The Harsh Truth About Why Your Content Isn’t Growing | Tea w GaryVee Ep. 70

0:00Good morning everybody, welcome to Tea with Gary V. What episode number is this? 70. 70. Episode 70 of Tea with Gary Vee. Good morning. Great to see all of you. Let's get the first person on the show. Erin, you got a question? Question from Brayden. I saw your video from yesterday. I'm also 23, just graduated from college and don't really know what to do. I'm applying but not hearing much back. Would you recommend, what would you recommend I do with this free time? Develop new skills, get a job ASAP. First of all, what I'm most scared about is how many people say that they're applying to jobs when it's only three or four or five jobs.

0:33Right? Like when you're desperate for a job, you need to be applying to 30 jobs a day. A lot of people are like, I get this all the time. Like Gary, you know, I'm so desperate for a job. I'm just laying around. I'm like, how many jobs did you? Well, like six. I'm like, six what? Six different jobs. I've done a lot. I think people have lost their way in understanding what a lot is. You can go to like literally, you know, Craigslist and find people that need you for the day to like move some hay in their barn. I don't know, yes, and get skills. So I don't know. I just think that people need to go a little bit harder.

1:07And I think what is harder has been really, really redefined, unfortunately. And I think it's hurting people. Everybody, get over to garybee.com slash whatnot. Download this app. This is whatnot, a live shopping app, which I'm very hot on live shopping. My man, what's your name? I'm Jamie Johnson. Jamie Johnson, where are you from? I'm from South Georgia. uh feels like it my man how are things it's pretty cool man it's cool to be on with you it's cool to be on with you um my question my question is i've started a podcast here uh the southern executive experience for my family's business trying to grow interview business people in my area and um just you know i'm having my biggest question is how do i get my podcast to go locally i've got i've had some good guests i just can't seem to get it any any views you know or any local views yeah yeah you know i'm six episodes posted i got another six already in the queue um but so i'm really early i know i'm early but i'm just like my wife doesn't even see my content so i just know what's going on a couple things one the first thing you should do is take the link to your podcast and text every person in your phone that lives locally all of them you literally start with Aaron Anderson and you end with Zachary Zakovsky and you lay down at night for an hour every night two hours three hours if you want this brother if you fucking want this you lay down and you go and you ping somebody you fucking went to high school with that you know is still in town hey Sarah it's been a long time I did a new podcast don't know if this is important to you or not but it would mean a lot to me if you listen to the first couple minutes right and so first you do ground Next, you post your podcast on Facebook, okay?

2:56And then you run ads for$100 for people that live within a 10 mile radius of your home. I've heard, yep, yep. That's the only traction I'm getting is when I do the ads. How much are you spending on the ads? And how, what are you doing? I'm doing$200 I guess on YouTube right now. Hold, no not YouTube, I didn't say YouTube. Facebook, because Facebook targeting ads are real tight. you can target by what town do you live in specifically? I live on St. Simons Island I'm on the corner of the state but I cover the whole state of Georgia is my territory well you can literally literally run ads that are very very specific to I would say go start with closer Georgia's a big state start with 10, 20 mile you can target by mile radius Facebook ads not Instagram but can be mixed but I love Facebook proper and I love it for your audience and that's what you need to be doing.

3:50Gotcha, gotcha. One rather quick question. I'm in a B2B business, local family-ran business. My biggest problem right now is finding the experts in my company to come help me with my content. They're all scared to be on camera. They're all scared to do these things. We're very successful. My father's built a great business. I'm trying to take it to the next level, trying to get it more online. Are you their boss? I am not. I'm their boss's son. You know what I mean? I run my territory very similar. I've worked for my dad most of my life and he's just the past seven months he's just allowed me to start making content for the company so I've just earned that right so are you are you have you had your dad on yes he was on my first podcast it was awesome it was great have you asked your dad to encourage the executives to be on he has and I've gotten one on it's just uh it's just old school techno old school mentality just not wanting to be on camera I think um but it's Who do you want as customers?

4:48We are in the office equipment IT space. So we're mainly looking for IT directors and we sell copiers, printers. That's who you should be asking to get on the show. Not your executives, but potential clients of your business to talk about their business. You see where I'm going brother? Cause if you email somebody and say, hey, I want you to buy copiers, fax machines, whatever the fuck you sell. and that's hardcore selling but if you reach out to them and say hey I have this Southern Executive Experience show and I'd love for you to be a guest to talk about your journey and your business now we're flirting you understand?

5:30now you're warming up the lead you understand? now you're creating the opportunity so they should be I don't want your executives I actually want you to ask the people that you're trying to get business from to be your guest. I've started that. I've got a lot of those in. I've got some local customers. I've got a few prospects that I've been on. I've been watching you for a long time. I'm reading your book. Hold on brother. A lot. You have 12 episodes. Well, as fast as I can record them. As fast as they say yes. As fast as they say yes. That I respect. Brother, listen to me. $100, 20 mile radius, 50 mile radius of your HQ.

6:11Got it? Yes sir, yes sir. Good luck. It means the world to me, thank you so much. Happy to do it. Aaron, ask your question. Team, you got somebody coming up next, beautiful. Aaron, go. Okay, Seth asks, how would you utilize live social shopping like Whatnot or TikTok Live for a medical service like PT business? No product to sell, but cool service. You know, I would probably create a hat and do what I'm doing with Tea with Gary Vee. I think that there's something that is gonna happen out there called commerce-tainment. I believe in this concept of commerce-tainment. Right now we have a lot of people doing live shopping.

6:44If you go to Whatnot or you go to TikTok Shop, it's all QVC. If you watch this show, this is commerce-tainment. All right, here we go. What's up, my man? What's your name? What's up, man? My name is Aaron. What's up, brother? Aaron, what's good, bro? Okay, so I have a question. I recently kind of went like semi-viral about an experience almost meeting Steph Curry at the NBA game, at the Warriors game, and so like I have nothing but good intentions even though like we couldn't meet because of media and stuff but how can I leverage the opportunity without like compromising my integrity like I'm not trying to get anything crazy out of it but I also don't want to waste the opportunity.

7:27Well the opportunity is a silly one though you know what I mean? Like I think you need to learn from how you created the opportunity more than the opportunity itself my guy. Yeah, I mean it was pretty much based on my storytelling. Like I just spent a lot of time editing. I love that. So become a full pledge storyteller. Meaning, I'm so happy you're on, bro I'm so proud of you. The way that you just responded to me, you get it. You're not gonna get any, what are you gonna do out of the opportunity? Sell t-shirts that say I almost met Steph Cartley? You know what I mean? No, no, no, no. What you're thinking the right way.

8:02A lot of kids like you wouldn't have thought the right way. You're thinking the right way. you need to use, you need to make a deck or a full pledge video or a presentation of how you story told and why it worked and why you can do that for other people or other brands if you want to go that route or if you want to build personal brand, keep doing it. Come up with the next thing. Come up with the next story. Well, ironically, my content beforehand was like showing all my Steph Curry cards. I've even sent cards to like young kids who asked me for cards. and I gave out some cards at the Warriors game.

8:37I kind of just did like – I did Steph Curry content anyways, and then like his team saw it, but it didn't really go like we thought. Like it was a crazy story, but yeah. Well, what did you – talk me through it. What did you think? Okay, so I was told by his bodyguard to stay after the game, and I did. Got it. And he's like, okay, and I had my rookie card, like my Topps 09, 123 rookie card, or 3, 2, 1. And so he's like, I'm going to see what I can do for you. He told me, you know, I'm going to try to get Steph to come back out of the locker room. And unfortunately, I just like ran out of time. And I was like, I had to leave the arena.

9:16So, I mean, I've been in contact with him. And it's less about like fulfilling that. It's more like, how can I use this for good? Like, there's a lot of kids out there who would love a Steph Curry card. I got like 200 extras. Let's go backwards, my guy. I want to navigate it. I got it. I got it. let's take a step back what would you like to happen? like real talk real talk what would you like to happen? selfishly forget about selflessly the kids selfishly yeah what the fuck are you trying to accomplish? for you which is allowed I mean best case scenario like to fulfill meeting him but I mean well good just keep going at it then if that's the number one just keep like Steph is a good dude and he probably wants and he'll he probably wants to meet you just keep going to games and documenting and eventually it'll happen in the end I mean I'm from Dallas and they were just in Dallas last night and I was going to go.

10:07The only reason I didn't is I didn't want to be a pester. Like, oh, like, dude, we said we'd try and you're here bugging again. Like, I don't want to be that guy. Well, that's very sweet. Then that's fine, too. Okay. Well, maybe I'll come to New York and we can go to a Knicks game against the Warriors. I think it's like March 4th, right? I'm actually away. I know. I wanted to see because Draymond's my guy. I wanted to go to that game. I'm actually not here. I'm away. But, my man, listen to me. Listen to me. I want you to focus on the storytelling part yeah see a lot of people told me I was dragging and that I talked too much but it also got half a million views so I don't know it's kind of funny just keep playing you understand?

10:49yeah who's next? Karen you got something? I got a question if you want it's sort of long I'm a stay at home mom to two children who homeschools and runs two full time businesses at night. I'm work to the max with little to no help. I love my businesses and the sense of independence they give me, but how do I stay motivated to keep this up? She also says sales have been down for one of my businesses lately, so I've been in a depressive funk lately, and I'm hesitant to hire someone. This is tough because I have to ask her a bunch of questions, like why hesitate to hire someone, right? Why be in funk?

11:22These are real questions. Business goes down sometimes. When you sign up for business, there's ups and downs. Business is like sports Some days you win Some days you lose Like this concept That business is always Business is like relationships You guys been in relationships? Sometimes it's fucking good Sometimes there's challenging times You guys hear about this thing Called fucking life? You know what the fuck life is? You know what life is? I don't know if you know this But in fucking life Shit happens Sometimes it's fucking awesome Sometimes it fucking blows It's fucking life Like what the fuck?

11:55I don't understand the real question is where's your mind at everybody? Where did this global pandemic called entitlement become the norm? And she, by the way this is how I'm reacting to a woman that is fucking doing it. Did you say raising three children and fucking two, three businesses and homeschooling? She's got six kids because those businesses are kids. My friends I'm telling y 'all, crying isn't gonna fucking do it. Like, it's just where it's at. I think that she's amazing. I admire her heavily, if you're in the chat. Do you know her name? Cheyenne, Cheyenne, you're impressive. Don't get down.

12:43You know, like, fucking swallow it. Like, it is what it is, y 'all. Like, it's fucking hard out here. Like, life is hard sometimes, and that's good. All right, get me somebody on screen. Who we got? Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, what's good? Hey, Gary. How are you? Good, how are you doing? Good, where are you from? I am currently in Westchester, New York, but I grew up in New Jersey going to your family's liquor store, so thank you for the wine. That's amazing. Great parties. Thank you, thank you. Where were you in Jurs? In Union and then Berkeley Heights. Right there, right there. Right there. I love it.

13:18What's good? What can I answer for you? I was wondering, I'm trying to figure out if I should stay in a really safe corporate job or I've been interviewing at a nonprofit that I'm really passionate about, but it has a ton of red flags. So six months ago, I was ready to jump. Now I am like, maybe the timing's not so good. Yeah, I mean, look, I think you should go with your intuition. And I think your intuition knows that there's red flags. Go interview with a different nonprofit. Yeah. Are you just desperately trying to get out of your job or no? No, my job's safe. It's good. It's got a lot of great perks.

13:52But your heart is really taking you towards a non-profit? Absolutely, but I have tons of life responsibilities, so it's that balance. What about joining a non-profit board or donating some of your evening times to non-profits at first, if you want to scratch that altruistic itch that's running through your body, which I admire so much? I love that idea. It's been really hard to find a board, but I think that would be a great plan. I mean there's a lot of small charities out there yeah you know what I mean like it's not that hard to find a board like it's not gonna come to you it's gonna be you with a glass of wine at 10pm you know emailing like I apologize one more time Virginia did you say where were you?

14:37Westchester New York Westchester excuse me I mean fuck even easier there's fucking a trillion of them in Manhattan Westchester Long Island upstate New York I think you literally search charity in the area and you just send emails and be like, look, my heart's in a place of giving and I'd love to be a volunteer or join a board. You know, that happened to me. Like, I'm busy. I got responsibilities. I got ambitions. But I find time to do work for Charity Water and Petzals of Promise and other organizations and I think you can do that. So make it more of a side hustle? I mean, you know, because you're talking out of multiple sides, right?

15:15Like, you know, definitely don't join this non-profit because you can smell it. I know you know. Multiple red flags is not a good way to think about things. And then when you went to I've got responsibilities, well, I mean, what's gonna happen? You're gonna join a non-profit and then a year in you're gonna feel the financial pressure and you're gonna be upset again? Instead, I'm sure you have a busy life, but you still can find a couple hours a month, an hour a week or whatever it is to volunteer or join a board or an advisory board to a nonprofit and start, you know, I think people think all or nothing too much.

15:53For a lot of us that are like, I want to do this, I want to do that. Like when you want to do something, sometimes the way to do that is to start small. Everybody's become so absolute. Like I got to quit my job and join a nonprofit. No, no, no, you can volunteer or join a board for a little while. You see where I'm going? Yeah, I do. That makes sense. Makes sense, right? Yeah. By the way, what that also does, only one hat left, Rips. You know what else that does is it allows you to taste it. You may find out you don't like it. Let me tell you what I found out about nonprofits. There's a lot of bullshit in them.

16:27Not the two I mentioned because I've stayed on there, but a lot of nonprofits are just doing shit to be socially cool, not for the right reasons. Some nonprofits overpay their executives and the money doesn't even go to the fucking nonprofit. There's a lot of shit out there. Is there a good way to figure out what's the shit and what actually is good? I actually trust you because you went through a process where you see red flags and you didn't jump. I think what you need to do is go kiss six frogs until you find your prince. Thank you. You're welcome. Sophia asks, what's the difference between optimism and denial?

17:00And denial? Maybe delusion? I'm going to answer the delusion because I don't know what the, you know. It's a very fine line. This is why it's so interesting to me. This is why people don't like optimism. In their brain they think it means delusion. Right, like people are like, I'm gonna be Beyonce and everyone's like, the fuck are you talking about, Rips? You're not gonna be Beyonce, Rips. You can't sing, right? This is why I'm so obsessed with self-awareness. One of my favorite V friends, self-aware hair and optimistic otter. I have a lot of comic books and stories that I want to tell about self-aware hair and optimistic otter because there is a delusional element.

17:40You know, I think being realistic and I think the missing ingredient when it comes to delusion versus optimism, the missing ingredient is the humbled hedgehog. Humble hedgehog. The answer to your question, Aaron and Sophia's, is humility. If one lacks humility and self-awareness, they become delusional. If they have humility and self-awareness, it becomes optimism. and that is a very fine line. One of the ways that you can, if you're listening and you're confused, one of the ways that you can really figure this out is to find your most positive friends and ask them to respond. Not your cynical friends, not your grandma that always says, brown wow, not fucking Debbie Downside or whatever.

18:25You know, what was her name again? Debbie Downer. You know, I don't need Debbie Downer. You need to find your five most practical, positive friends and ask them what they think about your idea and if you get, you know, 0 for 5 from them, now you're delusional. You know, and so those are the things I would do. Alright, who's next? Get me somebody on camera. Patrick. How's it going? Good, brother. How are you? Good. So I had a question. I'm a chiropractic student and I graduate in November. I'm going to start my own business. I want to start my social now. I can't do any adjusting type videos because I can't adjust until I graduate, but I can do like nutrition, mobility stuff, other health tips.

19:09You could also do people getting to know you and you could like make the whole series about the road to adjusting. You could like tell people that, you see where I'm going? Like we could all follow your journey until you actually can adjust and by the time you can adjust, many of us will want you to adjust us because we followed your journey and we know that you can adjust but you're legally not allowed to adjust. Right. but I was thinking about using AI to make an AI version of myself to then post content doing that. I don't know if that would be not a great thing to do or if I should just do it myself and my thought was I could save a lot of time.

19:49Yeah, you could do that. By being able to type out what I needed to say. Yeah, but bro, it's going to cost you real money to make an actual AI person. That's money right now. Do you know how much, to make a really good AI like that one that's gonna be video not just image? Is that what you're saying? I was thinking about setting it in like a podcast setting where the AI is just kind of there. It's not really moving around but it's just talking. I see. You could. I mean I'm not in love with that. Nobody's gonna give a shit. Nobody, nobody, you know what I mean? Okay, yeah I get it. When it comes to doing ad work, I think I'm just gonna do that now that I talk to you.

20:31Yeah, you know what I mean? And by the way, this is awesome. I love where you're, let me give you some flowers. You're thinking, you're strategizing right now, brother. You know, you've heard me talk about AI and other people, characters, right? You're thinking about, you're about to go to ads. Like, you're thinking. But what's, bro, you can't imagine some of the delusional, potentially delusional, ridiculous shit that comes out of my mouth all day to myself and to others. You're refining, you're chiseling. You know what I mean? You're chiseling. like on these settings I'm being tight because I want to bring value to everybody like I'm always I'm doing you know like what I think about this shit what if I retire and just do coloring books like I'm thinking about shit all the time too so I do have one more question for you if you have time please go ahead when I saw you talking about doing ads and then you know putting it in whatever radius of your area after you post something that does well I've talked to other chiropractors that have done social media and they've talked about how when someone comes in from seeing social media posts.

21:31They kind of just want to be adjusted. They don't retain those patients a lot. They kind of come and go. And what would you do to help filter out those kind of people and really focus in on the people that want to continue to come? I would do it to see how real that is and find out if their content is creating those kind of customers and if their actual personalities and skill sets are not retaining either. like there's so many variables bro to that what people told you and by the way here's my favorite one how many chiropractors have told you that tell me the real number one brother I was gonna bet my fucking life that it was two or less and so next time you say that don't say chiropractors say a chiropractor told me you know what I mean brother listen hold on It didn't discourage me, but it made me think.

22:29This is super important. When it comes to marketing to get customers in a 2025 world, do you think you should listen to me? Or do you think you should listen to this one chiropractor? And the real answer is... If I had just bought your book. Yeah, and more importantly, brother, you gotta live it for yourself. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah, for sure. And is that chiropractor boring as shit? No, actually, he's pretty awesome. I like him a lot. That's awesome. So then listen, he or she, he? He. You know, he, how old is he? I think 33 to 35. Right, so he's probably analyzing like the word of mouth clients he's gotten versus social media.

23:12But I have to look at his social media. Maybe his ads are leading to lower value people. I run a lot of ads for my dad's wine store. Some of them are very expensive, but if I get one customer, I know they're going to be very valuable because I'm being very specific with the creative of the ad that will get me a customer that is very high net worth but it costs me a lot more money to get one than the 50 I can get for the same amount for the lower customer but that customer may only buy$20 wine once. You see where I'm going? The creative is the variable. So it sounds like he was running ads just to get as many people as possible yet they weren't as high value.

23:50If you make videos or pictures for those ads that really speaks to people with heavy issues, right? With fascia, like with soft tissue. I just want to do a lot of nutrition because I'm partnered with a nutrition company right now that I work for. That's it, bro. And I also saw the social shopping with that. I think we need to start. Yeah, I think you're right. We got this. We're good. Go. See ya. Love you. Awesome, thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Let's get to the next question. Aaron. Okay, Family on Board is asking, I have an MBA, started and sold a business last year. do you think influencers have a future as a career in five, ten years from now?

24:27Yes. Next. I mean, Aaron, I don't know what to tell you. Influencers are only gonna grow. I wrote a book. When I'm dead, people will understand how profound Crush It was. You motherfuckers on my team, can you go read Crush It? Do you understand? Mason, right? And Mace, when's the last time you read Crush It?

24:51Mace please say how crazy that book is I wrote that in 2008 it came out in 09 it literally predicted everything that happened the word influencer is not in there but that's all I talked about I think influencer is a huge business because it's long tail it's long tail everyone's going to be famous Aaron everyone's going to be famous to 15 people Andy Warhol's 15 minute of fame or whoever said that is now going to be everyone's going to be famous to 15 people. Everyone on earth will be famous to 15 people at least. The world's changed. Hi, darling. What's your name? Viviana. Viviana, where are you from?

25:25New Jersey. I'm in Bridgewater. Let's go, the Bridgewater Mall. I've done baseball card shows there when I was a kid. I know it well. I'm a headshot photographer and I am interested in live social shopping, but I don't know what I should be selling, like gift cards, reduced. I'm kind of high end, so I don't want to be be portrayed as cheap, so I wanna be able to do that on live social shopping, but I don't know what to sell. Yeah, I think there's a lot of businesses that are not ready for live social shopping, and this is why I'm obsessed with this term, commerce-tainment. I think what you could be doing is talking about photography and yourself, almost like you're doing a live.

26:01And yes, maybe you could run a disc, but you're gonna have to give up 11 % to whatnot. So if you're gonna discount and then give up 11%, it's really not worth it for you because you're not selling an item. So sometimes you don't have to force it. Like I don't force Pinterest and Pinterest is an incredible platform but I don't force it for me. And I'm not so sold that you have to use live social shopping even though it's an opportunity because you have a service. Right. And services don't work as well on live social shopping as items. now you may want to sell items you may want to start selling camera equipment you may that also then gives people awareness that you're a photographer so people may buy camera equipment from you or stumble on you while you're selling camera equipment and then they see how knowledgeable you are and then they may sign you up or hire you to service or you may take photography of landscape and sell prints and original photos.

27:08You could, but you're gonna need to sell something to get the highest value out of live shopping. Okay, that makes sense. Cool, thank you. Interesting, let's get my next question, Erin. Yes, a question from Drew. Huge passion in making videos and now make day in the life videos. I post every day but I'm not getting any views. I post on every platform, is it too saturated? It's not too saturated, you just stink. What's his name? Drew. Drew, you stink. Now this is a good thing. I stink sometimes too. Team, you know this. We sucked all of 2024, Sid. That's not me and you. We were not good. We sucked.

27:48It's real talk, Dustin. We sucked. By our standards, we suck. We didn't suck overall, but we were fucking average out there. In an era where for a decade we've not been averaged. We've been way better this year. Is there any confusion? Braden Wright we're better we caught some heat late Q4 you're just not winning right now bro the algorithm aka human beings I love everyone who's like the algorithm you know what the algorithm is the customer the customer thinks your shit is whack what's his name Drew? Drew Drew people think you stink you're boring you're not interesting now the question becomes now what Erin who's talking behind the scenes she came on the team and she said yo motherfuckers we could do YouTube better this is how I need the fucking first 30 seconds to be this is what I need the thumbnail to be I need you to stop putting fucking all the shit in one bucket she strategized he's in the chat, Drew, there he is Drew, I see you my guy, nice loyal hat exactly Drew, I love you, you're such a fucking winner Drew when you are happy that you suck you can fix when you blame the algorithm and your mama and Donald Trump or Biden you lose when you blame the government, your parents or the algorithm, you're a fucking loser.