The Brutal TRUTH About Why You’re Not Winning on Social Media | Tea with GaryVee Ep. 65

0:00Good morning to you with Gary Vee, super excited to be with all of you. here we go uh what's the first question team wheelie you're up from new zealand what's good carry v it's willie from down under in new zealand awesome to be here new zealand it's on the other side of the world from everyone else how does someone like myself uh market myself to you know be on a world world scale well you're on a world scale right now brother unlike 1980 and unlike 1990 and unlike 2000, social media has created the world scale. You're on the world scale. Somebody from a small town or a country from the other side of the world of America.

0:36I've been to New Zealand many times. I don't consider New Zealand the other side of the world. It's the other side of the world of America. And obviously America is a media capital of the world and I understand all that, but there is unlimited opportunity for people in New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and Japan and and everywhere else to reach the global audience with whatever message. So I think the way you reach the global audience is by first understanding that you can reach the global audience. If that's your question, you've already limited yourself by believing, oh, I'm on this small little island, I can't get to everybody.

1:10And there was some truth to that in 1974. There's zero truth to that in 2025. My post that I just posted on Instagram talks about everybody, how they use social media. and in there I wrote just now on the way into the office, how you see the world is how it is. If you decide that you could be the most known person on earth from New Zealand with the tools that we have that we're using right now. Brother, I am in New York City. You are in New Zealand at three in the morning. We are talking to each other live for free on a social shopping app called Whatnot. The world is insanely filled with opportunities.

1:48You can reach the audience. Now the question becomes, are you just making that excuse because you're not bringing enough value to your audience to become well-known. And so what you need to focus on is providing value. Make sense? Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, man. Have the best day. Ryan, how are you, my friend? Where are you from? Yeah, what's up, Gary? Johnson City, Tennessee. How are you, buddy? Pleasure, brother. How are things? Man, it's going great. Great year. Great off to the, great just starting the year off right. Awesome, my friend. What can I answer for you? Hey, so I'm a realtor.

2:17you know, we are in that mid market, smaller market, but at the same time, we're utilizing everything that you do to help grow our business. We realize we're a media company. Yes, sir. Promoting ourselves more than anything that anybody else can do. So we're on Whatnot and I've held two live shows, just testing it out, kind of tasting it right. As a real estate agent, Whatnot is much more a nice to have than a requirement. Unless you're selling a hat or a t-shirt because you're trying to really brand it. Whatnot is much more for somebody who sells something physical than it is for someone who is, let's say, a B2B SaaS salesperson or a real estate agent or a financial advisor.

3:04Again, if you're a very creative financial advisor, real estate agent, SaaS software salesman, You may want to sell some hats, some mugs, some t-shirts, and you might just be entrepreneurial and you want to learn other things or it could turn into a side hustle. But for you, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, YouTube shorts, YouTube shorts, YouTube shorts, and number one by far, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. That's where we play. We do play. Good, brother. And you should be doing lives on those, and where you should be doing lives. If you want to gain audience and awareness, the number one place you should be doing live is TikTok.

3:42Now, of course it is not lost on me that we are in the midst of maybe TikTok being banned in the US. A, this is a global show, so everybody globally who's watching should be live on TikTok. But everybody in America too, like you've got, what's different about TikTok, when you go on Whatnot, you have three people watching you. But when you go on TikTok, have you gone live on TikTok? No. Do that right after we hang up, right now. Do you have a TikTok? Yep. I want you to go live. I don't think I have enough followers though. Oh, is that right? Does TikTok still require you a thousand? Great. I want you to spam your entire life.

4:18Literally text everybody, which might be a little weird because it's in the midst of the potential ban, but. Right, yeah, that's all right. Let me explain this because I think that all the other platforms are going to follow and I just want everybody to get the macro of why this works. When you go on TikTok Live, you start to get people to see you in their For You page that have no idea who you are. TikTok gives you audience. Most other platforms don't, including the ones I'm on right now. TikTok's giving me audience. Everybody else is showing it to the audience I've already amassed. That's a level of discovery that is profound.

4:50So anyway, that's the game. I don't think you need to be on Whatnot, but I don't mind you playing with it because it might lead to another entrepreneurial venture. Great, thanks man. Let's go to the next question. G3, what's your name, brother? Adrel, how's it going, Gary? Adrel, pleasure, my brother. Where are you from? I'm from Miami, here in Florida. Amazing, my guy. So no, it's great to be on the show. As you know, I have it here. I've read it twice. It's amazing. Love it. I just want to say it's obviously, it definitely inspired me to start producing a lot more content for my, I have a fitness clothing brand.

5:18I've done some live shows on whatnot. I've been doing it daily on TikTok. I'll do it like at the gym, working out, wearing the merch and showcasing it. So just doing consistent with it. So I wanted to say building on that, like from your book, when it comes to live shopping and let's say cohorts, as you mentioned in your book, as a startup, I recently started in almost a year, like February 2020 last year when I launched and so I've been building it out only last, let's say December when I started getting really serious with content of social media from your book. When you really don't know who your audience is and creating your cohorts, how would you go about that as like a startup?

5:48Common sense. Just looking at the analytics on social? Common sense. Common sense. You know who goes to the gym? Yeah. You're gonna need guys and girls. Then you're gonna need, you know, Caucasians, African-Americans, Latinos. And then you're gonna go into, you know, people that care about sports or food or music. Like you get to pick. then you play for a little bit because now you're thinking about them when you make the content. When I make a piece of content, sometimes I'm thinking about that 17-year-old dude that's a fucking D student like I was and I'm making that content. Other times I'm like, I'm going to make this for the moms who are 42 who think their life is over and those girls haven't even fucking started.

6:25Another time I'm going to make it for somebody who's 61 who's literally sitting in their house fucking depressed, watching bullshit television, thinking their life's over and they're going to live for 30. Then I'm thinking about first generation, Mexican immigrant living in San Antonio whose parents don't speak English, who's 14 getting straight A's and working at fucking Walmart and fucking garage. When I make content, I think about who the fuck am I making this for? Do that. You don't know who your cohorts are. Make, make, make, make, make, and then they will come to you. Gotcha, and the key, like you said, is always as much as you can.

6:56I know some say, oh, just one, it didn't do well, and then you're like, let me do something else. It's like produce a bunch of variety and so forth. Bro, how old are you? 26 Perfect So you're not High school was not that long ago You'll remember You'll remember The reason most people Don't post enough Is they still think Life is high school And they're insecure And they're worried Someone's gonna make fun of them Or it's not gonna do good It's not gonna do good Who gives a fuck Yeah And that's taking something I've taken to heart That now I'm just posting Like you know what I don't even care what people say It's like The ones who's gonna hate They're always gonna hate Screw them I'm just gonna focus On just creating Bro The ones that hate You should not feel bad For yourself you should feel bad for them.

7:33Could you imagine being a human being that goes around the internet and leaves comments of hate? That is the most depressing fucking life on earth. I'm not mad at those fuckers. I feel sad for those fuckers. My man, good luck. Appreciate you, Gary. Stay well, take care. How are you, brother? I'm good, I'm good. How are you? Good, man. Where are you from? I'm from India. Very nice. Sid, you sent your cousin on the show? Look at this guy. He looks just like you. It's amazing. All right, Avi, great to see you, brother. Sid is like loading the deck with his relatives. All right, Avi, what's good? I've been very much following your content, and my friend told me about you a couple years back, and I've been following Grinding.

8:15I started my podcast a couple years back where I interviewed actors from video games, and it's been going well. I got my YouTube partnership from that, and it's reached 4.5 million views now. So it's doing very good. However, one of the things that I always worry about is how to get up there and not lose confidence when I'm trying to go there. I know I should not be looking for the end goal, but there are times where I feel like, can I get there? Because I'm obviously grinding and putting on content. Yeah, what number did you make up that's an arbitrary number of success that has nothing to do with reality and has become the jail and the driver of your insecurity, my friend?

8:56What number is that? I just have this dream of like, what if I could make this turn into a much bigger show? That's all I have. What is a bigger show? Yeah, good. I respect that. What is that? What is bigger? Define bigger for me, my friend. Turn this into a, I don't know, a show that is hosted on any network, any kind of network that it can be hosted on. So that's a dream that I feel impossible for. What network? Give me an example. Let's say Amazon Prime. Got it. So you want your video podcast show to be on Amazon Prime. That's gonna come down to how talented you are and how consistent you are, right?

9:37That's how that would play out. Yeah. And how consistent are you? How often do you do it? How long have you been doing it? It's been two years and I post every episode, every podcast episode every week because that's how many guests I get depending upon that. I think two years every week, you've now given enough effort and consistency, which I appreciate to give you a read, right? What you want to figure out is if it's not popping off the way you want, you've got to change it up a little bit. Maybe do a different format, start a different way, rename it, be more patient till you get bigger guests by DMing more people.

10:13This is about your execution and your talents. And you being not delusional and self-aware. Maybe you're not destined to be that famous or that aware and that is okay. you need to fall in love with doing it. For example, I could speak for myself. When I started Wine Library TV when I was 31 years old and finally came out to the world because I was working on, you know, in my dad's liquor store, I didn't do it because I thought I was gonna become famous or known. I did it because I wanted to do it. I wanted to educate the world about wine and I wanted it to bring awareness to my dad's store. I think too many people now are trying to do things for the fame.

10:52and if they do it for the purpose of why they're doing the show, they have a bigger chance of actually getting the fame. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think at the end of the day, it's all about worrying about the fact that because I want to turn this into a thing that I can business, a job kind of thing, but I don't want to go somewhere else. I want to do this. I love that. So maybe you should learn about live social shopping. Maybe you should be doing what I'm doing because I've sold a bunch of mugs while I've been on here. And like maybe selling something, maybe you add a piece of retail to your content.

11:30Maybe that will help. I'm gonna run because I'm gonna have a lot of questions. I love you, brother. Good luck. Hello, Gary. Hello, my friend. What's your name? Andrew. I'm from Romania. Very nice. I love Romania. I've been there many times. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. What is your question? My question is the following. I have on my Romanian account a lot of followers, over 100 to 800K. And after that, I did the international account, a dancing account. Oh, I remember. We've talked. I remember. I remember, Andrew. Good to see you. Yes, great to see you again. Thank you. Thank you very much.

12:04And now this account is growing very well. I have 1.6 million followers. Now the question is the following because I try to monetize better my account. If I put, for example, I don't know, testimonials, couples that danced my choreographies and their wedding was very well. The reach, of course, is not that high. Correct. The question is, I should make another account just for a more salesly testimonials things or put it all on the big account? Both can work. Now, your big account is gonna have more awareness at first. What you're doing right now hurts a lot of people to try to build a business.

12:49You're overvaluing the amount of reach on your right hook. You know, in my old book, jab, jab, jab, right hook. Give content, give content, give content, and then ask for business. When you ask for business, it never gets the reach. For sure. Because you're not giving, you're asking. but that's okay because you're running a business. You understand? And I think you're making a mistake that a lot of people make. You may believe, because people believe this, that that post not getting a lot of reach is hurting your reach on the next post. It can be because you're in your mind. If you do, I don't know what, 10 million views clip and after that you are going 100K, you are, oh my God, I don't want this to happen again.

13:36Correct, it won't happen again. If you go 10 million and then you do 100 ,000 and the next one does 3 million, it didn't do 3 million because you're 100 ,000. It did 3 million because of the quality of that. Yes, once you understand that, Andrew, you will not be scared to post sales in your big account. Because if the sales clip is good, it will perform. If not, it doesn't matter. That's right, but it will never perform like a giving clip, right? Right. I will never, never. I will not sell, watch, I'm doing all this content for free right now, a thing that many people sell, and yet I will not sell very many$18 mugs right now.

14:20Even though I'm providing a lot of value, people will not click down there, and that's okay. Because maybe they don't need a mug. Now, by the way, I think a lot of you need this mug, because I think you have shitty mugs in your house, but that's a different story. Anyway, selling will never do as well as branding and providing value, and that's okay, but you're also allowed to ask for the sale. Got it? Got it. All right, brother. Good luck. Love you. Jalen, what's good? What's good, brother? Where are you from? Orlando, Florida. My man. Goddamn excited to be on here. Sorry for cursing. No worries.

14:54I curse every third word. You're fucking kidding. I know. So I'm in the firearms and securities industry. I just opened a security agency within the last couple months. this agency just approved me like last week or so. How do I tailor content on LinkedIn to kind of reach some of the B2B? On the Firearms training side, I know how to get the consumers all day long, been doing that four years, took your advice on TikTok, killed it. But going to B2B, a little more - It's honestly, brother, no, it's really good, bro. LinkedIn is TikTok. LinkedIn is the B2B TikTok. That's what I figured. My guy, easy, tell the truth.

15:27Be like, hey, this is me, this is who I am, this is what I do, a lot more of you need security. You know the world is much more open. The data, I think I provide a great service. I'm that guy, hit me up. That's a right hook. As we just said in the last thing, that won't convert as well. Let me give you another one. Make a video. Three tips high net worth and famous people or executives should be thinking about in a post UnitedHealth CEO murder. We've been really thinking about that and how to really get - And like I'm not trying to scare people but you're gonna give advice. Be like hey, and the opening line's like hey, yes, I have my own security service that I'd be thrilled to do business with you.

16:03My email is in the copy, but now let me give you three tips if you don't wanna hire somebody or you can't afford a full-time security person. Step one, VPN. Step two, look around the corner. Step three, don't tell people. Like, provide fucking value, my guy. Yeah, gotcha. Go down the nitty gritty. Absolutely. 100%. And over and over, bro, I say the same 1740 things over and over in different ways. Yep. I'm not making up new ideas. I don't have that many ideas. I just have that many ways I'm gonna say it. In picture form, in cartoon form, in fucking audio form, in written form, in me in a video clip form, in me in a podcast.

16:43They're like, you know, different adjectives, but got it? Yep, absolutely. Appreciate you. Good luck, proud of you. Ramos, you hear me? Yeah, I hear you. I can't see you, bro. Let me see you. It's a call and show. Ask your question, where are you from? Okay, I'm from Monterrey, Mexico. Very nice. So I'm a business owner. Yes. Yeah, I'm a business owner and I have an industrial electrical supply. Yes. So my question is, how will you go to try and sell these kind of very niche products to a broader audience? You can't because it's too niche, but what you can do is focus on your audience that would buy it, and I would do that on LinkedIn.

17:25You should be a very strong content creator on LinkedIn. It will lead to a lot of business. Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. I'm focusing on listening. How much? I'm doing almost two daily. Very good. How long have you been doing it? Maybe three months now. And have you felt anything yet or is it too early?

17:49I'm starting to get some connections for potential clients. Most of the work I do is like I go into a factory and then I go out. I was thinking, I don't know what your opinion on this, maybe to film some of the things that I'm doing once I'm inside. 100%. Very good. And I want you to also DM, message people on LinkedIn that own factories and just saying, hey, around in 2025, when they click your face, they'll see your content and that will help reinforce the cold call. Okay, okay. That sounds right. So those two things, three months, listen to this, you've been doing only three months. on LinkedIn and you're already feeling a little something.

18:28Now if you start messaging 10 cold emails a day to owners and managers of factories and saying, hi, just wishing you a happy 2025. I'm around if you ever need anything. Very light cold call, but because you have content, they're gonna click your face and see your content. And then three, when you're starting to do jobs, film in there, it's gonna help you quite a bit. Yeah, okay. I used to be in corporate America like 10 years. So now that I'm getting back into LinkedIn, I found that I know a lot of business owners. So that's going to be my proud of you, brother. You're going to get going. Keep going.

19:02All right. Mark, how you doing, brother? What's up, Gary? Good. How are you? Where are you from? Vermont, man. Nice. Very nice. Go Jets. I'm sorry that we had a really terrible season, but you know what? It's OK. On to the next. On to the next. What's cooking? What can I answer for you? So I have started kind of a community project that started as a personal project. It gained a lot of traction through the digital art space. And now I've been running it for the past six years. And what has started as a personal project has now turned into a business. And I've done it with friends. And for this thing to become financially sustainable, we really need to peel back the layers of that quote unquote personal project and look at the hardcore numbers, right, of how this business can stay sustainable.

19:55That's right. When you go from a project to a business, you need the cash flow and the P &L to be good enough to sustain the business. And that's exactly it. And we found some great success, but a lot of it is our founder love and our personal project and us giving our time and effort to make it happen. But for us to continue this, you know we have to rejig some numbers and all that and where i'm starting to run into some issues with partners is that we have different alignments of should things be run as a business or should it stay as a personal project i love this thing so much that i want it to be sustainable who's in control like who's the primary partner or are you all equal we're all equal that's the biggest uh mess up in my head have you ever split yeah oh so it's only two people it's two entities It's myself and then another entity that is consistent of two people.

20:49Are both of them wanting to keep it nonprofit or one of the three, one of the two? One. Can you push them out? That is currently what we're trying to do, but I'm being very, very conscious because these are friends of mine. I love that. Don't want to ruin the friendship. That's right, and that's beautiful, and I like you. Let's keep talking. Of the three people, who is driving the impact on this nonprofit slash potential business? What is the breakdown on actual impact on it being alive? Like if one of you disappeared, like what's the breakdown of percentage? How much do you contribute, do you think?

21:27So that's where I feel we are very unequal. I feel like I am in the driver's seat. I've, you know - Give me a number. A lot of myself. If God came down and said, here's the impact percentages of the three people, Obviously you're grading your own homework, but like to the best of your ability, with as humble as you can be, what is the percentage breakdown? What percentage of impact are you? 75 %? Okay, what is the person that is on board with you to turn it into a business? What is his or her percentage on the impact? It's percent. I would say that would be about 15. Okay, so now you guys are up to 90 and the naysayer is at 10%.

22:08Yeah. I think there is a nice way that will keep a friendship where you're vulnerable and humble and sweet and compassionate and sympathetic at a coffee shop in Vermont, which is a perfect setting, can say to this person, look, whether I'm right in that me and, who's the person that's at 15 %? What's their name? Dave. Great. Me and Dave, from my point of view, third person, are basically 90 % of this to begin with. We both want to do this. Yes. We love you, third person. Mm-hmm. But if you, I don't want to lose you as a friend, but I, and I, and you could even go to the extreme and say, to be honest, your friendship matters more to me than this nonprofit slash potential business.

23:01I am willing to quit this because this won't be sustainable anyway as a non-profit and go start something else that's it it's kind of where I'm at with it too but you've got to be fully but you've got to be really candorous and when you're talking to a friend most people aren't fully candorous they fucking sugar coat it yeah and that's something I learned from you too by the way it was a flaw of mine I'm coming from a place of experience. Yeah. Got it, brother? Love it. All right, brother.