Why Action Leads to Strategy

Summary

Podcast Summary: The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: Why Action Leads to Strategy
Date: July 9, 2026
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk

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Episode Overview

In this lively and engaging 4Ds session, Gary Vaynerchuk unpacks his core philosophy: Action precedes strategy. Through real business questions and spontaneous advice, Gary emphasizes the importance of doing over overthinking, speed over perfection, and judgment-free decision-making. He offers practical insights for entrepreneurs, operators, and content creators, ranging from time management and brand-building to hiring, marketing on TikTok and LinkedIn, and the value of personal communication.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Decision-Making: Action Over Analysis

• Gary challenges the traditional “strategy-first” mentality, advocating that real insights and effective strategy actually emerge from action.
• Quote:
  “If you really get [Bain and McKinsey] drunk, they admit that the actions lead to the strategy, not the other way around.” (01:05)

On How Gary Allocates His Time

• Regularly audits his calendar but doesn't overthink time allocation.
• Reinforces the value of ultra-efficient meetings (“seven minute meetings are real”) and constant, real-time adjustments based on what’s working and new data.
• Stresses never being paralyzed by missed opportunities or living in perpetual self-judgment.

Judgment, Mistakes, & Speed

• Gary argues that liberating oneself from self-judgment is crucial for operational excellence.
• Openly accepts that some time will always be spent on “dumb shit,” but not letting that create paralysis is key.
• Quote:
  “You will never even come close to making the right decision… You just don’t know what the alternative would be.” (01:38)
• Mistakes are inevitable; speed and the ability to bounce back are more important than perfection.
• Quote:
  “Business is much more like sport... I just gotta go to the next play. As long as I don’t put us out of business…I learned from it.” (08:24)

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2. Speed as the Ultimate Advantage

• Gary draws a parallel between business and sports, underscoring that “speed wins;” being able to move fast and efficiently is not teachable and defines top performers.

• Quote:
  “Speed over everything. There’s a reason the Chiefs are good right now. They figured it out. Draft speed. It’s not teachable.” (09:36)

• Critiques over-reliance on “process” and academic frameworks, favoring flexible day-trading of decisions based on real-time feedback from the market and team.

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3. Operator vs. Entrepreneur Mindset

• Distinguishes between the roles: operators (managers) optimize existing systems, while entrepreneurs thrive on risk, intuition, and market interaction.
• The greatest business upside comes from combining both, with a strong bias toward entrepreneurial intuition.

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4. Building, Hiring, and Culture at VaynerX

• Explains VaynerX’s business structure, always designing for speed and adaptability.
• Emphasizes learning from multiple failed attempts (e.g., “Vayner Experience” and “Vayner Live”) and the willingness to iterate until success.
• On hiring, Gary’s top trait for senior team members is humility, combined with emotional intelligence, kindness, and capability.
• Quote:
  “If you’re wildly confident, you’re actually extremely humble…humility is absolutely my superpower.” (15:30)
• Pushes transparent, upfront communication of expectations, especially when hiring for hard, “dirt-eating” roles.

Letting People Go Humanely

• If letting someone go, over-communicate expectations in advance and, if possible, provide generous severance to help mitigate the negative impact.

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5. Content, Brand, and Organic Attention

The Content Treadmill

• Gary underscores the necessity of publishing content at scale—especially on platforms where organic reach is underpriced (TikTok, LinkedIn).
• Quote:
  “TikTok is 1898. You can’t get that moment back. You can’t buy Facebook pre-IPO back. Post four times a day.” (23:33)
• Advises content creators not to over-think audience demographic fit—virality among younger audiences can drive mainstream adoption (e.g., LaCroix).
• On practicality: Focus on immediate execution. Rather than waiting for perfection, learn by doing.

Brand versus Personal Brand

• You don’t have to become the face of your brand; company brands and even characters (including animation) are valid and sometimes underutilized.
• Quote:
  "Mickey Mouse is a lot easier to control than Susan Sarandon… I'm a big fan of animation. It's a big white space in social marketing right now." (28:42)

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6. B2B Branding, Podcasts, and Events

• For niche or regional B2B businesses, start a targeted podcast to build credibility, then use podcast content for LinkedIn ads—not for direct CTA, but for top-of-funnel brand building.

• Quote:
  “You become the place of authority. All you're doing is interviewing your actual potential customers and making them feel famous, which then builds awareness.” (34:16)

• Advocates for high-AWareness event marketing with “Instagrammable” moments to drive viral exposure at live or hybrid events.

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7. Critical Takeaways for Founders & Marketers

• “You have to make people aware of [your brand] and compel them to buy it. Right. You’re gonna sell it on your own website? That has extra friction. You need to be most efficient.” (29:51)
• Leverage influencer marketing in highly competitive segments like apparel: “You're one person deciding to wear it away from doing more for your business than 9,000 other executions.” (31:46)
• When growing into new platforms, get immersed—watch and study five hours of TikTok content to learn how to judge, not just post. (46:12–46:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Real reason is cause I don’t overthink it. I’m operating my business, I’m in it.” (01:17)
• “As long as I don’t put us out of business, I’m like, yeah, I hate that I made that call. I prefer not to… but I learned from it.” (08:24)
• “Speed over everything. There’s a reason the Chiefs are good, they drafted speed. It’s not teachable.” (09:36)
• “The world says because nobody wants to work. And I say, because my hiring sucks.” (19:11)
• “You don’t need an Equinox membership to work out. You can go outside…” (51:30)
• “Communication is the only thing left. Everything else is getting commoditized.” (53:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:05 — Why action precedes strategy: the “dirty secret” of consulting firms and business decision making.
• 03:24 — On auditing and re-evaluating your calendar to stay agile.
• 08:24 — Comparing business with sports: handling mistakes, focus on the next play.
• 09:36 — Why speed is the ultimate differentiator.
• 13:05 — When to cut losses with new business ventures and how to handle failed attempts.
• 15:30 — What Gary looks for in top hires: humility, confidence, kindness.
• 19:11 — Radical ownership in hiring: "the world says people don't want to work, I say my hiring sucks."
• 22:56 — TikTok’s underpriced attention, organic reach, and posting frequency.
• 29:51 — Brand awareness: “You have to make people aware of it and compel them to buy it.”
• 34:16 — B2B branding strategies: niche podcasts and LinkedIn content.
• 46:12 — Real insight on consuming versus just using TikTok to inform hiring/judgement.
• 53:16 — Communication as the most important executive skill.

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Episode Flow & Tone

True to GaryVee’s unscripted, in-the-moment style, the episode is high-energy, practical, and loaded with actionable nuggets. Gary’s signature blend of humility, intensity, and humor is on full display, as is his relentless push toward shipping, speed, and self-acceptance. He weaves personal anecdotes, sports analogies, and real-world business examples with rapid-fire listener Q&A—making the episode a real-time masterclass on operator and founder mindsets.

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Summary: For First-Time Listeners

If you haven’t listened, this episode is a concentrated dose of GaryVee’s core beliefs:

• Stop overthinking—clarity comes from action.
• Speed outmatches perfection or over-analysis.
• Free yourself from judgment—missed opportunities and wrong calls are inevitable.
• Create and post content, especially on emerging platforms, with urgency and authenticity.
• Build organizations and brands (not always personal brands) through upfront communication, humility in hiring, and continuous learning from failure.

This episode is a must for founders, operators, and creators in need of a catalyst to level up their velocity and rewire their mindset around action, judgment, and sustained growth.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This is the Gary Vee audio experience. Hey guys, this four ds, this was actually a good one. The first one was on fire. Hope you enjoy this really interesting one of the doing versus the thinking of doing that I think will bring a lot of value. So sit back, enjoy this 4Ds. What's on your mind? What can I answer?

[Team Member or Associate]

How do you make determinations on where and how you spend your time, knowing how valuable and how limited your time is?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Oh God. I'm really happy you're asking this question because if you can internalize what I'm about to say, you will not believe what it's about to do for you. The answer is the ability not to judge myself. You know how a lot of times there's a lot of people in. There's a really dirty secret in the strategy world of like Bain and McKinsey where if you really get them drunk, they admit that the actions lead to the strategy, not the other way around. That's my answer to you, how I make decisions. And then I try to look at my calendar the week ahead and see if any decisions I made four weeks earlier that made me think this was a good use of time. Am I able to move something, cut something down? I'm extremely thoughtful about cutting times in meetings. So one of the things I think that really makes me successful is understanding a seven minute meeting is real and not just making it a 30 minute meeting, but the real reason is cause I don't overthink it. I'm operating my business, I'm in it. How do I decide between going to dinner with Kevin Hart because I can and I want to build top of the funnel brand or do I go take a mid level client that I'm trying to build a relationship with? You ask every normal person. It seems like those aren't super close, but I can touch the pulse and be like, I'm going to LA four more times in the next three months. The biggest mistakes I make are the ones of missed opportunities, of the things by being crippled by opportunity. When you actually level that all up, my friend, it really is liberating. You will never even come close to making the right decision. I mean it. You just don't know what the alternative would be. People think that there's a right answer. You as an operator of your business make the right call that feels right at that moment and just move. And people spend all this time and money on trying to think that there's a proper answer. I play on the extremes. I spend as much time as possible on the things that are showing me the most offense. Right. However you're doing your customer acquisition to get to a hundo on a product like that, whether it's Facebook, whether it's brand, and then I spend the amount of time on my biggest vulnerability,

[Client or Business Partner]

putting

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

my finger in the holes to make sure the boat doesn't sink and building a bigger fucking boat and nothing in the middle. And knowing that I'm making that judgment at all times. And the second I get new data a week later, I might have to completely change what I thought was right the week before. It's also why I spend a ton of time with my employees. The reason I'm an HR driven CEO is if you really understand this, both your biggest growth and your biggest vulnerabilities are actually your own team. So I think it's a lack of. It starts with the ability not to overjudge yourself because that is the liberator of the model I just broke down for you.

[Team Member or Associate]

But even, even the items that you may have scheduled out four weeks in advance, you still sit down at the beginning of that week to reevaluate at

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

our best, which I don't do all the time. My admins and I are doing some sort of version of an audit on Friday.

[Team Member or Associate]

Because again, you find yourself in that paralysis of where are you spending your time on the most valuable activities?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I don't think that way. And nobody. I mean, listen, I'm in the mix for top busy people. I'm in the conversation. You know, I go hard for 15 hours a day. I do seven minute meetings. I'm fucking in the conversation. And I easily spend 25% of my day on things that end up being dumb shit. That is where the speed comes in. Got it. If I spend time looking back at my calendar for the last month, I'd be devastatingly sad. People judge themselves. If you're an operator and you're in the mix on your business, you. You made the best decision you could at that moment with the data that you had. The end, was it to go to a Kroger's meeting or was it to go meet a supplier of milk or to go meet an influencer who was destined to be the one that broke you out. All three sounds right to me. And they all could end up being right or could end up being wrong. My thing is, if you go super fast and go super hard and super efficient, you might be able to do all three. If you're not spending half your time judging yourself, if you're getting it right, got it you see where I'm going?

[Team Member or Associate]

I do.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You wouldn't be here. Maybe that's what you needed today. You would have this whole day back. Just even in the mind. There's no way I do this. That's not how I learn. Now, you may learn this way, but there's never a chance in hell that I'd ever be at a 4Ds because I learned from so much doing. That's why my data is so clean. It's why I'm an innovator. It's why I'm fast. It's why a lot of good things happen for me. Because I realized just the doing is actually more efficient than the thinking about it. Somebody said something really funny to me once, and it was like the dig of this version, and it's a really funny conversation. He was talking about VaynerMedia at the time. This was maybe five or six years ago. He said, you know, Gary, I gotta tell you, I love your company, but I gotta take a little bit of a knock on you. He was trying to set it up. I'm like, okay, what is it? He goes, if I was sitting in this room and you guys were standing outside and I said, vaynermedia, I need you to sit right next to me. I know you guys would do it. He goes, where? I think you need to be more thoughtful, Gary, is. I have a feeling, though, that you might run through that glass panel and sit with us when you could have just opened the fucking door. And I said, yeah, but which one was cooler? You know? And so the answer to that is like, I think what, you know, what that gentleman didn't understand in his analogy as a critique was he was trying to have an intellectual conversation about something that it's. All of our businesses will be super fun to talk about in a Harvard Business study or around a campfire in 40 years with our grandkids when we can pontificate. But. But we're operating right now. That got will work. You can't imagine how much mind time is actually being wasted if you're thinking about that question. It's crippling. I mean, it. I have a lot of empathy for it. And I'm really like, that's why, you know, I don't normally pause before my answer. I was super pumped you asked that because it's one of the biggest answers I've gotten in my repertoire. And if I can come, you know. Cause I'm a good communicator. If this is the moment and you get momentum on this you will fucking. You'll be back in a year and be like, it was just that I didn't realize how much that was affecting me. And that makes you. Then faster. Then all of a sudden you can see where this goes, right? All of a sudden. Because you know you're doing this thing that's foreign to you. Fuck it. Gary said, let me try this week. All of a sudden you're like, fuck, But I want to get this. And all of a sudden that 30 minute meeting becomes 16. All of a sudden that meeting you just cancel and you do it the next day. You turn it into a call on the way. I'm the manifestation at this point of being in my prime of something I've now done for 22 years. Tomorrow I turn 44. So I'm right there. 22 years of not running a business and 22 years of now running businesses completely always. And now I'm in this state where I feel really unstoppable. Because it's like you're just at the extreme version of. It's like working out every day for 20. You're in a different place. I'm in a real crescendo of this model and it really works. It's practical.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

You don't beat yourself up over mistakes.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No, because everyone else is doing it for me. You know what I mean? We just can't. I really do think business is much more like sport. It's really funny. I used to always think that it always made sense that I like both. Now I hear things back to being in the prime. You hear things of a quarterback saying, I just gotta go to the next play. I know I threw two picks in a row. And he's right. I used to hear it as a fan. I'm like, fuck you. You fucking threw two picks. I'm pissed. I thought about now I'm like, that's exactly right. I can make seven bad as long as I don't put us out of business. No, really, really. It's that binary. It's a funny thing to say, but to your point and to mine, as long as I don't put a stat of business, I'm like, yeah, I hate that I made that call. I prefer not to. I wish it didn't happen, but it did. And spending. I've learned from it. I don't need to beat myself up to learn from it. I learned from it. I understand that I overleveraged our ice cream business to too much retail and gave them too much leverage. And now when they kicked me out. I'm in trouble. And I should have built my direct to consumer business. Right? It's not super complicated.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Team Member or Associate]

And speed becomes your ally when you're

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

able to move, bro. And you'll love this one thing that business and fucking sports share that. Nobody talks about speed over everything. There's a reason the chiefs are good right now. They figured it out. Draft speed. It's not teachable.

[Team Member or Associate]

To your point though, you find often you're in situations where you have to make snap decisions. I can choose to do this or I can choose to do that. And you're only basing it on the available data.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Correct? I don't even need to do any homework. It's why I'm always improv. I'm fucking operating my business. I can make a decision right now. It's the lack of judgment. Right? See how that's kind of frothy? But you're like, oh, right. That makes sense. Because if you choose and then it was super obvious six months later that you should have went triple retail instead of doing diet milk. Make an upshift now. Well, okay. But like what I think people think they're gonna do some they value process. When you're dealing with the actual consumer. They're moving as fast as you are faster. Not with me. That's why I'm win, right? Like I feel like I'm with them. I'm day trading. My decisions are in day trade mode. And people think that they overvalue what they were taught in school. The process, You know how many more decisions you can make when you're not in the process of one? And then what ends up happening is you net win because that mistake you made was offset by four other good decisions you made. It's so cool to like even like I'm listening to myself almost right now and I'm like, God, it makes so much fucking sense. But it speaks to why entrepreneurship is hard and talent oriented. It is truly a skill. There's a very big difference between being an entrepreneur and being an operator. And some entrepreneurs can be operators and they tend to do well. And some people can be operators and they build very nice businesses. But getting good at those two things and the entrepreneurial part is where the real hyper upside actually lives. The operating part is commoditized. It's a more teachable skill than leaning into intuition, leaning into listening to the end consumer, leaning into nuances of innovation, enjoying risk, not being fearful. I think that what I just talked about is being the chiefs and I think most people are Trying to build the 85 Bears. People are defense oriented, which is great. Both can be good. Right. In the way that I just said it. But, like, there are way more teams that have won because they were the best offense. Defense wins championships is a very, very misleading, very misleading statement.

[Team Member or Associate]

Hall of Fame defensive linemen or linebackers that disrupt the offense. Sure,

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

go ahead. We have enough time to bounce. If you've got something on the tip of your tongue, please feel free.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

One of the things I'm really impressed by is the vaynerx umbrella. Right? You've got different distinct businesses. We met today, different folks across those.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Gary, what.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

What's driving that structure as opposed to. Oh, okay. It's the speed you can move, Zach.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, I'm tired of paying a big commission on my speaking fee. The kid who's been doing it for nine years is becoming a grown up. I really genuinely like him. I'm building one massive communications framework. Part of communications is humans that communicate. We should start a speaking bureau. That's the success. I don't talk about Vayner Experience and Vayner Live. I've had two failed attempts now at doing event marketing.

[Team Member or Associate]

He was in the hallways today.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I know I was with him. I love losing as much as I love the Sasha group, as much as I love Vayner Live and Vayner Experience. Because I know the fifth time I'm gonna get it. Because live events matter in today's world. Definitely matters in your world. It's a place to think about. So, like, you know, so

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

do you move fast when you decide if something's not working?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, but where my team thinks I move slow is it might not manifest as quickly as they thought. It's because I haven't decided that's not working. I'm okay being down 31 nothing at halftime if I truly believe I'm going to win. 35. 31. As you can imagine, if you've got executives, consumers, business partners, they're like, you're down 31 nothing. You know, And I'm like, mm. But I was at the Monday night miracle. We were down 30 to 7 with 10 minutes left. We won. It sure was. I wish social media existed so I can prove I was there. Cause every Jeff Lamb claims they were there, but there was only fucking 4,000 people there. So, you know, I think that. I do. I do. But that is singular decision by me. Not my experts rallying around, but. But when my experts rally around and I hold the line and the final comes in 48 to 17, I look at them and say, I was wrong. So if you're gonna do it to keep credibility with your teammates, you have to acknowledge when you're wrong. So, yes, I do. And sometimes that goes the other way. I mean, there's a story I reference a lot of hiring somebody and literally knowing within 24 hours of them being in a building that I fucked up big. That's fun.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

We met with Claude today, and she really reinforced the heart, the culture. What do you look for when you're hiring, particularly your top talent, the folks reporting to you, the ones that are the emerging talent in that top bucket.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Humility, the big one. I'm so confident, and I love people so much that the great mistake I've made over the last decade, which I think I'm just back to being in your prime. I think I'm just on the cusp of finally fixing, was I was attracted to people that were insecure because I wanted to help them. So the real answer is people that are deeply confident in who they are, which then manifests in very good behavior. If you're wildly confident, you're actually extremely humble. As I've gotten to know myself better of, like, why am I so weird? Like, so much conviction and confidence. But, like, if you really get to the people close, like, humility is absolutely my superpower. And so I'm starting to look for more. It's all emotional intelligence. It's, are you confident? Are you kind? Are you capable? And I'm doing a better and better job of really communicating to people. My big thing to people is, like, look, everybody is saying in today's world what I'm saying, so you're gonna think I'm kind of joking, and you're gonna be able to get away with being a dick. I'm like, I'm saving you a lot of time. You will be fired if you're not good to the other boys and girls. Do you have the capability of being the bigger girl or guy in every situation? Every time you're 100% right, yet you still roll with empathy and compassion. And then you can come to me and be like, karen's a dick face. Can we fix this? But to them, so you don't rock the boat. Communication capabilities. Are you the kind of person that, when the going gets rough, lashes out? Don't join here. Because I'm the kind of person, when the going gets rough. I'm in my calm and happiest and kindest state. I'm a wartime general. So I'm trying to communicate those virtues the skill is a commodity. Hey everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show. But follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. Skill's a commodity.

[Team Member or Associate]

So the past year we grow like grape.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It works. Yes. I parts growing hundreds of thousands of people. It's so fun to talk about what I talk about. Cause I know it's 100% right. Cause I've already lived it. I'm never guessing. So it makes me happy. You know this people don't call me on my bluff. Like that's what you guys actually did. You actually just did it. Like tomorrow I'm putting out this deck. The whole thing I'm alluding to on my social like give for everybody. We're putting out a. Jason, how big of a deck is it? 250 pages. Putting out a 250 page deck that we put like it probably. I don't even want to. It probably cost me 100,000 doll to make. If I looked at all the hours that went in. I don't even wanna look. It's going to be. It's almost like if I mapped my DNA. What's it titled? How to make 60. What's the final number? 63 in 50.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

It's not.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I didn't let them make it round. I think it's 63 now. It's basically how to make 63 pieces of content in a day. But for real, I have that Gary Vee content pyramid which was a great, great deck. And everybody lost their mind. This is on some 301 level shit. I'm so pumped for tomorrow.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Anyway. Nonetheless, go ahead.

[Team Member or Associate]

Yeah. So we're actually not really stuck on anything because I think they answer a lot of just doing more.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Team Member or Associate]

Putting it all back into place.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So what can I answer?

[Team Member or Associate]

So a couple things, please. You know, we made over a thousand posts. But that was me and him.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Team Member or Associate]

And now it's the time to start building kind of a little bit what

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

you got going on.

[Team Member or Associate]

Especially because we spent all the time in the dirt. I'm like running through video guys like crazy.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Why? What's your intuition? But like, let's play, let's play. Cause take on the accountability instead of the part that is like our hiring sucks. Good. This is by the way, that little moment is everything. If you want to know actually why I think I'll buy the New York Jets. It was that 45 seconds. The world says because nobody wants to work. And I say, because my hiring sucks, and I love you for going there quickly. Now you start hacking, you've got to be way more upfront of the expectations. Like, when I hire my team and Dion knows this, it's like, you're gonna do what I did. You're gonna eat dirt. This is terrible. I got a story. Do you?

[Team Member or Associate]

Oh, yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Give me one. Give me one. Here. I was unpaid for eight months. I paid $400 a month to commute to Vayner. I got on a train from the beach in New Jersey, and It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes door

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

to door for six months.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And that was just like, upfront expectation. Then I got in a room with

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

him and he said, give me 16

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

more months and you'll be exactly where I want you to be. And I gave him 16 more months. And like, you know, like, that was the first three years of my career pretty much.

[Team Member or Associate]

We used to actually do a lot more gauntlet type stuff because we didn't have any money.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So we're like, yo, just work for free for weeks. That's exactly right. So, like, I think one of the things you need to think about this is where I get caught too, and I see it in myself is when you didn't have anything to offer. It kind of worked out because almost the expectation up front was a better communication where you have a little fluff. Now you can get caught. This is so cliche. I think you have to have a. To your point, you should almost probably make a video that's funny and cool and on brand that completely communicates. If you want to do video for us, this is what it's about. Gotta make the promise more upfront. It's on us. I used to fire people. And even during Nick's time, he knows this. There's people here that I did so well by who don't like me because I didn't communicate well enough that they weren't doing a good job. So they were flabbergasted when they got fired. And that's the post game version of what you guys got to do in the pre game. You need to over communicate expectation. Like over communicate, you know, and not do the. We walked 15ft in snow for four miles. Like the thing that we all do. Like, I fuck. Like these kids don't like, even your kids. And you're like, these kids don't want to work, you know, like, that's not the actual truth. It's that you painted the wrong picture. Yeah, I can see that.

[Team Member or Associate]

And so another thing we have is, so we have like a worldwide brand and there's like Die Hards who would like move out to Atlanta in two seconds.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I believe that. I believe that I have a slight

[Team Member or Associate]

problem because we've had a situation. People coming in and then once you let them go, then you're like, they got apartment lease.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We uprooted them.

[Team Member or Associate]

We feel really.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's fair, that's fair.

[Team Member or Associate]

Scared to like fish out.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's fair. That's right. There's two ways to handle that. One, you over communicate that up front. Two, you do what I do, which is you give egregious severances to make yourself feel better. That's what we hit. That's what we've been thinking.

[Team Member or Associate]

We've probably done that a little bit.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Sometimes we did something at Vayner where I was like trying to let the company do its thing and they fired somebody and I fucking hated the way they did it. I literally fucking PayPal'd a guy a ton of my own personal money. And then I told them and they were fucking pissed. HR and finance. And I was like, cool, why don't you start paying attention to how I want it? Because every time I watch you guys do it, I'm gonna do this. It is a little crazy. I like that story. My admins lost their mind. They're like, this guy's on some. Because they see everything. They're like, alright, this guy's playing. You know, it's one of those, like when you think you've seen everything and you're like, what is this guy doing? I'm making a fucking point. That's what I'm doing. And one other thing. So where are you at with TikTok?

[Team Member or Associate]

First time, one viral video so far.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How much are you posting every day? How much? One more. Listen to me, because you guys already won on this for a day. All you're doing last time, a year ago, was buying up underpriced real estate. And you were doing that on Instagram when it was already four or five years into the knowledge that Beverly Hills or Malibu or Manhattan was gonna be good. You just bought Manhattan in 1954 instead of 1898. TikTok is 1898.

[Team Member or Associate]

I'm trying. Good.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Try more. I mean it. Because you can't get that moment back. You can't buy Facebook pre IPO back. You could buy it when it was $20 on Wall street, but that was already not $3. Like, I got it and we're feeling

[Team Member or Associate]

it right now too.

[Client or Business Partner]

You can See it on platform.

[Team Member or Associate]

I mean, dude, it's crazy.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Dude, I'm telling you, I know what I'm talking. This is the one thing that will keep me relevant until day I die. I understand underpriced organic attention of the consumers of the world wildly better than most people on earth. I keep saying it loud and LinkedIn for multiple. Like, you've got to post on LinkedIn four times a day. It will work. It's free reach. I don't know what else to say. There's nothing more. This is actually unbelievable timing. I had Brandon, who runs Wine Library, so we have this winetext thing. It's really working. And so obviously I feel very confident in our digital capabilities to grow the list. But I'm like, you know, I'm always checking myself. I'm like, I wonder what's going on with traditional costs. New York Times was one of the biggest ways I built my dad's business. National New York Times ads on Wednesday. Is today Wednesday? Yep, on Wednesdays. In the dining section, national dining section, full page ad, wine library, huge. I'm like, okay, that used to be $42,000 for a full page ad. I bet you it's like 20,000. I wonder. I should run one just to really have any feel whatsoever to how print does in 2020. I'm like, Brandon, call the Times. Find out how much it costs. He calls me back yesterday. He's like, hey, got the pricing. I'm like, all right. I was like, excited. I was like, how much is it? He's like, 46,000. I like, literally, I'm like, in Chicago. Yes. Two days ago. I'm like, wait a minute, it's gone up 10%. He's like, yeah, these fuckers. How the fuck is a full page print ad up 10% in cost from 1998 when there was no Internet to have your attention? Anyway, nonetheless, TikTok four times a day. It will be events, by the way. Love. Yeah. I mean, that's.

[Team Member or Associate]

I was gonna ask you, what do

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

you think of it? Because It's. I'm obsessed.

[Team Member or Associate]

2, 300 people come out and they are die hards.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Like falling. Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

More.

[Team Member or Associate]

You think they're good?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, I do. I love real life. I love real life. I'll give you another one. You want to really get value at events. Spend the extra money to do something crazy that everybody wants to take a photo with you. See where I'm going? Spend like an extra. Now it's break even, charge a little more and then buy a $4,000 like 800 foot.

[Team Member or Associate]

I mean, we're okay with even losing money.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I bet you. Because it's Brandon, you're smart. So, like, the number one thing that I love about real life is the Instagram photo. Because now you're taking 300 people and they're building you the awareness. Up to 6,000 people. And if you give them the ammo for the ridiculous photo, you win.

[Team Member or Associate]

I wouldn't even think of that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, that's why I keep coming back.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

So if right now I'm doing this as like a side hustle.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Side hustle, yeah.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

So if I'm trying to. I got some feedback on this earlier. If I don't necessarily want to be a brand, is it better to create, like a company brand or create some kind of a character?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Did you want to. Real quick. Did you want to sneak anything out since you're leaving?

[Team Member or Associate]

That was my biggest question. Yeah. Did it hit unbelievably. Which is part of why I got to go.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So do me a favor. Do me a favor on that. Like one of the proud. I'm very good at doing what comes natural to me at a 40, not a 10. But I was also very good at what didn't come natural to me to do at a zero. That's why I failed school. I've come to learn I was more than smart enough to probably get Cs, but I got Fs. I was really good at completely punting something I wasn't good at. The proudest thing that ever happened in my life at this point, from a personal standpoint, forget about kids and stuff like that, was when I recognized at 38 and a half that I needed to get serious about my health. The fact that I then turned that into not what I first thought in a plane, which is at 40, I'll get serious. On my 40th birthday, I'll start. And then within two hours of that flight started, literally the next day is kind of what I want to inspire you to do, which is the only way this good moment means anything is if you.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

It put.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Actually put it directly into practice, even though it doesn't come natural, you know, because you're doing what comes natural. So give that some thought. Like, really push whatever tricks you to do it, you know, right now. Good. Awesome.

[Team Member or Associate]

Likewise.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thanks.

[Team Member or Associate]

Appreciate it. Nice to meet you. Appreciate it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I hope you enjoyed the rest of the day.

[Team Member or Associate]

Absolutely.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

If you don't want to be the personal brand. Right, right.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

A little limited right now, of course.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What the question is, what brand do you build? Is that what you're asking?

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Yeah, I'm just curious. Do I start branding like as a company or. I thought about just kind of creating some kind of a character.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What kind of character?

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Talk.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I like it. What kind of character?

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

You know, like a western type, like

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

a character you acting as an animation.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Hiring somebody person or animation?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, animation I love. Because Mickey Mouse is a lot easier to control than Susan Sarandon. You know what I mean? So I'm a big fan of animation, like a big one. And I actually think it's one of the big white spaces in social marketing right now. I'm probably gonna create a augmented reality character that's gonna start showing up in all my content. It's a big conversation we're having right now. And then he'll be wearing just like he wears goosebumps. He'll be wearing like my virtual dog that always barks when people do dumb shit. And then everybody's gonna think it's cool and I'm gonna sell stickers and plush toys and barky bark and then like

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

to piggyback off of their question, if I was gonna do some kind of an event deal just. Cause I wanna talk to me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Where we're at right now in the side hustle. You've made stuff.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Yeah, stuff is in production currently, but we haven't.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And who's we? Theoretical. We or your partners?

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

No, I have. It's my wife and I and then I hired somebody to help me kind of navigate the fashion industry side hustle. And she has a lot of experience with technical fabrics, this type of stuff, design and everything.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Awesome.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

So just to try and like.

[Client or Business Partner]

Yeah.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Get off the ground.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. I'm gonna make this very simple. Your job is so simple and extremely hard. You have to make people aware of it and compel them to buy it. Right. You're gonna sell it on your own website.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So right away that has extra friction that a lot of people right now don't want. Right. Because this is why Amazon and other places, people don't want to put their credit card into shit. It's like even though you have automatic fill out, this is where people don't understand how powerful convenience is. That's why the Apple credit card thing is really interesting to me. It's just friction. I would be more likely to buy your product if I could just not fill out anything. And that's where this is all going. Right. So anyway, nonetheless, you have to build brand. The reason I get obsessed with LinkedIn and TikTok is you don't have unlimited funds so you need to be most efficient. There's two ways to do it. One, you win on art or you win on math. Right. Math is, is you have the kind of background I'm making up this scenario. You come from financial services so you're grounded in math and you become incredible at Facebook and Instagram Arbitrage and your CAC is under your LTV and you're just crushing it. You're one of those guys. Right. It doesn't even matter that much about the marketing. It's just that you're so good at buying the ads and it's converting so well and you're not underwater and you're happy or you're in the art stuff which is like you understand how to make the creative that actually gets people. Like dollar Shape Club was an execution of art, not of math. Even though it was a classic DTC brand that is completely built on normally being reliant on math. So this is why I think people will forever follow me. Cause if they keep just doing what I'm doing and layer their own self awareness on it to know which part they can and can't do. And it's great that you know that you've decided for yourself. Maybe because of your other business, your job or maybe just who you are as a human. I don't want to be the front. The good news is that is not a requirement at all. There are far more brands that are winning than personal brands. So it's more common for that. I think influencer marketing is a beast for you. I don't think people understand how apparel really works. You're one person deciding to wear it away from doing more for your business than 9,000 other executions. So I think that's a very heavy place to focus on. But a lot of the rest of what 4DS was about has laid out for you the game.

[Client or Business Partner]

Happy birthday Gary by the way.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you man.

[Client or Business Partner]

And thank you for your staff. I was scheduled twice in la so Nick and Arjun made it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Awesome.

[Client or Business Partner]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So let's say you have to pay

[Client or Business Partner]

purchased or wine library today and Sasha had run it old school way for 40 years.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Client or Business Partner]

And you purchased it today.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Client or Business Partner]

What would you do to get the

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

word out that there's new ownership? Not necessarily understood word out for acquiring talent internally or external clients?

[Client or Business Partner]

External clients and in California.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep. And I assume the business based on 40 years why you brought up Sasha is and at that level has strictly built been a hardcore grinding word of mouth business for 40 years.

[Client or Business Partner]

Hardcore grinding. He has a Showroom. No, no.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's how 40 years and 3 million looks like. Yeah, yeah. No, this is what I do for a living.

[Client or Business Partner]

I understand. So. So we have a short presence in Northern California. It doesn't work everywhere, but in Northern California it does work.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What do you think your value prop is

[Client or Business Partner]

in Northern California or just California in general?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

California in general.

[Client or Business Partner]

California in general. Next day, ground service to anywhere in California.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But I assume everybody in California can do that too.

[Client or Business Partner]

Next day ground.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

No.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Why?

[Client or Business Partner]

Because they're not in most of their head office. They're moving out of California because just the cost of doing business in California.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, Fuck California. Yeah, yeah, yep.

[Client or Business Partner]

So, and then face to face, you actually see a face to face, you can call us from a customer service standpoint, you can actually reach a customer service person directly right away. And then also face to face, you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

can actually see your rep do a couple things. I would start a podcast around supplies. And I'm not kidding, I'm a big, big buyer of very narrow, very small, very niche podcasts. And I would invite the runners of the companies to be guests to talk about their careers. I'm not kidding. And I would be the host of this show and I would invite the executives on the show to talk about life. By doing that, you become, you gain the leverage on brand of becoming the place of authority. And all you're doing is interviewing your actual potential customers and making them feel famous, which then builds awareness. If you emailed the 900 clients that you know who you're trying to get. Right, Correct, Correct. If you emailed them and said, hey, it's me, I want your business, that's one thing. If you emailed them and said, hey, I have something called the show and I noticed that you've been the seven year head at Canon. You know, we sell to Canon, actually. Amazing. So we'd love to have you on the show to talk about life, nerd culture, what's going on in the industry, your personal career. You'll never get anybody to reply on the first one. You'll get half of them to reply on the second one. I would do that. I would then do what I do with DailyVee and my podcast. I would have that interview, then I would cut it up in a post production world and I would run ads on LinkedIn of snippets from other people for them to see it.

[Client or Business Partner]

Yeah. Cause LinkedIn is huge in terms of marketing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

LinkedIn's your world. You run LinkedIn ads against employees and engineers of the companies. You're trying to Reach with the content being something smart that one of the people said on your show coming from the account that is you or your business. Game over. You build a business so you run

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

LinkedIn ads against prospective companies with content

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

that came from the podcast with CNBC content, not infomercial. Buy my program content. Got it.

[Team Member or Associate]

So no call to action.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No call to action.

[Client or Business Partner]

Yeah. Cause we just need.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Because everything else he's doing is a sales organization. He's a sales organization. Everything he has in place is a sales organization. Whatever he has is sales. This is building brand.

[Client or Business Partner]

Once we get face to face, we close probably 75% of the time.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I would argue VaynerMedia is the fastest growing revenue agency in the world. I would argue that we are in the bottom 1% of worst new business processes. We legitimately don't know how to do new business. That's how much top of the funnel brand we have that just people hand us business. The companies in the world that only do RFPs and only have procurement literally hand us the business because the top of the funnel brand. And then the best part, true word of mouth to the people that have actually worked with us, Steak and sizzle, only two things are gonna be left. The actual product and the variable within it and the ability to communicate. And the ability to communicate is more powerful than a product because oftentimes the product has already been told you of its quality based on the communication. You've been told. You've been told it's the best burger. You've been told it's the best handbag. Why is this handbag $8,000? It's the best.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Really?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Because if I take that burqa off its name and gave you the same thing, it's 800 bucks brand.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Along a similar process you just did of diagnosing and then coming through it. I'd love to, maybe. So the company's called Revenger Sasha client. We, you know, last year about 100,000 leads converted to 2,000 starts. So the revenue generation happens when the student starts.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

And over the lifetime of that student, we get about $100,000. So we want to get those starts. Our business challenge today is have you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

spoken to those 98,000 people? In what way have you called them and asked them why they didn't do it?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

We've done a lead conversion failure study.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But it's 100,000 2,000, right?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah. So 2% conversion rate, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. From when the leads in.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How many of the 98,000 have you actually had a conversation with? What's Your gut tell you?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Probably.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

For real. For real. Like, give it to me.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

60% contact rate. So there's been at least one contact

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

over the phone, but like, no, no asking them why not?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Oh, okay. So Those of those 24,000, we know they didn't convert because of one or two issues. Yeah. Because we have training locations across the country and they didn't want to relocate. So relocation is the number one reason.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Stop running ads that go into those regions.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Into those regions.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's start point number one. Right?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How are you guys acquiring leads?

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Facebook, mainly through job boards.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Understood.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

So indeed, all the classic job boards, we don't do Google or Facebook today, really. Which is a reason why it's great.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm glad. I'm glad because it's great. Those are great lead gens because it's intent based, but if we can focus on being regional with our lead gen from a Google and Facebook environment, it gets real good.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah. So one thing is to stop in those regions where we just don't get much.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

If you can. I'm not familiar enough with the job board's regionality capabilities.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah. And part of the struggle trying to figure out is, you know, when you're in an operation, you know, you're obviously testing and learning all the time, but pulling back from job boards because it's worked so well, it's fueled our growth.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Now you're talking about why everybody goes out of business. The number one reason people go out of business is they're romantic about the thing that got them there. Yep, I understand that.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah. And then I'm building the brand, this podcast thing. It's real for you because you could just market to.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know how everybody's like, oh, my company's got a purpose and we're doing things for like, you know, how everybody that's, you know, now we've got to all be woke and amazing people. So every fucking startup is like, we give back a dollar to the rainforest or we really give a fuck about snails in Portugal or like, we care about people with hangnails. Like, everyone's gotta have something. Something. I actually think the right way to do that is to actually have a content arm of every business that acts like a complete church and state editorial. I predict that in 15 years, every single business will have an editor in chief who cannot be touched by anybody. If you had a content arm that had no intent of it being a top of the fuck, my friends. The reason I believe I win is because when I make content, there is absolutely no thought of how it trickles down to these moments. Yeah, that's the punchline.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

It's not intentional in the performance of the funnel. It's just content.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

A former employee tweeted out yesterday that there is no such thing as free content. And somebody jumped in, like, because this person's always given me good accolades, that I've helped them. And they're like, what about Gary Vee? And this person was like, even him. And I laughed. I was like, you didn't hang out long enough to actually get it. Of course there's something that happens. But I know who I am as a human. I know when I make a video, I know what's happening. People understand that. That's actually the punchline. If you can stay disciplined and actually try to bring entertainment value and information value to every employee, you'll get business. Cause people are gonna wanna be on your fucking podcast after a year. Mark my words. Yours has more, you know, more. Like, there's a lot more shows for, like, going into the workplace. Hr, millennial workers. Now you're in the game of being best. You have to do what these guys did on Instagram. Instagram was at scale a year ago. Enough scale that if them getting all these results, they were good at it. Now I'm trying to get them to get what he has, which is like, TikTok. You don't have to be good at it. Just go hard. Yeah. Cause there's more of a buy there. He's gonna win just on actually creating it. He only needs 47 people listening to his podcast for it to change his business. It's cool. This is why I love B2B marketing. He legitimately, this is no joke. Cause you guys are in the C business like me. He actually needs fucking 400 people actively listening for it to double his business overnight.

[Client or Business Partner]

I actually need 10 clients that I

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

could double my business.

[Client or Business Partner]

10? No, seriously.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I mean, 3 million. And it works for all of us. Even B2C. Like, you could start the ice cream show.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

I was thinking about that. So after I bought out my partner, I just had to change branding, you know, like packaging and, you know, you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

had to do the things that. Yeah, you got to do the things you wanted to do all along. I get it.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

And there's also a fear factor to it where I didn't want to do anything and make mistakes. So it's kind of surprising to me that we're as good as we are without any brand. You know what? Without trying to build up the brand.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Is it possible? This is exciting to Ask, is it, is it just a great product?

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

It's a. I, I mean, I know

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

it's your baby, I get it. But what do you think? It's a really, really good. That happens, you know, I really.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

No, but it's not, it's, it's not saying that. That's great.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I get it. I get it.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

You know, so now I'm at the point now where I have to raise the brand awareness. We are going into E commerce. I don't want to start it unless, you know, we have the sales going there. So, you know, I sort of starting at square one.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, you are.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's great.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Is it? I don't know.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I felt, you know why it's great? You have no choice.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Right? But like, for example, like TikTok, I know it's a younger audience.

[Client or Business Partner]

Yes.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

That's not necessarily the people that are, you know, it's the moms, it's the, you know.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, let's talk about a couple things. One thing that you should know is that teenage girls influence mom decisions of buying products in the home at a level that we've never seen. So one viral video. So let's talk about lacroix. Lacroix Sparkling Water was completely a phenomenon of Instagram girls, which then led to the moms. I would argue the best thing that can happen to you is virality in TikTok, not mom blogger.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

But as far as creating that content, does that all come from? I mean, I sort of.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You the human, or are you the executive who empowers something to happen for the brand to do it?

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

I guess me, the executive?

[Team Member or Associate]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, it does. That's right.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You have to be educated enough to make the right hire. This is what I always yell at in my conferences. You know, I'll do my talk. There's always this great moment when I'm in that kind of talk where I'm like, I get the whole conservative crew or people that haven't done it, like, super on board. And then I'm like, then I switch it on them, like. But now I know what you're thinking. Now that I've got you up over the last 20 minutes, you're about to hire your niece. You're about to hire the cliche 23 year old from school because you think they get it. If you don't have the ability to judge that person, you're vulnerable. My favorite thing is I can do every job here. I can't do it well. Like, I can't do any of the jobs at vayner well, but I know them all. I can definitely judge it. And that's super important when you own a business. Yes, for sure.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

So if I'm trying to find somebody to post on TikTok, let's say, to create content for TikTok, let me give

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

you a real insight that I used to. I only said it once publicly. I'm gonna say it again now I'm gonna say it a lot more. I really, really, really want you to download TikTok.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

I do.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Great. And I really, really, really want you to spend five full hours over the next 30 days, next 60 days of just consuming it. You will be blown away by how that little exercise will make you far more knowledgeable.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

Mm.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You'll just have context.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're like, why are they all doing that dance? What you're gonna. First you're gonna say, man, God, what society do we live in where every 11 year old talks about sex a lot more than I ever thought. Like, you start doing all those things, but, like, you'll learn. You'll have a much better shot of making a judgment.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

But yes, no, but as far as, like, then who do you. You're trying to hire somebody that. To help create that content that understands TikTok. So aren't they the 17 year olds?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm 43.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Almost 44. Notice how I blurbed it? I was like 41. I said 44. Now I'm like, fuck it, I got a couple more hours.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

So maybe that's the misconception of my.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's the biggest misconception of all time. Like, we do such typecasting. I hate that. Like, people that understand a Latino consumer don't have to be Latino and vice versa. There's playing Latinos that understand Caucasian mindset. You need somebody who's capable. And that doesn't mean a 17 year old. To your point, it's far more likely that it is right now. But what I love about the five hours is, I mean, I gotta tell you, it's so fun life. Like, if you came back, if I got an email from you in nine months and it said, you will not believe this before I started reading it, I'm like, she's the one making the TikTok. Like, you just never know. I don't know what to say. This thesis is what brought me to Gary vee. I was 34 years old before I made content. I was running a retail store. I didn't think I was a personality. I didn't move to LA and wait tables to be on tv, you don't know until you might be the person. You just might. It seems foreign as shit, but after you get five hours of it, you're like, huh? You just kind of make one. Like, it's the cliche story. You're like sitting there, you're thinking back to this exact moment. You're like, what do I have to lose? We have no followers anyway. You do some sort of funny thing with the. There's a huge trend where people pour soda or beverages into a cup against this one song until it overflows. You might just be like, I'm gonna do that with our ice cream. Sure enough, this is why TikTok's special. You do that on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, nothing happens. But because there's free organic views on TikTok, you do that and the right tiktoker sees it and does their own version of it. And you wake up in a week and you're like, gary is a fucking genius.

[Team Member or Associate]

Yeah, that's a real. That's completely the way TikTok, like, literally so drew makes awesome content. I posted, I was at Costco. The chick, like chickens coming out of the oven. It got 400,000 place. It's still going. And this is like the most random.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's literally that, Oh, kombucha gal, She's a monster.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Kombucha gal. She's all over the place.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

400,000 plus.

[Team Member or Associate]

I was just at Costco, I was like, what? Like, it's literally that crazy. But when it's good content, it can really go.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And all those chickens are unbranded. If you did that with your ice cream, like that visual, that much awareness, this is how it works. You know when that Texas kid goes to an H E B after you get distribution and they're like pissed that they're there with their mom at the supermarket. Cause after softball practice, but they saw that TikTok and they see, they're like, mom, mom. Get that. That's real life. All my friends who are making fun of me about my TikTok propaganda, all have gotten really quiet. Because if they've been with me in the last three weeks, they've watched an eight year old run up to me and lose their mind and take a selfie. And every time they look at me like, TikTok, Gary, do you worry about

[Team Member or Associate]

the perfect demo coming out of TikTok? Because it's kind of wild, wild west. You just say, fucking go for it all.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm trying to reach every person on earth, right? So I don't the demo is somebody who's alive. You know, what about us though?

[Team Member or Associate]

Do we want to reach everybody that's alive?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Of course you do. They'll self select out of your shit. You know, many people hate me because I curse. Doesn't mean I'm not trying to get them.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Building a personal brand.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Assuming baseline.

[Client or Business Partner]

Yep.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

What do you recommend?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Self awareness of how you best enjoy communicating and that allows you to make the most content. Written word, audio or video. Starts there.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

And then once you've done that self assessment. Let's say it's written video.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep. Then you make at scale.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

And if. Yeah. And if you're not able to sign up for Vayner Talent, you do it on your phone. Just do it on your phone?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Team Member or Associate]

Every day.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yep, every day. Do it on your phone and post it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I did it for eight years. I don't have a single person on

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

my team and you post it. So you just wake up every morning, do a video, wrote tweets on Twitter. Just put it on Twitter.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I had a flip cam. Remember those things? Just like set it up and be

[Client or Business Partner]

like,

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

all starts the same way. Right. It's all the same shit. Right? Oh, we don't have the amps and the guitars to be like you guys. I'm like, they didn't either. They were a garage band. They had a shitty thing they bought at a garage sale and went to guitar store. We don't have the. I can't be like Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg had a shitty fucking camera and made background movies like it's all the same shit. You don't need an Equinox membership to work out. You can go outside and Theo does that kind of random jump on fucking buildings or something. I don't know if I. Everybody uses an excuse. If you can write, you've won everything on your phone. Go write. Go write your point of view on the current job market to millennials on LinkedIn. Right now as a blog post. Right now. Actually, you know what? I want to add that. I want to add that to 4Ds, I want to add to 4Ds a forced moment of 15 minutes for people to actually make a piece of content on the spot. Especially on the two that are Organic Reach, LinkedIn and TikTok.

[Side Hustler or New Entrepreneur]

I like that.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

And how much time do you spend doing personal content development out of your.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What do you think, you two? What you got? How much time do I spend on

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

a daily basis developing his own personal content?

[Team Member or Associate]

An hour, 30 minutes, maybe less.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Yeah, you do it like, first thing

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

in a day, I write everything. Every single tweet. You see, I wrote that. Every single piece of copy, all the written words under an Instagram post. That's me. I post every single Instagram post.

[Team Member or Associate]

I would say maximum 40 minutes.

[Marketing or Sales Specialist]

Do you have a habit? Do you do it morning?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Think about that. Think about the fact that I'm at. Think about. Yeah, just think about 40. Yeah, just like, think about 40 minutes, though. Like, there's not a lot of. Yeah, nobody's. No executive's doing that. It is the single most important thing in the world. Communication is the only thing left. Everything else is getting commoditized.

[Client or Business Partner]

How about events? You talked about events for them.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think you start with the podcast because it gives you permission to do events. Once you have 400 listeners. When you promote your own event on the podcast and then 12 people's RSVP, you're like, Holy shit, people are listening. Start with the podcast. Do that. It will work. Put that flag in the ground first. Cold email. You know how fun it's gonna be to fly home and cold email. The 50 people that you dream Wish that knew who you. Wish that they knew who you are. And now the email says, I'd love to have you on our podcast. You're gonna get yeses. It's crazy.

[Team Member or Associate]

We did that. It works.

[Business Owner or Entrepreneur]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Even just DMs on Instagram, we're gonna do it for. Yeah, because that's more your world. His version of that is LinkedIn messages for sure. 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.