MicroVee: What Happened When I Sent a $400 Thank-You Gift | GaryVee Keynote Clip

0:00Hey everybody, welcome to an all new episode of MicroV. In this clip, Gary shares one of his most legendary business stories. It's a real-life example of how a tiny gesture, like sending a$400 jersey to a random customer, sparked a ripple effect that led to a$6 ,000 order, and potentially tens of thousands more. If you're running a business or a brand, and you're asking, how do I stand out? This episode has your answer. Let's get into it. I believe that if you call every single person you've ever done business with over the last five years and said, hi, I'll use Peter Holland here. If I'm reading my eyes, Peter.

0:35Hey, Peter Holland, it's Gary. Just calling you. I know we obviously worked, you know, did some work for you for 18 months ago. Just checking in if it's going well. Is everything fine? Good? Thank you. Hope you have the best day. That's the lowest thing you can do. Number two, you could also remember, because so many of you do, or the people that work with you do, you could also remember that Peter, like Dwine or like the Kansas City Chiefs or had 16 dartboards in his basement because I don't know, he's a fucking dart enthusiast. You could go buy a$50 dartboard and send it to him with a note and say, hey, just wanted to thank you for your business 18 months ago.

1:18I believe that if you scale the unscalable, right, we're in the whole talks of AI now and everything's so efficient and it's all technology. And I think if you go back to doing business the way that our great grandparents did it and call not new people who are gonna give you money. No, no, no. Thank people that already gave you money that those people will actually on that action even more than the quality work you did, the gesture of kindness when it was not expected, even a phone call or a letter or some flowers, chocolates, a bottle of wine, that that itself will substantially grow your business while everybody else is on defense.

2:11I believe this in 2011. I had an idea. I said to my internet department, I said, every single order that comes in, Google the person's name see if you can find who they are and then find them on Twitter this is 2011 this is literally Jesus 13 years ago it's crazy time flies so a lot of people have very common names so it's kind of hard to figure out but finally they found a name and the team calls me and says we found someone I said good you found him on Twitter yes we found the gentleman on Twitter I said who bought who bought a very low end Pinot Grigio I don't think it was Santa Margarita, but this gentleman literally bought like a$100 case of Pinot Grigio, eight bucks a bottle, shipped to Chicago, nothing.

3:00We made like$3.09 on the whole order before overhead. We lost money on the order. But they found him. And they said, we found his Twitter. I'm on the phone. I'm like, what's he tweeting about? They'll go, we'll read them to you. Here are the tweets. Ironically, ties back down, probably why I'm telling the story of how I opened this talk. I'm like, read the tweets. They're like, Bears, stop doing that. Jay Cutler, why'd you do that? Jay Cutler, I love you. Jay Cutler, stop throwing touchdowns. Jay Cutler, great touchdown. This guy was obsessed with the Bears. Jay Cutler, for all the football fans, if you remember, was the quarterback at the time.

3:33The team goes, what do you want us to do? I said, go to eBay and buy a Jay Cutler signed jersey and send it to him with a note that says, thank you for shopping at Wine Library. They're like, the jersey's like 400 bucks. I'm like, I don't give a shit. Send it to him. Done. I'm like now punked. I'm like, I finally found something. This is my thesis, the thank you economy. Here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna send this Jay Cutler jersey to him. The guy bought a dinky$100 case of wine. He's gonna get this framed Jay Cutler jersey with a note, thank you from the wine library. He's gonna lose his mind.

4:07He's gonna tweet about it constantly. He's gonna convert all his business and all his friends are gonna come and shop with us. This is gonna be a great case study for my thesis. I did a bunch of versions of this, but this is the one that really has a good story to it. I'm pumped. And then four weeks go by and nothing happens. I'm like, this son of a bitch is so fucking ungrateful.

4:35And then I'm boarding a plane to go to Napa to go taste wine to buy for the store and I get a phone call. Hey, hey, you'll never believe what happened. and just the way he said it, I knew it was that, you know? Because that was a month later. I really kind of forgot about it. I go, the Cutler guy did something? He said, no. I said, no? He said, we just got a$6 ,000 order from Plano, Texas. I'm like, okay, for a bunch of high-end Burgundy and Barolo. I'm like, okay. He goes, I want to read you the note that came on the order. I'm like, okay. hey Wine Library can you please hold these wines because it's the summer here in Texas and I don't want the wines to be shipped in this weather to be compromised P.S.

5:25your prices on red burgundy are remarkable can somebody call me I have a very big seller in collection I'd like to see if you have some other things P.S.S. my friend who you sent the J.Color jersey to told me about your store P.S.S.S. I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.

5:50You have two choices, in my opinion. The choice you don't have is to keep doing what you're doing because I know that whoever does social hardcore organically and then has the right model will outflank you locally or the person that goes most old school. Do not be in the middle. It is the worst place. Go OG, OG. thank you economy or go new school new school social media plumber of the year but don't be here because here sucks