Starting a Business, Building Brand and Overcoming Doubt | Tea with GaryVee Ep #86

0:00Podcast nation, before I get you into today's podcast, 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 Gary V. Stan Store challenge which actually has a weekly call with me. This 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?

0:48This creator entrepreneur slash entrepreneur creator economy that I think is gonna 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 Stan dot 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 so if you want to go see those cool things go to GaryVee.com slash Stan S-T-A-N now to the podcast this is the Gary Vee audio experience good morning everyone welcome to episode 86 of Tea with Gary Vee.

1:34I am Gary Vee. Live on Whatnot. My summer rustiness. Live on Whatnot right now. Everybody who's on my socials, I see you all. All right, let's go into it. Erin, what's the first question? Valens asks, I'm a college student, but I often get the sense that I'm wasting my time in class. I wanna create something meaningful, but I sometimes do feel inspired to be a classic student. What would you do in that position? Probably not overanalyze it. It doesn't sound like this person's really struggling. They're probably starting to grow up a little bit and realize, oh wait a minute, you know what I've been taught and structured to believe, which is be a good student at all costs.

2:13She's probably, or is she right? I'm not sure, Valens. Valens, okay. They're probably struggling with a very harsh reality that a lot of career students face, which is at some level you start to realize, is wait a minute, the real world doesn't really map to how I figured out the school system. And if they're trying to do something meaningful, you're not doing that in the classroom. I promise you nothing meaningful is happening in the classroom. You're learning good skills, you're learning inner people skills, you're learning how to reverse engineer a system. I have a lot of feelings and very substantial opinions that people are like, but Gary, education, I mean, like education is remarkably free on the internet.

3:01And I think the biggest and best educational systems that charge money to kids are struggling to keep up with it. I go to some of the best, for example, my world, comms and marketing. I go to some of the best comms and marketing schools in the world, their classrooms are, let me say this politely, a fucking joke. There are literally kids in the top communication schools in the country right now being taught how to write a press release. Or like basic, like, here's Twitter. Have you heard of it? It's like fucking asinine. So, you know, I think there's a lot to that question. Here's what I would say to everybody who's sitting in university or college right now and questioning the ROI.

3:44If you're not going into debt, your parents are paying for it, you're a great athlete and you got a scholarship, some other reason you're not paying for it, well then enjoy your last real vacation. because keg stands and hooking up and playing video games all day and like is fun you know in your early 20s late teens um but if you're trying to do something meaningful it's going to happen in real life aaron let's go to the next question carl asks in a world full of creators how do you stand out from everyday creators when you're following trends and formats how do you catch attention consistency um having the humility and the self-confidence to be your full self not worrying about growing followers every day.

4:29You know, there's a lot of mental strategies that go into actually being a creator. There's a, here's a good one, Aaron, actually being good. Aaron, you do know that 99 % of people are not good enough for us to give a fuck about what they're posting. And by the way, that was a very nice number that I just put out. The number's higher than that. And the reason they're not good enough is they're worried about them. The best way to be a creator that pops is to be 100 % focused on the audience. It's August 27th, I look at you six and you guys are in your grinding, like you're in your at the liquor store packing out shelves era.

5:13I, do you know what I should be doing right now? I should be sleeping in Saint-Tropez. You do understand that, right? I should be maybe waking up soon to my chef cooking me some eggs and my trainer coming in in the Hamptons. That is what my contemporaries are doing right now. Instead, I was in this seat last night to almost one o 'clock in the morning, and now I'm back. We started at 8.45. We didn't even start at nine for effect. Fucking grinding here with one massive massive thing to do this morning, which is to provide value for the next hour. Answer people's questions, teach people that are on regular social media right now, that's you all, how to come over here to live social shopping because separately, I'm telling everyone that live social shopping is the way.

6:06Erin did her first whatnot this weekend, I'm proud of you. I literally believe that, that literally I believe this, that millions of people have tens of thousands of dollars of stuff in their house and they're broke. They're broke and yet in their basement, their closets, their garages, their living rooms, in their third room that they don't even use because they bought a house that was too big for their means, they have stuff, sneakers, video games, Legos, clothes they don't wear anymore and they could literally just go on whatnot and sell it, virtual garage sale every day. but the missing component in so many people's game is tenacity, is consistency, is just calming things down and putting in the work.

7:02People become addicted, addicted. The great addiction is not opioids. The great addiction is getting affirmation for their bullshit. We become addicted to somebody saying, you're right, they suck. And they become your parents, your partner, your boss, politicians, the world. We've become addicted. My friends, this is not about generational warfare. This is about pop culture and human societal norms. Sometimes people didn't complain like this in 87. So we've become completely, completely, completely foreign and yucked to being accountable. And so I don't fucking know. I'm just out here trying to fucking put out content that brings people value because that's how you actually stand out.

8:10think about what he said, following trends. Like people literally think like, oh, if everyone's doing this trend, I'll do it and the trend will get me there. Oh, big winner, Classic Toys 117. Classic Toys 117 with a monster win, Classic Toys. Tell us all about yourself. You know, so, how about doing something meaningful? meaningful. Think about just a sentence. Hey, I can't break out and get followers because I'm following the trends like everyone else. That by just like, just separate yourself and just go to a zen place of simplicity right now and think about how obvious that is that that's not going to work.

8:55How about trying to provide fucking value? And that value comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. For example, value is comedy, right? When we laugh, we escape the things we're worried about. So no shit comedians are popping off. Beauty is valuable. Like there's a reason very attractive males and females get followers. Like beauty brings people value, right? But that's fucking like luck of the DNA draw or like you're not ugly, you're just poor, right? Like some people, we live in a world now where people spend real money on looking different like that, fine. But everybody has the ability to bring value.

9:31People know shit. People know everything about Beanie Babies. You could start a Beanie Babies channel. People know everything about MMA. Like my son, by the way, his knowledge of UFC is so deep at this point. If his mom and I allowed him to be a public figure, he could crush deep cut UFC. He'll talk about the 19th ranked middleweight like nobody's business. He knows his shit. That's valuable. By the way, he's valuable to me because I want to get my UFC game up. We're in the business. He knows more about UFC than AJ and I, and we're in the representing MMA fighters business. That's his knowledge base.

10:07He has a lot of sports knowledge base. I know a lot about business and marketing, and I've been an old soul my whole life, so I can speak about old soul shit. So, that's it, man. That's all I got. How do you stand out? How about giving a fuck about the audience, which you're asking for. People are literally asking for people to make them famous and make money on their back of their attention. It is give, give, give, and then ask. It's not give, give, give, and then take. And Mike says people are lame. I disagree with Mike Cohen. People aren't lame. People are confused. People have been mis-parented in the last 40 years.

10:49People have really leaned into insecurities versus confidence. People have leaned into materialistic status versus thoughtful, soulful, human, deep connection shit. People got fancy. People are hurting. And the only person they can blame is themselves. I'm hurting, and I don't blame anyone else, is the road to recovery. I'm hurting, and it's these people's faults, is the way to dig your fucking hole deeper. That's real shit. Ryan, how are you? Good, man, how are you doing? I'm well, my brother. How are things? yeah it's going it's going hey uh i appreciate you taking my questions so um i have been a financial advisor since i graduated college so 22 years old um was the traditional financial advisor you know going after retirees pre-retirees because they had the money yes um back in 2023 uh basically got rid of my business that i had started from scratch and now i only work with millennials so i'm trying to relaunch my whole entire social media uh i'm running a youtube channel i had a podcast but became kind of overwhelmed with everything um and really just trying to tell my story and and relate to people but i feel like my youtube channel hit about 485 subscribers in like three months and then just hit a wall um and my content is more of like storytelling talking about here's what I've done with clients and here's how it can relate to you.

12:27And I'm just trying to figure out is YouTube the way to grow that business? You know, I'm sure you're aware compliance is very strict. Compliance is not the issue. I hear this constantly from the biggest companies in the world and kids like you. Compliance is just reality, right? It's a restriction. You don't need to make fake claims financially or things that put you in a tough spot to gain audience, right? Compliance is the great subconscious and conscious excuse of financial professionals. The thing that everyone's not doing, brother, is they're not making enough content in enough places and using the social media algorithms to their advantage.

13:05And you know that. If you're following me, I have pounded this into the oblivion. For example, you look like you might be in shape. People that complain about not being in shape, don't go to the gym, brother. Like not only was I here at 845, Mike had me doing all sorts of weird shit today and fucking this and fucking that. I don't like it. I don't like it, but the work I've put in has given me some dividends, right? And so, YouTube's the answer, you know the answers. You know what I'm about to say. I literally believe your pretty face with those nice light blue eyes needs 50 pieces of content a day, not one.

13:40I don't know what else to tell people. Like, I could have not, Adrian, could you put up garyvee.com slash attention? I am so desperate about this that not only am I not asking you to give me that, thank you so much. Not only am I not asking you that, this is the book. It's$25. It will help you grow your business. But yet, I am so desperate to not even ask you for 25 bucks. I made a 44 page deck for free. It's literally linked right now. Now it's garyvee.com slash attention. I've said this, and you know this, Ry, over and over and over again, and yet I'll tell you what's happening, and you're gonna really resonate with this.

14:22People try for a day or a week or a month, they don't get the results, and they quit. No different than fitness, no different than anything else. The answer to your quiz is social media content organically at scale, at scale. And it is more important than everything else. And until you do it for 18 months at an extreme level and have nothing to show for it, I don't believe it's time to quit. But what about LinkedIn, for example? Where are you at with that? I'm heavy on LinkedIn. What does heavy mean? Like how many days, how many posts a day of original content clipped with thinking about the thumbnail, thinking about the copy?

15:05Pablo, are you available? get over here. Stick with me here, Ry. Yeah. Pablo is on my team, Team Gary, my content. Pablo, how are you, my friend? Good. Pablo, can you explain to people the sheer hours of just looking at math and looking at algorithms? Just explain what you even do sometimes. For 10, 12 hours a day, just talk for a minute. You know what I'm trying to explain here. Explain the insanity of it. So just spending dozens of hours every day kind of going over what can AI do in different modules of the business. Put AI on a shelf. I don't even give a fuck about that. What about looking at numbers to understand what thumbnail, what preview, like just like hours, Aaron, like our whole team spends hundreds of hours a week, a week just thinking about the first three seconds or the 10th second of a clip.

16:02Every platform, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, like yeah I mean you can go as deep as you want and then it's about reasoning like how much do you want to give into the data versus how much is the art that's the whole battle right but I appreciate it so as like a one person shop you know well I was I was a one person shop for seven this is the part that everyone gets confused about 2006 to 2014 I was a one person shop this is where it gets good right yeah like I know I know what you're gonna say I know and I love what your face just did because I fuck with you because I saw what I needed to see.

16:41Bro, I was a one person shot for eight years. And I did it every day, 15 hours a day. I just don't understand how people are asking for a 1 % life without understanding it takes 1 % sacrifice effort. You have to be a 1 %er if you want a 1 % outcome. Now if you don't want a 1 % outcome and you want to make$100 ,000 a year doing what you want, good news, you can do 40 % behavior. So that just becomes the question, but you're competing against the world because the game is free. People are literally complaining that there's, like the last, how do I break out, Gary, well everyone's doing it, no shit, it's free.

17:21You're complaining that you have a platform called social media that can change your life that's free. And so you're crying that other people are doing, you're not doing that right, but I'm just now kind of, you know what I mean? yeah yeah it's it's true and that's where like you know there's not many financial advisors that focus on millennials so it's like you know i know that i'm in a very small pot but you know what there is a lot right like yes ish right chase bank for example is a client of vayner's so i'm deeply researching at times like you know this there's a lot of financial advisors on tiktok starting to pop up yeah there's also a lot of people that are acting like financial advisors that are giving terrible advice, then that's the problem.

18:01It's not the problem. It's your opportunity. Stitch the fuck out of them. Oh, yeah. Oh, I have been. Good. More. More. Yeah, okay. And what's your thoughts on live streaming? So, like, I've been having this idea of, like... You should do it. You should be on Kik and Twitch and YouTube Live, and you should be answering people's basic financial questions. Watch this. Look at my chat right now. Everybody in the chat, I need your honesty, because we're going to help Ryan, and I'm going to help you at the same time. if you know for sure what i'm about to say say that's me in the chat ready who in the chat right now real talk like don't want to admit it but this is the first step to recovery have no idea what the fuck is going on with finance and like just like don't know how to do their taxes are completely fucking confused like don't know how to save money like really your financial literacy is bullshit because you know they don't teach that shit in school instead they want you to memorize what fucking mars how far it is from the fucking planet earth who gives a fuck a fuck yeah you see look at this right so you know like you've got unlimited opportunity brother yeah yeah absolutely and that's and that's that's why i started working with that you know demographic and stuff you know me being a millennial as well like i understand that we weren't taught this in school we were always told like save every single penny that you can get save for your golden years and it's like you know working with the retirees and pre-retirees the golden years might not ever come so it's like We need to live life now, right?

19:25Yes, but most people misheard that and decided to go into massive debt for a lease on a Mercedes and a fucking Louis Vuitton bag. That's not what we're saying either. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Let's not put Gen Z and Gen Alpha and young millennials on a pedestal for living completely in debt, but they're enjoying life. Based on my 100 ,000 DMs, they're not because they're stressed as fuck. There's that happy medium and people have to find their own happy medium. Correct. Find out what's valuable to you and what brings you value and make sure your spending aligns with it. I 100 % am on board with that, Gary.

20:00I appreciate that. Thank you, brother. I wish you well. Let's go into the next question, Aaron. Thank you, Ryan. More content, brother. Okay. Cody asks, I'm 39 and I lost everything in 2021. I'm trying to restart my life, but I've struggled at every job I've had since then, looking for my fifth now. I can't seem to shut the voice up in my head telling me I'm not worth it. Do you have any advice? you're definitely worth it um but if you're on your fifth job you're doing something wrong let's just be incredibly transparent you're not being accountable what could happen is you lost everything and you're shook you know a lot of people and this is gonna make sense i'm curious how my crew here behind the camera is gonna act when shit hits the fan it really does expose where your soul is sitting like one of the great things that i thank god for every day is that i really I really feel like I'm at my best when shit is bad.

20:51Because I'm very simple, I'm grounded, I know who I am, I was parented well, my foundation is strong. I think for a lot of people when shit hits the fan, they're at their worst. And that might be happening to this, who is this again? Cody. Cody. And it's okay Cody, I don't, by the way, I don't look down on people who are at their worst when shit's bad, I'm empathetic. So you're definitely worth it, but what I would do, and this is gonna work, what I would do is reach out to the people that fired you tomorrow and ask them nicely, because this would be a nice gesture on their part to give you five to 10 minutes and tell you why you got fired, and take notes and be humble and own it, and then read it and then address it.

21:41Like you have to make changes, something's not working. And I'm gonna go with my intuition that four companies in a row aren't wrong. That's just where I'm at. But you're definitely worth it. You're just in a rut. Jake, how are you? Good, Gary. How you doing, man? I'm well, brother. Where are you from? Tampa, Florida. Originally from Pittsburgh, but I've lived in Tampa for 12 years. So I used to love the kind of random. I used to love the segment that you did called Overrated, Underrated. And I was wondering if I could throw a couple of random topics at you for fun. That's really fun. Let's do that.

22:12Yeah, by the way, something I'm, So I'm going full pledge Gary, I'm sure not lost on you since you brought that up, and not lost on probably a lot of people here, is for the last three, four years, I've been much more Gary Vaynerchuk, the CEO of VaynerX and VeeFriends and VaynerSports and VaynerWatt and all the Vayners. But starting in October, November, and definitely in 2026, I'm coming back. This is why I've been doing Tee more. I'm gonna be streaming more. I'm contemplating this late night version of this show called Winding Down with Gary Vee with a glass of wine. I'm gonna be vlogging a lot more, IRL streaming.

22:48So like literally when I'm traveling to a keynote in Dallas, Danny or train or somebody else is literally backpack. We're live on Twitch or like kick. Like I'm really going there so I'm excited about it. Anyway, nonetheless, oh we have a winner. Hold on buddy. Treasure Scoot. What was that? The sign pack. Treasure Scoot. I will let him talk. All right. So I'm ready for overrated, underrated. I'm actually thinking about bringing it back is where I was going with that long-winded thing. So let's rock and roll. Fire away. All right, let's do it. All right, number one, being the face of your business.

23:20Underrated. And I'll tell you why. A lot of people should not be the face of their business because they're introverted. They don't want the attention. They're uncomfortable with it. And that is wonderful. I do not believe that most people should. I don't think you have to. There are much big, I'm the face of my businesses. I do very well. There are people that have much bigger businesses than me that you've never seen or heard of. So it is not required. On the flip side, in the post 2015 world, it has become another moat, another differentiator, another non-replaceable, replicatable advantage for someone who can do that.

23:59So it is underrated, especially because you can build your face for free on social media. 100%. These are gonna be super random, by the way. I like random. Post Malone. Post Malone. I think Post Malone is underrated. I believe that Post Malone is incredibly intuitive as an entrepreneur. I don't even want to speak to his music because I don't like talking about shit I don't know. I haven't consumed it deep enough to have an opinion, but I like the way Post moves when no one's watching. I live a life where I'm able to be in rooms and I see incredible humility at this point of his career. Maybe he always wasn't like that.

24:40Maybe he was. I don't know. But I like the people he surrounds himself with. I think he's entrepreneurial. I've seen him interact with brands that we work with. And I feel like he's professional. I think he's got good intent to those partnerships. And without knowing him, because he could be a very bad guy or a very great guy or better than I think, without actually knowing the human, my hot take is underrated. I could see him doing the Super Bowl halftime show at some point, too. I think that's right. He's the kind of artist that's one contemporary hit away from being next level, right? He could do a collab with some, like a K-pop or you know, a reggaeton.

25:20He's just one song away from being the most listened to artist in the world. He's already at that level and so that's interesting. Yep, next one, Brands doing social in-house. I have a very real take on this. I think it's very overrated. VaynerMedia's biggest growth in the last 13 months is been going into Fortune 500 companies and replacing the in-house team. In-house teams for Fortune 500, for Fortune 5000 companies, overrated. For small startups who know social media, underrated, right? Small startups should not be hiring agencies like mine. Big companies should not be building in-house agencies because they don't know what the, if you don't know how to grade the homework, how do you know if the homework's good?

26:03The only reason in-house agencies have been built in Fortune 500 companies is they became cost-saving centers because TV agencies like Droga 5, Wyden & Kennedy, 72 & Sonny, they claim to be able to do what VaynerMedia does. They charged a lot of money for it, and they sucked at it, which made brands go, wait a minute, this blows. Let's bring it in-house. The problem is in-house teams are also not good at it, and so I think it's an overrated move. I mean, it's been stunning to see the quality of the in-house work of the last 50 companies we've audited and that doesn't mean the players are bad. By the way, I want to make this very, like if you're a person that works in-house at a brand, doesn't mean you're bad, the system's bad.

26:48And so, and those players can't change the system. So companies need to be accountable for how they're putting their in-house team. For example, most companies put their in-house team on a KPI against followers at a time where followers are declining in value and its views achieved. You know, like we just have to be smarter, more strategic. Very true. Yeah. We have a, I actually own a social agency in Tampa called Brick Media and we work with like a lot smaller companies. Like I'd say one to 10 million in revenue was probably the range of clients that we work with. And our services are usually like three to 5k a month kind of thing.

27:22And I'm just, it's always just interesting how certain brands we work with, it makes a lot of sense for them to hire us, but then other brands, it's almost like I want them to do it in house. Can I give you a lot more sense? First of all, I really like your temper. Can I give you a great piece of advice as someone who's played the game you're playing? Even when you're desperate for money, if you can tell the in-house team is going to be good enough, and even if they hire you because you did a great sales job, if you know they're going to fire you in six months because you can't bring them enough value against what they already have, tell them that truth.

27:55100%. And even with the followers thing you were saying, we straight up tell people. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Oh, you're good. I was just saying, even in the sales process, if I can tell that somebody is just all about the follower count, and even if we try to explain that reach and engagement are kind of the main things to look at nowadays because it encompasses followers, non-followers, if I can tell that they're just kind of not getting it, we don't even want to take those kind of clients on because it's just fighting an uphill battle from day one. Yeah, convincing is a terrible business model for service providers.

28:24Erin, next question. Okay, are blogs and email newsletters still in? Yes. I recently unsubscribed from someone because I got sick of the daily lengthy content. Who has time to read that every day? A lot of people do. A lot of people do. In fact, I would say the written long form is red hot. It's called Beehive. It's called Substack. I think long form written content is massively hot. I'm obsessed what's going on with those platforms. and so yes, it just seems like they were not getting value from that email anymore. In fact, my email needs to be better. Like that's a big agenda in GaryVee 5.0, which is what I'm calling November 14th on, because I turned 50, you know, 5.0, pretty cool, blah, blah, blah, you like that?

29:14We're going to be very serious about Substack, Beehive, the email newsletter. I feel like on my text service, I'm replying to a lot of people, but everything I'm posting out is like, come and see this, come and see this. I want to do more value there. It's value, value, value. That email no longer provided value for that person. That doesn't mean the medium is dead. In fact, the medium is hotter than ever. Hotter than ever. All right, who do we have on screen? It says Garrett Gabriel. Maybe that's her name. Maybe, nope. Actually, no, my name is Peyton. Peyton, how are you? Very good, how are you?