The 2 Main Ingredients For Business Growth in 2025

0:00Work from home is incredibly challenging. Building culture remotely is impossible. It's very hard. Attention is the number one asset. The theme of this podcast is about rapid response. And you are like the epitome of the person who runs to the new with great gusto and energy. I'm curious what rapid response means to you and what you're responding to now. I think it means opportunity. I think it means curiosity. I think it means truth. I'm fascinated by people's inability to get out of no culture. I'm fascinated by putting your head in the sand. It's what led me to discovering emotional intelligence.

0:46For years I was a public figure, speaking of like here's an opportunity, here's an opportunity, here's an opportunity. I would wonder why people close to me, let alone the general audience, wouldn't act on it. And it led me to realizing that people are insecure or lack self-esteem or really struggle with people's judgment or have these poor relationships with themselves. You know, it's funny, when you speak about rapid response, I think it means someone who lacks fear. You know, because the nature of running fast to something new is potentially scary. You may fail, you may waste your time, you may get burnt.

1:23But for me, it's subconscious. It's all I really know. And that's not a bad thing, to waste your time. I mean, you're not really wasting your time. Well, that's my point. Like, so many of my friends are like, you spent 30 hours digging into that hypothesis. Your time has become so valuable. Why are you doing that? I'm like, because if I write once every 45 times, it fully pays for everything else. I think people are incredibly good at academia, but not good at actual life. And so, you know, I don't, to your point, I don't see it as waste of times. Things I've learned going down rabbit holes became data points and context to other moments of going down rabbit holes that allowed me to either bail early, pattern recognition, or triple down on an opportunity.

2:09And so, you know, I really don't know how a CEO or entrepreneur sees the world in any other way. I feel like that's their responsibility. I'm very empathetic to why a CFO or other executives in business context don't do it. But you know, it's funny, the whole framework of this makes me think about comfort, fear, self-esteem, insecurity. Those are the things that pop up in my mind when I hear it. You've got a new book project. Yes. Day Trading Attention. Yes. You've done six business books before this, right? So why was this a rabbit hole that you decided to go down? It's the biggest conversation I see that's universal.

2:54whether you are a non-profit, whether you're running for mayor, whether you are running a small business, whether you're the CEO of a big company, a creator, an influencer, everyone is trying to figure out how to create demand. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like everyone's, you know, when I say everyone's selling something, I don't see that as a negative. I mean everyone's trying to communicate something that matters to them. I think selling is very good when you believe in what you're selling. I think if you're part of a non-profit curing a disease, that is incredibly good selling. And I also don't begrudge someone who's trying to sell lollipops.

3:30I did that in sixth grade. Like everything's allowed as long as you're doing it the right way. And so I believe that the world of marketing and communication has made a very aggressive turn. And I think people are struggling and wasting money on traditional and digital. You know, I don't think this is a digital versus traditional thing. I think that I know because I live it every day you can waste an ungodly amount of money on influencers on Facebook on Instagram on TikTok on Spotify just as easily as you can in a newspaper or billboard or radio and so I think the craft of being great at storytelling running ads creating content for the modern internet being prepared for the AR VR world of the next decade the framework that makes sense to me is day trading attention.

4:21Meaning, whether it's a Super Bowl ad, which I think is underpriced for Fortune 500, or it's a carousel ad on Instagram or LinkedIn, or it's an emerging influencer on TikTok to make content for your local car wash business or SaaS business that's selling to Fortune 500 companies on LinkedIn, I think the nuances of communication and marketing have become so profoundly challenging that most people are really struggling and I'm very fortunate to be sitting in the eye of the storm and I always get most excited when I think I'm writing a book that is gonna lead to tens of thousands of emails of thank you and I've written a couple of those and I know what they feel like versus the other ones I've written that have less thank yous.

5:07I think this one's gonna be a big one. I think it's a follow-up to Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook which was a big book that I wrote in 2013 that said this is how you do content on social media. This one is probably the nerdiest book I've ever written. it's like even I'm a little worried that it may not be as commercially successful because it is a little textbooky on the flip side that's what might make it very commercially successful so I definitely pushed myself to go further into like going behind the cloak of like what I do for a living, what we do for a living why a lot of things work for me I'm proud of that, what I mean by that is someone said something to me six or seven years ago that really felt It was like, I remember it hit me right in my chest.

5:49She didn't know me very well. She hung out in this business meeting and then went out of it. And she said, you're incredibly intellectually generous. And I was very flattered by that. And I feel like this book is intellectually generous. I feel like I'm writing a book of the secret sauce that makes most of my stuff work. And I'm excited that people are gonna take that baton and be able to build for themselves. And if I'm hearing, I mean, there's so many ways to reach people now. So many more ways than ever. And it sounds like you're saying that people feel like, oh, I have to cover all the bases.

6:26As opposed to looking at each one as a marketplace and figuring out what the right opportunity is for you, for your brand, for your message at that moment. Period. That if you're, like, there's just so many examples I can give. if you are a florist, Instagram feels incredibly natural because a lot of people are there, but it's also hard right now. The supply and demand of attention on Instagram makes it challenging. Meanwhile, I know the cliche, the average, the typical florist is not thinking about LinkedIn. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is acting like Facebook in 2015 where on LinkedIn, if you post about floral arrangements or why you're a good option for a corporate floral or just a one-off Valentine's Day thing, It is more likely that you will get organic reach on LinkedIn than Instagram.

7:18I know that 99.9 % of the people listening to this podcast would not believe that to be true, but I know it to be true. And there's a hundred other things I'm thinking about or know to be true. And so I'm gonna use this book to lay that out, but also get people into the right mindset, which is there's attention and there's filling that attention. This podcast, everyone who listens to it is gonna listen to me right now. The variable of success for me and for you is the words that come out of my mouth. The creative is the variable. If I give sharp insights, if I give things that bring people value, they will feel better towards me, right?

7:54So I think people are thinking about all these social networks as distribution, but not thinking about filling them with something that actually works. I believe that people are mainly mailing in the content. It's inherently selfish. Look at me, follow me, buy from me. It's incredibly repetitive. I look at brands and people every day. They're saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over that's grounded in selfishness. And so I don't think people are strategic. I don't think they understand the science around the art of making a picture or video work for you in YouTube, YouTube shorts, Facebook, Facebook reels, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, WhatsApp channel, Instagram channel.

8:36These are new things, broadcast channels. the carousel ad, the video, the reel versus the regular post, LinkedIn versus Twitter, Twitter versus Snapchat. Snapchat discovery is where a lot of creators should be making content, but they're only making it on Instagram and TikTok. So in a lot of ways, the books I've been writing for the last almost two decades, I feel like this is the 301 course. And I'm really, you probably can sense it, I'm really proud of it. It was really harder for me. I always am so ahead of things that I can just spit it but this one I wanted to like I'm dreaming of someone right now who's listening to this post the book coming out buying the book on Amazon and a week later having like 40 highlights in it and pen like I know I'm up to something the two books that have you know Crush It which really put me on the map right you know that book and Jab Jab Jab Right Hook it acted differently than the other books all my books have done well that have all been New York Times bestsellers, but I'm still getting emails about Jab, Jab, Jab, right hook, even though a lot of the content is not as timely.

9:45And so I felt like I needed to do the updated version and the more advanced version. But still, I've always been the kind of communicator that's more of the average Joe. So because I record my books in audio form, I don't think I'm gonna lose people in the 301-ness. And so I'm excited. I'm really excited about it. So an attention question to ask you about. Please. So Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey, have changed the NFL's business without the NFL being part of its plan at all. That's right. What is the attention message from, I know you're a big NFL fan. Yes I am. Like is there a message in that? Yes of course there is.

10:26It's actually one of the biggest parts of the book which is that everybody on earth underestimates pop culture. What happened with Taylor and Kelsey is they're cross-pollinating their platforms. So if you're a mechanic in Detroit, like I said, in this post on social, you're not thinking about hitting up the Thai restaurant down the street to do a piece of social media content. I know that's true today. Yet, that's the kind of left field post that will get people's attention. And so what I see there is, what do I think about pop culture? I think it's one of the most significant currencies on earth.

11:00what if you're lucky enough to have an employee that works for you that's first name is Travis and another one that's first name is Taylor like literally you're a law firm Travis Johnson Taylor Smith maybe they're both guys because Taylor is obviously a name that can go in either way you can easily use the micro moment of the infatuation of our society to do something clever and silly what people don't realize is that little clever video on Instagram that only got 90 views one of One of those 90 views is someone who's actually considering to hire an attorney and they actually like the fact that you were a little silly and not buttoned up and you made them feel more comfortable to reach out to you to work with your law firm or your dentist's place.

11:40People are very linear. They don't realize how big pop culture is and how they can factor into their boring business. I had a gentleman reach out to me who asked, literally I used a concrete cement business in one of my analogies in a piece of content. He literally owned a asphalt business. He literally started to make TikToks even though he thought it was the wildest, craziest thing he'd ever heard. And it literally has doubled his business. An asphalt seller, like guy that comes and redoes your driveway, made a couple TikToks. One went decent. Another one went viral. And literally, if I recall properly the email, a business that was doing$800 ,000 a year servicing a local area, I think he was in Wisconsin, is now doing 2.5 million.

12:29The tears were coming through the email. But most people who are listening to this podcast who are in a B2B or like a different kind of business are not thinking how TikTok can work for them. Right, and pop culture doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have your celebrity endorser. Correct. You're playing off of what the conversations that are going on. It's like being good at a cocktail party. right think of this as your social media marketing you go out tonight and it's a fundraiser of your local pta or the school or or it's the the banquet for the high school basketball team are you the kind of person that comes to that event and you're enjoyable to talk to and have a circle around you or are you in the corner by yourself the reality is being an introvert and not being comfortable and that is incredibly appropriate and awesome as a business you'd like to think that you're trying to market and get business and so to me there's so much more permission for creativity than people allow themselves but you know like people continue to like wear their suit and tie in their linkedin profile and like they don't understand the room is what i also ultimately think i think like you take the most stuffed up person you know literally i want everyone to close their eyes and just think about like the most kind of buttoned up stuffy rigid person you know i promise you if that person goes to las vegas right now with their best friends from college for a weekend they're going to be a different version of themselves than you know them and i think businesses and brands have more permission to be contextual to the room they're distributing the content in when i make facebook content i'm thinking about parents because i know the demo is going to be older those are going to be different videos that i'm putting into tiktok where i know they're going to be youngsters the words and the the videos and slang and everything I say and do is different.

14:17Yet I believe most people are just making a video and then pushing them out on these channels and expecting for it to succeed. They think of it as distribution. I think of it as a place you have to be contextual to win the room. Because it's a conversation. Before it even gets into a conversation, before it even gets into a conversation, you can't win when you're a fish out of water. As a communicator, if you don't know the room, you will lose. If you go give a commencement speech to a very conservative college and you sling unlimited liberal propaganda, it won't land with those kids and vice versa.

14:54If you're a Jets fan like I am and you go to Boston and you shit on the Patriots the whole time, you're going to lose some people. You've got to know the room. And you're raising capital from a VC firm that is very buttoned up, that's a different presentation, to an angel investor who they were all entrepreneurs and they built it themselves. If you do not know the slang, you will be out of place. And so I believe before it becomes a conversation, my friend, if you do not know what the picture and video needs to look like at 3.34 p.m. on a Monday in LinkedIn, which is mainly consumed by people who are at work.

15:31Think about all the psychology goes into this. I'm posting different content when I know you're at work than when I'm posting on the weekend and knowing you might be skimming your LinkedIn real quick while you're catching up on work, or you're at your kid's baseball game and you're bored and you're just looking at your LinkedIn. Like, I reverse engineer the psychology of the room, the psychology of the person in the room at the time that they consume the content. That level of thought, besides thinking what the thumbnail looks like, besides thinking what the first three seconds of the video has to be to even keep you to consume it, this is a level of science in day trading attention that I believe 99 % are not executing on and social and therein lies the opportunity and the vulnerability.

16:15All right, I wanna ask you about something else. Can I ask you about VFriends? Please. I am fascinated by VFriends. Thank you. This started, at least when I first saw it as like, NFT and then collectibles and toys and clothing and now there was a Halloween float. I saw you were on TV on a Halloween float. Like, what is VFriends? Is it like, is it a promotional vehicle? Is it like the next Pokemon or Disney? Much more number two. I'm loudly and quietly trying to build Sesame Street meets Pokemon. And I say loudly and then quietly, when I first launched it, NFT summer, all, you know, the Gary Vee of how I do things, I brought awareness to it.

17:02Quietly, to your point, when I'm building out a Halloween parade float for New York City's Halloween Big Bash. I didn't overly promote that in my channels. I did it because I knew hundreds of thousands of people on the street were gonna see the float and were gonna hand out tchotchkes and cards and shirts. And I wanted to see organically what it was gonna do. I'm working on YouTube Kids. I have a kids book coming out next year. I believe, I'm 47, soon to be 48. I believe that you and I benefited from the content we consumed as a kid on television. Not fully, there was plenty of silly stuff, but even if you go back to the 80s, when G.I.

17:43Joe did its cartoon, it had a message at the end. When He-Man did its cartoon, it had a message at the end. Sesame Street, I will tell you, when I started this, I thought I was building Disney. Now I know I'm building Sesame Street. Why? Because as I've been on this journey, I don't think I understood or gave enough credit, and even though I follow pop culture, I'm incredibly impressed and humbled by what Jim Henson's agenda was. I think he had great intent. Fraggle Rock's brief, when they tried to create it, the brief was stop war. What greater mission could you have? I, as Gary Vee, am a character.

18:20I know who I am. But in all of my bravado and competitiveness and loudness and cursing and Jerseyness, for the ones that have looked closer, I'm really pushing empathy and patience and kindness and nice guys finish first and there is a way to build a big empire but doing it in a kind way and we need more compassion and real leaders don't yell at people. They capture the stress and they treat their people. You build up people and you play long and life should not be transactional. I wanna win. This is why I say Pokemon meets Sesame Street. I also believe we've lost our way in some of our warmth.

18:57I think it is bad to give kids eighth place trophies. I don't think it teaches them about life. I think we've over coddled kids. We've created entitlement. I believe there's a lot of anxiety. I have thousands of under 25 year old employees or under 30. I believe a lot of them don't have enough self esteem because they've been over coddled because everything's been taking care of themselves. So using politics, red and blue, V friends is purple. I wanna teach the world about purple. I think the competitive clown, I want to make him very famous and I want people to care about him but he as a character is going to teach kids winning and losing is good and when you lose you can learn from that and by the way if you're seven and you cry when you lose that's not bad it's actually good when parents say what are you crying for this doesn't matter for a seven year old who's got wiring of being competitive and ambitious I promise you it does matter I promise you it matters and I don't think we should eliminate that from kids.

19:56And I think we haven't found our equilibrium in modern parenting. So BeFriends is a collectible storytelling platform that I hope in 30 years will be in the conversation with the Marvels and the Pokemons and the Hello Kitties and the Sesame Streets. I want to build out these characters. Accountable Ant will teach kids and parents that accountability matters. if you blame the school for your kids' problems or social media for your kids' problems, you're not setting them up for success. You know, Patient Panda will teach people that patience is how you actually win. Everybody wants it now, now, now, which makes them shortcut, which is why people don't achieve what they actually are capable of.

20:39So what is BeFriends? It's an intellectual property. And as an entrepreneur, like you said, at one point you thought it was Disney, now you think it's Sesame Street. Like when you started this, Was it just NFTs? Like, did you see the journey? And how does the journey have changed? Even if you look at my earliest content, I knew NFTs was a moment similar to after-school television. I viewed the NFT summer. Don't forget, I was making videos that said 99 % of NFTs are going to zero. I knew what we were in, which is what Web1 was in in 97, 98. I knew the internet was gonna be big, and the internet stocks and the internet companies were overvalued by short-term greed.

21:16Same with NFTs, but the technology's real. Digital collectibles will be a part of everyone's life. And that's what me friends are. They are digital collectibles. But I also want physical collectibles. The comic book. The trading cards. It's a 360 digital IP. Fortnite is played as a video game digitally. But people buy Fortnite trading cards and Fortnite comic books and Fortnite hats. I mean, you know, Disney was digital. If you really think about it, it wasn't really digital. but like when Disney came out, that was cinema. But you watched it on TV, Steamboat Willie, on a screen later in movie theaters and then television but you bought physical items.

21:59So for me, NFT hysteria, A, was an opportunity to create the original collectible. You know, it's really cool. Like just like owning the first comic book from Spider-Man, V-Friend Series 1 NFT is the original digital collectible but now we're expanding it and I have a real purpose behind why the characters exist and it's to scale me. I have done well and have amassed a nice audience. There's a lot of people that value me but there's a lot of people that won't consume me. I don't fit the way, I don't look the part for them. There are plenty of people who don't like cursing. I curse when I communicate.

22:34That eliminates me. I'm very hyper. Some people like a calmer soul so my V friends characters, my 250 plus V friends character will allow me to put more love and kindness and accountability and hard work into the world and that's my plan. All right. I don't know how much more time can I? Two more minutes, yeah. You mentioned the thousands of young people who work for you at Vayner. And I'm curious about the cultural challenges of being a scaled business. I know you've said like you don't wanna be corporate. You know you are corporate without employees. and I guess like how do you balance that and how does this sort of in office and out of office, like work from office impact that?

23:21I know that's a lot to do. There's a lot there, but I'll bang it out. First of all, the way to not be corporate is not to be corporate. To your point, for everybody, VaynerMedia is a global advertising agency. Think Mad Men for 2024. You know, we have 400 people in Asia, three, 400 people in Europe, 100 people in Latam. This is a global ass company. This is a big company we've been building. the way not to be corporate is not to be corporate here's what i mean by that as long as i continue to for example i sign off on every firing in the entire company globally there's not one person in this company that can be fired without me signing off because i'm scared that my leaders will do politics and corporate stuff not human stuff so as it checks and balances i am literally the singular human being that has to sign off on any firing at vayner media not at vayner x because there's eight companies and there's other CEOs and I give them that latitude.

24:13But at VaynerMedia, literally no one can be let go. And by the way, 20 % of the people that everybody else wanted to let go is not let go because I see something that feels corporate. So I think that's just one of 100 examples that you don't have to be corporate if you make weird family business decisions like I do. And I think it's more scalable than people think. You've got to find your teammates around the office there's a lot to it. Work from home is incredibly challenging. Building culture remotely is impossible. It's very hard. We do a lot on virtual. As I sit here today being completely vulnerable I do not have all the answers.

24:53We're still in it. I don't want to be the old man that says walk home from school. I used to walk home from school and like everybody to be in the office five days a week when I see plenty of wonderful things from work from home. The work-life balance. I like that people are seeing their kids more. Like I like a lot. on the flip side it is very clear to me that the employees globally that are in the office are advancing past the ones that are not because they're winning on the biggest thing in an office it's called osmosis the osmosis you get from learning from senior people who've done it it's profound and so I'm incredibly challenged and crippled by this right now I'm very worried about doing the wrong thing by my employees who I'm not forcing to come into the office when I'm watching their reports eventually going to become their managers because we're gonna grow on merit.

25:40And so it's a very challenging time for a lot of us leaders in figuring this out. But I do believe my intent is in a good place. I believe there are thousands of business owners out there that truly have good intent. It's not some philosophical, emotional, like I want everybody in the office or the other way around. And so as long as I'm not delusionally emotional or ideologically emotional, the reason we have not set a firm, firm black and white policy yet at VaynerX around work from home is I'm still thinking and I'm still watching. But yes, it is very hard to build community if everyone's virtual.

26:17I saw a video you did recently where you were kind of teasing a remote employee who was like, I don't feel more connected and you were kind of like. Well, that's the thing. On a one-to-one basis, I give the answers to employees in both directions. Literally in the last couple weeks, I've had both sides of the pillow of the conversation. One employee is saying to me that they're stressed because they feel like they're under-delivering as a parent. And I said, take advantage of our policy. Don't come to the office as much and pick up your kid at home and don't schedule. I believe, I don't need every, I want my employees to be happy.

26:53And so I don't need them to be top performers. I prefer it, but you can't be a top performer if you're not happy. And so if this woman who I'm thinking of, I pushed her very hard. and I'm like, pick up your kid from school. It's okay. Like, don't do meetings from 4.15 to 4.30. You're such a crazy worker. You're more than making it up. You're not ripping us off. Like, you're not ripping your team off. Like, do that. And like, in a week, she had a, like, she was thrilled. And I was like, man, just that subtle tweak. And obviously you saw that other piece of content. Yeah, when I'm sitting with an employee on Zoom and they're complaining that they feel disconnected and they've never been in the office in their two and a half years of working here, I'm like, hey, would you, And it's not like they're in Ohio.

27:35The person that I was referring to is literally 18 minutes from the office and has never been here. I'm like, of course you feel disconnected. That's not on me, that's on you. You know, and so this goes back to accountability. Accountability, the world has become infatuated with fingers. We've become incredibly good at telling everybody what they're bad at. And we are very bad at thumbs. We do not look at ourselves. And so yes, this young man, like we had a nice conversation. And I said it nicely. I was like, hey brother, you're feeling disconnected because you're in your house by yourself all day.

28:07Come in the office a little bit. You got it lucky. There's people schlepping an hour and a half commuting here because they want to feel connected. You're 18 minutes away on foot.

28:19And he took that at heart and he sent me an email and said, I do feel it, thank you for saying that. So it's back to purple. The world is infatuated with red and blue in every way, not just politically. and I'm trying to continue to champion for purple because I think that's where we find our happiness. I do think balance matters. Even in eating trends. But it's complicated. It's very complicated. But being happy is worth fighting for. Like when everyone's like, ah, that's hard. I'm like, it's fucking worth fighting for. Don't you want to have peace of mind? Aren't you tired of being anxious? Isn't it enough of all?