I don't know their name anymore. I'm seeing people that I'm like, I know I should know that and I don't know that guy anymore. More policies and procedures are getting used. Like we're feeling that Happen. How have you been able to grow firing your agency like this and keep that culture?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Firing?

[Solar Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're not gonna know their names. You're a human being. You're gonna lose. Like, I don't have the relationship with number 200 to number 800 that I do from 1 to 200. That's okay. Guess what? News alert. Not all kids have the same relationship as their parents. And there's only one or two or three. Well, two or three, right?

[Solar Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It just is what it is. My parents love me more than my brother and sister. I was the first born, you know, like, it's just the way it is. It's facts out here. What I mean by that is don't dwell on that. And that crushed me. I took so much pride in that. But that's not a winnable game.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What is a winnable game is firing the 80 people that are the OGs. The three of them within that, that don't like change are playing politics. Know there's a. You know, when Ken knows Sarah underneath him is more talented than Ken, Ken starts the process of eliminating Sarah. That's what you have to look out for. Making sure the 50 OGs, the 20 most powerful people in your company, are playing for the logo, not for themselves. I laugh watching my most senior executives jockey for themselves. I'm untrickable on that. And sometimes I let them get away with it for two years. It's fine. I'm doing what's good for the logo. But if you're not doing what's right for the logo, your time will come here just the way it is. That's what you have to focus on.

[Solar Business Owner]

Good deal.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Cool.

[Solar Business Owner]

Appreciate it.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

I'd be interested in your insight of things shifting in our business, where it was pretty traditional, we had different competitors. Everybody was buying online. Now I'm looking and going, wait a minute. Things are shifting. People are wanting to sell their own costumes rather than going through us. They're going to Facebook groups. They go on to Amazon, perhaps Craigslist, ebay.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Individual people.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Individual people.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Not. Not. Not people that have already worn it on a flip. More. Actually, I'm both. Both?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Yeah.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

And so it's like mom's gone rogue.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No, no, it's. Exactly. First of all, I want to tell you something. I love you because you're right. It's a good observation, and it's a great thing to be thinking about. Only thinking about. Because it's a huge issue and opportunity. Correct.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

But that's what I'm trying to figure out. Wrap my head around what's the direction? Because I'm about to put money into redoing the website, and I'm going, it doesn't feel right to do it in a traditional way. I feel like it's like Airbnb, where people want to sell their stuff and I gotta be the person helping them manage.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

There's two ways to do it. There's two ways to do it. You're being very smart. Let me throw two things at you. One. One. Yes. Here's your problem. If you decide to be a platform instead of a retailer, you need to make sure you have a partner or a very senior person that's super incentivized who has platform DNA. I watch people all the time. My hairs go up when I hear I'm starting to build a tech platform two years ago. Cause this is what smart entrepreneurs like you and I do as a mistake. The first time I did it, the first time you go into tech, you don't realize now you're in the tech business and you need a tech partner, not somebody you hire to build it.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Right, right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So a couple things. That's one. I'm gonna throw you in a different place that I think is super interesting to think about. You're right. So now the question becomes the other thing you could do, which is definitely more in tune to where I think you could go. Because I think the first way you'll have to make that big of a decision, which is, okay, you may start a separate company with somebody and do a 50, 50 JB and still have this. There's a million ways you can go about it, but the way to combat what you're dealing with is quadruple down on brand.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

And that feels right, too.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I mean, you need to quadruple down on brand, because there will always be the person who you need to make people feel like, no, no, this is the one I have to buy. Like, this is the brand that's the ultimate. Like, Nike is never really. Like, you're always worried. You're scared you're being smart. But, like, people are gonna buy it. You have to be the brand. And so you have to go from a utility, it's funny, Back to your name. All those people that built websites that were so literal because everybody cared about SEO and search, and so their company was called hardware toolsdepodirect.com. the problem is, once Google, which is where we're at now, became mature, and it wasn't just about math and it was about brand. And I know that's where we're gonna go and we'll get back to. All of a sudden, they had to build a brand, and their brand being hardware store, utilities depot. Direct.com is not a brand, so you have to triple down on brand.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

And I think we're representing a lot of brands. So our brand is like taking care of those brands and pushing those brands and getting. It's more like taking care of the person who needs a thing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, let's talk about that for a minute. So you, as a retailer, are selling other brands? Brands? Yeah.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

I mean, we're. We're doing a consignment costume. It might be a wiseman. It might be, you know, wish come true. It might be.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Do you. Do you have. Well, that's where you just beat me too. So I would quadruple down on your own brand. Like, quadruple. If I was still running my dad's wine business, I would probably take us to 35% private label, and I think they're probably at, like, 2% right now. Hmm. It's the only place you can go in the long tail of the Internet, because those brands you just mentioned, their strategy for the next decade is to go direct and not have you involved.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Yeah. But they're also going cheap, too, which people aren't gonna want their stuff. So it's an interesting dynamic where you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

kind of go wherever they go. Yeah, wherever they go. Where I promise you they're gonna go is direct to consumer. Oh, yeah. Why would they give up the margin? The friction's been eliminated. Right. So that's what I think you have to do. I would highly recommend going heavy on content around your own brands, paying influencers to wear your own brands. Put your brands. You have multiple brands that you're private

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

labeling, or one or it's one brand, but it's a little confusing because it's the same name.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So what? Help me.

[Solar Business Owner]

No.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Well, when we originally saw it, you know, we thought you got to go after skaters, you got to go after dancers, you got to go after, you know. Well, that's a lot to manage.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

So maybe that wasn't the right strategy. So we had Encore Costume Couture for the costumes, Crystal Couture for the, you know, overall stuff. And Encore went under that. And it's of kind. Kind of like, are we confusing everybody? Do we just pick one? Do we just go Crystal Couture Costumes?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But Crystal Couture Costumes is a retailer that consigns other sub brands. Right. I'm saying you need to create a brand and call it like, yes. Like when you go to crystalcouture.com the feature dress is brought to you by a brand named Dolly Doll, and you own that brand and you try to make Dolly Doll Nike.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Yeah. And I guess we do that to a certain extent because all the consignment stuff is under Encore. And then we have Couture design by Crystal Couture.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

When you say under are those are separate dot coms or when you land

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

on the website, it's separate.com that have the same website.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I see.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

With costumes and one. And we lead with our other stuff.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I see.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

So the content is all.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think you should because it complements. If I bought into your company and we became partners, our first meeting would like. Like this. I think we should create a brand like K. Swiss. Like a. Not like a brand. And make a great fucking dress or costume or whatever it is and fucking market the shit out of it. Sounds fun. You know, it's the evolution from going from retail, like, to going to being the product. Because that's what the Internet's gonna force.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Yep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

One way or another.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Yep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Taking you there, you know. Cool.

[Consignment Costume Retailer]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're welcome.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Well, we dominate the inventory on our business, and I want to upscale my business to selling things that we don't have.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Tell me what you're dominating and tell me examples of ideologically, what you would like to add.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

What we dominate is on the heavy equipment industry.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What does that mean? Like what? Give me literally like a dump truck.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

We specialize in concrete pumps.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How much is a concrete pump?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

It varies on size and capabilities. 80 to $500,000.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

From $80 to how much? A thousand to 500,000. And how much do you buy them for? 10 bucks. I'm just kidding. Are you? And the reason you're able to find them, like, just in that world. How are you marketing? Or what's the funnel? Or why did you guys get great at it? Is it social media ads? Is it direct mail? Is it phone calls? Is it knocking on doors? Like, what is it?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Well, it's product in demand. When, you know, in Mexico, they don't manufacture those kind of equipment.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

So in the construction company, they're always looking with those kind of equipment. So we started advertising in Mercado Libre, which is ebay in Mexico, and we started doing our platform, which is our website, and that's how we first started selling our equipment. So now Carla should go into auctions

[Solar Business Owner]

to pick them up, right?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

We do. Yeah, we do some auctions. And the way we started our business model Was okay. We started dealing with a lot of dealers, you know, started helping them with their old equipment that they wouldn't take in. Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

So we like, hey, we'll take your junk, we'll buy it. Yeah, we'll buy it for cheap. And then you'll, you'll take some money. Money, yeah. To, to put into the new equipment. And that's how our strategy. Yeah. And we came to appointment. They started financing, you know, the equipment. Take it in 90 days.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I understand. So what do you, what do you want to sell now?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

I want to sell equipment that like, that I don't have. I want to open the umbrella to our customers, say, okay, we don't have this on inventory.

[Solar Business Owner]

Okay.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

But we have an option that we're going to participate and this is what's going to come out. Are you interested? And I want to, I want to get customers, customers to feel comfortable shopping what we don't have.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I understand.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Well, I think they can feel in touch. Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. So I think. Well, can they feel in touch the other stuff because they come somewhere physically or they watch looking at it online?

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Well, first of all, first of all, they contact us on the phone via phone, and then if we get some interest, they'll fly in because we sell. Our market is nationwide.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

They'll fly into the nearest airport, we'll pick them up, and then they'll get a feel of the equipment. Right. So right now it's just selling inventory.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I mean, there's only one way that people have ever sold anything that they don't own. And they want to make money on the float, on the arbitrage of what they know. They can pay for it and bidding for it. It's only been done based on building trust around the brand. There's nothing else. And there's a. What's really amazing about today's world is I think you take a little bit out of what he does and what I do. I think you make collateral videos and put yourself out there and be like, how long have you been in business? Five years, right? You're like, I've been doing this for five years, owning this business. You can say whatever the hell you were doing before then. There's a lot of things you can do. I mean, you can put money into escrow. You just chip away. There is no magic pill. You need to make, make the first 50 people feel comfortable and be aggressive at it. I mean, you could have the person put up the money in escrow. There's a lot you could do. You could Personally guarantee it. Anytime I'm doing something that may feel weird, I'm always comfortable doing anything because I know I'm not gonna rip them off. You should do things for the first 50 people that you won't do for the 51st person. Too many people go ideological and want to figure out the entire business model on the first transaction. Got it. So all you need to do is have examples, right? Juan in Guadalupe trusted me and he got it right. And what you don't have to tell the world is like, and I put up all the money on escrow too, just to make him feel very comfortable. You know what I mean? Whatever it may be, but that's just the way it is. This is no different than when I tell people do shit for free at first. Like, well, gary, I'm worth $5,000 an hour. I'm like, says who? If you're worth $5,000 an hour, you should be getting lots of hours and getting paid $5,000. The market decides. So I think to build trust, create less risk and you see, right? And you can do a million different things. I don't know your cash flow. There's a million ways to do it. Maybe for the first time ever, you open a credit line to help you do the first move. There's a million ways to do it. As long as you know you're not gonna take somebody's fucking money and run off, right? I always tell people, if you're on the right side of your intent, you should over deliver for diverse customers because your interests are aligned. You're trying to create examples for other people to trust you. And so thus you're willing to go further, further financially or credit or sign something you would never normally sign. I do it all the time to this day. So I mean, with K Swiss or with Harper Collins, I mean, it's funny to see the snicks or something. It's really funny. I don't remember, but either my last K Swiss deal or my last book deal, basically I was on the hook, like, I had to hit it. And basically I just said to myself, just buy them and give them away if I have to. Like, I'm not gonna screw the partner. I'm not gonna be happy. I'll lose money. But I wanted the example.

[Heavy Equipment Dealer]

Also, another question, on another note, how do we build our budget for marketing? Like on Facebook, on social media? How do you take that number?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You guess. You guess with a number that you feel great about if it goes to zero. So if that's 10,000 bucks and it goes to zero. You learned what can you afford to lose? You know, on Facebook. For me at this moment and all of you know what I feel about it. What can you afford to lose? But it comes into making. Remember the, the biggest reason people lose on Facebook is they make one piece of content and they target broad. Got it. That's the reason people lose on Facebook. One piece of content and target broad. Cause they act like a big company. I'm gonna make a commercial and I'm gonna target 18 to 35 year old dudes. That's my favorite part. Has anybody ever met an 18 year old and 35 that are super. They're so not different. Like just by common sense. An 18 year old guy and a 35 year old guy are two fucking different dudes. Yeah. Yes. Of course. You lived it. You know exactly what kind of fucking idiot you were at 18.

[Kilt Retailer]

The one piece of content you put out that hit me was the things like a media company. You know, I'm a media company that happens to sell kills.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I love you. And what happened when you started, when you made that switch, what happened?

[Kilt Retailer]

I decided I had to kind of go all in on Facebook. I said okay, we need an actual. We are a now 14 person company. As of a year ago, we were like a 10 person company.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So you added those kind of people.

[Kilt Retailer]

I'm doing what I can.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And did you also go more into content? Did you go more into the TV show versus the commercial? Because that's what happens right? When you understand you're not. You're selling by doing brand. You go from being QVC to being Game of Thrones.

[Kilt Retailer]

I hit the. Basically I took one of my sales guys and said okay, you do vlogging on the side, stuff like that. You're down. My marketing department. Great news is I'm also the marketing department so I get to tell you what to do Good every day.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Love that.

[Kilt Retailer]

So we're doing a Facebook Q and A live session for an hour and a half first Friday of every month. We take each individual question, chop it up, have content for the full month. We take those long tail titles, put them on Google.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Kilt Retailer]

Strip out the audio for podcasts.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We're following the model. The model.

[Kilt Retailer]

We're actually putting a second story on our building to basically how is a television studio and expand. The question is we're doing a. We're going to be redoing the website.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right now.

[Kilt Retailer]

It's just strictly e commerce website. We have a bunch of little toys for the customer. Play with cartoon designer like a Tour of our store. You can walk around. The question is, should I leave the media stuff, all the free content that we're putting out live on YouTube and everywhere else, and then have our e commerce site be a black hole or like people just come there to shop, period, or should I try to be post the YouTube, embed the YouTube.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I understand what you're saying.

[Kilt Retailer]

Put that kind of stuff up on there.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Both will work. I think when people open the can of worms of deeply integrating all this media into their websites, it gets convoluted and they get. Most people suck at integrating content into their websites for commerce. So I'm very comfortable in you not even though you have all that collateral because it's really like, let's play it out one more time, Nike markets. And then you go into a store and buy it. There is that separation. I'm not against it. I'm also not against you having a little bit there. I probably. I'd be more excited at being a product page level content play than a landing page level content play. See what I mean?

[Kilt Retailer]

Yeah, we're thinking about putting some of the videos into the pictures. Watch a video Q and A kind of thing there.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's what I think. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what I think.

[Kilt Retailer]

The similar kind of follow up question. The outfit for buying a kilt is anywhere from a few hundred bucks to fifteen hundred bucks or so. We're teaching guys who know nothing about this generally. Our customers are generally very uninformed and we are happy to do that for them. But it is a scary kind of concept for, you know, you're a guy by a skirt.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. Why do people do it? Heritage period. Yeah, knew it exactly. Anybody else?

[Consulting Firm Owner]

I'm German.

[Kilt Retailer]

I did it just for fun.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No, I get it, I get it.

[Kilt Retailer]

The gay community, there's like, there's a lot of subcultures in it. The main, the bagpipers and that kind of stuff. Island athletes. The main one is Heritage Hill. So the question I have is we're kind of thinking about other types of content to put out for video. Would it be a good idea or too hooky to do a. Invite customer in and say, okay, I'm going to record an entire package sale, Soup to nuts, where I gave little hints and tips and tricks during the entire process. And I'm not a salesman. It's more like, okay, tell me your budget. I want to maximize what you can get and the versatility within that. I'm not trying to, you know, squeeze every penny out. Would that come off, do you think, as too sales pitchy?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hey, everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. Or would it kind of like escalate the fear? I think it would do a couple things. One, I think it would open up a different world to you where people look to you more as like a business and sales guy, which could lead to certain things. Look, I think intent trumps everything. So, like, I'm not worried about it being too salesy. If the intent is to not be too salesy. You know, I think the interesting part is like going deeper into the four or five biggest subcultures and making sure you're creating enough content for them. Cause heritage makes so much sense and feels like. Felt like to me is like, damn, that's got to be the business. But when you start talking about other subcultures, demographics, psychographics, you know, you know, sexualities, things of that nature, you want to make sure you have enough content filling those pipes.

[Kilt Retailer]

Do I put that content out organically on Facebook? And if so.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No.

[Kilt Retailer]

Because if I. No, I would alienate certain demographics.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, I'm very aware about of America. I would run. First of all, even if you didn't have the political undertones that we have today, you shouldn't do it because it won't convert and the media's underpriced. See, Google's not underpriced anymore. It's properly priced. That's why it has a different strategy than Facebook when it's underpriced. No, you run ads, which is the right way to do it, period. Facebook, because organic reach is super low anyway. But the ads are underpriced. So the people that are losing on Facebook are emotional that the organic reach is down. So they're checked out. Meanwhile, the ads are underpriced. Cool.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

First off, Gary, man, I love watching you think how you go so quickly from being in your head back to your heart, going through your experience, that transition. Look up real quick.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thanks, man.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Fascinating to watch on the psychological aspect of things. Two part question. One part about finding talent, another one about developing the marketing aspects of the businesses. All three of my businesses are the same business. They're just doing different jobs.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I understand.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Originally started off with me being the brat. I was the face. I was doing my what to do Wednesdays videos, question and answers. All these things being in a person to person Interaction. The rest of my teams get left behind because I'm the face and brand. Everyone wants to go to Ryder. Let's go see Ryder. Now I gotta start going, okay, go see my specialist and then see my specialist in that. My talent pool in my industries are very small. In New York State we graduate maybe 200 acupuncturists every year. Now that's about 200. Go acupuncturist. There's probably three or four that are good. How many actually have the quality charisma, the characteristics that heartfelt compassion, that desire to grow, that don't want to do

[Solar Business Owner]

it on their own?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Try leveraging the schools. I'll give you a first opportunity. Top five grads, immediate job placement, trial run in six months. They wanted me to come in and teach for them. I don't want to leverage my time teaching for them for that downplay. Or do I?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, I think, you know, first of all, I haven't listened to enough yet. But very quickly, when one I want to make sure that it's not your ego that's making the pool small. But if, let's say you're right and that pool is that small and even to your point, even if it wasn't ego and all 200 were good, that's still not the biggest pool in the world. I think I liked the fact that you ended your sentence with or do I? Because it's almost like as you're asking the question, you realize, fuck, if my vulnerability is this thing, then yes, there's a lot of things maybe I'd rather rather be doing, but there might not be anything more valuable than my time on that because I'm in the vulnerability of that pool, there's a bigger question, which is even if you got the top three every year, employees by nature are always a vulnerability. When you're at the vulnerability of an employee skill set, so the model becomes the thing you have to scrutinize.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Matter of really the opportunity cost of it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I get it.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

The acupuncture practice been around now for about five years. It's pretty much self autonomous. It's growing on its own. If I take a step back, I took a six month kind of step back to see where things go smart. And three months started dropping. By three months there was a notable decline. I was like, okay, I gotta reel this back in and be on a forefront again and get the leverage moving.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And when you say at the forefront, consumer facing or back of the house operations?

[Solar Business Owner]

Both. Both.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Going out doing the marketing, meeting with

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

doctors and lawyers, the three companies. One more time. Acupuncturist.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Acupuncturist, CrossFit, gym, HP up and potential. And I kind of put those two together for my personal and corporate results coaching. So I do digital coaching, video.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And do all three companies sit under one llc?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

There is one LLC that holds them all, but they're all three individual or something like that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And does anybody have any equity in the individuals Buy one partner for the gym. Got it. Understood. I mean, look, when you know, back to what you deal with by, you know, you rodeo like, you know, when you have too many ideas, like, it's all about having people in place that can execute and understanding what their incentives are. Some people are incentivized by money. Some want the fame, some want vacation.

[Solar Business Owner]

That leads to.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

My second part is development marketing. I'm like, every hat right? You know, like, and I take one hat off a little while everybody else like, oh, well, you know, we don't want to keep on with the educational videos. We don't want. So we don't see the value in doing that and being the, you know, the industry expert by putting the information, the content, the education out there, the entertainment for them. Do I hire people to be fronts for that? Do I hire. Do I just force people to hire, like, hey, this is what you gotta do. I can't be in front of the camera and talk to doctors and treat a patient at the same time.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, I think one thing that you need. Yeah, there's a couple things to think about. Number one, you know, like, building personal brands as the marketing play is only something that people are paying attention to now because it's hit the zeitgeist. But it's not the right answer all the time. Like, I don't know. MetLife doesn't use the CEO of MetLife, they use Snoopy. Right. Look, I think it's a. Very. First of all, a lot of people stumbled into it. There's what's going on on Instagram, which natively makes it about that more so than other platforms. There's a lot of ways you could do it. To your point, you can hire people that want to do it, or you can start thinking about building it more about the brand and making the marketing about the brand and the brand. Brand promise. Equinox doesn't have Ernie Equinox in their content.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

That's kind of what I've been doing. I'm pulling myself out and the brand itself.

[Kilt Retailer]

But it seems like I'm the only

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

person that wants to try to Capture content. Like my practitioner is like, hey, I want to be here working with the patients.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So why do you have comfortable having

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

a camera person with them and them being on film?

[Solar Business Owner]

I'm the person.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Like, hey, put me on camera in front of 400 people. I'll talk to them. Let's go. It's playtime for me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know when, when you say camera not live, just to capture the content, to be able to do something. Yeah.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Originally I started with same kind of thing with you with drock and having people follow me around. And it didn't work out for us. And I had actually got hired by somebody that you had sit in this room a couple months, couple years ago. And journey, I remember kung fu guy, boxer, does martial arts. Fast around the room, man.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So he stole your drock?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Yeah, he stole my drock of mine.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Is he? Yeah, it's good. The kid's great. Do you want me to steal him?

[Solar Business Owner]

No, no.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Jason.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Jason, right. Jason's just a killer. The Jason's the video kid. Do you want me to steal Jason? Just, just. I'm just gonna get him just for fun, just to settle the score. Get me Jason's info. Give me Jason's info. I'm literally gonna steal Jason.

[Solar Business Owner]

There you go, dude.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

That's for Jason.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's just one big meta thing. You come to 4Ds and Jason just moves around. Yeah.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

How do I get these teams of specialists in their field to realize that they're.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

They want you don't. You don't. The reason I win a lot with people who are either celebrities or on their first day when I help them, if I have time to talk to them, is, is because I realized something a long time ago, which is you can't force people to do things they don't want to do and expect success. There's a very specific reason my report card looked like it did this morning when I posted it. Like you're not gonna force me to do that. And more importantly, you don't wanna waste the energy convincing. I believe you. I believe you. So you either a now hire going forward where the upfront promises this is a disproportionate video recording environment. And by the way, if you with a personal brand put this out, here's what I would do because this is what you make a front facing video on Instagram saying, I'm hiring practitioners in this craft that love being on camera as well. Because that is my macro thesis for my business. Two things are gonna happen. You'll get deal flow the People that work for you now may actually raise their hand and say, you know what? Change my mind. Gonna take that camera.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Yeah.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

And that's a possibility.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. And by the way, key players.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

I was like, listen, it's not fitting.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We're working on glow, bro. An amazing thing happens. An amazing thing happens when you put pressure in real life, not in thesis or words. They're gonna see that video and they're gonna be like. They're gonna decide if they want to be there or not. And some people might not give a fuck and be like, cool, let's see him hire somebody better at fucking whatever craft than me. And then you do, and then it plays out. I would definitely, definitely do that. What's that, brother?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Comes down to meritocracy 100%.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And here's the good news. We're going through this at Vayner right now. I'm looking at James and Mark. We had this big meeting, and I was like, in the beginning and the end, I was like, look, I'm changing the direction of our creative output and our strategic and creative output. And it's super okay if you don't agree with me. Cause I know it's fairly rogue. And so come and see me and I'll get you a job doing what you want to do for more money somewhere else. This doesn't have to be bad. Back to personality. I don't want bad. I just don't want to go out of business. I'm in charge of running the business, so I'm going to change the direction. And, you know, you're a hockey player, and we've been playing hockey, and now I'm saying we're playing basketball. Not everybody's going to transfer that skill. And that's okay. And I think that's what you do. You know, it's okay that they don't want to. You just know it's super important for your business and you're gonna do it. That I would definitely do. I also think that you should. I also think that you should definitely hire. Are you running ads?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

Google, Facebook?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. Who's running them?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

I was managing ad as hiring. My buddy has got to. And that's what he does for me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Got it. And do you have any sense if he's good or not yet?

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

His history and business is. He's my business mentor. He's got his shit together. He's far younger than me and more successful than me. So I take a lot of my advice from him. And a lot of it's been working.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And he Loves to run quant ads.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

He loves to run quant ads. He loves to be very successful. And he's willing to put his nose to the grindstone and figure things out.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Listen, you know, you've seen on video, you've seen in person, you guys can't run enough Facebook and Instagram ads now. It's better that you do it well, you know, but know that every industry has a well for now. Cause it's so underpriced. There's nothing you can tell me. From kilts to fucking $800,000 fucking drills. They all exist there. I think LinkedIn is super interesting. I brought it up earlier. I think there's a version of that there too. You guys hung out a little bit last night, right? Like, it's a different vibe than this is. We're in an office, we're having an. You know, you had business talk last night, but it's a little more casual, a little more tequila, right? Like, you know, and so the context of the room really matters. And so all of a sudden, the video you put on LinkedIn, like, we are starting to get mature. I'm looking at Caleb now on my team, you know, like, we're starting to get mature about, like, okay, like, you know, for example, I mean, you guys know I'm so respected by my fan base of like. And he hasn't wavered and he doesn't curse. He continues to curse. He hasn't stopped, even though. But meanwhile, it's just black and white obvious to me that I could be much further along on LinkedIn if I just add beeps. And guess what? Fucking beeps. Like, it's not super complicated trying to win out here. And like, you know, LinkedIn's an environment psychology wise, that there's dramatically more questions, qualitative feedback in the comments of, like, this guy curses. I loved what he had to say, but I'll never listen to him again. And listen, I don't have the audacity to enforce my will. Like, I'm gonna be me as a human. I'm not gonna stop cursing. But in post production, we're gonna fucking beep. Got it? Yeah, man. So I do think that. I do think you have to. You know, here's what's tough for entrepreneurs is turning into executives.

[Solar Business Owner]

It's rough. It is.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's rough. And so it's about trust. It's about eliminating ego. It's about being really good at firing when you make the wrong call, which really is hard, especially if you're a compassionate, empathetic Person. It was tough.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

It's gotten easier.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It does get easier. I used to sit on things for two years. Now they're six months, but they should be one month. And that's just the truth.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

So, so we are the B2B company here, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

So a lot of what we've had, some, I think, epiphanies over the last year where what we started to see more and more is the content is boring as shit, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

If you look at an article and it's quietly all sales driven.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Not even quietly. It's like there's always the barrier to entry.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But even the people that try to fake it and show something, if you sniff it, you're like, ah, that's a sales. Yeah, exactly.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

You're gonna start.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's like free consultations. Fuck you. You know like. Yeah. You know what I mean though? It works. Yeah, no, but you know what I mean? Like, like it is, but like, you know what I mean?

[Consulting Firm Owner]

So basically what happened is in about May, we started to look at the content, right. We're producing ebooks, we're consulting firms. So what do we do?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You look at Deloitte.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Oh, you produce these documents.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, yeah.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Right. Then we look at engagement, right. And so we put together this GDPR ebook, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

It's fucking epic, right? It was so good, the engagement. Terrible, right? Terrible. Everyone downloading, it's all middle funnel people anyway. People already in our pipeline or really junior people. So started listening to you and started to realize, wait, I'm not scaled. I think that was part of it too. We're a consulting company. I started the company at first. When I started it, I didn't name it Dunlap Consulting because I wanted to say, hey, I wanted to build a company, I want to build a brand. Right? But what I've realized over time is maybe that was wrong. Right. And so what I've looked at is

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

when it was wrong because it was the proper point of view of many. In a world that doesn't exist anymore, the Internet is a much bigger thing than people realize. And so to your point where you went to was like, wait a minute, right. I was playing under rules of a yesterday. Right. Keep going.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

That's exactly right. Right. And I wanted to build. If you look at like our consulting world, you've got the beast and you've got one and twosies, Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

And I always wanted to build a company, Right. Too young to try to build some lifestyle.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

In May we just said, alright, well fuck it, I'll just start posting myself. On LinkedIn, text based posts. Just talking about the things that we're doing. I think we were. I was always very hesitant. I'd push everything to scale. Scaled is doing these things. Scaled is doing these things. And instead I just started to talk about the things I was doing. And then by, you know, people figured it out. And I think we've started to see at least a path forward for me on LinkedIn.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Talking about lots of posts that are getting.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Makes sense.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of likes. So we're starting to figure out.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's great.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Figure out some things there.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Are you running paid on LinkedIn yet? Because it's got that floor pricing and it feels expensive.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

55, 60 CPMs, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. But you can get super narrow. Yeah. I mean think about it. You can target an HR director in the concrete industry. There's a reason it's $55 CPMs. You can get to. Do you know how great in a B2B world, knowing the title of the person that's seeing it is? You mean perfect?

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Yeah, 100%.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You should 100% test like tomorrow. Because again. And here's how it works. This is where people fuck up. Pay attention. For some of you, if you've decided we haven't tapped into St. Louis business. I'm making shit up now in the insurance space. The opening video. Right. You know where I'm about to go, hey, St. Louis insurance dealers, it's me, Dunlap. Let's go. Like, you know, like you can't imagine what those first three seconds mean. And you can't imagine when you make the video after you know who you're targeting. Yeah, yeah.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

And I think the other piece we're trying to figure out is Facebook and Instagram. Right. For B2B. Right. So we, we are a sales consulting firm.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Real quick, we've been thinking about that too. Don't. One of the things that's really bothering me is you don't have to do everything. You don't have to win on Instagram. Watching everybody try to win on Instagram mainly cause it's the most culturally important platform. And they're really doing it because they want to be cool in real life, not for business is the funniest thing I'm watching. I'm like, it's not like, I'm like, you don't need to win on Instagram, just run Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever it may be. But they're doing it because it's so cultural and they want to have 5,000 followers. But it doesn't like.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Yeah, you're saying I have to buy the. It's the cheapest so for our mind.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, but this is why I keep. This is why I have to keep. Look, I think you can ironically win on Instagram. It's so fucking cheap that it is worth it. The truth is though, you have to squeeze the out of the thing that's obvious before you can even begin to think about the rest.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

What are some of the macro trends you see in B2C that are going to infiltrate B2B in the future? 2019, 2020.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'll answer you in a different way. That I think is really what you're asking. I would heavily lean into HR dynamics. Sales teams are vulnerable because of human things. You will win SaaS sales people. If you made a video of why you should fire your top salesman, it will go viral.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

It'll crush.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Crush. And it starts like this. Your top salesman, he or she's a dick and it's making everybody else suck. And you're fucking letting him and her get away with it. Cause you like the numbers they're bringing in, but they're destroying your fucking company. Let me save you time. That is 97% of SaaS companies problem right now. 100%, that shit will go. Let me tell you what happens with that video. You target that video to HR executives on LinkedIn and pay their high vig. If she or he has the juice in the organization, you're gonna get a lot of fucking business. Because they're sitting right now pissed. Cause they know it's a vulnerability. And your video is gonna give them the oomph to go into the CFO's office and say, this game's over. Sarah, CFO, I'm done. We're firing John tomorrow. Yep.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

How do you think about it so far?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So human truths is the number one white space in sales right now.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

100%. Yeah. I mean, we're seeing that. And the interesting part, text based. Text based, non image.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I see it on LinkedIn. Killing it. We see it too. Now what I'll tell you is don't like. So I see it too. We see it on our LinkedIn, but we're still doing more video. Here's why. Don't just pander to the platform's algorithms if your currency is getting more views. What a video does is it builds more brand. Right?

[Consulting Firm Owner]

100%.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Got it. So I'm losing the LinkedIn algorithm, but I'm establishing more brand and I mix it up. So don't just become one Dimensional on what's working. There's so much of that going in on LinkedIn right now. People are scared to try new things, things, because certain things are working right now. I'm getting the least kind of stuff, like engagement and views for the last two weeks after the best week I had. Because off the momentum of the best week I had, I said, you know what? I'm gonna fucking take my own advice. I'm on a roll right now and every video's getting a million views. Let me put up stuff intuitively that I don't think will do well to learn from. And it hasn't done well. But the little lemonade clip did super well. And that wouldn't have been something I put up before because that's just fun, light hearted. Not what I do. I'm like, okay, the human stuff, got to think about that. Opened up a new concept. So you see what I'm doing, as soon as something works for me, I try to destroy it. And what most people do is they become vulnerable to it. They only do that something works and they lean all in. Right? And what I do is I never let something have too much left. I will never die because Google slowed down. I will never let Snapchat destroy me. I will never let Twitter. I'm so diversified, right? Written, audio, video, first in line, my own CRM. I've got your text numbers, I've got your email. Email, text, got it.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

What about the difference between Vayner and you? Meaning like when you think about on LinkedIn, for example.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

And how you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I bring top of the funnel awareness to the agency. A lot of people don't want to work with VaynerMedia because they don't like me. And a lot of people want to work with VaynerMedia because they like me. But then that's better than not doing it. 100% audio. I would start a podcast yesterday. Audio matters. And what's really great about audio is you can have somebody on the team transcribe the audio and make it written content for you on LinkedIn. Yep. The fucking. Did you see the deck? The 80? Yeah. You will. You need to look at it. You can Google it right now. Garyvee Content deck or I don't know, something. You're well on your way now. I can just. Let me tell you the real answer. You're looking for more. It will go away. Did you do Google AdWords in 2003 when you started?

[Kilt Retailer]

Yes. No, not quite late.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

2000.

[Solar Business Owner]

Five.

[Kilt Retailer]

Five, six.

[Solar Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Crazy stuff, right?

[Kilt Retailer]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Not as Good as it is now, the end. See that reaction from her? Yeah. It will go away. It will go away because everybody on earth is gonna do social media, which is gonna raise the prices. So you got something. That's the reason I've exploded this last 18 months. I had that conversation myself. I'm like, okay, I talk about publicly regretting that my dad's liquor store wasn't 200 million because I didn't run enough Google Ads. I'm about to do the same fucking mistake. I'm at the top of my game in the thing and I'm gonna fucking be pissed. So fuck it. Let's go from 4 to 20 people. Let's fucking go all in. Let me be. And you guys, I don't know how long you guys have been following, but the last two years are very different than the years before that.

[Solar Business Owner]

For sure.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Fun.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Industry dance competition.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Everyone's kind of all about it in our kind of world.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

B2B.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Average ticket, 20 to 50 grand.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Average ticket, 20, 50 grand. B2B.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Explain competitions. We don't take our money from like the dance from the parents. We go to the dance studio. So that's kind of like where you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

enable a dance studio to be in the dance competition business. Like them paying you 20 to 50 grand to compete.

[Consulting Firm Owner]

Correct.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

To compete at events.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Because the studio enters. Correct. I say. And then they do whatever they do underneath. Right. Whatever the fuck they're into. Exactly. Make a big. Not make a big whatever. Okay.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

From there. So we're an events based company, about 180 events. So right now our social is mostly just for the kids. We really don't have a strategy to say, hey, so and so dance studio comes, come register with us. It's mostly just entertainment.

[Solar Business Owner]

Good.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So which, how many dance studios are there?

[Dance Competition Organizer]

There's so just in our database, there's about 10,000 studios.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm gonna give you an answer that I think is a B idea for you, but an a B for everybody else that I haven't gotten to and then I'll give you some others. Using Facebook and LinkedIn to create in person events is unbelievable. And I know that would make sense to you and it's gonna make sense to you. My favorite thing in a new neighborhood. And clearly in sales, I would use wine because it's authentic to me. There's also golf. There's also other things. Those two are really, really good. But running ads that say, this is back to prospecting. I'm hosting a dinner at this country club or I'm putting on this and you go macro. So let's use you as an example and everybody will take it from here. You pick an area where there's a lot of dance studios so you can run ads at a lower cost. And you'd say, hey Phoenix, we're host and it's video. It's very authentic. Back to like in front of the camera, you're like, I'm gonna be in Phoenix. We rented out a wonderful room in your awesome steakhouse, Johnny's Steakhouse. I saw the great Yelp reviews, I've been wanting to go there. Got some nice food and wine and we're gonna gonna be putting on a 20 person dinner where we're gonna talk the state of the union of dance studios, opportunities in social media, how to make more margin, what's happening in the macro Trends, how the TV shows have affected us, what's happened in the last 15 years? I've been in the family business. My family's been doing this for 35 years. I've been running it for 15. Da da da da da. Please fill out the form and I will pick 20 of you. Can't wait to see you on November 19th at 8pm that's your video. The copy has all the information and has a link. It's a Google form. The Google form has questions. One of the questions first, it's like name studio revenue, employees, whatever the fuck. But one is an open ended question where they have to answer it that will give you insight. If you think you can convert them. Awesome. You spend $500 on the Facebook ads, you pick up a thousand dollar tab at the end of the night and for 1,500 all in you've got a captive audience where you're the host of the, I call it the high school party concept. Right. Like whoever was the high school kid whose parents traveled a lot or didn't give a fuck that was able to host the parties, coolness grew dramatically. Cause they hosted the party. So like you watched a lot of people be nerdy freshman year and then become popular because they figured it out and they their basement was in play. So the cool kids needed it. So they by osmosis got a little cooler.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Yeah, for sure.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And the worst versions are they woke up and realized they were taken advantage of. And the best versions is it worked out right, but that was it. Right? Yeah. That's what I want a lot of you to do. I want you to host the event in a B2B environment or high ticket B2C. See where I'm going, yeah, that will work. It's superhuman. It's incredible networking. The people that are gonna sign up for it are exactly right. They've gotta take time to fill out the form. Your personality can shine through and be like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? You can get a free meal. It's really fun. It will really work.

[Solar Business Owner]

I like that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It will really work. And then again, everybody hears their own person. There's some unique things, like maybe come and learn how to rodeo. Maybe somebody here is great at tennis and that's what they want. Like, as simple as this is where I want you to have interpretation. It's literally keyword targeting within AdWords. Keyword targeting within AdWords. Because you can just. It doesn't have to be specific to YouTube. Yep. Cool. Maybe when Garen comes in here right now, we can show the URL that explains it.

[Kilt Retailer]

Okay.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Solar Business Owner]

I couldn't find him.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I was handy. No worries. Again, if you're a great tennis player and your concept interpretation of what I just said is doing something called doubles Tuesdays. And every Tuesday you find three people and you're one partner with one bu. But the most simple white label one is just like, here's a dinner on the state of the union of our industry and all you are is a curator. Maybe one of the things is, what do you want to cover? You don't do anything. 20 people have filled out. What question do you want asked? Room good. You take the 15. You don't need to. You're literally like, alright, first question for everybody. How come mortgages are going up? Like, it's the easiest thing to do. Definitely see where I'm going. Don't even have to create the content.

[Solar Business Owner]

Love it.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

The other one is paying influencers, but they also compete. So it's like trying to stay neutral. Neutral, yeah. Which has been a hard one because we had one influencer who, she was killing it on our views and just she was reposting, she was commenting and it was going great till she also won. Like, and then all of a sudden it's like she won because of.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think that's a vulnerability for you.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Yeah, definitely.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I don't think you should. I think retired players, players that aren't in it. But yeah, I do think that's a vulnerability that you don't need. Right, right, right. I just would not. I would just like take that very seriously. Yeah.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

And then the last question that I have is kind of just posting. Since we have content, we don't lack content dancers.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You have unlimited Content.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Photos and videos galore.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You have unlimited content. What you need is a post production machine that creates contextual content.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

So with that is all the music that the dancers are choosing are popular songs.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

And it gets taken down or we get Ding Dong YouTube for it or we go mute on Facebook. So right now we've been going heavy on story because really take it down

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

because short period of time. Yeah, yeah.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Any suggestions on workarounds for that or.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The rules are the rules.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Just go for it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, you could put up stuff and just wait till it comes down.

[Dance Competition Organizer]

Yeah, that's kind of what we're doing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You could do stories. Yeah, you're doing the right stuff there. Here's what I would say back to the thesis I want to leave you with. When there's a cute little Asian girl dancing, that clip should be targeted to Asian parents. Gotcha. You have unlimited content. Thus you should be the last person that isn't doing contextual creative at scale. Yeah, Got it. I mean it's the craziest thing. Like bet over indexes with African American viewers. Cause they're in it. Like who watches Tulamondo? We have to become marketers. Like that content at scale. Ads. You know what you're targeting with your money. Then you make the content and most people make the content and run ads. Got it. We are under indexing with SaaS products around finance. Now I'm gonna make content. We are not winning with 400,000 everything. Let's think about every cliche we can think of.

[Solar Business Owner]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How much? How behind or on time am I? I gotta get you out of here

[Solar Business Owner]

and I'd love to.

[Acupuncturist and Business Owner]

What's the timeframe that you're reviewing that content? It's like the day that you posted 24 hours a month.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It depends on what your metric is.

[Solar Business Owner]

To Nick and to Brad.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It depends on what your One's to Nick once to Brad. Yep. It depends on what your metric is. If he's trying to sell kilts, he's gonna fucking know within 24 or 48 hours. He's gonna watch it. Be like we didn't convert any ads. If you're trying to build brand, you're looking for engagement. Qualitative engagement. I like this guy. I hate this. You know, like. Right. What are you looking for? Nick and Brad.

[Solar Business Owner]

2. Nick and the other one.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

2. Brad. Yep. That's gonna be hard. I don't think it's. Yeah. Cool. You know what I mean? It always depends. Like it's a very weird ver. It's the micro version of the macro answer I gave him Winning is happy not making more money cause you focused only on the tech company fulfillment fulfillment like you know, you know, like what are you trying to accomplish? And by the way, it's okay if that shit changes. You know. At 27 you might need money or a boyfriend or a girlfriend. At 30, 34 you might want to have more work life balance because you have a child now at 41 you might need more money because you wasted your money after you had a good it's okay for it to change daily. Hey everybody. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.