Why You’re Not Able To Sell… even though You’re Doing All The Right Things | Tea with GaryVee ep 75

That's crazy to me to hear that many views with that few sales. There's no way you should have 10,000 views on average and zero book sales. It means that the community can sense that you're not in it with them. Views do not mean community effort. In talking to people on DM and in the comments and going live and interacting with people is community. These little interactions, when I mention names, when I engage, when I reply to people on text, when I took that flight last night and replied to 4 to 5 dms, this is depth. This is a one person at a time thing. It is scaling the unscalable that will lead to the leverage you're looking for.

What do you think the second and third wave reactions to the AI ification of life will be?

That's a very profound question, Aaron. Thank you.

I have no idea man. Meaning I do have an idea, but people don't like my ideas. I don't know if you saw that post we posted yesterday about the grandkids being AI and fucking. People had all sorts of feelings of me. I've never had so many people tell me I needed Jesus in my life.

I, I look, I think it's big. I think it's fucking big. I think that this is going to completely change the world in the same way that the Internet did and that we are going to have a lot more time on our hands because a lot more is going to be done for us by machines. That's going to open up for creativity, for love, for health and wellness. I'm excited about that. There'll be some economic changes, but I think that the governments are going to play a huge role in this. My prediction as of right now, and this is a full guess, is that you're going to be looking at Russia, China, America, Saudi, India actually creating a unified global kind of almost like nuclear. The way nuclear was so big and was so profound and could change the world. The only way we're here is that there's been a lot of global government alliance. I think there'll be a lot of government alliance. I think China, Russia, America, they're going to be scared of what this is all going to lead to. I think you'll see some heavy regulation, some heavy handed government stuff on this. That's how big I think this is. That's my prediction for wave two and three. Governments are going to have a lot of burden to figure things out because it's that big big. Are we going to subsidize workers? Are people gonna get paid to just Be alive. These are things that we've not had to think about. That's gonna bother people. You're talking to somebody who doesn't like laziness. Imagine someone like me who thinks, like, we're too lazy to begin with. Now, motherfuckers are just gonna sit at home and get paid. But when you're talking about such profound technology shifts, everything's in play. And I think it's too early to start guessing. But I can tell you that I'll say this to make this a productive question. Every person watching this show right now must spend one hour a day researching and using AI. Everybody, all of you kids, I'm telling you, one hour a day. One hour, day. No matter what. One hour a day. One hour a day. One hour a day. All right, let's keep it going. Aaron, what do you got?

I'll get straight to it. I was just driving. I'm in the Virginia Beach, Norfolk area. Newborn news in Virginia have a meal prep business. So it's about four or five employees right now. Last month or last year, we did about $450,000 in sales. This year we're about to double. So about 750,000 on pace this year. Facebook, Instagram, doing everything that you can to the best of my ability. You know what I'm saying? Like, once. Once a day is, you know, getting there for me. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, adding. Adding people to the team. Got a videographer. So my brand is 3 PD. I'll just go ahead and plug it real quick. So I got the jacket I had your. I had on real, real fast. So we're 3 PD. So we're based out of, like I said, the Virginia beach area. But we're expanding right now. So right now, the demographic that we deliver to and do pickup orders for is just about 500,000, like, demographic wise, that we're like customer base. We're trying to expand to, like, the other side of the water, which is Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, that area, which is about a million customers. So we're already doing, you know, on pace, like I said, this year, for $750,000 in sale, which I'm super grateful for. It's like. It's amazing. Like, it's huge.

How, How. I mean, the Facebook ads should crush for this business.

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

First of all, I'm really proud of you. Second of all, I want you to quadruple down on Facebook ads. Quadruple down. All right, Mike, we're going to quadruple down on Facebook ads. Mike, what's your customer acquisition cost on your ads?

We haven't really run a ton of ads. We do rerun them like on sale weekends, like March Madness, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, things like that. Everything else has been social, organic for now. And so we're trying to.

That's a huge mistake. You can't be doing $750,000 a year and not running ads of your best social organic content to the 5 and 10 mile radius around your business because you haven't even, you haven't even come. You have an addressable market of a million customers and you haven't even come close to starting to maximize that area. You're talking about expanding. You haven't done dick shit yet in the general area you're in.

Yeah, yeah. So like when you. This is my, this is my question about scaling and me being the ce, like the head, the number one, being the leader. Like how do you go from doubling year over year and still trying to like, you know, I want to keep balance obviously too. Like my means, me and my wife, so we're a part husband wife duo. So we're full time in the business and we have three other full time employees. But how do we kind of keep scaling and keep pushing but not like over exerting, if that makes sense, like doubling year over year and then to even think about doing that again because right now we're in the area of Norfolk State where Michael Big is became the coach of the college for football. So that's kind of like a partnership and something that I've been working on. And that's where I'm actually coming back from delivering meals from right now. So that's kind of like something else, like doing the more B2B basically with the meals.

You're hiring people.

That'S how you hire people.

Faster. Yes. And then you got to fire fast or promote faster depending on what happens with those hirings.

How many hours a week are you guys working? Don't bullshit me. Tell me the honest truth.

The honest truth. The last five years I've been six days a week only off on Tuesdays. Pretty much 65 to 75 hours.

Yeah, I mean you're building a business like for yourself and you want to live on your own two feet. 65, 70 feels like a bare minimum. So I think you're fine, you know what I mean?

And we're doing the. I'm taking the advice of like scaling back. So one of our other full time employees, my sister in law, so she's Actually moving in with us to cut back on our expenses and our costs for the next 16 months or so.

Yeah, you're fucking doing it, man. I think you're doing it right. I think you. I think you should hire a little more, you know, More hiring.

Yeah, more, More.

But you also have to run ads because you'll get customers faster.

Gotcha.

Gotcha. All right. Love you.

I'm selling a book about people with autism that have gone on to live extraordinary lives. But I have 0 sales so far in the past 3 months. My average view count on IG 10k per video with one video getting almost a million views. I'm paying for ads and driving traffic to my website. Viewers are there, purchases are not. What am I doing wrong?

Clearly something like.

That'S crazy to me to hear that many views with that few sales.

For something that's so inexpensive. So, friends, I'm going to teach everybody one of the great lessons of business right now. The number one reason I am sitting here today is because I spent all of 2007-2011 interacting with people in comments.

The reason Veefriends has had a very good launch just now. If you talk to Shep and Kirby and some of the kids on the Veefriends team, they will tell you the one on one DMS and the content. Excuse me. The community engagement. Replying to comments in our posts has been everything. I will tell you that what I'm doing right now in this nanosecond is deepening the relationship I have with this audience.

100% of why people are getting caught in this question is they think views means community.

Views do not mean community effort. In talking to people on DM and in the comments and going live and interacting with people is community. These little interactions, when I mention names, when I engage, when I reply to people on text, when I took that flight last night and replied to 4 to 5 dms, this is depth. This is depth. And I think the reason they haven't sold any books is no one gives a shit about them. And that's because getting views does not mean people care. Getting engagement is where all of you have to get up. You have to get that up. You have to go back and forth. On Twitter. In 0789, it wasn't even just one reply or a heart or a thumbs up. Somebody would say something about wine. I would reply. They would reply, I would reply. This was 4, 5, 6, 7 hours a night of engaging with 13, 15, 23 people. Rips will tell you other people, Ross will tell you people, you know, Zach will tell you, like in the chat, I keep saying, one person at a time, one person at a time, one person at a time. This is a one person at a time thing. There's no way you should have 10,000 views on average and some with millions and zero book sales. It means that the community can sense that you're not in it with them.

The end. Yesterday I was in Nashville. I went to two different card stores. 30, 40 people. Not 5030, 40 people. Shake a hand, kiss a baby, hug it out, answer a question. It is scaling the unscalable that will lead to the leverage you're looking for. Everybody scale the unscalable. Dylan Y says. What does scale the unscalable mean, Dylan? It means to reply to people one by 1in DM and comments on every piece of social. Social media that you post. And going live for an hour a day and just answering people's questions. That is the firm definition.

If your content hits consistently on TikTok and YouTube, so I don't think the content is outright bad, but it's not hitting on IG or Facebook. Even with trying different types of content throughout different platforms. What do you recommend? Been posting consistently every day, everywhere, but no traction on Facebook or Instagram.

That's unusual. So I'd love to understand, you know, when I wait, hitting on what TikTok.

And what talk and YouTube, it might.

Skew young or very, very specific. You know, I'm trying to figure it out. Like, look, Facebook and Instagram is harder to break out on because of the supply and demand of attention. But really it's, you know, this is where I sometimes need to be able to follow up because it's like, how long and what, you know, again, for a lot. Sometimes you don't break out for 18 to 24 months. You know, like, I just don't know how long they've been at it, but it sounds like they're doing the right things. And I think, you know, I kind of think about it like chest muscles. For me, like, I did all the right things for like seven years and still had not one chest muscle. Like, my little body was just not, you know, built in a way that that's gonna show. And then literally out of nowhere, I just did a different kind of version of a push up for literally nine weeks. And all the groundwork, it just showed up. It's nothing special, but at least I can see it. And I felt. I felt really accomplished. But it took fucking nine years. It was plenty frustrating. Like you know, like, and so I think for a lot of people, like, I don't think he's. Or she's been trying for nine years, and it sounds like they're doing the right thing and just keep it going, you know?

So my question is, I mean, I know I need to build a personal brand. Okay, Just by. I mean, but I'm also not blind to the fact that I'm super blessed. Like, I have a really good life. I'm 20, 28 years old on Saturday.

And.

And like, my life. My life, by all, any measure is good. I have a good job, great wife, everything. I'm also like, yeah, I'm interested in a lot of things, like barbecuing, camping. I decided to go back to school for software engineering.

And so my question is, like, how do I build a brand around that when I have so many interests? But I'm not like, super deep in.

Any one thing by not over worrying about that thesis. Like, why is that bad? Why is it bad that you're into barbecuing, outdooring, software, you know, engineering, the Utah Jazz, you know, beer, video games? Like, I talk about a hundred different things.

That. That's my. I guess. I guess my thing is, like, who am I and why would people even want to follow what I do?

What's your full. What's your. What's your full name?

Kiefer Cox.

You're fucking Kiefer Fox Cox. That's who you are. But how do I bring value?

Like, how do I bring value to people to, like, say, oh, hey, I'm just this. This guy from Utah doing what I.

Think is fun by talking about shit you're interested in and seeing if people find what you're talking about interesting.

Okay, so it's not like, because I thought, like, oh, do I just pick a lane and go deep into that lane, or do I keep doing what I like to do, what makes me happy?

Number two?

Okay.

Yeah, I guess. I guess my main thing is just like, who. Who would want to see what I do?

People. Have you noticed what the fuck is going on out here, Keeper? People just follow people.

It's true. That's true.

Like. Like, I'm not interested in your insecurity around this issue, okay? Like, and by the way, the answer might be nobody. There's million. There's billions of people putting out content that nobody gives a fuck about because they are not bringing anything interesting. They don't have pac passion. Yeah, they. They don't have knowledge. Like, I don't know. Like, but. But to. But for you to decide that nobody gives a. Before you tried for a full year posting every day to see if people gave a.

Not gonna help.

And let me. And let me play this out for you. Would it be so horrible for this great life that you have that if you did this for a year and the outcome was that you didn't become fucking Gary Vee and you didn't make millions selling barbecue sauce, but the outcome was you made seven new really good friends in Utah. Cause they also liked your shit and you just became friends through the process. Cause they also barbecue with you and they rock climb with you. And like, the outcome of this whole thing was that you made seven great new friends and you had videos on the Internet that one day your grandchildren will get to watch and will be able to say, oh, fuck, I was like, grandpappy. I also had a red beard. I have a red beard like he did. And oh, shit, he was into rock climbing like me. So you would have content on the Internet that your grandkids would get incredible value out of and have great memories. You would find six to seven new friends. You might get a random barbecue company sending you some free barbecue sauce out of it. It sounds like there's a lot of winning even if you don't go on to become the most famous fucking person on earth around fucking outdoors.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, I get. It's just. It's just weird coming from such a place of like, my life's good. Like, I don't need. I feel like I don't need to build a brand, but I'm also sold. Like, I need to build a brand.

Yeah, I think it sounds like you want to build a brand.

I do.

So build a brand. Try. And if it doesn't work, it didn't work. Who gives a fuck? Lots of things didn't work. Like, my jumper didn't work this morning. Shit happens. Like, I don't know. Like things don't work all the time.

How do I build connections? I grew up really shy. I'm a flight attendant. And I feel like it's a great stepping stone. I just need to take advantage.

All of life is based on the following thing. We are scared of things. And the only way to cure that fear is to do it. I was scared to swim. The only way I learned how to swim was to jump in and finally learn how to swim. I was scared to ride a bike. Did not want it. There are very few kids on earth that were more scared to skin their knee than me. That's how much I did not want to skin my knee, right? How could I get over it? I just had to eventually be a big boy and fucking go. And had to take my lumps and hurt my elbow and hurt my knee and finally got there.

There is no way to break out of being an introvert until you start going up to people and saying hello and dealing with the thing that you feared, which is rejection. For so many guys. So many guys that are watching this, they missed out on the greatest moments of their dating life, and they're hooking up life out of the fear of even asking in the first place. Looking at all these dudes behind you, Aaron, they all missed out on some of their greatest stories that they would have lived with forever out of just the fear of going up and saying hello because they feared getting rejected. That's life, you know? It's not super complicated. There's only one way to fucking defeat fear. Punch it in the fucking face.

Because whatever you're fearing is always less scary than you think.

I watched my sister get out of line from a water slide a couple weekends ago. Just got out of line. I also watched my brother's daughter, who's 6, do it. And then my dog, my sister, got out of line and left. Walked right back down. Fear. She decided in her head that she was going to be the first person ever to fall off the slide and die. She just decided that.

Fear is the most fake thing in the world, yet it feels the most real.

Fear is what politicians, parents, and bosses weaponize against all of you.

Fear is what spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends weaponize against you. Fear is what society weaponizes against you. Fear is the biggest issue in our society. And right now, fear's having a moment. People are more scared today than they were 20 years ago. It's really too bad. I feel bad for all of you, but I'm not gonna coddle you. You're a bunch of bitches.

You. Let me say it slow. Y' all are a bunch of bitches.

And that's the truth. Like, that's it. You're a fucking bitch. And. And why I say that is you have to understand that's true. Like, you're a bitch. And. And as soon as you realize, wait, I'm the bitch. Not. Not other things, that's when you can actually address this issue. Like you complaining about other people. Like, that's you. And so it's really, really liberating once you realize you're the bitch. Because once you realize you're the Bitch, you can actually do something about it. When you think that the world's in control, the system's rigged, other people are lucky. Luck is a fuck. I need everybody in this world to get the word luck out of their mouth. Does luck exist? Of course. No, that's everything. That's the whole thing. It's called serendipity. But if you weaponize luck, if you say, oh, Mike's lucky, Dustin's lucky, if you're the person that's using luck on someone to justify why they're doing something well and you're not, you're a bitch.

Did we establish it this morning? You're a bitch. That's right, Dustin, very. I'm proud of you.

That's it. That was enjoyable.

Next thoughts on starting and growing a business at 62. I just don't want to retire. Thank you.

Yes.

I mean.

One of my thoughts, my thoughts is, is a very good idea. System two is child. 62 is a child. Like, I don't know, like, I don't know what else to say. Like, I know people think it's funny, but like all you 20 year olds, no, you guys don't think 62 is young. You're gonna be 62 and you're gonna realize how young it is.

Mike, how old are you now? Do you think at 18 that you thought 27 was like grown? Right. Do you realize now that 27, you're basically the same kid you were at 18? Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. And like, well, you know, what's my answer to that question? Answer is yes, next year.

How do you prove out the value of a personal brand? In building or boosting a business brand, intuitively and anecdotally, we know it's invaluable. And yet so many CEOs fail or refuse to invest in their personal brand.

So what was the upfront part?

How do you, what, how do you prove the value of a personal brand?

I mean, I think based on what I just heard, whether this is an employee or somebody who's running an agency that does that work for people, you don't. I'm not in the business of convincing people. I just want everybody who's watching Tea with Gary Vee right now, this morning to know I don't give a fuck if you do anything about the stuff I talk about.

I mean, you're not my children. I mean, I, I'm trying to help. Like, I'm out here pushing. I mean, forget gunna, I'm the fucking pushing P guy. Like, I'm doing It right? I'm doing it. But what do you want from me? Like, I can't fucking. What am I supposed to do? Like, I'm pushing every day, every day in my content. I have a full pledge team. All you fucking employing all of you for us to push positivity, practicality, tactics and mindset to have a better life. But what do you want from me? And that's how I feel about this, you know, obviously, VaynerMedia, does that work when a CEO's like, Gary, I don't think this works. I'm like, that's nice. Like, what do you want from me? No, of course it fucking works, you idiot. There's a billion examples of it. Like, but I'm not here to fucking convince you. I have conviction. I say this all the time. Have conviction. Don't convince.

Like, if you don't want to buy what I'm putting down, don't buy it. I do not care if anybody who's watching right now collects vee friends. I'm just going to make sure all of them regret not collecting vee friends.

I don't know what else. Like, what else? What the else? I don't need to convince anyone about anything. These are my opinions, these are my observations, these are my passions. I think it's crazy not to build a personal brand, but, oh, by the way, CEOs don't have to. Like, do you know how many people have huge companies that don't have personal brands? I don't think the only way to win is to have a personal brand. I think it's one of the ways. So that's how I answer that. Questioner.

What advice would you give to a 21 year old in college trying to.

Balance work and school?

I feel like missing out on school because I'm way too off balance and putting so much time on my work.

I think that's fine.

I mean, these questions make me laugh. Like, yeah, like, like, I don't know, like, neither one of them are gonna matter in five years. How about that? Like, real talk, 21 years old, school and work. I have a funny prediction at 26, it's not gonna fucking matter.

The.

The mindset you're learning, the habits you're getting are gonna matter. But the schoolwork or the fucking current job doesn't mean dick. I got a secret for all you motherfuckers on this show today, nothing matters.

Yeah, Court you like? Like, how about that? You guys want a real brain? You want real brain this morning? Nothing actually matters.

Like, it's all chill out here. It's all good.

You like that chat.

Like.

Like everything. You are capable of fixing everything. Everything is fixable.

Everything is fucking fixable. Like and because you could take dramatic action.

This is what everyone's scared of. People are scared of dramatic action. I said to my trainer yesterday, working out, I will move to Peru in the middle of nowhere and eat carrots, read books that were printed 500 years ago and be fine. Nothing scares me. I am not scared. The fuck am I scared of? What are you scared about, y'?

All?

What do you actually fear? The fuck are you scared of? It better not be opinions of fucking strangers.

It is dust. That's what fucking kills me. I'm dying on this hill.

I'm not scared of the opinions of my most precious loved ones. The am I going to worry about? Let me pick a random name here. The guy Seeker on whatnot right now. Or Quaso or Salvatore's Elm. I don't give a Salvatore, you like? What do you want? What are you all scared of? The are we worried about it?