Why Brand is the Single Most Important Thing

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I talk about why brand is the single most important thing in business — number one, two, three, four, five, and six. I share why hiring around your weaknesses, hosting your own podcast, and choosing culture over money are the unlocks most operators are still missing. I also discuss why everything's fixable, why I've spent ten years tricking the market about VaynerMedia, and where the disproportionate confidence in my voice actually comes from. You'll learn about: • Why Brand Beats Sales • Hiring Around Your Weaknesses • Choosing Culture Over Money

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  So my question is, how do you work out how much you should spend on the content production side? Everything you're doing on your personal brand, I haven't even really touched my personal brand, and we're a content business ourselves, versus working on product, generating more revenue to fuel that beast?

• 0:21Speaker 00

  My answer to that is, as much as possible, on the content side. Financially and time. But not to overjudge yourself if you're not doing it, that's fine. Like, I don't dwell. But, just so everybody understands, like, at the end of the day, brand is what wins. It always has, it always will. It's how everybody makes a decision. Like, literally, you cannot imagine how many decisions you're making on a daily basis, solely on brand, nothing to do with sales. Yet, everybody so over indexes on sales. It's why, you know, I've been learning a lot about the franchisee world, just because the keynote I gave and just a lot of inbound and like,

• 1:01Speaker 00

  when I started realizing how much a new franchisee pays these brokers to get somebody, it speaks the same thing. Instead of spending those tens of, I mean, some of these companies are, like, when I looked at them, like, my god. Like, 40% commission, 80% commission, tens of thousands of dollars. I'm like, I could send a single tweet and put 80 people into a franchisees right now. When you build a brand, you build leverage. You know, Vayner is a $200 million enterprise, and we don't do new business well at all. We don't win RFPs, we're bad at it, we're bad at it. And it's not because Andrea or me or any, it's just, it's not our DNA. It's just, our biggest clients just give us the business because of brand. And, by the way, when you do personal brand,

• 1:44Speaker 00

  you actually lose 20 or 30% of the action because some people don't like you. When you actually just build a brand, it's a logo, it really gets going. You know, for me, I want to do personal brand. And at some level, like, I'm just not driven by money enough to like, always make the financial decision over the happiness decision. But, there is nothing that is more leverageable for you than the brand of your company or you as individuals. Where people get caught is they fake it until they make it. Where everybody gets caught is they play somebody on the internet that they're not in real life. That has been the reason I've made it.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  Así que te diría que esto es un juego muy simple de cuánto beneficio quieres conseguir al final del año. La razón por la que siempre he sido capaz de escalar y llegar a todo es porque siempre he hecho esto a costa de mi propia impacto financiero personal.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  Así que puedes, si estás dispuesto a ganar menos dinero. O puedes, si te das cuenta de que en realidad no te gusta esto. Como que no me gusta, soy más de un productor, soy más de una productora. Soy más interesada en obtener... La autoconciencia es imperative. No puedes imaginar cuánto tiempo paso en finanzas o derecho.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Por lo que sé, Mark Yudkin, nuestro abogado, posee esta empresa. Él solo pone cosas en frente mío y yo solo firmé.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Pero es por eso que es divertido tener... Comisas y nuevos negocios, o HR... Estas son las cosas que más micromané, al menos tengo opiniones en las que... De hecho, no micromané, pero tengo opiniones. O ocasionalmente tendré una decisión de dictadura. Pero creo que primero tienes que ser autoconsciente. ¿No estás haciendo esto porque no te gusta o no viene por suerte? ¿O estás haciendo esto debido a cualquier requisito financiero que estés buscando? Si eso significa que quieres sacar dinero de la mesa cada año en bonos y hacer algo en tu vida, lo cual es increíble. No juzgo lo que alguien hace. ¿O es porque estás tratando de cambiar tu empresa y tratando de maximizar el EBITDA para un múltiple? Lo cual está todo bien, genial. Estoy construyendo negocios en perpetuidad y estoy jugando por legado.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Y no quiero comprar nada en la vida real. Así que piensa en por qué mi consejo es siempre "pártelo de nuevo". Si entiendes, esas son mis "norte de los estrellas". Pero déjame decirte esto. Construir personal o marca para tu negocio es lo más importante en el negocio.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Es lo más importante.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Es número 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 y 6, especialmente cuando el Internet continúa acomodando todo.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Todo se acomodará. Todo lo que haces puede ser vendido ahorros, diferente, mejor... Es tu marca la que juega al final.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  McDonald's sells a lot of french fries every day.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  They don't make the best french fries every day. It matters. You don't want to be in the sales business. And that's where everybody, for the most part, is. Because then you're just in a hamster wheel of only as good as your last sale. You want people coming to you.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  The only way you can do that is through brand. What's amazing about the way we can build brand now is everybody here can do that by providing value for the ecosystem that they're trying to reach versus making a clever commercial.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  How'd you guys get here?

• 5:14Speaker 00

  It's a super meta-answer. I didn't call you.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  I didn't cold email you.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  We talked about that. Like, the execution doesn't have to be perfect, right? Because the brand is so strong. You just want to make it happen. The execution of, like, getting the thing, filling out the form, something that didn't work, right? Doesn't matter.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter. Like, the amount of dumb, basic shit that we do wrong, it doesn't matter. You're gonna want, if you want something, you'll get it. We don't want to do dumb shit. But, like, but dumb shit is always trumped. Whereas, like, other people have to have everything perfect because they have no brand. They just have the luxury of the quick moment of a sales pitch and the lack of friction, too.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes it's just personal internal, right? The feel, like, everything needs to be perfect to get it there when it really doesn't happen.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Oh, my great, the singular strength. My friend Tom Bell, you nailed it for me. I never thought about it. Singular strength I have. Singular is my inability to judge myself.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  I mean, Harry, you felt this right away in our first meeting. You, literally, our first meeting. Harry runs comms now for us. She's like, "I'd like to re-change the mission statement on our website." This is like, what the, this is what? Like, this is maybe the most important thing that people... It was a 38-second meeting. I'm like, "Okay." I was dying to think about what was going through her mind. Those are like, seven-month processes in other companies.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Because you come from a world, which is most of the world, where that literally, people would have 7-hour meetings about one adjective.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Like there was one answer you were not prepared for, right? You were cheated on. Totally.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  And think about it, it's like your first week in a company, you're talking to like the over-indexing face and founder of the company, like it's a complete reversal of what one would think. But it's because most things don't matter, once you establish your brand.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I really think you should lean into it. I think it will help your business, but it takes time. And I think the biggest thing for a lot of you, and obviously I'm giving the answer that helps a lot of you as I keep doing this, the intent of the content is imperative. The singular reason we win, and I win, is because not a single piece of content I ever put out has any intent to sell sneakers, wine, 4Ds, or VaynerMedia.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Not interested.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  And people feel it.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  You can't hide it.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  You know, people call it bullshit radars, but we're animals.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Right? It's like a bat can sense things, a dog can sense things, like we inherently have been sold to, for so long at this point, that it's of course you can be tricked for a second, because usually, you're the kind of person that wants to dream, and not put in the work. The reason diet pills and quick-rich schemes work, is because people don't want to put in the work.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  You want to look like Nick DiO? Eat well and work out every day. Take off your shirt, Nick.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  He did that last night, it was wild.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  But you know what I mean? Like, it's crazy. There's a trillion-dollar health and fitness industry, and the math is as basic as fuck. Eat well, work out.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Sleep.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  But we don't want that. We want to eat fucking cheeseburgers and fucking potato chips and get the results. And that's how I think about business. This answer is 100% right. We live in a world where there's so much supply of everything we do and it will continue to grow because what I understood 15 years ago was the internet was going to be the middle and everything was going to be commoditized. And the only thing that wasn't going to be commoditized was brand and then the ability to execute a product that was at least within the circumference of the competitive set. But this ideology of like, "We have the best product." No, you don't. You think you do, just like everybody thinks their kids are the cutest. Did America say that you're Miss America? You know?

• 9:22Speaker 00

  So, that's how I think about stuff.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  How do you look towards growing, you know, because we live off of memberships and those kind of things, in a very competitive, tight space, right? Like, because they want me to move in to a place where there's six other places around the corner.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, look, and it's fun to have some franchisors in the building. Like, this has become such an intriguing space for me. First of all, what's really interesting is, when you're a franchisee, there's a... I'm trying to calibrate in my mind this half-pregnant entrepreneurship DNA. And it's not a negative. I...you know what? I'm actually never going to say "half-pregnant" again. I'm not kidding, because it...because there's an...I use it as a...because I love entrepreneur... Like, it's a very interesting idea where you're in-between employee and entrepreneur. Like, that's why you signed up for it. Like, to me, the thought of being at the mercy of the franchisor is devastating. I don't even have a board. I don't have investors.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Like, I don't know what to do, because if I think this is right...like, this is why I hated school, this is why I hate anything that contains me, right? Like, even like comms, I'm like, "Hey, I hope you know what you're signing up for." Like, "You'll tell me," but like, "I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth." You know, like, I think that's...I think...look, first of all, anything the franchisor wants, you have to be empathetic. This is not a negative. It's in their best interest.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  And that's fine, that's amazing, that's business. But you have to, A, that'd be the first thing I would calibrate. If you were my brother, I'd be like, "Okay, let's first understand that they want you to do that because they want you to do that." That has nothing to do with you. You're a commodity, even though, like, it's just the truth, it's okay. I think that's not a negative. That's number one. And number two, what are you able to do that distinguishes yourself, that still stays within the lines of the franchisor's rules? I don't know enough about CrossFit's rules. Every franchisor has different rules of like, how hardcore, how loosey-goosey. They all run di- but I would have-

• 11:23Speaker 03

  It's super basic, it's username, how people train.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean-

• 11:26Speaker 03

  With that structure, but I'm also working on rebranding, obviously, so that we have more flexibility and experiences we can create.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  And do they allow that?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  A hundred percent, yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Okay, great.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Literally, the requirement is username, this, we've already agreed username, and it's a marketing agreement.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  They have this license, not franchise.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's literally-

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  You need to work CrossFit.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  And you have to get trained by CrossFit.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, I think that if you're talking about, there's two separate conversations here. One, is the location right? Is just a classic supply and demand conversation. Is the rent worth the natural foot traffic you can, or the way I now think about it, which is not 1987 anymore, where you just get the traffic because there's a Whole Foods or a mall or what have you? It's how much do I like the two-mile radius of Facebook and Instagram ads? Against it, that's how I think about it now.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  Well, I think that's a good metric.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  I think that's a really, what I would do, Tim Ferriss did something super smart when he did the Four Hour Work Week. I mean, I heard about it like 13 years ago, and to this day, I still think about it. Because I didn't do it, and I wish I'd, at some level, it's so smart. And I do it with my content. I'm doing something incredibly interesting lately with my content. We call it "The Machine." I'm running the same video on Instagram with seven different thumbnails and titles, seeing which one over indexes, and then, then I'm posting it organically on my page. And they've done much better. I think one thing you could do is almost run an ad on Facebook- Facebook and Instagram on a fake gym that doesn't exist and say coming soon and just

• 13:04Speaker 00

  seeing what people react to and be like and just getting a sense of like I would almost run a fake gym with maybe another popular brand whether it's Equinox or Barry's or you know whatever or you know orange deer whatever and run it on like 15 different like like mile radiuses or like if you have four options of locations and just seeing where there's more demand. I mean for a thousand bucks you can get a read on if there's more demand or not. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast, that's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast, it'll make my mom super happy.

• 13:43Speaker 05

  So what worked from a operational side of things like when did you get like and did you get a chief operating officer? What kind of worked but also what didn't work and kind of the why I suppose?

• 13:57Speaker 00

  What, it's a great question. So I always over hire, always, because I'm anticipating growth and that's how you grow, you know.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  Over hire as in more volume as opposed to quality of the L A?

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Well, you'd like to think that you're getting the qual-, you know, but yes, to your point, like I was like, you seem nice, you're hired. Like that was like literally how it went for like the first 300 people, because I was willing to fire. And, and, and I don't like to fire. I'm kind of like, I'll turn this bad boy around, like that kind of DNA. So it was a really interesting like double play on my side, which is I hired, I talk about hiring fast and firing faster, but I also don't love firing because I was so into being operational and trying to fix in parallel. I think a lot of this comes down to knowing yourself, first of all. So I'll give you a very good piece of advice. I genuinely believe this, I've seen this everywhere.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Hiring around you on the things that you don't want to be doing is unbelievably powerful. I couldn't be more bullish on it. If all of you right now just truly take a step back and say, what do I do every day that I don't want to be doing and hire for that? I couldn't be more, the reason a C O O has never worked for me, not my dad, not my brother, not James Orsini, is because I'm an operator. And I love it. And I'm willing to leave money on the table because I know if I'm a CEO, I could probably generate more top of the funnel business. But I love the challenge of operating. It's the game. I like it. Oh, Rick should be there, or Susan should take that account, or we'll create this product. I love operating. I'm good at it. That's why we're not vulnerable.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  You know, when you hunt, you gotta be able to farm it. And when you know how to operate, you know, that's where most entrepreneurs lose. They can get the business, but sure, he can't operate it. Right? So, I would highly recommend hiring around you. So if you're thinking about COO, are you just so overwhelmed? Or are you trying to be more physically out there? But then if you're trying to be physically out there, look, nothing excites me more for B2B businesses today than running content ads on LinkedIn against the employees of the people you know you're trying to reach. Like, your business is so aw- Dude, as somebody who's been in B2C and B2B, B2B's easier. Like, when you know who you're trying to reach, it's easier. I don't know who the fuck drinks wine or wears sneakers.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Like, but when you know that literally the companies you're trying to reach, you can run ads right now against employees of that on LinkedIn, and all you have to do is make content that is valuable to them, instead of saying, "Sign up now." Instead of an infomercial, make a B2B magazine. Could be even not even about your own product.

• 16:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, we've got this big- So, the reason I'm here is we've got this big conference coming up, happens every year, American Library Association Conference.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  It's in DC, actually, in June. But, yeah, we have a 20 by 30 booth, and we're talking about taking a video team with us, but we're going to interview not just our customers, but like, other vendors in the industry and that kind of stuff.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  The second, you know, obviously you know enough about me to know this, the second everybody here can be the voice of the industry and bringing value to everybody in the funnel, the quicker they win. It's what I learned with Wine Library TV. I started that to do QVC, and within episode one, within the episode, intuitively, I needed to become the wine spectator, not QVC, and it changed the course of my life. And I've done it ever since. Guys, there are hundreds of agencies that literally just watch my content and get clients that we're trying to get with the same words. I mean, like, think about what's going, like, how much I believe in it. It's coming out of my own short-term pockets. I'm really giving my best shit.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  What? Thank you. Yeah, I mean, but think about how interesting that is. Like, right? Like, it's a really, it's a really, like, it's kind of, not that I'm knowledgeable enough about the Bible, but like, I get it thrown at me. It's like, quite biblical. It's like, just like, it's truly that. So like, you, you're, the greatest thing you could do at this DC conference, besides be successful and do your thing, is to listen to the problems that they're all facing and put out content that addresses it, or makes fun of it. Like, you couldn't ima- I, the amount of two-minute videos made that is like a skit by comedians that make fun of library culture is zero. Every single fucking person in the industry would share a video that was funny about the 11 truths in your business.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, the cliche shit.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Like, the Dewey Decimal System shit? Yeah, like that. Like, you should, like, you know, like... There's a character, there's a character show that Dewey... If you guys did a Dewey thing, if you like dug up Dewey... Like, the punchline is, for everybody here, content that actually brings value to the end-user, game over. If you did it back to CrossFit, I mean, the big cliche thing I hear all the time is like, people get hurt. If you just put out a content series, and that might struggle with corporate, and I have empathy for that, but if the content series, in theory, was just like, how not to get hurt, and like, just deep knowledge on like, the cliche 44 reasons why people do, you get over-competitive, you lose your form, I don't know what the fuck.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  I believe in that shit. I believe, I put out so much content with the hope that nobody ever hires us. I'm not kidding. Cause enough people will.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  And that's how you build brand, and sentiment, and like, karma, and like, a whole lot of other things. Plus, there's one thing that I always have, which is, I know that I'm always gonna be good at emerging trends. I'm not scared to give away all my social media advice, cause I know I'm gonna be great at voice, and AR, and machine learning, and blockchain, and like, it's, I'm the same thing, just, you know?

• 19:51Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  Alright, so I have two kind of two questions. The first one is where I get mixed up a lot is that we have two audiences, right? So we're selling franchises to a million dollar network investor. But then our end user, who's their client and hairstylist making fifty thousand a year. So creating or how to differentiate our company to these different audiences? And then the second piece is, you know, we've been...

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I think one thing you can do is the logo could focus on the end user to dressers, and then the humans, whether you or somebody else, could focus on the franchisees. You see where I'm going? First of all, you or somebody and the logo of the company should have separate accounts. There's a VaynerMedia account, there's Gary Vee, there's Wine Library, right? So if you think about the nature of it, the brand can really focus on the end, and you can focus on the B2B part with occasional reference to the end.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Having two distinct user accounts or two distinct...

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Look, I'll be honest with you, I'm also extremely comfortable with the account doing both. Some people may find it intriguing on the backend business stuff. You know, it's not the end of the world. Most of this stuff is not about organic anyway, it's about paid amplification. So, but I think there's a natural for you guys to have a human face for the B2B, yes?

• 21:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely, okay. And then the second one is, you know, so we've been creating content and putting it out there with very like little success. I don't think our competitors are doing it great. But like how do you set the benchmarks for your team to hold them accountable? How do you know when to fire? Like, you know, if I say, hey, our socials are digital space now, like I could fire everybody.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Business results.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  I mean, we're doing good, but I don't think we're knocking it out of the park with digital, like by any means.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  So fire.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Fire.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's no benchmark, like that's an owner's, that's a she or he decision.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  What you'll learn is, you know, it's like breaking up with a boyfriend and then thinking two boyfriends down the line like, "Uh, was I wrong about Rick? Because he's been a lot better than Stan and John. Maybe I fucked up." That happens, but that's the true answer, right? To me, it's like, are you happy with your business results from the thing? And if you're not, business results, not how many likes or shares or followers. Business results, right? And if you're not, that's attributable to that. You break up with Rick and you just hope that that was right?

• 22:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just, I haven't seen anyone in my space do it really well, so it's like I just-

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And as well trying to get the $1 million people into the funnel? Or as well on the end user?

• 22:25Speaker 04

  I would say both.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Both. I mean, we're all in franchising really dependent on brokers, especially at that million dollar investment level versus, you know, like a CrossFit or a fitness. You know, the owner-operator models of 100, 200,000 to invest are pretty easy organically, but that million dollar investor, it's been a little harder to tap into organically.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  It makes sense, because I think to get that person, you need to be making a show about the whole concept of franchisees, not about your specific content.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Right, okay.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  You see where I'm going?

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Like, you need to become the back of Ink Magazine and, you know, like, you know what I mean?

• 23:01Speaker 04

  We're in it, this is what I'm saying.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  But I mean, but, but like, you need to become Ink.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Like, this is where I keep going into like, that? Like, you need to interview, like, 365 days a year, somebody who's successfully run a franchise.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  To inspire the people to listen to that, to then get into the potential funnel of considering you.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, and see, that's where I think those two audiences come back in. Like, that's not relevant to this salon personal value.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Nope, it's not. And so you make that and you run that on LinkedIn, right? And then on Instagram, you, you see what I mean?

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Mine is, stay with the brand, move on to kind of a new brand idea. So, we have a brand that, it's called Sebu, it's our private label, Care Care. It does have its own website, it has no brand awareness. We have links from that platform onto our other salon sites. So, we do a little business online.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:55Speaker 06

  And a little bit more, now that, you know, everybody understands what a CTA is, an email marketing. But, but the issue is, could we create something bigger and better? That actually solves to a bigger purpose, not just selling Sebu, but it allows any brands to have a bigger site to be able to launch their brands.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  As long as you, as you, as long as you understand how big of an ambition the sentence that just came out of your mouth is. What you just said in that sentence is usually a 50 million to 100 million dollar funded startup with deep two-way marketplace DNA.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  The answer is, you could. But there's, you know, people sometimes ask me, "Hey Gary, God, you were so early at all these tech companies, this and that. Like, why don't you have an app? Why don't you have a company?" I'm like, "Because I don't want to, because I don't think it's my strength." I don't think I'm the founder of Uber, or Facebook, or Twitter. Like, you're also talking about, at a time where Shopify and Amazon are gonna grow at scale. So for you to create a third-party marketplace, like an infrastructure, to be a WordPress on the e-commerce, you're going into shark territory, which you could win within a small niche, but you have to make sure that you guys have the DNA to actually, like,

• 25:20Speaker 00

  as long as you, like, notice, I'm jumping in because I want to make sure you realize that that's not, like, everything so far has been like, a pass-away. Like, that is a hu, like, meaning, not to undermine, it's like, it's doable. Yours is doable, but you're gonna build a billion-dollar business that, like, that's like a real big thing.

• 25:39Speaker 06

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  And I think people throw around this theory very nonchalantly in the business world. Every day, I get a, "Oh, we're gonna be a marketplace." I'm like, "Pfft." There's like six marketplaces. Like, you know, it's like Yahoo lost being a marketplace. Like, you know, like, so, yes, I just want to make sure that you understand, like, I'm giving you a reaction to make sure you understand how grand that is.

• 26:08Speaker 06

  Yes, I do, I do. I've actually started one.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  I believe you, I'm sure.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  And it's monstrous, in terms of the money and the time and the people.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  At this time, when it's never gonna be easier or less friction to do short-term sales through the Shopify and Amazon ecosystem, it's not about, like, it's not the macro thesis, it's the thesis at this moment, in the emergence of those two specific platforms, that gives me just pause to like, think about it. But go ahead.

• 26:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, my worry is if we stay with what we're doing, at some point, I don't know how relevant the, what we're doing today on e-comm is gonna be.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Speak to me about that. When you, I just want to make sure I'm following along. You mean, how relevant that one brand will be?

• 26:53Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  So look, I mean, it's not a very complicated thing. To your point, you just have to understand if you're looking to become, you know, a platform or a product. Are you gonna be Smartwater? Are you gonna be... It's not Walmart, but it's a QVC, right? They're just two very different things. I will say this. I believe that we're walking... It's ironic, I'm gonna take a little bit of a different stance. I think we're walking into the golden era of the capability of direct-to-consumer brands at scale. You're gonna be competing, but the opportunity to have the leverage... I mean, think about the nature of being a product. You were always at the mercy of your distribution. You're not going to be. And so that's exciting.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  It's now, how good is the product? And how good are you at building a brand around a product? Versus, how good are you at building a platform? And building a brand about the platform? I think that becomes the debate. But I wouldn't run away from being a brand because a lot more brands are coming. I would try to see... I see the positive in DTC more so than the negative. I really do. Because the ability to compete against everybody else's DTC is, I think, more of a fair fight than competing with the hope that Sephora carries you. There was major toll booths that kept all the margin. The retailers have won the leverage game over the last decade.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  So I think that's the question. I wouldn't... I'm excited about DTC. I just think you have to be the best olive-oiled... You know, let me rephrase. You have to be a... I think the long tail of DTC is more fruitful than the long tail of Marketplace.

• 28:40Speaker 06

  Got it.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  See where I'm going?

• 28:42Speaker 06

  I did.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  That's my point of view on it. And I'm spending a lot of time in that world. A lot.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  We've got 10% of our sales, about 500 million in sales. 10% comes from product and then 90% from service, right? The 10% more profitable, bigger margin for us. We have a site, our own HairCuttery.com. And we're trying to, how do we build that name? And the thought was, do you build a different site that allows you to attract more eyeballs to it to sell our product off of versus HairCuttery.com?

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Or you could just, what is the brand called? See where we go. What about, what about building? We do that.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  That's correct, but we sell, our concern is the 10% we sell right now, you can buy it from Amazon, you can buy from the website of Paul Mitchell, you can go to Amazon and buy it. Our concern is, are we going to lose that 10%? Because we-

• 29:32Speaker 00

  You're going to lose it if you're not thoughtful about it. But if your site has an added layer of value, like a club that creates content or access,

• 29:47Speaker 00

  I think you should immediately start creating a weekly, monthly, yearly special SKU only available on your world. So like if you're formulating new products, you know, one of the things I'm trying to push a lot of my CPG brands is to create a super premium version. So like I'm literally trying to sell like a hundred dollar ketchup that only comes out during the holidays. You can only buy on their dot com. So I think, what's amazing is, I think, this is fun. My natural DNA is always to look at the offense of a scenario versus the defense. Your defensive point of view is absolutely correct. There's far less friction to buy it from Amazon when you're buying your deodorant and your, you know, peaches and then throw yours in.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  But you actually fucking own the product. So your ability to create a club, so if you're buying your stuff, you're in the club and I have no idea what you want to add on to that. Because you have, one more time, and I'm trying to remember. So you got this product, then you have salons, right?

• 30:45Speaker 06

  We do, we sell in salons and then our products also sell on Amazon.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Right, and then you have your own salons. Of this product, but the salons are yours?

• 30:56Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:57Speaker 00

  I mean, look, in theory, you could tell the end consumer that they get a 5% discount on their salon work if they buy the product on your site. You have all the advantages. I'm a big fan of fucking Amazon before it fucks you. That's what I did with Facebook. Facebook didn't fuck me, everyone was like, "Facebook..." I built myself off of it. You have the leverage. You can use Amazon to get people into your ecosystem, and then remarket to them as the brand by printing something on the back of the fucking bottle that says, "Join Club..." So, I think it's a concept of, I don't think it's as black and white as the convenience of the lack of friction of shipping or cost.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  I think it's what are you gonna do to the product? And what are you gonna layer as bells and whistles, added value? That forces everybody... I actually genuinely believe that the smartest brands are gonna fuck Amazon, not the other way around, if they're very thoughtful to some of the stuff I just referred to. When you build added value around buying it from you at the same price, you win. Now you can use Amazon as your gateway drug to acquisition.

• 32:10Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  That's what I would do.

• 32:13Speaker 06

  Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate that.

• 32:16Speaker 05

  Another question I had is, we're gonna talk later on, on the agenda about culture.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:21Speaker 05

  We have a very strong intentional culture, founded business by Dennis Ratner, and he's really created that culture, which we got a lot of tenure in our business. But we're projecting it out over the next 10, 15, 20 years, from a legacy perspective. And how do we keep that culture? And how do we actually make it stronger? So, any recommendations on how you believe culture here, for example, what you're trying to do to create a legacy, and what you'd recommend?

• 32:46Speaker 00

  You know, you've already kind of won. Even if there's 98%, let alone 100% truth behind your statement, you've already won. The ambition for legacy already changes behavior. I think this is a big game of firing. I think the biggest challenge for people that look like me, and sounds like what you guys have, is do you have the stomach for short-term financial pain by firing the most productive, but people that don't actually bring value to the culture? It's a very simple game of like, do you live your truth?

• 33:20Speaker 00

  It's really easy to maintain culture. Choose culture over money.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  I really believe it. I live it. I watch it. I see it in companies that I push it into if they're an investment of mine. I really think it's, you know, it's scary when something like that is so simple. But it's, um, it's like religion. Do you follow it or don't you? Like, and where you choose to bend becomes the variable of how good the culture is. But culture is made up of the humans that are in it at the time. You know? And like, when there's lore, like founder Rick Thompson or Susan Magoo, she always, whoever's the executive of running that, you know, whoever runs VaynerMedia when I go and buy Smartwater and become the CEO, and that's what's gonna happen. The next chapter of this company is, I'm gonna buy something when the world melts, and when I go run Mountain Dew or Stickers or Puma or whatever the fuck I buy,

• 34:09Speaker 00

  I'm gonna be at the mercy of her or his capability to uphold what I believed in. And so I think you make it clear. That's why, you know, you know, it's funny to think about America this way, right? Like, how we interpret the Bill of Rights or the Constitution becomes, obviously, very intriguing. That's what becomes our culture, but having it is already the starting point.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  But I think it's a, one, I, I believe culture is one big game of, do you have the ability to fire the most productive worst person?

• 34:46Speaker 00

  I really believe in that. And it's not gonna be the, it's gonna be the jet you're gonna buy, right? Yeah, but the way I think I get there is by that in-between move. I really do. I really think, the reason I built Vayner and the reason it's built this way and unique in its way is, I think I've built something that, like, if I, if I truly bought Smartwater tomorrow, like, it would be a much bigger company after four years, based on all the things we've done.

• 35:11Speaker 06

  So I'd like to get back to the concept we were talking about, um, about company brand versus personal brand.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Please.

• 35:17Speaker 06

  Um, right now, our social media content is kind of focusing on both.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  We've got our company brand that I focus on probably more than Ari's personal brand. And Ari really is the brand of the company.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Makes sense.

• 35:33Speaker 05

  So, my question is, my time is limited. I only have so much to put into it. Which one makes more sense to put more time into?

• 35:41Speaker 00

  Which one is doing better, from your perspective? Are you doing it yourself on your own page, at all?

• 35:49Speaker 02

  My own LinkedIn page, I mean?

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Or wherever you guys are?

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, guess correct, off my own LinkedIn page.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  You know, what is always the word? I mean, when Ari was like, "I'm sure this is fun to have her in the room." Like, when you look, when you're in our industry, as she is, and you look at Vayner from the outside, people believe the vulnerability is it's so much about me and not enough about Vayner. And there's real truth to that. If you're an executive at Smartwater, you're like, "Am I getting a company? Is it Gary?" Like, these are the things you need to think about. At the same token, when you kind of start peeling away, and you start realizing, "This is a company that doesn't have to win business through RFPs," and you think about all the dollars, you start having a really, you have a more complicated debate. You know, for me, for example, this is why I'm bringing this up. The thing I'm probably most proud of, in the 10 years that I've run this company and built

• 36:37Speaker 00

  this company, is my ability to trick the market of how big it is. My biggest fear was if anybody in the big boy and girl world of advertising understood how big what I was building was going to be, that they were going to focus on it. And, you know, I'd never competed against multi-billion dollar international companies starting from zero. That's, that's a challenge. Because if one really understood me, they could just throw money at it. Like, if, literally, if I was the competitor of VaynerMedia five years ago, I would have literally emailed every single person on LinkedIn that worked here and said, "What's your salary? I will pay you three times more." And it would have been the right business decision.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  So, I've purposely not built VaynerMedia's brand because I needed the market, my competitors, to underestimate it and continue to think it's Gary and a bunch of interns, like, "Who is this charlatan?" And like, "This can't be real." That was our advantage. From the outside, it's too much about me, right? But what nobody knew from the inside is, I have no clients. I built a scalable company. You know, building up Gary, you would think, "Oh, shit, every client's going to want Gary." I don't talk to any of them.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  So I was able to successfully create me as a top of funnel awareness, but then when it became a real meeting, she or he on the other side, the CMO, knew right away, "I'm not your account person. You can be, I can be in the bat phone business. We can have lunch once a year, but I'm the CEO and executive of this. I don't service your account. You're buying VaynerMedia, you're not buying Gary." That comes down to how he's running his business right now, where you guys are at scale. Right? So, I guess those are the questions. Are you servicing the business? Is it a vulnerability right now? Is it small enough where we can keep leaning into what is actually working? Do you do a good job, once the customer comes in the funnel, to realize it's not him? Or is it still him at this point, which is super fine too? That's the right formula for that. Does that make sense?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  So to the extent, just to go that one step further, to the extent that it isn't me doing the servicing, where does that fall into the...

• 38:40Speaker 00

  It is not you doing the servicing? Okay.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  And it's very clear early in the funnel, like, conversation happens, right? That it's not gonna be... But I still do close all my stores.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  I get that, and so did I. Then I probably still... I would say this. If you are fortunate enough to have a face that has all the right personality traits, I'm sure, you know, Harry, it's gonna continue to... I'm not looking to suppress my people into the press. I just don't want anybody to know who the fuck we are. Like, there's strategy to it. So like, I think if you still have all the right characteristics, I think if you're fortunate enough to have a founder, if she or he has good characteristics, and it's not about ego and insecurity and all those weird things, then you ride that personal brand, because it converts better. A human face converts better than a logo, often.

• 39:29Speaker 06

  The struggle is also his time, because he's the CEO, and he's doing all these other things. His time is extremely limited.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  That's why I created Document, not Create.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can bounce, you can bounce, we got time. So then the riff on that, or where we struggle a little bit there is, sort of in the B2B world, right, so we're a small company, about a little over 40 people. The B2B world has some interesting parallels, like our markets, as we're looking for companies headquartered very nearby, is a limited market, right, there's maybe like 1,000 companies that could potentially be our clients locally, so we engage there. But the people that we connect to are generally CFOs and CEOs who care very little about the detail of how we execute, but care a lot about the outcomes that they get. So I find that we struggle, or I struggle, to see the document versus create when I feel that a lot of the documentation isn't super interesting to them and wouldn't necessarily get them into it.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Makes a ton of sense, so to that point, I agree with you, I don't think you should document create, which is why we created the model around the podcast or the show. There's two ways to go, and I think when you start inviting them, I mean, so you're saying it's literally just like, nothing excites me more, and there's a couple here, than to having a regional business to do a show around, because then you get to host a party.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  I mean, literally, you guys should literally have every business leader, CEO and CFO on your show. Once you host a party, you win.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Like, you know, I've said it a lot, and maybe you've caught on under my content, like, I call this the high school party rule, like, if you're the kid in high school who's lucky enough that your parents travel on weekends, and you're like a C-level popular kid, the second you throw the junior year party at your house, you go from a C to an A- in popularity, because you're letting the A pluses make out at your house.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  So where do we figure out how to get that, what that good content is, like, where that...

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Do a show where you interview businesses in the Hartford area.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Literally, once you establish some macro show, like, whether you call it, you know, New England this, or Hartford that, create a macro framework for it, and now you're emailing, literally, the people you want to do business with, saying, "We're intrigued by your leadership, we'd love to have you on the show," versus emailing them saying, "We want your business."

• 41:43Speaker 02

  We're already doing that, not at scale, so...

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Scale, scale.

• 41:46Speaker 06

  I think to add another wrinkle to it is, not only is it businesses, it's manufacturers, high-tech manufacturers, so it's even more niche.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  It's even better, like they don't get any fucking love. Like what fucking podcast wants them on their show? Nobody. No, no, really, this is really quite crazy. I know you know it, you're feeling it intuitively, like imagine a world... You know, this played out extremely for me, real quick, just to bounce around a little bit. On the PureWow and 137 side, we have podcasts. We just launched a show called The CMO Podcast. I got Jim Stangle, who's like the former CMO of Procter & Gamble. He's like the legendary CMO to all the current CMOs, because Procter was Procter. He's the host. And literally, the CMOs of the biggest companies in the world are literally coming through our door every day to be on a show. Imagine an hour... You will get everybody to say yes, that you've been dying to have a conversation with about a business.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  If you say, "Come to my office and sit with me for an hour, and I'm gonna interview you about your leadership, your business, your thing", they're literally walking into your fucking company. And if you really have the discipline to not sell and say nothing, nothing, inevitably, she's gonna be on the way out, or he's on the way out, gonna say, "What do you guys do here? I don't know. Oh, really? Actually, I fucking hate my people. Why don't you call up... I'm gonna put you in touch with Rick Thompson, who runs our..."

• 43:04Speaker 02

  100%.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  No, easily. Yeah, no, it's...

• 43:09Speaker 00

  By the way, there's nothing easier than to be a host of a podcast. You ask eight basic questions. "How'd you get into this? What's been going on?" It's super crazy.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  It's challenging.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Uh huh. I know, it's super obvious, and what's scary about super obvious is how well it works. Back to what I think about all the times. The reason I put out everything is I do not believe my ideas, even though a lot of times they're early and well thought out historically, are my special sauce. My execution is my special sauce. Right?

• 43:40Speaker 02

  So, can I ask you a question about the thing, it's like the... So, you know, how did you scale the business so quickly? Like, so one of the biggest challenges that we have, right, is we've almost, we've been fairly, we've been successful. So, we, you know, our marketing strategy, we're doing a lot more digital now, but it's been a lot of, we call it one-to-many, so, you know, they booked me to go, like, to the Connecticut CPA Association, do a lot of, like, just educational content, right? Zero about us, all about...

• 44:02Speaker 00

  But think about how much, if you film that and put it on LinkedIn...

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. Yeah, and that's what we're starting to super get to. So, now the challenge we have is like, we're almost overselling the capacity, right? And it's not like McDonald's, I just get a bigger fry later and I generate more fries, right? The getting the human capital ahead is a challenge.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  People overthink hiring.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Just hire.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  It sounds scary, "I'm gonna hire a clown, she or he's gonna suck, and I'm gonna lose the client." I'm like, "But you wouldn't have the client."

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  And when you're willing to bleed, if your ambition's high, I always feel like I'm able to fix.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  It's not the bleeding of the money, although I mean clearly that's somewhat part of it.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  No, no, but notice how my analogy wasn't the money.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  It was the clients.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  I think you're coming from a good, I think most people come from a good place.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  I do have a big fear around that, of like breaking the brand. You know, we've got, we have so much good street cred, there's that huge fear of like fucking up that client.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Bro, everything's fixable.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're at bat.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Give them the money back. Like, like, money's not actually the thing. For me, like, I'm never scared because everything's fixable. "I'll give you a year free of service, I'll fucking let your son intern here, I'll do whatever to fucking..." Like, everything's fixable if you have that. This is why I talk so much about intent. This is why I talk about lack of fear. Plus, the biggest mistake a lot of people make is they make a call for the other person. Life's about alternatives. Like, if the client's happy, the client's happy regardless of what your subjective of like our qual, right? It's hiring. I don't overthink hiring. I try my best, I hire.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  It doesn't work.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  People have so much ego in hiring. It's just this underlining like insecurity to be wrong. I love when I'm, "Ugh, guys, I mean this, like, you don't know me well enough to like, this is the truth." Like, there's a weird part of me, I don't know if it's like, it's probably a very flawed, like, sick part. I get excited sometimes when I hire a very senior person, and like a week later, I'm like, "Nope." And I know that for the next 18 months. Because, you know, like, right, like, right? 18 months! And that's like C-suite, where like you just can't scare everybody that you're just fucking changing it like your underwear, you know what I mean? But like, do you know what, that's happened to me twice. A week in, I'm like, "Good, fucked it up."

• 46:20Speaker 00

  And then all the extra work I have to put in to disguise that and like manage it and manage, you know, then four months later, the smartest people start saying, "Wait a minute, I think this person sucks and you gotta manage that." And then like nine months later, when the next level of smart people are like, "I think this person sucks," and they're like, "You gotta..." like, the game.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  So just lack of fear?

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Lack of fucking fear. And more importantly, like, no business, the, yeah, firing. And listen, I'm the worst. I'm a bleeding heart like you would not imagine.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  You know, you're a piece of content where you talked about,

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Where you talked about sort of like, you know what? If you can't do it, just fuck it, just overpay them out. So we're just letting somebody go right now who,

• 46:56Speaker 00

  Best.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Actually, horrible, like she's got a bad situation. She's only been on for three months. I was like, "Just give her six months severance." Like, whatever.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  I do it all the time, bro.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  It's gonna make her feel better.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Isn't it great?

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Her feel like, "I don't have guilt to own."

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Dude, at the end of the day, it's not about money out here. It's about like feeling good and happy and like, I understand that my CFO is not happy with me, but that's what I need. I fucking fire people, give them a huge severance, and then I pay them on the side for two months. I do so much weird shit. I'm always like, I always think like, "Man, if somebody investigated me, they'd be like, 'Oh, here's the fucking silver bullet. Why is he paying Rick on the side? 'Cause I'm nice?" Like, it's like super weird, but like, it's really, like, like, nobody would ever believe me. Like, if you played that on like 60 Minutes of somebody trying to get me, they'd be like, "Impossible."

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Is it literally just your DNA? Like, is there some like mental mnemonic, like, and this is crazy kind of question, but, it's like, you know what I mean? Because we have sort of similar family backgrounds, actually, you know, like Eastern European Jew, like immigrants, right? And like, so, you know, we just, so first of all, beat it, education, education, education. So like, when I went off like the lawyer track, my parents were like, "Oh my God, what's happening?"

• 47:59Speaker 00

  I got lucky. That's where I got really blessed and I feel a huge sense of like guilt and gratitude. I can't believe my mom let me get away with Ds and Fs. Where everybody else was like, "You're going to fucking Harvard." Like, I got really hit the lotto on that one.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  But that perfection was like almost like beat in.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Not mine. Not mine. That's where I'm trying to create clarity. Like, I, it's why I'm so confident. All that happened in my life was, everybody said I was losing, except my mom. So think about that. You've won. Like, that's actually the dream scenario. Like, the dream scenario for disproportionate confidence is the world tells you, "You fucking suck", but your mom tells you, "You're the best", and she's also smart enough to not create delusion, so when you go 0-for-4 in Little League, it wasn't the Suns' fault in your eye, or like, your coaches, it's, "You suck", so it's accountability, but, ugh. She fucking crushed it. Like, I am a complete byproduct of... And not only that, I've been hot on my mom's, like, stuff lately. My dad saved my ass big, because what I was also, though,

• 48:59Speaker 00

  by being such a good storyteller, was I was completely full of shit when I was 14. I would say anything to sell anything. I lied out of my mouth 24 hours a day. And that's who I would've become, and that's what a lot of people think I am at first, because of my showmanship, but he corrected me, because I got lucky again, that my dad is... My dad thinks if you embellish to him once, embellish. There were 19 people at the party. He's like, "There were eight, and that's it. Three strikes, you're out, I'm not your friend." Literally, like, I don't know a single more extreme version of somebody who's more uncomfortable with exaggeration, let alone lying, than my dad, which, over a course of four or five years of my teenage years, scared the fuck out of me. Because it started with like, "Dad, I sold 98 bottles",

• 49:43Speaker 00

  he's like, "You sold six." And then six became, from 98 to 44, to 13, to six. And that got, you know, I got... I'm very aware of how this all happened, and then if like, it was reversed, and my dad was first parenting me, and my mom, I would've been a complete nightmare, I would've been insecure and full of shit. Like, like, like, so like, I'm quite grateful. So, anyway, I'm sorry, but I wanted to create that clarity. That is important for you to know that part, though. And I think a lot of what you're hearing manifests from that.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  But I host the party.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, get back to the hosting of the party.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  And, and let's talk more because you've got 3 seats here like, if you have a question, but like, go ahead.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  I would bounce back to, part of, part of the value of this is confirming what we already know.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  I know we should be doing that, I know. So, and then you get excited when you start to hear like, "Do you guys have it so easy?" It's like a niche within a niche. You know the thousand businesses. Geographically, you know what they're at?

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, because geographically gets into branding that I get excited about. Like, to me, I wish, like, just because I know how big I can make something, because I'm an operator, I'm like, "Man, if I had the New England Business Podcast, it's game over. Give me one year."

• 50:56Speaker 02

  The new manufacturer business podcast is even easier.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. But like, you know, like, yeah, that's exactly right.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  I think we've been struggling a little bit with like, "Tama, we've done this, we've done that. What are the results? Why aren't they calling us yet?" Versus this patience.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  That, that is audacity. That's, that's ego. I never think anything. I think I suck. I'm being dead serious. I'm confident, but like, I genuinely wake up this morning and be like, "No, like, like, I could suck for the next year and make a ton of bad decisions, and literally, everything I've done is wiped."

• 51:29Speaker 00

  You know? I believe that. Business is unforgiving compared to sports on this one. In sports, Muhammad Ali can lose to Trevor Berwick in his last fight. We don't know that. I know that because I'm a boxing nerd. You don't know that. Right? Business is different. When you lose, I mean, everyone then wipes out what you've done well.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  Like Bowie.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 51:51Speaker 04

  Like Bowie.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, like, the narrative can change very quickly. We shit on Woolworths. It was the dominant retailer in this country for 100 fucking years.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  So, but on that, on that journey, right, like, so it's not just saying the audacity of expecting why it doesn't happen faster, but there's gotta be something to know you're on the right track, right? Is it just content?

• 52:13Speaker 00

  No, no, no. The market speaks your business. I knew I was on the right track because the first 2 years, when I was half-pregnant on VaynerMedia, we did 3 million in revenue, and the first year I ran it, we went from 3 to 14. That was very obvious. And 14 to 27, like, business results.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  And that was all based on what? Larger clients, like, less clients, bigger fees? More, like, talk about that.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  There's a lot of, there's a lot of things I'm good at, and the core thing I'm good at is a mix of the followings. I tend to sell something that most people don't see at first. It ends up being right a lot of times, which creates the back end. But at the time, I'm extremely good at selling in the short term. There was no brand. Twitter, I had a lot of followers, so there was a little something, but... What I'm really good at is wasting no time on selling to the unsellable. Like, one of the reasons I'm fascinated by franchise, to become a franchisor, and I'm like, "What do I do?" Is because I would be incredible again at franchisees for a couple of reasons. One, I'm just, a lot of entrepreneurs look up to me, and like, so that would be good, probably.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  But after I filled the bucket, it's like empathy, "Okay, I've sold my $2 million worth of wine, now I've got another $4 million to sell." Now it's work. In that part, I just don't fucking waste time.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Like, I go to a new business pitch, back to the same way I know somebody I fucked up on. I go to a new business pitch, it's scheduled for an hour, I sometimes bounce after 30. Because I decided it's over 3 minutes in, I'm like, "She has no interest in me." And I don't have ego to be like, to convince her. "I'll give it my best at bat, and hopefully he or she will like it." But, I think the reason I was able to grow so quickly is, I'm very good at selling, and focusing on people that will actually buy.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  So get enough people's interest and then move on?

• 54:00Speaker 00

  I don't think, I think, it's funny, back to like what you said, like, I never think I deserve anything. Period. And look, VaynerMedia is the only company run by somebody who actually has success in doing the work that they do. Like, in the whole fucking ad world, like, I laugh when people think I'm Gary Vee and don't realize I'm running this company, like...

• 54:24Speaker 00

  You're doing social media work with an agency that was built to make television commercials? I'm like the fucking poster child of the whole game. You know, and yet, we don't get business from people all the time?

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, of course, yeah, you're only gonna get certain batting averages, it's gonna work out the way it does.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  But I think if you host a party, and go, if you create the right packaging, and then the right merchandising of that packaging, it's off to the races.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  How did you recruit early on? What was the technique to get those, like, fill the funnel, get the staff?

• 54:51Speaker 00

  I hired 50 kids who had no idea what the fuck they were doing.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Just from where?

• 54:55Speaker 00

  You mean, employees, or?

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, employees.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  At the time, I had a big enough Twitter. My brother brought like 6 of his friends from high school and college, I mean, he was a fucking rat, I mean... We didn't have any agency people, so at the level you're at now, the content will recruit.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Run your podcast against employees of your competitors that you want to hire.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  We need to do a lot more paid.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  You have to do a lot more paid. When organic, this is for everybody, when organic went away from Facebook and everybody got their anger, and like, "Fuck Facebook, I got fucked," I got pumped. Because people started getting confused, because paid was underpriced. And I was like, "I'm unemotional." If I could, like, I get that this was free, but if this is still a good deal, then it's still a good deal. I don't care about yesterday. Back to that mentality, like, yesterday doesn't matter. Facebook's free. You got all that organic traffic, you weren't paying Facebook for that organic traffic. It was a trade. They had a platform with a lot of attention, you produced content for it, and a trade. The organic goes down, you have to pay for it, you have to do a lot more paid. The reason you have to do a lot more paid, everybody, is you can target who you want to reach.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  When you know you're about to spend $150 against employees of your direct competitor from eight towns over, you're already thinking differently in the video you're about to make. You might make a video of like, how fun it is at your foosball table in your office. Because Rick at the other company is like, "We don't have a foosball table." Like, I don't, like, I only make content knowing who's gonna see it.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  And the answer is do it, right?

• 56:30Speaker 00

  People are like, "You always go by it," I'm like, "I made a video called, 'You're 65 and your life's not over,' and I ran ads against people who are 65. It's gonna do well."

• 56:41Speaker 00

  It's really, people underestimate how powerful it is.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Action's the key, execute.

• 56:49Speaker 00

  But if you make the podcast, you'll crush. Because now you're gonna have CEOs and CFOs come in and be guests. That's gonna already be a slight biz dev opportunity. But you're also gonna be able to post-produce and run some of those funny quotes, funny moments. You're gonna be, she's gonna be looking, you're gonna be thinking, "Oh, Jason and I are doing it right now." I'm like, "What I'm telling you to do, I'm doing right now." Like, as I'm talking, I'm like, looking at him, like, "Did you see that? Was that smart? Should we cut that? Let's test that?" Like, that's what you'll be doing in a year. And now all of a sudden, you answered a question where the CFO of the top 15 company, like, is really caught off guard, and she's like, "That's smart." Now you're like, "Ooh," you know? Now you're running it against all CFOs.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  The machine.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  One question.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 57:36Speaker 03

  So you always talk about the content and let the market decide.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  So for you, when you launched Wine Library, you said a year and then you washed it.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:43Speaker 03

  So if we're producing content, personal brand and other things,

• 57:48Speaker 03

  you didn't let that swing you, but did the market eventually?

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Because I have no expectations of the market for a long time.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  The wine versus the motivation and business mindset that seems to be driving different. Do you think the wine content would do well right now or it would take a long time?

• 58:03Speaker 00

  I think I'm a showman in hindsight, something I didn't know about myself at 34, I really didn't. Like I never, I got a D in speech. You know, like, I didn't know that I had this shtick. I knew I was a good salesman on the floor at the liquor store. I knew that I was a good class clown where the teacher wasn't mad at me, so I knew I had a good tact. But none of this stuff even crossed my mind. So now, I mean, I think if I did anything tomorrow, it would work.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Really. If I talked about something I knew. Like if I did a sports, I would be the number, I genuinely believe I'd be the number one voice in sports today if I decided tomorrow for the next three years to go all in. I think I'd be bigger than Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman and all these, I just do. Because I think I have a personality that clicks with people. That's just a trait. Some people don't. That's why I talk about writing and audio. You might not be great on video, but you might be a tremendous writer. Or you might just not be cracked up to be the personality, then you lean into the logo or hire somebody. MetLife hired Snoopy.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  You know? So that's where...

• 59:05Speaker 02

  You did a piece of content where you talked about how like you did this thing at Vayner where you like invested and then a year, like investment year, profit year, future...

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Oh, the stairs?

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was talking about that.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  I think I'm uncomfortable with not having some cash on hand for a rainy day. So I think, I used to think a lot, now I'm, I've molded a little bit from it, but I'm a very big fan of getting people to invest in their business instead of taking the money off the table. Like just everybody wants to build big businesses, but then what they're really doing is building lifestyle businesses for the things they want, which is also tough for me because if you want a car or, like, kudos, do your thing, but yeah, I mean, I aggressively, in the first five years of Vayner and the first five years of Wine Library, had a pretty hardcore system where like one year I would try to make no profit.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Invested all of it?

• 59:51Speaker 00

  All of it, all of it. Zero.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  In the following year?

• 59:56Speaker 00

  A little bit, more.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Which is like 5%?

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  For both, I'll give it to you. For both businesses, between 5% and 10%.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  Is that where you run it today? Is like, keep running it the same way? You change that?

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  I keep running it, because I'm just like, but again, I'm building it in perpetuity. You have to know what you're up to. Like, again, if somebody here wants to flip their business, I'm like, and I'm sure everybody's big boy and big girl enough to know that, but yeah, I mean, like, look, it's your other family member, right? You gotta feed it, gotta take care of it, you know? If you want to build big.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is the goal.

• 1:00:29Speaker 00

  Well, then, you gotta feed it.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  And then that's when you can hire and fire, like, all that stuff, because you're not worried about the, people are like, "Well, Gary, it costs more to fire somebody." Well, I'm not as worried about the profit margin being insane. I'm trying to catch the growth. Hey, everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention, and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.