Loading summary
Gary Vaynerchuk
This is the GaryVee audio experience. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the GaryVee audio experience. I'm Mike from Team GaryVee, and on.
Mike
Today'S episode of the podcast, we are.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sharing an episode of the 4DS. In this episode, you'll hear Gary give advice to entrepreneurs and business people across all different kinds of industries. I really hope you all enjoy today's episode. Ready to rock and roll. I think. I'm sure the team's prepped you for this, but, you know, I think we've done this long enough to know that, you know, what I encourage you do is like to go as deep as possible to your actual question. It's cool that other people get value from it, but don't shy away from the most nerdy, nerdy detail because that's what this portion's about. So feel free and it's nice to be with all of you.
Entrepreneur
How do we not be commoditized against our peers? You know, if you look at the Honda field product of, you know, competitor of the adult sports, you know, world over in New Jersey, very similar. So often the first time we're compared to our competitor, like, hey, how come they're $100 cheaper or this or that.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Why are they $100 cheaper?
Entrepreneur
Most people are just doing it not to run a business and just kind of as a passion project, side hustle and not really into making money. They usually have like side work or.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Other work to do. But as you can imagine, the consumer doesn't care about that.
Entrepreneur
Absolutely.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So from a consumer standpoint, how do you answer that?
Entrepreneur
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So.
Entrepreneur
Well, to answer the question to them, it's, we're more organized, we have a website, we have back end coordination of schedules and all this other kind of stuff. Some people, as you can imagine, are like, take a picture of the Google sheet, email it out or text it out or whatever. So.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So first, first you feel like you will. If they value their time, you can sell it back to them. Yes, right. Like, yeah. So I think, I always think time is like the ultimate thing to sell. Like, there's people in here who've literally ordered From Postmates a $4 candy bar and paid $27 in shipping just so they didn't have to go downstairs in New York City to the local bodeja and pick it up. So you do answer that by saying, we save you time because of the tech stack or don't you? That's a question to y'all, because I think I'm empathetic. That you may not realize how big of a deal that is. And it might seem like not the biggest thing to sell on. And I would argue it's definitely something you should sell on. And in fact, I would try to, like, really think about it and get into, like, text notifications and other things because I think it's. I always. One thing I really enjoy in these things. I really pay attention. Right. So you talk, I hear something. I say, why is it $100 more? You say, well, it's a side hobby for them. They're not writing the same P and L. I'm like, that's good businessman stuff. But I don't give a fuck if I'm Johnny about your problems. I'm trying to save 100 Buc. If you can then communicate what the value props are, that will become really important. Because nobody's commoditized. It's a really funny thought. Like, everyone's commoditized and no one's commoditized. Like, everything we're wearing right now is actually commoditized. Yet we chose to pay more for many different reasons. And everything else. I think the question becomes, can you articulate why you're a better option? Every single person in here is looking to articulate the value proposition in a better way so that they get more people to decide. Yes. Them. So I think, you know, I think keep going. Besides that, is there other things that you can speak to in terms of the value? Because, by the way, it's okay to go as blank as we think we run a better ship and it's worth more. And then if they say, why? You say, like, our people are better. You know, we do think we're saving you time and you're all busy because the cool thing is the people you're talking to, you know, are. You know, it obviously runs the gamut, but one of the great things about being in the tri state area is everyone's busy.
Entrepreneur
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Like, inherently, it's in the DNA and the fabric. You know, it's just in the energy. Right. But I think right off the bat for everybody and definitely for you, is like, you've got to be okay with saying our people are better and thus. And for someone like me, I'd be like, well, yeah, I want better refs or I want better. You know, like when I walk into the. Like, I don't know every detail yet, but like that.
Entrepreneur
No, you're there. I mean, you know, we have, we staff site managers on the field. You know, we're trying to get we're coaching and training them to be more personable, get to know the captains on a first name basis, be able to communicate on the field. We do a lot of showing off the players in terms of MVP pictures for every game. Again, post on social videographer.
Gary Vaynerchuk
How often is this coming up the price?
Entrepreneur
Not that often, but I want to increase the price but, like bring the value in the same way.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I think that's right. You know, I think. You know, it's funny, I grew up in a liquor store called Shoppers Discount Liquors. Price was what my dad traded on and I got ingrained in that. And ironically, even before I went to my dad's liquor store, my baseball card business was based on price. I would literally walk the show in the eighth grade as everyone was setting up, memorize all the prices of like the key 50 cards that everybody gave a fuck about at the moment and go back and reprice them cheaper. Like, it was such an easy thing to understand on price. And obviously over the last, you know, since that kid, over the last 40 years, I understand, like, there's many different variables one can play on. And, you know, like, now everybody wants to play at the 1% of the 1%, because that's real good business when you don't play in price. But I like where your head's at. And I would tell you, and for everyone who's listening as well, whether it's Scott's protein balls or anybody else in between, always challenge yourself of why someone would pay for this at this price is like, I don't know if there's a day that I go by that I don't think about that. And I think most people don't think about it at all. And I think there's something in there. So I love that that's where your head's at. And that's what leads to innovation of value. Like, all of a sudden. Here's a good example. The amount of people that want to be sports broadcasters that are on social media is like a billion. Just adding a live stream component to every game that's aired on Twitch to four people but has a wannabe sportscaster actually broadcast the game. I would pay for our back. I would pay for that. I'd pay $1,000 for that.
James
@ dinner last night, we were talking about, like, could we, Wrexham style, follow one of the teams from the league?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. I mean, those are really fun, like, clever ideas. I think that's cool. I think of that as like the sprinkles to the Sunday and The Sunday has to be something like we broadcast your games and commentate them. What's cool is the cost is nothing. You've got Twitch, you've got all these live streams. And again, Tri state area has advantages and disadvantages. There's just like literally 1,000 people who would work for nothing to be able to call the game with the hope that they get discovered. That's why I like challenging yourself of what's in it for them. That's what I think a lot about. Notice the example I gave you. Twitch is free. It's not like. By the way, do you know why I used YouTube within weeks of it being available? Because three years earlier I tried to do wine library TV and asked my tech team and they said it was going to cost $50,000 a week because streaming bandwidth cost in 2003 were literally like $50,000 if 10 people watched three minutes. And then you know, three years later YouTube was like. It literally took me like 20 minutes to be like no, no, it's free. Like it's free. Like I'll post it and YouTube's not gonna send me a bill. It's funny to think about those things. So I think you're on a good path. Keep try to add four more bells and whistles that aren't your staff as nicer. Those are. Right. But you're gonna need like the thing on the. Exactly the menu of like oh, oh, oh, oh. Of course. 150 more. Yeah, yeah, got it. By the way, you could go local college that has a sports broadcasting thing because I assume there'll be content at scale. Right. There's multiple leagues going on at all the time. And again you could also create tiers. So one of the ways you could raise your price is whatever imaginary price you had for increase. You might not do it for everyone. You may have a double that price for the sportscast broadcasting way. You could still net out at the same top line revenue and have real justification of why more.
Entrepreneur
Yeah, yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And I just came up with one idea in two seconds that I think would work. I think you keep building on that.
Entrepreneur
Yeah, for sure.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Do you keep hardcore stats for basketball? Yeah, yeah. I mean I used to do it.
Entrepreneur
Across the board but it just got sloppy and like 15% aside from basketball, we're looking at it. So it was just like not worth the squeeze.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. I think with that gets me immediately into like really actually producing meaningful actual trading cards for everyone in the league with actual stats on it. There's just like you just keep looking. If you can Just, you're just trying to arbitrarily notice how he picked up on like, oh, there's no risk. I'm always thinking of cost of goods against perceived value. Yeah, yeah, right?
Entrepreneur
Yeah, yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I like that you started there. And I would tell you that that is a good cadence forever. I mean, there's a million ways to do this. Food and beverage. Food and beverage could be a reason. Like, where are you, like physically anywhere.
Entrepreneur
From Weehawken to Wayne to Whippeny, that.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Whole area kind of thing. A lot of W's there. I really think that. I really think that the restaurant sitch in Bergen and Passaic county also is like an opportunity. Maybe you start using your business as a platform for discovery of food. So like, you reach out to all 7,000 restaurants that are on 80 and 10 and say, hey, we have this. We have captive audience, high net worth individuals that are paying for this. Would you like to showcase? Another reason is like our food and beverage program is better. Another. Notice what I did there. Low cost. I'm using my platform as a marketing engine so I can arb the cost of goods because I'm not gonna pay for that food. But there's perceived value on the other end of people there. My number one thing, especially with buddies that I play with is like, oh, we could eat afterwards and shoot the shit and talk shit about the game and just continuous stuff like that. What else?
Entrepreneur
Tough one. Growth in new markets. So we came into New York City last year, stumbled a little bit just in terms of bandwidth from running in New Jersey, coming in New York. We didn't have any foods on the ground in New York.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Why'd you come to New York? The lore of it.
Entrepreneur
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Cause then, you know, we take a step back and we're like, what the hell?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Even in Hoboken, you just ate every word out of my mouth. Like, knowing the size and scale of the New Jersey market and knowing the supply and demand of opportunity. Like, when I think about you going to Livingston, like the Livingston Shorthills Melbourne area and doing it there versus playing here. It's like you have any people do this all the time in business. Like, they get excited about expansion for the sake of expansion. Like the thesis, the ideology, the concept more than the actual business reality. This business is way better executed in New Jersey and Connecticut and Rhode island and all those places. Manhattan just has so much pull and cogs and competitiveness, you know?
Entrepreneur
Yes. But ironically, cogs are very, very low for field space.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
Entrepreneur
And that's like one of our top things.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Hitting cogs. Right? Fair. Fair.
Entrepreneur
Got it.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Got it. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm using my own slang. You're right. More than I am. Energy.
Entrepreneur
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Your time is the number one cog.
Entrepreneur
Yeah. And especially living across there.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You know what crossing we take it just. I'm always sad. I do it plenty, too, which is. This is. I think I'm giving therapy to myself. When you haven't fully squeezed the shit out of this grapefruit, what the fuck are you grabbing that orange for? You know what I mean? Like, there's still a lot of fucking juice here.
Entrepreneur
Yeah, totally.
Mike
I'm setting my stopwatch because I am going to be selfish.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Don't worry, James. I trust him more than anything. But we can double it up. Go ahead.
Mike
This is a big day for me because I worked hard to get back to this point. Just to give you some context. First of all, I want to say the reason I'm here, and you're always about context and relevance. I listen to your. I listen to the GaryVee stuff that you repost through my Spotify when I do cardio. I think it was on the first of the month of this month, maybe last month, October. We run an agency and you mentioned something about maybe you lost a big client today. Right at the end of the month, oftentimes agents turn over. That was super relevant. Then you guys started talking about sasha group and four Ds, my assistant, kind of look it up. And we booked.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's amazing. Thank you for that feedback.
Mike
But just here's my Eric Godfrey moment.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Eric Godfrey is the kid I met outside when I was seven and when I literally moved to Edison, New Jersey, and they were throwing a Nerf football. And he said, who do you like in football? And I said, I was just in America for a little while. At this point. He's like, well, you're a Jets fan. And that's literally how I became a Jets fan. And it's like the cornerstone of my interest in life.
Mike
So here's my Gary V. Eric Godfrey moment. I went to Babson College, was one of the pioneers of premium sms, made a shitload of money, got invited to some boat. I'm on my way to the casino to roll craps with the founder of Groupon and Living Social. And my friend Ryan Sessler goes, I'm going to see Gary Vaynerchuk. You to come with me.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You weren't Gary B. That you were Gary.
Mike
And I said, who? Because I was into Tim Ferriss, because.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I Was, yeah, I love Tim. Yeah.
Mike
Ryan Sessler, who's just a, an acquaintance of mine, goes, Andy, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk. And I walk in there, you came out, you were, I guess you were 35 at the time. You looked like you were 16. You're wearing a shitty pair of cargo shorts, like a T shirt.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That sounds exactly right.
Mike
You gave the best keynote speech I'd ever heard in my life. Gary comes out on stage and goes, I'm the most ruthless entrepreneur you've ever met. Does this whole spiel, he's the pig pops. And he looks right at Russell Simmons and goes, fuck you, Russell Simmons.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I did, I did, I did.
Mike
I remember in that moment, I've been the. I've been all in since. Anyway.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And by the way, to give you context so you don't think I'm a complete jerk off, what was. And he's painting a very clear picture. What was happening was everyone here was my point. I'm very good at. I'm a good public speaker, but I'm very good if I have a lot of context. So what was good about this boat was I was speaking about a day and a half in. All I do is watch. So I was watching how everybody was rolling and what I noticed was, right, you're probably remembering more now. Even, like, I couldn't believe how, first of all, this was already a bougie fucking thing. Why do you need to look at everyone's fucking name tag before you decide how important they are? And this was at the height of like, Google and like, and I was just, it was just very obvious to me that, like, what people were doing. And I was like, and I'm so into, like loving people, like blindly. It's just so foreign to the way I see the world, especially because everyone's on a journey, which was the point of, like, you don't get it. I'm going to be the most important guy here. But you don't know that yet. And what my point was like, stop pegging everyone. Let's spend the back half of this boat just being nice to everyone. You don't know who you're going to meet.
Mike
One thing you did on that trip too. We got in a semicircle, started with three of us, then it was six, I think by the end, maybe 10 people. You stayed up all night just talking to people. I went to bed at 2 in the morning, but I watched you walk off that boat, like going like this. And I was like, what the fuck was the roi? And that guy Doing that. But I mean it's just amazing.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's cool man. I'm very humbled. Thank you. Go ahead.
Mike
So anyway, it's been a long journey for me. I got, I got into some legal issues in that premium SMS space. It took me out of the game for six years.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Wow.
Mike
I started working with a, with a Harvard neuroscientist. We were trying to sell a military grade mental protocol to darpa, which is the advanced research.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Mike
Wasn't making any money doing it, but it dialed me the in when I got out of that kind of six years of kind of going through legal health.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Mike
And this guy, you know, he's doing brain mapping and all this stuff. I've been sober for seven years. I eat organic, I meditate. He really dialed me in and. But I was making three grand a month. It wasn't, wasn't doing much. And all of a sudden pandemic comes and I'm the most calm, clear minded version of myself ever.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Interesting.
Mike
I'm sitting at my parents home in Cape Cod. I get a call from a girl who remembered me when I was this young, high flying Internet marketer. Andy Nature. Help. I've got a hundred dollars to my name. I'm some Jewish lady's nanny in LA doing her grocery shopping. I'm stressed out about getting coronavirus.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
Mike
OnlyFans. But I can't figure it out.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
Mike
So what the hell is that? I logged in, I said oh wow, you're trying to thirst.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right? Yeah.
Mike
Marketing logic.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
Mike
Really robust in the sense that it can, you know, make these transactions but it doesn't do a good job of taking a creator with a blindfold on and saying do steps one through 10 and you're gonna make it back.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike
This girl had 50000 followers on Instagram. No Tick Tock, no Twitch, no Twitter, no nothing. Wasn't a creator. I shoved her out of the way and I started to storytell with her content. Made her a quarter of a million dollars in a month. She starts running around la, starts telling all these rights. Instagram people.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Mike
Hey, don't trust your business to nightclub promoters and.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right.
Mike
You know.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I get it.
Mike
There's these guys in Boston and it exploded. And what's happened is the owners of that platform were Ukrainian, Russian guys. They now use us basically when they've got larger celebrities like Denise Richards, Mia Clay. For people like that that you can see on the back end aren't quite taking advantage of their opportunity. They bring them to us. Here's here's why I'm here. Built this company to $100 million a year company without a brand and without putting content on the Internet. And it was all these kind of intellectual face to face zooms where I would get on the, you know, get on FaceTime with these content creators and really say, like, hey, if you get a fan, when you attract an audience, you can make $5 off them or 5,000 off them. What's the difference? That's what we bring to the table. All the analytics, the special. Oh, my God, I didn't know you existed. After about year three, I said, it's time to brand this thing. So we built our Brand Creators Inc. And went all in on that. We just had this big house party with Steve Aoki. We activated New York Fashion Week. So all of our clients and don't just want to be only fans. Creators could come and walk on a Runway. We do stuff like that.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Mike
Problem is, now that we've built this big fancy brand, they're not coming like they were when I just got on FaceTime with them. And I was like, you know, what's quantitative analytics? Like, what's a wall post for? What's this for? What's that for?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Is that a macro or micro thing, do you think? Because the space is more mature as well. Like, I think a lot of times people remember when we lost a Subway pitch and I was shocked. Were you here for that? We, like, we won like 13 pitches in a row. And then like, Subway said no. And I was like, baffled. I was like, how is that possible? And what I didn't realize at the time was, uh, oh, when we said social media in 2010 and 11 people were like, okay, like, my brother's laptop literally created the Pepsi and NHL and Campbell's Soup. Like Facebook and Twitter. Like, it was that early. Obviously, as that ecosystem has evolved. That's why I'm asking you, do you think it's a macro or micro issue?
Mike
I think it's a micro because.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, that's. Then that's golden. If you believe that it's micro, you just go back to the number one thing that always works in business, which is. And it's. I can't believe the fact that your story touched on this. What was the ROI of that guy doing it? Scaling the unscalable always works. The cool part is your story is so simple. Right. Why don't you just go back and do that now? You may not want to. And that's awesome. That's okay. Because then you can have a diluted version of that, meaning you hire other people. Like nobody sells the way I sell my stuff. But if I was the only person doing that, then it would only be what it is. So I'm okay with the B and the C and the B and the A. I mean, you're thrilled when it's the A minus version of what you do. So all you'd have to do is replicate what you would do one on one with the Navy Seals and the Green Beret, not the general army that your 100 million is. You have to build a Navy SEALS or a Green Beret to be an A minus, B plus, hopefully B no worse than B minus version of you doing it. And you're also allowed to go back and do it as often as you want to.
Mike
There's an interesting variable.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Go ahead.
Mike
So one of the reasons I never just took the content of me, you know, pitching and selling and talking about quantitative.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, that I understand why. Well, there's two ways that people think about that. One, they don't want to be out in front. Like that's just a human thing, which is very real. You're allowed or not allowed. And two, some people fear that they go too far in the details of it and people can replicate it. Yeah.
Mike
And specifically in our case, what I didn't want to do was piss off the partners at OnlyFans to be like, oh, when you're chatting with so and so you're actually talking to us. So we were respecting.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, that I respect that a lot of people.
Mike
Because a lot of people screw up and do that and then they just kind of get, you know, they, they get nicks for that. But we're kind of coming to the point now where, I mean a lot of our marketing was trying to say things without saying things. And that's where I think we were screwing up.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, that makes sense. That's where we're screwing up. I mean the number one business that sucks is that at some level you can get humongous, but it's going to weigh. The other thing is just on a side note, the other thing you have to think about is just the business itself because that work is going to get AI'd out. For real, actually. For real. Actually like of is going to do that, not let you do that.
Scott
There's.
Mike
You're right. I mean, but in a lot of ways I think we know where AI is going to really help in this space versus like some of the parts where you would think that it might completely take over.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I would say this and I, and I actually am a buyer of what you just said. Just do me a favor, because I don't. I want you to win. Never underestimate technology. It's always like it's back to the era we met, that next 10 years. I watched so many people say versions of that cac row. You know this, I don't have to tell you. So just this one's such big technology. I would argue even the people that are deepest about it are potentially underestimating how gnarly this tech is. So I just want to make sure you keep that in mind. I think the number one thing that everyone should always be doing is putting themselves out of business before someone else does. I think you should go all in on assuming that truth and work backwards instead of whatever version of hope of what variation it becomes because I think that will lead you to innovate the next thing.
Mike
I just want to tell you there's a lot of GaryVee in our business. So for instance, like when I, when I coach content creators and we talk about context.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right? Yeah. Can I throw a left field thing at you that I'm just feeling so much. I have to say it. I highly recommend, and I think you will, based on everything I've heard, please, when you leave here, please debate starting a consumer product. Yeah.
Scott
So I'm in charge of growth.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right.
Scott
All these things we're looking at, like we have a large roster. Every day we see clients of ours, their contents getting ripped and turned into Snapchat original shows.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right.
Scott
So like as we grow. We talked about this a little bit earlier too.
James
Right.
Scott
Like we're trying to figure out how to navigate. There's this concept of people gatekeeping a good service when they find it in our industry.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right.
Scott
Of course, as we've now started posting content, we're like, how do we navigate going from top tier service that's behind the scenes to now kind of Walmart distribution in terms of media and kind of navigating that content chain.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think A, I think that's right. B, I'm talking about starting cereal.
Mike
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Or like a handkerchief.
Mike
By the way, we have to show you cereal creators because one of your things you talked about like eating cereal.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Cereal entrepreneur.
Mike
I started something called Cereal Creators Breakfast Creator Cereal Cereal Creators Breakfast for cereal. Cereal. Anyhow, last thing I want to plant in your head, just please, in case you ever have anything to throw, please. Out of nowhere, we've ended up with clients like Denise Richards, like Iggy Azalea, like, you know, these types of well.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Not out of nowhere. It sounds like you're great at your craft and the platform benefits for you making people that should be winning win. I would argue it's the least out of nowhere thing.
Mike
So much so that agencies like UTA looked at buying us because we were afraid Emily Bradajkowski was going to come to us make 400 grand a month at OnlyFans and then we'd. I will do your brand deals for free.
Gary Vaynerchuk
They're right. Your higher value and I just kind.
Mike
Of wanted to obviously like you've been in the service business.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Yeah. I'll give that some thought. Send me an email after this. I'll keep it. I know where to put it.
Scott
Selfish question I have.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Scott
You were talking about Twitch for them. Very tapped into culture. Like we have kids that are some of the bigger IRL streamers.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Scott
Like Kick or Twitch. Like where do you see that with humble things.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think it's a. I mean, yeah, I get it. All of it is going to end up going to the blockchain because even all of those exist because they're all scared to get banned for canceling on something. So you have these. We won't ban you until that becomes the. It's always. There's centralization and decentralization. Right. This is why people are grossly underestimating the blockchain. In the geopolitics that the world is in. In the media landscape that we live in, there is an inevitable outcome of an and to the world we live in now. It's not like a decentralized social network or streaming service is gonna put out a business Twitch or Facebook of the day in five years, but both will exist. And the best, which is the game you're playing in the best will all gravitate to decentralization once they extract attention from centralization. You know this. All the creators are like, yo, fuck Vine. I remember when the vine guys and girls went to vine to go yell at them and I was like, tell me how that works out. And I also tried to remind them that they were fucking babysitters and working at Starbucks until the attention that sat on vine came to them. So that's how I think they'll work out.
Mike
Are you streaming at all on Twitch.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Or I'm going to go around because I don't want James to get mad at me. The quick answer is I'm not because I don't think people understand that I work 24 hours a day. I'm one of the most prolific content creators. But I allocate zero minutes a day to content creation. I wish I could.
Mike
I want to tell you the only reason I ask that is because what we've noticed in our space.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I get it. Trust me. The problem is I'm inclined if it was old wine library days, all of it. Because I'm sitting with sensitive information that is that I can get that I just have. You'd be stunned how little I could crushing it.
Mike
All they really have versus the people who aren't is good spatial awareness with them and their.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I couldn't agree more. They're just doing a lot, man. I so say it. I get it. Trust me. I've been thinking about it a lot. Ustream ended up being a huge factor for me back in those days. Not just Twitter and Facebook, the early streaming stuff. All right, let me keep going. What's going on? Vancouver. Yeah.
James
You. Well, first book was Cross crush it. You actually talked about a realtor that started on YouTube, started filming himself as car. That realtor was Ian Watt.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep. I remember.
James
Who I actually consider somewhat of a friend.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's awesome.
James
And so I kind of ended up just following that blueprint.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
James
And ended up building a very good personal brand space. You know, like big, you know, world beyond Bloomberg interviewing, you know, CBC news. But I guess the issue I'm having or I'm here as a personal brand trying to figure out sort of where my next move or where do I pivot. But the residential real estate space I find is very hard to scale. And so I'm like, it's. It's a business to scale.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So I'm like most are.
James
Yeah. And so I think I'm just looking ahead. As you know, I've been doing it now for 10 years. I mean, still a young guy. And I'm like now started this podcast. It's called the Looney Hour.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And what's that about?
James
So it's myself. I look at it from the real estate space.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep. Of course. Expertise. Yep.
James
I've partnered up with the guy that runs portfolios. He's like a macro, macro investor. Basically runs client portfolios.
Gary Vaynerchuk
He's a money manager. Yep. Understood.
James
And then the other guy was. Worked for a hedge fund.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Love it. So you guys shoot it. Yeah, so love it. How old are you?
James
32.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. I mean this is perfect for me to answer. So from, you know, from. From 30. From 30 to 34. You know, when I was Gary Vaynerchuk, I was the wine guy. Just like you're the real estate guy. In Vancouver, I decided to start making content about other things as a personal brand who's built something. You got to say back to what he was just talking about. It's not just your pretty eyes. Like, you have other communication capabilities, charismas, so you could actually deploy that to anything else that you can speak to. I decided to go very macro and go into overall communication. And then that led me to, like, the insights of, like, how humans. I went through a really weird period where I was like, I'm literally telling everybody what to do. I'm like, do this on Facebook. And I'm like, no one's doing it. And that led me to like, oh, people are insecure. People are like. People do like, all the shit I talk about. But I could have went into, I thought about it, sports. Like, I'd be McAfee. That's why Pat and I are friends. Like, whatever I was gonna do, it was gonna work. I just chose a certain lane, you know, I think what you need to do is decide what if it's what's next or. I don't wanna scale this. That blueprint continues to be true. The platforms change, the best practices within them change. But back to what these gentlemen were just talking about. Whether it's streaming and spatial recognition, storytelling to the mundane, whether it's the neck. I mean, the next TikTok is always one day away. It will happen. You know, it could be seven years, it could be four years. But even back to, like, the nerd of all this. Like, the amount of money creators could be making on Snapchat because of the supply and demand of how much ad revenue is in there versus how many people create for it. Because everyone's fixated on TikTok and Instagram is enormous. And then of goes from thirst traps to a broader market. Patreon, there's just like a million things going on. I think your biggest debate at this young of an age is what is your favorite stuff. You can only win on passion or knowledge. Like, someone like you, There's a lot of ways to win, but you. My gut, based on what I'm hearing, you're gonna win on either you love the fucking Canucks more than breathing or you really know something else. Well, I went with the well and passion, right? I went wine, business, marketing. You know, I think. I think you have a pretty clear, like, what's also cool about the core real estate business is it's not like you have to retire the fact that you can start something around Pokemon, video games, table tennis, pool, whiskey, while still doing the real estate, and then integrating it the way I do because I'm all over the fucking place. You might get a fucking garage sale video for me or a jets video or business or, you know, like, I don't think people realize the renaissance man and woman thing is very real. Everyone's like, you gotta stay consistent. The bad advice, don't worry about it. I'm not distracted. The bad advice that people go and be like, pick your niche and go. Yes. But then once you have your steak, you can sell mashed potatoes, you could sell green beans. What do you think's gonna happen, brother? You think somebody in Vancouver is gonna see a video about you talking about whiskey and be like, oh, he also likes whiskey. I can't take him serious about real estate. People don't deploy common sense to this conversation. They talk academia.
James
So where have I seen that crossover? Just for an example, is our Looney Hour show is now like. It's like the finance show in Canada.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Like, that's awesome. Full Canada.
James
Full Canada.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's awesome. So it's doing well.
James
The nice thing about that, right?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
James
Vancouver set to that geography. Geographical limits of constraints.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah.
James
Like your clientele only be people that.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, of course.
James
Like now we're opening up to Canada. Like, we're literally interviewing like former prime minister.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. Yep. And it's lead gen for all of you. Right. But for them too. They're very broad. Where you're narrow.
James
Yes, I'm narrow. I'm getting a lot of clients that they're like, hey, I've been listening.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Have you. Have you thought about building a. A national brokerage?
James
There's no. I don't think there's a lot of good money. Maybe it's because the canes is a little bit different. I think, I think the brokerage model is shit. I think it's actually dying.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay. Where I do.
James
I think this is kind of leading. And some of my question is. So my co host, who's a money manager, he wants to actually start sort of helping. He wants me to help him scale his business and take equity stake.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Because basically what's understand through that podcast. Yep.
James
Unintentionally, he's pulling in like he's signing up two to three new clients.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Not unintentionally, which, yeah, intentionally in that.
James
Industry is, you know, most people will generate their business.
Gary Vaynerchuk
All of this conversation for everyone is just brand is the best selling. I always make fun of people who like, don't believe in marketing branding, who are great salespeople. I'm a great salesman too. I'm like, cool that's like, that's like when you're not good at marketing and sale and brand, you like, you guys are. It's not unintentional. It's called you built. You built brand. Which is why he has sales.
James
Wouldn't worry necessarily. Crossover, like, oh, real estate. And then sort of on the portfolio management side, he's like, oh, now he's kind of doing that thing.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, let's play it out. I think when you hear it played out in conversation, you realize how silly it is. What do you think? Like, what do you think is going to happen? People are like, what happens?
James
Like, maybe last visit, like, oh, I think he's not, you know, do I want to hire this guy? Because he's not fully dedicated to.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Would you take my wine recommendation? That's the answer to the question. Right. You've proven your worth in that other space.
James
The only reason why I look at that is because, like, so his competition, like, the whole industry in portfolio management is regulated by investment advisors that work for Big Bang. Big Bang says you cannot do social media at all. You want to send a tweet, like, we need to get compliant.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Oh, I'm very aware. There's plenty of versions of that all over the world.
James
So I'm just looking at and saying I feel like there's this huge white space opportunity.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Of course it is.
James
Zero competition. The banks are unwilling to.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Correct. Yeah. I don't think you'll lose your whole real estate empire in Vancouver because you've also started to play in the money management space. And that's assuming you go front facing.
James
Yeah, well, that's the thing. I think realistically I'd actually end up probably more behind.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Exactly.
James
I'm not gonna be the one that's physically managing someone's.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Correct.
James
Building that business.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Correct. So notice what I notice the clarity I just gave you on that. Sounds like you're worrying about something that won't even manifest.
James
Yeah, no, that's fair. I think it's like, I think it's.
Gary Vaynerchuk
But this goes back to, like, what we. Yeah, yeah. Like, I think this is what we do. Like, if you just listen, like, well, they are not running real businesses. The consumer doesn't care. These are philosophical things. We think stay on brand. People don't care. What, are we not willing to take Mark Wahlberg seriously as an actor because he was once Marky Mark? You know what I mean? Like, we do this thing and I'm telling you, it's all grounded in academia. It's not grounded in real market dynamics. The consumer has spoken on this issue. We will change our mind. And if you show me enough of. You're this. You're this. Mike Bloomberg used to be a SaaS entrepreneur to me. Then he became a mayor. Like, I don't know, like, you become what you are at a consistent pace, both good, bad, and different. So I don't fear that especially. It sounds like you have, like, yours is really fun because it doesn't sound like you're even going to confuse the market.
James
Yeah, well, I mean, it's just nice to already have, like, platforms and the brand is already built. So it's obviously just trying to leverage that into, like, a more scalable business that I feel like, okay, where do I see myself?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think you took it to a little bit of an interesting place. It sounds like you're fearing something that can't happen.
James
Yeah, yeah. I think ultimately.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right. You're gonna be behind the scenes. No, by the way. By the way, the good news is that's a really good observation. I think we all do that. Yeah, I think we all. Like, this is why I believe in therapy the most. Sometimes you already know the answer. You just need to talk it through. Yeah, it's just a human trait for all of us, I guess. My last question.
James
I know you've got your podcast, but if you had one recommendation for scaling my podcast, is there anything that you see as a huge opportunity where it's like, oh, people that have an audio video podcast, they should totally be doing this?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. I think I'm incredibly consistent about this. I believe that if everyone here. So I'm writing a new book called Day Trading Attention. Right. I believe that we all have to day trade attention to maximize our upside. What that means is you need to pay attention to everything that is going on. So let's just use streaming because I fully agree with these guys. What's going on there? Like, I was one of the people early on that was like, hey, if you have a podcast, film it and then post produce it and put it everywhere. Now that's incredibly common practice, but I would also argue that you should stream it as well. Have four Twitch followers at first. Like, while you're doing the now again, everybody has a different process. For me, everything's always worked. Cause I'm happy to just like put it out there. Obviously, when you film something, you have the ability to post produce it. If you're live, you're live. So, like, if you're just. If you go live and you're waiting for your guest. You might not want to do that live, you know, like you've got to think about what live means. But Look, I think LinkedIn's organic reach is something everyone under leverages on this day as we all sit here today. I think people understand you can go viral on TikTok though that's much harder than three years ago. I don't think people understand how consistently you can get organic reach that you didn't have the day before on LinkedIn. And I'm very bullish on it. And I think everybody here, whether you sell a protein ball or you're actually in the B2B business, LinkedIn is more Facebook 2015 than it is the LinkedIn that I think everyone defaults into thinking it is. So it's say anybody who's not distributing any of their content, everybody should be distributing content on LinkedIn. It's a really good psychology audience too. The human that's on LinkedIn when they're consuming LinkedIn is a different version of themselves. Often very business, transactional minded versus TikTok where you're just looking or escapism or you know, entertainment. I'm very, I would say that one really stands out for me. But then also just taking no assumptions, you need to film them and you need to post produce them but you also have to be great at the post production. I know, we'll touch on that. I don't know how much have we touched on that yet or is that a back app? Have we done sock stuff with a little bit good. You know, so like this stuff like the world works on storytelling.
Lori
First of all, thanks. We kind of built studio and young ideals of like thank you and jab, jab, jab.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Thank you.
Lori
That's good. So since then over nine years we've grown to be kind of a collection of businesses that are like over $100 million and we only got about 200 people on our team. We primarily grew with Instagram so we like we started because we got on there and kind of pulling back the curtain on like high end design, kind of make it more kind of like approachable and be able to answer a bunch of questions. So we've basically grown primarily most of our business off organic content and it was just like telling the growing the brand, brand above everything. Telling that whole story was really successful, drove a lot of business and I think now we're at a stage where we are adding in page and we're.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Trying to really measure the attribution and within it. Within an Instagram environment.
Lori
Yeah, Instagram. We're on Tick Tock. We had a Netflix show for like, four seasons.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Oh, wow.
Lori
That ended last season. So when we first launched Netflix, we saw an incredible, like, lift and like, kind of like.
Gary Vaynerchuk
What was the show about called?
Lori
Dream Home Makeover. Yeah, we just. They took kind of what we did, distilled it down. We'd go in and, like, put over a room.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep.
Lori
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I mean, obviously in the beginning, that must have been huge awareness. So you're just feeling a maturation standpoint right now.
Lori
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Which is why paid has entered.
Lori
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Makes sense.
Lori
You kind of like, just seen this mean reversion in the home industry over the last, like, I say, like, year. Like, there was a big bond, like a big, big bump during COVID And then when people were kind of their house, they're like, hey, let's.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Of course, of course, of course.
James
Businesses.
Lori
And now it's kind of like, okay, where are we at? Who's. Who's left?
Gary Vaynerchuk
This is my father calling me every day. He's like, why are we not selling as much wine as we did during COVID I'm like, dad, people are not at their home. 24. Like, I'm sorry. Like, somebody went to a restaurant tonight and ordered a glass of wine that came out of your pocket. He's like, you have to fix it. I'm like, like, thank you for the confidence, but I'm like, I can't change the world.
Lori
So I think that's kind of where we're left is like, okay, we can either right size. The bit more which we have. We like, we really, like, looked at business operations like hardcore went really efficient.
Gary Vaynerchuk
But after having this kind of run, it's in your tummy to just want to continue to grow instead of be more efficient. Right. Of course.
Lori
Doubled every year for the last.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, of course. It's. Here's the cool. It's really funny because. Thank you. Economy and jab, jab, jab. Right hook. Day trading. Attention. Six months ago was called jab, jab, jab, Left hook. It's. I'm literally rewriting the book because it's changed so much and I'm ready for a 301 course instead of the 201 that that book was at the time. The cool part is organic is here. It's just that you're not good at TikTok. Organic is here. It's just that you haven't even committed to LinkedIn and then thus can't be good at it. So couple things. One, you've won between Netflix and Instagram and that run on awareness leading to sales. That is still on the table for all of us. It's just a lot harder right now, right? That's all that's happened, but it's actually never been greater. It's like this weird thing. It's like there's always ebbs and flows. It's why I was so. And I know it sounds like a lot of you have had context on me for a long enough time. It's why I was so loud. Pandemic was March 2020. It was why I was so loud. Late 18, all of 19 about TikTok. The land grab of organic was better than anything Instagram ever had. But nobody moved because everyone was pot committed Instagram. So couple things. One, let that little thing. Because you'll always clearly what you have resonates. You just need to arb attention versus value. Like to right? Just make sure that every time there's another new thing, especially if I'm loud about it, because that means it already happened, I'm not guessing. To go triple hard. I remember I promised myself before TikTok if I ever saw another YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, vine, that I was. That was it. I was gonna go into a cocoon. I wasn't even gonna run Vayner. I was gonna be one. Cause I knew it. And sure enough, musically came. TikTok came. I saw it. I did great. But I fucking went like 20% hard. Cause I had other responsibilities. And boy, do I Wish I went 100% hard. Because it may be a long time before we have as big of a moat of opportunity as TikTok. 18, 19 was. Anyway, that's all to be said that when they get into brand performance later, like, there's definitely a play. Media's great. Like, I think people get religious, especially when they're great at organic. Like I grew all this without media. I'm like, that's not a badge of honor. I'm like, if you're obedient, right? And I get why. I get why. It goes back to a lot of what we're talking about here, like the subconscious. But when you really break it down. But if you could spend media perfectly and it would grow your business, why wouldn't you? You know, you get caught in these like ideologies. So I think a Don't demonize paid paid scary because like, it feels really hurtful when you like spend $100,000 and nothing happens.
Lori
External agency, like, they try to take credit cards. So they're like, hey, contribution contributing like, 25% of your revenue. You're like, bro, you just got here like two, like six weeks ago.
Gary Vaynerchuk
100%. I always make fun of our team. I'm like, every time a business is doing well, you all say, we did it. And every time it's not doing well, it's their fault. I'm like, you hypocrite. Yeah, no, I think you should build this internally. I think most. I say it all the time to clients all the time. This is why I think Sasha Group and Vayner do well. I'm like, why would you hire us? It goes back to what I was saying earlier, the price. I'm always like, why would someone hire us? This what we're doing. We like, I really think about four Ds a lot. I'm like, why? Like, we put this video out. Like, I'm like, I think about this shit constantly. Like, why? Why? Why? So anyway, couple things for your business. Couple really interesting things. I don't have the full answer on this, but I'm spending a lot of time on Pinterest personally right now. For your business. Pinterest is bananas. It's just that Pinterest has never found its moment of like, what we're all looking for, like that true organic monster. But I would a flirt with that a little bit. YouTube Shorts is very important for all of us because YouTube's the second biggest search engine in the world and your business is very search oriented. Like when people go their journey and obviously they're doing that more and more on social. But I think YouTube shorts is a very big deal. These are the platforms that I think you have to get as good. You have to understand you have to give yourself more credit for getting good at Instagram back in that era. I think a lot of times when people have organic pay dirt, they give the platform credit, not themselves. Now, some things come more natural to people than others. One of the biggest reasons people didn't jump into TikTok is it didn't feel natural to them. By the way, it's a challenge for me because I don't create TikTok. You have to really create. Like, my post production shit does not work on TikTok the same way. I just have no options. I'm doing too many other things. So I'm gonna have to take that L and be like a C minus at it.
Lori
My wife hates it because she's become like the face of our business, right?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Lori
And she's like, all the TikToks that you really was. It's like me talking. They want to see me just talking.
Mike
Damn.
Lori
Want to get on every day.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And I'm old.
Lori
We're only 39. We're going to be 40 cent.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You're so young.
Lori
We're fine. You know, but she's like, those just do. Really, Those resonate.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I think, I mean, look, I think that the game for you is to get paid and organic, to work well on every platform to the best of your ability, and to back to the different ideas that I was talking about over here for ideas for business. I think the thing I'm most proud of, and I hope you've all felt this, is like when you go to my grid, it's like a potpourri of randomness. Everyone's so obsessed with their grid being on brand. It's just not how people consume. They're consuming content to content. So the thing that's definitely happening in your world, if your wife's like, fuck this shit, I don't wanna do this every day. You're not challenging yourselves to figure out other ways to do content. People get into ruts. They have something that works and they do it for the next seven years. Like, you have to try different shit. Like, again, the thing I'm most proud of, and I want you all to go look at my last hundred posts on Instagram. We're trying all sorts of shit. Pouring fucking milk into coffee to say be you. Like, I'm saying the same shit for 20 years, but like, but if you find different creative ways and you understand, you can find that pay dirt. So, like, maybe it's just audio. Maybe the two of you should have dinner where you know you're recording the dinner and you, like, know you're recording it and it's all audio and you just literally like, talk about shit that you want, like to get out there. And that's your podcast and maybe that's your creative pay dirt. Cause that would be like some shit that I would listen to if I gave a fuck about a couple just them having dinner. Like, literally two post carousels. Yep, still working. But like, again, I'm already feeling the. You know, it's just day. That's why I'm calling it day. Trading attention. I'm trying to get people out of the rut of like, oh, this works. They think it works for like the next nine years. You gotta be in it. You've just, you've hit that place. We all have hit fatigue of the style of the creative or the distribution of the creative. You gotta challenge yourself. Does that make sense? Yep. Introducing new people. You know, when a sitcom has a great run and it's getting a little tired, they bring in like the kid, like that fucking weird kid for, you know, the Brady Bunch and even Leo DiCaprio I think was like the kid for Growing Pains. Like they're, you know, like to spice it up, Cosby Show. I think every great sitcom, when it gets tired, introduces that new character with the hope. You know, you may want to introduce new characters to your ecosystem.
Lori
I think that's what we were just thinking about. Has been introduced new things. Trying to measure that to like that is worth.
Gary Vaynerchuk
You know what's funny? Like you gotta make sure you have patience in that. It's funny. Like always think about your purest self when you were winning and then realize after levels of success how you're no longer that person. Me holding on to 2005 Gary is probably my best business move because you weren't fucking ROI measuring in 2014. Instagram, the way you are now, you've become mature, you've become corporate. You're looking for ROAS and CAC and LTV acronyms. You didn't even know what the fuck they meant eight years ago when it started popping off. 2005 Gary still runs this. As a matter of fact. You know this. You guys know this. 2005 Gary or 2011 Gary, if we're talking Vayner X terms came back a couple years ago and resurrected. Right. And it's been way better. Right. Because I wanted to learn what I didn't know, what I didn't know. So I started bringing in more of corporate agency DNA over like a five year period. And then I knew what it was and I was like, all right, I'll keep the 3% of this garbage that I like. And we're gonna go back to 97%, me and boy, right? It's like and across and forget about feelings. Like the P and L shows it and it's just real life. This whole content is you now. Yeah. So themes that work, right? Yeah, that.
Lori
Thanks. I'll end here. Just external, like generating. Let's see, taking advantage of like external media opportunities. We have a bunch coming our way now versus just deciding to go in house with generating that. Is there a way that you like kind of evaluate that to make that call? Like, hey, like do your own show on YouTube and just press that.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think it's. And I think it's. And now if you're saying show, like obviously an external production company, like I think right now, if you're off the air which it sounds like you are. I do my own show immediately. So when the next production company comes and wants you to do something, you're like yeah, but I'm keeping my show. And like yeah, you can do that. We're going to do a different version here. So that would be on my mind on strategy. Hey Gary. Hi.
Consultant
Started my consulting firm back in 2005 as an in source with an insource embedded model for general market ad agencies. And so we would place consultants on site at a ad agencies throughout the York and that worked and we grew for about seven to maybe 10 years.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And what would agencies hire you to come in. Yeah, please.
Consultant
Hired us to do to manage. To develop and manage their supplier diversity initiative.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Love. Great. Keep going. It's awesome.
Consultant
And I was hired as the first supplier diversity director.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Make so much. Love it.
Consultant
Unfortunately we're having the conversation in 2023 that we had back in 2025.
Gary Vaynerchuk
2015. You mean? I mean that we had back that.
Consultant
We had in 20.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I mean 05. Got it. Yeah, no worries. I'm just trying to make sure I'm hearing you right. No, keep going.
Consultant
And so the challenges we're having are few. Developed a platform in 2016 in order to scale because hiring consultants, placing them on site that's really inexpensive.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes. Right.
Consultant
And so a lot of what we do are the analytics, the database management, you know, just.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Is it a SaaS based business?
Consultant
Yes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Consultant
SaaS based business. Fully funded.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Amazing.
Consultant
And so and we built it. We get feedback that it's an amazing platform. Since holding company have now come in and centralized resources and are having and.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Since they own almost every single agency. Bingo bango, there you go. Makes sense.
Consultant
And our relationships were at the agency level.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Right. Can you create and yeah, this is what sucks. The business needs to go into smaller. Right. Because the place you can get independence is 10 million in revenue and lower right before the holding company buys it. The problem is those companies are so small that they're just trying to keep the lights on. They're not even thinking de and I, you know it's not that they're bad people. It's just like they're like fuck, I'm not sure I'm gonna be in business next year. And we're on the side that really.
Consultant
Is requiring this in order for you to bring us in to do it. And so my business manager is suggesting.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That we break up the two serve from the company.
Consultant
Well we did that initially but he's talking about breaking it out up into smaller modules so that we can sell it at a lower price point. But I think to your point, because what I've, what I've experienced in this industry is that it's, it's just as difficult to sell $5,000 as it is to sell 50.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yep, both thesis are right. You know I could tell you back to more Gary consulting items as gateways to AORs since I know I can talk to you in these terms has worked for us, you know, because we had a very hardcore get out of bed fee to do what we do best and we think, you know, and so I do think cost of entry is a variable. I equally agree with you that sometimes it's just as hard same effort to sell something for 5,000 as 5 minutes million, let alone 50,000. That's real too, you know. I'm not against modularizing down if you're asking one man's subjective point of view. What I like about it is it will give you more clarity. I always like eliminating things that you're debating for everyone. Like what I like about the modularity of like how much is it now per month?
Consultant
Per year it's 180,000, right?
Gary Vaynerchuk
And he's saying, or she's saying instead of 15k a month, let's have some sort of product that's 3k and you can Voltron it up and discount it. Here's why I like it. My biggest concern is that there's six holding companies, they're full of shit and there is no business to be had. What I like about dropping it from a 180 commitment to a 36k commitment if you've got some modular 3k is you'll find out in a year if I'm right because that's a real low cost and that should be easy. And if you go O for 90 with a 3k thing then you could say wait a minute, I gotta really think about this shit and do I need to become like the Nintendo company? And that analogy for everyone is they used to be a trading card. Not a trading card, like a playing card company. Nintendo started as like blackjack cards and at some point they pivoted into technology. What I love is your expertise and your career and what you've got going. This goes into like really interesting debate that everyone should be thinking about. Always think about things that you have permission to do that you can't see. Like if you emailed me in nine months, which you're more than welcome to and on a long flight I get to that level of Email priority. And you're like, hey, thank you. This is not fun to write because I did break it down, I did go to market and for the last seven, nine months, 15 months, we're not selling anything even at three. And you're right, it is full. My reply would be like, listen, now you need to think about should you be an author, should you change it into a experiential company? Because maybe you shouldn't be selling it to tech or CIOs, maybe you should be selling to HR as a one day retreat to rethink things. What's amazing is the talent you had as a kid in the SMS thing that became the seeds of the thing that you. We have our things and sometimes you just gotta repackage it into a different item and remark, you know, containers and merchandising. Right, Containers and merchandising, that's what we're all in. And so that's something worth debating because the, you know what's great about, you know, when he said we're getting old 3940, I was laughing, right? And I saw you snicker. Like I saw, I saw, I saw. And I think you know what's really cool? Like one big issue I have with the world that I'm excited to like, I finally am going to eat my own dog food and do something I've been wanting to do, which is I'm going to go and donate my time to retirement homes. But I'm also going to capture content because I realized as a young kid, even at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, I spent an ungodly amount of time with people that were 80 and 90 that weren't my grandparents. And for a long time I thought it was because I only had one grandma and one great grandma in my whole life because unfortunately everybody died in Russia pretty early. But now I've come to realize, no, I've always just been attracted to macro thinking and wisdom and things of that nature. And right now I think we can all agree, by the way, 50 years ago in America, our grandparents were on a pedestal. Wisdom and experience was on a pedestal. Today we are all living where youth and technology is on a pedestal. 24 year olds are running around my company thinking they should be running this place, right? That's the era we're in, which means we're going to go back. This is how the world works. So I'm excited about wisdom and experience gaining momentum in the next two decades. And I think your timing, like, I just think it's important for you to hear that. Because I think when I hear that narrative and like first of this and this and that and it's a really important issue, like it actually matters and.
Consultant
This is a young person's game. And so.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes, but I think we're. Yes, but I really do think that trading on wisdom and experience is about to gain momentum. I'm actually telling you that I think we're in the pre dawn of it being your game. And I want to get that into your head. I really believe it. I'm not saying it to be nice. I like to watch. And I think we're about to get there. And I think it's early. I think I'll probably clip this in like 11 years and be like, told you it's gonna take a little bit of time. But I think it's good for everyone to hear that. But for you specifically where you are in your business life cycle, because I think you. I hope not, but I'm going to be like very black and white on this. I think you should module and I think you should sell aggressively against the modularization because I think you need the answer because I think you're in a peculiar spot because I think they're full of shit. And there's none of them. There's six of them. We don't need you. We got it internally. We have a chief diversity officer. We're good. Yeah. You know, but the modularization, my hope is that it will work out and that you now do have a 3k a month, a 7k a month, a 9k a month and a 20k a month item. And oh, by the way, if you buy them all, it's only 15k a month. I think that's a worthwhile thing. I think it also will give you a year of that data to then go back to this, back half of this conversation and say, okay, I might need to take what I am and repackage it into some other business and merchandise. That's what I was thinking. Remember when you said to me, where's the time management system? It just happens to be applied to logistics. Yeah. Maybe everything is correct. Yeah. And you might actually even like the business you find yourself in more too. That's what's fun about entrepreneurship. Like sometimes you don't realize a tweak makes it more fun and more fruitful.
Consultant
And I love this. When I got into it, it's just. It's been a long time.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's been a long time and markets.
Consultant
Change and it has.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I love when everyone's like, AI I feel so bad for all the people that are gonna lose their job. I'm like, what about all the people that sold yellow Pages? We didn't feel bad for them. When search engines came, how many people were in the business of selling yellow Pages? Tens and tens and tens of thousands of people were salesmen and women just of yellow Pages in America. When Yahoo and Ask Jeeves decided to come along, like shit changes. Some Poor dope bought 5,000 horses the day before the car decided to cause trouble. Those horses became less valuable. So I think that it's unfortunate because you should be shining well.
Consultant
And what we found is when people are woke, if you will, our business doesn't do as well as we do when they're not.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I know, I know. Yeah, I get it. The modularization. Awesome. Thank you, Scott. So before I turn it over to my wife, I just want to say.
Entrepreneur
20 year digital veteran CFO at I Village.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Do you remember that name? Of course.
Entrepreneur
Members of the founding team at 360i.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Amazing.
Mike
But all on the finance side.
Gary Vaynerchuk
So it's okay. Yeah. Sitting in a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Where I'm hearing operational. Yeah, yeah.
James
Activities.
Entrepreneur
We're trying to figure out how to digitize more market to our customer.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Mike
So I just want to.
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's really cool. That's awesome. Of course. I do love that.
Scott's Wife
So. Hi, I'm Lori.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Lori.
Scott's Wife
The other half.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
Scott's Wife
Scott created these for me after I had breast cancer.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I see.
Scott's Wife
We donate back to research.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Love.
Scott's Wife
We have a product. We've proven our model. People. People rebuy it. Stores buy it. We're in the airports to 100 block brick and mortar stores. We're here to really. How do we expand our D2C business?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Got it.
Scott's Wife
So we think that part of our issue is our content. Our ugc. We don't think it's what it should be. We came in today talking about that. We don't really know who our target market is. We listened to a great section about cohorts earlier which was a hugely.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And remember we touched on the accordion nature of it. Did we touch on that? Back to cohorts. And I almost noticed how I knew that we probably didn't talk enough about it. The best part about cohorts is that it's a accordion. The number one thing that you have to understand about cohorts is that it's a living and breathing vessel. Back to day trading. So cool. Like of course an immediate cohort for this group is 18 to 22 year old coastal workout Bros. Because it's fucking Protein balls, like fuck. Right. But after we do 1629 pieces of creative that we think we've done well enough, if we're seeing absolutely zero traction, it is okay for that cohort to go away. If we PCs properly and read everything. The most wild work I see is when we pick a cohort, we make for them. But the algo takes us in a different direction. We're like wait a minute, this is actually for offensive linemen who fish and they pop them while they fish. So let's stand up 18 to 30 year old 300 pound white boys who love country music and work out. And as you can imagine, it's gonna be different content. So remember with cohorts, if you go down heavy, it's an accordion. Some expand some contract based on the quant and the qual, the math and the feedback that you read from the PCs. The reason I'm onto stuff always is cause I'm reading the qual. My wisdom thing is again, not kindness for us, for get in here brother. You know, it's for. I'm smelling it like there's the tipping point. You can smell it like I had share earlier.
Scott's Wife
Exactly that. Our customers are age 2 to 92.
Gary Vaynerchuk
But we're your customers. Are anyone with a mouth, right? 100% yes. That's what you're saying. Okay, keep going.
Scott's Wife
So we do email, email marketing successfully.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Scott's Wife
We have a good conversion rate.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Nice.
Scott's Wife
So all they keep saying is get us more traffic, get more people to the site. So we have not done any paid ads yet. That's part of why we're here.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We want to learn about that. Makes sense.
Scott's Wife
We haven't done paid ads or paid social.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Okay.
Scott's Wife
I mean, or paid search. What we have done is paid a PR firm too much money to do brand building.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Everyone does that.
Scott's Wife
And now we're taking that money and we want to re repurpose it into building our brand more. We were told that you should have one face and that I should be making the content like, like we were just talking about. Which does sound like a big job. But you know, if we will test it because if that's what people want, then you know, I'll do it. It's people like they taste the product, they like the product, then they hear the story, then they're more connected.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I mean the stories, then they.
Scott's Wife
Hear that we get back to research and then it's. We're done.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I mean the story is like so off the charts. Enough people, 100%.
Scott's Wife
It might be our content.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's Stuff. It's every. Like I'm not reaching enough people and it's my content.
Scott's Wife
So what do you suggest?
Gary Vaynerchuk
Make more content like every. Like to me content like one day we will all wake up and actually live in mixed reality. Just. I'll give you the preview. We will. We will live in mixed reality. The data is incredibly compelling. The technology is very clear. The new fucking Facebook Ray Bans glasses. You've done it with the audio. The new one that just came out. Right. It's EarPods are in trouble. And that just seems like. Yes. And when everyone wakes up, every one of you is going to regret not making more content for social media because it won't be where the attention is. And just like I regret not sending more emails in 98. Not buying more Google AdWords into 2002. Not like. So while we're in the era where this is the predominant engine of information, back to advertising. This is what happened when the radio and the television were switching. Literally, Budweiser is the biggest beer because Schlitz and Schaefer and Pabst Blue Ribbon blew it. They kept holding onto the radio and not realizing what the television was doing. It's insane. If you look from 1950 to 1970, the switch of the biggest brands in every category from cigarettes to diapers. It's why Procter and Gamble is Procter and Gamble. They were the biggest spender on television. Do you know who the biggest spender on Google AdWords was in the first five years of AdWords? Amazon. There are moments where there is this thing. I spoke about it in the micro with him. TikTok vs like that for you, it's just a macro. Back to why you considered hiring some people to get you a mention in a magazine. Got it. Yeah.
Scott's Wife
Yeah.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Or having you show up on the Today show. You can be on the Today show every day and you have no chance against somebody who knows how to make content. For TikTok, that's.
Scott's Wife
That's the refocus. So we.
Gary Vaynerchuk
We've been on the show means nothing.
Scott's Wife
And we have an. We have an ed. We're fresh from the fridge that we're not. That's what happened after I went through surgery and treatment. The nutritionist said no more protein bars. She said they sit on the shelf for a year.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Process soy preservatives. I got it.
Scott's Wife
We have an angle. We have an edge, but we're not. We haven't been successful enough, you know, yet.
Gary Vaynerchuk
How old is the brand?
Scott's Wife
We. Our website's only been there for a year and A half.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And before that you were selling in stores.
Scott's Wife
Really? We're really pretty new.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, we were dipping our toe in it. Yep. But now you're ready to go all in.
Scott's Wife
And you know, I have a friend and she said get rid of everybody. Get rid of your whole payroll and. And just do AI. You know, put your content out on AI, do your blogs on AI.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Did you ask her how?
Scott's Wife
She sent me an email. She said, I just made this email for you in under two minutes.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes, I think. I think there's a lot to that. I'm going to go with like that's not the. I think her intent's in the right place. What's that? Yeah, I think you got to go all in on things that actually work.
Scott's Wife
You need a person.
Gary Vaynerchuk
I mean, look, I'm about AI. I think the bigger issue is everyone here is at the mercy of the creative they put into the world. So a couple things I think first of all now I'm going to just kind of go like not off script of the energy, but let me make pretend that Harwood invited me to dinner to have dinner with you and we're like full dinner mode. The number one thing I would say for sure is that if I could convince the two of you over this dinner to do a daily or minimally a weekly podcast so it could be filmed for content. I do believe the story is off the charts. It's gonna pull at everyone. He's gonna be like the most loved man on earth. You know what I mean?
Scott's Wife
He's a good man.
Gary Vaynerchuk
He looks like a good man. He's got a good face. Like I feel the energy like all of us need to do is find sustained ways to produce as much content as possible. And I think what I figured out years ago was I'm just gonna film everything obviously then it's about can you introduce new people or different ideas. Like your spidey senses based on your words are. Right. The variable of your success will be based on your advertising. Seems makes sense what's crazy about the world we live in now versus the Proctor world or even when 360i was invented and Vayner was invented is now the Walmarts. Right. The Wegmans. The dream places of distribution for you. What's that fucking place in la? Airwon. You know like they now will come to you if you're good at content. Right. It didn't work like that back in the day. So I think the biggest thing that you have to your product is. Comes very natural to me in my Mind, I think in these terms. I even said to these guys, like, take your skills and bring them to this show. The prime, the beasts, chocolate, beastable. That's the future, like human base. Like this is. You're the future. If you don't succeed in this, you will see someone that looks exactly like you two with the similar stories in 11 years. And you're gonna look at each other, these motherfuckers, you know, like, it's very, very clear that you have to have a very compelling organic social media presence. What you have to figure out, that's easy. That's like you could have read that in a million places. How do you two. Even if you two are not in it though that would be my preference. But listen, as someone who's a public figure, a lot of shit comes with that. And it's not for everyone. And it's not right? Like it's not for everyone. And like. And by the way, here's another thing real quick, good for you to hear as well. You can also come in and out. People think like it's an all or nothing thing. Sometimes you're a public figure, sometimes you're not. You know, like it's okay. And you control your narrative, right? Like I keep my personal life very private. So it's not like you have to tell them your pillow talk. You're in control. But I think what you have to do is put yourself in a position to make as much. Like if I was your third partner and this is what I did full time, we'd probably put out 55, 60 pieces of creative a day across seven platforms.
Scott
We're doing that with some of our clients for sure. And there's like.
Gary Vaynerchuk
And we can talk about later.
Scott
I want to hijack this, but there's very cheap, simple software tools.
Scott's Wife
That's what I was going to say. How do we incorporate like besides us making the content, how do we find.
Scott
You guys content library? Like you said, you can't skip that part. You got to create all the content, but then getting it everywhere else. Now that's where we're dipping our toes in having.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah. And now with AI, it's even better than that. I built a team of people who had an eye for what to clip and when AI is going to do all that. Like you're going to upload the raw videos and it's going to spit it out and distribute it for you.
Scott
Software right now Clap KLAP app Y.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Another one called Get Lunch and yeah, and by the way, I think all of you will he can give you plenty that work for them. Here's even. And both are good. I like both those platforms. Let me give you something even more fun. There's a website called Google and you type in AI software that helps you clip videos into good social media content. Enter what will happen. You'll get two paid ads, probably for weaker, sometimes weak, sometimes not. All you have to do is actually just spend 10 hours, which you would like this business to be successful. I have a funny feeling that you can allocate 10 hours to reading and watching video. How do you think we found them? You're just searching. It's just you got to put in the work to find that. But again, yes, that is efficiency and efficiency matters.
Scott
It's helpful for us to go from 0 to 1. Like, if you haven't created content yet, get the library.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, I want to talk about what he's touching on and where. I'm really worried. I'm worried. What always happens with software is people think it does it for you. When he says the video library, like, he said it quick. And he's right, because for him it's just second nature. Like, without that, you have nothing. You on the receiving end is like, ooh, let me write down this site and I'm gonna use. That's gonna save me. That's gonna do it. It's not. The part that I'm saying is the well, that's the software is the sync. The well is. Do you all understand how to put yourself in a position to produce as much content as possible?
Scott's Wife
No.
Gary Vaynerchuk
The reason I like podcasts is because it puts you in a position to produce a lot of content. Also, when you have guests now, you can fucking prep for a podcast. So tell me about your childhood. How do you then. What was your first house? You're an hour in if you just ask normal human questions, but then you have the clips. So I think, look, I think there's a lot of ways to think about it. There's other things. I don't know, you two, maybe you have a great 20, 30 person social crew, and with a bunch of extroverts, you just might. I don't know you, but if you do, all of a sudden I see this, I'm like, okay, you need to throw out. I always think about two for ones. Like, I think for a lot of us, there's probably you. I assume all of us are kind of like similar in this. It's very universal. I don't think anyone spends as much time with friends as they actually wish. They could. It's just a universal thing. Like everyone's busy. To me, let's say you two are just like, just we're talking about that. That you just aren't spending enough time with these four couples you love. My brain goes to. If we're lucky enough that you're thinking that and we're lucky enough that those couples are extroverted or willing to be filmed. Now you can get together once a month, right, and have a protein balls and pairing with beverages. Literally actually have one human who's filming, friend, neighbor, youngest kid, or just set up a tripod. Have dinner with eight of your friends, literally. And this week everyone bring a bottle of whiskey and we're going to do whiskey with protein balls. We're going to film and then you're going to post produce. At the end be like, all right, 80% of it we can't share because the Johnsons were talking about how their daughter's a piece of shit. And so that's but 20% you can. And now you're one TikTok away of people falling in love that like bullet, bourbon and this go great together. And then the next month again, don't forget what you're doing. You're actually spending time with friends, but you're getting double, you're getting doubles. Next time you're doing it with bottled waters and next time with sodas and the next time with clean beverages and the next time with protein and the next time with fucking juice that's super pressed from organic fucking leaves from the Amazon. Like, I think for all of us, the big elephant in the room is do you understand yourself? Do you not bullshit yourself? Are you self aware enough to know what puts me in the best position to film as much shit as possible so I can post produce it? Because having a shoot day is already like a different version of content anyway. And I'm not against it. It you can supplement that with like one day when you do like 37 call to actions, you can have a shoot day. I think people are accustomed to that, but I think the big one is can you put yourself in a position to create content? Content is your answer.
Summary of "The Secrets to Making Your Business Stand Out in 2025"
Podcast: The GaryVee Audio Experience
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Episode Title: The Secrets to Making Your Business Stand Out in 2025
Release Date: December 2, 2024
In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, Gary Vaynerchuk engages with a group of entrepreneurs, including Mike, James, Scott, and Scott's wife Lori. The discussion centers around strategies to differentiate businesses in a competitive landscape as we approach 2025. Key topics include pricing strategies, value proposition articulation, content creation, scaling businesses, and the influence of emerging technologies like AI.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quote:
"If they value their time, you can sell it back to them."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [01:00]
Insights:
Example: An entrepreneur compares their sports-related service to a competitor that charges $100 less, attributing the price difference to their own business's more organized and professional approach.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"If you have a podcast, film it and then post-produce it and put it everywhere."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [36:24]
"LinkedIn is more Facebook 2015 than it is the LinkedIn that everyone defaults into thinking it is."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [36:36]
Insights:
Example: Lori shares how their Netflix show "Dream Home Makeover" significantly boosted brand awareness, demonstrating the power of strategic content placement.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"If you go back to the number one thing that always works in business, which is to put yourself out of business before someone else does."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
"The brokerage model is shit. I think it's actually dying."
— James [32:20]
Insights:
Example: An entrepreneur discusses expanding into New York City from New Jersey, only to realize the additional competitiveness and the importance of maintaining a focused market strategy.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"You should put yourself in a position to make as much content as possible and then use AI to distribute it."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [70:19]
"Never underestimate technology. It's always like it's back to the era we met."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
Insights:
Example: Gary discusses the transition from expensive streaming solutions in the early 2000s to the current AI-powered tools that simplify content clipping and distribution.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"If you spend your media perfectly, it will grow your business."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [40:19]
"Don't demonize paid. It's just a tool."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [40:20]
Insights:
Example: Lori explains their transition from relying solely on organic content to integrating paid strategies, aiming to enhance brand reach and attribution.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"Daily or minimally a weekly podcast could be filmed for content."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [67:18]
"Content is your answer."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [72:15]
Insights:
Example: Gary suggests creating a daily or weekly podcast as a means to generate consistent content, engage with guests, and repurpose discussions for social media platforms.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"Be you. You can actually deploy that to anything else that you can speak to."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [27:17]
"You have to find sustained ways to produce as much content as possible."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [67:56]
Insights:
Example: Mike shares his "Eric Godfrey moment," reflecting on how personal experiences shaped his entrepreneurial journey, underscoring the power of authentic storytelling.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"Never underestimate how gnarly this tech is."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
"The brokerage model is shit. I think it's actually dying."
— James [32:20]
Insights:
Example: James discusses the difficulties of scaling a personal brand in the residential real estate space and explores opportunities in adjacent markets like portfolio management, despite regulatory hurdles.
Key Discussion Points:
Notable Quotes:
"AI is going to do that, not let you do that."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
"You can fuck up, You can try and fight it, but it's real."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
Insights:
Example: Gary mentions using AI tools for clipping and distributing video content, enhancing efficiency while maintaining the quality and authenticity of the brand's message.
Key Takeaways:
Notable Quote:
"Content is your answer."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [72:15]
Final Insights: Gary encourages entrepreneurs to continuously challenge their strategies, embrace technological advancements, and maintain authenticity in their branding efforts. By focusing on delivering genuine value, leveraging AI for efficiency, and adapting to market shifts, businesses can position themselves to stand out in 2025 and beyond.
Valuing Time:
"If they value their time, you can sell it back to them."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [01:00]
Content Distribution:
"If you have a podcast, film it and then post-produce it and put it everywhere."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [36:24]
AI as a Disruptor:
"Never underestimate technology. It's always like it's back to the era we met."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [21:34]
Branding vs. Paid Marketing:
"Don't demonize paid. It's just a tool."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [40:20]
Content as the Core:
"Content is your answer."
— Gary Vaynerchuk [72:15]
This episode provides a comprehensive exploration of strategies to make businesses stand out amidst evolving market dynamics. Gary Vaynerchuk's insights on pricing, content creation, scaling, and technological adaptation serve as valuable guidance for entrepreneurs aiming to thrive in 2025.