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- [00:00]
A
This is the GaryVee audio experience. I believe we are now in the not social media, but interest media, meaning social was inherently like who is your social network? Who are your friends? We are now in an era where what are you interested is coming to you from the algorithm. And so what you should be looking at is views. The only thing I really care about on every platform is views achieved because the creative is the variable to the views. Now, people that are watching right now that have never posted, if they post a remarkably good piece of content, that piece of content now has. Has the ability to get more views than something I post. And I'm one of the most followed people on LinkedIn in the world. That is profound. I personally believe the core metric now in the game is views because views are now achieved.
- [00:44]
B
So when you're talking about views, just to dig in here, are you talking about video? Are you saying we should all be doing video or are you just. No.
- [00:51]
A
Nope. To your point, views is. I'm using it as slang, that is for video. But for example, when I look at my Instagram photos, yeah, it's reach. It's reach how many people consumed it. But I'll give you an example right now on Instagram. Back to like we were talking before we got on here. Let's go into details. If you are very into pictures on Instagram and you want to get a lot of people to see it, which is the point of the whole thing, instead of posting it as a picture, post it as a one second video. As a one second reel. As a one second reel. That will get more views than the picture potentially. And by the way, it flips sometimes, other times the picture is. So I'm obsessed with the algorithm. I want to know how every algorithm works. What are they overvaluing? Do they like reels, carousel PDFs? This is something I spend enormous time on.
- [01:40]
B
Well, so I love hearing this and I also think about how many of these platforms exist and it is a great sort of run up to this question which comes from Amy O'Donnell in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ooh, Bowling Green, right.
- [01:52]
A
I like it.
- [01:53]
B
Amy is a Rella regular hello Monday listener and very often on the platform. So it's great to hear from you, Amy. And you ask a question I have. I know it makes most sense to build and maintain your brand across all platforms. However, if you could just choose one, what would it be?
- [02:09]
A
I would have to know what the person's trying to achieve. So for example, if you were selling women's clothes to Gen Xers and boomers. It would be Facebook proper.
- [02:21]
B
Yeah.
- [02:22]
A
If you are an accountant trying to build an accounting firm, it would be LinkedIn. If you were starting a healthy gummies candy for kids and that you're targeting moms, but young moms and maybe even 18 to 25, then TikTok gets very important. So the answer to that question is you have to reverse engineer the upside of the audience that exists in which platform at that moment. Because as you can imagine, if I was targeting college kids and this interview was done in 2010, the answer would be Facebook. Now Facebook is literally grandmas and it used to be literally college kids. And so things. TikTok is very underestimated on how many people, 30 to 50 are on it.
- [03:08]
B
Yes.
- [03:09]
A
People want to default and think the kids are on it. It is a huge platform for 40 to 60. Huge. So those kind of things.
- [03:16]
B
Well, I think to your point, where do we get those insights? I mean you're Gary Vee, you know this stuff. How does Amy know this stuff?
- [03:24]
A
There's this great site called Google.
- [03:26]
B
Okay, fair enough.
- [03:28]
A
No, but it's really, it's fun.
- [03:29]
B
You're making fun of me a lot.
- [03:30]
A
I'm really not. I'm actually trying to really help the audience. It's pretty stunning between and by the way, I'm even giving an answer of two years ago with chatgpt and perplexity. Like it is scary. You can literally type in to an AI ChatGPT environment right now. Like the most hardcore question you could literally say, how do I find out if I own a pizzeria in Brooklyn to get to more people on TikTok enter. The answers are real.
- [03:55]
B
Yeah, they're real.
- [03:56]
A
Whether it's LinkedIn or YouTube shorts or Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, every one of these platforms have different algorithms, different features, different opportunities to make different levels of content. One has to get good at understanding the overlay of what are you capable of? For example, I'm not a very good writer. Even though I've got six New York Times best selling books, I audio them.
- [04:20]
B
Wow.
- [04:21]
A
I audio my books. I interview. We take it from my content, like interviews like this. I'm audio. So if I'm not a good writer, I'm not gonna sit and try to write three paragraph posts on LinkedIn. It's not what I'm capable of. I have a lot of written posts on LinkedIn. They're the transcriptions from video. Because I can speak, this is comfortable for me. And so I think one self awareness of how you create content. Two, you've gotta learn the algorithms. Like the cat's out of the bag. You have to know how these things work. What does the thumbnail have to look like? What are the first three seconds of the video? What's the copy? How is the same. Many people here post the same video on every platform and don't realize that every platform's gonna treat that differently. And so you've gotta actually learn the skill. And the skill you can learn by a million different reasons. There's many people like me that put out unlimited free content about the skills. There's tons of books, there's seminars like this. There's just so many ways to learn. And you've gotta even understand yourself in learning. I learn by audio, again, not by reading. And so you've gotta learn.
- [05:20]
B
You are somebody who really fully embraces social media. You spend a lot of time being very strategic about how you use it. You also know a lot of people can waste a lot of time on social media. We have another question, but before we get there, I want you to advise us on how we be strategic about using that time.
- [05:39]
A
If you want to be a professional athlete and you practice for thousands of thousands of hours and you're not great at practicing, meaning you're not practicing the right crafts. You're only focusing on things that come easy, but you're not working on the hard things, or you're delusional and you're 5 foot 4 and you think you're going to the NBA, all those things will not lead to you being in the NBA. I think it's very similar to what we're talking about here. I think people have to be honest with themselves. You know, if you're sitting right now and you're like, I'm going to be the next, you know, call her Alex Cooper, like, do you have that kind of personality? Is that your framework? Like, are you capable of doing that? So, A, being realistic. B, are you doing it well? There are many people watching right now that when I say things like LinkedIn is one of these big opportunities which I talk about often, and I can go into details in this interview, and they may watch in 30 minutes after we go through it all and say, he's wrong. I've been doing this for a year and nothing good has happened. You may not be doing it well. Like, this is a real thing.
- [06:42]
B
Barry Gottlieb from West Palm Beach, Florida asks, how do you learn what the algorithms are? Magic questions.
- [06:50]
A
So the. When I say the algorithms, I'm Referring to how content shows up in people's feeds. It's the for you page on TikTok. It's your default video page on the other platforms. Learning what they're doing is a game of listening. Every platform puts out stuff, LinkedIn puts out information about new features, things that they value. Adam at Instagram has been making a lot of videos the last 18 months. The CEO of Instagram, I watched one yesterday. He talks about things that are happening with the algorithm. He talked about resetting your algorithm yesterday. His video yesterday was, if you don't like what you're being recommended, here's the way. You go into Instagram and completely clear it and your feed will look totally different. It's gonna look a little weird at first cause that's to learn you. So the answer to the question for that gentleman is research, like really actually actively seeking out the information. Every platform is talking about things and many humans like me are talk about the algorithm and how to get views, how to maximize reach. You've just got to start researching it.
- [07:55]
B
I so appreciate that you used the word listen. I think that is such an underused and under understood, if that's even a way to describe something word. And when you're listening, you're not just listening to the information coming straight at you, but from the side as well, right?
- [08:10]
A
You know, it's funny you bring that up. It's one of the funniest things that me and my team think about when people see me. I'm a yapper, right? I'm yapping here. This is how people normally see me. But the reality is that 90% of the time, I'm not doing things to be seen 95% of the time. And in that time, I'm doing predominantly listening. My entire career is based on listening. But it's hard to see that because I'm such an active talker. In fact, I even talk to listen. A lot of people struggle with my podcast because I do interrupt my guest a lot and I had to adjust because I didn't even realize I talk to listen to me. I'm always trying to understand why the curiosity is insane. What a gift if everybody's watching right now. If you have a kid that's curious, I know it can be annoying when they're three or four. Like why? Why? What a gift. Please do not suppress it.
- [09:06]
B
Please champion it 100%. But don't call it a gift, because if you call it a gift, people will think they got it or they didn't. And another thing about curiosity Is it's so critical is that it's something you can stoke and you better be stoking it.
- [09:18]
A
That is such a great call out. I love you for bringing that context to your point, everything in the world is something one can develop more of. It takes work like exercise. You can get muscles anywhere. If you put in the work, there's obviously some people that are gonna have higher ceilings. Cause DNA is a real thing. But to your point, there's not one thing you can't grow into or be more of if you want to put in the work.
- [09:46]
B
I got the impression from listening to day Trading Attention that your learnings on branding are constantly evolving. So what's changed about your thinking since you recorded the audiobook?
- [09:57]
A
Oh God, I love that question. Actually, a lot. This is insane. So the book just came out and.
- [10:05]
B
Isn'T that your new book?
- [10:06]
A
Yeah. I mean, literally one thing I'm working on right now is called Handle strategy. So brands creating secondary handles so that things that they're too precious, like about their grid on Instagram, if they won't post it there, let's just use New Balance. If New Balance on New Balance, the CMO or the founder or the creative lead doesn't want to post it there, you know, creating an account called New Day by New Balance where they can put it there. So handle strategy was not even talked about in day trading tension. And I'm obsessed with it. A huge one that came up since I wrote and recorded the book is called Attempted Virality. I think the best practice of anybody who is a brand or a person or a brand that's doing a lot of content monthly on social media should have one post a week that attempts virality. It's completely off the reservation.
- [11:05]
B
Right.
- [11:05]
A
The single reason you're making it is you see something in trends or you have an idea that might go crazy, it might flop. But 52 times a year, as a big brand, you should attempt virality. So attempted virality is not there. Handle strategy is not there. Right.
- [11:21]
B
Is that because virality is more important relative to other things than it was?
- [11:27]
A
No, I think it comes down to the creative mindset that I think attempted virality, it. It means that you understand what's happening, which is these platforms are getting to a place where one post can change your business or your life. Like actually, I don't think people really understand.
- [11:40]
B
And attempting it will force you to really learn the mechanics.
- [11:44]
A
I love you. Thank you. That's exactly right. Can I say one other thing? Okay, one last one. I know you got Barry, bear with me one last one. Literally, the question you asked me earlier, what are you most excited about? Literally, social live shopping. Not a reference in the book. So literally, this is what's so cool about the concept of day trading. Attention. This game is moving fast.
- [12:03]
B
Yeah. That you have said since the beginning. This game is moving fast. So I can't really think of a better person to talk about personal branding with. I will tell you that sometimes, even still, I think about personal branding and it gives me a little bit of a what are we talking about? So what are we talking about?
- [12:24]
A
You know, it's funny you bring that up. When the term started to get momentum, a lot of people talked about it in a, ooh, that's icky. Or is that even like a what is that? And I would say, and I've been saying it now, I guess, for maybe 15 years, I would say it's slang for reputation. And immediately all the iciness and all the ick would go away. And so I think, you know that word brand and doesn't feel human. And I understood why it happened. But what we're talking about is a very important thing. It's your professional reputation in the context of this talk. And when I think about what every employee, and I have many of them, and I said to somebody yesterday in a meeting, he was almost like kind of apologizing about applying for other jobs because he thought I would be upset. And I said to him I was happy, and I could tell that he was a little weirded out. And I was like, you have to worry about you and your family. Like, I love you and you love me and we have a good rapport. But you should have optionality.
- [13:27]
B
You are in charge of the personal brand that gets you there.
- [13:30]
A
That's right. And so for me, a lot of people who are watching, they don't realize that they're one LinkedIn post away from a recruiter or a company seeing them as valuable, which may lead to optionality they want. Whether that is the unfortunate thing that happens sometimes in somebody being let go and you needing that optionality or you on offense, not defense, deciding, you know what? I'm burnt out by this. I don't like my new boss. I need to move. There's so many things that happen in life.
- [13:57]
B
Well, you know, we all have a reputation. We all have a personal brand. And I think what we're talking about when we're talking about the tools that you embrace and you said strategically, is being the drivers of our own personal brand. How can one build A personal brand without videos. Let's say you're camera shy.
- [14:14]
A
I mean, I think a lot of people have. I mean, there's a lot of people who've done it in audio and written word. There's a lot of authors who may appear occasionally, interview like this. Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell has a huge brand. He shows up occasionally in video form, but he's not pumping the video kind of content that I am. And so I think it's been achieved. I think you can win in written form. Look at Substack. There's tons of people who are just crushing as writers. I saw a lady freak out over a lady the other day in a cafe, and I didn't know who the person was. And the person next to me is like, oh, that's that author. And the person was like, how did she know what she looks like? We never see her. Like, that's a real life example that happened last year that I can answer this question to. So the answer is, look, written word, audio and video are the mediums. Yes. Look, video killed the radio star. Like, there's a reason video is a bigger platform, no question, than the other two, but the other two are monsters. And I think there's a lot of people that could crush in being like hidden podcasters literally do a podcast where you can't even see their face. If the content's good, people will consume. Yo, everybody. Thank you so much. Just jumping in real quick in the middle of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review for this episode. And I'm gonna get you back to your pod right now because you don't need me talking about that. But I realize I'm. I'm lagging on getting the support of my podcast listeners, so reviewing this episode and overall would mean the world to me. Five star, four star, three star. Fuck it. Two star, one star. Honest feedback's fine. All right, back to the show.
- [15:54]
B
So this question comes from Sean Salisbury in Charleston, South Carolina. And I think that you're particularly well positioned for this question because you are a founder. You have founded companies, big S. At the end of that, Sean asks, when you're leading your organization, how do you communicate and develop your personal brand in such a way that it doesn't compete with your company's brand?
- [16:18]
A
This is a really fascinating question, and it's grounded in one of the things that I'm spending a stunning amount of time on over the last decade. The world's obsession with or instead of and say more I will. I'm going to give it real effect here. I believe that 99% of human beings love the word or. And I believe that I love the word and re ask that question right now, thinking through the framework of or versus and go.
- [16:47]
B
Okay. So Sean, on your behalf, I asked Gary, how do you communicate and develop your personal brand in such a way that it does not compete with your company's brand?
- [16:58]
A
It does not compete. For example, I am, to your point, wildly positioned for this. My personal brand is ahead of every business that I have founded and run. The GaryVee brand is bigger than the Wine Library brand. It is bigger than the Resi. Well, Resi is a pretty big brand. It is bigger than Vayner X. It is bigger than Empathy Wines. Hopefully in the next decade I'll fix this. But it is currently bigger than veefriends. And so I view them as an and game. The content I do on LinkedIn as GaryVee is a gateway drug to Vayner X business. It is an and game.
- [17:33]
B
You know, so many of us are on LinkedIn because we really want to support some business endeavor, right? Yep. And yet we need to be very cognizant of who we are and our use. Unique voice. How would you suggest that people figure out how to amplify what is unique about their own voice?
- [17:50]
A
By bringing in more of their personal life, by bringing in other interests. I think LinkedIn, one of the biggest opportunities in LinkedIn is to treat it like every other platform. So I believe that if you are selling wine or sneakers or you're a pottery maker, I think everything should show up on LinkedIn. I think there's an enormous amount of people on it. Yes, there's a lens to business, corporate professionalism, but I think many people would enjoy when they're on LinkedIn, a piece of content that was out of the realm of it. But to answer your question directly, I may make a piece of business content on LinkedIn, but if I reference me being upset about the jets game on Sunday, that's bringing a little human personality. And I think a lot of us should be bringing in more things around our interests, whether that's skiing or cooking or you like that new Rabbi Love show on netfl that was hot the other day with Adam Brody, like bringing a little humanity. I think even people's profile pictures, I would actually make a huge recommendation right now. I think a lot of you need to get your stuffy from seven years ago suit and tie photo out of your profile on LinkedIn and get a little bit more of who you are as a human. Now, by the way, you might be a really dapper dresser and then keep it if it's authentically you. But I feel a lot of people show up into my office, right, for a business meeting that look very different than the way they're showing up on LinkedIn. And I actually think that that is becoming more and more of a detriment. I think that posturing is starting to be looked at as not authentic, and I think there's an opportunity for people to tweak.
- [19:24]
B
Well, I would just push you to think about the way in which we authentically connect with people. And you mentioned the jets game earlier. And I was like, yeah. What that jets game did is it was like a handheld out to people who can be like, oh, I get Gary. Gary's my guy because we like the jets now. I'm gonna take what he has to say.
- [19:41]
A
Yes, that's exactly right. By the way, that's a really important call out. I think people keep things out because they don't want to mix. This goes back to and. And. Or they're like, gary, I only post about fashion here. How can I post on Instagram about skiing? I'm like, Cause it's not that serious.
- [19:58]
B
Okay. It's like you're reading the next.
- [20:00]
A
Yeah, go ahead.
- [20:01]
B
This one comes from Mary Nesnov in Muskegon, Michigan.
- [20:04]
A
Nice. That was a mouthful.
- [20:06]
B
What? It was. I wonder what it's like in Muskegon today. Mary, tell us in the comments. What if your personal brand has changed through your life? How do you navigate that change?
- [20:16]
A
I love it. Thank you. That was really kismic. Yeah. I think you're allowed, by the way, you may know this because I think you do know this. From 2006 to 2009, I was the wine guy.
- [20:29]
B
Yeah, that's how I first knew you.
- [20:31]
A
Yeah.
- [20:31]
B
In my head a little bit. You're still Gary the wine guy. Of course.
- [20:33]
A
I still like bringing it up once in a while. And Dustin's shaking his head in the background. Sometimes I just get on a kick and wanna do more wine content. And by the way, it doesn't perform as well at times, and other times it performs great. It's down to the piece of content. So what I would say to everybody is good news. The algorithms have changed. No longer is it solely about who follows you. I made a hard pivot from wine only content to business. And then at first it was tactical business. Then it became, like, motivational, because I Realized people weren't doing the things because it was more about emotional frameworks than actual tactics. Now I'm back to, like, more tactics. Cause I'm like, I've talked enough about the emotional framework. And so you're just allowed to ebb and flow. And good news, the algo has changed. I think a lot of people would be blown away if they went to their platform of choice that they built the most equity with and understand the most and posted something left field today. One of two things will happen. It will do terrible or it will do remarkable. And I wish that people understood. Both are good.
- [21:32]
B
Yeah, terrible because it's a signal.
- [21:37]
A
Because that's exactly right. You're learning from the terrible. You post something and you'll see that the audience didn't necessarily like that. But that doesn't mean you never post about skiing again. Do it five to 10 more times and then maybe it's not the right thing. By the way, I might be looking at it pessimistically, which is rare. The 11 people that do like it, you know, that's valuable. And so you gotta really think of this much more.360 Jonathan says, what are.
- [22:00]
B
The biggest challenges you faced in personal branding and how did you overcome them?
- [22:06]
A
Mine is actually the other side of the pillow. I think for a lot of people. The one that most people struggle with, that was not my struggle, is they think they're still in seventh grade and they worry about judgment. You post something on LinkedIn and someone says you're stupid, and then they clam up, which is devastating to me. I'm desperately trying to get people out of the insecurity of middle school and high school in professional settings. My toughest challenge was I made a delusional, optimistic ideology that I was gonna reply to every person that ever, ever mentioned me in social media. And I did that from 2007 to 2011.
- [22:42]
B
That makes me tired to just think about it.
- [22:45]
A
I actually spent most of 2010 and 11 going to sleep at 2am because I would spend like 10pm to 2am answering everybody on Twitter predominately. Back then, I struggled with letting that go because I felt community building was important. I felt like having relationships was important. And so my biggest struggle in building a personal brand was that faithful day in 2011 when I realized the math was beating me and I had to step off that perch that I was standing on for four years.
- [23:17]
B
You, you have been so good over the course of your career at predicting where we are going. Not where we are today, but where we are about to be. You seem to get to platforms first or early in the moments when there's real opportunity. So help us read the future a little bit.
- [23:33]
A
The one that I'm most comfortable putting on video and trying to be historically correct is Live Social shopping.
- [23:40]
B
Talk to me about that.
- [23:41]
A
I believe the buzz of 2025, 2026 will be live social shopping. TikTok shop, an app called whatnot people. Basically QVC within social media. Yeah, it's here. Why I've been good is I tend to talk about things that have happened but the masses haven't recognized. So I'm not guessing. That's why. And I'm always tasting. You know, we talked earlier, like when I'm early on Snapchat or TikTok or the things that I'm on. I was also early on Social Cam and Peach and all these other things that didn't make it. So I'm always putting in the work just in case.
- [24:17]
B
Does anybody out there remember Peach?
- [24:19]
A
Peach was a good one. You know, photo booth was an amazing platform. Live Social shopping has happened. It's gonna explode next year. So for a lot of people who are watching, if you sell something, if you're a retailer. Yeah, if you're a retailer and you have a physical location, especially if you're Main street, like down, think about like a Main street downtown store. Right now, Monday through Friday is dead.
- [24:47]
B
Yeah.
- [24:47]
A
It's just the world has changed. Online shopping rents are getting harder to justify. I believe the cliche, tchotchkes, you know, whatever kind of clothing store, whatever you want to call it, I believe that Main Street, Monday through Friday, in five years, you'll walk down Main street and half of the owners or the employees are going to be on live shopping. They're going to turn their stores into studios because they're going to. Because the opportunities there are going to have to. And so I'm very, very, very hot on live shopping, and I highly recommend people dig deeper into it.
- [25:19]
B
Okay, so it's not going to surprise you that a lot of people, now that we're talking about trends and things coming in the future, have a lot of questions about how AI is going to impact.
- [25:29]
A
Yes, that was this year's buzzword.
- [25:31]
B
Well. And this year's reality. It's very real, very positive in ways.
- [25:35]
A
That were totally questionable, like everything on Earth.
- [25:38]
B
Right. Where are you excited about AI and where are you sort of waiting?
- [25:44]
A
I'm excited about AI in the same way that I was excited when Adobe came out and Photoshop and the Internet, like, it Was much better to go on Yahoo and Dogpile and then Google than it was to go to the Yellow Pages. I'm obsessed with efficiency because every human being is. There's a reason. Convenience is king is one of the great sayings in the world. So I'm incredibly excited about efficiency. I personally think that the conversation of everyone losing their jobs is misunderstood. You know, when the tractor was invented, 80% of the society worked on a farm. That tractor put people out of business so they could go on to do much bigger things. That's how we got highways. You know, like, real things happen. So look, do I think if you're a designer and you don't have any ideas and you just take. You just make things that other people have ideas do I think your job is vulnerable? I do. And I think you should get ahead of that and try to learn the skill. I always say, when there's a big wave coming, don't be scared of it and put your head in the sand, grab a surfboard and try to run it and go with it. And so AI is coming. I think it's going to help us do a lot of things. I'm very excited about it medically.
- [27:01]
B
I will tell you, it's not everybody I invite into the studio who tells me that my job is in question. So thank you for that and thank you to so many people. I just want to shout out a few of the folks on stream. We've got Ariel in Canada, Tracy in St. Louis, Chris in Atlanta, Neha in London. What many, many people. Many of you in the chat are wondering about all sort of ladders up to ideas around authenticity. Right? So this, this is one question comes from Elliot Grossbart in Miami, Florida, who asks this word, authenticity. It's lost its power. It's lost. Been overused. It now feels more like a buzzword to Elliot. He asks, how do you explain the true meaning of being authentic?
- [27:41]
A
I think, first of all, I think Elliot's right. Yeah, Like, I think people throw it around. Honestly, I don't even have the interest in the academic, philosophical nature of the question. Meaning he's absolutely right, comma, how? Like, I'm going to look directly at the camera. How don't people understand? Like, don't be full of crap. Talk about the truth. Speak about what you know. Like, I don't really know. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, meaning, don't worry about judging other people's authenticity. Focus on you being authentic. Everything will fall into place.
- [28:13]
B
Well, so now you're getting to, like, what it means to make good content. There is an art to making good content and not everybody's just gifted at it from the get go. Like, there is a craft here. The.
- [28:25]
A
Because this entire theme for the last minute is based about a very important currency in our society that unfortunately is weaponized often, including right now. It's called fear. Do you know why people are not authentic? They're scared of the ramifications. They're scared to get laughed at. They're scared to be judged. They're scared to be fired, which is a fear that's worth being scared about. So, yeah, I mean, I think that I wish people could go there because it's so much more fun. Do you know how fun it is to not overthink?
- [28:57]
B
I mean, I wish I knew how fun it was to not overthink. I'm fundamentally incapable of not overthinking.
- [29:03]
A
Gary, I love the. You know what's so funny? That's my favorite moment with you so far. That level of authenticity of the humility and the vulnerability that you just shared with everybody. I promise you, I know what I just felt. It makes me compassionate. It makes me. I understand. And it's a very big deal in our society right now. This whole theme. This is it. Yeah, this is it.
- [29:27]
B
I don't want to let you go without really diving into the importance of building authentic connections. It's not just about speaking your truth out into the world. It's about realizing the connection. How do we think about that?
- [29:40]
A
Live streaming? Let's just go tangible. You want to build a deeper connection, go live. And in the beginning, when I used to go live in 2007, I would go live on something called ustream and there'd be 40 people there. And the depths of the connections I made with those 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 people in that first year were profound. So I love live, and then I love double live. Real life live. So that's live streaming. How about doing real life events? Even again, if you. If you're a real estate developer or a real estate broker or a financial advisor or you have two gyms in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, if you're making content, your 20th, 500th, whatever number is appropriate after you got some momentum going, if the post was like, hey, all of you, I just actually want to get to know you now, this has been so fun. I'm hosting a dinner at the local steakhouse. Here's a little goofy form. First, 12 people that RSVP and I'll see you. Like, the answer is actually putting in the work.
- [30:40]
B
Yeah.
- [30:40]
A
I think we were talking right before we went live that one of my challenges, like, I'm such an HR driven CEO and it's hard for me to do the one on ones, but I've built this culture. We have over 100 people that have been with the company for 10 plus years. That's insane in my industry.
- [30:54]
B
Wow.
- [30:55]
A
But that is earned. You must put in the actual time. That's dinners, phone calls, you know, spouse dinners. Like, real life stuff.
- [31:04]
B
Also, underneath that, I just want to call out. Sounds like you also must care about people. Like, that has to be genuine.
- [31:09]
A
Yeah. I think it's a good call out. And by the way, I'm gonna say something very weird right now. I understand why a lot of people in corporations don't care. Meaning if you're just a EVP at a company and you're not even, like, it's not your company. You work at a big conglomerate and you're just. You care about your family. You care about making as much money as possible to send your kids to school. Like, it's like, I think your point is well taken. I'm fortunate that it's. That the company's my baby.
- [31:39]
B
Yeah.
- [31:40]
A
And so I care about the company, which inherently means I care about the people. Right. I implore everyone to try to find environments where people care because it's a lot more fun to work there.
- [31:51]
B
Okay. So this is a wonderful bridge to the idea of carrying the work with me on it. This question comes from Holly Stevenson in England. She says, how do you get comfortable with selling? Giving tips and tricks is great, but how do you use personal branding to actually sell?
- [32:06]
A
Good question. I love this question. I love selling because I like what I sell. I loved selling wine because I only sold wine I believed in. I never sold wine, a bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay or Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio in my life. I'm sorry to call out those two wines, but literally did not sell it. Literally, people would come in and be like, I want to. Do you have a case of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay? I'm like, yes, and I'm happy to get it for you, but have you ever tried other Chardonnays that are buttery and oaky? Because here's this, and it's $2 less. And when they would come back and say, and we're talking in the 90s when it was $8.99 and $6.99, and when, like, two weeks later, when that customer would come back and be like, oh my God, I love this Chardonnay, this J. Lohr, whatever it was at the time, that was everything to me. And so what I would say to all of you is selling is amazing. The problem with the world right now is a lot of you are selling something you don't actually believe in. So selling. How do you get comfortable with it? By asking yourself if you believe in what you're selling. If you believe in what you're selling, it gets comfortable. If you don't, you get skittish. If you're a good person. Sounds like this person's a good person. Now she has to ask herself, does she believe in what she's selling? This is a huge deal.
- [33:22]
B
Right, Right. I hear that. Oh, this is a great. We're sadly getting closer to the end of our time here. And this is such a great wrap up question. This comes from Matt O'Brien, also in New York. Matty, what's a question that you just wish more people. People would ask you?
- [33:38]
A
You know, it's funny, again, referencing it when you were very gracious before we came in here, you said, okay, we're gonna do this. And you said, what do you want to get out of this? And I said, nothing. I want to bring value to this audience. So it's funny when I hear people ask me this question sometimes it's. I don't really have a question. I only want to answer. If I have a question, I'll ask it. But when I'm in answer mode, I'm like agnostic. I want to know what brings value to somebody else.
- [34:07]
B
Okay, Matt, I'm gonna build off your question a little bit. What I'm curious about is what is the question that more people would be successful if they asked you, how do.
- [34:19]
A
I fix my insecurity? This is a very simple game. It's the most complex part of the game. But life is remarkably framed up in where you sit between insecurity and true confidence.
- [34:36]
B
Okay, well, I. This question comes from Paulina Rovinsky in Seattle, Washington. And, and I. I also have this question. She says women are conditioned not to take up too much space. It is true. I am as socialized as a woman from birth. What would you say to them when building a project?
- [34:52]
A
I think about it a lot. My mom is my hero. I know so many of my best friends in business are women. It's been a topic for the last 15 years of my life that I've been conscious of. I say to them the same thing I say to men. People of color, race, gender, all the things that one would think about like hey, this is why I can't or this is the issue. I think you accept the truth. I think there are macro things that are true. And then you ask yourself, has there ever been a woman on earth that has taken up the oxygen in the room that has broken that social norm? I can answer. For me the answer is overwhelmingly yes. I've seen it hundreds if not thousands of times. And then you ask yourself, does that mean you are then capable of working just like curiosity to get to that place?
- [35:45]
B
Right.
- [35:46]
A
I believe that accountability is the drug to happiness. I believe many things are true. I believe that people judged me throughout my 20s cause I went to Mount Ida College and I grew up in an era like you, Gen X where you went to college was a direct correlation to your worth.
- [36:03]
B
Yes.
- [36:03]
A
Right?
- [36:04]
B
Yes.
- [36:04]
A
Tell the kids.
- [36:04]
B
And hey, is that really only a Gen X thing? Because I'm pretty sure that we're still.
- [36:08]
A
Athletes trying, but it's going away. Like I don't even, I don't even know a single college, any kid, any person in my company went to. Like I believe, look at the big. Some of the biggest, most important companies in the world don't require a college degree. I think college is in a different place.
- [36:22]
B
Yes, I believe you.
- [36:23]
A
Right. So look, there was a huge stigma for me. I was an atrocious student. I was judged my entire career until I was probably 36, 37. I would watch people hear me say something smart, ask me what college I went to. I would say Mount Ida College and I could see their face physically, physically not take me serious anymore. And I had a choice to make which was do I value that person's opinion or do I persevere through. And so I would say there's. I believe everything that, that's a beautiful question, but I think it is a capable achievement. I just do.
- [37:01]
B
Yeah. Well, this is perhaps advice you might have for Martha Turner Indicator Georgia as well. Well, she asks is it ever too late to create a personal brand over 65 and still going strong over here?
- [37:14]
A
You've clearly not seen my content because 40% of my content is the biggest joke. You're gonna. I'm sorry, what was her name? Martha.
- [37:20]
B
Martha.
- [37:20]
A
Yeah. Martha. You're gonna like this. I don't know if we know if you've ever seen me. It's such a pleasure to meet you. The single biggest joke that my community, which is quite large makes fun of me for is they make memes of me of like 98 year old man comes up to Gary in the street and goes, what do you think I should do? You're a baby. You haven't even started age. Wow. It's funny. We just talked about, you know, gender, ageism. You want to talk about something I'm really passionate about? 65. She's going to live another 25 years. What, are you going to just sit there? Like, I am so passionate about this. With the advancements in health, with where I think our food, like, I think there's going to be some real changes in our society. Forget about even the RFK thing, even if that didn't happen. And you can just feel the consumer starting to get smarter about clean and, like, it's. Even think about health and wellness. Like, nobody exercised when we were 6 and 7.
- [38:13]
B
It's true.
- [38:13]
A
None of our friends, parents exercised. We're getting smarter. So anyway, I believe Lovely Martha's gonna live another 25, 30 years, 40 years maybe even. And a lot of the people under 40 are gonna live to 100. And I don't understand this concept. Oh, I'm 47. It's over. Like, I screwed up.
- [38:30]
B
Yeah.
- [38:31]
A
And I'm like, you haven't even gone into halftime. You can go into halftime and make halftime adjustments. The answer is no. Emphatically no. It is never too late.
- [38:42]
B
Love that answer. This question comes from Lydia hall in Fishers, Indiana, and it sort of harkens back to something we were talking about earlier. She says, what's the fine line between personal and professional on LinkedIn? And could you damage your brand by adding too much?
- [38:57]
A
Personally, I mean, if you talk about things that are inappropriate and you're a bad person. Yes. But let me ask a more interesting question. If you shared your interest in fishing or that you're baking brownies for your daughter who's coming back from college, would you really even want to do business with somebody who would eliminate you? Because you talked about that.
- [39:21]
B
Yeah.
- [39:22]
A
How about we judge the judgers? I have a big idea in the world. Why don't we flip the script and start judging the judgers and the way that she asked that question. So, for example, in my career, I haven't done it here because I'm being pretty gracious and I'm being conscious of a lot of new audience, but I curse a lot.
- [39:41]
B
I've noticed I've heard very little of it in the last 45 minutes.
- [39:44]
A
Yeah, I've cursed a lot in my career. And in 2009, you know, I'm a Jersey boy, and this is how I communicate. And I think you can tell. I get excited and it would come out. And everybody along the way was like, you're not gonna be able to build an agency. They're not gonna hire you. Cause you curse. And I genuinely viewed it as. I understand. And we may not get some clients. I'm like, but I'm not sure we could be successful with somebody who thinks a curse word is an indicator to doing proper marketing.
- [40:13]
B
And that is that right there. That idea drives so much of the undercurrent of your work. Okay, I got one final member question. It comes from Dominique Richie in Alberta, Canada, who asks when building and growing personal brand, how do you manage your time? Like, literally on your daily calendar, what does this look like for you?
- [40:34]
A
In the early days from 2007 to 2014, I did it by myself and I found spots, I don't know, like, you're just managing your calendar since 2014. I started to build infrastructure around me the last 10 years. So now. And I've referenced him. I didn't give you any context. Dustin, who videos me when I do things. We're videoing this, and we will take clips from it, and the team will post, produce content. They will send it to me, I will write the copy, and we post it.
- [40:59]
B
You all need a dust in your life.
- [41:00]
A
Yeah, we all definitely need a dust in our lives. I promise you, everybody. So I think managing your time, my recommendation is understanding its priority. I personally believe that for a stunning percentage of the people watching right now, that if they actually made 25 meaningful videos, written words, posts on LinkedIn, that something good would happen in their career and that that is more valuable than a lot of the mundane meetings they take that mean nothing.
- [41:27]
B
Yeah.
- [41:28]
A
So you're talking to someone who truly believes that social media, creative, organic social, not even paid amplification, organic social, because these algorithms we've talked a lot about has become pretty much the most important thing one can do. And I'm aware that most people think of it as last place they have to come in and check the books and open the store. And I would say that the second you put it at the priority level that I believe it actually deserves, you'll find time because you prioritize what's important.