How To Sell Any Product In 2026

0:00Attention will get you everything you want. You want to sell a course? Attention. You want to sell a t-shirt? Attention. You want to be the mayor of this town? Attention. You want to raise some money for your non-profit because you're passionate about it? Attention. You want to be an actor? Attention. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

0:23Attention. It is the only asset that everyone in here must chase to produce what they want. being unemotional about where the attention is is very important. Too many of you have demonized platforms out of your subjective opinion. A bad experience. And we must get over that hump. Once you sit in this room and understand that everything you want to happen is about building brand and sales in social networks, then you start having to get good at it.

1:03my big question is a lot intellectually know that we have a lot of super super smart people in the industry even on board level but why don't they act and what would you help them on on or arguing guys you need to act on social media and now and even on tiktok brand always outpaces sales that's it so what do you mean with that um because the next question people ask when they say okay maybe 20 million views a month isn't too bad for a country with 80 million visitors, people that live there. When do we make money with it? Well, I ask them when they make money when they run a commercial for$150 ,000.

1:45You will laugh. You know, you always make money when you have brand. Nike doesn't knock on your door in sales to you. You know it. To me, brand over everything. and the same way that, again, Robin, this is the same old argument. Making content on LinkedIn every day is far more effective than buying a booth at a conference or buying a full page ad in a B2B magazine. Yet, because they've been buying booths at conferences or buying B2B magazine print for 40 years, they think it works, but they don't think LinkedIn content or TikTok works. I understand this. I just, you know, I'll be honest with you, Robin.

2:27I'm not in the business of convincing people. I'm not. I'm not in the business of convincing people. I'm in the business of putting out my thoughts to be historically correct, to build my own brand so that people believe what I'm saying has more weight as my career with my gray hairs keeps going up. That's it. So for me, what do I say to people? I say, this is what I believe is happening. It's been very obvious that this is what's been happening for 20 years. and if you're not interested in adjusting to it, I think that's at the detriment of building your business. And how do you make money? When people know who you are and what you sell, they end up doing business with you and this is brand building.

3:04I don't know what else to tell you. Let me give you an example of a real estate or a mortgage professional that is all day long one of the most clever moves everyone can do here. You start a podcast around the town you do business in and now you're reaching out to people that you wanna do business with and instead of trying to sell to them, you tell the rich dentist in your town, hey, you're a pretty amazing dentist. You want to be on my podcast to tell people about your dentistry? Now you've just turned a sales pitch and not into a sales pitch, but now you're giving the dentist a platform. Now that dude's coming to your fucking house.

3:39Now you're fucking friends. Now you get the fucking business. That's a good idea. And by the way, let me tell you about humans. They've all got egos. Even though nobody's listening to your podcast, nobody asked that dentist to ever be on a podcast before and he's fucking pumped.

3:55As a DTC e-commerce brand, Yes. At kind of a impulse purchase price point. How much? 30 to 50 dollars. Nice. That's not one brand. Like it. Okay, so as that brand, Yes. What paid advertising platform would you target before others if you were just choosing that website? Facebook. Number one. Which is crazy, right? But like the way you asked the question, right? Like I only have so much money. Like your biggest upside is probably TikTok. But TikTok ad product is not as refined as Facebook right now for DTC. And there's enough vulnerability there that I'm not sure you know how to make the content for TikTok.

4:42What made everybody win in DTC with Facebook is you didn't have to make good content. Facebook was so fucking effective. The math worked for everyone. they didn't realize they were doing crappy ads. It just worked because the media was so goddamn underpriced. Big companies would rather do a million dollars doing TV commercials that none of you would watch than put into Facebook and that's where the arb was. So I still think it's Facebook, believe it or not. But I would say that if you feel in your heart or your stomach, you understand what I'm saying about make content for the platform and you understand the kind of content that could work on TikTok.

5:19and I would also say here's a real good hack for all of you selling something in that range. Post like crazy organically and when something goes viral, turn that creative into an ad. I call that brandformance. You're doing brand but the second the world told you like I like this video, you retake it and you turn it into an ad, you know, you almost turn it into QVC, not a TV show. Like you tweak it a little bit with a call to action and hard right hitting like bye, bye, bye and that will do extremely well. Yeah, we've had some content on TikTok that's doing well organically. So that's why I was eerie towards that, but meta ads.

5:58Meta ads crush that platform's so fucking advanced and Facebook specifically because you have an older demo that has a higher propensity to buy. But TikTok, the ads, the videos that have gone well, take them out again, tweak them with a call to action, put a price overlay. It's okay to turn it into an ad. and rerun it as an ad, I think you'll be surprised. This market is completely untapped, right? And I've tried a bunch of different ways to penetrate it and I haven't been able to do it. And I'll explain how I've tried, right? So, I won this, the way it's time. How do you define the market? How do I define the market?

6:37Oh, the market. Yeah, sorry. Parents of those with autistic children and ADHD. Children with ADHD, right? So essentially when this whole thing started, I was 16, joined like this Shark Tank for high school and had 20 ,000 competitors. So then from there we got like this patent and then it immediately took on this like own world when it comes to like media success. From like local news to People Magazine in six months to ABC, Inside Edition. And it just kept going for like a year and a half, which is awesome, you know, glory to God. But the thing was that all our sales came from like publicity.

7:13and then once that went away, I really didn't have the skills to be able to create that. So we're still like pre-revenue. Makes a lot of sense. It's a common story. You know, media coverage happens all the time. There's always a feel-good story. There's always something that the media wants to put at the end of a, they scare you to death for 49 minutes and tell you how the world is horrible and then they tell you a kid's got a chocolate business at the end. And to your point, that shit can pop off and you can get a lot of sales. But to your point, if you don't build actual sustainable infrastructure, you don't have a business.

7:50Exactly. Okay? That's kind of what I ran into. And you don't even know that the first go around. You just think it's going to go forever. And it kept going. It was so prolonged. And a year when you're this young is like a lifetime. It was honestly like two and a half. Because it was all the rest of high school. But then did you become addicted to that thing? Did you think the only way? Did you at some point realize, fuck, I need more press, I need more press? because that became a drug. So I was like, it wasn't a drug, but it was more like, I don't have any other way to get shit. There's no other way I'm going to sell shit.

8:20So I was like, I guess I just got to keep finding it. Let me just email the newscaster. Yeah, yeah. Should I hire a PR company? I get it. Like one of my, this is why I so fuck with social. Yeah. Because it's the one thing you can control. It's like working out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there's a lot of shit you can't control. You can control how you work out. Same with social media. Like you can't control if People Magazine wants to fuck with you. Yeah. You can control if you make a TikTok. Yeah. So I remember like, it got to a point, so one of my advisory board members, I don't know if you know him, his name is, it's like an informal advisory board member, but Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring.

8:53I went to him and I was like, hey, this press is going out. I don't know how else to get sales. Do you have anyone I know? And he's like, dude, you got to build that infrastructure. You got to work hard, you know? So for the last like year and a half, I've been just trying to different ways, right? So we went from occupational therapists and like ABAs, which they work directly with children with autism and ADHD. I'm just making sure that we don't run out of time. The next meeting, I'm gonna make sure you have your full 10. Keep going. So then I tried that, like a B2B2C route. Yep. And it hasn't really panned out.

9:25I tried, because my thought process was go to where the market is, right? So like, it's like. What's the website? Tassiomworldwide.com. So then I was like, okay, you know, maybe. The thing is that we've sold over 2 ,000 products with this press, and everyone loves the product. It's just trying to get it into the right people's hands. So, like I said, we tried B2B2C. We tried nonprofits, but they didn't want to work with us because we weren't donating anything. So then we started donating a little bit, but we can't sustain that when we're pre-revenue. My, my, keep going, keep going. So we tried that.

10:01I tried organic, you know, with my story and everything, and it only went so far. and I'm sure if I kept going it probably would work. But I think that's what most, like that moment that just happened is everything I give a fuck about. I know, I know. You know. All four of you probably know. I think it's all the school in the house. You know, but it's the fucking game. Like when I go to your website and it's not clickable to the TikTok even though the logo's down there, like that's on my mind. This goes back to the fucking details. even back to working out now that I've learned a little bit about it like there's a right way to do a fucking push up and there's a wrong way there's a right way to do a curl and there's like and this is like how meticulous I get too back to the proper device you were getting this shit Matt like bro it's real simple you're an e-commerce you're trying to sell shit you're trying to sell a shirt with an attached thing you need to do unlimited social media content so people become aware of it and then they need to go to a proper website like you know where like the shop is like this shop is not maximized to sell the most stuff.

11:08At all. That's right. And that's okay. Back to like, fuck man, I was fucking really good at business at all your guys' ages and like these gray hairs you see now, like I'm way better now. And so, but for complete clarity, like when you all go downstairs and be like, okay, what the fuck just happened in that time? What's up quick? Here's the clarity. You are selling shit. When you don't have unlimited money or any money, in 2023, September 7, 2023 and you are trying to sell shit the number one thing on earth is organic social media at scale because it's fucking free. And I mean like 19 posts a day.

11:49Or you're stuck in the spot that you're in now which is you're begging for a fucking miracle that someone's going to give you cash. And just pitch competitions with that money and stuff. If you flipped it and just understood you're 100 % in control. Fuck a competition. Fuck a VC. Fuck everybody. I felt like it was like an Eminem like that. I felt like it was an Eminem slide. Fuck a Papa. If you just understand that you're fully in control and you just have to pound social and start Googling how to make the best Shopify site selling t-shirts. Enter. Literally that shit is out there for free. Best practices.

12:33get the proper Shopify, get your social crazy, and start fucking, you know, start fucking DM, like, like, life's crazy. You were here on a thing, I decided I felt something, we have 10 minutes, you give your friends, I'm literally gonna wear this fucking humble hat. I'm so happy. And like, your friend's gonna be like, like, by the way, that's one in a hundred, and that's what you need to do. You need to, on the fucking, how are you getting back to Boston? We're taking ferries later. Beautiful. You need to be honest, yeah, you chop it up, and whatever happened in Europe, but then you have to like, start DMing people in Boston, type in Boston, fucking Newton, mass Boston, all that shit in fucking Instagram, hashtag search, top posts, click, oh this person's here, they have 400 ,000 followers, they're a cool kid in high school, in fucking Newton, rich kid, and DM them, be like, I want you to wear my fucking shirt.

13:22One in a hundred of them will. A hundred percent. But if you fucking, like, I don't know, like my whole thing is like, you know how I got here? By actually doing what I'm telling you to do. When nobody in the world knew who the fuck I was? I stayed on Twitter in 2007 from fucking 8 p.m. after I worked the whole day in the liquor store from 8 p.m. to 4 in the morning for fucking four years. Every day.

13:50You have two choices. The luck of cash which is harder than ever because the economy's soft though you're in a good school where some things could happen or sweat. I'm not very smart. Yeah, and I just think like what most kids are missing, even the ones that are about it, and I genuinely like, even if you guys are sitting here, like I wish I was in class with y 'all. You know, chopping it up. I believe you have it in there. I think this generation, and I don't want to generalize. Yeah, yeah. Because I think there's plenty of unlimited, you guys may be doing this, but here's the thing that I think the world fucked up for y 'all.

14:23When I was coming up, it was like, we didn't have options. When I was in exactly your seat, the internet was just starting, So you had to go work at the mall. You all know you can do magic here because you've seen it. The problem is 1 % of 1 % hit the lottery ticket of it happening fast. The other 10 % that make it eat shit for a decade. But everyone's fixated on the 1 % of the 1 % of the 1 % who hit something. And even those people quietly actually have to eat shit for a little while too. You're gonna start an apparel brand? Fuck man, you know how much Ronnie ate shit for how long before Kith mattered?

15:08Rude wasn't overnight. But it feels that way. So I don't know, if I'm selling a fucking t-shirt with a hook on the fucking thing, I'm fucking grinding for 10 hours a day on social media. Instead of what you're trying to do, which is what everyone's trying to do, is figure out what to do. Right? Yeah. Instead of pondering what fucking competition to apply to, lay in bed, listen to your music, yeah, look at some girls, but then spend eight hours DMing every single human in Massachusetts saying, do you want a free t-shirt that has 100 ,000 followers? Put in their story, ask them to put in their story because they're not putting a name feed in anymore.

15:46Snapshoot it when you fucking see that they did it. Put it into your thing, amplify it with$8 because that's all you got in media ads. It's people just lost that. because it seems like you can do it the other way and who wouldn't do it the other way? But that's fucking not real. Yeah, my dream for Tastic is really to become like the Nike for special needs. I get it. I heard you loud and clear. I think you can get it. I just think that you have to realize you have to go into a dark, dark fucking cocoon for the next five years and eat straight shit. It's real. It's super real. I see everyone who's popped off and everyone's gonna like, everyone's gonna think it was easy, it wasn't.

16:33Tell me, tell me which fashion brand you admire. I'll tell you like how many more movies you want to see about Nike of how close they went out of business multiple times before it actually happened. And you know how much luck Michael Jordan was? Yeah, it was strategy and the movies will show you, but like he could also torn both his knees. Like, you know what I mean? And one would have been it, but Stephon Marbury got hurt on their sneaker, game over. Right, like there's just a lot. You know what I mean? Bro, at 34 years old I worked in a liquor store.

17:07So of course I'm like, of course I'm pumping the shit I'm pumping to all your patients. Like real, like eat shit. Like cool, everybody wants to tell me, but what about this Gary? I'm like, the one fucking lucky lottery ticket? Go win the lottery then. What about this startup that did it in 18 months on some fucking serendipity of the stars, God's will like you said? Like, okay, cool. Somebody won$100 million just wearing a lottery ticket. You playing, you banking your life on the lotto? So I just don't understand why people don't get how lucky they have it. I don't know if I ever would have worked for my father if I had the internet that you guys have.

17:44I probably wouldn't have made it. I would have made too much money before then, but I would have made too much money because I'm a dirt kid. and even the dirt kids have become fancy. Everybody just thinks it's easier than it is. I appreciate that. Podcast Nation big announcement. As you probably heard at this point because I had John from Stan on the show. I'm an investor advisor to an incredible startup called Stan. Stan.store. I'm sending you right now to GaryVee.com GaryVee.com slash Stan. Go check this out. We've done a GaryVee Stan Store challenge which actually has a weekly call with me.

18:22This is built for everyone who's been affected, honestly, by my overall content. The tech stack, all these features and the minimal costs per month that Stand Store has built is really the tool that was needed for this world that I envisioned when I wrote Crush It, when I wrote Crushing It and this overall thing I'm thinking a lot about lately which is the individual empire, right? This creator entrepreneur slash entrepreneur creator economy that I think is going to eat up the oxygen, very honestly, the thing that so many of you want in your life and the reason so many of you are not there yet is you've got the strategy for me, you've got the ambition within yourself, but you don't have the tools for you to fully maximize it and I believe you can find that at Stan.store, but specifically, I want you to sign up for it through my challenge because I want to get access with you and plus there's a bunch of cool things.

19:14So if you want to go see those cool things, go to garyvee.com slash stan, S-T-A-N.