The New Marketing Playbook - Why Many Brands Are Losing Market Share

26:24Let's take a button off too. Let's get a button. There we go. Now we're doing it. My friends, this is real. We're going to real talk right now. Do you understand the amount of energy on both sides of this equation that is spent to worrying about the other side of the equation. If we just worry about what we can control, we win.

26:46If I joined a QSR right now, I would break every rule that corporate had. I'd be doing flyers on, I'd do whatever it took to build my business. I'm definitely not waiting for them. I'm gonna contribute my two, three, 4 % depending on the franchise. May pretend that they're blowing it because I don't even wanna dwell on it. and I focus on my shit.

27:12Not as loud of a clap. I mean, I'm sorry, I wanna stay on this. That should have been the loudest clap. My friends, you're in control. You do understand that, right? They don't own your personal social media account. You believe so much in social, make content under your name where it says you own the store. No one's stopping you. and the second you realize that, you start winning. But sitting around and calling your other buddy that owns two stores in the same franchise circle and being like, these guys, huh? The hell are you dwelling about? We loved when we were making fun of Gen Z for crying.

27:54We don't like it as much when we talk about us crying.

28:03Let me take it even further. 100 % of everything that is wrong in my life is 100 % my fault.

28:20This parenting politician framework of the last 40 years has everyone confused. Brother, ask me if I made money when Bill Clinton was president. Ask me. Did you? Yes. And then Bush. Yes. And then Obama. Yep. And then Trump won. Yep. And then Biden. Yep. And Trump too. Yep. If you think the president has an impact on you making money, you suck.

28:57Gary Vee, 2028.

29:04That's the mindset. There is no other mindset. Please. You were very strong talking about and listening to people. I mean, how do you get some of the whining? How do you get some of these things? Where's the world going when you're talking about it? Look, I think for the, how many people here know my content, know me a little bit? Raise your hands, just curious. Thank you. So the people that raised their hand, look, I'm obsessed with empathy and compassion and sympathy and like being understanding. I just think there's a line. Like I don't come here to insult. I hope you understand. I woke up at 4 a.m.

29:43to be here. I'm desperate that one of you that is complaining hears me today and changes your mindset because it will work. you're not my sister, I don't really care what you do. You know, I think you have real conversations, right? Like, I have a funny feeling that corporate, I think they want it to go well. I have a funny feeling you care and want it to go well. I just don't know how to complain about stuff that you don't control. If you don't want to kick two to 3 % into marketing to corporate, start your own company. Like, I just don't understand, right? we're fully in control. You don't like what America's doing?

30:28Move to fucking Sweden. Right? You don't like your wife? Get a divorce. I mean this shit. It's very real to me. You're in control. You should definitely not be complaining about two to three percent in marketing because you have full control. And on the flip side, corporate, so just to give you a preview what I do with QSRs on the corporate side, Inspire Brands, everybody. They need to stop overthinking what you guys are gonna think. That's the biggest mistake that execs at your level are making. I love it because you're being empathetic, and you know how it is. There's two to three people in here who have the most stores, and they're on the marketing committee, and they have the most say.

31:14My point of view on that person is like, shut the fuck up.

31:21Again, because if they're so epic and we love capitalism in America, go start your own shit. You signed up for this.

31:36I'll tell you why it's healthy. Because it's real and I know you can do it with your other 97%. You do not need them. This is not Raz on you. you don't need anyone but you. That's the mindset, brother. It's not positive, it's practical. It's how it actually works. You're in control. And the second you decide you're not in control, which by the way, parenting and politicians have done a great job for the last 40 years tricking all of you to think you're not in control, you start to cry. But when you think you're in control, you win. You know what the sickest thing is? So I have so many followers and so many of them were 15 to 25.

32:17I literally get this message over a thousand times a month. Some version of what I'm about to tell you. Hey Gary, you're right about these parents that are paying for their kids' lives after they're 22. I'm one of them. I'm 26. My parents pay for my apartment, my Uber, my Equinox. I'm so pissed at them. This is real shit, brother. So sometimes I'm just crazy. like today I'll do it because I'm flying this morning I flew here now I gotta fly back to Newark and then I'm going right to Portugal I'm going to Lisbon after this so I'll catch up on my work and I'll start to answer some of these just to get in the trenches get a feel for the consumer and I'm like and I'm a sicko because I'm trying to bait them into even deeper waters I'll reply and be like yeah man I get it I'm like how you think about fixing this they're like I don't know I'm like I got an idea stop taking the money loser

33:16if you're a parent in this room and your child is either 18 to 22 given the circumstances and they're older than that and you're giving them money what she and he is feeling even though they'll take it because they need it they think they need it what they believe is that you don't think they're capable you're destroying their self-esteem and parents love when I talk about the 26 year old that's on the payroll and they hit me up and they're like Gary you're so right my son's a loser and I reply I'm like you're the loser because you're the one who's writing the check if you're so upset about your kid not doing anything at 26 years old but you're sending them money you're the problem it's real brother we are by the way I was a DNF student but I got A's and B's in history and I never understood why and now I do because I use history as pattern recognition for consumer behavior for business.

34:19We are a mature empire. Let there be no confusion. We, the greatest country in the world that I immigrated to by the way is the greatest country in the world but we are mature. We are soft. People cry about dumb shit in our country. I'm on the board of Pencils of Promise and I'm on the board of Charity Water. Charity water, I don't know if you guys know this. There's 8.2 billion people on earth. There's over 850 million people that did not have access to clean water. Within eight hours, cannot get to clean water. More than 10 % of the world, right? Our charity builds wells to get fresh water in these parts of the world, third world countries.

35:03We're out here complaining that the barista put in the wrong milk in our coffee. and there are 10 % of earth that can't get to water. I'm pissed about that and we need to change it. So it's mindset. So basically, all my little ranting for the last 10 minutes comes down to a very simple thing. I am so impressed that you're even in this room. I mean this. The fact that you're even in this room owning your own business, working that hard, you know how hard people work, you know, to get there, I get it. I lived in a studio apartment with seven family members. My dad got to his small liquor store by working 15 hours a day for eight years, making two bucks an hour stocking shelves.

35:44And then he made my ass do it for five years. I'm so damn impressed. I just wanna, all I'm doing for the last 10 minutes is looking for the final piece. Once you eliminate any excuse, you become fundamentally unstoppable. Very good, very good.

36:09You've got many, many, many of them. One that I don't have here is called Day Trading Attention. Yes, sir. Walk me through a little bit of what you mean by it and what that means and what that can do to help us. Notice, everyone, how I said, but tomorrow YouTube Shorts can do something and it changes what I would say to you. That's Day Trading Attention. I have no principles on marketing other than reach, but it has to be actualized. Frequency has to be actualized and then relevance, right? I cannot tell you how much this business should be marketing around high school football, video game culture, right?

36:49It just has to. There's so much ammo for you. I also study your competitors in a space. It's wide open opportunities at scale but you have to know where the attention is. So I spend, how many people here are familiar with Substack? Raise your hands. right notice how the hands are i would say one more time just hi so check this out you'll find this interesting i think we're about six percent of this audience raised their hand on sub stack sub stack is basically long form written content that you pay for in a lot of instances like written content is back in long form everyone's like attention spans are destroyed no they're not we have options.

37:30People in here have watched one hour videos. Most videos aren't worth more than three seconds of their time. So I have to pay attention to Substack because if I come back here in two years, 80 % of this audience is gonna raise their hand. Got it? So day trading attention, I wrote a book, really captures my marketing model which is I pay attention to every platform. I pay attention to why is Labubu working? Oh, here's a good one. Actually, it's a big piece of advice for you collectibles as a lifestyle genre is about to join sports music fashion and food i don't know if you're paying attention to trading cards it's i don't know if you're paying attention to the boo-boos those little things right both men and women are collecting and have always collected your great-granddaddy collected stamps your your funny aunt picks up magnets anywhere she goes humans collect, but now it's become very, very cool and at scale.

38:28I think one of the ways to drive this business is if you have a featured product that you want everybody to buy, if they get a collectible that they can sell on eBay for a couple of bucks along with purchase, I think your business would explode. Day trading attention. So what's happening with attention? Where's the attention? Who's got the attention? I'm a human anthropologist 24 hours a day. it's my biggest obsession. I want to know what all 900 different subcultures within America are thinking, why are they thinking it and where are they consuming their information. I was early to podcast and YouTube and social and when VR, you know, I'm never, I don't like being early.

39:08When VR came, everybody was hot in it three years ago. I'm like too early, but it will have its day. Like this right here, my friends, when in 20 years, you're gonna look at this and it's gonna look like the beeper you all had. So it's all coming. I mean, do you know that there are people in this room whose grandchildren are going to marry AI robots?

39:34I'm saying this for one reason, because I expect you to reach out to me in 26 years and say, goddammit, you were right. I believe within 30 years, 40 years, multiple people in this room's grandchildren will marry a non-human. It will be an AI robot that looks basically like a human. I believe that to be true. So if you think this social media is scary now, wait.

40:04I don't know how good it is. You know, it's intense stuff. But again, friends, this is a fascinating thing about human beings. We act like technology stops while we're alive. if we went all right now to our great great grandparents grave and dug them up because there's some new technology that can bring them back to life we'd bring them back to life we'd be like great great great great grandpappy we would hug they'd look around and be like fuck it I'm going back in like stuff moves stuff changes like this is the beginning what we're in now is child's play you're worried about your kid being on TikTok child's play

40:46and by the way a lot of people here who are like no on AI I've got a very important statement about this because looking at the crowd a lot of you grew up when the internet was coming remember when you were on AOL instant messenger and all that you made fun of your grandma for not knowing how to use it you made fun of your grandma for not knowing how to use an iPhone I've got bad news. You've become your grandma. If you're not using AI every day, you are nanny nan man.

41:20And what's the reason to not use it? Oh, you know what they love to do when they don't want to do the work to learn something new? They go super philosophical. Gary, I'm not using AI because it's bad for the human race. My friends, do you know when electricity was invented? Most people didn't put it into their home because the word on the street was there was demons in it. It was demonized. Literally, people were slow to bring electricity. They're like, nah, I'm gonna use these candles.

41:50Don't become granny. Because here's the problem. This is why I'm being so passionate about this. If you don't jump on board this tidal wave, it will roll you over. And here's the problem. We all chose entrepreneurship and business, right? Like you all chose this, me too. Business and technology and innovation doesn't care about your financial status or your feelings. It will just do. Is it lost on anyone here that every one of their employees will be a robotic in the next 20 years? It can't be lost on anyone here, right? How many people here plan on owning the business they have now or maybe you'll expand into other franchisees?

42:31I'm just, this is for you now. How many of you plan on being in the restaurant business 20 years from today? Just raise your hand. How many of you plan? For the ones that raised their hand, you've got to stay heavy on top of this. How many people plan on retiring within the five years? Not you're going to crush it, you're just old and finished. I just want to say it real quick. Five years? You look good, bro. You're really done? So I've got two or three. for the rest of you, five years a lot's gonna happen. And I worry because here's, I'm very passionate about this. You work, again, I grew up in a family one store, but this is the, you are the most real to me.

43:12You don't need, I don't know if you can zoom in and see these goosebumps on my arm. You're me and I'm you. I really care about what I'm about to say. I need you to stay on top of all of this. Here's why. You've worked so hard to even be in this room. You're gonna work so hard for the next seven to 10 years as well. You're gonna come to a moment where you're gonna wanna transact and get the fruits of your labor. If you don't understand what's going on with all this stuff, you may be vulnerable and not get the dollars you deserve. Make sense? That's it. You gotta get it. Thanks a lot.

43:49This is a bit of a talk. I'm asking this question. Please. We're all in Gideon world here. and we gotta move to the future fast, we gotta do all these things. Yet you also are big in the word patience. Yes. Help me with the group here because we're all in the guinea and help us with where you're leading the patience. Macro patience, micro speed. In the day to day, my last 15 minutes, I want you to learn all this stuff, fast. But in the macro, one of the things I worry about if we're talking real business is somebody here going to seven locations just because two went well. They're impatient. They want to get to the Lambos in the second house.

44:29They overextend themselves and they're kaputski. Got it? I know you got it. You all know it too. You've seen it. You've almost done it. You maybe have had a micro version of it when a store didn't work because you got a little high on your own supply, right? You've got to get your fundamentals right always. So it's macro patience. building your empire with this IP if you extend it to other IPs because I know franchisees sometimes do more than one in different spaces you've got to really have your ducks in line and really for this crew the way I would think about it the way I do think about it is you have to assume the next door opening is going to fail and can you afford that?

45:10You know people overextend they over leverage so that's macro but in the micro like if I'm in this crowd and I've sat through this presentation and I've completely disregarded social as a marketing engine to grow my business, I think you consider it. I think you consider it. Look, I'm in the restaurant business in New York City. Different business, you know, different kind of thing, but we test everything. Like, I'm gonna say it again, because I wanna really, I don't want to be so reliant on social. I'm hoping some of the other platforms lower their price. I would do radio, television, and print tomorrow if they priced it according to the truth of how much attention was on it.

45:54Right, brother? They still have their old pricing because they gotta keep themselves up. Do you know that print's more expensive today than it was 25 years ago? You know how crazy that is? Friends, print is more expensive by circulation against cost today than 25 years ago. So anyway, macro is like, for example, if I had four hours and we were jamming the number one thing I recommend for all of you is building out your team. There's nothing even close. You're gonna be able to build your whole scale when you've got real people in the trenches. And how do you do that? Hourly wage employees, managers, regional managers if you go into a bigger dichotomy like you have to care about your employee more than they care about you.

46:36Right? How do you reverse engineer? What does your employee care about? Some of your employees want another dollar an hour. Others want either Friday or Saturday off, which is hard for you. Like you just got to reverse engineer. But when you find that team that's right in this QSR space, you can start to really cook with gas because you all can do amazing work with your 97 % marketing. You can do amazing work with the pool of the collective. We can throw everyone into the stores. But we at VaynerMedia decline certain clients because we tell them right to their face. We crush that marketing. and we'll get you customers, your product stinks.

47:14You shouldn't market.

47:18Right? So you all know this. This has been so hard for me for 20 years when we had hourly employees. Like all of you are sitting right now when I'm about to say this sentence and you'll be able to answer this. Where do you sit right now with how good your store or stores are staff wise? And I'm empathetic, I know. It ebbs and flows. You know, and I think again, small businesses or operators of this size sometimes we try to save just a little where we shouldn't. And I get it, cost are real good. It's unbelievable how much I feel what's on the floor here. But let me say this, and I hope this is remembered by some of you.

47:59Hiring. Hiring is guessing. My mother gave me so many gifts and then she raised me perfectly. She's the number one on earth. and she gave me intuition and she helped me mold my intuition over the first 18 years of my life. I will put my intuition on any, compete with anyone on earth. That's why I'm so right about things that end up happening and yet I have hired so many bozos in my life. You know this, hiring is guessing. Firing is knowing. but promoting is really knowing and I think a lot of us are hesitant to promote or give more money when we know we have a winner because we're balancing the entire payroll.

48:46I implore you to deeply hear me right now. When you are lucky enough in your business to hire someone in a store that you know is good, you must suffocate them with positivity, good and value in return.

49:06And do not make the mistakes that I did in my 20s and 30s until I kind of woke up in my 40s about a decade ago, which is sometimes you're not giving someone you know that deserves another dollar raise ahead of cycle because they're carrying the weight of someone who is garbage. You all do that. I do it too. I get it. But what I need you all to do is literally leave this conference, potentially right this minute, go home and fire your weakest link and give your strongest link a raise. You will be flabbergasted what it means. And thank you so much for that response. It means a lot of you know, and I'm telling you, I know you know, it will massively matter.

49:57So the way you build a QSR, like this incredible brand's day-to-day operations that they have to worry about is hyper-focusing on those employees and being much smarter. And everybody, you know what's so funny? We all love capitalism, like fuck socialism and communism, right? And meanwhile, day-to-day, we're all doing that. We're literally not compensating our best person because they're carrying the weight of our worst person and we're not firing that worst person. And it's because we're just like checking the box of the hours they fill, but a winner will work more hours. And by the way, the losing player is bringing down all your middle players way down.

50:34Now we're getting into some good stuff, brother. We're getting into some good stuff. I want to come back next year and get into this.

50:48So I'm sorry, all that are two eyes, so those things that you're talking about, you're looking at all our operators, helps them hire better, help them move the needle better, help them to be more fast, all these kinds of things. There's three areas we talk about, commitment to service, a desire to provide value, and a love of teaching. Embody that, I know it's been talked through a little bit here, but I wanna echo this a little bit stronger, it's so good. I think it's great, honestly I'm so glad that that was segue from what I just talked about. I'm telling you like, the, you know, it's really simple.

51:22I have been able to build very large businesses in my life because in order, I care about my employees first, my customers second, and myself third. And I see so many entrepreneurs in this industry who are so quick to get themselves a Porsche as quickly as possible because they think the business is there for them. And their order is them, the customer, and their employees. When you have a passion to what you said, customer service, teaching, just think about it. It all goes to the employee. Right? I think the other thing is I'm a big fan of getting your hands dirty. I think, I think, yeah. And let me tell you what kind of work.

52:19Why did I say yes to this talk? It wasn't because of, you know. You were very, you listened to what our needs are. Thank you. No, let me, yes, thank you. And this has been great, by the way. The button on your shirt, that was epic all time. I'm putting that on my Instagram. Let me tell you why. Not because of those two great gentlemen, the person who started it, the person who's taking it on, which I admire and I know of. I swear on my two children's health it's because of how much admiration I have for the people on the floor. Now, with that being said I think sometimes along the way the people on the floor get a little fancy.

53:09Why I admire so many people on the floor is a lot of them went from kitchen to ownership which I admire so heavy. I'm telling you, you have to set the tone in your organization. Even if it's optically, even if you just once a week roll into your store and grab a mop and start cleaning up, you will change the fundamental culture in your company.

53:39Ari?

53:43Ari? Ari? of course there he is

54:05legend and not just because he is an epic tan epic tan so you know what so listen here's the deal My wife and I are in Ziggazic on a Sunday night, 6.30 at night, the city that the bar, who comes and pours this water? A hundred percent. Thank you.

54:28My friends, I don't know who's on what part of their journey on this. That was epic what you just did. It is, I really, really, really study businesses. You cannot comprehend what Ari doing that means to why he's been so successful. Like you cannot comprehend how much when you're in this room, your ability to deploy humility, to get a little dirt under your fingernails as often as you can will literally change the outcome of how much money is in your pocket. And you know what you're gonna find if you're, let's say you're inspired by this. Let's say, here's how this actually works. let's say six people of this room that weren't doing it are like, you know what?

55:16Yeah, let me give that a try. That was a good takeaway. You couldn't get here to this room today if what's gonna happen next isn't gonna happen, which is maybe the first time you're like, this is weird, I haven't done this, but by the third time, you're gonna remember that you like it. And that I admire, that I respect, that brought me here today when I'm supposed to be on the way to Portugal, which is what I need to desperately do right now. And I could not thank you more for your attention. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded.

55:53I appreciate your attention. And thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.