The Fastest Way to Scale Your Side Hustle with No Budget | Tea with GaryVee Ep. 66

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. All right, let's get into first questions. We're Tea with Gary Vee. Scott, how are you, brother? Holy shit, Gary, what's going on, brother? Great to see you. You too, hey, thank you for the opportunity. I got two questions, but they're kind of roll around the same thing. And that deals with long-term versus short-term building a brand. Okay. What I've been listening to you for five, six, seven years, and you've always been talking about brands. And intellectually, I got it. but I never really got it in my gut until this like September, October. I've been looking for a job for two years.

0:38So I said, wait a second. I think Gary was right. I think I should be building a brand and pulling people to me versus pushing. Yeah, instead of asking, it's not even pushing, you're asking. And when you're asking in life, you're on your back foot. You're in the non-leveraged position when you're asking. Absolutely. So then I built my socials, built the bios, linked them all together. I did all that stuff, did it right. I was about to start posting. Then you started doing whatnot. And I said, and I've been sitting on this idea of a sweatshirt company for whatnot. And I thought that was fantastic.

1:13And then I said, wait a sec, Gary was right again. I should have been building a brand the last six years. So my question is this, I would love to use whatnot. I'm thinking middle of May. How do I I walk that fine line between building up my brand to make what not worth it. But at the same time, do like the short term left hooks cause I gotta get paid cause I've been looking for a job. So how do I walk that fine line? By doing both. If this was a health show and you're like, Gary I'd like to lose 20 pounds and get stronger. You have to both actually go in the gym and work on gaining muscle while also eating a very different way than you've been eating.

1:52two very different activities for the same goal. Right, right. You're asking for a financial goal, right? And so you've got to ask and build brand in parallel, both at the same time, what you've been not doing is building brand. I realized I was late to the game and I realized that - But by the way, by the way, don't get crippled by late to the game. This hurts everyone. They're like, I was late to the game. I've heard you talk about this for seven years, Gary. By the way, I was late to the game in my health and wellness. I didn't start getting serious until I was well into my 38th birthday. I wish, me and Mike, my trainer who I was with this morning, joke all the time that if I started at 28, I'd look like a fucking Adonis.

2:32But instead I look halfway decent-ish. Yes. Bro, you look pretty good. You're looking good. I respect that. So thank you. But that's the punchline, brother. Please don't dwell that you're late to the game. Please just start fucking doing the right thing, which is writing articles, making videos, putting out content on LinkedIn, the end. In terms of whatnot, so I understand what you're talking about. Talk to both of them, build up the cohorts. I read your book many times. So focus on, I guess the left hooks, if you will, for the short term finances, focus on building the brands. In terms to make whatnot make sense.

3:06First of all, whatnot is amazing. And I love it and we're on it right now. I would say that if TikTok isn't banned or if someone's watching right now that's not in America or India. TikTok shop does both because when you go on, like right now I'm on TikTok, a lot of these people are on for the first time because TikTok just randomly shows you to people. You can be found on whatnot, but not in the same way that you can on TikTok. But how do you make whatnot work? You sell something that's good or interesting and make TikTok and Instagram content to drive people to your whatnot. Right. And make good thumbnails on whatnot.

3:44You know when you open up the whatnot thing, you're looking at different shows, the thumbnail matters too. You gotta just keep practicing. So it's like TikTok, I could be found, I don't need to come in there with 1 ,000, 5 ,000, 10 ,000 followers. But TikTok shop is better. I'd rather you do, but TikTok shop, you need 1 ,000. Don't you have a requirement to go live on TikTok, 1 ,000? Yeah, that's the issue. I don't have 1 ,000 I can go live. You can go live, can you go, and you can go live and you can have a shop? I didn't try a shop. Yeah, we gotta look at that. Anyway, I'm gonna go to more questions.

4:13I'll get you more info on this, brother. So start with TikTok shop, build up the brands, keep doing what I'm doing, and then eventually make it for whatnot. Brother, start with social media content for free. You don't need, don't even worry about fucking selling a sweatshirt right now. Make fucking content about you. Right. Do that, all right? All right, brother, stay well. Nate, how are you, brother? Hey, how's it going, Gary? Good, mate. Where are you from? Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My man, it's a real pleasure to see you. How are things? Cold. Yeah, it's cold as fuck in New York. I live right by the Hudson, it's frozen, I see ice in it.

4:47We're cold today. What's your question, my friend? So I got a small scale card flipping business, I guess is the best way to put it. I sell trading cards. Trading cards, love it. Yeah, man. I love that, brother, go ahead. Yeah, Pokemon, Magic Gathering, Digimon, all that stuff. Anyway, it's - I gotta get you into VFriends. This spring, VFriends tops Chrome coming out every hobby shop in the country. Big deal, I gotta get you on it. Right on, man, I'll be on that. I actually have seen your stuff at a couple of shows I've been to, I just haven't picked it up yet, just because it's hard to, like I've got a small business, so.

5:20Yeah, it's also been, by the way, it's also been expensive. VFRIEND stuff is expensive. The new Topps Chrome is actually incredibly affordable, so it's gonna be a massive deal. But go ahead, how do you? My question is just like, how do I scale from like, just being myself as like a solo operator, to just getting a little bit bigger, with little to no. Money? Money, yeah, basically. I think the best way to do that, believe it or not, is add more things to your flip game. Basically, I'm stuck with cards for right now. So like Pokemon, like magic and stuff, yeah. One, it's expanding. Have you started your own whatnot channel on this platform yet?

5:57No. A hundred percent, you've gotta do that because you're gonna be able to move inventory. That's one of the biggest problems with trading cards and anything when you're selling it. For my dad at the wine library right now is sitting on inventory you can't sell. but when you're on Whatnot and you put things up for auction, even though you might not sell it for top dollar, you're gonna be able to turn it into liquid. Right now, where a lot of your money's sitting is in your inventory that hasn't sold, right? Right. I want you on Whatnot this week doing auctions, starting this at a dollar and you'll build from there, brother.

6:32Yeah, because I started on like TCG Player and then last year I actually started going to like card shows for my first time. also good there's no card show tonight brother nope there's not you're right actually you know what I promise you I'll do it today Wednesday so I'll do it tomorrow I love you I'll look for it I'll give it a share good luck to you brother hey hi Gary V I'm Arun Nair I'm a big fan of yours you really inspire me daily and with your book the out of excitement I'm not getting the name also jab jab jab right hook Yeah, I followed the same strategy and I was posting free job openings in a WhatsApp group and I accumulated over a thousand people over there.

7:19And now I just hit my job and that's why I'm going to quit, go all in. I am okay to fail for the next five years because I know I'll still be under 40 and young as ever. So I'm going to start my own HR consulting firm because I have people. I'm gonna connect them with the network that I have built over the years I'm gonna reach out to companies one by one start by scratch because I'm open to fail I'm ready to try daily so just want to ask you what framework should I follow once I start my HR consulting firm meaning when you say framework like what value should you be providing for them or what example I have the people who looking for a job and I in my LinkedIn contacts I know the people who are looking for hiring but I want to reach out to company in such a way that they give their openings to me and I directly filter and provide them the people so how do you suggest me you give me an advice of how do I go ahead with this in the best possible way I think you know what to do like you know it's it's you're you're in you're sitting in the middle on a Tuesday what marketplace people are coming in and then you're giving them recommendations.

8:32So I just think what I would say is high touch, right? High touch is what I would do. You've got to make sure you're giving the level of customer service, customer service. Make sure that you're interacting on the phone, on Zoom, on email. Like make sure you're making the people that are using you feel valued. Make sense? Yes, yes. That's the game. My distinction is that I ensure that there is a personal touch in whatever I do. I guide them personally. That's it. And then as you get bigger, you want to hire people that capture your essence. You know, like are like you. Understand? Got it? All right, brother.

9:22Good luck. All right, who's next? Here we go. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you, Gary? I'm excited to talk to you. I am excited to talk to you. Where are you based, Anna? I'm in Austin, Texas. Very nice. I'm a massage therapist and an energetic healer and moving into creating TikToks, Instagram, and I'm also an artist. So I'm trying to brand. And then we're kind of like you. We're into all sorts of collectibles as well. so I'm struggling creating my LLC so that we can protect our personal stuff. What do you mean you're struggling to create your LLC? You're struggling to come up with a name?

10:03Yeah, which is stupid because I'm an overthinker. You're not stupid, but you are overthinking it. Nobody, do you know what the LLC name of Wine Library is? My dad's liquor store? No. It's Stecklin and Walker LLC because he bought it from Harry Stecklin and John Walker. It means nothing. Do you know what my personal LLC is? That one of the ones that I use? Registered LLC is attention at scale. Means nothing. What's your favorite color? Green. And what's your first name again? Rhonda. I literally want you to register Green Rhonda Austin LLC. That is the name of your LLC. I just named your LLC, it's called GRA LLC.

10:52That is the name of your LLC, go spend$267 or whatever the fuck it is, register your fucking LLC. Here's why, what you sell in front of that LLC can be a totally different brand name. I don't need you to overthink your LLC, that's silly. Do you understand? Yeah, yeah, yeah, perfectly. That's it. Great. Great. Mission accomplished. Thank you. Hey, man. How's it going? Good, man. What's your name? Where are you from? DJ from where? No, TJ from Indianapolis, but I'm at in Orlando, Florida, in the Uber right now watching you. So we have - Good to see you, TJ. Yeah, nice to see you too, man. You're my hero.

11:36So this is like crazy. Pleasure to meet you. Hey, so my question is, so everybody go follow EA Carts on whatnot. I started a golf cart company because of you, Gary Vee. I sent you a DM, you need to check it out. Okay. But anyways, it's big. But anyways, so my question is, what do you see that the future of whatnot or live shopping on bigger purchases? I think it's gonna be huge. We're gonna be ready. But I think it's something to come in the future. Right now, it's a lot of small things, but what's your outlook on that? Yeah, I think QVC and Home Shopping Network prove this, infomercials prove this.

12:09I think you're right. I think people will buy 700, 900. I mean, we've sold$800 vending machines on whatnot. very easily. So I think if you have a good product and you know how to market it, you know, and obviously with live streaming, what's amazing is you could literally take the phone with you and go driving around in the golf cart, get people excited. And that adrenaline creates a higher percentage of converting. I'm a big believer that in 2025 this year, that many people are going to sell items that are over a thousand dollars a unit on whatnot, on TikTok shop on all the other live streaming that I predict will come out, live social shopping, excuse me, and so, yeah.

12:53Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. We've taken on Instagram for EA Cards. No, we've taken EA Cards, we've taken your path with social media. We're about to sign like one of the biggest golfers on YouTube. I don't think there's anything stopping you other than figuring out shipping and logistics and getting it right, but I mean, I think you should be on Whatnot pretty quickly, almost weirdly in the same way you are now. Are you fucking driving? No, so we're in the Uber. We're in the Uber. Okay, good. You're in the back. Good, there we go. Thank God, because you were just looking at me way too long consistently.

13:23I think that you should basically do this same exact thing. Sell on whatnot. I think you should be, somebody should be driving the cart while you're on live. You step out, you show it. I think you have a very good chance of doing it well. Don't guess or ponder if it's right. Do the action to find out if it's right. 100 % agree. Yeah, no, that's fair. I think that's great advice. That's it, just do that. Just try it next week and let me know how it goes, all right? No, I absolutely will. Check out your DMs though, because I wrote you a nice message. I don't want no favors. I don't want you to follow us.

13:54I don't want any of that, but you're onto something and we're following it, so check it out. Thank you, brother. Good luck to you. You'll be proud. I'm already proud. See you later. All right, go ahead, Yara. Where are you from? I'm from Morocco. And I'm currently living in France. Yeah, so last year, I launched the company with my friend. So basically what we do is we go to people that have Airbnbs and we take care of the Airbnb. Like we clean it, we change prices and we have a small problem, which is that we don't know how to lead people to be 100 % in it. You know, like we work with people and we always have to go back and say, please, can you like, can you do this again?

14:41Like, can you do it a bit better? And like, we don't know how to lead without being rude and without actually leading. They can't feel that they own it as much as you own it because they don't own it. Employees can't act like owners. If you want them to be like owners, you have to give them equity in the company. yeah i mean well they have equity that's that's the problem what do you mean because because um like uh me and my friend like did the the most the like the hardest job of setting the website of trying to find clients okay and uh and we are actually working with other friends to just help us actually on the logistics no no no to not just We will give them, yeah.

15:33You'll give them equity? Yeah. Okay, well then good. Then you just gotta - Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Great, then you just gotta find people that are good. How many people have you tried? Two people. Great, you need to try 55 more people until you find four good ones. Okay. More people. Promoting and firing is knowing, but hiring or partnering is guessing. And so you've gotta guess more. There is no right way, you're guessing. doubling down on someone or firing them and getting rid of them, that's knowing.

16:09You understand? I see. Good, good luck brother. Try as much as possible to get the result that you want. Okay, thank you so much. Try as many different people as possible, but when you have someone good, make it good for them. And when you have someone bad, get rid of them. Perfect, thank you so much. Love you, you're welcome. I need rapid questions, let's go. Go ahead.

16:34How should I take being let go by an employer because I got fired because I asked for a promotion? By kissing the ground and being thankful that you figured out that your employer is a piece of shit and you're out of that toxic, bullshit, fucking loser company. Anyone who gets fired for asking for a promotion is so lucky to be the fuck out of there. I mean, people have asked for raises and promotions for me and I've explained to them why not, but it got me excited about trying to teach them a path of getting there. That's good intent. That boss is scaring that employee and every other employee so that they don't ask for more money.

17:19That is a manipulative, fucked up, toxic, bullshit company and that person, how should they react? By fucking saying, how the fucking Lula. How do I balance my work and side hustle grind when I'm dealing with so much pressure and negativity at home after my dad passed away? Dealing with your job and your side hustle while mourning the loss of a father is a game of patience and grace to yourself. I believe that people need to be much more graceful to themselves when dealing with mourning. Everybody mourns differently. Some people go head first into their work the next day, literally the next day.

17:58Other people need an entire year to really calibrate the loss. You can't judge yourself in either. If people around you are like, Joey, you're just jumping back into work and not dealing with your feelings, that's okay, that might be true, but don't feel the pressure of other people's opinions on how you mourn. Everybody mourns their own way. If you're also not productive for a year, your business is down, your productivity's down, don't beat yourself up. We all mourn differently. Give yourself grace.

18:32When's the right time to choose saving an employee over losing business because of them? That's a rough question and a great question because I've always done too much save the employee and I would argue that eight out of 10 times it was the wrong call. My bleeding heart and compassion was wrong. The problem is the two out of 10 times that I was right, it paid for the other eight wrong times. How do you maintain a relationship with your investors and partners after a failed project so they will work with you again? Humility, accountability at the top, right? And tenacity, so, oh, there we go, hat.

19:12You gotta put your hat on. If you failed and you wanna get those investors to invest in you again or partners to work with you again, you gotta put on your hat. You gotta lean into humility, so you've got to own it with humility and accountability and then you've got to be tenacious about over communicating to them the truth. The other thing I would say brother is you've got to give them a good deal the next time. I mean so many kids have come out to me after I've lost money investing in them and were like invest in me again. I'm like why? You know especially if they did it poorly. So all right let me get this question.

19:45What's your name? Hi Gary. Hi. How are you? Hi I'm from Germany. pleasure pleasure i'm sorry i didn't catch your i didn't catch your name what's your name mila mila pleasure go ahead what's your question um so i'm a content creator and in the health niche genetics and longevity and i was wondering how can i integrate what not do you sell any physical product mila not yet i'm waiting for for my studies to be done by the end of this year and I will be selling coachings and I'm writing a book also, yeah. When you have something to sell, then I think Whatnot becomes a very smart platform for you. But until then, I would rather see you go live on TikTok to have people discover you.

20:41When you go live on TikTok, it shows you're live in people's For You page and then they'll discover you. And I think right now as you're building up your profile, you need discoverability. Does that make sense? All right, yeah. But how can I build a following on what not? Do not become overly emotional about what not. As excited as I am for everyone about what not, I'm excited if you are selling something physical. Understood? All right, yeah. But, so I wanna make sure that you don't force it just because Gary Vee is saying beyond whatnot, if your product doesn't fit it, right now what you need to focus on is you have to be on TikTok Live.

21:24You have to be on TikTok Live. Okay, okay. So you're prioritizing TikTok Live? Yes. More than Instagram? And teaching people about all the knowledge that you have. All right. All right? Okay, thank you very much. Good luck. Well, I see I've got somebody. Who are you? Where are you from, brother? Hello, Gary. Hello. I'm from Poland. Love to be here. Pleasure. That's right, I see two people. The other person will wait till this gentleman's done. Where are you from, my friend? From Poland. Poland, very nice. What's your question, my friend? What kind of content should I create as a beginner rapper?

22:04Well, then you've gotta rap. Like, you've gotta put out your fucking freestyles. Yeah, but about TikTok, other example, like what kind of content should I create to make it pop? Yeah. Be good at rap. I don't know if in Poland they have this saying, but the saying goes, you can't put lipstick on a pig. If you make the TikTok flashy and cool and great, but you're not good at rapping, it won't succeed. If you don't make the TikTok special, but you just sit down and you rap into the camera and you're very good, it will work. Yeah. Let's get the next person up or ask me a question, team. Oh, here we go.

22:42My man, how are you? Where are you from? Hey, what's going on, Gary? I'm actually in Brick, New Jersey, but I grew up in Edison, New Jersey, dude. No shit. Did you go to Edison High or did you go to J.P. Stevens? No, I actually went to PVT. I went to vocational high school. Very cool. What about middle school? That was Thomas Jefferson, TJ. And what about, I went to John Adams. And what about grammar school? Lindenow. Lindenow. I went to Martin Luther King Elementary. All right, brother. I love it. We're from the roots. Talk to me. Yeah, so I have a couple of growing startups here. Some pretty groundbreaking stuff.

23:19I have a 3D interactive studio that I'm running online. We're doing some crazy stuff I gotta show you. I'm not kidding. What we do is insane. Very rad. We build immersive 3D incredible websites. Beautiful. Along with that, we do just about anything digital that you could imagine, dude. So you have a service business. you do sites, you do digital. How many full-time employees do you have? It's three of us right now. We're very small. And then you get some freelancers if you need something rando. We outsource what we need to, but we don't outsource much. We would prefer to learn and do it ourselves.

23:51All right, so go ahead. What's the question? I know this game well. It's huge here, dude, but what the issue is is that we're kind of having to deal with some smaller, lower end clientele and there's a huge gap in understanding and what we do, the value in it. Let's break down the answers. Number one, how much content are you producing for the company on linkedin on an everyday basis don't bullshit me i have been living on linkedin dude i built a beautiful profile i did it myself i've been spending hours a day and it's finally just as of yesterday to the point where warm inbound leads are coming to my inbox and the page is working for me so it's beautiful more more and when you say working it are you cold emailing or are you making content are you replying to comments what are you doing?

24:32All of the above but right now I'm at the point where my page is set up nicely so I'm engaging to try to obviously get more people and more folks What's the name of the company? It's MXNN Creates and our AI research division is Silzo and again we have our own proprietary AI model that we've already developed it's in V1 Alpha and we're using it on every one of our projects And one more time when you said my page is now set up it's your personal account that's posting the content or the two companies posting the content? I have the company pages up. I haven't really worked on them much. I just focused on myself first because of my credibility, my work history, all that really.

25:13And you yourself, if I go to your LinkedIn right now, I will see posts from you multiple times a day? Absolutely, dude. I have a lot of, quality of my posts is insane, but I'm not getting a lot of engagement because the network. Well, that means it's not true. Not true. Not true. Excuse City, USA. Okay. Okay. Very important, very important. Like the second you own what I'm about to say is the second you're gonna explode. Okay, okay. When you say the quality of my content is insane, but I'm not getting the, right? Immediately you're in that place that I'm trying to get everybody out of. My team will tell you, all these characters, they will tell you I secretly get more excited when my content doesn't do well.

26:00Like right now, the last three or four posts on Instagram, I'm like, eh. And I get like fired up because I love the humility that comes along with it. I never think my content's insane unless it gets a fuckload of views. Fair enough. And so you know your shit. I can feel it even in just the words. Yeah. Doesn't mean that you're great at content creation yet. Doesn't mean that you figured out LinkedIn. And back to humility, it ebbs and flows. There's like a year ago today, we were terrible on Instagram. The last four months of this year, we got our shit together. So yes, you may feel confident in knowing how you trained your AI.