How to Build Personal Brand through Live Shopping, TikTok Affiliate, and AI

0:00I want you all to build more personal brand. I want you to drown out your affiliate content with your overall content. I need you guys to all build brand. You guys are salespeople, which is amazing. And some of you got brand things going on. I just want your brand to be 95 % of the energy and your sales DNA to be five. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Dave. Tim, the glow up is amazing, bro. You keep getting better looking every time I see you. So good to see you guys again. Charlie, how's it going? What's up, Tim? So, Gary, I just wanted to introduce everybody here really quick in the call.

0:43This right here is the heartbeat of TikTok Shop. Every single person in here is what makes the platform TikTok Shop the platform. We are probably at about half a billion dollars in sales with all the people that we have in here. We have the number one in every single category. the number one, two, and three of all time on TikTok Shop, and they've all been on my podcast as well. Bryce has led the biggest community on all of TikTok Shop. Brittany is the biggest home creator. Sorry, I'm nervous. I just love them so much. Luscious Cocktail number one. Kayla is the number one Korean beauty, skincare girl of all time.

1:19We have TikTok Shop right here. I am very aware of many of the wonderful faces I see on the screen. It's great to be with all of you. do you want to wait a second to let more people in or do you want to start or what are you thinking? Yeah I mean I think how many is there in here? Like 30 something right? Yeah there's 40 people in here. You feel like everyone's here? I feel like everyone's here. So look I mean everybody I've been paying attention quite a bit I'm sure some of you have seen my content my propaganda of how much I believe in what you all are doing. I would say you know for me simply put But I want to just continue to bring value.

1:58So I think one of the things we can do here, given that I'm across so many platforms, I'd love to start our relationship as someone who brings value. So I'm happy to answer anything about team building, content strategy, anything left field, dealing with all of this opportunity mentally, whatever might come to mind. At the end, selfishly, like I'm building a Disney Pokemon Sesame Street brand called VFriends which you know we've got comics we've got collectible coins we've got a lot coming we also have an entire food launch coming later this year my wife is one of the leading clean advocates so like we're literally launching the cleanest fruit gummy candy in the marketplace with literally no anything in it.

2:53Like my wife has literally not allowed me to make this product. No one on earth, everyone told us it was impossible to make. But we made it. So I'm excited about that. So I think for, you know, it is not lost on me that many of you do not dabble in collectibles or that the kind of product I have now might not be conducive to the kind of things you tend to normally sell. But I think my world will grow over the next several decades on this and years. And I don't mind starting with giving people a ton of value. And I also have no expectations. Let it be very clear from second one. I have no expectations of anyone doing anything here for me and VFriends.

3:35But I appreciate getting to know all of you and would love to kind of spend the majority of this time answering anything I can for you. given that I think I have some answers to some questions that might be on your mind. So Tim, I think people can just unmute and ask me questions and then I'll spend a few minutes at the end about what I'm trying to do with BeFriends in a little bit more detail. Who should we start with? Let's see. Is Allie in here? Allie's not in here. I'm in here. I just took her off so I have my camera turned off. Yeah, this is the number one affiliate of all time. $40 million in sales by herself.

4:12I mean, Allie, you want me to question? Allie's so gangster, she only uses the letter A as her name. That's where she's at. I need to get a change eventually, but I'm on it. No, I'm going to listen to everyone else's questions because I'm writing your notes. I'm in three meetings at once. But I'm going to listen to everyone else's questions while I'm taking notes. No worries. Congrats, Allie, on everything. Thank you. Perfect. Anybody want to jump in? Yeah, anybody. Feel free. We don't have to be like, I hate school. We don't have to be organized. Somebody can just jump in. I'd love to ask you a question other question Gary how much money go ahead oh ladies first Gary yep the mentality part and I'm really big in this part with helping creators with this and coaching them through the mental side when you bring that up what are you talking about specifically because I would love to kind of get your brain well maybe maybe this is something some of you know but like I've truly been a creator for 20 years now right and like have been able to be consistently in the game and successful.

5:14And when I say successful, I mean, you know, hold on one second, I just want to make sure. No one's in the answer. No one's in the answer? Okay. We're on. Amber, not successfully financially, though that's been good. Like I've been, I've lacked anxiety and negativity and depression now for 20 years and I have a whole lot of attention and a whole lot of things pulling at me. family, the public, all of that. When I speak about mentality, I mean about many things. One, how do you treat yourself through growth? Yumi, why can't Yumi hear anything? Let's fix Yumi. See if you can fix Yumi. Yumi. Yumi, somebody talk to Yumi.

6:02Yumi, try to come back in. Everyone else is good. So Amber, is it your own mentality? For me and maybe for some of you, if it's the first time you're getting into money, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with the family pulling at you? How do you deal with not losing it? Here's a big one. How do you get away from the fear of all this disappearing as fast as it came? Here's another one. How do you have a good strategy of being relevant on every platform and not becoming one dimensional on TikTok? Here's another one. how do you build a fucking team? Right? I went from being my own content creator for seven years to now having 40 people on my personal brand and 3 ,000 employees at the agency.

6:48You know, so there's a million things you are all thinking about but it's all the same shit. It's all the same seven, ten things about how you treat yourself, how you treat the opportunity and how you treat people that are, you know, parallel to you, above you, below you, financially or in organizational structures. And then the biggest thing I'm concerned about is all of you becoming one dimensional. You know, the biggest thing I see with these moments is people become one dimensional. You've got your shtick, you've got your move. Yeah, you've got your shtick, you've got your move, you've got your style and it works now.

7:24I know that all of you know this. Everybody on earth is gonna figure out what the fuck you're up to over the next 36 months and there's gonna be 17 ,000 versions of you.

7:36Can you say it in a way of like how do you stand out above everybody else in that? Or like personal branding? Yes, or understanding you can't just do things that are not authentic to try to stand out which fucks you up, right? You get fucked up because three people come along that look like you and are doing more GMV and it starts to change your behavior and you're looking for a shtick and now you're not authentic and now you're double fucking yourself and then it's a year later and you're making 20 % of what you did a year ago and you're depressed.

8:07and look I can only answer so much here like now we're going to therapy territory but I just like that all of you know from day one that I'm an email I mean I think my email's on this right? I'm not kidding you don't know me like that but like you can email me if in nine months this moment just resonated and I can try to find that 15 minutes like I love that shit and all of you have a high propensity of going through what I just said.

8:38Chico, I'll go with hand raises because it's easier. Go ahead, Chico. Yeah, for sure. Tim, first of all, thanks for having us, bro. Gary, quick story, bro. Eight years ago, I saw your quit college thing while I was just graduating. In the white t-shirt? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in a corporate job. I was six months in my first and only ever corporate job. I quit that job and then made millions online and just selling from Amazon FBA to Shopify, and now obviously social commerce. With you talking about the team, so I'm actually really curious, is there, because I'm actually in the process of trying to build my creative team right now, and obviously most of us in here have editors, most of us in here have assistants.

9:22What does it look like from your perspective to incentivize the team, or is that completely off the table? I don't think it's off the table. Well, everyone's incentivized by different things. I don't think a macro strategy works, meaning I think you need to turn your team into your family. Like Sally might want clout and she wants you to put her in content because she wants to use that to leave one day and that's okay. Our employees are not our hostages. Rick might just not give a fuck. He just wants cash, right? Susan might want work-life balance and maybe at this point you're growing so much that you can't give Susan the work-night balance she's looking for, which means you need to go hire Sarah, right?

10:06Like everyone's got different hopes and dreams. What I could not recommend to all of you more is get to know your people and actually care about them like humans for real, not some bullshit that you post once in a while about building a team. I have won for 20 years because I'm actually a good human being. Of course I want to build my company and all this, but you can't, and here she go, here's a big mistake a lot and a lot of you are such youngsters. It's so fun to see on the screen. Not everyone has the same ambition and wants and needs that you want. So you think throwing 30K more at someone is like what's up because that's what you would have wanted but that's not what they want.

10:45They want Friday half days in the summer. So how do you figure that out? You talk to them like humans and you get to a place eventually where they start believing you because you're human so consistently. it takes a while for people to trust you when you're the key person. The other thing I would recommend all of you is hiring friends and family is good, not bad, as long as you're up front and willing to potentially have a few months of fucked up shit if you have to fire them. That's good, thank you bro. Got you, buddy. All up to that real quick. Obviously we're all big believers in social commerce.

11:25What's the biggest leverage that we can pull right now that's gonna be the biggest payout within the next two to three years. More organic content that's not selling on all platforms to build up your brand, not just your sales capability. So does that look like, let's say one of us is in Home and Living, does that look like us just like showing us decorating our home or something like that? Could be, but it could also be that you also love bubble hockey and you're playing bubble hockey or you also drink beer and you wanna show people you like, like you've gotta show them everything. You guys know this, the ones that know me.

12:00I was weird because I wasn't niche. I was showing people all sorts of shit and everyone's like, that's not best practices and then I ended up being who I am, right? Like, show them everything. You might show them different things on different platforms and different handles. Right? All of you, for sure, the biggest mistake, I know it from a mile away because I know some of you, is you're not on enough different platforms.

12:26like everybody on here should be on youtube shorts and facebook classic everyone on here for example every day hardcore like you're on tiktok and i know you're not which will then lead to you taking thank god the monies you're all making and invest in more team and more ai tools make sense hey everybody uh hope you're enjoying the podcast right now make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. For context, get ready for this. On June 1st, the Gary Vee personal brand is going to be posting 400 pieces of content a day.

13:10So I think a lot of you have a lot of parts of your personality and you've been niched into who you are off this success, I want you to break out of that and show them everything you are. Because the only thing you're all going to have left in a post-AI era is you. And if you're only known for flipping candy or only known for flipping makeup, you're going to be too one-dimensional. They need to know what sports teams you like, who you like. The only thing I would tell you not to share is your personal life if you're like me. As some of you who follow me heavy, you may know, I don't go there but showing everybody and you're allowed to go there I just think whatever you give the world is theirs and I don't like that shit but you gotta give them who you are fully if you fuck with pancakes and you eat pancakes every Sunday morning like people need to know that shit if you golf your buddies like you've got to give more it will differentiate you that's right Priscilla I have literally all of you should be on Substack and writing articles transcribed from your audio and video.

14:16All of you should be on LinkedIn telling your secrets of how you're a reseller. All of you should be on YouTube Shorts so that your content gets mapped to Gemini and you show up on AEO and GEO when people search on AI. All of you should be on Facebook because the attention is insane there. All of you should be on Twitter X, threads in five, six word sentences, Snapchat spotlight is very similar to TikTok. No one knows what the fuck's going on there. You know, so yes, more, more, more, more. How do you do that? AI tools and more teammates. You're in rarefied air. You have money to be able to reinvest in your business.

15:00The money you're making on affiliates should not be buying you clothes and houses and fucking sailboats. It should be buying you team members to build a bigger company. Logan? Hey Gary, it's really nice Nice to meet you. I'm Logan Wolter. Pleasure. I wanted to ask you, if you were 21 again and had already put yourself in the top 1 % financially and professionally, what would you focus on next to make sure you didn't just win early but build something meaningful and lasting? Take a step back and start really thinking about what you enjoy. Look at my career, right? I was making wine content, then I was doing business content, and somewhere along the line, I realized I wanted to give back to mental health, and I started making content around the shit that a lot of you know me for.

15:41not just the business advice, that's my give back, right? And then my charitable work and then the company I wanted to build. You're very young. You don't fully know yourself, but you should scratch every intuition. You know what I mean? The only thing you shouldn't do is get high on your own supply and think you're fucking special and spend money on dumb shit. Everything else will be fine. You just have unlimited fucking time. Again, what I want to make sure is that all of you detach from this moment, this financial moment because that's what can fuck you up because all of you will make less money than you're making now at some point.

16:19It's important to know. You're so ahead, you're rightfully thinking you're gonna keep going up and you will, by the way, probably for the next 36 or 48 months but it's being mentally and emotionally prepared for being on the downside, not just the upside. Just getting in that place early while not letting that fuck you up from going up. You know what I mean, Logan? and it's a balance. But it's so early, bro, for you, you know? Saving some money. Like, if you're really crushing it, always having a million dollars in the bank in case everything goes to shit you can live off of. Like, shit like that.

16:53And then building up my team more. Yeah, that's the biggest thing, brother. Like, the biggest thing I know for all of you is building up your team along with your AI tool capabilities. And I would recommend all of you getting a fucking right-hander woman. Like a true fucking ace boom coon. like a real right hand fucking like family family. Whether that is someone you've known or someone that like early on or already you're like wow, that's my ride or die. Like having that, and I have like 15 of those people which is why I have so many things going on. You'll never build anything long term and meaningful without having a true right and left hand person.

17:31Ever. Because you're gonna get caught where it's on you and it's gonna fuck you up. There he is. John's one of mine. Kev? Thank you so much. You're welcome, brother. There's Phil, another one. Both John and Phil, who just left a smile and a heart because they're in my world, I'm going to ask them to write how many years they've been with me right now. You need to understand because I've only been in this part of my career for 15 years and John was two years before I went all in. Look at this. This is together with me this many years. It's almost as long as some of you fuckers have been born. So I really live what I talk about.

18:13It matters. Kev? So what's up? Very nice to meet you. I've been following you since like 2014. Been online space since like 1998, 1999. Borrowed my mom's credit card to get online and build websites, blah, blah. You know, the whole thing. Yeah, it's awesome, man. It's awesome. Just straight into it. So VFriends, I went on the shop. It looks like you guys have about a thousand sales on one of your comics, this is comic number eight. How do we help you just blow this up? Everything, yeah, let me jump right in. You're so epic, so thank you. And by the way, what just happened is what I want for all of you.

18:47I want all of you to have so much equity for so long that everything flows for you forever. Right, for Kev, he's gotten 12 years of value from me. Even though he's one of the biggest winners, he wants to do something versus what everybody else needs. Everybody wants something from you, right? Any of you that are interested in getting into the collectible space, it's gonna be very lucrative for you because it's one of the biggest trends in society. Collecting is joining music and sports and all that. So I'm excited because if that is in your DNA, some of you it's like, no, that's just not what I'm about, which is amazing.

19:23But for the ones that even have collected in their life or into it, we're very Pokemon-like and very Sesame Street and Disney-like. So very family values, but also our comics that sold for 20 bucks on TikTok Live nine months ago sell for$300 on eBay, right? So there's a lot of like collectible stuff. So it's a real opportunity. So Kev, the biggest thing you could do for me is send me an email to the email here of like, okay, I see what you got so far. I would just consider like highly, like TikTok, the organic shop sales is tough, right? Yes. It's really gone down. So I would really just keep in mind manufacturing a lot of budget for marketing dollars behind us.

20:04It's exactly where I'm at. It's exactly where I'm at. And Tim, thank you for having Gary Vee. That's very flattering. There he is. That's a comic named after me. All right, let's keep going. Who's next? Skateboard?

20:16Yo, what's up, Gary? What's up? Skateboard, real quick, one second. Everyone, it's very clear to me that we need to allocate more time for this. So I'm going to work with Charlie to get us more time because I see all the hands and I want to get to all of them. Go ahead. Pretty much, you answered, the questions I had, everybody already kind of asked, but I did want to ask one thing. It's kind of like a two-part question. So social commerce, I think we're still at the ground floor of the Kennedy. I agree, I agree. So where do you see that in the next five years? I know you already talked about, I guess my question is scaling affiliate, right?

20:51How do we do that? Is it multiple accounts, multiple social sites that we already talked about? I just said you already answered a lot of the. Yeah, I want you, I give you the answer. I want you all to build more personal brand. I want you to drown out your affiliate content with your overall content. Okay, for sure. That was one of my biggest thoughts. Yeah, I could see, I'm sorry to interrupt, I could see how many of you just shook, like that was a little bit of an aha. I need you guys to all build brand. You guys are salespeople, which is amazing. And some of you got brand things going on. I just want your brand to be 95 % of the energy and your sales DNA to be five.

21:33Okay, cool. And again, skateboard, and again, I'm sorry to interrupt because I just want to give everyone value. I need you to give the world much more of everything you're into. Again, I actually on the record don't recommend personal life, but I'm not your mother. You're allowed to share whatever the fuck you want, but every interest, everything you're into, including, like if, I'm looking at Bryce right now. If Bryce was just starting to pick up golf, he's just starting to pick it up. His buddies are starting to pick it up. I need to see that shit. I guess the second part of it was more about the team side of things.

22:14So you mentioned that, you know, AI is obviously, I think it's gonna play a massive part in coming things. So I know nothing about AI. So I should hire somebody on the team who is an AI specialist. No. Or I should just start diving into it. You have to dive into it because if you don't know it, you don't need to know everything. But if you know nothing, you're not gonna be able to judge if the person you hired knows anything. Okay. Makes sense. All of you are now at the top of the sphere. You don't need to be, I'm not an expert in a lot of things, but I know everything in my world dangerous enough to know if it's going good or bad.

22:51Make sense? Cool. Okay. And none of, and by the way, board back to you and everyone. No one here is allowed to not pay attention to AI. It's going to change your entire fucking life. Yeah, agreed. Love you, pal. Hey, Gary. It's Matt, but my username doesn't make it. First off, big fan of yours. Tim has orchestrated all this. Without that, he would never get here. Appreciate Tim so much. I am now, after the 2024 ban, I'm doing in about a 60-40 split. It used to be 100 % TikTok shop. I've made$22 million in TikTok shop alone. So I'm a multimillionaire because of TikTok shop. Going into 2025, I knew I was going to start splitting more brand deals.

23:35I still want to know your opinion. What do you think that short-term affiliates are smart, but long-term, they're just dumb? I don't know. I'm bullish affiliate long-term, but Matt, we have to do the things I'm talking about, right? I want you to stay relevant from a brand standpoint. There's a lot more affiliate to come, brother. You know how big fucking Facebook and Instagram is? So like, again, I think there's a lot to be done. I also think more money's coming into your world. So yes, there'll be more AI influencers, there'll be more people. It's just supply and demand, Matt, right? Like first movers always get a good big, but there are best practices.

24:16But again, to your point, like the other thing to think about is when you make money, like, do you know yourself in here? Meaning like, do you know that there's something else you could be doing or something else you like more? And again, it also is and, not or. I'm a creator and an entrepreneur. I have a marketing agency and a sports agency and this Pokemon thing I'm doing and a restaurant group and a TV production company. You know, and again, I'm also a fucking psycho when it comes to business. I love it more than breathing. Some of you, like, I think it's appropriate to cash out and go to Jamaica and smoke weed and fish all day.

24:57I don't fucking know you. Like, you know you, but you need to be you. So, couple things. I don't think affiliate is gonna go anywhere. It'll go through the normal twists that I've seen a lot of times. There'll be moments where certain platforms have incredible arbitrage. right so I'd move fast on meta if I were you but all of you have to build better teams more content more brand more diversification and don't be scared to waste your time right now you might be crutching on GMB in a certain category be okay with doing less GMB in a new category because you're creating diversification now if that new category can fit something that's natural to you well then now we're cooking and I mean weird shit like if you're weird about your toothpaste and you're really peculiar about toothpaste start making organic toothpaste content and affiliate toothpaste content but Matt I wouldn't jump off affiliate in a macro thesis too soon because we still have a whole five year window to go through does that make sense?

26:10but it's and not or appreciate you the other thing is you have enough of an audience and enough of a selling capability that you might want to build your own products some of you might be in the financial place now where you're affiliating your fucking self I'm gonna do that