The Golden Era of LinkedIn and the Power of "No"

Summary

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The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: The Golden Era of LinkedIn and the Power of "No"
Date: April 14, 2026
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Guest/Co-host: Brandon (contextually, likely a senior VaynerMedia executive or entrepreneur)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience dives deep into the realities of entrepreneurship in today’s content-driven economy. Gary Vaynerchuk and Brandon answer live audience questions on building businesses, agency operations, content creation, and personal branding. The discussion is especially focused on the power of leveraging underpriced platforms like LinkedIn, the fundamental importance of genuinely enjoying your work, and the necessity of learning to say “no” for long-term business and personal growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Loving Your Work is Non-Negotiable

• The episode opens and closes with Gary’s passionate plea that entrepreneurship works best when it’s your true calling, not just a means to fast money.
  • “If you feel the same way about going skiing for a weekend as you do waking up Monday morning for your thing…everything changes. All the good shit happens.” (Gary, 00:00 & 11:37)
• Brandon expands on this by describing a life in business centered around love for the grind, not external validation or stereotypical markers of success.

2. Building from Scratch & Staying Scrappy

• Gary reflects on his origin story, working from week one post-college with no marketing budget—opting for DIY fliers and relentless hustle.
  • “I printed 100 of them, came to the store the next day, parked my car, ran and opened the store to told one of the kids to keep an eye on the shop and drove to the Short Hills Mall and literally put those flyers on windshields for an hour and a half.” (Brandon, 00:27)
• Discipline in operations and cash flow—never raising capital, making payroll, and learning every side of the business—is identified as the real, often neglected “glory.”

3. Advice on Services, Growth, and Saying "No"

• Many audience questions revolve around when to expand service offerings (e.g. adding SEO to a social agency), partnering, and dealing with client overreach.
  • “Everybody’s biggest vocab addition is no.” (Brandon, 55:15)
  • “You’re choosing to be taken advantage of. Everybody’s a big girl and boy in here. You’re more than welcome to say no.” (Brandon, 43:10)
• The message: growth should never compromise your happiness or values. “The next $100 is often the beginning of you not liking your business anymore.” (Brandon, 09:24)

4. The Golden Era of LinkedIn

• Brandon emphatically calls out LinkedIn as a current, massively underpriced channel—likening it to Facebook in 2011.
  • “I'm gonna give you another chance right now. It’s happening right now. It’s called LinkedIn. LinkedIn is Facebook 2011. Right now you could have no followers, nobody on earth knows you. You make a video, a picture, a written word, a deck, a something, you post it and a lot more people than you think will see it. You’re welcome.” (Brandon, 31:16)
• Testimonial-based brand building and authenticity on LinkedIn is encouraged, as is finding new, creative content formats—cartoons, written deep-dives, etc.

5. Document, Don’t Create

• To address the “I don’t have time for content” excuse, Gary and Brandon lay out a tactical shift:
  • “I invented document, don’t create. They should film their day.” (Brandon, 34:02)
  • The practical solution: podcasts as a content engine; becoming a guest to generate valuable distributable content.
  • “Don’t have time, don’t get results.” (Brandon, 35:30)

6. Give Your Best Content Away for Free

• On “fuck your seven day trial”: Brandon condemns value-hoarding as outdated and urges generosity in sharing actionable knowledge, which disrupts transactional, self-serving models in internet marketing.
  • “If you do not bring value to the end consumer, you should be disrupted.” (Brandon, 36:59)

7. On Personal Brand & Platform Arbitrage in Asia

• Expansion of personal brands in Asia hinges on understanding KOL (Key Opinion Leader) ecosystems, but the fundamentals remain: “The answer is always the same, what are humans doing? And then bring them the most value in that channel.” (Brandon, 14:50)
• Global media costs and underpriced media are the big opportunities.

8. Sustainable, Authentic Business (Jedi vs. the Dark Side)

• A recurring theme: growth at all costs leads to misery—even for those who do, in fact, “get the bag.”
  • “There’s Star wars, there’s the Jedis and the dark side and both can win to a point, but Jedis will always win, so they can have sustainable lives.” (Gary, 19:32)

9. Building Agencies: Retaining Talent, HR Focus, and Client Management

• To scale to $100M+ agencies, being in the “HR business” is crucial—agency teams need cohesion and safety, not just sales and execution.
  • “To build a hundred million dollar agency, you have to be in the HR business…My people are gonna stay for 5, 10 and 15 years, cause I actually give a fuck about them.” (Brandon, 25:24)
• Don’t sell yourself as the main attraction—successfully transition clients by setting expectations upfront and learning to say “no.” (54:56-55:15)

10. Platform-Specific Insights & Future Trends

• Voice is identified as the “only real dark horse” emerging channel (51:00+); TikTok is not “the next” Instagram yet, but shows signs.
• Brands are advised NOT to waste energy on convincing the unconvincable (46:53), but to allocate effort strategically toward those who “get it.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “If you think you’ve lost before you’ve started, you already lost. And that’s real.”
  – Brandon, 04:37

• “Most people are doing it for all the wrong reasons.”
  – Gary, 07:12

• “You have to contextualize it to you, but you have to contextualize it from optimism.”
  – Gary, 14:04

• “You didn’t get the luxury of circumstance and parenting that I had.”
  – Brandon, 33:05

• “Whoever feeds their customer and their business instead of extracting it so that they can buy dumb shit to impress people they don’t even like, tends to build better wealth and businesses.”
  – Brandon, 37:34

• “You never want somebody else to have leverage more than you have the leverage.”
  – Brandon, 45:24 (on influencers)

• “The biggest word that everybody in this room needs to add is 'no.'”
  – Brandon, 55:15

• “The end customer is the leverage, not the relationship with the person that writes the check. If you’re playing long.”
  – Brandon, 57:41

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |--------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Passion for your business vs. escapism | | 00:27 | Early business hustle: flyers, no marketing budget | | 02:23 | Proudest moments: building real companies, making payroll | | 07:49 | Do it because you really like it (inspired by DMX news) | | 09:24 | The impact of expanding vs. staying focused | | 14:43 | Advice on personal branding in Asia & platform arbitrage | | 31:16 | LinkedIn’s golden age for organic reach & content innovation | | 34:02 | Content engine: “Document, Don’t Create” & podcast funnel | | 35:30 | On making time: “Don’t have time, don’t get results.” | | 36:04 | “Fuck your seven day trial”—Generosity trumps withholding content | | 45:24 | Taking back leverage from influencers; power of animation | | 46:53 | Don’t waste time convincing skeptics; move on quickly | | 51:00 | If starting over now, focus would be on Voice; do what you’re best at | | 54:56 | Handing off client relationships, “no,” and setting clear expectations up front | | 55:15 | The importance (and difficulty) of saying “no” | | 57:41 | Letting clients come to you, end customer as the true leverage point |

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Memorable Audience Interactions

• Several listeners share how Gary’s advice or content changed their lives—building multimillion dollar businesses, getting through tough losses, and learning English through his content (44:26).

• The power of “no” is showcased in a playful refusal to join someone’s podcast:

  • “If you had booked four guests, I would have definitely done it.” (Brandon, 23:13)

• Hug request from an entrepreneur who found success on LinkedIn:

  • “I tried to get you earlier, man.” (Brandon, 38:11) “Hell yeah.” (Gary, 38:12)

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Takeaways & Action Items for Listeners

• LinkedIn is currently a massive arbitrage for organic business content. Get on it now.
• Document your journey. Podcasts, daily filming, testimonials—find your format.
• Learn to say “no.” Growth that leads to unhappiness isn’t worth it.
• Don’t play to impress peers or the market—focus on passion, reputation, and real value.
• Give away your best ideas; generosity builds equity, not scarcity.
• If you love your process, you’re set for sustainable growth.

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This episode is a fast-paced, highly actionable masterclass in modern entrepreneurship, agency scaling, and personal brand strategy—with Gary’s signature blend of tough love, tactical advice, and irrepressible optimism.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Most people play golf because that's the thing they choose to do. That's their escapism. They like it. Do you ski? Because they escape. They like it. They swim, they play tennis, they go out at night, they go to the club, they watch sports, they play video games. For me, I'm trying to push the conversation of can you make that your business? Because if you feel the same way about going skiing for a weekend as you do waking up Monday morning for your thing, which is how I live my life and I see it in others, everything changes. All the good shit happens.

[Brandon]

This is the GaryVee audio experience. What did I do when I had no money? Which is really basically the framework of the talk, which is, you know, a lot of people in this room that are familiar with my work, I talk about a lot of progressive things, a lot of things. But the reality is I always remember when I kept trying to change the narrative in the late in 2014, 15, 16, which is I didn't build wine library through just social media. I did direct mail. It was search, it was email marketing. And I took it way back because I knew that a lot of people in the room had no marketing budget. And it made me remember something that is super fun for me, which is literally week one out of college, no marketing budget. I printed a bunch of 20% off by the case of wine things on a picture I made in some sort of version of old school photo, not even Photoshop yet. I was so computer I couldn't even know what I was doing. I remember it had a crab. Literally a crab. There was a default picture of a crab in a beach and I was like, that's fine. And I put that there and then made dotted lines and it said 20% off on a case of wine. Non sale Items. I printed 100 of them, came to the store the next day, parked my car, ran and opened the store to told one of the kids to keep an eye on the shop and drove to the Short Hills Mall and literally put those flyers on windshields for an hour and a half. What's fun about that for me here now is day one. Vayner was super funny. And the reality is I knew nothing about the advertising industry and I had to learn it and I had to build. And so it's fun for me to be challenged to remember what I did.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I actually think I mean nothing and that if I die Tomorrow, I'll have

[Brandon]

12 hours of good talk on Twitter. Brandon will say that I was a

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

good mentor and said a couple smart things. Zubin will say I was, but like, I believe. I mean nothing, but I have conviction in what I believe. And I'm sure that comes across sometimes, yada as that I think I'm better. I actually think I'm worse. On the record, what I promise every

[Brandon]

one of you, when I think about business that I'm most proud of, is 21 years ago, I walked into my dad's store and he decided, cause he was passionate about it, to renovate the house. This is like family business shit. And I was in charge now. I'd been in the business since I was 14. Every weekend, every summer vacation, my dad knew that I wasn't a schlemiel and I was capable. And even the last two years of college, I was coming home almost every weekend, putting in work. But I walked in. And from that day to this second, I have not raised capital. I have had a payroll to make. What blows my mind, this is not true with Boehner because of the scale. But I didn't even have a credit line for wine library. And our invoices were due on 30 days or the distributor would put you on COD, cash on delivery, which would stop you from being able to buy from any of the distributors. The discipline that I was raised in to, you know, pay with what you had.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Right.

[Brandon]

And so I've scrapped. I'm most proud that for 21 straight years I've had to make payroll and I have operations building an actual business. So a lot of fancy other things have come along the way. But the connection point I feel for this room is quite high.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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. We live in a framework now where people are using these proxies that are not real. How much money did you raise? You know, there's so much money being printed. The trillions that America just printed for stimulus is now in the market. Where do you think that's going? There's so much money. Why did he keep going? Because he didn't go out of business. Kept it alive because he liked it.

[Brandon]

I am really passionate about operations and how to build an actual business. And it's very hard to produce content for that that can bring enough value. And that's why I don't go there. I found my listen. I think a lot of you have a sense of me. There was a very long time where I went nowhere close to anything motivational because I have 0.0 interest in being a motivational speaker, even though I know many, many people view me that way. I'm motivated, I'm optimistic, I'm deeply grateful and happy and I genuinely do believe that perspective really, really matters. Because if you think you've lost before you've started, you actually already lost. And that's real.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I invested in Brandon's company couple years ago and it was the only investment I made in like a two year period because I'd stopped investing and we met and I remember literally in my head saying, I'm going to regret not doing this. This is because I stopped investing because I realized what I was doing wrong, which was I was investing in companies. And I promised myself I was done with that and I was going to go back to why I invested in Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr when I was on fire and why the mistake I made with Travis on Uber is I got, I became a VC instead of Gary Vaynerchuk and I said I'm going back and it's going to happen with TikTok. Excuse me, with, with Mick Mac, with Rachel. Right, that one. I invested in the human. And I remember I'm. I'm 20 minutes in with Brandon and I meet a lot of high energy, excited about their business people. I'm one of those people. And the reason people have cynicism for me is the reason that a lot of people passed on Brandon too is you don't really know when you meet that energy if this is the eight out of ten completely full of shit. One or the two out of ten, like fuck, this is a big one, right? And I remember being in the meeting and asking some business. I just remember it. I actually don't. You know the Maya Angelou thing, you remember what you feel now. Like couldn't tell you a word of the meeting. Can tell you everything my body felt and I was 100% positive and I invested and, and it, it's what I want everybody, because I'm reading the comments, please love your game because if you love your like, that's why I think I got emotional when I you, when you said what kept you going? I'm like, he had no choice. He liked it too much. Of course, outside the validation didn't matter. He liked it too much. He liked it too much. Yeah. He believed in his mission. He liked it too much and he was capable enough. He didn't go out of business. A lot of people like it and go out of business and most people are Doing it for all the wrong reasons.

[Brandon]

And like I've just been very, very thoughtful of how to create content at scale and post produced it contextual to the platforms that matter. But that doesn't take away from the fact that I'm spending 11 to 14 hours a day being the CEO and COO of a thousand person global agency. So I have some thoughts. Started from scratch so I can remember and I understand and I know what has worked for me and others that look like me and what has kept lot of people at the $700,000 a year in revenue business. So I really think I can help. So please fire away and I'm really, I'm honestly grateful to be here and I appreciate it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you for everybody who's in here right now trying to be an entrepreneur, wanting to be an entrepreneur. Please, please, you know, do it because you like it so much. You know, a lot of people in the comments right now saying some unfortunate news. It's now confirmed that DMX has passed. Right. The reason people are so emotional about DMX is he had passion for his thing as an artist. And you feel that there's a lot of people that go into the rap game for the money, just like entrepreneurship. And I think for a lot of people right now, like if you truly love your game, then you won't worry if you have a blue check mark, you won't worry if you have a million followers, you won't worry if you're doing a million dollars, you just won't.

[Brandon]

You won't.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's like skiing. Do you play golf?

[Agency Owner / Marketer]

I have a specific question. So I only do social media marketing at our agency. We only do social and email, but social mainly on that forefront. But we serve a very particular vertical. We serve automotive. So we're a women owned business that do social media marketing. Their leader's 55 years old. Like any of that gives a shit about anything. Right. And we not only just serve the automotive industry, but we really kind of niche with subprime dealerships. That's kind of where our forte is, is that non intender market. And so my question has been because people ask me all the time, do you guys do also? Which means search and we don't. Because my brain is only so big and so I don't know whether I need to partner with somebody or just continue to let them find their outsourcing for that. Because all digital isn't right.

[Brandon]

I understand. And do you do paid and creative or just paid or just creative?

[Agency Owner / Marketer]

Paid and creative.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Understood.

[Brandon]

So I think the Answer is extremely personal. I think you and everybody else here is not unaware that when you don't provide a service, it creates a vulnerability that can lead to you losing your service. Right. Not super complicated. We've all been there. I think it comes down to. And this is actually what a way. Thank you, Robin. This is a great way to start. I literally backstage just made a video and for the people that follow me the most, I'm in such post production film my life mode that the days of five or six years ago when I go straight to camera with a thought, video is rare. Original programming just for the video is rare for me these days. But I'm so compelled right now around this thought that people are not self aware of what makes them happy when they run a business. And everybody just thinks about growth without realizing the next employee or the next hundred dollars is the beginning of the process of you not liking your business anymore. And that's your answer. Your answer is predicated on, you know, it's a vulnerability in one way, it's also a strength in another way. You just have to ask yourself, are you happy with the level business that you're at? And if you're not, are you in a place where you think you can get more deep, narrow, or do you think you need to go wide?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right.

[Brandon]

Partnering is no correct. Right. All partnerships are vulnerable from the get. It's inconceivable that another business or human has the same exact interests as you do. And something's going to happen eventually. And again, this is what makes this fun. The heads are nodding because you lived it. You already thought about the shit you did that didn't work. And this. Right. So that's why we never partnered with anybody. As a matter of fact, I never took a single meeting to partner with anybody because I knew I was gonna do everything. Cause I'm building it for myself. And I had no interest claiming that they're the one that told me to do video. You know, I didn't even want to make myself vulnerable to somebody claiming that in a meeting where they were trying to get me to partner with them, that when I then did what they did, I was a dick. So I wouldn't even take the meetings because I didn't want the reputational vulnerability because I knew there was never going to be a scenario where I was going to partner with anybody. I was going to do everything.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Most people play golf because that's the thing they choose to do. That's their escapism. They like it. Do you ski? Because they Escape, they like it. They swim, they play tennis, they go out at night, they go to the club, they watch sports, they play video games. For me, I'm trying to push the conversation of, can you make that your business? Because if you feel the same way about going skiing for a weekend as you do waking up Monday morning for your thing, which is how I live my life and I see it in others, everything changes. All the good shit happens.

[Brandon]

I'm also a very big fan. When you want to do something else, to not do yesterday's thing, to do tomorrow's. I would much rather a lot of people here who are in social only not go and do search and banner and programmatic, but start the process of affording the ability to do voice in four years.

[Agency Owner / Marketer]

Nice.

[Brandon]

Because their business will grow much more.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Early in my career at wine library, somebody said to me, gary, the wine business is around selection, price and service and to be successful. And this was the guy who had the biggest distributor company, hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm 22 years old. It's our first lunch meeting. And he goes, you got a lot of talent. You know, know your dad for a long time. And I. Cause I've been in the store since I was 14. This is me kind of like coming of age. He goes, you're gonna have to pick two of the three to be successful. I didn't say anything. Six years later, there was like this huge New York Times article written about me, like, building the biggest wine store in the country so fast, kid. And I told the story, and I didn't mention him by name. And I said. And I remember him saying that. And I remember walking back to the store. Cause it was close to the store and saying, that's the stupidest advice I'd ever. Why won't I just deliver on price, service and selection? The guy wrote me a letter. He goes, read the article, unbelievably. Goes, I have a bad feeling. I know who that person was. Congratulations. And I think the point there that Brandon was making for a lot of people in the chat right now or listening after we record this, too many people listen to people that have done it before. Then the mark, the market changes. People are different. People have different strengths and weaknesses. Dynamics change. The context has changed. One of the reasons that I don't think I share my passions, I don't think that I'm giving advice or should be listened to. Why? Because there's too many nuances on the person. On the other side of it for me to actually give advice is when me and Brandon actually spoke Zubin, when you and I actually have meetings, give me all the context. I'll do the best I can to give good advice, pattern recognition, good intent. But Gary Vee, the character I'm trying to share my passions and hypotheses and general nuances that I see, but it's not actual advice because the human on the other side of it needs to give too much context for that story to be advice. And for everybody who's listening, me, everybody else in the world, your parents, Brandon, Zubin, like, you have to contextualize it to you, but you have to contextualize it from optimism, not from like excuses to why not? Because then when you're being cynical and being in no culture or negative culture or spewing negativities, your game is already

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

My question to you is, besides podcasting, what advice would you give entrepreneurs in Asia to build a personal brand?

[Brandon]

Well, I think podcasting is going to have a huge growth in that area. I also think that, you know, KOLs are disproportionately advanced in Asia, especially mainland China and other places. So, you know, the ability to tap into the influencer ecosystem in that world is quite advanced. I also think that there's enormous arbitrage on all the social networks out in Southeast. So we opened up Singapore because we think the media costs on Instagram and Facebook and the platforms that play even line when we go full time to Japan, South Korea are even more underpriced than they are in America. Our global expansion has been completely predicated on the underpriced nature of the media that we most believe in. So the answer is it doesn't change. My answer is always the same, what are humans doing? And then bring them the most value in that channel. I mean, again, I know a lot of you are following at home like the fact that Crushing it only came out like 18 months ago as a book and spoke nothing of LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is the top thing I'm talking about is wild. Here's why it's wild. It's not a new thing. It just became underpriced. There's a very dark horse chance that I'm going to talk a lot about print and direct mail, radio and television one day because the market so collapses that the price becomes actually a deal. I want to buy outdoor billboards when they're remnant and I could buy them for two months for 2,000 instead of 34,000. I'm unemotional. I can't wait to be at a conference like this in seven years and completely shit on social media. Because you have to understand I wasn't making content and you weren't following along. When I built my entire companies on Google, guys, I ran ads on Google the day it came out. I bought Google AdWords for 5 cents a click the day it came out. For Wine Terms. That was one of the biggest reasons Wine Library grew. I did email marketing in 1997. Heavy. It was my religion. I had 90 fucking percent open rates like it was unheard of, but it was new. The same rate. Right now I'm getting a million. I'm getting hundreds and if not thousands of emails a day or DMs from people that are thanking me for telling them to go on TikTok. It's just arbitrage for people who are

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

listening, who are very early in their journey. Brandon's capability for that kind of distribution and then that street dirt, four years of entrepreneurship to make it successful box by box. Because he was on. He was scaling. Unscalable behavior is really the only way to win Big Box. And that's if you're even lucky enough to be able to get into big Box. So the reality is, is that 97 to 98% of people listening right now are going to start DTC. And to your point, Zubin, I think this still keeps coming down to just. Brandon's a good businessman and Rachel's a good businesswoman at mcmac. And I hope we get back to that. It's not just about raising money, doing Facebook arbitrage. The conversation of being a good businessman or woman. I'm almost starting. I can't believe what I just said. I'm starting to realize I'm thinking about the same way. I don't use Hustle anymore. Cause it's been manipulated and now I use work ethic as one of the things that matter. I'm starting to think that I'm going to start using business, man and woman more than entrepreneur. Because I think the word's been manipulated and understood to be something else. Like you have to be good at business. This is business.

[Brandon]

People dig in on the thing they know and aren't willing to kill the thing that got them there. That's what's happening in this room. You're not willing to kill the thing that got you to the dance when it no longer is the thing. And so you start justifying and you start shitting on the new thing, which gets you deeper in the hole. Then you feel even further behind. That's the game that's the game DDC

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

stands direct to consumer. It's a term we use in E commerce. And Brandon, that's what goes back to my earlier point, which was you're not waking up at 4 o' clock if you're doing it for the Lambo. You're not calling a customer and apologizing and driving to their house and saying sorry.

[Brandon]

If you don't worry about your reputation

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

because you can do business forever. Like, this goes back to tried and true, good, kind, real authentic realities of life. That will be the sustained model in the supply and demand of as many businesses that are out there. And I think that I just can't get this out of my stomach anymore. If you don't like it, you're not

[Brandon]

going to pull it off.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And yes, do some people frantically that chase money pull it off? They do, but I know those people, you know what happens? They become even more miserable with the money. They start doing terrible shit. You know this, Brandon. You run in the LA circles. Like there is, like, there's, it's Star wars, there's the Jedis and the dark side and both can win to a point, but Jedis will always win. So they can have sustainable lives, right? The dark side, that's about it. For the money, they do it for the insecurity. They can pull it off too, because that energy is high. Darth Vader's fucking powerful. But what happens is when they get the bag, it gets really dark. It does and it gets. And like, that's what I don't want. Like, there's people here who may say, ah, Gary's full. Yeah, I hear it, I hear it from the dark Jedi. It's like, fuck Gary, he's too foofy. You know, I get drilled on both sides. Gary, you know, like, I'm losing on both sides. Like, he's too entrepreneur. On the other side, the entrepreneurs are mad at me because I'm saying too much foofy shit and I'm just like fucking lonely out here. But I'm like, fine. But like, it gets bad, Brandon. It gets bad. Like when, when I heard of your exit, I felt such calmness. I'm like, that's a base for a lot of good stuff. I, I've seen some exits to contemporaries, acquaintances, investments, even lightweight friends. And I go into immediate anxiety because I know the next two years is going to be not good. And I just hope they can get out of it. And I've had those combos and they don't want to hear it. They don't want to Hear it. It's hard.

[Business Advisor / Commentator]

Yeah, look, I think that. Two thoughts. One, it's cliche to say it's about the journey, not the destination. But anyone who's done sales, anyone who's done anything like that, to Gary's point, you'll realize at a tactical level, you get super excited right before the sale. You get that sale and then what? Right? That adrenaline rush is gone because you're not enjoying every day of it. And then you're going back down into Valley and then you got to go back up. So look, it's about sustainable happiness. I think, going back to your point, good businessmen, good businesswoman, and I think that if we're talking about, again, Rachel and Brandon, what you realize very quickly is that they're good people, that they're good, solid characters, they have solid business fundamentals. So to Gary's point, doesn't matter where they start, D2C, big box, whatever, they get business. They work hard, but they're solid characters. And so.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, and, and they, and they have that gear. Oh, yeah, that gear that I call. It's that scene in the movie where like the hero gets punched in the face hard. And you think he's gonna get like knocked out or knocked out. And they kind of like go there and they spit out the blood and maybe even a tooth and. And they look back at you and then the bad guy is like, oh, fuck. That's the thing I'm looking for, right? You know, I knew in that moment in Vegas that if Brandon got punched in the fucking face, he would spit the blood out, spit the tooth out, look back at you and be like, now you're in fucking trouble. I felt that about Rachel. I feel that about myself. And I think that's what, that's that little thing right there. That's the weird one. That's the nine figure exits, the ten figure exits, the eight figure consistency business that kicks like.

[Brandon]

This is sports.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This is fucking sports.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I'm about to launch a podcast. I have six guests lined up already. Will you be open to be my seventh guest for 15 minutes?

[Brandon]

Two minutes?

[Rafael]

Fifteen.

[Brandon]

No.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What about two? Just two minutes. One question.

[Brandon]

You made a critical mistake and I'll explain it. If you had booked four guests, I would have definitely done it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Oh, six people are lined up already. They're pre recorded.

[Brandon]

I get it. But if I could have been the fifth guest, I would be in. But now I'm gonna wait to be the hundredth guest.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So when I have 100, when you

[Brandon]

get 99 in the bag, you send me this clip and I'll do it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Done.

[Brandon]

Thank you, Gary.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

It is always good to see you, my friend.

[Voice Tech Expert]

It's always good to see Spain.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

I want to thank you again. I always do. I send you emails regularly to thank you. No, something that I know and I appreciate you. You answered one at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday and I love you for that. Following your advice has helped me, as you know, grow my company in two and a half years from zero to say it. A multimillion dollar business.

[Brandon]

You didn't fully say it, huh? Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

And I got to tell you, you know, I'm not nervous speaking to Gary. I'm just so moved because this guy is so real and so genuine and actually cares. Like really fucking cares.

[Brandon]

Because. Because it. Because it doesn't come out of mine. The second you understand how much abundance is in the world, you will change your behavior.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

Absolutely.

[Brandon]

I'm giving away all my best advice for free at scale. I mean, do you know how many people here have made money by literally parroting it directly? And I like that. That's what I want you to do. Of course I could have all those customers. I'm just not gonna get around to it. Do you know how nice this is to hear admiration trumps finances every day of the week? Go ahead.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

So at dinner two years ago, you asked me a question. And the question was, are you building this company to buy, to build it and hold it, or to build it and sell it?

[Brandon]

I remember.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

And now I want to get it to the next level, to get it to 100, 150 million.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

For an exit.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Okay.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

Trying to figure out what our next move is.

[Brandon]

I need more context to understand. I think building all these companies here is actually to build a hundred million dollar agency, you have to be in the HR business.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

Sure.

[Brandon]

Like just so everybody. You want to get to the punchline. I spend all my time at hr. That's the answer. We sell people.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And I don't understand how you don't under, you know, how we make fun of Rachel probably covered it in some way, but I'm not sure if she went there. When we scrutinize in the VC community, companies that are very good at CAC but suck at ltv, they lose. You can acquire customers all day long, but if you need to hold onto them for four months to make it pay off and they drop off after two and a half months, you're out of business. And then when the price of Instagram and Facebook ads go out and your CAC is going up. You're really in deep shit. Yet we don't talk about ltv. Remember how many years you been at Vayner? I mean these are real. When I got into the business, people. This is super funny because now I'm thinking I forgot lots of people came to give me advice. And I, you know, I'm a nice guy, so I was cordial. But in my brain I'm like, motherfucker, my business is gonna be bigger than yours in 36 months. And I don't even know what I'm doing yet. So your advice is cool, but like, everyone's like, your people are gonna stay for 18 to 24 months. I'm like, no, no, your people are gonna stay for 18 to 24 months. My people are gonna stay for 5, 10 and 15 years. Cause I actually give a fuck about them. The only way you can build a hundred million dollar business is the reason New York jets are in big trouble right now is their offensive line has no cohesion. Because they don't ever played together at any level. Agencies are like offensive lines. They need cohesion. You know how fast you can go when everybody feels safe and knows what everybody else is good at. Yet people are fearful that they're gonna lose. You know, I remember one of the things I established early on. If we lose an account, nobody gets fired. Because I remember knowing that I had to establish that shit like that all the stuff that nobody's talking about, people are like, people are always. It's very fascinating to me. I'm Enigma. I do unusual things. I talk about my unusual things. But everybody wants to focus on the other stuff because the stuff I do is hard people.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

The reason why I wanted to come up here to say thank you. I found your content a couple years ago from the Monday morning rant video that you run all the time.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

And the 400 trillion to one kind of really got me because right when that video came out, I lost my mother to like a two year multi battle of cancer. I realized there's no reason to do shit you hate.

[Brandon]

None.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

So I wanted.

[Brandon]

And by the way, 25 to 50% of this room hates what they're doing right now.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

That was me. That was honestly me. And you really changed my life. So what I did was I got into. I'm like, I'm a ninja with SEO. I'm gonna go like give my services away for free. Cause there's no way for me to kind of like go into a business, be like, yeah, like I've Done nothing, but I'm gonna make you money. So I like reverse engineered that because of what you said. And I ended up doing a lot of business for companies and raising a lot of money. And people are like, how much do we owe you? I'm like, I don't know, like I'm just here to make a brand. But I'd done a poor job of like building my own brand. And that's mainly my question because now I'm ready to start scaling because my goal is to give back form a 501C3, form a non for profit, start a chance or charity on behalf of my mom who grew up with literally nothing and gave everything she had. So it really inspired me. So a lot like your content. But now I'm ready to kind of in order to do that since I'm working.

[Brandon]

You did build your brand. You executed.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

I did.

[Brandon]

So you're actually in a much better place than a lot of people who've done a good job amassing followers but actually don't do shit.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Like, I don't have a lot of followers. But the companies I do have, they're like, they trust me. Like, they'll give their left kidney for me. They like.

[Brandon]

Correct. And so you should probably take it and sell it on the black market. Take those. So I think what you need to listen, what is old is always new. I think testimonials are powerful.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Right.

[Brandon]

I don't think they should be boring like we saw in the 90s. But like, I think that, I think you have built your brand. Like every time big agency holding companies try to razz on me and play the card of like, well, it's all Gary and his relationships. I'm like, yes, GE and Pepsi and Chase and Abi are so enamored with me that they're seven and six and eight year clients of us. They're clients with us because they've gotten results, because we execute. You know, yes, maybe I've been more out and about about how I've approached it, but you've built your brand. You just haven't now manifested the equity that you're sitting with. And this is why I would tell you for everybody here that's looking for new business this moment on LinkedIn, many of you felt the good effects, many of you regretted for not jumping on board of the golden era of Facebook organic reach on pages.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Right? That's true.

[Brandon]

We can all agree on that. You know, of it one way or the other. You either benefited from it or you kind of wish you took advantage of it when I was screaming about it and most people weren't doing it. I'm gonna give you another chance right now. It's happening right now. It's called LinkedIn. Yep. LinkedIn is Facebook 2011. Right now you could have no followers, nobody on earth knows you. You make a video, a picture, a written word, a deck, a something, you post it and a lot more people than you think will see it. You're welcome.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Thank you, Gary. Means the world to me.

[Brandon]

LinkedIn testimonials, by the way. Find out how you communicate. One of the reasons I started making cartoons, which I think some of you have seen on LinkedIn or Instagram, is cause I keep trying to find ways to show you that there's a million ways to communicate. You don't have to have gif 4 gab 1 take improv ability to go. You might write incredibly well. And your seven paragraphs on the current state of long tail SEO. Post on LinkedIn and get the hell out. And see three inbound leads is real. And it will go away because I'm yelling loud. Half will do it, some will do it, one will do it. And then it will get saturated. The attention will be matched by the amount of content ads will go into the ecosystem. You understand how many times do you have to see this happen, right? Like, how many times do you need? Like, how do you think I dominated social? I lived it with search and with email. And then I'm like, okay, now I get it. I'm not making the same mistake when I see it. You know, people here are struggling to get leads and win RFPs and get new business. And literally the answer is LinkedIn right now. And now I've said it and still 74% of you next week won't do it. Which is how I got into insecurity and parenting and perspective, right? Because I couldn't logically understand how this is happening right now. And I know 74% of you are not gonna do it next week. I'm like, oh, right, they're scared of judgment. Oh, right. They don't want their uncle to say they're stupid. Or when some anonymous person says that they're ugly, that kills them.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right?

[Brandon]

They didn't get the luxury of circumstance and parenting that I had.

[Jeff]

I work with experts, I help them become more of an authority and I help them become like influencer in the space. So a lot of what we do is actually Gary Vee type stuff. And actually confession number two, I actually spoke at digital marketers headquarters teaching a content strategy that looks a little bit like yours that you talk about.

[Brandon]

That free deck I put out has made a lot of people a lot of fucking money.

[Jeff]

Yeah, yeah, no joke, you guys. How the how to leverage video and turn it into quote, images and social media posts and all that stuff and use square platform so you can put it on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, everything and just get the most leverage out of your content. My question to you is one of the problems that I do have because the experts that I work with, they're running businesses, mostly they're CEOs, founders or agency owners.

[Brandon]

Makes sense.

[Jeff]

The problem that I have, it's like pulling teeth, getting them to create this content to invest in their own personal brand.

[Brandon]

So I invented document. Don't create.

[Jeff]

Tell me more.

[Brandon]

They should film their day.

[Jeff]

Okay, so I totally get that people are busy. Yeah, they're busy. And so they have to start a

[Brandon]

podcast which becomes the top of the funnel for the post production creative across the board. With neither, you can't just. So everybody knows. Unless you're blogging or you do a podcast or you decide to become a guest on People's. One of my best arbs is being a guest on People's. You think I want to talk to the Paris dude at fucking episode 100? But here's why it works. I get to win twice. I know, and it makes me feel good that when he has me on, his guests from episode 101 on are going to be better because he's going to leverage that I was a guest. That makes me feel nice. Number two, when I do that interview, I'm going to be filming it. He's going to ask me a question that's going to take me in a direction that maybe I wouldn't have gone otherwise. That answer becomes a piece of content that gets a million views on Instagram.

[Podcast Host / Organizer]

Perfect.

[Jeff]

So the follow up question is to any client who is reluctant on creating that content, I'm going to send them this video. What would you tell them if they tell me, jeff, I don't have time?

[Brandon]

Well then you don't get the benefits of the opportunity.

[Jeff]

There it is.

[Brandon]

It's not super complicated.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's great.

[Brandon]

Don't have time to go to the gym. You're fucking fat. Have time. You aren't. Don't have time to, you know, spend a lot of hours with your children and give them wisdom and love. You might have a more challenging relationship when they're older. Don't have time, don't get results. What I would tell them is they're making decisions and valuing something that's less valuable than this for the growth of their business.

[Audience Member / Questioner]

You talk about, right, giving away your best stuff for free.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Audience Member / Questioner]

I think one of your recent quotes was, fuck your seven day trial. And so you.

[Brandon]

Let me explain. Let me explain. I think it will help. I'm not against seven day trials. I'm against the fact that the seed of the intent of that seven day trial was to get somebody in, give them nothing to make them pay. That's it. We are unbelievably incapable of not thinking about ourselves first. And so when somebody comes along that thinks about it the other way, she or he can disrupt that deck that I put out that a lot of people are making money on. Took money out of people who sell $1,800 decks. That makes me happy.

[Audience Member / Questioner]

No doubt.

[Brandon]

So if that deck is valuable, mazel tov. But the reality is we've gotten into a place in Internet marketing where that is not the case 98% of the time. And that's something that I think, you know, should be disrupted. No different than taxi cabs or bookstores. If you do not bring value to the end consumer, you should be disrupted.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Go ahead.

[Audience Member / Questioner]

Yeah. So you talked a lot recently in some of your videos about, like, whoever can hold their breath the longest is going to win. And so can you. I guess, kind of like elaborate on that a little bit.

[Brandon]

Whoever feeds their customer and their business instead of extracting it so that they can buy dumb shit to impress people they don't even like, tends to build better wealth and businesses.

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

Done. Thanks.

[Entrepreneur / Content Creator]

Yeah, so I quit my job like three years ago to like, jump into entrepreneurship full time. Fell flat on my face like two times. And then LinkedIn released video. Right. And since then, like, I was one of the first creators and my company's got. I've literally gone from like, okay, negative $900 in my bank account to my company is about to pass seven figures. So, one, I wanted to say thank you. Two, this is a weird question. You said this like someone's gonna ask something fucking weird. This is it. Can I have a hug?

[Brandon]

I tried to get you earlier, man.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hell yeah.

[Brandon]

Let's go. Awesome. I'm proud of you, bro.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Let's go.

[Rafael]

Hi, Gary, this is Rafael from Mexico. I just saw that you launched your YouTube on Spanish. What opportunities was seeing to start developing content in Spanish to U.S. companies?

[Brandon]

Well, there's a lot of people that speak and understand Spanish.

[Rafael]

Yeah, but what makes you take the next step?

[Brandon]

What made me do that? Yeah, the fact that I'm building enough of a business that I can afford more employees so that I can get people onto the next initiative.

[Rafael]

Okay.

[Brandon]

I want to remind everybody who uses the excuse that Gary has a team that I did it all by myself for nine years without one employee. And for all the OG. How many people here were active on Twitter in 2007? 8, 9, 10, 11. Raise them. You all know who was putting out the most replies and content. So what did I see? I always wanted to do it. I just systematically went to each initiative that's my top priority and eventually had enough scale on my team to get into the transcription at scale that I needed.

[Rafael]

So you think it's a good opportunity to start producing content you as a US Company to Hispanic market?

[Brandon]

Yes, I do. I think anybody who's confused by the growth of Latin flavor in our. It's funny when I hear people talk about having a division and it's really fun to have you, Maribel, because we had a lot of these conversations. Maribel has incredible passion for her heritage and her community. Like many do. I would always say to her, I'm like, we're not building a division. This is. This is America. So I think it's a huge opportunity. And when you start digging and looking at the metrics, quant and qual, I also think Spanglish is an incredible place where some of the content is half Spanish, half English. Like, they're incredible opportunities. I'm so pissed. I grew up. I was born in Russia. If I could have been born in a Spanish speaking country, I'd be dominating. See, I don't know what the fuck you said.

[Agency Owner / Social Media Manager]

First of all, I love your content. I started watching you originally when I got into wine and Kosher Wine by Wine Library with Daniel Rogoff. A lot of those wine reviews I remember. Very good. On behalf of my community, I'm orthodox. Everybody wants to know when we're gonna get a kosher sign on Empathy Wines.

[Brandon]

That's a great, great question. The truth is, I don't know the answer to that, but I get inspired by stuff like this and I will. If you email me at Gary@VaynerMedia, I will put it in a folder in my empathy. And when I go and have those meetings, that's what I look at. And I will ask the question of how we're thinking about it and things of that nature, because Nate and Trout are really driving a lot of that boat. But the answer is, we're talking a lot about empathy right now. From sparkling seltzer to Cans to kosher to a lot of different conversations. So it's a great time to ask the question.

[Agency Owner / Social Media Manager]

Okay, awesome. Another thing I noticed on LinkedIn and with all your media, you, you're very into being yourself. That's who I am, et cetera. I know the past six months, maybe a little bit longer on LinkedIn, the curse words are beeped out. How come

[Brandon]

I believe that I want to community manage when people are pushing back. And the LinkedIn community over a long period of time really was getting quite loud at scale about the cursing. And the reality is I believe equally in being yourself and always never being bigger than the audience itself. So the beeping out is because I genuinely believe that it was becoming detrimental to the message and I didn't have the time like I did back in the day to every time it was out to go in and community manage and reply to 44 people and apologize, that that's throwing them off, but telling them why it was important to me. So I, you know, I feel like I'm still being myself. It's beeped, you know what I'm fucking saying? You know, so that's where I'm at.

[Agency Owner / Social Media Manager]

I have an ad agency and I manage clients for like a couple thousand dollars a month. Lots of times if a client comes to me, I'm managing their social media, they're paying me two, three thousand dollars a month. Like, by the way, could you design this brochure for us? And by nature, I'm just a giving person. I like to say, say, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem, I'll do that for you for free, not charge anything extra. But on the other hand, I understand that people don't pay for it, they don't value it. So where do you draw the line?

[Brandon]

Whatever your stomach is. At the moment, there's no right answer to this question. The amount of times I've done things for free that ended up being extremely right is enormous. And the amount of times I've done things for free that ended up being a path of being overly taken advantage of that ultimately had negative repercussions, including burnt out staff. And many other things has been often as well. I tend to be like, yeah, I tend to not, you know, people like Gary, you always talk about, you know, giving and all this stuff, but I'm being taken advantage of. I'm like, you're choosing to be taken advantage of. Everybody's a big girl and boy in here. You're more than welcome to say no. And we're about to go through a big transformation at VaynerMedia. We're creating a very uncomfortable minimum fee for yearly retainer or we're not going to talk to you. That's just where we're at now. That's what I think is the right thing. So I think it's a personal question and I think you should test both. I always tell people, ask for a little bit more money on the next scope, just as a testing mechanism because a lot of you have subjectively decided on your ceiling or one person said no and you're like, fuck, the market doesn't want it. No, no. One person doesn't want it.

[Agency Owner / Social Media Manager]

Awesome. Thank you.

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

First of all, I want to say thank you, man. Not just for being here, for everything that you share. I moved from Cuba two years ago and I learned English listening your podcast, man.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Like,

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

I learned how to say motherfucker, man.

[Brandon]

I get it. That's amazing. Thank you so much for that honor. How can I help you?

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

So my question, we are using an influencer to promote our brand. And you know, people that interact with our ads and with our post, they just interact with the influencer. We, you know, we split test. We do like videos, photos, you know, but people continue to interact with influencer. What we could do to fire the influencer?

[Voice Tech Expert]

Yeah.

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

Thank you so much, man.

[Brandon]

You never want somebody else to have leverage more than you have the leverage. If you feel like it's gotten out of hand, you need to fire the influencer. Get a different influencer. I think a lot of people should create influencers, either in themselves. One big thing that I love, if you have any animation skills in yourself or within your organization, way more people need to get into the Mickey Mouse business. Your influencer can be a cartoon and you get to own the cartoon. The cartoon doesn't get drunk. The cartoon doesn't have sexual harassment issues. The cartoon doesn't become a prima donna and want more money. The cartoon is something you own. Little V that I put out and there's only one of them that wasn't for kicks and giggles. I don't do anything for kicks and giggles. Like, animation is something to consider or understand. It's 2019 and it's not about production value. Putting your head on a stick figure, literally drawing a stick figure and putting your head on it, and then having post production animation skills and doing voiceovers so that you could do tons of things visually but you don't have to actually be doing them. There's another good free idea. I'm loaded with ideas. This is about fucking execution.

[Brand Representative]

My main question right now is we are trying to convince brands that TikTok is real.

[Brandon]

Yep.

[Brand Representative]

And a good placement. So how are you actually convincing the brands that you're working with that that's where money should be spent?

[Brandon]

By telling them and not spending a second on it when they say no. The reason I went for the dramatic pause is because I love you for asking this question. Because in the macro, it is the biggest vulnerability in the room. The biggest vulnerability in this room is trying to convince the unconvincable. I've done new business meetings that are scheduled for an hour in 16 minutes because as soon as I sensed it was over, I wanted the 45 minutes back. Many thank you. Many of you and our industry will have an 18th meeting with that person. I don't commence. I put shit on the record. Then some people benefit and others figure it out later.

[Brand Representative]

Thank you.

[Brandon]

You're welcome.

[SaaS Founder]

I run a company that helps digital agencies run more profitably without wasting time on spreadsheets. So we're about to launch B2B SaaS. You know about 3K.

[Entrepreneur / Business Owner]

ARR.

[SaaS Founder]

Price point. If you're in my shoes, what's the strategy that you're doubling down on to

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

start off with giving it away for

[Brandon]

free to the most influential people and then leveraging the fact that they use it successful successfully.

[SaaS Founder]

Okay, well, I guess you're getting a free copy of our software.

[Jeff]

That's Good.

[Brandon]

Maribel and LinkedIn, bro. Yeah, LinkedIn. And maybe you make. I like when you ladder up a show. Maybe a podcast around efficiency.

[SaaS Founder]

Got it.

[Brandon]

Maybe a podcast called Hidden Costs. Like if I was id, I would say, bro, start a podcast called Hidden Costs. The amount of money that people. People make decisions in the first funniest ways. They make decisions without realizing there's hidden costs.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know why I love culture?

[Brandon]

Because rehiring somebody has a lot of hidden costs. People are like, I'm not going to give you a raise, you know, for $3,000 and then the person leaves and they spend 6,000 to replace somebody that has no context. That's fucking dumb. Got it.

[Podcast Host / Organizer]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So if you start a show called Hidden Costs and you have different people on from hr, from procurement to different stuff. But the underlining is the innuendo with even the title is that your product? Because they're going to know who you are. You don't even need to mention the company is that your company is eliminating and creates efficiencies and eliminates hidden costs. That's how I think about the world. Level up your thesis from a programming standpoint that Brings even more value because all of us will listen if it's 53 different topics of hidden costs, but if it's just SaaS, it won't.

[SaaS Founder]

Do you understand the show right now is called the Agency Profit podcast, so it's a little bit more literal, but shit, no.

[Brandon]

Next. Because good. Keep fucking going.

[Business Advisor / Commentator]

Thanks, man.

[Brandon]

Now post, produce, and fucking quadruple down on LinkedIn.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Imagine that you have nothing except your mindset and you are starting a marketing agency today. What direction you're gonna go, what strategy gonna apply.

[Brandon]

So one of the things that you have to do when somebody pays you is you have to provide value against that payment. So if you're starting from scratch, you need to sell the thing that you think you're best at, no matter what it is. So for me, what I'm best at is observing human behavior and understanding new ways to get people to know something. That's why social worked for me. That's why if I was starting today, right now, if this was a bizarro world and today was day one, everything's the same for me. I'm just coming out of the business. I would probably call my company Vayner Voice. Here's why I'm capable enough to sell some consulting scopes about where Voice is going to keep me around to eventually be the best dev shop on Alexa skills and Google Home. Because I genuinely think that the Voice device is the only, only potential. I do not think it's guaranteed because I don't see the scale yet, but it is. And this is how I look about TikTok. I don't think TikTok is. I saw somebody mention that. I say, Instagram's dead. And it's not what I'm saying. I'm saying TikTok is the first platform that I see that has the potential to become the next thing. That's what I thought about socialcam. That's what I thought about Vine. That's what I thought about Snap. It's also what I thought about Instagram and Facebook because MySpace was fucking killing it. So that's what I would do. But I have a pretty unique, awesome skill. Enough salesmanship and enough ability to be right often enough in a short enough period of time to benefit from that. What I would recommend is people to do what they're best at. And by the way, that is what I did with Vayner.

[SEO Specialist / Entrepreneur]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Just so everybody knows, the first two years of VaynerMedia, first two years of Vaynermedia, all we did was community management on Twitter and Facebook, that was our entire business, nothing else. Because that's what I was best at. I wasn't best at creative on Twitter in 2009. I wasn't. I was great at community management.

[Voice Tech Expert]

I'm into the voice first world, the voice first, you know, building Alexa skills, you know, the Google actions, you know, for one and a half years. And largely what the challenge is, that the discovery is a huge pain in the ass. And the Google, they don't share any data. Alexa doesn't share any data. So if you're looking at saying that somebody is going to build a platform or a product, which we are looking at, we are building products now or going to build products now in that phase right now, in this space for a discovery to solve the discovery problem.

[Brandon]

But they're going to solve it. That's why the App Store was built. It was impossible to find apps at first, too. They'll build it when they feel like it's time. Discovery is a piece of cake. It's just at the mercy of the platform. Yeah.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Okay.

[Brandon]

The end.

[Voice Tech Expert]

So if. So if somebody is. Somebody's looking at the voice. Somebody's looking at the voice first platform, from a discovery point of view, it's going to be totally on the mercy of Google and Amazon of the world, pretty much.

[Brandon]

Ish. And now you're going to understand why I built a creative and media shop because it solves that. Our ability to create discovery, because of our ability to create content at scale that's contextual for every platform and arbitrage against the media costs is greater than everybody else's on Earth. Thus gives me the opportunity to have a leverage point against anybody who's building Alexa apps right now. Because I can create the part that they can't. They become the commodity. I have the leverage.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Got it. So if somebody is looking at building a product into this.

[Brandon]

But real quick, and I apologize, I only have the leverage until Amazon flips the switch. And on Amazon.com or on every Amazon package or on Google's homepage, there's discovery for every app. We lived this. It was called Apple Apps. It wasn't hard. The first year and a half, there was no discovery.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Got it.

[Brandon]

And then there was.

[Voice Tech Expert]

So if somebody is looking at building a product into this space, you know, for a discovery or in the voice space, what would you suggest that would

[Brandon]

be as an app for the consumer? Yeah, like you're not being an agency and dev shop. You're building for yourself. For consumer.

[Voice Tech Expert]

Yep.

[Brandon]

Be great at discovery. That's the punchline. You Know what I mean? You have to add that capability. Otherwise you just built a great app. Tree in the forest. Tree in the forest. Nobody knows you built the best app. Somebody's gonna build a better app in a year because the capabilities are gonna be better and you're fucked. And that's what happens all the time.

[Agency Owner / Client Manager]

Right now, I'm the only person that's client facing in my agency, so I know the next hire is gonna be something like an account manager. My question for you, I do a lot of local networking. That's how I get all my clients. My question for you is, how do you gracefully transition to giving them an account manager when they're really obsessed with you?

[Brandon]

By not selling them me.

[Agency Owner / Client Manager]

So how did you frame that from the beginning with your agency? Because I imagine a lot of people come to you thinking it's everybody going to work with Gary.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And then I'm like, not true.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Here's Maribel.

[SaaS Founder]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You can backbone me if you pay enough, you know, by being unbelievably upfront. You know, just back to that gentleman who talked about me always saying, yes. I'm telling you, everybody's biggest vocab addition is no. Bless you. And it was really funny. And some of you, if you're very deep in my content, you may know what I'm about to say next. In Russian superstition, when somebody sneezes right after a statement, it means it's true. So I appreciate that sneeze because it came after a very important point that could have been glossed over. The biggest word that everybody in this room needs to add is no. And it was hard at first because I had no other leverage. Now it's easier. Vayner's real, but at first it was me. And this is Pepsi and ge. This is not like, you know, And I'm like, not me. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yep. I'm like, I'm the CEO. I'm building a company.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm here

[Brandon]

just by telling them the truth.

[Podcast Host / Organizer]

So, Gary, about 20 floors up from here, before I get there, before I get there, could I have Jason, Goldie, Sammy and Ada stand up for me? So, Gary, we came out here this week and instead of listening to all the sessions, we decided to say, fuck it, let's go talk to strangers and meet some new people. And we said, let's start a podcast while we're at it. Why not? So these are our first four guests. Will you be number five?

[Brandon]

Ah, yes.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, people played super good.

[Brandon]

So good. So good.

[Entrepreneur / Content Creator]

That's it.

[Brandon]

Thank you so much. You're welcome.

[Podcast Host / Organizer]

So as a CEO taking a business, you know, working with clients that are bringing in like 50 to 100 mil, what was the mindset shift that you had to work with the big boys like the, the Fortune 500s?

[Brandon]

Nothing. Nothing, nothing. I let them come to me by being historically correct with what their customer was going to do. The reason I win often is because I'm not worried about the person in the middle. Got it?

[Cuban Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I didn't change for them. They changed for me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Why?

[Brandon]

Because I focused on you. The end customer is the leverage, not the relationship with the person that writes the check. If you're playing long,

[Podcast Host / Organizer]

perfect.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded.

[Brandon]

I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.