The One With Gary Vaynerchuk - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #10

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and.

This is the I love marketing podcast.

Hello, everyone, this is Joe Polish. And Dean, you're going to say something. I heard you. I was going to say, hey, everybody.

It'S Dean Jackson and you got right on it.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, welcome to I Love Marketing. And we're about to do a new thing we've never done before. This is the premier guest ever on an I Love Marketing podcast. I'm also going to take what we're going to record here and it's going to be part of Genius Network and a bunch of different things. But me and Dean Jackson have Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk. So, Gary, what's happening?

I wanted to jump in and be the third voice when you guys were doing the intro. I held back though.

So this is the first time we actually asked the guest to be part of the I Love Marketing podcast. And I just want to let everyone know right from the very get go, we're going to transcribe everything that we talk about. You can get it on the ilove marketing.com website for those of you on itunes. And you know, I'm also going to put this out to my geniusnetwork.com subscribers. We're going to cover a lot of cool stuff in the time we have available. And Gary, you wrote two massive bestsellers. One is Crush it and the newest one is the thank you Economy, which we want to recommend everyone go out and buy the book right now. It's awesome. It will give you incredible insight and perspective on how to just go out and bond with tremendous amounts of people and your whole future in your business and in your life, I think is really based on what you've written about in the thank you Economy. So before we kind of get in asking him some questions, Dean, is there anything you want to say?

I think this is going to be very exciting. We were talking to Gary earlier and saying how our first few episodes we went and talked about the kind of origins of how we fell in love with marketing. And I think G, he's got a great love for marketing that started really young and I'd love to hear his story. Cool.

Yeah.

So, Gary, who the heck are you? And then kind of how did you get into this whole marketing business and that sort of stuff and then let's see where this unfolds.

Yeah. And you know, it's funny, marketing is just a part of life, I think, for everybody. Everybody's selling something, usually themselves, if nothing else in the world. And so you Know, very early on, lemonade stand and baseball cards and just always pencils, I just would sell. I was a salesman. And I think you start off as a salesperson and then as you grow up the ladder, you start understanding. Right now I'm doing a lot of consulting for Fortune 500 companies with my VaynerMedia company. And there's a big difference between a marketer and a salesperson. I'd like to think a marketer thinks long term. And I think both of us, all three of us on the phone here, have seen people use marketing in the wrong way. And unfortunately that creates a scenario where the brand of marketing has been hurt. I got involved in my dad's family liquor store business when I was 14. And that's where I think I really honed my chops in marketing. I definitely learned a lot about wine and wanted to be a salesperson and then started really launching website winelibrary.com in 1997 and built a $60 million a year business mainly through marketing. Mainly wasn't doing building lists or JVs or anything like that nature. It was more, you know, pay per click. Very early on I was buying wine for 10 cents on Google because nobody knew it existed. Built an email service.

Those were the days, weren't they?

Yeah, it was a different era. And now obviously I'm very focused on social. And I would say this, starting from pulling people's flowers out of their yards and selling back to them to where I am today. I am dramatically more Mother Teresa than I ever thought I could be. But it's not because I'm a great guy. It's just because the world is dramatically more transparent and the world's changed. And from my standpoint, small business and corporate America now, which is a little bit different. Joe, I know a lot more about you and getting to know Dean. Obviously Internet marketing has a pretty. You guys know some real negative players in there. And I think those people are going to be weeded out because word of mouth now has so much more power and it's kind of hard to quote, unquote, get away with doing the wrong thing.

Oh, yeah, no, completely. I mean, before you could get away with a lot of stuff, but now that people can talk about you, your reputation is everything.

Your social equity. I mean, I talk a lot about social equity in the thank youk Economy. I really think that, you know, you know, I think corporate America has it wrong where they think, you know, they push market. You know, it's billboards and radio and television and there's no emotional attachment. I think small entrepreneurs have it wrong because they think think it's SEO or building lists. And I think the only thing that's going to break through in this new world is really intent and caring and one on one marketing, which is very hard. And for a lot of people listening right now, it's no fun to think about. Okay. I like putting together lists and offerings and having my other 250 days to myself. I just think it's going to get more and more difficult. I'm not here to be Debbie Downer. I just think it's the reality of the marketplace and this social revolution is just changing the landscape and really there's no other choice. It's kind of like people that used to do print and then the Internet came along and they didn't want to believe it and they got wiped out. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Well, can I ask you to define a couple things? First off, what do you mean by the thank you economy? I mean, the book is fantastic. And again, I'm going to tell everyone, read it, go out and get it. If you don't like reading, get the audio version of it. It's an awesome book.

Audio's coming in June, Joe. I always do my audio much later because I like to do the like.

Remix, you know, and you update it because that's.

Yeah, I update it. I mean, in the book I talk about SEO being dead because I think that social will matter. And all of a sudden, two weeks ago, Google comes out and changes their algorithm to incorporate social context. So, you know, I've got to update that part. Obviously, I'll pat myself on the back while I read it and feel good about myself, but I mean, the thank you economy means this. I'm obsessed with context. Hey, Dean, have you ever heard the quote, content is king? Yeah, absolutely. You and everybody else listening. Right? I mean, it's one of the most common things said in the marketing and business world. Content is king. Context is God to me. And here's what I mean. You know, Dean, you and I have not interacted, but now we have. And now we have a different, you know, view and we have some context on each other. Tons of people listening right now have never heard of me. They're going to listen and they're going to have some sort of context. Hopefully positive, but conceivably negative. I believe that every single person and every business has to create context with their user. And I think that caring is now scalable. I think you can go to search.twitter.com and interact with People searching terms, searching your name, searching the concept of your business and reply them and start a conversation. It's the skills of having a cocktail party skill instead of a presentation skill. And I think this is going to be the equity in doing business. I think it is absolutely Green Mountain Coffee's responsibility to go into the social web and talk to people about coffee. Be a service, not a salesman. Instead of telling people, yeah, try our coffee, they're telling people how to use the Keurig machine or what the right balance or how long do you let it seep if you want to do the tea. And so the thank you economy Joe is about thank you and you're welcome and what can I do for you and how can I help you? It's about answering all your email, it's replying to all your tweets, it's engaging on Facebook fan pages instead of just pushing out. And I firmly believe that 99% of the people listening to this call right now, absolutely 100% have been in the push business their whole careers. Sending out offers, sending out, blasting email, blasting direct mail, blasting radio, Billboard television, whatever. It's been on stage. Push, push, push, push, push, push, push. And I think the world of marketing is going to pull. I think it's going to be instead of the friend that calls you with all their headaches, it's going to be the friend that you call when you have a problem. Those are two very different people. And I think the friend that's been taken for granted, the one that you call is about to start cashing in in business because the social equity is what's going to matter. Do you find?

You know, I think in a lot of ways. Go ahead, Dean, I'll let you go.

I was going to say, do you find now that the smaller nimble business with a person that cares is at an advantage over the bigger businesses that are trying to do social by committee?

Yes and no. Right. I think, I think it's shocking how, you know, I hate when I hear like, oh, Walmart and Costco and Nike, they don't get it. They're big, they don't get it, we get it. And then I see little guys, one off guys, even two person teams, not really care either. You know, they do the lip service. They think because they're small that they out care their customer, but they don't. And so I would say whether it's big or small, Dean, it comes down to the thesis and the DNA of the company. I mean it really just comes down to the execution and so that can be middle, medium, small, big companies, one person. It could be Procter and Gamble if executed properly, if it comes from the right intent. I don't think it really matters. Obviously a big organization takes a longer time to move because they need to see the roi. And a lot of people listening to this right now are entrepreneurs and they feel the vibrations of change so they are willing to go all in and shift. I think it just really comes down to the DNA of the organization and or people. I think it has nothing to do with size. Right.

You know, I remember Gary, like in the very beginning when I first met you, literally I had never heard of what Twitter even was. But yeah, I remember your video on your email when someone you would send an autoresponder that had actually a video and you're, you know, one of the very first videos I ever saw from you is like, follow me on Twitter. Trust me, you know, this is going to be huge. And no one that I knew, except you knew what the hell Twitter was at that time. And sure enough, I mean, a lot of things that you've predicted have become mainstream stuff. So what the hell are you tapped into where you have like a real good intuition about this stuff? Because I think that's one of your greatest abilities, is that you really see trends.

I appreciate you've heard me say this. I want to buy the New York jets and it's going to come from that skill set. I don't think I have that many skills. I think we're all limited to a certain amount of skills. It's kind of like LeBron, right? LeBron does his thing, Kobe, they do their thing. But would they be great marketing people? Would they be great truck drivers? Would they be great teachers? You've got some skills. And I've been lucky to figure out what mine was and is. And that's where my career has gone. The better thing of saying Twitter was going to be big is that I invested in Twitter, right? And Facebook and Tumblr. Listen, crush it. I wrote in length about Tumblr, right? This was before I actually invested in it. After I was done writing about it, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to get involved in this. And now I don't know if you're seeing this, Joe. I don't know if you guys have any 16 or 17 year old nephews or nieces. I mean, Tumblr is exploding. If you go to TechCrunch, there's a video with David Karp, the founder. Listen to this stat they're growing by a quarter of a billion page views a week.

Wow. Wow.

So Tumblr is going to be the thing in between blogging and Twitter, which I think a lot of people here who are listening and you guys will probably like. So anyway, nonetheless, I don't know, I think it's DNA. I mean, it's the same reason I sold all my baseball cards. I mean, literally at a baseball card show. Guys in New Jersey, looking around, tasting, I like to say, tasting the vibrations of the market. I'm just so deeply into the trenches. And you know this about me, Joe. In comparison, I just am engaging all the time. I'm always interacting. I don't vacation, I don't surf, I don't go on a cruise for a month. I work 24, 7, 365 outside of the time I spend with my family and, and it's in the trenches. It's really dirty work. I really am a hard hat kind of guy, which I think gives me insight to things shifting earlier than it trickles up to the people that are a little bit, you know, higher up. The castle. And so heading under his DNA of just having intuition. I mean, I sold all my baseball cards out of a whim. I mean, that Friday night, couldn't wait to get done from school, get ready for the show, got all my cards priced, got to the mall and literally two hours in, had sold every card I had for 70 cents on the dollar, and then took all those dollars and went to a comic book convention the next week and bought all comics and went all in and the comic market exploded and the baseball card market collapsed. And that was just really intuition of just seeing what was going on. And so I did the same in the family wine business. Everybody was all about Bordeaux and, and French and Italian and California wine. And I went all in on Washington state and Spain and Australia. And I was right again. I was not techie in my entire Life. I launched winelibrary.com in 1997. I didn't grow up in Silicon Valley. I was a Jersey boy. I didn't have a computer, but I knew I could taste. I started my video blog in 2006, February. So really 2005, I made the decision that was very early for video blogging, especially long form content. I was doing 30 minutes, nobody was doing that. And in late 06 I was like, this Twitter thing is going to be huge. And in late 07 I was like, this Tumblr thing is going to be huge and mobile. I'm an innovator. I just stopped my famous wine library TV at South by Southwest. I announced my retirement at episode 1000. And I started a new thing called DailyGrape.com and it's a mobile app and it's a website. You can watch the show still on the web, but it's now a mobile app because I think you have to be useful. And so now you watch the show and if you like the wine, you add it to your wish list and it's in your pocket and you can walk into a wine shop in a wine bar and order it.

I mean, have you stopped the shows.

Or you do I do it under daily grape.com now.

I got you. Okay, so it's.

I mean, and then everybody's like, what the hell? Six years of equity. And I just left, changed the name. It's, you know, I'm an innovator. I taste stuff early. I before AJ and I started VaynerMedia two years ago to do social media strategy, we were going to do a deal of the day site. So, you know, that probably would have been the right idea because that space has exploded and we might be sitting on $20 million valuation of $100 million, you know, that kind of stuff. And that's fine. I'm not worried about it. This is a consistent skill set that I have to understand where markets go. I don't take really a lot of credit for it, Joe, other than my DNA has good chess like skill set, I can see the move ahead. I'm very good at understanding what people say they're not going to do. And they're going. Everybody said they wouldn't be on Twitter, but I knew they would. And then I started figuring out a world that looked. What would the world look like if everybody was on Facebook? So that's how I was able to project and understand where things were going.

Let me ask you about, because I think one of the best things that would be helpful to all of the people listening that are marketers and really want to connect. I really look at marketing as, you can either be a transaction marketer or you can be a relationship marketer. And, you know, basically, even if you kind of have scoundrel tendencies as you describe in the book, you know, the thank you economy, it's idiotic to not just be nice to people because in the long term it's going to serve them, it's going to serve you. And the days of being, you know, a transaction marketer are getting more and more difficult. And so.

And Joe, can I interrupt you real quick? I'm sorry to interrupt. I mean, is that the word on the street? Because, you know, I'm a little bit removed from the exact kind of marketing you're doing. Are people talking about that? I mean, did people in the marketing world realize what Google did two weeks ago with that blog post? And what's going to happen in a year or two when you're not going to be able to SEO and then create a landing page that converts better? I mean, do people realize what's kind of happening?

I don't think so.

I mean, I think some are. And I think there are people like you to a certain degree that are on the fringes of all of this stuff. But at the same time, I think a lot of people are mired in the past, as many corporations are, and it takes a lot for them to change their mindset, their perspective, and how the world is shifting on that. So talk about that. Talk about what Google just did as an example.

Well, I mean, I mean, I'm just, you know, you know, I'm aware of, like, a lot of people trying to create conversion. You said transactional, and that got me excited. Right, Because I agree with you. I think transactional marketing, listen, it's never completely dead, but it's kind of like an ocean, right, guys? If an ocean goes to a river, less people are drinking from it, right? And that's kind of what I'm seeing happening. There'll still be people that are successful. And now everybody's going to send them this podcast and listen, be like, yeah, that's going to be me. But what they don't realize, I think.

You'Re onto something, though, in the way that people are reacting to it, that a lot of marketers are reacting to what's happening with Google to try and fix it, like in an emergency mode, try and fix it. In the marketing world, it's been called the Google slap, where, you know, they change the algorithm and they don't like sometimes the things that convert the best on a transactional basis, but they're definitely. They don't see that making a fix to this in the short term is not really addressing where the game's going in the long term.

I think the really scary part is I don't think people realize how deep this is going to get. You know, crush it. Three years ago, I wrote that Facebook was Google's biggest competitor in search. And I think that that's a very valid point now. And here's what's really interesting. I think Twitter now is sitting at a crazy place, because there's three companies that want to buy it. Microsoft, to put it into Bing, Facebook itself. Because if Facebook owns it, then they own all the context, search or Google who desperately need it. Let me explain to everybody what I'm talking about. If I was to tweet out right now, just had a great Pinot Noir with a link, I enjoyed it, and one of the 900,000 people that follow me go to Google and they're signed into Gmail and they search for Pinot Noir. I'm going to show up now on the first page with my tweet. Wow. And so we're talking about social search. And once Facebook rolls this out, you know why Facebook wants you to click all those, like, buttons? Because when you search. That's right. Because when you search for Honda, they're going to show you that 13 of your friends like Honda. And that matters more to you than somebody who SEO'd out a page and tried to convert you so that you click an affiliate link.

What do you think about Mark Zuckerberg's approach to this? Like, you know, if he's getting a lot of heat for, you know, kind of pushing the envelope of sharing personal information. And I honestly, in my observation of him, I honestly think that he sees that done right. This is going to make our lives better 100%.

I can tell you right now that I wish people would market to me talking about the New York jets, because that's the information I'm putting out there. Yeah. And I think people don't realize the benefits of it. And listen, of course it could be taken too far, but remember how scared everybody was about putting a credit card into a computer? Yeah. You're laughing because you remembered it was. Remember? I mean, when I told my dad we were going to put a wine shop on the Internet, he goes, nobody's going to. So what? They're going to come to the store and give us a check? You know, I mean, this is the. People forget. People forget that people thought the Internet was a fad. People forget that they thought Facebook and Twitter were going to be fads. People Forget they thought MySpace. Facebook was the new MySpace. It's just people talking, you know, listen, I no longer talk about politics and health care and other things because I realized as I was becoming dramatically more knowledgeable in this sector that even smart people that weren't as deep as I were sounded silly. And so even though I consider myself a smart guy and I'll read a couple articles, I can't talk about this stuff. I don't have the depth. And that's what's kind of going on with this stuff. I think people are very naive to what's going on. And I really do think, Joe, that what my biggest hope was and why I really wanted to do this. Of course I'd be thrilled if people bought the book. But the fact of the matter is, you know this, and we all know this. There's a lot, you know, more efficient ways to sell a book over a course of an hour than doing an interview like this. I think what's interesting to me is I want to be on the right side of history. I want every person who listens to this podcast go back in three years and be like, that was. That Gary guy was the first. Damn it, I knew I should have done it, or I'm glad I did it, because he was the first guy that kind of talked about it and put me in that direction. Listen, Joe, you saying right now that I'm the first person that told you Twitter about Twitter and it was going to be big, that matters to me. That's the business I'm in. I'm in the being on the right side of history business. And when these things go on to mean something, it really matters. I mean, you view me as a smarter guy than a dumber guy, because there's a lot of people that said, no, it won't be. And these are the decisions we're making as who knows where things are going and who's not. And I'm running a marathon, not a sprint. I want to be relevant for next 40 years, not just four minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is why you don't go where the puck is.

You go where the puck's going.

That's a really good point, Dean. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very famous hockey statement, and it's true. I definitely live my business life in that manner.

Yeah.

You know, the Madonna thing was like, I spot a trend, and then I get ahead of it, which is kind of funny.

So that's what I'd like to ask.

You about, because you have some very interesting perspectives on where's TV going to be, what's the future of television. Smart refrigerators, which I heard you talk about in the speech, and that sort of stuff. So, I mean, touch on that, like, scanning out a few months, a few years from now, what are things that everyone listening would be very well served to pay attention to and start thinking about?

Well, you know, I think, you know, obviously, yes, I definitely think that. That we're going to be living in something of a smart world. We have smart televisions now, right? Excuse me, smartphones. Soon we're going to have smart. We're going to have smart refrigerators that reorder our products for us. So you put in a Pepsi and it's going to understand that you drink Pepsi after the third time, it's going to become a Pandora like situation. And the refrigerator itself is going to reorder your product for you. And Walgreens and Whole Foods and Wegmans and all these players need to be very worried about this. It's going to completely disrupt retail. I mean, that's a world that people don't think about. But you also didn't think about 15 years ago that you're. That you would no longer ever buy a camera because your phone would be your camera. And I definitely think that people never thought that their camera would be. Excuse me, that their phone would become their credit card. But every person listening right now in five years will be swiping their phone when they buy stuff at the supermarket. Yeah, I mean, and that's real. That's coming. That's not me being a genius. That's me knowing that in South Korea and Japan, that's what happens. You know, it's just a matter of time. And, you know, I mean, listen, do you remember PDAs, remember those things? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, they last for five minutes. Remember Blu Ray and DVD? Remember DVDs? I mean, you know, I mean, that's. I know DVDs aren't completely dead yet, but it's just another couple minutes, right? But they're dead to you. Yeah, I mean, just a couple more minutes. I mean, how about when your iPad becomes your remote control because you have an Apple television and what you're watching on your iPad, you click one button and now it's on your tv and you don't have to wire anything. In a world like that, television does get disrupted. So the world's changing, it's changing quickly. And I think anybody listening right now, if they don't think this stuff is going to impact them, they are. The audacity, I would say the audacity, because this stuff is turning over governments in the Middle east and helping people survive tsunamis in Japan because of information. I mean, if you don't think this stuff is gonna expose you. And listen, I don't know, this is fun for me because I'd like to ask you guys questions because I'm not as knee deep into your world, Joe. I mean, I'm sure There's some people through this social revolution on Twitter and Facebook who have been exposed and maybe blacklisted from the community because they got in. You know, there was probably things that they got in trouble for that nobody would have ever known before. But no long can they be, you know, people that can convert marketing because their customers have left. Because when you Google their name, their negativity pops up first. Am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong at all. And it's one of the things where I actually am very proud to say, and I mean, me and Dean, you know, we both fall in that category. I think one of the reasons we stayed such great friends and we resonate so much is we both follow the philosophy, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. You don't go out and you don't pitch stuff that you know is not going to be helpful and create value for people. I mean, both of us have a stellar reputation. You do, and I tell people all the time, do an online search for me, look at reviews. I mean, we don't screw customers. We do great stuff. People love us and they don't love us because we're great guys, just like you said. I mean, we just, we just treat people well. And I've clients that have come to every one of my conferences for the last 15 years. I mean, people don't do that unless you continue to give people value. And one of the reasons I've never gotten really knee deep in doing a affiliate programs is I never wanted to owe favors to someone that would ask me to pitch my list as if these lists are just a bunch of databases, a bunch of herds of people that you just try to extract money from. I mean, I've always wanted to treat people. You know, I remember the time when I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards and I learned marketing, never thinking I would teach it to other people. I learned marketing because I needed to survive and I needed to learn how to convey what it is I was doing so that people would actually hire me. And I remembered how hard it was for me to actually invest something with money I didn't have except on a credit card and knowing I'd have to go out and earn that. And these are real human beings. And I think, you know, a lot of the value of the relationships, you know, is not a lot. All of it. I mean, it's all about relationships. There's so many marketers that preach lifetime value of a customer, but they don't even understand what the hell that means. I mean, it's like, you know, these are people.

It's all hunting, Joe. It's all hunting. I. And I don't want anybody to be upset with me because I listen, I know this because this is where I come from. I was the biggest hunter of them all. In 1999, if somebody walked into my wine shop, bought a thousand dollars worth of wine and I got their email, I felt like I had them. I felt like I would email them next week, the next day the next year, and they would buy a certain percentage of the offers and that was it. I don't think I'm a born again marketing guy, but I've definitely evolved. I've definitely matured. I mean, I very much look at it differently. And by the way, not by choice because I was forced into seeing where things were going. I love the idea of just hit one button, sending out this Chardonnay is delicious. And just watching the orders come in. Right.

That was enough in 1999.

That's right. And by the way, by the way, it's enough now. It is enough, Dean. I mean, it doesn't convert the same way. Open rates have collapsed, right? Conversion has collapsed, but it's enough now. There's a couple things I'm proud of. The wines we sell, we have the best prices in the country and it's a wine. I always struggled when I first learned about people selling thousand dollars worth of information because that was tough for me. I just couldn't wrap my head around the value. When you could buy five or six books at 20 bucks a pop and get the same, if not more. So I think it's important to be proud of what you sell. But Even if you're 100% proud of what you sell, you have to understand the game's changing. And like you said, you feel good about yourselves and there's good search results on your name and you've never screwed anybody. But even for guys like you, if you're quote unquote on the clean side of all of this, you have to understand that it's going to get harder. Nobody likes to hear what I have to say, by the way. Whether you're a marketer or whether you're a brand manager at a multi $100 million consumer brand product. Because I'm talking about one on one marketing, truly engaging and truly making phone calls, writing letters, answering their questions like full pledged customer service 2.0 in a way that we've never seen before. And for the big companies, the people that are listening right now that are brand managers and things of that nature, it's hard because they like buying commercials and billboards and radio and being done with it. For the little guys, they like building lists, sending an offer and watching it come in. I just have bad news. The world's going to look a lot different in five years and the conversions are going to collapse even more. And you're going to look at what you're doing today the same way you look at somebody right now who's buying full page ads and the yellow Pages.

I was gonna say that. It's so funny. You're talking about, like changing complete industries the way things are happening. Have you been following the whole Kevin Smith situation, Gary?

You mean with the Southwest Airlines?

Not with Southwest Airlines, but with his whole new movie, Red State?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I've seen some headlines I haven't followed, but yeah, I mean, look at, look at Carell, right? He got fired from a radio show. He makes more money now direct to consumer through his podcast, right?

Yeah, ex.

I mean, I mean, all this. Look, hey, Dean, I don't have to look very far. The reason I'm relevant, the reason I sell, you know, lots of books and get paid lots of money to speak and consult for some of the biggest companies in the world and invest in things like Facebook and Twitter is strictly because I sat in front of a camera and started doing a wine show and became famous and I didn't have to move to LA and get an agent and be on television.

Right?

And, you know, so all this stuff Carolla and Kevin Smith do and, and where the world's going is things I've been screaming and yelling about since 2006.

Well, I think there's a big, you know, it's a big jump from getting somebody's email address in 1999, sending them out, you know, a promotional email and sharing Christmas dinner with thousands of people all across the country. Like we did with you with your mystery pack. You know, where you're going during the Christmas Day show and you got your friends around and here you are, we're all at the dining room table with the laptop on the right there, watching you and creating this experience with you.

And listen, it's hard work. I mean, again, I will say it again, in 2002, 3, 4, I feel that I became lazy and stopped innovating. I could be bigger today if I didn't get comfortable with the fact that we had one of the biggest wine lists and I was proud of what I was selling. So I wasn't hiding, I was just pounding. And I didn't innovate. Again. I think I would have been doing video blogging or at least written blogging three years earlier than when I started the video blogging. So, yeah, I think you're onto it. And you're right. I am talking about revolutionizing industries. Guys, look what happened to the book industry and journalism because of the Internet. And now social is the next revolution and it's going to change a lot of businesses. I mean, if you're in real estate, how much smarter is your customer today than they were 15 years ago? Dramatically. They Google stuff. They know numbers.

Well, information isn't enough. Now, this is the thing.

Information has no value, Dean. It's a commodity.

That's exactly it. And what's valuable is interpretation. And that's the thing is with somebody who has an opinion, the same thing with why I believe Wine Library was so successful is because you're a guy who has an opinion, you're willing to share it. You're not going down the party line just because your store stocks this type of wine that you, you know, giving it a favorable review. We've got the clients who I've been sharing the concept of creating daily videos for, for real estate, for all the new listings that have come on the market, because everybody has access to all the data now. What they don't have access to is your, as a real estate professional, your interpretation of what's.

And what you're talking about is the Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric Oprah business. You're talking about DJing. You're talking about curating. You're right. The information's cheap, but we still watch the news. But cnn, all they're doing is, you know, the people that are winning. The reason Fox is winning is because they're winning on personalities that curate, not because of the actual news. I mean, they're in the entertainment business. I mean, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and these guys, the reason they have the O'Reilly, they're in the entertainment business. And CNN and MSNBC has been silly enough to play them in. They're playing against them in the news business. The world shifted. Nobody needs to watch Fox for the news. They can get that on CNN.com or Fox.com or Twitter. Everything I learn about in the world is from Twitter. I look at my stream and news breaks. To me on Twitter, I found out about Japan and Michael Jackson and every other darn thing in the world because I follow my Twitter stream.

I gotta ask you, like, you know, this may have nothing to do with something six months from now, but it may. Charlie Sheen, the Charlie Sheen phenomena, that we're right at the time we're actually doing this.

I think that's rubbernecking, you know, I mean, I think if you look at that carefully, that's. I call that rubber necking. We're just all watching and waiting for the other shoe to fall. I mean, I bet you, you know, I mean that. I mean, there's people just watching that to see if he's going to pass away. It's sad, but it's just, it's kind of ufc, it's kind of rubbernecking. It's in our inherent DNA as human beings, you know?

Yeah, yeah, that it is. That is. So for longevity purposes, you made this interesting statement. You said the day, you know, Judge Jeff Bezos bought Zappos, the thank you economy started. I'd like to get your thoughts on that because for one, I've met Jeff Bezos. I think he's a fantastic guy. I think he's brilliant. And secondly, Tony Hsieh's a real close friend of mine and I've interviewed him at Zappos and we carry video cameras around the whole frickin place and you know, explaining how they do everything. I mean, he just tells everyone this is how we run our business. There's nothing to hide here because what.

Tony knows and what I know and listen again, I'm going to say it again. Ten years ago, I would not have this interview and I would want nobody to know what I knew. What happens is you mature and you realize two things. One, you can't have it all, right? The world is very big. And two, I know that 99% of the people that are listening right now, they listen. I think that they've already heard enough to know that I've got chops. They're going to go spend 13 bucks because it doesn't cost all that much to read the book. And everything I say in there, they're not going to do. Do you know why? It's too hard. And I'm not.

Yeah, you can't. I mean, it's, it's tough to emulate.

It's execution, right? Level of commitment that you have, it's execution. And so the reason Tony shows you that, Joe and everybody is he knows that it's really hard to do what they do. You know, it's hard for a company of that size to truly have that kind of DNA. You know, it's very difficult. A small shop can do it. But you know the kind of size that Zappos was and the reason I said the day that Amazon bought Zappos was the day that the thank youk Economy was born is because Jeff Bezos, in my opinion, more so than Steve Jobs, which is going to make people shocked right now, is going to be the entrepreneur of this generation. He's shown so much innovation through the Kindle, through the Amazon Services, through Mechanical Turk, through Living Social, through Woot, through Zappos, the ability to be innovative in many different ways. And I think what he bought Zappos for was not a bunch of shoes. He bought it for culture, because he knows that that is a battleground for business. And I firmly believe, firmly that he is ahead of the curve. And he knows that that's the kind of culture and DNA that Amazon is going to have. He's going to look at the data of what that kind of customer service means. It's worth a billion dollars for him, and he's going to implement the things he believes in that came from Zappos and it's going to accentuate his business. I believe that that was definitely the first shoe to drop on a big scale. And I think that people are just going to be absolutely stunned on what kind of DNA it takes to run a Fortune 500 and a big company. I will not be surprised that if in 20 years, the majority of CEOs in the top thousand companies in America are people that come from the social charity world, because it's going to take compassion, not raw number evaluation.

Let me say something about that too, because I've heard you say that. Do you know why companies or people donate things and support charities is to trick people into thinking they're good people so that you support their product. And I love that too, being a person that spends a lot of time. I mean, yesterday me and Dean met with the CEO of Make A Wish foundation in Canada. They're just doing awesome stuff. And she's such an entrepreneurial thinker, unlike most people in nonprofits. I mean, up to this point, for the last three years, I've been the largest fundraiser in the world for Richard Branson's foundation, Virgin Unite. And I spend a lot of time in that world. And most people literally do it as window dressing. I mean, a lot of people, it's just the halo effect that they want to get as a result of it. And there's not a lot of authenticity in it. And in one level, there's all these do Gooders. But then there's people that are good doers and good doers are the ones that I think really make a difference. And at the same time, I am a full blown capitalist. I mean, I absolutely believe capitalism is amazing. I think most people misinterpret it. Capitalism in its purest form is a collaboration between people, you know, sharing products and services and value in exchange for money and trade. And I just think it's what makes the world go around. And, you know, the way to go.

Out and just do well is just.

Treat people, you know, just be nice to people, you know, be referable, be cool, you know, don't screw people, you know, there's the thing you say though, is you talk about the intent behind it. And I think a lot of people will hear, you know, marketing strategies. They'll read a book like, you know, say the thank you Economy and they'll start going out and communicating with everyone and just wanting to go out and just talk. But I mean, what, what is the. Do you really think of this as a, as a tactic or a strategy or when you're spending 12, 14 hours a day out there interacting with all these people, what is going through your head?

I mean, strategy, really doing strategy over tactics. I mean, this is my top line thesis of where the business worlds going. I'm thinking that I want to do business with every single person that I ever engage with 45 years from now. And that's how I make every decision, period. End of story, that's it. And the only way I think that's going to happen is if I pay forward, if I care first, if I give first, if I do right first, then I can win, you know, and that's it, man. I mean, I just, I don't know any other way. I, you know, it's so funny and you know, I'm a hyper excited guy. And so everybody thinks I'm a sprinter, right? I have very motivational DNA, so I get the whole Tony Robbins stuff, I'm a salesman, salesman. So I get the Billy Mays stuff. And I think that people are shocked when they start really getting to know me, how much of a marathon runner I am. Joe, I think you'd be probably the best example. I mean, you've known me for a longer period of time. We've talked for a while now. I guarantee if you rewind your mind, I've ended up being a little bit different of a character than I probably first appeared to you, given the hyper excited level of my approach.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And that's it. And that's now one person, Joe next. And on and on and on. I'm an immigrant. I'm willing to grind. I love to work. I don't like vacations, I don't like boats. I don't like fancy dinners. I don't want to take pictures with famous people. I want to execute. I want to build long term businesses. I built a $60 million bricks and mortar business. I'm not a blogger, I'm not an informationalist. I build actual businesses. I'm an executor. But what I've found out is through wine, library, TV and now through talking about this stuff, I didn't realize how much of a communicator I was. And I've been able to take very difficult forward thinking thoughts and break them down to layman's terms. And there's a huge value in that. And that is a value to me long term because the more I'm right, the more opportunities that open up for me. And you know, I became very good friends with Mark Zuckerberg. He's a dear friend of mine. He, unlike a Branson character, doesn't have a lot of friends, quote, unquote. And the reason I've been able to be a friend is because I made a video talking about Twitter's danger to Facebook in 2007. It was the content that mattered. And so, you know, I've obviously seen value in that. But I'll be honest with you, this book is going to wrap up pretty shortly and I'm thinking about putting my head down building VaynerMedia into this 50 or $100 million agency, doing some startup stuff. I want to get back to operating. I've been talking a lot over the last three or four years. I'm getting ready to operate again because the proof is in the pudding. If you're building real businesses, meaningful businesses, that really matters.

Yeah, yeah.

What have you learned through VaynerMedia? By getting out and being in trenches with Fortune 500 something.

And by the way, every one of my smart friends made fun of me for starting a service business, you know?

Yeah, that's not scalable.

That's right, not scalable. And like you're smarter than that. And why would you want to do that? And that's for B and C players. What they didn't know is that I was obsessed with understanding corporate America because I'm going to do a startup one day for it. Right, right, right. One thing I learned is that the sampling business, you know, how people, you go to a carnival and they, they're giving free samples of the new flavor of Snickers or whatever. Or you go to a sporting event and they're giving you the new pack of gum or you go to Bonnaroo and you're getting, you know, samples of the new soda flavor. Multibillion dollar industry, no innovation. So if I wanted to, I could start a Groupon like thing for new products tomorrow and I think I could build a 5 to 500 million dollar company off that thesis. Learned it by being in the trenches, you know, so. And then I just learned about what makes them tick very differently than small entrepreneurs. Small entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, marketers, people listening. Now they just want to make money. I mean at the end of the day and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. They've got to pay bills, they've got college loans, they want to live a better life, they want to make money. Corporate America is about climbing the ladder, Dean. You know, they want to, they also want to make money. But the way they make money is by playing the politics game. They're in the politics business, not in the sales business, you know. And so I've just learned like that's why things break down in a corporation, because Stevie wants to become cmo and this is a conservative company. So when we talk about social, that's too dangerous for Stevie. So he won't support it, he'll bottleneck it and I'll be that. And so I've learned the politics and understood how they work and it's been great for me. And you know, I've learned consumer brand products have a lot of money, there's a lot of opportunity if you're smart. It's not super scalable, but I know how to scale people. We're already a 30 person company. We're doing community management, we're learning about other opportunities and I'm just enjoying it.

Gary, for all the listeners, clearly the vast majority of our listeners are entrepreneurs. They're in that world, some want to be, but they're not quite there yet. But most of our listeners or entrepreneurs, what do people moving forward, what do they really need to know, say, have mastered in order to really be effective in the future?

I think they need to audit their business. Joe, I think you and Dean and I have to do that on a regular basis too. You have to think about what you're doing and is it the most valuable thing you could be doing. And by the way, it really comes down to what you want, right? Like some people might have A list. And it's great. And they make a million dollars a year or $500,000 a year and they like it. You know, they like the free and they want to spend time with their kids and their family. And I get it. I mean, the only thing I'm scared about is they're going to wake up and it's going to be gone and then they're going to be in a tough pickle, you know. And that's kind of really what I'm talking about. Other than that, I think they need to audit. You know, you need to make sure that if you don't understand this Twitter and Facebook stuff and Tumblr and Quora and all these new sites that are popping up, that you need to not hire a 22 year old kid to do it for you because they can leave. You need to know it for yourself. You need to cut out some of the dumb shit you're doing on a day to day basis. And you need to learn this stuff because it's going to be the foundation of our world. And so I would recommend people start reading and learning and understanding where things are going and take one step backwards, to take two steps forward. And that's probably the most difficult thing for entrepreneurs to do. They don't like that. Still do what you're doing. I'm not asking you to abandon your list or stop doing JVs. If you feel proud of what you're doing, knock yourself out. But if you don't innovate, you're going to die. I mean, the biggest dinosaur lost, you know, and so you just have to innovate. You know, if innovation wasn't the key, IBM would be dominating the Internet world, right? Microsoft would have never let Google get that big. Google would have never let Apple get that big. Apple would have never let Facebook get that big. Facebook would have never let Twitter get that big. But that's just not controllable. Innovation is going to happen. And I would say that people need to, number one and listen. I know some of the people listening to this right now because I just know the way the world is, are doing business in a way that wouldn't be considered the most ethical of all time. That's something we just have to attack head on. You know, you just have to, you have to look at that because you're just not going to get away with it. You're just not going to. People are going to talk, people are more connected than ever. They're going to paint pictures and those pictures are going to hurt you. You need to look at yourself like a politician because that's the kind of microscope we're all under now. And if you're not the right things and if there's not soul and meaning, if you're not actually providing value to your end user, if you're just trying to get value for yourself from your end user, you're going to wake up in 2013 and say, what the heck just happened?

Yeah.

You know, Gary, you probably don't even know much about this part of one side of my business, but I have, I have a site called Ethical Services and it's just, it's got a few hundred professional carpet cleaners and restorers that all abide by a code of ethics that they 100% guarantee their work. They promise not to use any misleading advertising, they don't employ technicians in a manner that forces them to do high pressure selling and make a livable wage. I mean, it's just a, you know, they carry proper insurance. I mean it's just a better way to select a service business. And they encourage people to review them and say, hey, tell the world what you thought of the work we did. And one of the goals I had is to transform the way that people hire and find service businesses in the US and maybe take it worldwide in multiple different industries. And part of it is the number one question going through consumers minds is who can I trust? And that's what it's all about. And people will trust what their friends are saying and what their neighbors are saying. Just like you talk about bringing small town values back to the modern world. And that's one of the things with Ethical Services that I want to do is literally just give people a way for great service businesses that operate that way to locate consumers that actually don't want to get screwed. And I think it's so much is in line with what you're talking about. Now one thing I want to address and ask you is because you talk about this is when people say, well, I'm not techie, I'm not Gary Vaynerchuk, I can't be on Twitter all day long, I don't understand computers. And I know you have a great response for that. And I think it'd be useful for all of our listeners that hear that, like, they don't understand it, they don't get the technology either.

I was, I mean, I did not grow up with a computer. You know, I'm 35, but, but I'm, you know, I, you know, I always say, and you maybe have heard Me say this. You know, you didn't learn. You didn't know how to drive, and you learned that too. You know, think about how many people are listening right now that five years ago said there's no way they'd be on Facebook, and they are now. Or how many people hear text. I mean, we all know that, right? Remember the texting revolution last five years, how many times you said to your kids or grandkids or your nephews you weren't going to text, and now you do. You know, Dean, Joe, I gotta be honest with you. There's just no option. I don't know what else to say. I mean, there's people that didn't want to use the Internet either. Don't say it.

You're screwed. You're screwed if you're not.

I just, you know, I don't really. I don't know how to sugarcoat it properly because I'm scared. Because here's what I'm scared of. I'm scared that anything I said here on this call today, on this podcast gave somebody an inch to wait longer, you know, because if you give somebody an inch that doesn't want to do it, they're gonna take a mile. And so I don't want anybody to be confused. My thought is this. If you do not understand this social web, Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr and by the way, not what it is, but how to use it properly. Not push, but pull. Work hard, not quick, if you don't understand that tactic and that skill set. But I just don't see a way for you to be successful going forward long term, which is, you know, five years from now. I think you wake up five years from now and you're going to be like, in a really big pickle. And again, I'm worried that I just keep somebody an inch. Somebody said, okay, well, then I'll figure it out. In five years from now, it's not going to matter, you know, because all the equity that everybody's going to build up now, they're going to take your stuff and you're not going to be valid or valuable in five years. You're not going to be able to catch up that, you know, I've already started. And Joe, you know this. I've started running this race five years ago, so that's why I'm so far ahead. Right? Other people are starting now and they're a little bit behind. If you start in five years, you're just never going to catch up. You're never going to catch Up.

Yeah, yeah.

And okay. And Gary, I know you're going to have to run here in a couple minutes, so I just got to ask you this. You talk about there's no such thing as a social media campaign. Social media is like a misnomer, but I'd love to get your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I mean, all my corporate clients and a lot of small businesses are always like, what campaign should I run? Should I do a retweet contest? Or if I donate a dollar for everybody who follows me to Japan and all these tactics. There's no such thing as a campaign. You know, there's a great case study in my book about Old Spice, which was the big win in social media last year, but they left all those communities, abandoned them. They didn't respond or interact with anybody on there. So my whole thing on this is that social media is unlike any other media. It is a continuing conversation. Imagine if you sent an email to 2 million people of an offer you did a couple years ago and then you had a respond to every person that responded to the email that if your offer was what can I do for you? Or what do you want to know about it? And then all those people responded and then you had to respond to them. That's how I view it. It is an ongoing conversation. It's the difference between marrying somebody and having a one night stand. Too many people are treating social media as a tactic, as a one off. Let's do something on our Facebook fan page. Great, we got the data. All they're doing is taking email principles and push principles onto social media and it is not working and it's doing more damage than you think. Yeah.

Yep, Great way to think about it. So, Dean, anything else you'd like to ask Gary before we wrap up?

Well, I think this has been very great. I think it's been an eye opener for a lot of people. I think listening just to know that there's no time for them. If they are going to wait, it's not, it's too late. You got to start right now and you got to do it in a way that is preparing you for. For going forward. As you said, you didn't say that. You didn't pick the title of the book lightly. The thank you Economy. It wasn't the thank you factor. It wasn't the thank you strategy. It's the thank you economy. And that's bigger than. It's a big shift.

I sat on that for a while, Dean. I was scared to use the word economy because you opened up yourself to a big can of worms. And I am talking about trillions of dollars. I believe it. I believe this is the maturity of the Internet. And I want everybody to know this is not just about Facebook and Twitter. There's Ustream, there's Quora, which has a chance of being the next Wikipedia. There's so many things out there that are happening. This isn't just one thing. And there's a site called techmeme that Dean and Joe, you should be going every day. It's techmeme M e M e. It aggregates all the news. It's a quick look. It's just a very quick look. You can read the headlines and you can have a sense of where things are going because it aggregates all the tech news. I think it would be a big help. I wanted to give something practical for everybody listening. I would definitely check it out and read it. It's a big help for me because I'm very busy and so I thought I'd give that little nugget.

Awesome.

That's fantastic. Well, you know, Gary, first off, thank you for always sharing your wisdom. You are an industry transformer. I mean, you really are. You're always on the cutting edge and people that really want to take their marketing to the new world, if they haven't already and want to stay on top of things, definitely you're one of the best people to learn from. If anyone ever has an opportunity to see Gary speak, he's funny as hell and he's just, you know, he's crazy and knows a ton of stuff and I would encourage that. Where's the best places for people to follow you that have never heard of you before?

Yeah, I would say the easiest thing. It's super easy to remember. And more importantly, just come and say hi so I can respond to you in there is facebook.com Gary G A R Y super easy to remember. So I would highly recommend that.

Awesome. Any famous last words from you?

You know, just please, please, please don't be stubborn. You know, don't be. This kid doesn't know our business. He doesn't get it. This doesn't impact my business. This impacts everything. And I just, I'm just very scared. I don't want to get an email from you in five years saying I should have listened because I'm starting to get those emails already from different people from years ago. Just don't put yourself in that position and don't go all in. Just hedge crawl before you run. But you've got to start the process.

Awesome. Awesome.

Well, perfect, man.

Well, thanks to all of our I love marketing listeners. Give us your comments on this, let us know what you thought, and go and read Gary's book, the thank you Economy, and crush it and follow him because he's a stud and he knows what he's talking about.

So thanks, dude. Appreciate it.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Gary.

Thanks, Gene.