The Mid-Funnel is the Biggest Opportunity in Marketing

Summary

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The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: The Mid-Funnel is the Biggest Opportunity in Marketing

Date: March 3, 2026
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Summary by [Your Name]

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Overview

This episode centers around a fireside Q&A with Gary Vaynerchuk on the changing landscape of marketing, with special focus on why the mid-funnel, defined as organic social creative, represents the largest unclaimed opportunity in marketing today. Gary advocates for using real-time, validated creative from social organic performance before investing media dollars, challenging traditional corporate marketing cultures and measurement frameworks. The conversation spans content creation, podcast advertising, live social shopping, US vs UK marketing mindsets, talent & hiring philosophies, and what marketers must do to future-proof their careers.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Hasn’t Changed in Marketing (01:13–03:43)

• Relevance → Consideration → Purchase: The fundamental path to purchase remains the same.
  • “The thing that has not changed is that relevance leads to consideration leads to purchase. I think that is just so uncomfortably classic and so true.” (Gary Vee, 01:46)
• Media Landscape Shift: While channels change, the goal is always securing attention—at appropriate price—not nostalgia for specific mediums.
  • “I would buy TVC and television… if the price was appropriate. I don’t really have feelings other than I want to buy attention at a proper price, not overpay for it.”* (Gary Vee, 02:39)
• Challenge with Marketing Industry: Marketing remains stuck in old evaluation habits, such as focus groups and internal politics, instead of business outcomes.

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2. Content Creation as Competitive Advantage (04:10–09:59)

• Intentional Content Production: Gary attributes his edge to daily intention and scale in content creation.
  • “For about 12 years now, I’ve had the intent to think of every single day as a production day. And now much of what I do for a living ... understanding that creative and content was the variable of success.” (Gary Vee, 04:28)
• Organic First, Paid After Validation:
  • Record everything (as possible)
  • Use organic performance to validate creative
  • Only then invest working media dollars to amplify
  • Repeat for clients at VaynerMedia as “practitioner” rather than “professor” - “It is my strategy to use technology and people to post produce that content... Once that creative has been validated by gaining organic reach, which is only achievable if the creative is relevant, then I will use working media dollars to amplify it.” (Gary Vee, 04:46)
• Lessons in ROI: His approach, built from family business constraints, required marketing to register sales, not just win awards or lift studies.

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3. Podcasts & Audio Are Often Underappreciated (09:59–11:24)

• Podcasts as Sales Vehicles: Podcasts’ potential is unlocked when hosts sell authentically to their audience, not with generic ad reads.
  • “People buy from people and podcast hosts ... have tremendous opportunities to convert their audience if they build something meaningful." (Gary Vee, 10:47)
• Channels are Only as Good as Execution: Any platform can be under- or overpriced — results depend on context and creative integration.

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4. Next Big Trends: Live Social Shopping (11:24–12:26)

• Live Social Shopping Is Coming: A massive, proven online shopping phenomenon in China, now emerging in the West.
  • “I think live social shopping is the most important conversation for anybody that sells any single product on Earth." (Gary Vee, 11:34)
  • “Anyone here that sells a bar of soap or really cool pants ... needs to really focus on what's going on with live shopping.” (Gary Vee, 11:55)
• Competitive Differentiation: Early adopters will outflank the market, as with early social media.

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5. US vs UK Marketing Mindset (12:26–15:56)

• Overrated Difference: Gary downplays structural or cultural differences; focuses on actionable opportunities.
  • “I spend 0 seconds on it, 0.0 seconds thinking about it.” (Gary Vee, 12:45)
• Easier to Win in UK/Europe: US is crowded with digital natives/VC-funded disruptors; UK is behind in leveraging mid-funnel marketing.
  • “The opportunity in Europe, specifically in the UK is extraordinary... It’s easier to win here than it is in America." (Gary Vee, 13:34)
• Call Out: Industry obsession with traditional “headlines and reports” leads to wasted money and missed opportunities.
  • “We just continue to validate, reward, fake reports and headlines and magazines as good work. And we're wasting an extraordinary amount of money... in a world that does not exist." (Gary Vee, 14:58)

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6. Why the Mid-Funnel is the Biggest Opportunity (16:10–18:16)

• Definition: The mid-funnel = organic social media creative, where interest and consideration are earned, not just reach or clicks.
• Gary’s Commandments:
  • “I think it is insane to spend $1 of working media on creative that has not been validated in social.” (Gary Vee, 16:23)
  • Algorithmic platforms surface what’s relevant; audience reaction provides the only validation worth acting on.
  • “There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore... Every single Brand in here’s biggest issue is not awareness, it’s relevance.” (Gary Vee, 17:38)

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7. Traits of Top Marketers (18:42–21:42)

• Courage Over Job Security: The best marketers are unafraid to challenge broken systems, even at risk to their own positions.
  • “The lack of fear of losing their job is the number one thing that I see in someone who's doing a good job.” (Gary Vee, 18:42)
• Marketers’ Loss of Credibility: Many marketers prioritize data manipulation over real business impact, undermining their position.
  • “We are losing credibility as marketers by showing up to these meetings with fake data. We must destroy fake data in our industry. And our industry is, if anything, great at creating fake data.” (Gary Vee, 21:18)
• CFOs Get It More Than CMOs:
  • “By far, the people that believe in what we're doing over in Vaynerland are CFOs more than CMOs by far. It's not even close.” (Gary Vee, 20:14)

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8. Talent, Hiring, & ‘Kind Candor’ (21:42–28:04)

• Hiring Fast, Firing Fast—But Promote Fastest: Build relationships with top hires and move them up quickly.
  • “A lot of people hear my content around hire fast, fire fast, but they always skip... I also say promote fastest." (Gary Vee, 22:10)
• Be Honest, Be Kind: Firing/feedback should be delivered with candor and humanity, not avoidance or favoritism.
  • “Later in my life... I realized that candor along the way was far more valuable than the charity I thought I was giving them, which was creating nepotism and entitlement and also hurting the A players around me.” (Gary Vee, 22:47)
• Practitioner Mindset: Obsessive, detail-level understanding of platform trends and creative performance is non-negotiable.
  • “Either you're a practitioner of the craft or you're not... The level of practitionership needs to be profoundly deep.” (Gary Vee, 23:36)
• Moving Budget to Mid-Funnel: Some Vayner clients went from $800K organic social spend to $40M in two years—only possible with total boardroom buy-in.
  • “For some clients to get a brand to go from $800,000 to 40 million in 24 months can only be done by being incredibly T's and I's in every conversation in the boardroom and then the action has to be true.” (Gary Vee, 25:20)

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9. How to Change C-Suite Minds (28:04–32:42)

• Expose Existing Waste: Hold up declining sales as evidence old (TV, bus ads) aren’t working; counter myths via clear outcomes.
  • “Your business has been declining for seven years in a row. Why don’t you prove to me that television and bus ads work?” (Gary Vee, 28:39)
• Breakdown of Traditional Metrics: Illustrates industry aphasia with jargon and hollow reporting (“80 trillion impressions” etc.).
  • “Maybe the reports are wrong. In the first meeting I ever had starting this company, maybe the reports are wrong. And you would have thought like, I killed Santa Claus.” (Gary Vee, 31:59)
• Rise of Human-Scale Brands: New giants (Mr. Beast, Stephen Bartlett, etc.) are mid-funnel power users, growing fast because of commitment to organic social.

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10. Reporting, Measurement, and Scaling Mid-Funnel Success (32:42–end)

• Challenge: Clients Want Impressions, Not Real Impact:
  • Advocates for taking winning organic/mid-funnel creative and using it (with minor tweaks) in lower-funnel paid performance.
    • “What we know is that when you put media dollars in performance against over-indexing mid funnel creative, that it outperforms the best AB testing that performance people do.” (Gary Vee, 33:11)
• Fight for Proper Budgets: Under-investment in social versus TV leads to faulty conclusions.
  • “Social’s not working, TV is. I’m like, you’re spending 44 million on TV, you’re spending 500,000 on social. Give me 44 million and let’s have it out.” (Gary Vee, 33:55)
• Career Advice:
  • Speak your truth, even if it’s at odds with status quo.
  • Being honest in the boardroom pays when the market shifts.
    • “It is much more fun to die on your own sword than someone else... Because what I can tell you from my seat is marketing is about to go through a transition and there’s a lot coming and there's a lot of angst in the system and you want to be on the right side of history in your boardrooms over the next 12 to 18 months.” (Gary Vee, 34:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If the creative isn’t right, we lost.” (Gary Vee, 00:30)
• “There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore. We don’t have to guess…” (Gary Vee, 00:47)
• “It is insane to spend $1 of working media on creative that has not been validated in social.” (Gary Vee, 16:23)
• “The lack of fear of losing their job is the number one thing that I see in someone who's doing a great job.” (Gary Vee, 18:42)
• “We must destroy fake data in our industry.” (Gary Vee, 21:27)
• “Either you’re a practitioner of the craft or you’re not… The level of practitionership needs to be profoundly deep.” (Gary Vee, 23:37)
• "Social’s not working, TV is. I’m like, you’re spending 44 million on TV, you’re spending 500,000 on social. Give me 44 million and let’s have it out.” (Gary Vee, 33:55)
• “It is much more fun to die on your own sword than someone else's.” (Gary Vee, 34:21)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–03:43: Introduction & What Hasn’t Changed in Marketing
• 04:10–09:59: Content creation strategies and practitioner philosophy
• 09:59–11:24: Value & pitfalls in podcasting as a marketing platform
• 11:24–12:26: The rise & opportunity of live social shopping
• 12:26–15:56: US vs UK: Marketing differences & opportunity delta
• 16:10–18:16: The mid-funnel as the core opportunity (core thesis)
• 18:42–21:42: Traits of successful marketers; courage and credibility
• 21:42–28:04: Hiring, firing, promoting & the value of candor
• 28:04–32:42: Challenging the C-suite; measurement, proof, and breakthrough examples
• 32:42–end: Reporting, shifting budgets, and advice for marketers' future careers

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Takeaways & Action Items

• Start with Organic: Validate creative with organic reach and action before paid support.
• Challenge Fake Metrics: Expose the gaps in traditional reporting; make business impact the priority.
• Champion the Mid-Funnel: Prioritize ongoing investment in organic social—where performance validates ideas.
• Be Courageous, Be Honest: Speak your truth in boardrooms—even if it's unpopular.
• Invest in Practitionership: Deep, hands-on knowledge of platforms and creative performance is now non-negotiable for top marketers.
• Ready for the Shift: The next 12–18 months will see legacy marketing cultures upended by organizations and individuals who master and reallocate to the mid-funnel.

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Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

There is no logic. If you understood what's happening in Meta and ByteDance and Snap and YouTube and Google, if you understood how these algorithms are written purely for relevance. The thing that we've been chasing to measure our whole lives for a hundred years, marketers like us, the bane of our existence, has been trying to understand the creative before it goes into market. Focus groups, fake reports, politics, amongst seven important people in a room. We've been struggling with this deep knowledge that we know, which is if the creative isn't right, we lost. I ask for a lot of you, is take your hat off of being a corporate animal and understanding how your organization measures everything and put your human hat on and listen to it and understand it. There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore. We don't have to guess, like, do we really still have the audacity to think our subjective opinion on a 30 second video or a picture is going to drive the business? Every single brand in here biggest issue is not awareness, it's relevance. And if you're small and you need awareness, you can only get it through scaled relevance. This is the Gary Vee audio experience.

[Interviewer]

This is an amazing opportunity to have you in the room, Gary. Thank you so much, mate, for doing this.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you so much everyone for being here, really.

[Interviewer]

So I've got a few questions I want to put to Gary. I had the honour of meeting him actually at the wine library, which was really special, man. It was kind of cool to see you there because, like, I noticed when we finished filming you were straight downstairs doing a wine review and you were straight on the phone with like, okay, ring this number, everybody put your orders in. And I wanted to start with maybe an unusual question, like you, you're obviously at the forefront of so much change and what's going on? Like, what hasn't changed? Have you put yourself back in your kind of wine library days? What hasn't changed that kind of has underpinned your success?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, it's actually a fun one to start with, especially for this crowd. I'm aware, even just had a quick interaction, that people think that a lot of mine, slash our company's theories are maybe in contrast to what's been classically understood or known. The thing that has not changed is that relevance leads to consideration leads to purchase. I think that is just so uncomfortably classic and so true. I think that where information is being consumed and how relevance is defined and how fragmented relevance actually is and and always has been. But the media landscape has changed enough for allowing us to all take Advantage of it. That's different. But what is tried and true. When I read that podcast at my father's wine store where I kind of grew up and built. And as soon as we were done, I went downstairs and what you're referring to is I made creative ads for social, which we ran in a 10 mile radius of the store. And we use video in social media to replace what we did with direct mail and it converts better. I would be thrilled to do direct mail today. I would be thrilled to do outdoor radio. I would buy TVC and television. My great challenge that I always push against if the price was appropriate. I don't really have feelings other than I want to buy attention at a proper price, not overpay for it. And I would like the creative to make someone do something. It's not complicated. I just think that the industry, especially this markets industry, is very good at holding on to yesterday. I 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. They'll make my mom super happy.

[Interviewer]

Well, one thing I loved actually. So me and my producer James, we turn up with all our cameras, our lighting, our sound equipment. I got outgunned on that day. Tonight I set up in your wine library. Then you brought your crew along. It was like cameras on cameras on cameras. I mean, we had so much content. But something you are exceptional at is just making content wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Like, how do you fit all that in? How do you do the thinking and the creative and the content intent?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, I think I've had a very productive year. I don't know how everybody is 26 is going, but reflecting at the end of last year, I didn't feel 2025 was my best year on the field. You know, I think of business, like sports, and I'm not crippled by a year where I don't think I've done as much or as well as I've wanted to because, you know, some of the greatest athletes of all time have had seasons that are not as great as others. That allowed me to really sit down in between Christmas and New Year's and come up with a framework for myself this year called intentionality and impact. Just being very clear with the many businesses I have and the many key teammates that I have and creating really tight intentionality frameworks and how are we going to measure that impact that allowed me already, I would argue this is true, that I feel I've been more productive in 26 than 25 already. And we're just getting started. But to answer your question, reason I brought that up was with the hope that it might bring someone value. And you may want to think about that, but for me, I've always had the intent. Now what are you in 2026? For about 12 years now, I've had the intent to think about every single day as a production day. Right. And now much of what I do for a living, I work with a lot of people here. This will not be lost. 80% of my day is not something I can put out in the public. It's client information, it's internal information. But understanding that creative and content was the variable of success and that the new distribution channels had been reformed. You know, I started, you know, as some people in this room know, from 2014 to Covid, I filmed every aspect of my life and only a small percentage of that was able to go out. But that allowed me to produce dramatically more content than the market. And. And I continue to do that today. To answer your question, it's just the intent. Yeah, right. It is my strategy to. To produce content every day. It is my strategy to use technology and people to post produce that content. It is my strategy to understand which platforms to post that creative on. It is my strategy to post produce that content to maximize organic reach. It is my strategy to understand once that creative has been validated by gaining organic reach, which is only achievable if the creative is relevant, then I will use working media dollars to amplify it. That strategy for me became the framework of our creative agency and production company, VaynerMedia, as the forefront and the reality of what's actually happening in the consumer landscape. So for me, there's a lot of value in me focusing on my creative because it becomes the blueprint for what we do for. Bless you. What we do for clients around the world. The thing I'm most proud of, the thing that allows me to sit here, the thing that I think makes me different than many people in marketing, is I'm a practitioner of the craft. I am not a professor, I am not a pontificator. I am not in university or politics. Every single day of my life, for the last. What am I, 50 now? For the last 32 years, every single day of my life, I have spent working media dollars to make a sale and build a brand happen every single day. And so that makes me very comfortable to talk about my things because I've only been taught to measure Based on sales and brand. When I was building my father's liquor store, the only two things I knew was that my mom was so remarkable that I needed to build this business for my family as a payback to her. And two, that I would leave that company someday because I knew my dad was never going to give me any money and I had to have my own life. This is real though. This is very profound. As a 22 year old child, I knew that I wanted to build a very large business for my family. I was incredibly motivated. As I've gotten older, I realized how rare what I cared about is. I was obsessed to build a huge business for my parents. But I also knew that one day I was going to have to leave and do something for myself, which meant I had to grow the business. My dad only allowed me to spend marketing dollars if he understood what the ROI was at the register. I wasn't trying to win a Cannes Lion. Sasha Vaynerchuk was not interested in a brand lift study. But I also knew I was gonna leave. And the other thing I knew was my dad was gonna fuck it up after I left. And so I thought about brand. I renamed my dad's liquor store from Shoppers Discount liquors to wine Library. I focused on building the brand of wine library, but I focused on building the brand of wine library by driving sales daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. By winning on relevance to so many different wine consumers that I had people that were buying $5,000 bottled wines, but also bringing people in that were buying $15 wines for the weekend. I didn't know what I was doing in the context of this room. I was just building a business. One for the short term, one for the long term. When I got to this world, I was flabbergasted by the currency of the Fortune 500, Fortune 5000 brands in the world. Everything was incredibly corporate. So many people make decisions based on reports, not business truths. The politics within your organization. No one could explain to me what an MMM or an MMA was. Nobody could explain how a GRP was really measured. People spent all their working media dollars on potential reach, not actualized reach. Common sense had no permission to be in the boardroom. This has been a very interesting journey for me the last 15 years.

[Interviewer]

Let's start with podcasts, right? Why are podcasts? Well, I'm just making an assumption here, asking for a friend here, but why are podcasts so undervalued, do you think?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, they can be very overvalued. I would say that social media all the way to television and everything between influencers, direct mail, outdoor, everything could be overpriced and underpriced, right? So podcasts are misunderstood a lot of times because I think people don't understand how much audio is being consumed every day. However, I'm sure not lost on any of you if the if the ad in a podcast is some generic 30 second recording of a different voice than the host, no one here is converting. If the host mails it in because they just want to rip you off for a million pounds as the sponsor and they could give a shit and they just read it like it's a burden, you also are probably going to overpay. If the host is very clever and she or he is thinking long term about what they're building and they give it their all to that read and help convert that audience, it might be grossly underpriced. So I think, you know, podcast for me is an incredible opportunity because people buy from people and podcast hosts, especially when humans have tremendous opportunities to convert their audience if they build something meaningful. I think it depends on how good they are at integrating the sale

[Interviewer]

makes sense. Now, you've been ahead on quite a few trends over the years. Start 2026. What are you looking at with interest in terms of what you think is going to be hot?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think live social shopping is the most important conversation for anybody that sells any single product on Earth. It is very clear that the west is now starting to have the early indications of following what's happened in China. It is a $600 billion GMV market in China. In the US last year was incredibly important. Both Whatnot and TikTok went out the gates very hard. We've already seen Twitch, there's rumors of Meta. There's so many other people entering this space. So anyone here that sells a bar of soap or really cool pants or anything else in between needs to really focus on what's going on with live shopping. I think live social shopping will be a point of differentiation for the people that outflank their competitive set in a similar way to what social media was in 2015.

[Interviewer]

I would love your perspective on the difference between the US and UK mentality, because I'm really having spent a lot of time in the US as I do now, I'm really struck by the way we see business and the different mindset. What's your perspective on that?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

My perspective is it's a little overrated as a conversation point. Like, of course, I mean, there's always going to be stereotypes and generalizations of course, whatever. I mean look, in the US we have a state structure, right? Forget about the US versus Europe or UK within America, doing business in Florida versus New York versus California. Like there's so many things to that. Here's what I would say. I spend 0 seconds on it, 0.0 seconds thinking about it. If I was an entrepreneur trying to build a business, I would think about it more. If I was UK based and I had an opportunity to go to Silicon Valley or to the us. The US laws for entrepreneurship and building tend to be a little bit more opportunistic than let's say parts of Europe. But again, still generalizations. There's unlimited opportunity. I will say the thing I do spend time on, which is why I'm here, is I really think there's a big difference in marketing. I think I am shocked and I say this respectfully and I actually don't think it. I don't even really, I haven't put in the homework to understand how deep or what the nuances are. But my world, which is how can you not be spending more working media dollars in social if you know how to do it, which is invest in the mid funnel, let the creative validate, then put media behind it. The opportunity in Europe, specifically in the UK is extraordinary. It's. It's easier to win here than it is in America because in America I'm competing with Mr. Beast and Alex Earl and I and late stage venture capitalist startups. There's a lot of people that actually know what to do in the us they tend to be human beings or VC backed startups. The corporations in America don't know what to do either. But there's more competition for the feed in the US on these seven platforms here. It's remarkably, remarkably sound. I think I take on some of that responsibility. I think I could have been a better CEO for VaynerMedia for what we do here in the UK and in Europe in general over the last seven or eight years. I don't feel like I've put enough effort or flag in the ground. I feel over the last three, four months we've put the infrastructure in place to really start to put pressure on the market by delivering remarkable work. So I think about that, but I think there's a bigger delta in the marketing industry than there is in the startup community in Europe, specifically the uk. I think all the things that bug me to no end, which is the romance about bullshit that this industry loves, is a 7 out of 10. In the US it is a 10 out of 10 here, we just continue to validate rewards, fake reports and headlines and magazines as good work. And we're wasting an extraordinary amount of money, an extraordinary amount of money on production and working media in a world that does not exist. And I think it needs to change and I'm incredibly motivated by it. So much so that I flew to Atlanta before a huge snowstorm in New York to get here this morning, shower quickly and sit in front of all of you fine people.

[Interviewer]

That's real. Actually, my producer can't get back to the UK because he's stuck in New York. So I know exactly what you mean.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Okay, you're a UK marketer, you're sat in this audience. What are the top two or three things you'll do with that insight you've just dropped there?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's pretty simple. It's incredibly, shockingly simple. We live in a world right now where the mid funnel is the biggest opportunity in marketing and the mid funnel is the way we define it is organic social media creative. I do not believe this room. And I'm generalizing, but I do not believe this room. And when I say this room, I'm talking about the market. I don't believe the market understands how profound what I'm about to say is, at least from one man's point of view. Statement number one, I think it is insane to spend $1 of working media on creative that has not been validated in social. There is no logic. If you understood what's happening in Meta and ByteDance and Snap and YouTube and Google, if you understood how these algorithms are written purely for relevance. The thing that we've been chasing to measure our whole lives for 100 years. Marketers like us, the bane of our existence, has been trying to understand the creative before it goes into market. Focus groups, fake reports, politics among seven important people in a room. Technology that we've been sold by holding companies, that's complete bullshit. We've been struggling with this deep knowledge that we know, which is if the creative isn't right, we lost. So I think what I ask for a lot of you is take your hat off of being a corporate animal and understanding how your organization measures everything and put your human hat on and listen to it and understand it. There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore. We don't have to guess and we should definitely not be posturing in boardrooms like, do we really still have the audacity to think our subjective opinion on a 30 second video or a picture is gonna drive the business? Every single Brand in here's biggest issue is not awareness, it's relevance. And if you're small and you need awareness, you can only get it through scaled relevance. So what are we doing here,

[Interviewer]

Avery? Where are we on time, by the way? Just keeping. I want to make sure we get lots of questions.

[Event Moderator]

Yeah, we have one or two more questions.

[Interviewer]

Perfect. All right, I want to make sure you've all. I'm sure you got loads of questions. I want to make sure you get a chance to.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We're getting dangerously close to 58 minutes.

[Interviewer]

Yes, I know. I can't. I can't go back on my promise. Well, maybe one more question for me and then let's get out to the audiences you meet. So many marketers all around the world, lots of very influential people. What are the traits of the most successful marketers that you come up against?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Lack of losing their job. The lack of fear of losing their job is the number one thing that I see in someone who's doing a good job. You know, For a Fortune 5000 marketer, there's no one in this room, if they're in that size company, that isn't dealing with a company that has measurement wrong, has allocation of funds wrong. It doesn't exist right now. And so it takes real courage to be a good marketer in a big company right now. To be able to bring common sense and actually speak what you believe in in a boardroom, when you know that that is not being rewarded or that's not how the system works, takes a lot of courage. And so, you know, we joke a lot at Vayner that, like, we only get called when shit's bad. You know, like people really don't actually want to. You know, it's. It's profound that we've been able to build this company. I've been selling something that nobody wants to buy for 15 years. And so we're very grateful for the individuals we find along the way that know the truth of the consumer and are willing to fight for that in the face of the falsities of the corporation. And that takes courage.

[Interviewer]

That's spot on, by the way. The amount of CMOs I've met and the ones that are closest their customer and don't fear, yeah, 100%. They're the two combinations.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's wild. I said this last week in an important meeting. By far, the people that believe in what we're doing over in Vaynerland are CFOs more than CMOs by far. It's not even close. Like, there's Literally no CFO meeting that I don't have, which I'm doing more of lately because of this reality that within the first 45 minutes, she or he's like, okay, yes, this. We just have a lot of romance in CMO land. I would argue that CMO land. And I, geez, I'm very fortunate. I'm incredibly close to many of the Fortune 500 CMOs. And we cry about in C. And I feel I'm closest to CMOs. I'm a marketer. We cry about, like, the lack of respect or the short tenures of the cmo. And I remind some of my dearest friends, people that went to my wedding. Like, I remind them that it is their fault. I mean it. I think we need. We need a recalibration of our industry. We're losing credibility. I spend most of my time in with the boards of the companies that you work at. We are losing credibility as marketers by showing up to these meetings with fake data. We must destroy fake data in our industry. And our industry is, if anything, great at creating fake data.

[Audience Member 1]

Although we're talking a lot about marketing, hiring is the biggest thing for me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member 1]

Getting the best talent is the fuel of it all.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Makes sense.

[Audience Member 1]

We talk a lot about hiring and hiring quickly, which I think is completely true, and I'm a big backer of it. But you also talk about being kind.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Audience Member 1]

And I'm wondering how you deal with the balance of those two things, especially when it's more down to talent and application and how you see that changing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

There's many things there. So a lot of people hear my content around hire fast, fire fast, but they always skip the part that I always say. I also say promote fastest. Right. So, like, one of the ways that this whole system will work is if you also focus on when you're fortunate enough to hire someone good to start really building an actual relationship with them, interacting with them, speaking to them, moving them up as quickly as you can afford to. That's number one. Number two, I rely on the truth of my humanity. I just ranted for 20 minutes that subjectivity in marketing is our problem. Hiring and firing is completely subjective. Of course, there's some objective things. There's some things depending on the job. But I'm aware that many of the people I've promoted or fired in my life has been a subjective opinion of me. And I'm comfortable in the humanity of me being flawed and at times, making mistakes. I also think that there's a kind way to fire. I think you know, early in my career, the way I thought I was being kind was letting people that really sucked at our jobs hang around for an extra year. Later in my life, as these gray hairs started to come in, I realized that candor along the way was far more valuable than the charity I thought I was giving them, which was creating nepotism and entitlement and also hurting the A players around me. So I think there's a kind way to fire brother. I think you need to communicate. And you also, if you know, for me, I'll tell you what worked for me. I just gave bigger severances because that's what mattered to me. I did care about the humanity more than the money. And just. I. But I really, really misplayed it. My 20s, 30s, into my early 40s, I was unable to communicate to people that I was struggling with their performance because I thought it would scare them. And I hate fear. And I just didn't have it right. I didn't have it calibrated properly. Now we have something internally called kind candor. It's literally called kind candor. And it's completely been profound for our business. It has given people that want to deliver candor from me down a framework that they need. Haven't had the luxury of the 50,000 hours of work that I've put in in these details. And I've seen every sector. We spent billions of dollars in media against it. I only look at the business short and long term. Like, we have it, right? And so for you to have it, you need to know all the answers, right? I know, like, literally, because I didn't sleep on the flight over here either, which really sucked. I'm literally analyzing how the algorithm of Snapchat Spotlight is working on the flight out here. I would argue almost no one in this room's ever been to Snapchat Spotlight, you know, so, like, either you're a practitioner of the craft or you're not. I know that carousel ads on LinkedIn right now with picture, then video are over indexing on reach versus written word. The level of practitionership needs to be profoundly deep. I also, it depends on what business you're in. Back to cpg, because I spend a lot of time there. I know that the excuses that Tesco and Sainsbury want us to do this are not true because I speak to them like, you just have to have every answer. When I'm with Pepsi, they blame the bottler. When I'm with a qsr, they blame the franchisees. Right? Like, you know, and then I pay attention market for PayPal. Like I understand what Robinhood is doing and Chime is doing and the blockchain is doing and like you, you just have to be very good. Like you know, I don't like but I mean this like, like for, you know. Kaylin is our chief business officer. We have watched clients go from this mid Funnel investment from 800,000. You know these numbers. From 800,000 invest into organic social two years ago to last year, 8 million with us in fee social creative production to this year, 40 million in fee. For some clients to get a brand to go from $800,000 to 40 million in 24 months can only be done by being incredibly T's and I's in every conversation in the boardroom and then the action has to be true. So I would say if you're going to move it and move the conversation for the higher ups, you've got to be prepared for every counterpoint. And the biggest issue is, and I talk about this all the time, my company do not fold like a cheap chair. Right? The biggest issue that a lot of executives have is if Amy or Diego is emphatic that a press release is better than organic views on LinkedIn for you, I'm empathetic. It's tough for you to fight that fight all the way through. For me it's easy. I'm like, we're out. You know, like the coolest thing about my company is some. I don't know if you guys know this, but you have this thing called procurement on your side. Those fuckers really try to do it. You know, they come in after it's been fully negotiated and try to take away literally all the margin. We just are willing to walk. I'm willing to walk in the pitch. We don't do, we don't even do RFPs. We're willing to walk every step of the way to not compromise the model because we know it to be true. And if it's compromised us at 80% of what we're supposed to do is just as bad as every other agency. It has to be 100%. You have to be 100% with all the answers to get the confidence from the people that make the decisions to move around the allocation. But I will say it's very simple. It is very simple. Creative gets tested for free in social as a byproduct of actually doing what you should be doing. Working media should be going to the creative that gets views, period. End of story. To the point where in America I think the best Ad marketing is the super bowl ad. It's the best media. It's underpriced. I believe within the next five years, you will see super bowl spots that are literally the video that played on social with the black bars on the right and left because it came from a mobile device, because the creative's been validated, and you're making a $10 million media investment. Why guess on which celebrity you're gonna put in the spot?

[Interviewer]

Ooh, that'll be good over there.

[Event Moderator]

I'm gonna flip what you've just said and talk about the noise, which is the C suite, where it gets stuck, where I don't quite know where I don't want to sign off. And your CFO should. Should be your absolute best friend. How do you break that tension, and how do you move it forward? Because a lot of times you can't influence. If this group battens down the hatches because of fear, they don't want to do it or they don't know how.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The way I do it, in case you want to ammo this, it's similar to knowing all the answers, but it's showing the waste on what you already do. I've been fascinated by this journey over the last decade. They're like, gary, I. But prove to me the ROI of this social thing. I'm like, your business has been declining for seven years in a row. Why don't you prove to me that television and bus ads work? And by the way, that's how our business grew. Just so you know, when I came into the industry, I knew I knew nothing about the jargon. I knew I knew my world. Right? I built this wine business with marketing. I was an early investor in Facebook and Twitter, and I was really successful in Silicon Valley investing. And that was starting to be clear when I started the agency. But I didn't know the terminology. Chloe. And I asked questions. You know, one of my first meetings was at Campbell Soup in New Jersey and Hunter pr back to pr. They came up here, and they're like, they did a presentation, and then Iat. I didn't even know what that was. And they said, great News. We got 80 trillion impressions last month. And one of the examples was like, they got a reference in a Huffington Post article, and they literally threw up the monthly visitors to the entire site. And I came from tech and almost invested in Huffington Post. And I was like, that's the. They literally just claimed an article. Six clicks in to Huffington Post had 45 million visitors. I was like. And no one said a word. And I got bad grades in school. So this is my first meeting. They gave us a packet. I'm like, I'm not reading this shit. I went to the last page and said, Business down 7%. I'm watching the first 25 minutes of this meeting and I'm committed. I'm committed to not talking. Because I always talk if you can't tell. And I knew it was in a new industry and I wanted to listen. I wanted to listen. Don't jump to conclusions, Gary. Stay disciplined. Listen. And I'm listening. And I'm listening. And for 25 minutes, this circle is having a party. Hunter PR's 80 trillion things. And then Gray's, like, profound. It tested better than anything in 37 years when we did four people in a focus group. Yay. Everyone's cheering. And finally, about 25 minutes in, I raised my hand. I go, hey, I'm sorry. VaynerMedia Social. No one even knew what the hell I was saying. And I was like, just curious. Like, everything sounds so awesome. Everything's working. Why is the business declining so much? I wasn't asking to razz like I do today. I was asking. Cause I didn't know. And literally everybody in the circle just shook their head. And they're like, yeah, you're right, we're confused. And I said simply, maybe the reports are wrong. In the first meeting I ever had starting this company, maybe the reports are wrong. And you would have thought like, I killed Santa Claus. And that's the problem with the CFOs and the CEOs. So you have to show them what's not working with theirs, if it is or isn't. And you have to show them the alternatives. There's unlimited examples of people that have devoted in the last 36 months to the mid funnel. It's every human that's becoming an. I'm writing a book called the your individual empire right now. It's talking about that the Mr. Beast, the me, the Stephen Bartlett's are about to become billion dollar corporations. As humans, they are the leaders of the mid funnel. Poppy Liquid ib like these companies are going from. I mean anyone here, you have competitors. Chime like, we have competitors that are going from zero to major players with a commitment to the mid final. And we are still fully stuck in the upper funnel and the lower funnel. And we're. And we're all. A lot of corporations here are dragged, right? They have the lower funnel performance team over here and they have the upper funnel brand people over here. These people fucking think they're Don Draper. These kids think they're MIT math nerds, but they're way worse than they think they are. And the algorithm that sits in the middle destroys their math skills and it definitely destroys fucking fake John Drapers over here. And I don't know what the fuck people are doing. Chloe,

[Interviewer]

there you have it. We must bring in this side of the room as well.

[Audience Member 2]

Hello, I'm Hannah from Social Tip. So essentially rewards customers for posting about brands. So it sits mid funnel. So I hear you on that. And we only report news to clients and it's just not scalable. They want impressions.

[Interviewer]

They want.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Audience Member 2]

Cost per clicks, etc. How are you then looking at reporting to clients and changing that whole structure? Because I want to bang my head against school when they disregard a view and they die on the hill of impressions.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

By telling them they should take the creative that those individuals are making and put them into the lower funnel and put media behind it the same way they do with everything they do. Right. You and I are aware that organic impressions at scale can drive a business. Our breakthrough at Pepsi was mug root beer that had no media behind it. Just the organic impressions grew household penetration in such a significant way that it changed our conversations at PepsiCo. But I wouldn't bang my head against the wall. I think you need to tell them, take the creative we're giving you or these people are giving you that are incentivized to give it and put it down at the lower level to performance and tell me how it performs against the ab creative that you normally put out. What we know is that when you put media dollars in performance against over indexing mid funnel creative, that it outperforms the best AB testing that performance people do. If you know how to take that original asset and slightly tweak it with performance DNA, change the copy, add a banner at the bottom. So there's a little post production you would do against that. But yeah, you can't fight a fight that isn't set up for you to win. You could just have the proper conversation. They're more likely to pay their creative AOR to millions of dollars to do a campaign that then pays a production company to make the video. Right. Then. Then gives them bad assets to do that work. Right. You've got to show them those assets with paid media behind it can succeed if they don't want to build into organic. Or you could tell them the truth, which is they're so under investing in it and if they gave you $5 million instead of £100,000 to do it then they would get the same results that always drove me crazy. They're like, gary, social's not working, TV is. I'm like, you're spending 44 million on TV, you're spending 500,000 on social. Give me 44 million and let's have it out. I mean, it's a crazy talk, but I think I say I have to go. I would say this the best way I could say this is the following. You all know this is true. I'd like to think that, meaning you live in life. And so I highly recommend back to some of the great questions, cross your T's and I's and understand this enough to have the proper conversations. Because I understand it's hard to fight for this if you only know 70% of it. You're going to get caught along the way. So if you believe in it, and more importantly, as marketers, this is where the industry is and will continue to go. And a lot of you are saying things in boardrooms that you don't actually believe, but you know the company will accept it. And I will leave you with this. It is much more fun to die on your own sword than someone else. One of the things that drives me very, very much in this industry is to challenge marketers to speak their truth. Because you will get fired for defending something you didn't even believe in if the business continues to decline. So there is a respectful way for you to challenge the status quo. And I promise you, the smartest people in the room are paying attention and that will benefit your career because we are in that transition point and a lot of you will be casualties of war if you are not thoughtful about what's about to happen. And I mean that. So please, by the way, you may believe the complete opposite of me. You might think it's a really good idea to have three people randomly come up with an idea and spend millions of dollars making a 30 second video, spending millions more to make them watch it even though nobody watches them. And if you believe in that, you should be conviction and yelling about that in a boardroom. But if you believe in something, you need to start speaking up. Because what I can tell you from my seat is marketing is about to go through a transition and there's a lot coming and there's a lot of angst in the system and you want to be on the right side of history in your boardrooms over the next 12 to 18 months. It will benefit your career and I wish that on you. Thank you, everybody. If you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention, and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.