Genius Network® Presents: Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vaynermedia, interviewed by Joe Polish

Hey, there. Joe Polish here. I'm here with my good friend, Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk. What's up, man?

What's up, brother?

You know, not a lot. You got a book tour going on, and you're in Phoenix, Arizona, my headquarters here.

It's good to be here.

Piranha Marketing. So you're kind of a big deal. I mean, you're on the COVID Ink magazine here. Yeah. And you've got a new New York Times bestseller. Jab, jab, jab, right hook. Okay. Which is awesome. Everyone needs to get this book. We'll talk a little bit about this. And you travel the world. So people that do not know who you are and what you do. How would you describe yourself if you were forced to? Unlike an airplane, what do you do?

It's funny. It's funny. You said airplane, not that you were saying it as somebody talking to you in a seat. I actually started struggling a little while ago with the passport. You have to say occupation. And when I segued from just doing the wine business, and I'll get into that in just a second, you. You know, I was like, do you remember when entrepreneur was a bad word? Do you remember 10 years ago or 15 years ago, if you said an entrepreneur, that actually meant you were, like, kind of a loser with an idea.

Right.

It's crazy. And now I'm proudly and easily can say entrepreneur, even though it's something I've always wanted to say.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a guy who was born in the former Soviet Union. Came here when I was three years old, grew up in a very immigrant lifestyle. My dad became a stock boy and eventually owned a small liquor store. Lived the American dream. I was very entrepreneurial. Lemonade stands, baseball cards, really gifted at it. I was making two to three thousand dollars a weekend when I was 13 selling baseball cards, which is insane. And then When I was 14, 15, I was dragged into the liquor store. Fell in love with the thought of collecting wine because it was similar to collecting sports cards when I was 16, 17, because I had a lot of heart to join my family business, but I hated selling beer and liquor at cost, which is what we did. But the wine thing was interesting. Jumped in, didn't grow up techie. Didn't even own a computer until I was 19. Realized this Internet thing was gonna matter. Launched winelibrary.com in 1996. And that became the backbone of me launching a business that grew from 3 to 60 million dollars in sales in 2006. My career took a weird turn. I started a show on YouTube nine months after it launched called Wine Library TV, where I reviewed wine in front of a camera like this. I feel very cozy in this environment that made me Internet famous. I was using Facebook and Twitter to build that show. These were things that nobody thought about. In 06 07, I started talking at conventions, marketing events. That led to me writing a book called Crush it that went quite viral and started the segue of me becoming a businessman. In 2009, I started a company called VaynerMedia with my brother AJ. We're a strategy and creative shop for Fortune 500 companies. In the last few years, we've grown from 20 to 300 employees. So it's become a big deal. And so did a lot of angel investing. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber. So it's been going well.

So is your game now more of just an investor or a consulting company?

A media company? Yeah. Right now I'm like hardcore dirty fingers, dirt under my fingers. I'm a CEO of an agency. It's very non glam. I'm playing a long game. It'll. It'll get more glam as I start showing more layers to it through the years. But right now, I'm the CEO of the fastest growing social digital agency in America, which I'm proud of. But it's client services for all the smart people. There's nothing too brilliant about it. It's grinding client service business. That said, it's going to be a foundation for things I want to do in the future, and that's why I'm doing it.

Well, there's. You do a lot of things and get really deep in the stuff that. I mean, it's out there, but you take it from a completely different approach. In your book, which I read the entire thing I told you today, except for 10 pages, and I read as much as I could before you headed out to Arizona.

Just the last ten pages. I'm curious.

No, no, no. Just some of the case studies that are around Tumblr and beyond that. I read everything.

Tumblr is the single most important.

I'm just kidding. I want to show people how I do it. Like what I do is I'll write pages, I'll write pages down. I don't know if you can see that from the camera. And I highlight it. And when I read books I like. Literally, you're mean. I write in the things I want to model, which things suck, which things I don't like. And the reason is when I read reviews on Amazon or whatever, There will be someone that will say, this book sucks. Or it could have been this, it could have been that. But when I read a book like this, even if you, on a scale of 1 to 10, think it's writing ability or whatever's 10, or it sucks or whatever, you have case studies in here and you actually show people what to do and how to do it. And anyone that has a business or a cause or something to sell, it would be virtually impossible for them to not take several of these templates that you have that you've laid out with exact strategies and not turn a book like this into tens of thousands, some companies, millions of dollars.

What's interesting is you're such a high level thinker that I'm curious how this book translates to someone like you. Because this is fricking nerdy. Deep, almost exhausting detail oriented to the extreme. But I wanted to, after writing two very philosophical books in Crush it and thank youk Economy, to really make a how to book. I mean, this is literally again, on the way here from the airport to here, not far, we hit some traffic. 20 minutes. Somebody tweeted, did you see this, Nate? Sorry, Nate. Somebody tweeted an actual result to a Facebook status update and it said, Your post is 95% better than your normal status updates. I've had two tweets showing actual screenshots of results from people already tangible of driving higher engagement and awareness. Listen, for everybody that's watching right now, the only thing I want, if you sell crap, I can't help you. But what I wanted to do with this book is make sure that there are emerging platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine. In a world where email marketing open rates are down from 37 to 12% over the last seven years as a whole in email marketing, I mean, I've built my business on email marketing. You've done plenty of email marketing.

Yeah, exactly.

Diminishing returns. Ad words and Google Ads are down 15% in click through banner ad. Click through is collapsing. And so all these traditional digital media ways to communicate are diminishing, and there's some emerging ones. And I wanted to write the textbook for that.

Yeah, yeah. So from that standpoint, a guy like me, what I'll do with this is I'll give it to every one of my employees that has anything to do with, which is pretty much everyone communicating with the public just so they can learn better ways of doing it. Okay. The other thing is I'll pick and choose which platforms I'm really me Myself, I'm going to engage in with versus what my company's going to engage in with. And secondly, it's something like the purpose of doing this video. This video is going to go on. I love marketing. It's going to go to Genius Network. I'm getting a copy of your book for everyone in my 25k group. I mean, it's something that all of them will find valuable, but it's one of those things to where, here's the way I look at it. If you're going to spend 30 minutes a week on Facebook, if you're going to spend 30, which most people are going to spend hours on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or whatever, and you won't take a couple of hours to read a book on how to do it better. It's not like the time is not there, it's how you're using it. And so, you know, I have a.

Good sense of your community. I am so aware why social media, in comparison to a lot of the other things that have been around longer, is less attractive. Because social media, unlike digital media, unlike email marketing, banner retargeting ads, SEO and SEM video, unlike the back of magazines, unlike so many other things, social media actually sucks because it's a marathon, not a sprint. The return on the investment on this stuff takes longer, it just does. And I'm very aware how unattractive that was coming from my lips to a world that's looking for quicker and more efficient results, who are again, an audience that has heart for work, life, balance, if you can automate it, it's gonna be better. The truth though, is where I'm most worried about and why I have a lot of passion, why I'm excited to be here and hoping that people that haven't seen me before or don't deeply know what I talk about, are watching this or listening to this, is that there's a real issue at hand. The attention of our consumer, the people that we court, the attention of them is dwindling in traditional platforms we're used to and is quickly being relegated to their phone as they swipe it. And a lot of the time in that swipe is on one of these 10 platforms. And if you do not know how to storytell what you bring to the table on these platforms, there's going to be a cross section over the next half decade where you will not be relevant if you're unable to communicate there.

Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And so I guess the question is, what is the time Allocation that a guy like you actually spends in this world. Because you're an extrovert. Pretty much. I mean, you're a full blown extrovert.

I fully love everyone.

But you work like. I mean, you're a driven dude. You put a lot of time and effort into it and you're also willing to.

I hate vacations and stuff.

You really do.

And that really makes me very different than everybody. So I understand that.

Well, you know, most entrepreneurs.

I don't want a Lincoln bed.

You don't want a Lincoln? Oh, yeah, okay. What he's referring to is in my office, I have a bedroom.

It's incredible. By the way.

I don't live here. I have a bedroom that's a 1960 Lincoln that the headlights turn on.

You have more stuff in this. And by the way, I envy this in all my. This is not a joke or a razz. You have more cool stuff. Look at this spoon and fork. You have cool stuff. I don't even know how to buy stuff. You know what I want? Rare jets jerseys. What I mean by that, and I don't mean rare. You can't find them. I mean, I make custom jerseys of fifth string wide receivers from the jets just so when I go to the Jet games, I can fully impose my fandom amongst all the others. They all wear the normal jerseys and I'm wearing Greg Salas, right? Like, I'm wearing like Troy Davis jerseys. Guys that will play three games in their career just to set the tone that I'm the biggest jets fan in the world.

Yes. When do you think you're going to buy them? I mean, you truly, truly have this as a goal. So when do you think that's going to happen?

I truly feel like I'm now within the 25 year window. I feel like 25 years from now I will own the New York Jets. I truly believe that.

Is that one of your biggest drivers? I mean, it's one thing about making this goal public, but like, what do you do this all for? I mean, you certainly.

I love the game so much. You know what's so funny? I'll give you a scoop here because I like you so much. I'm not even sure if I really care if I buy them or not. But boy, do you. Do I love the game more than anything. More than stuff, more than money. I love the game. I love the legacy of it all. I write stuff like this. Listen, you have good context for this. When we first crossed paths was when this all just started happening. And I was so all in. In a world that most people didn't even know what it was yet.

Yeah. I remember you telling me about Twitter, literally when it first started saying, this is going to be a big deal. I mean, like, when it was brand new.

Right. And so that's why I just remember. So, you know, and for me, that matters because, look, now you just told everybody, but even forget about everybody being, oh, cool, he must have been right about that. You know, that I care about my legacy. I want to be right historically, because that continues to build me building blocks. Right. If I'm right for a long period of time, that really matters. And so that's what I have passion for. I love the game. I want to keep building businesses. I want to keep impacting other people. This is a how to. Because I want email crush. It meant so much to me. I still get emails many a month. You changed my life. Do you know what that feels like for a human being?

Oh, yeah. No, it's awesome.

You changed my life. Well, that's what I wanted to do with this. This is the deepest I went with it. So to answer your question, I mean, at the end of the day, for. For me, it's about the legacy. I want to be known as one of the great hustler entrepreneurs that wasn't full of crap, that actually did it and did it right and was able to build actual businesses. I have a lot of pride now that I'm competing against Wieden and Kennedy and Ogilvy and not like, real, actual agency companies that I'm beating their faces in because I'm angry, and that makes me happy.

Yeah, well, getting pissed off actually is a huge driver for things.

Huge. Huge. I read every single negative review of the thank youk Economy and crush it before I started writing this.

Really?

Yep. It's y. One step.

Well, it's.

It's.

You know, you've said it before, and people that are familiar with you know that you actually say that you like your critics and that you embrace them.

I love them.

And so explain that. Explain how you.

First of all, I respect them. Like, I hate everybody who gets some level of fame or notoriety. And then people hate on them and they're like, oh, they're trolls, the haters. Like, because you've got some victory, you'd completely dismiss criticism, Right? So to me, I listen to it and I try to say, okay, I'm not doing a good enough job storytelling for this human being. And then I look around and see if they like anybody else. And most of the time, they do. There are very few people who've just decided to go all in on cynicism and that be their card. And there are some, but they're very few and far between. I also recognize that I am an extrovert, that the first time people consume me a lot of times is on stage where I come with fire. Right. I curse my face off, which turns off a lot of people. I am angry, I'm competitive. And so there's gonna be a 10 now 85%, luckily for me, love it. And I have chops so I can pull it off. But there's 15% that don't enjoy it. And then I spend a lot of time to make sure that they get more context on me. I. I'm able to make sure 12 of that percent now likes me and there's three that's left. And I listen very carefully to the fact that I'm very aware that the first time somebody tastes me right first kind of observation, I'm not gonna win everybody over. I'm not vanilla. I'm very something. And they're gonna decide one way or the other. And I wanna listen and learn and evolve. And I respect you're referring probably to the INC article where I talk about I love my haters. Or maybe not.

You should know me. When I first saw you say that, you talk about the interview you did. Marie Foglio. I mean, I've heard you say it in several places.

Yeah, and she was right. And so like, I respect my critics and I try to listen to them now. It doesn't mean that I think they're right or in the same way that I don't think the people that blindly think I'm a genius are right. Like I continue to critically think and try to evolve. If I'm not better than I was when we first met five years ago or what have you, then I'm not doing my job. Then I'm not going to be relevant. And I want to be very relevant forever.

So do you think you'll. I mean, in your mind when you're younger. I've had my marketing company for going on almost 20 years. Next year it'll be 20 years. I've been doing the.

You can do some sort of 20.

Year party, I'll do something. I mean, I don't know what. Crazy, of course it's going to be batshit crazy. But I've been doing it for a long time. And I watch some people that start off really strong and then they fizzle out. And I've always Listened to that cliche and took it seriously. Be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. And you run across people 10 years from today that you ran. And I think you're one of these people that really get and understand that because you're totally engaged with a shitload of people and you pay a time price. You pay the ultimate price. Yeah. In order to do that. Yes, I do. And I think your reputation is critical and in spite of. You may rub people the wrong way and everyone may not like you, but if you never sell shit to people, don't go out there and promise things that you're not capable of pulling together, backing up, delivering upon all that. I mean, don't do business with scumbags, that sort of stuff. And I think one thing about you is that you really care and engage with people, and that's why you're so bonded. I mean, people treat you like a rock star.

I'm super, super happy and feel really good at night when I close my eyes, that anybody that has any depth of knowledge of me, feels good about me. That every time. I get plenty of emails of people thinking about doing business with me and saying, I really dug and I'm impressed. Like, even the friends that always zing people, they liked you or they said they didn't know you, or they said, wow, I hated him, but then I liked him again. My criticism only comes from my bravado because I'm equally egotistical and humble. And it depends on what moment I'm in at that second. Right. I truly believe I'm better than everybody in marketing. I truly do. And I truly believe that I'm still just a kid that sucks and came from nothing. And I have them both. And so it depends on. I mean, if you edited what I just said, you could have stopped at the best in marketing. And that's what some people hear. They didn't take my comment into consideration. And so I get it and I respect it. And all I keep doing is trying to execute. I started vaynermedia to remind people that one of the best reasons to listen to me is, is because I actually build businesses.

Right. Right.

You know, I'm now on my second within two years of running it, growing it by eight figures. And not in information, not in pure execution. A retail wine shop, an actual agency that goes for Fortune 500 clients. I think that gives me a lot of checks in the right column.

Yeah. I mean, do you. Do you want a, like, A billion dollar corporation or is it not those sort of aspirations?

What I think I'm gonna pull off is building product one day, having my own water or my own bubble gum or my own shoe brand. I think my place is marrying my two things, which is marketing and being a retailer. So in a world where I'm an investor in Birchbox and love those guys, I wish I answered my Warby Parker opportunity email. I blew that one. But direct to consumer product, I don't think I'm gonna build a billion dollar marketing company or B2B company. I do think my play, my me, the jets will come in the B2C space, and I think it will come in the form of a product.

Okay, well, let's talk about small business owners that are just out there trying to make money, make a living, pay for their families, send their kids to school, and hopefully schools like this where they actually read stuff that teach them how to.

Actually, I'm desperately hoping my kids will be DNF students like I was so that I can spend all my time teaching them real stuff instead of them doing their homework.

Oh, yeah. No. I failed owning and operating a small business in a community college in. And I got a C minus in Principles of Marketing.

The only C minus or above I ever got in my entire life was in gym.

That's hysterical.

It's pretty sad, actually. As a matter of fact, with this whole Throwback Thursday kind of meme going on on social media, I've been thinking about going back to my high school and seeing if they'll give me copies of my report card because I really think people think I'm joking because I've had success. It's hard for them.

I know. That's what I did.

Literally, I was a 2F student.

No, you should do that. German.

German one. Hair Arts, if you're watching. German one. German one. I took freshman and sophomore year of my high school. I got 10 grades because you got your four marking periods and your final. I got 10 grades, nine Fs and one D. And I had to take Spanish one as a junior because if you don't pass two years of language in New Jersey in high school, you can't graduate. And if you're watching Senora Kennedy, you saved my ass. You called my mom senior year, three weeks to go. My mom never went to parent teacher conference. She calls my mom and goes, I just want you to know I'm giving your son a C. So. I actually did get a C once for charisma. I like him, but he can't even say hello in Spanish.

That's funny. That's freaking funny. So I showed you this earlier. This is before we started recording. This is my very first business card when I started a carpet and upholstery cleaning business in 1990. And there was. And you mentioned no area codes. Yeah, it said Superior Carpet Care, serving the East Valley, specializing in carpets, upholstery, car interiors, sole extraction cleaning. And then me and a guy named.

Craig that Actually you guys really kept it local. Serving the East Valley.

Oh yeah, you weren't even. But here's the thing. I went everywhere and I remember when I ran my first radio ad and this is where I began to despise image advertising, which with the radio it was all over the Valley. So I got a couple of calls, but they would be like 45 minute drives and things like that. And I really learned about target marketing and I really learned about specifically identifying who you want to go to and that sort of thing. And I learned marketing never thinking I would do what I do today and that I would teach it to others or run conferences or any of that stuff. I did it because I needed to eat, I needed to survive.

This is why I love what I write about and why I like social media. Social media is the only substitute for money, but it costs you time and knowledge.

Yeah. So if you don't have any money, you got time and energy, because those are the three things you spend. Time, money, and energy. You even have a chapter in here about effort, which I think is towards the end, which is really good. So. Okay, well, talk about that.

I mean, social networks are the only place because you've got people. What social networks really are is they're the plumbing of word of mouth in our society. Right. And so you literally have the ability to take a picture, put it on a social network that you only have 30 fans on. And if it's right, you can have 80 fans after it. And to me, that is very important. Listen, the reason I gravitate so much to this is my dad gave me no money in marketing to build winelibrary.com I did ghetto stuff. I like made printed flyers and handed them out at the store. It was all hacking, which is the term they use now. But that's what it was. It was just like kind of figuring it out. I love the idea that if you're good enough with Photoshop to make an infographic and post it on Pinterest and you get the one right person to repin it, you go into full virality. And to me, that's why I wanted to teach everybody the best at bat. For the small business people that are listening, listen, you've got your time and you've got to learn it. And the problem is it takes a lot of time. And so what I tell small business people who we don't consult for, for my company, but I do in general, just through Twitter and trying to help peeps is you've got to sleep less and you've got to actually do it. It's like if I wrote a book on getting muscles. All this book is, is the same thing as an exercise book that tells you exactly, with no hyperbole, how to get muscles. But you actually have to do the push ups and the sit ups.

Yeah.

And so what they have to do is sleep less. I mean, this is the thing that pisses me off, John, I don't know if you've seen, but like, people send me these long emails of like, my life's over and they want to help and I have no time, but I get so I'm sappy and I'm like, fine, what? And then I ask them a question like, what time do you go to sleep? 11. And I'm like, you're writing me an email about the death of your life and you go to sleep at 11, you go to sleep at 2 in the morning. Like, I don't have time to build this other business and I have to pay my rent or my student loans. Right. And they play Xbox for an hour. Play Xbox when you're comfortable. And so I think the work life balance thing is really fascinating to me. And so from a small business standpoint, the reason I'm painting that extreme of a picture is I think most small businesses do a lot of dumb shit that doesn't bring them value. If they audit what they do and cut the bottom 25% and apply it to storytelling where customers actually now are. I think they have a better chance of succeeding.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, completely. Well, going back to your point about the person, I mean, do you think some people are just born to just not make it? Some people have the juice and others don't. I mean, use that term, the juice. I mean, you certainly are a guy who has the drive. You are charged. I mean, some people are batteries not included. I mean, what do you say about that?

I think that that's true. And I think that everybody who's watching needs to stop complaining. Let me explain. I don't want to complain about my workaholic aspects. I don't Want to text or tweet? You're never gonna see a tweet from me saying, I'm tired. This is what I've chose to do and this is what I'm executing on. And so I have all these friends that are highly successful and they're working, they're really working, it's not automated. And I see them, I saw a bunch of them in SF where a lot of them happen to be a couple days ago, first words of their mouth, I'm tired, not spend enough time with my kids. I'm like, so spend more time with them. So I equally don't want to complain of my lack of time with my kids or too much work or all these flights in the same way where people are complaining that they don't have big businesses yet they have tremendous work life balance. They're on the bowling team, they see their kids all the time. They're at the bar with their buddies all the time. They've seen every college fucking football game for the last three years. I mean, they've got work life balance. So what I think is some people are more driven and I think some people are less driven. And I think people need to really become self aware and not complain about the grass being greener on the other side. That to me, is what bothers me. I don't mind. Listen, I have friends that are. I have 50 friends in the top 500 on Forbes, and I've got 50 friends that I went to high school with and college with that make less than $70,000 a year. And I'm telling you right now, straight up, mix them all together, who are the ten happiest? Five and five.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And so, you know, I don't judge anybody else. I just don't like complaining.

Well, you know, my friend Dan Sullivan says you can create or you can complain, but you can't do both.

I just hate it. I don't know if it's the Eastern European thing. It was so unacceptable in my household. I don't know if I was formed for it.

Well, I like to rant and so do you.

Oh, I love to rant and bust chops and compete. I love to compete. But people saying people think things are luck. Luck, yes, I definitely believe there's serendipity, but how do you not understand that? Of course you're gonna get luckier if you take 800 at bats instead of 32.

Right, right.

I get luckier by the less amount of time I sleep.

So let me take that as an example of I think a behavioral change change because we can talk about tricks and techniques and methods. And I don't mean tricks like you're tricking people, but just simple strategies that work which are in your book. I mean you got like a blueprint that's a recipe.

We're having a very philosophical conversation. And you're absolutely right. What I'm really worried about right now is I think social media is confusing people. Do you know why I compared it to boxing? Boxing to most people that are watching, listening right now, is two dudes going into the ring and trying to punch each other in the face. Do you know why most boxing matches don't end in a knockout? Because boxing is known as a sweet science. Because people that actually learn how to fight and throw mixed martial arts into it, they actually know the subtle moves in a body to actually stop you from getting knocked the fuck out, which is what doesn't. Do you know why there's so many knockouts and fights outside of bars? Cause we don't know how to defend ourselves or counter or move. Floyd Mayweather's gonna make a half a billion dollars on moving his shoulder. Like a little subtle move. Same thing with social media. I truly believe the far majority of people that are listening and watching right now think of social media as like, ah, you know, yeah, but like, does it really work? What's the roi? It's new, just the kids. Can you really sell shit on it? And I know it as a science and that's what I've tried to articulate. I know and think about what time I'm gonna post something. I mean, let's get to that basic of a level that when all these east coast people. And there's a lot of east coast bias in social networking, there's a lot more content produced on the east coast than the west coast that all these east coast people when they're trying to sell something and post something at 9 o' clock in the morning. Cause they're fresh and ready to go. If your audience also lives in San Francisco, which they do, it's six in the morning, you missed them, you couldn't have waited till 11:30. And so. Or if you're targeting females posting something on Pinterest at 9:20 in the morning for stay at home, mom culture works. And so you're trying to get to young dudes and you're trying to sell video games, post at 2 in the morning and 11. And so just the time in when you post is a science in itself that most people just disregard because they're treating social networks like email services. They're just blasting well.

And I mean, I think until you actually get in and play the game, if you read about it and hear about it, that's one thing. So like if you were to take negative comments on say your book or anyone's book, that's like a how to strategy book that actually works. What you'll rarely see from any of the critics is like, I read your book and I tried that and it didn't work. What you hear is people that bitch about, they never even try anything.

They have vested, emotional or romantic beliefs in the thing that you're countering against.

Yeah, exactly.

I have TV people coming up to me all the time. People that make their money by selling TV ads saying, ah, this doesn't work. I'm like, of course you don't think that. You're just the radio guy from the 1950s.

Yeah, yeah.

Let me ask you a question, if you don't mind.

Ask me whatever you want.

What part was the most valuable?

Aha.

From a tactic or a specific, like what was one or two things that you were like, oh, that's. Well, I'm cool. I now know that it can be philosophical too. I'm just curious for myself.

Well, one thing you said towards the end where you said marketing is hard because it is.

And again, it's gotten harder because there's fragmentation of attention.

And the reason why image advertising or say brand building for the sake of putting a logo on things out there. I mean you speak about brand in a much different way. Which we can talk about is the reason most people don't do good marketing is they're not willing to one learn what to do, apply the time to do it. And it's a hell of a lot easier to throw ego based picture myself, my logo than it is to really think about the psychology and the mindset of someone that you're trying to sell to here. When you talk about context and all the different platforms have their native language which you talk about, that's really critical because it gets into. I think marketing is applied psychology. It's what you say and who you say it to, when you say it, how you say it, it's all of those things applied. It's not just a logo, there's so much more to it. So I like that part. I like the part on effort. I like the boxing analogy. I for years have, I've said this numerous times that marketing is like boxing. Rarely are you going to hit him with a Mike Tyson punch. I never used the exact word, jabs. But I said, what you do is you wear people down. Selling is seduction. All of the stuff you do, it's like foreplay. I mean, you even make the comparison to dating in here, too. It's like, before you ask someone to go to bed with you, they first got to know, like, and trust you. They got to feel safe. You got to have rapport with them. You got to feel comfortable. So. And like, you take. I love marketing, which is one of the places this episode is going to go. I mean, at the time we're doing this, we got about 300,000 active subscribers on itunes.

You've been doing this for a long time.

Well, that. A couple years. My other interview started in 1996. I've interviewed. You asked me earlier how many people I've interviewed. I've interviewed over 400 people.

I said, you're like Oprah. And he said, yes. That was it. That was the whole conversation. I enjoyed that.

Every type of person you could imagine for from the Top doctor on sex addiction to Sandro Day o', Connor, I interviewed a couple weeks ago, Damon John from Shark Tank. We did a video interview here a couple weeks ago. I mean, all kinds of people, mostly entrepreneurs, but so going back to the boxing thing, I give away a ton of free content. The very first thing I did in carpet cleaning. I don't know if you know the exact story. I mean, you have a little bit of background, but not the specifics. Is when I learned that it's the things that people don't know that they don't know that will help them make a buying decision. And when it comes to hiring a carpet cleaner, if the only choice you have is price, you're going to always go for the lowest price. So I had to give people a reason to do business with me other than price. So one of the first things that I created before the Internet, before websites, before email, any of this existing glam shots. Exactly.

Glam shots.

Yes, yes. By the way, what do you think of my hello Kitty wallet?

Before we went on, I was like, this is a legit wallet.

It is. It is. I'm going to take a detour and explain this wallet. Then I'll come back to Consumer Guides. Remind me if I forget. So Dean Jackson, who we've both me and Dean, have interviewed you for I Love marketing for your last book. And Frank Kern, who's kind of a goofball, had given Dean a wallet from the Pulp Fiction wallet that said bad motherfucker. You remember that wallet and so Dean carried that wallet around. And basically I asked him at our last I Love marketing conference, I said, dean, pull out your wallet. He pulled out a hello Kitty wallet. Because Dean actually gave me this. And he. I go, why is a grown man, you know, carrying a hello Kitty wallet? And he explained the story of how he had the bad motherfucker wallet. But he was censoring himself because we're in front of 450 people. And he felt like, dean's a really nice guy.

He doesn't work the way I do.

On stage or me either. And so basically he said that wallet said it. He's like, this wallet demonstrates it.

That's awesome.

And I said, that's fantastic.

You gave away some what for free?

So I started educating people on how to choose a carpet cleaner. So I had a consumer awareness guide to carpet cleaning. Read this guide and you'll discover seven questions Ask a carpet cleaner. Before I did content marketing, I taught them how to do stuff. And that turned into 24 hour free recorded messages. By the end of the 1990s, every major phone book in the United States had one or multiple versions of my ads running in home remodeling, pest control, chiropractic, carpet cleaning, gyms, you name it, driving people to listen to free recorded message. So in a lot of ways, those were jab, jab, jabs.

Yes, they were.

As you explained in the book, it's giving away free content. I love marketing. Our goal with I Love Marketing was to have the best marketing podcasts in the world giving away information for free. Better than what most people would charge for. And people keep asking me, what's your monetization strategy? It's like it's just bonding with a shitload of people.

It's a global jab. And honestly, at the highest level, this book, even though it's completely dictated to the micro content that we put out on these social networks, it's how I live my life. And the only way you can actually live your life that way is you have zero expectation on the back end. See what works for me. And I got lucky. This is not I'm smart. This is how I'm wired. I have zero. I'm willing to jab, jab, jab, give, give, give. And so jab, jab, jab, right hook stands for give, give, give, then ask. And I'm okay that even if I feel, and I do sometimes feel like I've given a lot, and when I ask, I get nothing in return. It's kind of like the Bronx tale where the guy. I think this is the movie the Bronx Tale, where the kid has the kid that I don't know.

I mean, I've probably seen it years ago, but I can't.

But there's a scene in some gangster movie, help me crowd if you can, where the gangster's, like, mentoring the little kid and the little kid's mad cause he lent this one other kid 20 bucks and the kid won't pay him back. And he goes, you got off cheap. And that's how I feel. If I give, give, give, and then I ask and I don't get returns, I'm like, okay, I understand, and I'll do it again. I actually won't say after one time, if I do it twice, I'm like, okay, listen, this person's viewing the giving and the taking kind of play a different way than I am. And then I can walk away and put my energy in other relationships.

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you, first off, life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. I mean, I absolutely believe that it's a karmic thing. And there are people that just are. They're the type of individual where everything's a tit for tat sort of relationship. It's like. And I don't know if you can fix that without some therapy or some real hitting bottom or something.

Listen, it's okay. By the way. Some people are very black and white. And I can get, you know, even though I hate it because it doesn't come natural to me, it's actually quite, in theory, very fair. Then there's people that just take. That's the worst of it.

Yeah.

But here's where I break it down. People have not applied this to social networks. The amount of people watching right now that use their Facebook account like an email service, every post is. Listen to my podcast, buy this, go to my seminar, buy my thing. Just. It's all right Hooks. And I don't know if you know anything about boxing, but even if you know nothing about it, you can figure this one out. If you know a right hook is coming, you're ducking.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. See, people love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. And if they feel like it's constant. Yeah, yeah, it's a setup. Everything is a setup in order to get what you want, Right?

The sweet science that's boxing sticks name. I think that's fascinating. And I think social media right now is very grossly underestimated, because I think the whole world's going long tail sell cycle and there's still places for quick hits. But there's becoming a tougher game to get to people. People are becoming more cynical to advertising because the youth has been bombarded with marketing compared to what we grew up with. The 90s was no marketing compared to what we see in 20. And so you've got to romance it even more than it did in the past.

Yeah, I totally agree. I have an idea. Just sitting here thinking about this with people that would really want to go deep with your book and really utilize it is I have meetup groups that we just teach people how to do. Meetup groups. And when I say teach, it's not like I have any major instructions other than at I Love Marketing. People can click on a meetup tab, there is a document that they can download usemeetup.com or. Yeah, but some people have them on Facebook. Some people just organize it. So every day, somewhere in the world, there's probably 100 people gathering talking about what we talk about on I Love Marketing. Super cool. We have them in all kinds of stuff, different countries, and we don't charge people. It's just like we just encourage them to do it.

You're giving them a tool to create more community.

Yeah, yeah. There's this PDF, it's like what questions to ask, how to start it. And I think a really great thing for a lot of the people at I Love Marketing would be to get Gary's book and go through the different case studies on all the different social networks and all the different things. There's about seven that you really covered in depth here and some ideas of future ones which I'll ask you about before we wrap up is to actually discuss them and even, maybe even organize meetup groups based around this book where people can show each other what they're doing and how to do it. Because one of the greatest things of teaching stuff to other people is it forces you to look at your own stuff. I mean, when you had to do this book, I know you had to audit your own shit. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that.

You know, it's funny, I just said this this morning. Somewhere else I said the biggest thing I'm worried about is I'm educating people so much. I'm always testing my own theories. Back to almost the same thesis of why I respect my haters. I'm actually still right now today doing things that I say don't do because I wanna look at the metrics. I wanna know If Facebook's changing or Twitter's changing. And I was like, wait, I might have to stop for a little bit. Because people are gonna be like, dude, you're putting a link in Facebook and just sending it. Just like you say, don't. So it's kind of interesting what I mean by that and why I'm saying that is absolutely. And not only am I also auditing my shit at all times prior to this, I'm doing it. Post this always in real time. It's the number one thing I care about.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let me go back to this. So small carpet cleaning company, as an example. What do you recommend they do? Should they be on Pinterest? Should they be on. I mean, what should they do?

That's a great question. I think first and foremost, the number one platform for a small carpet cleaning company is to be on Facebook. Because the target audience that I'm assuming is looking for carpet cleaners. You can definitely reach on Facebook. You can get hyper local. You can do your status updates just in Tucson, Arizona, and you're gonna get 84 people. But that's okay because it's back to targeting. And getting three people converting in your local area is better than somebody in Michigan if you're not a global company. Right. I think the other thing you need to really think about is how much are you gonna spend, if anything, to acquire a base of fans in your local area or just putting out content and then using your email service and your website and your word of mouth to build your base? You have to start with a base. I recommend spending $1,000 to $5,000 if you have it, to buy fans that are targeted in your area and make just awareness ads. What I mean by that is Gary's Carpet Cleaners no offer. Because what you're doing there is you're getting people that are opting in that are high quality because they're not opting in for the deal, they're opting in because they have some interest to hear from you. Then once you've got some sort of base, you start putting out. You did this. You know where I'm going. This is what, the seven step thing you did. That's what I would do. It's what I did with wine, library tv. We're like two kids from the same pod. I put out a wine show every day to educate people.

No, I mean, we both came from the world of education based marketing and we teach people how to make decisions. So they.

I would do fun Fact Friday and put out a Piece of content that truly educated about carpet cleaning. Even if it hurt me, even if I. I would literally readjust my business model before I'd come out with what the advice I'm giving to make them the most educated. Because you want to be in the business where the most educated consumer is going to always pick you. That means you're the best. Yeah, that's what I've always felt. I always say that to A.J. when we started VaynerMedia, we'd get clients and then we, we would not get clients and he'd be confused. I was like, bro, they're just not smart enough to hire us. I really meant that. So I would start putting out content to educate the masses and shareable stuff. Throwback Thursday. You know what'd be fun? Go find a photo on the Internet of the old 1960s carpet. You seem to have an old 1960s carpet here.

You don't like this kit?

I'm joking, I'm joking, making a joke. But you know this better than I do. Those old ridiculous looking 60s and 70s carpet. Put a picture at Throwback Thursday. Play with the slang of society. You put that out there, you get your daughter to share it because she thinks finally dad and mom in the family business did something funny. And then she has friends that share it and the virality just starts coming.

You know, I'll have my video guy put a little clip of this in there so that people can see this here. But you see that office back there? That's my office. Yes, that's carpet on the wall. That's like shag. That's looking like 1960 carpet right there. So we'll show a little bit.

So it's that culture. And then you put out 5, 10, 15 good pieces of content. Start building value and trust with the community. And the 16th one is we're doing a special this week, the Right Hook.

So how many jabs before right hook?

Completely predicated on the health of your business. Apple, when they launched the iPhone and there was no competitor even close, they could have right hooked every day.

Right?

Right. Carpet cleaner. That's the middle of the run. Competing with seven other players.

I would jab a lot just so people like. I know very deeply what you mean by jab, jab, jab. Right hook. But let's just really take it to the base.

Something for them, something for them, something for them, something for you. Because I'm gonna tell you something right now. I did a little homework too and kind of followed people that have talked about your podcast last week and Just saw them mention it and then went looked at their Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm telling you right now, your audience is. Is in the right hook. Right hook. Right hook. Right hook business.

Yeah. Oh, most marketers are, by the way, mine too.

You nailed it. 98%. So at its lowest form, what can you give out? And that's not a discount. A discount's a sale for you. That's for you. Maybe you gave up some margin. Don't get confused. I'm talking about content access.

Yeah.

What about going on a spreecast for an hour and answering everybody's questions and just. That's it with no ask?

You know what's so funny about that, too? Like, it's, you know, I've had someone that's running, we're still the largest training organization in the world to professional carpet upholstery cleaners. We have over 7,000 companies all over the world that have become members. And I have a guy that runs it for me who is a client that's, you know, he became a client 17 years ago. He's one of my very first clients. And we're doing a teleconference next week. You know, because I have not been very active. I'm very active in 20 terms of. We send out podcasts weekly, we send out recording weekly.

But you mean deeper in the way that you're about to do with me?

Because I used to do programs in person with me, and I literally stopped doing that. And so I just said, you know, let's just do a hello, I love you sort of call. Let's just get everyone to reconvene. And I had a couple people in my company are like, well, we're not quite ready to sell that. I go, it doesn't matter. We're not going to try to sell anything. We're just going to get everyone on the phone and just give them some best practices. I'm gonna get a couple of my.

Clients, let me help people that might be crippled by the notion of, like, geez, what do I say? What's going on in the music world right now is DJs are bigger than actual artists.

Right.

DJing content is very important. If you just consume a lot of content and you put links and retweet, you become a curator. That's also valuable. So maybe if you're a small carpet person, you've got 89 people on your Facebook page, but you put a link to interior design or lawn. I mean, this is a homeowner. See where I'm going Step out of your zone. If you put a link to like seven steps, how to, like, you know, mow your lawn better. That's still your target demo.

Yeah.

They're a homeowner, and so it's that kind of. How do you bring value? Can you curate content? Can you create it? I did entertainment and information. Cause I happened to be funny when I talked about wine and people were looking for that different voice.

How often were you just kind of liquored up when you were doing this?

Zero. I've been drunk like four times in my life. I'm too in control of my actions and my legacy. Never. I mean, I'm just liquored up globally.

Wow.

You know what I mean? I'm just naturally liquored up.

That is hysterical.

So, you know, but what I really try to do at all costs is put out. Right now I'm on a. Are you using SlideShare?

No.

Something I haven't been using. Just started using it. I put out two slideshares. I really tried to put out something of quality. The first one was the biggest mistake everybody makes on Twitter, which is they start with the symbol and somebody's name when they're trying to tell everybody. But if you don't know, if you start with the symbol, only the people that follow both you and that person will actually see that tweet. So if you wanted to tell everybody that they, Gary Vee was on the show and you said, garyvee's gonna be on the show today. Well, only the people that followed us. If you said, hey, everybody, GaryVee's gonna be on the show today, then everybody that follows you would see that this is the single biggest. This is Twitter's fault, not anybody else's. So I put this slideshow, it's got 200,000 views already in a couple weeks because it's valuable.

Wow.

Cause it's being shared on Twitter. Because people are trying to do Twitter better now. I'm like, I gotta do this for Pinterest. And I've got so many.

So I'm curious, like, what could we do with this interview that will give it the highest likelihood of watching it?

The number one thing you should do more than anything is use this interview as the case study to become a better micro storyteller to awareness against this. Let me explain. You probably don't have a Tumblr.

No, no. Here's indie stuff.

And by the way, I don't do it super well either, even though I was an investor. But let's stick here because I want to be Detailed. You should start one. You should have an I love marketing Tumblr account because there's plenty of 14 to 21 year old hipsters that love Tumblr, right, that have never heard of you, me or anybody else because they're in the streets, they're cool, but they want to be entrepreneurs. You take one moment from here where you're holding up the wallet or where I'm being silly, and you make it an animated gif. You know what an animated GIF is, right? Yeah, the looping over. You put an animated GIF on Tumblr with one of the quotes from you or me from this interview, and then that quote links back to the itunes download of this. You have nobody on your Tumblr account, just like anybody would when they start, right? But you take this interview and you link your Tumblr, you blast out an email and say, we're now on Tumblr. And you get 10, 11, 15. You know how it works. You start at zero, you build. You should do that. You should make an infographic that's female centric things that you believe the female psychology would have gotten out of this. And make an infographic and start your Pinterest board of infographics from your interviews. You get one influential Pinterest person to repin it and you could have 10, 15, 100,000 people get new awareness about your show. And Pinterest is a dream. It clicks out to wherever you want. So your infographic that you made from this seven fun things Gary said, you know what infographics look like, and that links out to the podcast download. I mean, this is the future, man. Micro content as a gateway drug to awareness, to your bigger thing.

Hmm. That's a quotable, I guess.

Seth Godin gave me a great review on this, a big one. He's a beast. So what did I do? I made a quote card, his picture. I didn't tweet or Facebook like I would have three years ago, saying, thanks, Seth. And a link to the review. No, what I did was I made what I call a bsu, a branded status update for Facebook where it's a picture with his face, him kind of looking up, his classic shot with a quote coming out of his mouth of the review. Right? And I posted that on Facebook and then I targeted it to people that are fans of Seth Godin on Facebook. I sold a shitload of books, my friend.

Yeah, that's good.

You understand.

Yeah.

So you could do the same thing for people that are fans of Gary Vee and all of a sudden, the 143,000 people that are fans of me on Facebook, which is the number 17,000 of them, would become aware of this for the first time. There's a lot to be done, my man. A lot. Listen, I'm hyperbole and excited and quotable and charismatic on stage, but I've built very large businesses through execution. This book is execution.

How many hours?

All of that.

But seriously. So you have a small business owner who's. And here's the thing.

They won't be able to do everything. You have the infrastructure to possibly do everything that I just told you. Small business owners have to really focus on one or two or three, because they're not going to have the bandwidth or the dollars to do it.

Well, I'll tell you, like, you know, I was living on credit cards for a couple of years, trying to make my carpet cleaning business work when I first started. I mean, that was my first real business. I mean, I delivered newspapers. You know, I did a lot of drugs in high school. So, you know, I mean, there was.

You made a couple bucks.

Yeah, yeah. Because I was a former drug addict. I don't know if you know that, actually.

I do remember that, actually.

And, you know, I delivered newspapers. I had all kinds of weird little businesses, you know, painting on curbs. I was, you know, entrepreneurial at an early age because I just wanted.

Can we go deep into that? Painting on curbs? I thought we all kind of enjoyed that. So what does that mean?

Well, you literally, the word address is on curbs and you put stencils. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally paint people's curbs. Cut wall.

You were on drugs when you were doing that?

No, no, but I. Between the ages of 16 to 18, it was when I was doing a lot of drugs, and luckily, I kind of went through the worst of it. Yeah. Like, at 18 years old. And then eventually, like, when I was actually going to college, one of the jobs I had was working in a mental hospital. And I used to drive the people that were there for alcoholism, for drug addiction, to AA meetings, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous.

And it helped, you realize, I really.

Don'T want to sit in. I would sit in those meetings and I realized, wow, you know what's funny? And this is a total tangent, not anything relevant to this. One of the movements that I admire more than anything is 12 step groups. They have done more to help people with addiction than every inpatient, outpatient doctor book combined. And it's never been built through promotion. It's been built. It's Attraction, not promotion. It just works Execution. When you look and see what causes things to happen, it's. It's quite fascinating to understand that. So. All right. What the hell was I saying prior to that?

I totally forgot as well.

It does not. We can.

I was looking at Hugh McLeod's. You got so many great questions.

Oh, well, let's talk about like, Tim Ferriss. If you were to get in a physical fight with Tim, do you think you would take him?

No, he'd beat my face in. That being said, he's terrible at volleyball. Played volleyball with him six months ago. He's off.

Who do you think works more, you or Tim? Although he wrote the Four Hour Workweek. I mean, you know, he.

I think it's cool. Closer than people think.

Yeah. Yeah. How many hours a day do you work?

All of them.

Yeah. Well, how much do you sleep?

Six, seven. So I get plenty of sleep. I work 17 hours a day. I'm a very eight, eight, nine to 11. I mean, my wife and I had the laugh of our marriage when I came. I've been extreme for the last two years on this. Lots of hours during the week, more time with the kids on the weekends. I came home one night at 9 o' clock and we were freaking out that we had all this time. And then I literally were hugging and like, oh, what are we gonna do? This is amazing. And then really, I got really sad. I was like, it is 9pm at night. Do you know how insane. Because listen, when I was building wine library, I'd get home at 9 or 8, the store would get slow the last hour and I was like, I thought I worked more than anybody back then. I mean, I've really taken it to the extreme. That being said, listen, there are no motherfucking shortcuts. Can we just put that to bed once and for all? I mean, now, what Tim's incredible at and I envy tremendously is he takes a lot of time and effort. Much like I've taken a lot of time and effort to figure out proper storytelling. He does find efficiencies and scales that I'm very naturally not good at and could use a lot of work on that. I just am a big believer on tripling down on your strengths and not worrying about your weaknesses. So I haven't. But I envy and marvel at his ability to really respect scale and triggers and execution. We had somebody intern with us this summer who has that passion and there's value in that. And there's definitely things that I wish I could do that Way.

Yeah, well, so one of the things that I learned when it came to selling success knowledge or methodologies, strategies and processes that I know work and they would work for other people is not do they work or do they not? But does the person believe they can work one on one marketing? Well, no, but here's what I'm saying though. So like a lot of people I could see as an officer saying, well, shit, I'm not going to operate like Gary, I'm an introvert. I can't function like that. I'm just not going to put that time in. So they throw everything away. And I like treating knowledge, books, anything, how to like a 12 step group, you know, take what you like and leave the rest. I mean there.

I like the way you did that. You said emulate and trash get rid of. That's good.

Well, yeah, I mean because like it.

Wasn'T nice to see trash get rid.

Of it in your book. No, no, I was saying bad in terms of a lot of the case studies that you wrote in here that because you show ones that you felt were successful and why and ones that sucked, you know, like the La Costa, I just wrote bad next to that because it was like interrupting its own conversation. That's. Although this is a great setup for you to have all these companies buy your book though, because every single one of them is going to hear this. And of course you're smart enough to.

Know that this was actually a huge challenge for me. I couldn't put any of our companies in it or their competitors because I didn't want anybody to think that I was pandering to that, which made it really tough. Listen, new business is the easiest thing Vayner's got. So I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about my legacy. I want to be right about the future of storytelling and the platforms that are going to matter for the next decade. And that's why I wrote it.

Yeah. So what I was saying about like the people out there that say, well, I'm not going to do this, so.

They'Ll do nothing game. You've been smart to take pieces. Listen, you know, it's funny you said that. I think as I'm maturing, I think this is a new phenomenon for me. I've started getting a little bit better at siphoning a little. Listen, that's probably a backbone of your success. You've been able to take pieces. When I hear like athletes, like I don't remember who, but he retired and he said, you know, I just Took a little. I took a little. And I was like, damn it. I'm just so all in on me. It's why I don't read. Right? We talked about that. Like, I'm so insular to, like, my energy ball and, like, my community and watching people's behavior. That's my work. But, boy, do I envy the people that are able to take a little slice. A little slice. There's somebody who is really crushing it, really killing it, and said something really interesting to me, which was he literally became extremely fascinated, both me and Tim. And he said. He literally went right down the goddamn middle. That Tim not good at this. I was awesome at this. Vice versa. And he just took both. And he fucking. I was like, motherfucker.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know. See, the beauty of what exists today is there's an enormous amount of models and case studies and how to stuff. One of my favorite quotes is from the Book of Survival, Anthony Greenback, where it's like, to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein, the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver. You simply need to know what to do. And if a business owner or anything, you want to get in better shape, you want to have a better business, you want to make. You just simply.

It's all there.

It's all there.

It's execution.

It's just a matter of. Yeah, it is.

Because I do a lot of angel investing, and I. People come in and they're like, I've got the idea. And this is the first time they're meeting me. They're courting my money and my network and the leverage of using me as an investor. And within two seconds, I mean, I set the tone. I'm like, ideas are shit. And that hurts feelings quickly. Cause listen, they flew from somewhere and they're like, here. This is their moment. I'm very flattered. I know it. Cause I used to do the same thing and still do the same thing. They thought about it, and in the first two seconds, I'm like, I don't care about the idea. Tell me how you're gonna execute it. I actually think every idea is equally good and equally bad.

So do you. Do you. So you make all your decisions on your decisions?

Very. Yes. I've done much better betting on the jockey than betting on the horse.

That's great. That's good advice. So what do you think?

Can I say one other thing? For people that are interested in angel investing and with the jobs act, an angel list I think a lot of other people listening are going to start throwing some money around over the next decade. The other good thing about betting on the jockey, sometimes the jockey doesn't win. But if you know the jockey's great and you could watch how they navigated because maybe the horse was a dud, sometimes they win on the next one. I mean, you look at people who didn't win on Odeo and bailed on ev and the next thing was Twitter.

Right?

You know?

Yeah, yeah, great point. Well, I made a post on Facebook before you were to come down here saying, I'm doing an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk later today in Arizona. What do you think? The number one best, most awesome question to ask him, of course, because I wanted to engage the people and I'm going to send all of them a copy of this interview once in a while. I'm going to post it and they're going to love it. So, Bonnie, she said I would ask him about his self. Ang, I can never. Well, it's like bragging. Oh, my bravado and natural bravado. So have you always been like this or is this a shtick that you had to develop?

No, my mom is at fault. My mom, it used to be so much worse. I'm about to tell you a story that's so true and so insane. When I was 16 years old, I used to walk down the halls of my high school and truly think I was the single best looking person on earth. My mom brainwashed me and built so much self esteem in my body that it's never been able to fully. I mean, as much as I try to become older and learn and some of it's. There was so much there that. Now listen, I know, and I'm very proud of it, especially because I know my intent is good. Let me say something that paints a picture of how I think I roll. I think there's two ways to build the biggest building in town. One is to build the biggest building in town. Two is to tear down all the other buildings around you. I'm very proud that I'm one. I have plenty bravado and I have all this, but I root for everybody else equally. And if they're doing better or this, that and the other thing, then it only makes me want to.

You know what? There's a good point of success with that too. Because if you're someone that celebrates the success of others, which is not what I think most people do, I think there's a tremendous amount of jealousy and envy and it may not even be expressed with words, but they're constantly thinking about, I got fucked or it's not fair and it's an entitlement, or they.

Got lucky or look what happened. And to me, I'm the other way. I don't do it hourly that much, of course. On an exit or something. Great, I'll call email. But I'm rooting like, Tim had his TV show there the other day, and I'm sitting there begging for this to be like a breakout hit. I want everybody to win.

Yeah.

By the way, I'm competitive. The more other people win, the more I'm like, oh, I better get my game up. And so to that point, yes, I have bravado, yes, I have ego, but I have a shocking amount of humility as well, because I also think I'm zero. At the same time, it's just a bridge. I'm pulling from opposite directions.

Yeah. So another question was, if you lost it all tomorrow, what action plan would you put together to implement and kick ass? Like, if you lost everything, what would you.

This is so dark. I'm about to go dark. Up until My daughter was 2, which is only two years ago. Up until two years ago, I secretly wanted to lose it all.

Hmm.

I wanted the Phoenix moment. I was like. Because I'm so confident that if I was at zero that I'd know what to do. That boy, do I.

Like, we could arrange that.

I mean, you know, the action plan would be. Listen, Vaynermedia was self funded with $0 put in. We just went out and got a client. I mean, if I lost everything, I'd still be me. Now, a lot of people wouldn't blindly think I was smart because, look, I lost everything, right? So I'd have to understand what that would mean to my reputation. But I can sell stuff. I'll go sell rocks outside and make a hundred thousand a year.

You know what? Here's the thing. The ability to learn how to sell.

You like that one?

Yeah. The ability to learn how to sell and market.

I want a T shirt that says, I'll go sell rocks outside. I'll make 100,000 a year.

Yeah, we should. We should do that with the. With a little. I love marketing. All right, so here, let me do one more. What's the number one most important question he gets most of the time? And why does he think this is not important?

Ah, I get it now. The funny part to that question is most of them people are so fixated. This book to you. I think you really, you and I are actually in the psychology business and then we just happen to do other things.

Yeah.

This is not really a book. Deep that touches our heart. And so people are always asking questions that are about this tactics. It's about a religion, not the church. People are always like what color should we paint the church? What kind of lights should we put in the church? How many parking spots should we have in the church? Assholes. It's about the religion. So 99.9. Got it?

Yeah.

99.9999% of the questions that are being asked of me are not the important questions. The important question, EQ over IQ, HR. I'm the head of HR at VaynerMedia, the CEO. Got it.

Yeah.

The questions that people are asking are very small minded, tactical and don't matter anywhere as close to as much as taking care of the customer, having a value proposition, giving up front.

What should people pay attention to? Like okay. With all the new stuff that's going on, you are habits, habits.

Don't you think it's weird that when you go to the airport every single person is looking at a screen? Don't you think that's weird? Don't you think that's weird that while we were doing this interview, our right hand peeps are over there in their screen? What does that mean? That means that 10 years ago our right hand peeps sitting right there would have consumed and gave us all the attention and picked up everything that we talked about. And that did not happen here, here today.

Yeah. And you even say in the book there's no such thing anymore of undivided attention, it's gone.

That's right. And so you need micro attention. So habits, consumer habits. If you're not going to iTunes Top 100 free apps once a week to just see what's doing. Well, that's how I figured out that Snapchat mattered and started using it. It gives you trends, it gives you psyche, it makes you realize people like gaming, people like escapism with entertainment, people like utility, the apps that make their lives better. Right. People like social networks. That means we like people pay attention to people's habits. Look at your nieces and nephews. Pay attention to your 60 year old aunt now is spending her whole day on Facebook. There's things happening here, people. Yeah.

So last thing I'll ask you is well maybe why do you love marketing? I mean you've really jumped really deep into this and a lot of people, they hear marketing and they immediately have this oh, it's bad. It's manipulation.

Less and less, though. Marketing started to go through a similar thing as entrepreneurship.

Well, you know, the definition of entrepreneur, they all know if you know the original definition of entrepreneur came from in 1804, from John Baptiste, say, who said, an entrepreneur is an individual that takes resources from a lower level of productivity to a higher level. So whenever you're taking something from here to there, and a lot of people think, oh, there's an axe, let's create a chainsaw, that's entrepreneurship, which it is. But if you take someone's brain, their thinking, their capabilities from here to here, if you just think more effectively, you can be entrepreneurial.

So I'm a storyteller through and through. I started off with a. By the way, a lot of my success is predicated on my dad. I talk so much about my mom. My dad stripped so much bullshit out of my body at 14, 15, 16, because he is the opposite of me. He actually has insane expectations of others. One strike, one lie, death. It's insane. It's real tough. My dad's got a tough life. He doesn't have that many friends. Cause of this. He has, you know, but what that did was I was like, wait a minute, I can't bullshit my dad. I'm not gonna have a good relationship with him. And it's slowly but surely then the transparency of the Internet. But I'm a storyteller. I love the story. Story. Right. I love the story. And so that's what marketing to me is storytelling. But by the way, I want to say something that's very important to me. Storytelling. I think the best salespeople are people that sell something they believe. I sell stuff. I believe in, like, every wine, every app. The way I sold you on Twitter, I believed. I fully believe. And I think that I love marketing because I think it's storytelling. And storytelling to me is everything. It's everything. It's the fabric of our society. To me.

Well, you know, for a guy that works his ass off and who literally, from the time I've known you, I've not only seen you not lose any enthusiasm, it's only gotten bigger and bigger is, I think the number one sales job that all of us need to do every day is we need to sell ourselves on what the hell we're doing, doing. And a lot of people, they disconnect from that. The storytelling is not just what you tell to the public, what you say on social media. It's what you say to yourself, what goes on in your Head. And if you just simply tell yourself and everyone else a better story, guess what? You can write a love story. You can write a horror story. I mean, your life is your story.

There's something really important to what you said because I'm very concerned about where people take it. I want to add one thing. This is a word that is rarely talked about in our space that I want to start building more attention for. Self awareness. If I could give anybody who's watching listening to this one thing, one potion. Inject, not hustle, not smart. Self awareness. If you have self awareness, then you've got a starting point to success. Because then you're not gonna bullshit yourself. You're gonna storytell yourself. You're gonna motivate yourself, but you're not gonna bullshit yourself. And the amount of bullshitting to oneself going on in the world right now is pretty scary.

Oh yeah, it's incredible. So what's that quote? You know, a life worth a life worth an unexamined life is not worth living. An unlived life is not worth examining. So it's that thing. So thank you so much, man. Always. Great. And I would website real quickly. You have a website for the book. There's Vaynermedia throughout your websites for people that want more. Gary.

You know what? I want to just engage with people. And so that would be Gary Veet on Twitter, please hit me up. Or facebook.com Gary. That's a little bit of humble brag. Very few people in the world have a four letter domain.

That's pretty good.

Not bad.

Yeah. So get his book. It's jab, jab, jab, right hook. How to Tell youl Story in a Noisy Social World. I think you'll find it very useful. And get it to everyone that you work with. It has anything to do with communication in your company, in your organization, in your nonprofit or whatever it is you you do. And let us know your comments@ilovemarketing.com what you thought about this and share it with anyone you think would be find it useful and helpful. So awesome, dude.

Thank you. Happy holidays.

Yep, you too. Thank you.

Thank you everyone.