Gary Vee Q&A From The Viral Video Launch Party - Part 2

What's up, everybody?

It's Russell Brunsing. And welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope that yesterday you had a good time hanging out with Gary Vee. So just put some perspective. His speaker fees to come to something like this is about 100 grand. And that's about what I had to spend to get him to Boise to hang out to give his presentation. And you guys had a chance to.

Hear it here for free.

So what does that mean? Number one, it means that this podcast is awesome. Do you agree? Do you agree? If you guys agree and you concur, then I ask you just one little favor. Tell the people about it. If you got an email list, tell them you post on Facebook. Let people know, like, I spent a hundred grand to give these two podcasts and you get them for free because I love you and I care about you. I want to be successful, so I hope you get something good out of it. Every time I hear Gary speak, I get more pumped up and motivated and excited. I don't know if he ever gives the tangibles, like, here's the steps to do, but that's my rule. That's what I do for you guys. So I'll give you the tangible, here's the process, and Gary will get you pumped up, so hope that's okay. With that said, we're going to jump into part two of his presentation with. Once again, we have edited out as much profanity as possible to make this PG, maybe PG 13, so that my podcast will stay clean for all the kids and the people like me who like to listen to clean things. I hope that's all right. Anyway, with that said, you guys enjoy part two of the Gary Vee Show. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital? We're spending money from our own pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Secrets.

Josh.

Gary, I want to talk about you.

In the airport, man.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. I want to talk about influencer marketing. Yeah, YouTubers, vloggers, Instagrammers. A lot of people are talking about Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Snapchat ads, roi. We can measure ROI with those.

You can measure with influencers, too.

You can, but it takes a lot longer.

No, it doesn't.

How so?

You've Got to make the creative. Be a sales creative instead of a brand creative. You can't measure the ROI of Facebook either when you do it the way I do it, because I'm pumping it for brand, not trying to sell you. I could measure it if I had a $49 course.

So how.

Josh, people are confused between branding and selling. Make phenomenal influencers. Go for the sale in the creative if they choose to, and you can afford them. Logan Paul sold a load of Dunkin Donut gift cards. Sales super measurable, Josh.

So would you focus? Like, let's pretend you're not Gary Vaynerchuk.

Right.

Let's take you out of the equation. You are.

Who am I?

You are a 41 year old. 42.

41.

Still 41.

41. Slow your roll.

You're a 41 year old nobody.

Right.

You have, say, a million dollars of investors behind you.

Well, then you're definitely not nobody if you got that. But let's just contact Joshi.

All right, fine, fine. You're a 41 year old nobody.

Yeah.

You're getting into the game, right?

Yep.

Would you focus on growing your personal brand or would you focus on leveraging other people's personal brands that already thing. So you. Would you. Would you ride the backs of using the people that you're building like that you're investing in and.

Sure.

Yeah.

Okay. Like, if you're trying to. Are you asking. Let's. Josh, what are you asking? I'll give you the answer. You're trying to build your personal brand.

I am trying to build my personal brand. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

Are you thinking about.

I want to build my personal brand in a different niche than the influencers that I want to invest in.

Understood. I think that as long as. Understand this, just because they may be in a different niche, they have so much awareness that the people that watch them may be into other things. Got it.

Yep.

So if it's a good deal on awareness, you might be able to convert and then your product has to be good.

Cool.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, that's the math you're looking at. You don't have to use the targeted nature of the ads. If the influencer's a better deal, even though you might lose 85% of the audience because that's not why they're watching them, but they're still gonna get 15% of opportunity. And then the whole kit and caboodle is, are you good enough? Cool.

All right, one last question. I'm a Die Hard, Die Hard Patriots fan. If If Tom Brady makes it to a Super bowl this year, will you go to the super bowl with me? On me?

No.

No. All right.

And not only that, I've been to the last six Super Bowls. They've been there two or three times, you know. And I'm now with Vayner Sports and Steve Ross, the owner of Dolphins, my business partner. So I go and the owner's dinner, it's all fun. The last two Super Bowls. Two of the last three Super Bowls. I left the city Sunday morning. I've not watched the Patriots play a down of a Super bowl game in the last four Super Bowls that they played in because I refuse. Everybody's like, the greatest comeback in a Super Bowl. I'm good. I have no idea what the you guys are talking about. I didn't see shit.

Well, you like winners and I'd like to invite you to the winning team.

No, no, no, Josh, Josh, you're confused, my friend. I'm a winner. You root for winners, dick.

Yeah, true. That's very true.

That's very true. Be careful. Thanks, Gary. That, by the way, you just witnessed my favorite move. Nick's Heat game, seven years ago. Dude walks by beer, remember? Sports muscles. Guys. I get up, I'm like, you suck. Sit the down. I mean, I get weird. You sit the. He looks at me, goes, yeah, we suck. Look at the scoreboard. I go, not them, you. You suck. By the way, the darkest version of what you just saw. And Josh knows I love him, but the darkest version, I go to Foxborough for every game. We always get on around the third, fourth quarter when I'm really getting on because I bring my jets jersey, I'm running in there proper. Right? Somewhere around the fourth quarter when I'm getting on, I change the conversation. I'm like, look, Zan, I'm super pumped that your entire self esteem is wrapped into your football team. Cause you work at Pizza Hut and so you. My life's better than yours. Maybe your football team is better than mine, but I'm better than you. Zan. Jared.

Hey, Gary. So going back a little bit, you talked about intuition, right? Belief in your intuition.

Yes.

I'm a two day idea guy, right? I get an idea and then.

Me too, man. After two days, I'm like, and you're being nice. You're probably like a seven that you let. Two, right? More. Right. Nicole, like eight. That like he bothers the out of you, right? Yeah, he's like, what about a drone ice cream company? Go ahead. That's a good idea. Thanks.

Brother.

So how do you develop that intuition and how do you like, support and strengthen your belief in your own intuition to.

By, by acting on some of them. The biggest problem is, especially when you have like people around you is like, you want to be right. Right. Like it's much better than getting made fun of for being wrong consistently. But like by picking, like just by. I try to do stuff every, you know, everyone's like, oh, you're always in it, like doing like just trying. Like nobody talks about the stuff that I'm doing that guys, nobody remembers the part where Michael Jordan couldn't get to the finals because the Pistons were beating him every single time. Isaiah Thomas, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. Guys, let me really unleash you doing more. Nobody remembers the losses as long as you have a win and you know, like, listen, some of you know my stuff and like, I'm starting to like, figure out my own stuff. It comes down to six people. Your mom, your dad, your siblings, your loved ones. You're doing so much based on their points of view on stuff you can't even imagine. You can unwind that you're off to the races. It scares me how much I value my wife and parents opinion and how much I don't at all. And in that balance, I win on a macro, I value them. But on a micro, my decisions, not at all. You know, Jerry. So you just got to do one or two of them. You go one for seven. It's a lot better than going zero for O. Yeah.

Thank you.

You got it.

Last question.

Yeah. Sign it. Yeah. Did you sign my book? 100%. Hi. Let's do it while I'm signing. What's your question, Katie?

Hi, Gary. I'm Katie Richardson and I was first introduced to you as I was trying to go to bed at night and my husband's got his phone on and I'm hearing this guy make a rant in a cab throwing, throwing F bombs, every other word. I'm like, what the heck is this? And turns out you speak tons of truth. And so you have won over this mother of four who's a business owner. And I love it. And so that's part of what my question to you is, is like you own who you are and I love that. And like that's what people are so attracted to, right?

100%.

You're up there being Gary. At what point like you talked about how you worked with your dad and it was a $3 million company and then you took it to 10 million after he Left. At what point did you give yourself permission to be you and then realize, like, tell us that story. When you were like, wow, this is working. People are connecting with me and my way of being. And like, what was that like, when you were like, this is working. I feel like I'm keep doing this.

You know, it's funny. Thank you. First of all, there's a lot of things there. Number one, it is 100% because of nature, nurture, because being an immigrant and always having a chip on your shoulder, you're always an outcast to begin with at some level. And I was a Russian immigrant, which was our major enemy when I was a kid. So I had some weird going on that I don't tell a whole lot. Cause it's not as relevant these days. But there's a lot of parallels to whoever the bad guys are now. I was the bad guy. It was kind of weird for a little while. Number two, my mom. Okay, My mom, blind. Like, I remember walking. Sophomore year in high school. No, freshman year. In high school, I'm. Freshman year. I'm 4 foot 11. My freshman year of high school, I spurted in sophomore year. I have the worst mullet you've ever seen in your life. I've got a backpack that I'm rolling with that's bigger than me. And I'm walking down the hall and I go. I remember this vividly. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm not the best looking, awesomest dude in the world. Like, my mom had me so brainwashed. I'm being serious on straight positivity that, like, that never went away. Like, my mom, if I opened the door for a woman. Like, my mom was super smart. I'm doing the same thing she would make if I opened the door. This is a true story, Katie. I opened the door for a woman when I was nine at McDonald's. That's the story. I went to McDonald's. Woman was coming. I held the door open for her. My mom reacted as if I won the Nobel Peace Prize. And she did that about all the that matters, which is makes me who I am today. Fourth grade, Katie. Fourth grade. I got an F in a science test. I needed to get it signed because I guess that's how they used to do it. I don't know if they still do that. I flushed it down the toilet because my dad hadn't gotten to me yet. And then, like, I was like. But I was still a kid, so my conscience was still around. And so I just couldn't sleep. And I told my mom, and basically three weeks later, I was sitting in social studies, fourth grade and said this. I'm out. And from that day on, I decided to fail every class, work on my business skills, and become who I'm gonna be.

I love it.

Thank you. You're welcome.

This is my second time seeing you.

Sorry, sorry, Brett.

I just had a quick ask.

I make amazing baby products. And I don't know if you're still having babies or not, but if you need, like, the awesomest baby gift for a friend, come to me. My company's called Pudge. Like baby Pudge.

Send me an email to Gary VaynerMedia. Okay. In the title, write our entire story. I was the one with the four kids, the husband and the bed. And you won me over. And the Pudge and this. All of it. Awesome. And then we'll interact.

Yeah. I'll make you look amazing as a gift giver.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Brett.

So I was going to say this is my second time seeing you. And it's funny how different energy, a different audience is. Like, the first time I went, you were like, you even told the audience, I am not excited to be here.

I looked at your stuff.

It sucks. And the lady had been like talking about coaching the whole time. Then you're like, don't do it. Just do stuff. Anyways, it was awesome. It was Provo. It was just a couple months ago on Provo, but it was funny. But anyways, quick side question was, do you sense different energy in audiences?

100%.

Okay. Because it's like a. It's the same.

I have my religions and my beliefs, then I have my craft. So I'm doing everything state of the art, right? So I have my thesises, then I have my work. I was in Seattle yesterday, spent nine hours. Understand the voice, space a lot. My craft, my craft. So I have. My thesis is. Brett. I have my craft and my. The reason I'm doing well in speaking is I take my thesis, I take my craft, which sometimes has some nuances that are valuable, right? Usually always ahead of the market. And then I reverse engineer the actual audience. I reverse engineer the audience. I give a lot of thought and speak to the people that organize. Who are you? Where are you in your funnel of life? And what can I bring to the most general? And how quick can I get to Q and A so that whatever I miss in the general, we can get to in the details.

I totally agree. Cause it's just a different energy. But I feel this time versus last Time. But my big question is when you think of, like, Levar Ball or Kim Kardashian or any of these, or even Donald Trump for that matter, like, hacking culture. Yeah. Like, what are your thoughts on them? And like, is that the kind of fame you want? Is that the. I mean, you talked about fame being the biggest arbitrage. What are your thoughts on those kind of people?

So there's a really interesting thing that I believe in, which is until you know somebody, you don't know somebody. Right? And so, like, look, I mean, getting political never works, but, like, you know, Trump's got his shtick, right? And like, he won on my thesis for the last 10 years. Right. Kim Kardashian literally is like. Like, we are all living in reality tv. People on reality TV in Hollywood, then they on influencers. They're all gonna pay. Because if you're not abiding to what the consumer wants, you will always lose. It doesn't matter what you want on your ivory tower. It matters what the world is consuming. But I don't, to be very, very, very frank, I don't think about it a whole lot. Right. I know why they're winning. They were native. DJ Khaled is an unbelievably important case study. In the last 10 years and the next 10 years, his personality was native to a platform at the right time, in the right moment, and he disproportionately changed his career on that back. Kim Kardashian. Donald Trump navigated reality TV when reality TV was what social media has been for the last four years. Somebody here is going to get inspired and make a Voice application for their business. That will be that for when Voice is here in two years, for the next six years, from 2020 to 2026, it's literally the same game over and over. Brett. So I want what I want. Listen, fame and exposure, you know, like, it doesn't change you. It exposes who you are. So I don't know how you personally judge those three, and everybody here judges those three differently. I just want to be known for what I am and who I am and how I roll.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

You got it right.

Hey, Rach, how are you? I'm here with my amazing husband Josh, who is like my backbone and amazing. I'm a little googly talking to you because I remember meeting Justin Timberlake when I was 14, but you're like my 32 year old Backstreet Boy.

He was an NSync.

Yeah, I love them all, but I love you more for the past seven years, you've given me the ability to be really authentic. I'm in a niche where it's very club promoting. It's network marketing. So I basically, for the last seven years have sold my soul to direct selling companies and I made a lot of money and have built an incredible following of network marketers and direct sellers. And now that I built a great team that's passive and I serve them and I love them, but I really want to branch out into more mainstream impact, primarily to female entrepreneurs. And I want to know, what's your recommendation for somebody like me who's had this huge niche? They all expect me to be the prospector, the closer, the lead generator, the team builder. Just now to say, all right, I'm someone new. Transition.

If we had coffee. I'm going to give you the 90 answer because there's 10%. That's too personal. I don't want to do it here. You will net. You have to. I have to figure out how mainstream you want to be.

I'll buy you coffee, I'm sure, every day.

I don't know how mainstream you want to be. So, like, if you want to be mainstream, like the COVID of Forbes and like, like mainstream, like all the way mainstream, you'll have to give up network marketing. Yeah, completely. Yeah.

And I have no problem with whatever God has for me. I just would know if that's the.

It's. It's a stunningly binary answer, Rachel.

Correct.

If you know, if you want to go mainstream, you have to give it up because it is not mainstream. What's that?

Because of the stigma?

100%. Yeah.

And then my last question and the.

Math around how many people make money in it and how many don't?

Correct.

My last question is, is there any trends that you see or platforms or any advice that you see with women entrepreneurs? Primarily my age, 30s, 40s.

Yeah. So the thing, you know, it's funny. Katie.

Right.

Hey. She. Hi. Katie said the most important part. I've become unbelievably fascinated and empathetic about the difference between men and women. You know, I'm super fascinated by it from a business standpoint. That's my lens to the world. It's harder to be 100% yourself when you're a woman than a man. I genuinely believe that. Because men are dick faces. Right. And so the answer to your question is to be 100%, radically, transparently, you. I'm also massively empathetic how that's difficult for everybody, especially attractive women.

Awesome.

But that's the answer.

Thank you.

You got it.

What's up?

What's up, man? How you been?

I've been good, man.

It's good to see you.

So four years ago, I was couch surfing and living out of my car, and I sat in a room with Gary and 13 other 13 other kids. And Gary told us that this app was going to change our lives forever. And it did. And Gary was such a positive change on my life. Now, unfortunately, they deleted the app.

What do I do? Yeah.

That's amazing, actually. I just wanted to make that joke.

But basically, I knew.

But for a real question. Real question for you. When you run into your failures and you feel like you're at your rock bottom.

Yes.

What's your next move? Because I'm always trying to reinvent myself.

Yep.

And I'll do things that work and then I'll do things that don't work.

You and some of your friends here at the table, you guys have a big advantage. And all of you have gone a little bit different with that transition of mine and what happened on Snapchat and Instagram and things that nature. But you have something very special. First of all, you have talent. Right. Second of all, you've once tasted what it's like to buy beachfront property in Malibu.

No, I live in an apartment, so. But yeah, that'd be nice.

But you know what I mean, AKA you knew what it meant to your career by being one of the first 40 people that mattered on a platform that became huge. Right?

Yeah.

Instead of trying to what you and others that have. By the way, you know why? I wish you could see the goosebumps I have right now. It happened to me. I won Twitter. Yeah. And then, you know, then I wasn't at the top of stuff. Like, I was in that 2006, 7 and 8 world, you know? Right. Why do you think the vine thing. And this is where I'm going with this. It's you, basically, if you choose to, it's going to happen again. And let me explain why. The reason I got you guys all together and I flew to LA and met with others of you. Like, the reason I did that was it was black and white. I'm like, I seen this show before, right? And like.

Yeah, you said that. You actually said that. You were like saying, this is the new YouTube.

It just was so black and white. And obviously it took different tax and the ones that kind of tripled down on Instagram had what happened happen. But you, instead of trying to catch up to what's Now I give you the recommendation that I took myself because I tend to only give advice that I've actually done because it just feels better. You gotta either hibernate, make do, grind through, and spend all your time looking for that next one that is 1000 you should be downloading. You, you should be down. You, you should be downloading a Top 100 app in the Apple Store that is social or consumer facing every day of your life, creating an account and producing the first piece of content.

Okay, I'm gonna do that.

Awesome.

Thanks, Gary.

You got it, brother. Gary, fellow 411 freshman here. I love it. Really quick question, maybe a little personal. You know, we have this engine. All of us in this room have this engine. We can't wear, have a hard time shutting off. It's what makes us successful. How do you, how do you balance work and family? How do you do it? By first and foremost, not adhering to the current state of political correctness that everybody here has deployed on me, most of all, right? And second, extremism, I almost took the whole entire month of August off. Like, I go all in, right? I go when I'm in this, like Monday through Friday, I do not see my kids pretty much at all. 39 weeks of the 52 weeks in the year. Just what it is. And then on weekends and, you know, seven weeks, eight weeks of vacation a year, I'm all in the other way. That's how I do it for me. But that is only uniquely gonna work if me and my partner in crime are aligned on that strategy. Audit that strategy every day. By the way, I don't even wanna do it anymore as now they're 8 and 5 and not 5 and 2. They're just more interesting to be around, you know. So like, for example, I guarantee you in 24 more months, this exact trip, they're here and we go to, you know, we go and see the Grand Canyon or something, you know, so like, you know, I'm so sad that so many people do certain things in parenting because that's what the other parents think they should be doing. Like, I don't know, like, I just want to make a very important statement that I implore. Every parent in this room understands everything that is right in parenting right now by the common standards will not be in 20 years. You're going to be judged one way or the other. So cool. Thanks. You got a brother Gary, over here. Oh, sorry. Hey, Alex.

Hey, how are you? Good fellow 42 year old? I think your mom and my mom should hang out Bro. Because I think similar stuff. Same moms.

Yeah, she sounds amazing.

And then just want to let you know, like validation on the sound. Totally true. Because I like literally take a shower with you every morning.

So thanks, brother.

Dude, I just play it. I got a little shower thing. I listen to your audio. I get it gets me going. So thank you.

That visual is awesome.

I didn't even think about you seeing the visual, but now that I think about. Yeah, that could have gone a different way. Thank you. So I got a two part question for you. One is on culture. So our company has grown and now we're doing pretty well and you've been to like nine figures and that's where we want to go. Right. So my first question is, okay, from a culture standpoint, when you grow rapidly, how do you embed the culture to make sure that it grows with the right people? Right. So we built values manifestos.

Ready?

Yeah.

How do you get muscles? By doing push ups.

You do it consistently every day.

I spend an ungodly amount of my time on HR. Like now I have 800 employees. The biggest thing I'm working on for 2018. So I have an open door policy which is not working for me. It's real open door. Like the key big thing for my two admins and assistants is when an employee asks, they get booked. Whoever, first day, nine years, done, not working, they think I'm fancy. And GaryVee, they're scared. Nobody wants to really talk to their CEO. So next year I'm gonna mandate that I see every one of my employees every six months for 15 minutes, which is gonna eat up big amounts of time. Culture is the only thing you trade on.

So you're going to see all 800 employees 15 minutes.

Yes, twice a year.

Okay. So literally you're taking that one. I agree. When I do the one on one time, it always works. But I'm just thinking that from a scale standpoint, like how the heck scaling.

The unscalable is how you build long term wealth.

Dude, that's a good one.

Thanks, bro. I think I didn't get up here for my lips.

Now we know how you get paid to stay on up there. Second, my second question was. Okay, as you grow, obviously have things you get. You've got haters. Right. I'm sure that people don't like you and whatever.

Sure.

So I always focus on the mission and the vision and the people that we're helping. Right. But when you get like certain people, I mean it still affects like me, like when I get this stuff. So how do you overcome that? So you can keep growing empathy for them.

Yes.

And like just their life circumstances or.

Sure. If a human being can generate hate, they're not in a good place.

Okay.

So what do you do mentally in mindset to just keep going?

I deploy gratitude that I'm not them.

Okay, got it.

Thanks, man.

Thank you.

Hey, man.

Hello.

So I started on vine as well. Doing like. Yeah. And now I do it on Instagram and I grew a large following on there.

Very large.

Yeah.

And it's still growing a lot. But I want to be ahead, as you say. And I know I have a lot of meetings about VR.

Yes.

And creating content within VR.

I'm a very anti consumer VR guy in the timing that I like. So everything for me is 24, 36 months. Yeah. Right. I just don't know how many people are consuming at the scale that you would be giving up opportunity costs in other places in 36 months of VR until I see even one person consistently consuming VR like an hour a week. Like if I can find one human who's not a really weird nerd who spends one hour. Right. So I think the reason you're feeling that is you're in the LA bubble. Everybody's pumping a ton of money from venture capital into VR.

Yeah.

They have.

And it's literally, I don't like. The thing you should study is what happened to the web in 99, 2000. The whole. You've probably seen it. Pets.com, all these companies were worth a drillion. That's what I feel about VR. It's coming. Amazon's coming. Right. Ebay's coming. But I think for you and knowing the arbitrage that you can trade on, I don't believe, like, if I was talking to you every week, I'd be like, that's not a good place to be spending your energy. Okay. That's my intuition. Yeah. I do think voice is incredible. And then I think for you specifically, because I know enough from afar, we don't know each other super well, but I know a lot from afar. You might want to think about what you want to put that energy into. What bucket. That's why it's good that you're here. Right. What I do think these guys do that sales and quant, like, or if it's, you know, a brand or an event or you're going to be able to push that energy towards something. You need to take a step back and get thoughtful with yourself on, like what other interests you have or you know, that that wouldn't come natural as the first thing you would think. Like, the five or six things you think of health and wellness and lifestyle. It's interesting. It's probably something subtle. Putting your energy into building in that world. If you want to really double down on entrepreneurship is a good idea. Okay, cool.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, guys, we have time for only three more questions. So we'll go miles over there, and then we have two here, and that'll be it.

Charles, get up there. We'll do four. But you have to stand up. I saw your face. All right. Hey, Gary. I am a big fan of mental models and ways to kind of overcome challenges. Yeah. And I like understanding other people's processes. So my question to you is, what is your number one business challenge right now? And what is your process to come up with that solution? I'm crippled by. Opportunity is my number one business problem, and it's similar to what I gave over there. I'm just attacking it with blind intuition. Every time me and my team try to attack it from a quant standpoint, it's too foreign. It's moving too fast on us. And so that's it, man. Crippled by opportunity, which is a blessing in a half, as you can imagine. But it's the truth. You know, it's the truth. Like, do I say yes to a second season of Planet the Apps? Do I? Like, do I. I mean, the Knicks are for sale. It's, like, running through my mind, you know, Like. Like, there's just a lot. There's a lot going on, man. I have a lot going on. Right. But I mean, other than intuition, I mean, I gotta imagine that there's a bottleneck in terms of leverage. There's. Where's the. My time? Yeah. I mean, intuition's the solve for the bottleneck, which is making decisions and deploying my energies against those decisions while leaving everything else on the side. Very cool. You know, I decided a year ago I was raising $150 million fund. I gave all the money back. I lost. It was the biggest financial loss of my career because I hired the staff, and I was going to pay the staff with the 2%, if, you know, venture of, you know, the overall fund that I was going to raise $150 million on. That's a lot of money. 2%. I had a pretty expensive staff. I was going through the process, and I'd raised about $80 million. And one night I'm flying home, and I'm like, I don't Believe in this. I don't want to spend this $150 million on startups. I think there's too much fake in the market. I don't know where to deploy it. I think I'm going to lose it. And I gave it all back. Right. That's intuition, thought process, understanding, you know, so I'm just doing that every day. Awesome.

Thank you.

You got it.

Hello.

Hey, Sabrina, Big fan.

Thank you.

But my girlfriend is an even bigger fan and I basically couldn't live down the shame of not asking you a question.

I love it.

So I'm a social media manager and I would just love to hear about what you think is the best campaign you've ever ran and why do you.

Qualify it that way. Sour Patch Kids candy. We made it a cultural phenomenon because we gave, we took all the money from television commercials, which, go figure, 12 to 15 year olds don't watch, and we gave it to all the people that sit at that table or the ones that look like them. We took in four and a half years ago. We took Sour Patch Kids marketing budget and put into Snapchat and Instagram when nobody was thinking that way. And if Anybody has a 9 to 17 year old in their life, they eat Sour Patch Kids. Awesome.

Thanks so much.

You got it. And Sabrina, to answer the question, the reason I quantify it that way, there's been campaigns that we've done that have made more money, have got. Excuse me, Made more likes or awareness or more views. He stands up here and he goes, thanks to Everybody. We have 100,000 views. I already know him enough to know. Yeah. And what's happening with those views? A lot of people in social media, they plan vanity metrics, not sales. The Sour Patch Kids is the answer because we've had campaigns get more this Budweiser, Derek Jeter and Harry Kent. The stuff we're doing for Budweiser is insane. We've really crushed sales. We're changing a tough brand in the US But Sour Patch Kids became the fastest growing candy in 20 years. Awesome. Thanks so much. Over here, Gary, real fast. Oh, okay. No worries. Hey, Lindsay.

Hi. So I'm a course creator and I also help entrepreneurs teach better so their students get better results. I'm a little bit at a crossroads. I heard you talking about.

Being in.

A space that's a little overcrowded. Right. And so course creation is a little that. Right.

Of course.

I see though, the chance to make better teachers, to make their products better.

Good.

That's one thing.

Good.

And I think I could do really well there.

Great.

But I'm also around the opportunity of. I'm a past tenure track professor and I left academia.

Okay.

And as I was leaving, fellow professors were like you figured it out.

Like go.

I also feel a calling to help professors kind of do what I do.

You should definitely do that.

So that scares the out of me.

No, no, no. I have great news.

But this is easier. Like helping entrepreneurs is so easy. Okay.

No, Lindsay. I know. But this is back to that Kevin quite like it. Like you got to decide what you like. By the way, I have a crazy thing to tell you based on something I've been looking at. Please tell me the professors are about to become easier.

I know.

Because they're all about to go out of business there.

No. It's a sinking ship.

Yes. But the ones. Guess what? This is the thing I wrote about in Crush it. I said all these newspapers and magazines are in deep. It's that the writers are going to be better, not worse. They think they're going to be. These professors are about to get the money they deserve.

Yes.

And they're brilliant people.

Lindsay, for 36 months leave money on the table. That was easy. From the entrepreneurs that are never going to make it. And go help.

What's my first move?

Start. I mean your first move is to build the business structure. Like what's the business that you want to do? Do you want to be TED conferences? Do you want to be a course? Do you want to teach one on one? Do you want to sell a product? I mean, what you need to decide what you want?

I want to help them plan an exit strategy and to realize that there's actually money. That there's a lot of professors that could probably make courses really good.

That's what you should do.

Yeah. Okay.

So charge like charge them money for your knowledge if that's what you want to do.

Okay.

And you know you can put that in seven different buckets.

Yeah.

Right. Thanks. I'm telling you right now, you're walking right into the one of what is going to be an enormously large space. And the fact that you were one of them. Do you know how much I kill with small businesses?

Yeah.

Not because it's funny and haha. It's because I was one of them. Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Hey, Gary.

I'm Kaylin.

Hey, Kaylin.

This is crazy to like literally be face to face with you right now. So thank you so much for answering my question.

Sure.

One of the reasons that I love you so much and love following you so much is. I really resonate with the whole chip on the shoulder thing. Yeah, that's. That's what drives everything that I do. I grew up super poor. Like, standing here with all these people right now is just insanely surreal.

Right. And you want to kill them, right?

I don't want to kill them. I want to, like, work all of you. Like, hit me up, please. But this thing that's happened is I'm. I feel like an entrepreneur on accident, honestly.

Okay.

And the thing that I love to do is. Is the business that I do that's making me money. But recently, I've started being, like, way more vulnerable about the whole chip on the shoulder thing and, like, in telling my story. And that's resonating with a lot of people. But that's hard. Like, I hate doing that. Like, I'm very introverted. I don't like.

Yep.

Being out there that much. But that's what seems to be making the biggest impact.

I have great news. It's binary. Either you do more of it and you get used to it. And like, everything in life, once you get used to it, it just becomes your norm and you didn't realize it. Now, you may never be the most extroverted, but you just exped. Everybody here can be a better singer, dancer, and basketball player. They may not become LeBron, but if you do it every day, you get better. You keep putting yourself out there, every day, you'll get better. So you can either choose to do that, or you could say, I don't like it. I'll leave the money on the table because I love the privacy and the private life and not having to engage. And you do that. It's your choice. You're in charge.

Are you an advocate for doing, like, what's harder, though?

I'm an advocate on doing. On doing what you want to do. Not because I said so or your friend said so. I'm an advocate of you doing what you want to be doing. But I always encourage to taste more because it works. You know, people here. Do you know how many people here hate oysters but have never had one? I think about that every day. That's how I think about business. Like, you've made a judgment on something, yet you've never done it. So, you know. You know what I'm gonna say. You know, you've, like, consumed it. The fact. I mean, I already know you're gonna do more of it because you've already done the hardest part, which is you've done it. You're now a foregone conclusion to me. Kp, you're just gonna keep doing it.

I thought you just called me that.

You know, like, that's what you're gonna do.

Okay.

You're just looking for me to give you a little more juice to do it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, which is amazing. And I'm thrilled to do it because it's free. Here you go. Go.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Just really quickly, is there anything that is hard for you? Like, I know that you're like, no. Like, your mindset, the way that you think about things. You're like, I'm confident I can do this. But, like, is it hard to, like, get up in the morning sometimes? Or is anything hard at all?

Spelling is impossible. I can't read for. If I was reading from a teleprompter right now, I would crumble and be out of here. Can't read for, like, you know, fencing probably is, you know, hard. Oh, I'm really way below average in swimming. Poor swimmer, like, always think, like, I'll be super pissed if I. Like, that's how. If I die because we get up, like, somebody hits a and I have to swim further than everybody. And like, like, yeah, there's. Okay.

Can I get a photo with you?

You know why you asked that question?

Validation.

No, it's the. No, why you ask me of that question Validation. The first part. The second part, you're asking me that as somebody who knows a lot about me because I don't spend any time on it. We all suck at. So, like, I don't care how you judge mine. You've got too, so. Because I don't care about that. The only reason people spend time on their weaknesses is because it's everybody else's opinion on it that they're trying to avoid. I don't care about your opinion about my weakness because I know you've got them too. So let's just move on.

Thank you so much. Can I get a photo with you when you're done?

Yes.

Thank you.

Hey, Charles.

Hey, Gary.

If you ever. I swim a lot, so if you ever swimming lesson.

Thanks, bro. Let me know.

I'm 37, so I'm not, you know, where you are at age wise. But, you know, I've been lucky a few times in life and, you know, I've done well and done not so well and everything, and I have done well. I guess my question is, you know, it's always the concept of the encore Right. You know, when my one company, you know, I've had eight digit companies before and now I'm launching another one and I guess it's like, how do you get into it, make bets on it, but feel accomplished if you don't outdo your last time?

Because I don't, I do not even remotely think that the financial part is the way I score it. Okay. You know what I mean? I mean that's really simple. Like out doing the last one is, you know, even the way you're position, I'm listening to your words, you're positioning it. Like if you're putting pressure on that I need a niner. Right. Then you're, then you're probably going to special. You know what's funny about positioning a niner? When you've had an eighter, it's hard to get going.

That's probably the challenge.

I know exactly what's going on with you, Charles.

Yeah.

And so that's why I'm asking you, are you doing the ambition of a 9 or 10 because you see the white space and you're going to strike like a cobra or is it because you really just want to do it? So let me give you an example. What I've been doing for the last seven years. I don't love it. Client services. Like having a 32 year old brand manager from the University of Chicago telling me what she should do with Captain Crunch when she can't sell. Not fun.

I'm actually from the ufc, so.

Great.

Yeah.

So like not fun for me. Yeah. But I know why I'm doing it. I decided at 35, 36, that I was going to spend 10 years of my prime as a business person building a Death Star of communication by eating and building a very big business. And then I was gonna point that Death Star, the Vayner X machine, against the Crohn's and Colitis foundation. Cause my brother has it and I wanna cure it. Some business that somebody comes along that didn't know how to run it. So I bought it for a million and then I can get it to 100. But I realized six, seven years ago, I now know who I am. Let me build the biggest infrastructure in the world around it. And then whether it's to help, you know, hurricane victims or sell sneakers, I'm going to be able to point this thing. So for me, I don't look at my ebitda, I don't care how much we're growing. I've made a 20 year decision that I'm in the process of. And I'm going to execute against that. And the numbers and dollars are just not the way I score. If you've been lucky enough to have the success you've had and you're this young, I would take a big step back and try to figure out, you know, what is like, the most fun or the most macro thesis you can come up with.

Great.

Thanks.

You're welcome, guys. Thank you for having me. This was fun. Thank you.

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