The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #51: Gary Vaynerchuk aka Gary Vee: Legacy, Influencer Marketing, College & Controlling Your Destiny

Episode Date: February 21, 2017

On this episode we are joined by Gary Vaynerchuk aka Gary Vee (@garyvee) Gary is the CEO and Founder of Vayner Media, he is a serial entreprenuer and influencer. Gary is also an investor in Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Snapchat. Gary sits down with us to discuss legacy, college for entrepreneurs, influencer marketing and not getting stuck at the mercy of social networks. This episode is all about putting as much as you can within your control and not relying on platforms to build your empire! To connect with Gary click HERE To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn’s latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you’ll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

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A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! Happy Tuesday, Happy Tuesday. We're coming in live. We're coming in hot. Oh my no. You told me we're going to do an old radio opening and that's what you got. That's what I came in as like, you know, like those old morning shows. Probably not like trade or whatever it is. That's what I thought

I was going to come in. Well, it sounds... I'll refine it. Guys, I'll refine it. I want people... Anybody out there listening, if you have a request for an intro, send them my way. I need some help. I want to have like a signature, you know, like coming in hot. You know, like how people do that on the old FM radio shows, AM radio shows?

Let's stick with another goal and refine something different than that. Hello, guys. Welcome back. I'm Michael Bostic. Businessman. Hello, guys. Welcome back. I'm Michael Bostic, businessman, internet marketer, husband to the raspy voice next to me. Yeah, my voice is so raspy right now because we podcasted for four hours in a row and I clearly did too much talking. So I'm Lauren Everett, creator of The Skinny Confidential, and we are very

excited about our guest today. Yes, we are. We're having Gary Vee on the show, which we will get into very quickly. I might get some peace and quiet around here the next few days now that your voice is a horse. It's gone. Yeah, my voice is completely gone, and I have to wake up tomorrow at 6 in the morning, get ready to fly out to Vegas, fly to Vegas, come back Tuesday, and then fly to Boston the next day. What are you doing again in Vegas? I'm going to a girls' night out with Revolve Clothing. It's one of my favorite brands, and they're taking us to a boozy brunch and

then we're going to all stay at the Wynn and we're going to go for cocktails and then go out on the town, all girls. It's going to be weird, you know, one with your voice being gone and now you're going to Vegas. It's going to be strange not having you around here squawking like a crow. Yeah, like it's going to be peace and quiet that you're going to be so bored with and you're going to be texting me tomorrow at 11 p.m. saying, what are you doing? I'm going to go pretty zen. I'm going to be like relaxed.

No, I have cameras in the house so you're not going to do anything. I have those cameras, you know, that are in the bears, like the teddy bears for nanny cams. I have them for Michael all over the house. Oh yeah, I'm sure you're going to be real entertained when you sit there and watch me reading a book.

So anyways, yeah, then we're going to Boston. We're going to go out there for a little bit of work and to meet our friend Alex and our other friend Jonna. A.K.A. Mooseknuckle. Yes. You know, it's funny. Of all the places I've been, I've never been to Boston.

I've never been to Boston either, and I'm very excited. I have no idea what the weather's like, so you know how I am with weather. Okay, I do know it's going to be freezing, so please, please. Leave the bathing suit at home. Yeah, leave it. Lauren does this thing where she, every time I tell her we're going to cold weather, she brings like a paper thin top and no bottoms and like no jacket. And then you just take all my warm stuff. So then I end up freezing. So this time I'm putting my foot in the sand. If you don't bring something warm, you're going to freeze to death. You say this every time, and then I just don't bring something warm and just steal your socks.

So, we were talking, maybe we'll do a meetup in Boston. We have some downtime there over the weekend, maybe on Friday. But we don't know where. We don't know where. So if there's anybody out there from Boston listening, tweet us or snap us us and maybe we'll put a little group together to do a little meetup. Yeah, comment on my Instagram where we should go in Boston. Like tag a place, tag cute coffee shops, tag anything we need to see or do because I've never been, neither has Michael. And if you guys want, we'll do a meetup.

We could do like a super casual meetup, maybe for a cocktail. I think that'd be fun. a few or a few yeah it's pretty hard for me just to go in and have one usually i have at least a few really that sounds concerning that's not that concerning you know i just like whenever i say meet up for a cocktail it ends up like especially with alex ends up going to like all night so you and alex are out of fucking control like when you guys get together with your magnums and alex's personality where he just gets drunk and like bankrupts himself i don't i don't know well this time we actually have to get some shit done so we'll be responsible oh yeah every time michael and alex say they'll responsible, that turns out in just a pure mess that I have to clean up.

So about a year ago, we went to New York to go to VaynerMedia to be on the Ask Gary Vee show with Gary Vaynerchuk, which was incredible. I was reading one of his books in Cabo. Michael and I were down there planning our wedding and someone reached out on Snapchat and wanted us to come on the show or me to come on the show to talk about influencer culture. No, that's actually a really funny story, because at the time, you know, this was this was pre podcast. But right around the time we were doing the podcast, I think if you go to the beginning of the episodes of our podcast, I think on episode two or three in the description, you'll see something that says the Ask Gary Vee Show because we talk about the experience. But when Lauren was going on his show, we actually hadn't launched the podcast yet.

So me being how I am, I wanted to use the opportunity because she was going on to, you know, kind of launch the podcast and let people know that we were doing a podcast because he already had a pretty large audience and she was going on to talk about influencer marketing and all this stuff. So it's funny because it's been about a full year now. But anyways, like Lauren said, I was not originally invited on the show because at

the time I was, you know, working on jetbed and doing some marketing and consulting and I didn't, I wasn't doing any kind of influencer work or podcasting at all. So I really didn't have any kind of social presence. You were helping behind the scenes. Yeah, I was doing, I was helping behind the scenes like we've talked about before. So anyways, I didn't have a chance in hell to go on the show, but I knew at the time he was promoting his book, the Ask Gary Vee book. And so I said, shit, okay, I'm going to use this opportunity. I'm going to get on this show. And Lauren's like, listen, you're not going on the show.

Remember, you didn't. I had to put you back in your place and say, you're not going on the show, Michael. She was trying to steal my thunder. She was like, she was hating on me. She was hating. I'm the flower. You're the gardener. Like, you're not going on the show. Yeah, but you need the gardener to make the flower bloom okay michael oh my god i'm gonna

go projectile so she was hating on me and so i did a little stunt where i ran around all new york city with his book and snapped him and tweeted him a bunch of random things with the book so like one of the things i tweeted him you can go back into my Twitter. You could see me like in the shower with his book. I think I took a picture with a cop with my hands behind my back reading the book. I was walking in the middle of the street with the book. And so by the time I... Like Ichabod Crane.

Yeah. But it worked because by the time I got there, he got my messages and was laughing. And so he's like, okay, you can be on the show. So if you go and look at episode 191 of the ask gary v show called influencer marketing you'll see me there and you'll if you look closely you'll notice that i'm not miked up because i was never supposed to be on the show but there i was there you were yeah michael that was great that was my time to shine and you snuck your finger on the camera it's a good thing too because I brought some flavor to the show.

That's debatable, but you can think of it like that. We actually will try to put the episode up on our podcast. Don't you think that'd be fun? Yeah. Like in the next couple of weeks to put the episode up on like a random Thursday. We'll link to it for sure. Okay, we'll put it on my blog. You guys can watch it.

It was a really fun experience because as you know, I have a high level of respect for Gary V. I really think he's doing social media, right? I think he's definitely a pioneer of social media. So we are very excited to have him on. But with that, I want to get into the tip of the week. We haven't done the tip of the week in a while, so I'm excited to do it. Yes. We need to do the tip of the week more because you guys have asked for them on Twitter. Michael, you can go first with yours. Okay, so in spirit of this episode and in spirit of that story, my tip of the week is to never be afraid to put yourself out there. Using the example I told you earlier, running around New York, taking a picture with a book.

You know, worst thing that could have happened to me is I look a little foolish for a while and I don't get on the show, but lo and behold, I looked a little foolish and then I ended up getting on the show and I think it was worth it because we ended up, you know, having a blast on there. And I think it was a really good, you know, it was a really good experience. So, you know, whether you're asking a girl or a guy out, my biggest thing is just put yourself out there and go for it. I learned a long time ago that the worst that can happen is someone says no, and you feel a little dumb. But the upside is so huge. You know, if you go and ask that girl out or that guy out, and they say yes, you have a whole new relationship potential. You know, if you're maybe go ask for

that raise, again, worst case scenario, they say no, and you're in the same position with the same salary that you're in now. You know, if you're reaching out to collaborate with somebody, if you're a blogger, you're an influencer, again, worst they can say is no, we're not going to collaborate. And then you're just where you are right now. So I think the upside of someone saying yes or acquiring opportunity is so much greater than, you know, the short term of feeling foolish or feeling embarrassed that you always need to put yourself out there. It's really important. My tip of the week is cauliflower

rice. It's this thing that I discovered at Trader Joe's and it's absolutely magical. So basically it's this bag of cauliflower rice, exactly what it is. It's cauliflower chopped up really tiny like rice, and there's so many different things that you can do with it. So lately I have been using it to make a stir fry. I do like turkey bacon and English peas and chopped up carrots. I'll do a little liquid aminos on top instead of soy sauce. You can do lemon, add a little bit of salt and pepper, and it's so good. It tastes just like fried rice. You could also use it to make couscous. You could make curry with it. You could add it to soup and the consistency feels like rice. So it's

a fantastic skinny tip. If you wanted to even get creative, you could add it to your morning smoothie. I actually made it for Michael the other day and he barely even knew that it was fried rice. It was pretty good. It was good, huh? Super good skinny tip if you're craving carbs. Before we get into our interview with Gary Vee, I want to tell you guys about Zola. So if you guys read the Skinny Confidential,

you already know that I always talk about Zola for registry. And you still haven't given me or us any of my wedding gifts. No, they're sitting in my Zola account. I'm not ready yet. So I guess it's basically your wedding gifts at this point. No, no, no. For our wedding, we decided to do a honey fund, which we haven't touched yet. We're waiting.

And we also donated to two special causes, colon cancer cause and Chihuahua Rescue. So that's sitting in our account. You don't get to touch it. It's amazing though because Zola is the wedding registry that will do anything for love. Couples can register together for any brands that you want on this easy to use platform with the ability to personalize everything. Okay, so why I love Zola is because it's a one-stop registry. You guys know I love efficiency. Couples can register for whatever they want, sheets, a wine subscription, or you guys can

do what we did and do a honey fund, which is basically a giant fund for your honeymoon where you can pick experiences like dancing, dinner under the stars. You could do windsurfing. Okay. Yeah, you could do that. You could also do margaritas. What else I like about Zola is you can do group gifting, which is amazing because then a bunch of guests can contribute to bigger ticket items. They also do price matching, which means that Zola offers price matching to make gift giving easier for your guests. And couples receive 10 10 off the entire site for a year to complete their registry zola is the wedding registry that will do anything for love all the gifts experiences and funds you want all in one place the skinny confidential him and

her listeners will receive 50 when you register and use zola visit z Zola.com slash skinny for details. That's Zola.com slash skinny. And if you're a husband out there, make sure you get the username and password or your registry could be stolen. We'll be right back with Gary Vee. Everybody knows that February is the shortest month of the year.

But at Podcast One, we aren't taking any breaks. We've got a boatload of new shows coming your way this month. Like two from Forbes, Under 30 and The List, or Postmortem with Mick Garris, and ClipCast, the official unofficial podcast of the LA Clippers. But we're not done. Still to come this month,

The Raven Effect from Pro Wrestler Raven, a little bit of Growing the Dynasty with Jeff and Jessica Robertson, plus in upcoming weeks, shows from Kim Zolchak, Dina Torrey Spelling, The Retronauts, and many more. To get more details, go to podcastone.com now. Podcastone.com. This is The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Gary Vee is the CEO of VaynerMedia, a digital first agency. He took his family wine business from $3 million to $60 million in the span of five years. He was one of the first practitioners of email marketing and content creation on YouTube. He's an investor in Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Uber, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and is currently crushing it on almost every social media platform in existence. If you guys think you work hard, watch some episodes of DailyVee and you will immediately feel like a lazy slob and delete your Netflix account. Yeah, it's been almost a year since we saw Gary.

We were on episode 191 of the Ask Gary Vee show, which is about influencer marketing, where I snuck my way onto the show. It was around the time we did some of the first episodes of this podcast. So it's been close to a year now. I think we talked about episode two or three. So Gary, thank you for taking the time to come on the show. We're pumped to be with you guys. Yay. We're super pumped to have you. We'll get right into the questions. I'm going to let Mike ask you the first question.

All right, Gary, you talk a lot about having one shot at life and legacy. You're going to die dust and bones. Why legacy? Why is it so important to you? You know, I think it's a hard wiring thing. I think some people focus on the short term and others focus on the long term. I think I focus on the extreme longterm. I think I'm happy.

Like I'm just genuinely a happy person. I'm grateful and content. And so I think because I don't strive for anything in the current form or in the short form, the thing that becomes romantic or interesting or the thing that I aspire for is actually something that is extremely longterm. I think there's a little bit, in the short form, the thing that becomes romantic or interesting or the thing that I aspire for is actually something that is extremely long-term. I think there's a little bit, I'm going to get a little weird right off the bat. I know a lot of people listening don't know me,

so this is a funny place to go right off the bat, but it's true. I don't want to die. I love life so much. So I think legacy is a weird way to stay alive. So I'm not sure. I also feel a sense of responsibility. I think I've been gifted with a lot of talent and gifted with a lot of attributes. And so I feel like I've got to see them through and give back. And so I think all those things really factor into it. Okay. So I feel like everyone does know who you are, but just in case there's like one person listening that doesn't, tell us your background. So I was born in Russia, and actually in Belarus in the former Soviet Union, came to the US when I was three, studio apartment, you know, immigrant, we were poor,

my dad busted his ass and was a stock boy and then a manager and then a part owner in a liquor store in New Jersey. I grew up in that liquor store, you know, stocking shelves, bagging ice. Before that, I started doing that when I was 14. Before that, I was a lemonade stand baseball card kid. You know, I was just a hustler, always selling something. And it taught me a lot of business chops at a very young age.

I did blow up my dad's business, like you said in the intro, through email marketing, through YouTube, through Google AdWords. I was one of the early people on Twitter. You know, I've been amongst the people who've like really seen the trends of social media.

I, you know, I wrote a book in 2009 called Crush It, which is, you know, almost 10 years old now and is absolutely the framework of what's happened to your guys' lives and probably the lives of a lot of listeners and is the ambition of a lot of people that are listening live. So I think that I've been right about the future.

I focus on continuing to be right about the future, and that's my game. Okay, so let's go and kind of take a turn here and talk about college since we have so many college students listening. We get so many questions about college specifically for you. And we get a lot of heat of putting it out there that college isn't always the answer. What are your thoughts on that? If you're an entrepreneur and you're going to college, you're probably 97% likely wasting your time from gathering the skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur. If you're there to like, hook up, and like have fun, and like enjoy your last vacation before your grind, then that's a great strategy. But if you're

there to learn what it takes to build a successful business in a 2017 world. And I'm lucky enough at this point in my career to be speaking and guest teaching and influencing the professors and the classrooms of the biggest universities in the world and the best universities in the world. And I can tell you right now that if you're a true entrepreneur, like you're going to make it on your own, college is probably one of the worst sorrow wives in the world. So I wrote a post.

Actually, I wrote an email response to a girl that wrote in asking about college and asking for some college advice. And when I wrote the response, I kind of think along the same lines as you. I said, you know what, I want to post this so that other people can see it and maybe get some value out of it. And I got a lot of heat from it. And a lot of people came back and said, well, you're never going to get a job if you don't go to college. You run a huge business now with 700, 800 employees last I heard.

How big is a college diploma when you're hiring? We don't hire based on just a diploma. The last three people I've hired on my team don't have one. But that being said, I agree with the feedback on that. If you want a job, I do think college potentially is a play. The problem is if you're gaining debt, real debt, and you're going to use it to, you know,

if you're amassing $130,000, $50,000, $60,000, and with the interest rates of college debt, and then you're going to go out to the world and get a $45,000, $60,000 entry-level job, and with your living expenses, you're never going to get out of debt. Yeah. So true. Not to mention, I mean, they just-

So here's the thing. That's not, you know, that's okay. That's okay if you want to be an executive and you aspire to be a lawyer one day or a big executive at VaynerMedia. There's kids making $250,000 that used to make $50,000 at Vayner. So you can do it.

It can happen. But I don't want to hear from one goddamn entrepreneur that thinks college is the right move for them. Yeah, you know what's funny too is I went to college and I was lucky enough to have my parents help me through that. But the things that's funny too, is I went to college and I was lucky enough to have my parents help me through that. But the things that they taught me, I tried to study some marketing. And when I got out of college, you know, social media, the internet was around and

it was not one thing that they taught me in college that applied to anything that's going on right now. So, yeah, I mean, listen, kids, if your parents are paying for your shit, like Mazel Tov, you won, go party, go have fun. You're good. But the kids that aren't as fortunate and you're taking on debt and the only reason you're going to college is to make your parents feel good because they pressured you into it. That's fucked up. Get out of that. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. So you work with a lot of brands and we're talking about marketing. In the current marketing landscape, how do you convince brands to start getting away from direct sales and transactions and conversions and back to actual branding? So many of these

brands are caught up in conversions and tracking and tracking links. And how do we get back to branding? I don't have a general answer to that. It's a step by step thing. Like, you know, what you're referring to has a lot more to do with sales, you know, and I'm okay with sales. I just think that if you're 100% sales, you're not going to be successful. And I think if you're 100% branding and you're not practical about sales, you may not make it to the part of branding. So Michael, I would tell you that, that you're, you're right. The far majority of people are looking too much at math and aren't doing the right strategies about building a long-term brand.

But the truth is, I have to audit the situation. I mean, because the truth is, most of my clients spend too much on non-practical branding. They're buying television, they're buying billboards, they're buying sponsorship.

They're doing things just for brand, which they measure in a bullshit way. Smaller businesses, internet businesses, they're getting into conversion and things of that nature. And, you know, as influencers, I'm sure you're feeling some, Hey, we don't want to pay you in branding ways. We'll pay you for everybody that converts. And that's your prerogative. If you want to take those things. So I think, I think it's, everything's good in balance. You have to really audit. I would tell you my biggest problem is I got a lot of clients who are overly invested in branding. The problem is they think the way to do that is television, and that's my problem.

Yeah, we were watching the Super Bowl, and we couldn't believe that there was no call to action with, like, an Instagram handle at the end of each commercial. Or Facebook or something. Or driving people somewhere, and that's an example of over branding and not taking advantage of the sales DNA and conversion and click through. So like I said, they both work. Sales and transactional marketing works. Branding works. Branding is the ultimate.

It's why we buy pairs of Nikes and why everybody's wearing bands right now. And conversion works. It's why we buy a lot of internet companies. Amazon did really well on it. They both work. I think you have to have the right balance and you have to not fall in love too much in one way or the other.

Agreed. Before we talk to Gary about some of the biggest mistakes that influencers are making in 2017, I want to tell you guys about Kopari. So as you guys know, I am all about oils. Oils everywhere. So Kopari just sent me their latest and greatest new oil. It's a coconut cleansing oil. First of all, the bottle is so chic. It's pink and white, so it looks very, very cute on my vanity. And it's oils. It's all natural. It's incredible for hydration. And I love it. It gives you kind of a glow too. Another thing that I'm very, very obsessed with right now is their Lip Love Hydrating Gloss. Some of you guys were asking me about the gloss I was wearing on

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skinny. So tell us about the biggest mistake you see influencers making in our industry right now. 2017. Let's quantify influencers. Give me a sense of how much this person's making in sponsored posts a year. OK, let's say that there's a lot of influencers right now making five hundred grand and up. I mean, there just is. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So I've got a lot of mistakes they're making because don't forget, I watch the influencers of early YouTube come and go. I watch the influencer.

Listen, I'm old, guys. I watch the influencers of MySpace come and go and in Twitter come and go and Vine come and go. And so the first mistake I see from influencers disproportionately is they're completely reliant on Instagram. I think one of the weak, completely short-sighted moves that everybody's making right

now is they're jumping off of Snapchat because they think that Instagram stories is enough. And now they're completely reliant on just Instagram, which is insanity. You never want a platform to control your destiny. Step number one. Step number two. I think a lot of those people that are making $500,000 should make $370,000 and say no more often so that they can make $500,000 next year instead of $280,000. You see people whoring themselves out too much, losing their audience, and over time dwindling effects. So a little bit more patience, a little more selectiveness on the brands that they interact with. And number three, building not only not being relied on one platform, but as you guys know, I don't have the most followers on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, but I'm real, like you said, and I appreciate using my book title, Crush It,

I'm really quite strong on all of them while still testing Marco Polo and Anchor and Musically and anything that's emerging. And so I think a diversification of their influence and first party data, like I think you guys should have 100,000 cell phone numbers instead of zero. I think you guys should have more emails instead of what you have. And so I think, because I know you guys do that well. So I think that first party ownership, you know, you having the data of your audience and then a lack of reliance on just one platform, everybody's gotten seduced into just an Instagram world. And that is a massive mistake. So speaking of like these platforms, you know,

the thing with Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter and all this is we don't really have full control over these platforms at any given time. Things change. The next Snapchat can come tomorrow and none of us can see it. Tomorrow. Yeah. And what do you think – Lauren spent a lot of time and her blog platform is really strong. What do you think about people having blogs?

Do you think they should still keep them because they control it or – Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. That's an easy question I feel like for you to answer. I to know more about you know what but you know what the reason i answered it kind of emphatically and just said yes and kind of like went for silence is i'm not goddamn serious about it okay that's good to know you know what i mean and and by the way that may

be you know your email list that may be your whatsapp list like you, that may be your email list, that may be your WhatsApp list, that may be your, you start a cell phone group chat on your goddamn cell phone. I want you to be in control of your destiny. Your blog is that. I want email capture like nobody's business. But I don't want people to get too obsessed with that. You have all these people

who've missed the social media revolution over the last decade because they're like, well, I don't want Twitter and YouTube and Facebook to control me. And meanwhile, they got completely blasted out and became completely irrelevant. I lived through that. I've lived through these cycles. Yeah. We kind of used all the social platforms to kind of drive traffic to things that we can control. Correct. And you've got to treat them equally important. I'm obsessed with snapchat like it's my favorite thing ever just to bring my readers along on a day with me and then personally engage with

them feels like i'm text messaging my readers on a daily basis why do you think every influencer should be on snapchat you said that was so important and i notice a lot of people are just switching so quickly to instagram story it's like like they're acting like Snapchat never existed. I think it's important because it's a huge fucking platform. There's still a ton of people on it. And we don't know what Snapchat's next chess move is. What if tomorrow they release an update that changes the game and everybody comes back and everybody's going to be pissed that they weren't there the last three months?

No. And you know, what's crazy is we both have younger siblings. We're talking like 18, 19, 20. And they're actually the ones that turned us onto this and they're still that whole demographic is still there and they're 100 and they're gonna age up and again or guess what or snapchat becomes mine i actually don't give a shit i just think that when something still has huge audience that's super important important. And what I hate for most influencers is they've now quadrupled down on Instagram and actually have no out. You know, what if Instagram literally like changed? I mean, I don't know if people know this, but

Instagram's terms of services don't allow influencers to actually make money on their platform. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. What if they imposed, what if they imposed it? What if they took a cut? Like people, people? Like people are just not smart about this kind of stuff. And so, you know, when you're going through it the first time, it's the first time you've ever been an influencer on anything. You're naive. I love when influencers team up and think a platform needs them. You know? Like, you know, platforms have all the leverage.

And so I would tell people to get real serious. Now, look, Instagram has no reason to stop people monetizing on their platform. They want you to be completely obsessed with it. But the fact of the matter is Instagram's an independent business owned by Facebook that has to do what's right for themselves. And so I just think that people need to be smart

and diversified. There is never a good reason to have all your eggs in one basket in anything you ever do ever i totally agree with you i think that 2017 is such a year for live stream i think people are sick of the bullshit facade i think they want to see the raw real thing which you've been doing on daily v what do you think about live stream are you loving it i I like it a lot. That's a place where I think Instagram has been really great for me. I'm enjoying it. I love

Instagram Live. And I think that people, if they're good enough, should do it all the time. You know, live streaming is hard. You know, being interesting on live is a very difficult challenge. I mean, I'm obsessed with it just because I feel like they can ask questions

and I can just answer right away. But it definitely is more pressure than something like Snapchat. 100%. I mean, it's like to be talented in live creative, you've got to be really quick on your feet, really talented, very interesting. Like you can only be so pretty for so long. You can only run five jokes for so long. You can only have five good business ideas for so long. You can only run five jokes for so long. You can only have five good business ideas for so long. You have to be great and consistent and capable and live exposes that.

So is this, you talk a lot about documenting instead of creating, how do you see that playing into the current, I don't want to say influencer culture, but how do you, how do you see that playing into people in Lauren's business and the influencer space? I think that's the place where a lot of people can exploit because now you get into being a reality TV star instead of being Beyonce. And it's a lot easier to be a reality TV star than being Beyonce. Love it. Well, we will end there. Thank you so much for being on your on our podcast you're incredible

do you feel did you feel like that was like some amazing way to end it i don't know i just beyonce like it's it's such a high note do you have anything else that you can tell everyone out there listening like if you have one tip i feel like a lot of people ask you that what's your one tip my one tip is that there is no secret shortcut. Like everybody's looking for like this tactic or if you do this, this will happen.

You know, the reality is and you guys know this, it's a shit load of work. It's a shit load of work. And so it's a shit load of work. So work and patience, especially if you have

a bunch of youngsters, I would rip my arms off and give back all my money to be 23 years old. Keep that in mind. That's amazing. Thinking about it now, just because we're on this platform, before you go,

what do you think about podcasts? I know you were talking- Love it. Love, love. I love audio. I'll give you another secret. Lauren, I think you guys should immediately create an Alexa skill. What do you mean?

Google it. Okay. I heard in your other podcast earlier that you've got to be capable and learn how to use Google in 2017. So I'm going to go do that. I got basically my whole education from Google. By the way, me too. I learned how to spell because of Google.

I mean, Google is my life. Gary, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the Skinny Confidential. We love you. And this will be up next Tuesday. Thank you so much. Oh, actually, you know what? Let's do, you know what I've been,

I decided to do, I'm going to have a lot more fun this year. So I'm going to give, I'm going to give like five of my Gary Vee shop t-shirts to one of your, one of going to give like five of my Gary V shop t-shirts to one of your, one of your fans, actually five different ones, send them to my, uh, in my Instagram, let them use some sort of hashtag that they came from you guys. And I'm going to pick five of them and give them a free t-shirt. That's incredible. They will love that. I need, I need a Gary V

t-shirt. I need to go order one. Where can you get the Gary V t-shirts? Tell us where you can find you. So go to Garyaryveeshop.com go there you go there and dm me uh which one you like i'll send it to you i need the one that's about no complaints so i can wear it around everyone i know michael i wasn't talking to you you have to buy it all right i'll buy one thank you gary you're incredible thank you take care bye-bye incredible. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Huge thank you to Gary V for being on the show. We will put the giveaway requirements

in the show notes on the Skinny Confidential so you guys can win some Gary V t-shirts. And yes, Gary, I will go and purchase a shirt from you since I'm ineligible for the giveaway. He wanted to enter. Not gonna happen. I'm gonna get the no complaints one. Great one. So yes, thank you, Gary. Thanks forigible for the giveaway. He wanted to enter. Not going to happen.

I'm going to get the no complaints one. Great one. So yes, thank you, Gary. Thanks for coming on the show. Okay, guys, before this show comes to an end, I want to tell you about 5-4 Club. So if you want to look good at really affordable prices and you don't want to take the time to go shop online or go to the mall,

I have a rad solution for you. And that's 5-4 Club. It's an LA-based fashion brand that delivers curated items for sixty dollars a month. Yes only sixty bucks a month. So for that sixty bucks you'll get two to four seasonally curated items to help build up a balanced wardrobe. So if you buy something this month you'll get a couple items and then the following month you'll get items to complement the items you had previously purchased. So it's rad because you end up getting different things that complement each other.

So if you're a member of 5-4 Club, you get an exclusive 50% discount right off the bat on any item off the site that doesn't come in the box. Another great thing about 5-4 Club is there's free shipping with every shipment directly to your doorstep. I have my 5-4 shipments sent to LA so that when we're up there, I have stuff to wear. Go to 5-4club.com and use promo code skinny at signup and get 50% off your first month's package and a pair of 5-4 sunglasses valued at $75. This code will expire on February 28th. So use the code while the offer stands. Again, that's 5-4club.com promo promo code SKINNY. All right, next week, we're going to have our one-year show coming up. We're going to be taking Collins.

Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you for tweeting, listening, and supporting us. We cannot believe we've been doing this for a full year, but we have full intention to keep going. I never thought we'd make it this far. I thought you'd be dead, so I'm glad you're still alive. I mean, it's been a rocky road. If we were an ice cream flavor, it'd be rocky road.

Or terrible, torturous road. Or rocky cucumber road. Cucumber rocky road. Or piss-filled pants rocky road. All right, you guys. I am off to make some magical tea for my voice i am going to do a throat coat tea with meyer lemon a little bit of cayenne some apple cider vinegar and some manuka honey and it will kick the soreness in my voice hopefully and i will not be

having any of that why i can only have a little bit of the apple cider vinegar that you, you drink like straight out of the bottle. It's pretty intense if I'm being dead honest. My two favorite pastimes are one eating a ton of garlic, like 12 cloves, and then getting into bed with you and breathing on you. And my other one includes drinking apple cider vinegar and then laying on top of you. Yeah, it's really, it's a real turn on. So he's lucky. All right, with that, you guys, we will see you next week. Send in questions, guest recommendations, whatever,

to podcast at theskinnyconfidential.com. With that, we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to The Skinny Confidential, him and her, with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic. Download new episodes every Tuesday at PodcastOne.com or subscribe now on the Podcast One app. Hey, it's Jordan Harbinger. For the last 10 years, I've successfully helped people build their self-confidence with my Art of Charm podcast. And now, along with Art of Charm, I'm hosting a new show.

It's Podcast One's latest program, The Forbes List. On the show, we talk to the Forbes editors that curate their famous and respected lists, like self-made richest people, billionaires, and highest-paid athletes. We'll get behind-the-scenes insight and information that doesn't make the print cut. It launches this week on February 16th, so please subscribe on iTunes to The Forbes List and don't forget to rate us, review, and share.