Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - How to Actually Build Brand and Sales In the New Social Media World with Gary Vee

Starting point is 00:00:00 I can't believe none of you, most of you, the majority of you, are not fucking taking this shit more serious. Social media is free. They don't charge you when you post. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now.

Starting point is 00:00:32 Right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Write About Now. Where it's always right and it's always now. Join today. You know, it doesn't need much of an introduction, but, you know, I've got at least six titles for them. Serial entrepreneur, chairman of Vayner X, CEO of VaynerMedia and five times. New York Times bestsellers and we're going to make it six. Gary Vee, what's up, brother?

Starting point is 00:01:02 How are you, my friend? I'm good, you know? Life is good. I cannot complain. No one would listen anyway. Life is good when you decide it's good. That's right. Well, you control our own destiny in what we think about.

Starting point is 00:01:19 It's actually scary how much perspective is the punchline, right? Like, there is, for every person listening, there is, there are millions, if not hundreds of millions and probably if they're listening to this billions of people actually definitely billions of people on earth that have it quote unquote worse than you there's 800 of course it's billions there's 850 million people on earth that don't have access to clean water and somebody before listening this podcast this morning was complaining that their flight was delayed for 30 minutes yeah you know what gary i just thought about the pothole that i cursed out on the right over here to my office. I drive one mile to work.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Brother, you need to make a video of you filling that pothole in the middle of the night and post them Facebook locally. And you'll become a local hero. No shit. I'll send it to city council. You know, they get my taxes. They should fix this one pothole. I'll do it for them for the sake of the, sake of the whole town. Gary, what the hell's new, man? I mean, you got your hands in so much shit. Like, I don't even know how you keep. I have my hands on a lot of shit. And I watch you and I'm like, God, how do you keep your head straight?

Starting point is 00:02:32 I think for me at this point in my career, I have so many right hand men, men and women, right? Like, I'm in an earned luxurious place of eating a lot of crow and putting a lot of deposits down over the last 30 years, right? So at 48, you know, when people are like, Vayner Sports and Vee friends and Vayner Media and then Vayner X, There's eight companies under it, and then the pickleball team and then the restaurant group, BCR, and, you know, just like, to your point, and there's a winetext.com,

Starting point is 00:03:03 everybody should be by wine, wine,winext.com, sign up like that. Like, they see it and they're like, how? And I'm like, well, AJ, my brother, Marcus, who's been with me for 15 years, runs the Sasha group. Kailen McNamara is my chief business officer for Vaynerx.

Starting point is 00:03:19 She's been here 11 years. Hannah's my chief of staff. She's been here for 10 years. Claude, it's HR for all of it, 10 years. Mark Yudkin, General Counsel and Conciliorgio and COO for VaynerX, 16 years. Brandon Warwick, he's my best friend for the last 34 years, once wine business. Ryan Harwood's, my GM and partner in the pickleball team, 13 years. Like, you know, you're young in your journey, you're a youngster.

Starting point is 00:03:46 As you make, this is the reason people don't understand. If you want to build something meaningful, it's only relationships. If I had people that I just hired a year or two ago in all the rules that I just mentioned, by the way, there's another 50 that I didn't mention that are here seven to 15 years, either running department's offices or important things. Andy Kay runs V-Friends 13 years.

Starting point is 00:04:09 Sid runs my personal brand content, a decade. Like, Dustin, you've been here now for? Six. You know, like it's, you know, build a culture, do right by people, give a shit about them, create longevity. I don't know how many people listening like football

Starting point is 00:04:25 the way I do American football, but if your offensive line is intact, the same offensive line year after year after year, watch how good your football team will be. Not real anymore with injuries and free agency, but Jesus Christ, that's how. Takes a village. It takes a village.

Starting point is 00:04:40 And it requires you to love them, not they work for you. And that's where everyone gets it fucked up. When you're a boss, you work for them, not they work for you. And the day you figure that out is the day you start creating continuity. And the day you start creating continuity, you start to build the blueprint for scale. Amen.

Starting point is 00:04:58 I learned that the hard way, man. I did, you know, my time in Madison Avenue in New York, you know, in my late 20s, early 30s. And it was me, me, me, me, me, me. Yep. You know? And I thought, you, I could carry the role on my own talents or ability or, you know, whatever the hell. And you get grounded real quick. You cannot grow.

Starting point is 00:05:20 You can't do what you want without others and without a hell of a team. If people don't like you, you're in trouble. That's right. And people are never going to like someone that is only in me life. When you flip that M and you go, we life, it gets real good, real fast. And then as a complex, thoughtful leader, you start to understand some people want money. Some people want a title because they're insecure and they want the status. Some people want work life balance.

Starting point is 00:05:48 By the way, some people, and these are. of people I'm always gratitude. They want challenges in different things. Some people want to travel. So, you know, I mean, I don't know. Like I'm not in the business of judging what my employees want. I'm in the business of trying to figure it out. Yep. And sounds like you're doing a pretty fucking good job of it. You got a lot of longevity there. I saw Claude's post yesterday. I think it was like 10 years. And I was like, you know, your chief people officer hanging around for 10 years, that says a lot. In a real way. And, you know, it's the thing I'm most proud of. It's also the thing I'm most disappointed about in my career.

Starting point is 00:06:24 I would have more people to name for you right now if I had the ability to be candorous to my employees in my 20s and 30s. Gary V, the one that all of you know, if you know who I am, he built himself on candor. It's my greatest strength. I'm trying to tell the truth both in the macro and the micro, right? In the macro with like all my mindset stuff. This is why I wrote the new book. This shit.

Starting point is 00:06:45 Did you get a chance to look at it, right? Oh, yeah. Did you read it? Oh, can you see it on the screen? I did. Did you get it to read it or did you spit it or neither? I don't care. No, I got about three-fourths the way through it, brother.

Starting point is 00:06:57 So you agree with me that it's a fucking textbook. Like, it's detailed. Oh, dude. It is, it's the, it should be in every school in every business school. It's more, honestly, Gary, as I read it, I thought more like curriculum slash. I was course, like it was so, you get charts and shit. I think you said that on social. But that's so funny.

Starting point is 00:07:21 That's exactly what I thought. I was like, it is. It's like a damn school book for how to own social media. It's not even social media. It's market. I feel like that. Yeah, it's market.

Starting point is 00:07:31 Yeah. It's like, you know, go where people are. Yeah, it's to that point. So, you know, when I think about things, I'm trying to bring value, right? That is the number one thing I'm thinking about at all times. And so my candor, is incredible in because if you don't give it, you can't really bring value as a public figure.

Starting point is 00:07:57 In my private life, both personal and professional, but sticking up professional, my inability to communicate when I love someone. And I'm a lover boy, meaning like, you work for me for a week and I think you're a good kid and you got something. I'm like, we're family. Like I go in.

Starting point is 00:08:13 I'm like in team. Uncle Gary. I'm very, I'm very into that. Coach Gary, guidance counselor Gary, Big Brother Gary, I love that shit. It's my gift and at times my curse. And when I say my curse,

Starting point is 00:08:28 it made me not be able to tell people that were bad at their job, that they were bad at their job. And then what would happen is I would get resentment because I wasn't communicating. And then at some point, I would fire them sloppily because I didn't give them enough feedback.

Starting point is 00:08:43 That is the great scarlet letter of my professional building culture career. I feel like I've really supermaned it. I think I will be revered. I believe that. And that's a ridiculous thing to say. But I really do think when I'm old, people, when they look back at all the footage, people will realize that empathy and kindness, people that, words that people thought were like soft,

Starting point is 00:09:06 sift-sy stuff in business land that I looked at it as like a real thing, not because I'm altruistic, but because I want to fucking build businesses and build empires. And it requires it. And I think people look back at me being a contributor to the evolution of finding that middle. Now, the problem is when people hear me say this shit, sometimes they think that I'm talking about entitlement. Right. Right now, right now, the biggest issue for businesses, mine included, is you've got employees who don't want to work and get paid. Bingo.

Starting point is 00:09:40 And so I just want to say it real fast when everyone hears me talking about kindness and all this nice stuff, I'm not talking about like eighth place trophies. I'm not talking about entitlement. I'm talking about finding the middle and I'm passionate about that. Yeah. Well, I think you've found a pretty good balance of it. You know, I am going to come for my check, though. I lost a million dollars following my passion in a car business in 2014. And that shit didn't work. Yeah, I had Carvana's idea before Carvana.

Starting point is 00:10:14 I just didn't know how to operate. I knew how to market. Yeah, I'm a marketer. Well, you just explained that I was actually right, right? That all of your passion almost led you to Carvana. It just sounds that you weren't good enough to pull it off. I wasn't. They say this full time. Like, passion's always right because you like it more. You know this.

Starting point is 00:10:35 You're like, look, I love marketing. So I love Vayner Media. You know, I love wine collecting and trading cards. Like, it's easy for me to do well. things that I love. Look, I'm a salesman. I could sell anything. But if you like something more, you're going to do it at 10 p.m.

Starting point is 00:10:55 to midnight because it's your hobby. And if you're doing something you don't love, you're not. It's not complicated. And so passion's a great way to go. The problem is you have to be good enough. Yeah, exactly. That's the, that's the slippery slope, though, is. Hey, right, as someone who's been like, you know, growing, especially with the podcast stuff,

Starting point is 00:11:13 but it's great to see from afar. When you read three-fourths of the book so far, to tell me being curious. What was the biggest, like, moment we were like, oh, shit, that's how it's being or aha. Like, did anything strike you? Yeah, I'm going to give you a quote. It's because people tend to dismiss what's underpriced today. Instead, focus on what used to work in the past or what might work in the future, the process that continue to underestimate what's working right now. And that was my favorite quote from the book because it was, I, I feel like I'm progressive, you know, I mean, if you're the king of progression, I mean, I'm on the second tier.

Starting point is 00:11:52 And so I believe it. But then I start looking at the sacred cows that I have and I'm like, I need to fucking get over that shit. You know, I've been late to the game on TikTok, even though I know it's big. And I know that it's underpriced. But I'm, but, you know, and so I'm guilty of it. But that quote alone. That scenario, is it that? How many followers do you have on Instagram?

Starting point is 00:12:15 200,000, close to that. So is it something where you're like, you have this great number on Instagram where like 200,000? Like, are you worried from a brand perception standpoint that if you go to TikTok and you have 83, it makes you look smaller those first couple weeks and months? No, I don't give a shit what people think.

Starting point is 00:12:31 The reason I ask you that is that's a huge one for people. Yeah. They're in, they miss on, they underestimate the upside for the short term worry of brand. Is it because you did, the cliche thing of like, oh, it's just teenage girls and it just couldn't get out of that mindset. At first it was. And then I started posting and, you know, hit off. This was a couple of years ago. But then I became self-aware that I wasn't doing it right. And I stopped. And I said,

Starting point is 00:13:01 I'm not going to redo this until I get the team around me to do this right. And now I do. So we're about to go back at it. I think that's a much better answer than most. Yeah. But the reality is, and why I circled that quote and why it stuck with me and I was reading is because I think that's what most brands and people are stuck in, though, is the sacred cows, either more. Or the future. I talked to somebody the other day that fits this perfectly. Stuck on SEO, right? And infatuated with AI and no conversation of social. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Like tried and true. I'm like tried and true for, yes, SEO works, but it doesn't work the same way it worked in 2004.

Starting point is 00:13:43 No. AI, yes, but like you don't even know what you're talking about yet and your industry is not even affected by it yet. And like meanwhile, all your action is on posting on LinkedIn properly and you have been posted on there once. Romantic about yesterday, infatuated with tomorrow, sucking at today. That is the speed of the union of 99%. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:02 And they get exactly what's the point you made. TikTok can't generate leads like this. Instagram doesn't do LinkedIn like that. Like, and. they get two, it's all excuses. Like, let's be honest. It's not only all excuses. I'm starting to jump in, but also what a lot of people don't understand is, and you just broke it down. I want to, this is why I'm jumping in. I want everyone to hear this. You just talked about someone who's a salesman, not a marketer. Yeah. What most people don't know about themselves that are listening

Starting point is 00:14:29 right now is there's salespeople, not branding and marketing. Like, like, you know, when I was coming up the game, everyone's like, oh, Gary doesn't get it. He doesn't know. He's not doing funnels. He's not doing let they didn't get it i was playing chess they were playing checkers like they were looking for short-term arbitrage i was playing long-term brand if you if you're listening way now and you're saying that ticot doesn't get leads you're a salesman yes which is by the way i'm a salesman i like that but you know who salespeople are people that don't know how to do brand and marketing yep they have to be left with sales and then you know what the 98% of the rest of the world is they can't do either which is why they work for salespeople or marketers that's right

Starting point is 00:15:10 Everybody wants outcomes today, damn it. You know, and everybody's impatient. You know who's getting outcomes today? You know how they did it? By building a brand. Exactly. You know who's getting outcomes today? This motherfucker right here who's been doing this show for six years,

Starting point is 00:15:27 and Gary V's now sitting in front of me. That's exactly right. But that didn't happen six days in or six months in. No, hell no. It's the game. By the way, people are like, oh, Gary. I was like, oh, Gary, I was like, oh, Gary, nothing.

Starting point is 00:15:40 Like, I worked every day in a liquor store for 13 years to figure out how things marketed and branded. Like, and before that, I spent my childhood in marketing and selling. Like, I don't know what, I think Malcolm Gladwell's thing was 10,000 hours. Motherfucker, I don't know, I got to run the back, but whatever fucking, what am I, 48, whatever 42 years of trying to sell or make signs or build brand or sell, whatever 40, and I didn't do school like that. none of my time. Whatever 42 years subtracted by seven hours of day on sleeping on average,

Starting point is 00:16:16 whatever that math is, that's how many hours I put into this craft. You got the, hey, that's what I'm saying. That's why I've always, I've agreed with everything that you say, but I've always respected the hell out of you because you live exactly. You preach and you're doing, if you really watch what you're doing, Gary, you've always done what you're telling other people to do. That's the, that's the secret, guys. couple things in my brother one i appreciate your opening line i want people here is no one should agree with anyone on everything it doesn't even make sense we all have different life experiences we end up figuring it by the way we also all change our minds many people have written to me that they

Starting point is 00:16:57 didn't believe something and then they believed it or vice versa that this is why i call my book date training attention someone emailed the other day and said hey i watch this video i've been trying it's not working. I replied to him like, bro, I did that in 2009. That video's from 2009. Shit's changed. And so, you know, we should. And I appreciate that. I really do. I'm scared to be wrong. So I talk about the things that I know or the things that I'm living. And I stay in that pocket. The biggest compliment I ever get in social media is normally when someone's trying to troll me in the comments. They're like, Gary V, you say the same shit. And I reply, I'm like, thank you. Like, what do you want me to I don't believe in just to say something different.

Starting point is 00:17:41 Yeah, but that's the, but what you're doing is the epitome of what you're preaching, which is brand. And brand, you play your greatest hits over and over again. And you're literally, you know, because if you're not consistent, you can't build a brand. I just saw a lot more for Rolling Stones is going on tour. I mean, these motherfuckers are doing the shit for these years. I don't even stay upright. It's a funny.

Starting point is 00:18:05 I know, I'm like when I go out with my friends. friends like three weekends in a row. But to be touring as a rock star for 50 years, I don't know how the fuck they do it. But I digress. I think it was legal drugs. I think how they pulled it off. Yes. Yes. I do, I will say this. So I'm a father of four boys. Yes. And I had like a couple things. I had to get in on top of this. I was like eight to 14. And they're into trends, but they're not into social media. I don't really, they're not really allowed to do it per se. I think you balance that. Like what's the, but I know being in the business like you, it'd be fucking great for them, you know.

Starting point is 00:18:43 But it starts with knowing the kid, right? I'm sure, you know, I have 14 and 11, soon to be 12, 15. So I'm in the same pocket as you. Got a couple more. First of all, that's epic. Having four boys between that age. Honestly, that's pretty, you should just be filming that. That's pure entertainment.

Starting point is 00:19:02 Those characters are doing all sorts of places together together. Oh, dude, we're doing everything. Sports, you know. Yeah, it's awesome. As you know, out of the four kids, I'm sure if I said you, you have to, you have to have two of the kids. Have two of the kids be on social media 12 hours a day. It's now law or you'll go to jail. You very quickly right now already know which two can handle it better than which two.

Starting point is 00:19:28 Yeah. Right? So, you know, I think the way parents have to think about this stuff is, first of all, every parent needs to do what's right with that. That being said, I do think we need to be a little bit more thoughtful than just demonizing it. What is social media today is amateur hour to what they're going to be dealing with in their 20s and 30s. The cell phone and social media today, when their age, is going to look like the beeper and the CD ROM. It's mundane. When everyone's like, oh, you've got to get them out of the phone.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Like, I got to get them out of the phone. They've got to see the real world. I'm like, motherfucker, when they're 40s, they're going to live in VR 24 hours a day. There is no real world. You know, it's an empty contained, like the world's going to change. And so I think it's a balance, but I think the answer to question is very simple in my mind, friend, which is the sooner you can build actual self-esteem in the four of them versus fake self-esteem, the better they will be able to handle anything.

Starting point is 00:20:21 When they finally do get to 16 or 15 or 19 or whatever the rules are in your house, and they're allowed to be on social and they post their first thing and people say they're ugly, they're stupid, they're idiots. if they have actual self-esteem, they'll be able to deal with it. Yeah, that's the key. And we make them do tough challenges, you know, like we don't shelter them. And that's, you know, they have to, they have to be on their own merit at times and see success from it. And so, but no, I appreciate that input. So talking with Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Day Trading Intention, coming out the 19th, I believe, isn't that right, Gary?

Starting point is 00:20:57 We're like, I think days away, 21st. We're releasing this, I think, just before the episode. So go buy it. Amazon, all the locations. We'll have all those links. Gary, I mean, it's obvious to me, you know, like why you wrote the book. It's the guidebook for attention, marketing today, now. Now.

Starting point is 00:21:20 But, you know, how do you implement, how to eat your own dog food? Like, what's your process for staying? I mean, you've got the team, I'm sure. But staying ahead of that attention curve. It's three things. It's team on team and me, meaning there's me and I live this. This is what I do for a living. There's my team of 30, 40 people, Team Gary.

Starting point is 00:21:43 We're constantly flowing in a WhatsApp thread. What's working? What's not working? The analytics, the first three seconds of the video. Like, it's so cool to be on this show knowing there's not a single person listening right now that should not buy this book. That's insane to me. And I'll tell you why.

Starting point is 00:21:58 because if somebody's listening right now and they're a principal of a high school, if they're listening right now and they're a middle manager and a corporation, if they have a nonprofit, if they're a board member of their country club, no matter who you are on earth, knowing how to get people to hear you

Starting point is 00:22:15 for whatever you care about, raising money for a nonprofit, selling T-shirts, getting people to use your auto body shop, buying your new tequila. Like whatever it's, it's so cool. That's why I'm so excited about this book. I know everyone's going to get value and that's why a textbook did it,

Starting point is 00:22:31 because everyone, most people can learn in that format. Ironically, I'm one of the few that can be able. Anyway, how do I do it? It's what I do for a living. It's what I do for 12 hours a day. But I also, like, to give people context, there's 50 people that work in a department in my company called the PAC department, platforms and culture.

Starting point is 00:22:51 All they do for a living is pay attention to what the platforms are doing and how the algorithms are working and what the best way to get 50,000 views. instead of four views, the best way to get a million views instead of 100,000 views on every platform. Snapchat Spotlight, LinkedIn. I'm one of the few humans on earth that over a million followers on all of the platforms. Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, like Twitter, like I believe in all of these platforms have way more attention than people think, way more.

Starting point is 00:23:25 and I believe that being the best at it matters. And so how do I eat my own boat food? I'm going to show it to you. I know this is probably audio for most people. But like, for example, literally this morning, 8.34 this morning, right? I wrote the copy personally for my post on Instagram. I'm in the gym. I'm in the gym.

Starting point is 00:23:54 I'm the one, I'm not, there's no steroids here. There's no, there's no fucking taking a young person's blood and transfusing it into me. Oh, come on. You had a vampire facial last night. I know you did. But I'm fucking in it. And I want to be the best in the world at it. And then I'm very lucky.

Starting point is 00:24:15 I also, well, lucky. I built a 2,000 person global agency. It's one of the biggest, best social media and overall marketing agencies in the world. So I have data. My company spends billions of dollars, Ryan, on media, on social media and media. Billions. Do you know how much information I'm seeing? And for everything, chicken wings and sodas and hoodies and airlines and all of it.

Starting point is 00:24:45 So, you know, I'm in a very unique position of seeing a lot more than the person you see in your feed that's giving you like an Instagram hack that's looking like a professor. And I like those characters. I think they're doing, a lot of them are doing decent jobs. But mine is so, I'm unique in that like, I'm sitting with information that is like incredibly rare. There are no, there are zero humans on Earth that have a 2,000% global agency, global, Latin America, APEC, Europe.

Starting point is 00:25:18 And they themselves are one of the most established, content creator personalities in the world. I am that person and I'm very humbled by that actually. And I'm so humbled by it. And I was so parented well that and I'm such a weird character. Do you know what my team feels about this book? The fuck. My agency's mad at me for giving it away.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Yeah, what are you doing? And I'm like, guys, this doesn't, the information can't sit with us. It doesn't sit that long. It's day trading attention. It's going to change. but I'm going to give everybody the principles, and I'm going to tell them there's not one person that doesn't follow this, that won't get results similar to best practices in health and wellness. I promise everyone who's listening, if you cut down your carbs and sugar and you go to the gym

Starting point is 00:26:08 and actually start doing strength work, your body and your physicality will be better two years later. I lived it. You've seen my videos 10 years ago. I've lived it. Yeah. And I've got the emails from Brandon from. wine library from 2009. I was going through all my, like, I did that

Starting point is 00:26:26 Gary V searched through like, I like, I don't know if I like known Gary V. Like I look, I got Brandon's fucking email sending me a wine list from 2009, I think. So when you brought his name up, I was like, I totally know. That's cool. Yes, yes. Day trading attention

Starting point is 00:26:42 with Gary V. So you brought up to 2,000 people. I asked, I asked my community. I was like, all right, well, you want on, what do you want to know from Gary? Repeat question. It was all about AI, right? Go figure. So what industries, including your own, because you've got to think about it, you deploy 2,000 people, and marketing and advertising will be impacted, has been impacted.

Starting point is 00:27:04 So what are the industries that, you know, are going to be most impacted and how do you reflect on it as it relates to, like, your company? Advertising. Yeah, marketing. Like, we're right at the forefront of this. We're the bookstores. We're at the taxi cabs. Like, if you're an Adobe designer, if you, for a living, design images on Adobe for an agency, you better wake the fuck up.

Starting point is 00:27:27 Like, you've got a few minutes here because we've got to figure out copyright and trademark law. Companies are going to be the big companies that use agencies are going to tread lightly. But this shit is coming, brother. It's really coming. So I think a lot about it. This is why we spend so much time on strategy and thinking and not just being someone who makes something. I tell my team all time, we get paid for our brains. men what we make. But I mean, to answer your question, everything. Think about the last 20 years,

Starting point is 00:27:56 everyone who's so proud that they've told their kids to become coders and developers, and they've gone on to make good money. And now you can already see the early stages of like, wait a minute, in five years, am I going to be able to build an entire website by talking it out and then an AI will just write the code? Like it's, I mean, brother, I'm even worried about the only thing I've always thought I had, which was my brain. I believe that you can map everything that I've ever said, and that eventually the machine learning and the technology will get so good that I believe at some point, everybody on Earth can think the way I think,

Starting point is 00:28:30 can literally get answers to how I'm critically. Like, what does Gary B thinking about this? Let's say a new thinking about, Schmaga. It's the hot new app. What would Gary B think about Schmaga enter? And that because of everything I've ever said on the machine learning and all the work, that the answer would actually be the answer. sir. Exactly. If you aren't thinking about that, if you don't, if you haven't made that connection,

Starting point is 00:28:54 you're fooling yourself. Like if you haven't thought that deep down this rabbit hole. It's why I've always said this. The ultimate is brand because it's the only thing that's left after everything gets commoditized, which allows you to pivot to whatever is left. Gary B's carrots, organically grown. Good for your health. Buy now. Toilet bowl. Whatever. I mean, I thought about, you know, like blue collar stuff. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's like, you know, for me, as long as I believe in it, when I did empathy wines, I believed in it. I believe that with me friends, I'm building the next Pokemon meet Sesame Street. With this book, when people buy this for $28 or whatever it is on Amazon, I'm like, oh my God. Like they're like, how do they not get $28 of value within the first second? They're going to do one, they're going to change. Everybody's going to change the way they make every piece of content. The first. piece of content instead of normally getting 800 views is going to get 8,000 and those 7,200 impressions are worth more than 28 bucks. Like that's a great feeling. That's people like, hey Gary, I'm scared of selling. I'm like, that's because you don't believe in what you're selling.

Starting point is 00:30:03 I'm scared of selling too if I don't believe in it. One of the reasons I'm so weird and say different things that a lot of people is I don't know what to do with. I don't even know how to sell something I don't think is right. What do you do? Yeah. Well, authenticity, you know, that proves that you are authentic, doesn't it? Yeah, I think so. I think it really matters. Like, I really don't understand if you, this is what my argument is with a lot of people in Madison Avenue and you were there right.

Starting point is 00:30:31 Yep. They sell shit they don't believe in. Do you really think if you're sitting right now at Omnicom and selling banner ads on the web that you as a human think that's a good idea? Fuck, no. Like, if you're selling, like, like, do you really think the best deal in marketing is a billboard outside? Do those people really think that?

Starting point is 00:30:51 Hell no. They know. They know. I think they know. They know. Let me ask. I do have this question. And then I'm going to talk about a couple of pages.

Starting point is 00:31:00 A couple of these charts and shit. How, okay. Brand. Outcomes. Attention. How do we, you know, I have friends that go,

Starting point is 00:31:14 well, you can, you know, take your shirt off and run. round and get attention all day. What is that attention? How do you turn intention into intent? How do you turn buzz into bite? Having a good product or service that people want asking. This is the follow-up to jab, jab, jab, right hook.

Starting point is 00:31:34 This book was originally called Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook instead of date trading attention. To your buddy's points, like, if people are going to look at you because you look, being attractive is a really interesting concept to me, right? So like I think about why people would stop in the feed, right? There's, and really why would somebody sit? There's humor. I think we can all agree that humor is like a great place, right? There's attractedness.

Starting point is 00:31:59 I don't think this is going to confuse anyone. I'm just stopping our feed. Yeah. Right? Yeah. There's, and there's what I think I've lived on, which is like value of information. And I think of those things in macro and micro, there's some people that are very, very good at perspective and mindset and blueprint and then there's people that will go very tactical

Starting point is 00:32:21 and I played both in a lot of ways um so what when your buddies go well easy for you rye to get attention i'm like look if rye is selling if he's got his shirt off and they stop but he's selling like b-to-b SaaS products and none of those people convert then what do we achieve and that's true but if people stopped and this is why I think people don't mix their content enough if someone stops and you're looking all diesel and they're like look at those fucking pecks and then they click your account and the prior post is you talking in detail about a B2B set I mean just think about how wild this concept is we need to be SaaS product for enterprise corporate if three of the thousand people that stopped to look at either they want to look like you.

Starting point is 00:33:11 you or they're attracted to you and then click that other one and be like, what is this? If three of those thousand are actually in that industry, one of those three may lead to a lead. So I think where people get hurt is they do content for the sake of getting attention, but never have the other part of it. And then they don't do the other part of it because their grid doesn't look good or it's not on brand. They don't get it. They're in the business of the academia of marketing or the insecurity of marketing.

Starting point is 00:33:38 The reason most people don't put out content that will help them sell more stuff, is they know it won't do as well. So they keep putting out photos of their abs or their ass. Yeah. Right? Because they want a thousand likes or they want a million likes. Yeah, that dopamine hit. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:33:55 It's all just high school. It is. I'm on page 72. Literally a chart. Amplification, spending against what works, a.k.a. not wasting a penny teaching you how to literally make sure you double down of what you need to double down and what you're learning. It's kind of a learn cycle in a way.

Starting point is 00:34:14 It's like, okay, what are we learning and how do we double down on it? I'm simplifying. Yep. It's, it's the organ, I'll make it very common sense for everyone. I think you've been paying attention. Everyone was listening. Social media changed three years ago. It's now about the individual pieces of content, the TikTokification of social. It's not like when I grew up in social where you try to get as many followers as possible and then a certain percentage of those followers see the content. Ryan's got 200,000 on Instagram. I have 10 million. Both of us can post right now, today,

Starting point is 00:34:45 and he can get twice as many views on a video than I can if his video hits right versus me putting out something that really does not hit right. That is insane. Once you know that that content hit right, the algorithm has mitigated the biggest risk in marketing, which is the creative. Once you mitigate the risk of creative,

Starting point is 00:35:05 you can then decide if you want to amplify it. more importantly or equally as important, you can also extract insights from it. Why did it do well? That's like what I spent all my time on, Rye. I'm obsessed with why. Why? Why? Why? The most successful people are the curious people. Like, that's what it is. You got to know why. Your body, your mind, your soul, your being won't let you not ask that question. Yeah, and especially towards the human. That was always what I, like, That's what I got it. That's who I became.

Starting point is 00:35:40 Like I was just always curious like why, even when I didn't know that bullying was based on kids that were unhappy at home, even in third grade, I was like, I naturally felt bad for the bully. I'm like something's wrong. And I was scared of the bully like everybody else.

Starting point is 00:35:56 And the bully back then in the 80s in Jersey in third and fifth grade, they were big kids. The Williams brothers, they were big kids. I was scared to them, but I fucking knew in my heart. I'm like, nah,

Starting point is 00:36:05 they're not beating the shit out of all of us for just kicks and giggles. there's something wrong. Why? Why? People are mad at their boss for being mean to them, even though the boss has always been decent-ish.

Starting point is 00:36:15 And now they're like, oh, my boss is a dick now, or I hate him, I gotta get out of here, fuck him. And they don't realize the why is, well, a month ago, he found out that his spouse has terminal cancer

Starting point is 00:36:24 and he hasn't told you yet. So why don't we give people the benefit of the doubt? And the story that I just told, why would you, if someone's been good to you for five years, or solid or at least neutral, that at the first turn

Starting point is 00:36:39 that they were not as good as normal like it wasn't good why do you immediately go into I hate that person I'm done I'll tell you why because you yourself are insecure you're not in a good enough place to have the compassion

Starting point is 00:36:51 to be like wait a minute Johnny's been decent now he's like really riding me for this week in a nice way people are selfish they go into what they're feeling to me that logically

Starting point is 00:37:01 is like something's wrong with Johnny empathy I'm very bullish on it And that same ability in human interaction helps you be a good salesman and marketer. The reason I put out good content is I have a good feel of what the world is looking for right now that I feel that I can contribute to.

Starting point is 00:37:20 There's a lot of things I know that would do well, but I don't think I can contribute to it. I don't know it as well. It doesn't come natural to me. You know, I'd love to speak a lot more. Here's one. Let me give you in detail. You like this stuff.

Starting point is 00:37:30 You haven't heard this one. I would love to talk a lot more about grieving. I think it's a big subject matter. Yeah. I just have been fortunate and unfortunate that I can't speak to it. Here's why. Fortunate because I'm 48 years old

Starting point is 00:37:42 and my mom's mom, my grandma, who I really knew, my great uncle Misha, who was a father figure to me, that's where I'm at. My great grandmother, but I was little. Like, unfortunate because so many of my family members died before I was even born,

Starting point is 00:37:54 both my grandfathers, one of my grandmothers. So, you know, I'm a small family, Holocaust stuff like that. So, you know, I, I can't speak to it, brother. I have thoughts on it, but I just don't feel comfortable. You know, I can observe from afar. But back to what you were saying earlier, I like to talk about stuff that you've lived, you know.

Starting point is 00:38:17 Yeah. One day I will. One day, unfortunately, I will. And I have a funny feeling in 30 years. I'll have content on it because I think it's a big one out there. Yeah. It is. I mean, social media has made us more connected than ever, but yet disconnected from some real discussions.

Starting point is 00:38:33 Well, that's because we're incredibly. emotionally vulnerable as a society. The last 35 years of parenting specifically has been incredibly bad at getting people to be comfortable with discomfort. I mean, eighth place, bro, I hope you're 14, you're 8 to 14 year olds, don't have 8th place stroke. You, I hope you know. Fuck, no. Dude, you're singing from the playbook, man. As soon as they came home with the, you know, the medallion, that thing went in the,

Starting point is 00:39:05 like bottom of the trash can like not didn't do it in front of them but like that's not hanging that's not hanging out you know there's a really positive way to throw it in the trash can like it doesn't have to be like cliche like oh alpha dickhead dad no no no talk about it yeah talk about the reason their kids are more grown up than people think you sit down 11 year old and be like listen it's not that i don't want you to have this bullshit six place trophy or metal it's that you have to understand losing is good. You guys came in sixth. You guys lost.

Starting point is 00:39:39 That's good. You shouldn't be rewarded for that. In the game of a basketball tournament. There's a positive way to talk about it. Anyway, I think we have a lot. The reason we're lonely is we're scared. Yeah, we are. We're scared of losing in front of others,

Starting point is 00:39:55 keeping up with the Joneses, blue check marks, followers, money, status. How attractive is your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband? How much money do they make? make all these being fucking bullshit bullshit shit. I'll say this. That's why you need to focus on what's real and what you can do that actually impacts what

Starting point is 00:40:13 you're doing. That's what this is about. Like that we get too caught up and shit. It's excuses. You know this. We all know this. You get caught up and you don't know it. But once you really reflect, you know it's excuses because you're focused on things that

Starting point is 00:40:25 you don't have control over, you know? And that's what they're trying to do to us, right? Like that's what the news is. That's what society is. That's what politicians. That's what. parents are like it's what schools do like it's you don't control shit in like most of your life this is why i love you know it's so funny after my last rant like none of that matters meanwhile i'm trying to

Starting point is 00:40:45 build an empire i'm not demonizing success or winning that's all i'm trying to do i'm just trying to get people to be healthy about it so once they get there they can stay there bro i'm sure even at you know i'm sure at this point of your life you've seen in front of your eyes circles or close circles people get real paper and real money, and then three, four years later, it's all gone. 100%. And a lot of times in that story, the family's gone, the reputation's gone. It's not a good life. They got to success in the wrong way.

Starting point is 00:41:16 Yep. And it's because it wasn't success. It was fake success. It was proxy success. Exactly. But that's why I've got to be day trading attention. We don't want proxy success. We need all success.

Starting point is 00:41:28 I'm telling you right now, it is crazy. I can't believe, I'll leave it with this for all of you. I can't believe none of you, most of you, the majority of you, are not fucking taking this shit more serious. Social media is free. Brian, it's fucking free. Brother, it's fucking free. They don't charge you when you post.

Starting point is 00:41:48 Do you know what a newspaper ad costs a lot? Do you know what a billboard costs? A lot. Do you know what direct mail costs a lot? Television commercial, a lot. Sponsorship of an event, a lot. Google AdWords, a lot. Pre-roll YouTube, a lot.

Starting point is 00:42:02 Hulu interstitial ads, a lot. Influencers to plug your product, a lot. Like, I don't understand what the fuck people are doing. Organic social media is the most important thing in the world. Figure it the fuck out. Stop crying. Stop bullshitting. This is fucking it.

Starting point is 00:42:17 Bingo. Free. True. I almost called this book. It's fucking free. Double F fucking free. And you got the guidebook to do it. Day training attention.

Starting point is 00:42:34 All of it there. Gary, a question. What's your own versus rented land? Do you leverage the free to get them to the owned? You know, the website. Yeah, yeah. Of course. By the way, you can talk about, I mean, I know I talk about it.

Starting point is 00:42:51 Please have your default URL proper on your social. Yeah, of course. Attention is always being set to the owned. Right? Yes. When you, you know, like, I don't know, I'm on this right now, getting attention. And if it's, and if people like what I'm saying, they're going to buy a $20 book. That's yours. Right. In this scenario, I'm obviously sharing that with Amazon and my publisher. Yeah. But at least my publisher had to pay me a big bag to be a partner in it. But yeah, brother, of course. Because you built brand over time and you had leverage to. do that. Correct. And of course, like, you want your podcast linked up there or something else. And I change my links depending on what I want people to know about. And so, of course, you're sending them to other places, but you're extracting. Everyone's like the algorithms are fucking me. I'm like, no, no, you should be fucking them. It's free. Extract the attention from it. 100%. That's why they're too powerful. Everyone cries about social, but it's their most important

Starting point is 00:43:46 thing. Yeah. Because the attention's there. Yeah. That's what, look, what is the six hours a day for, 18 to 24 year olds on fucking TikTok. I mean, forget about 18 and 24 year olds. All of us older fuckers are on it all day. Oh, yeah. What's the 40 year olds doing? Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:02 Everyone's on it all day. If I'm not working, all day. Well, that's why I do. Most people watch television with social as the companion. Definitely Twitter. Definitely in sports and politics.

Starting point is 00:44:14 Your phone is the TV and your TV is the radio. That's what I'm saying. That's right. That's right. Gary, I know people know where to find you, but I want to be respectful of your time. We come up to it here. Always, again, respect the hell out of your directness, how you.

Starting point is 00:44:33 I don't know, man, it's always been relatable. Again, no matter what you think or what you see, you've lived it, you've done it. And I, you know, I led the witness a little bit with how you're eating your dog food because I wanted them to hear that Gary isn't writing this book. He's just giving you the roadmap of what he's already fucking doing. every day and he's living it. I just, I want this for everyone because I think it's going to go away. My belief is the, look, there might be another invention, but I do believe that in the next 15 to 20 years, we're going to be in VR heavy.

Starting point is 00:45:05 And when we're in VR heavy, social's dead. And I don't know if Apple and Facebook or Amazon or Google or whoever wins VR, if they're not in the mood to give you free awareness, then guess what? People are going to be talking about how there's a golden era of free awareness and we all fucked up and didn't go hard enough. You know, people have regrets of like, like, oh, wish in college I went to more parties because now I can't. Or like, oh, I wish I spent more time with my dad because he just passed and now I can't.

Starting point is 00:45:29 Like, I believe marketers and businesses are going to regret the living shit out of the social media free distribution era. And that's why, while we're still in it, I'm yelling at the top of the mountains. Like, please go get more attention. So that you can then pivot and do whatever you need to do when the tide turns. And that's the big takeaway. That's the big aha, right? It's like, yeah, it's about, you need to sell more today. Of course you do.

Starting point is 00:45:54 But you need leverage over time. That's right. You get to take your brand to the next platform. Whatever it is. I mean, I did it. I just did that. My original platforms. Wine Library TV on fucking YouTube.

Starting point is 00:46:09 That's right. And I'm Midler. I'm Gidler. And on you stream for live. And Mirkat, I got attention in. And Vine, I got attention in. And social cam. I got attention in.

Starting point is 00:46:21 and photo booth I got attention in and my space I got attention in and you know it just ebts and flows let's grab dinner in new york sometime looking forward to it thank you brother thanks for having me yeah hey guys you know to find gary we got all the links for them we'll have all the links to the book go buy it man this is the best value in business it should be it should be literally the curriculum my kids are going to read it my wife is a middle school principal she will be reading it and you know what you know where to find us ryan is right dot com we'll see you next time right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production.

Starting point is 00:46:58 Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.

Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - How to Actually Build Brand and Sales In the New Social Media World with Gary Vee

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