The Secrets to Making Your Business Stand Out in 2025

In short

The Secrets to Making Your Business Stand Out in 2025 - Summary

Podcast Overview Podcast Title: The GaryVee Audio Experience Host: Gary Vaynerchuk Episode Title: The Secrets to Making Your Business Stand Out in 2025 Episode Description: In this episode, Gary discusses strategies for entrepreneurs to differentiate their businesses in a competitive landscape. He shares practical advice on content creation, brand differentiation, innovative revenue streams, and the "day trading attention" mindset.

Key Themes

Differentiation in a Competitive Market
Understanding Competition: Competitors may offer similar services/products at lower prices. It’s crucial to convey your unique value proposition to customers.
Articulating Value: Emphasize aspects like organization, time savings, and quality of service that justify higher prices.
Consumer Perspective: Consumers often care more about the perceived value rather than the operational challenges of a business.

Leveraging Technology and Time
Time as a Commodity: Sell the value of time savings through your service. Use technology to streamline processes.
Communication Channels: Utilize modern communication tools (like text notifications) to enhance customer interactions.

Content Creation and Innovation
Sustained Content Production: Consistent content generation across platforms is vital for brand visibility and engagement.
Creative Experimentation: Businesses should explore various content formats (e.g., live streams, user-generated content) to keep their offerings fresh.
Day Trading Attention: Emphasizes the need to be reactive and adaptive in capturing attention through content.

Navigating Growth and Expansion
Challenges of Expansion: Discussed the pitfalls of expanding into new markets without sufficient groundwork.
Understanding Market Demand: It's essential to analyze the supply and demand dynamics of different geographic areas before expanding.

Revenue Streams and Business Models
Exploring New Revenue Opportunities: Encourage businesses to think creatively about additional services or products that can be offered.
Modular Products: Suggests breaking down offerings into modular components which can cater to different market segments.

Utilizing Existing Networks
Partnerships and Collaborations: Highlight the strategy of leveraging existing relationships to enhance brand reach and customer acquisition.
Community Engagement: Using local events or partnerships to boost brand recognition and foster customer loyalty.

Practical Takeaways

Define Your Unique Value: Clearly articulate what makes your business a better option compared to competitors.
Maximize Content Creation: Develop a robust content strategy that utilizes various formats and platforms to engage your audience.
Embrace Technology: Incorporate tech solutions to improve operational efficiency and customer interaction.
Stay Agile: Be ready to pivot your strategies in response to market changes and consumer feedback.
Build a Strong Community: Engage with your customer base and create partnerships that can elevate your brand.

Conclusion Gary Vaynerchuk emphasizes the importance of standing out in a crowded market through thoughtful differentiation, a strong content strategy, and leveraging technology. By focusing on value, adaptability, and community engagement, businesses can thrive in the evolving landscape of 2025.

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Transcript

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0:00This is the GaryVee Audio Experience.

0:30to your actual question. It's cool that other people get value from it, but don't shy away from the most nerdy, nerdy detail because that's what this portion's about. So feel free and it's nice to be with all of you. How do we not be commoditized against our peers? You know, if you look at the on the field product of a competitor of the adult sports world over in New Jersey, it's very similar. So often the first time we're compared to our competitor, like, hey, how come they're$100 cheaper or this or that. Why are they$100 cheaper? Most people are just doing it not to run a business and just kind of as a passion project, side hustle, and not really into make money.

1:10They usually have side work or other work to do. But as you can imagine, the consumer doesn't care about that. Absolutely. So from a consumer standpoint, how do you answer that? Yeah, so to answer the question to them, we're more organized. We have a website. We have back-end coordination of schedules and all this other kind of stuff. Some people, as you can imagine, are like, take a picture of the Google Sheet, email it out or text it out or whatever. So first you feel like you will, if they value their time, you can sell it back to them. Yes? Right? Yeah, so I always think time is like the ultimate thing to sell.

1:49Like there's people in here who've literally ordered from Postmates a$4 candy bar and paid$27 in shipping just so they didn't have to go downstairs in New York City to the local Bodeja and pick it up. So you do answer that by saying we save you time because of the tech stack or don't you? That's a question to y 'all. Because I think I'm empathetic that you may not realize how big of a deal that is. And it might seem like not the biggest thing to sell on. And I would argue it's definitely something you should sell on. And in fact, I would try to like really think about it and get into like text notifications and other things because I think it's, I always, one thing I really enjoy in these things, I really pay attention, right?

2:34So you talk, I hear something, I say, why is it$100 more? You say, well, it's a side hobby for them. They're not writing the same P &L. I'm like, that's good businessman stuff, but I don't give a fuck if I'm Johnny about your problems. I'm trying to save 100 bucks. If you can then communicate what the value props are, that will become really important because nobody's commoditized. It's a really funny thought. Everyone's commoditized and no one's commoditized. Everything we're wearing right now is actually commoditized. Yet we chose to pay more for many different reasons. And everything else. I think the question becomes, can you articulate why you're a better option?

3:15Every single person in here is looking to articulate the value proposition in a better way so that they get more people to decide yes, then. So I think, you know, I think, keep going. Besides that, is there other things that you can speak to? In terms of? The value? Because, by the way, it's okay to go as blank as we think we run a better ship. And it's worth more. And then if they say why, you say, like, our people are better. You know, we do think we're saving you time and you're all busy. because the cool thing is the people you're talking to, you know, it obviously runs the gamut, but one of the great things about being in the tri-state area is everyone's busy.

4:00Like inherently, it's in the DNA and the fabric. You know, it's just in the energy, right? But I think right off the bat, for everybody, and definitely for you, is like, you've got to be okay with saying our people are better and thus. And for someone like me, I'd be like, well yeah I want better refs or I want better you know like when I walk into the I don't know every detail yet but like that. No you're there. I mean you know we have we staff site managers on the field you know we're trying to get we're coaching and training them to be more personable get to know the captains on a first name basis be able to communicate on the field.

4:39We do a lot of showing off the players in terms of MVP pictures for every game we're getting them posted on social videographer. How often is this coming up? The prices? Um, not that often, but I want to increase the price, but like bring the value in the same way. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, I think, you know, it's funny. I grew up in a liquor store called Shoppers Discount Liquors. Price was what my dad traded on. And I got ingrained in that. And ironically, even before I went to my dad's liquor store, my baseball card business was based on price. I would literally walk the show in the eighth grade as everyone was setting up, memorize all the prices of like the key 50 cards that everybody gave a fuck about at the moment and go back and reprice them cheaper.

5:33Like it was such an easy thing to understand on price and obviously over the last, you know, since that kid, over the last 40 years I understand like there's many different variables one can play on and you know like now everybody wants to play like the 1 % of the 1 % because that's real good business when you're not paying price. But I like where your head's at. And I would tell you, and for everyone who's listening as well, whether it's Scott's, Protein Balls, or anybody else in between, always challenge yourself of why someone would pay for this at this price. It's like, I don't know if there's a day that I go by that I don't think about that.

6:04And I think most people don't think about it at all. And I think there's something in there. So I love that that's where your head's at. And that's what leads to innovation of value. Like all of a sudden, here's a good example. The amount of people that want to be sports broadcasters that are on social media is like a billion. Just adding a live stream component to every game that's aired on Twitch to four people but has a wannabe sportscaster actually broadcast the game, I would pay for our background. I would pay for that. I'd pay$1 ,000 for that. At dinner last night we were talking about could we wreck some style and follow one of the teams from the league?

6:40Yeah, I mean those are really fun, clever ideas. I think that's cool. I think of that as like the sprinkles to the sundae. And the sundae has to be something like we broadcast your games and commentate them. What's cool is the cost is nothing. You've got Twitch. You've got all these live streams. And again, Tri-State area has advantages and disadvantages. There's just like literally a thousand people who would work for nothing to be able to call the game with the hope that they get discovered. That's why I like challenging yourself of like what's in it for them. That's what I think a lot about.

7:17Like notice the example I gave you. Twitch is free. It's not like, by the way, do you know why I used YouTube within weeks of it being available? Because three years earlier, I tried to do Wine Library TV and asked my tech team and they said it was going to cost$50 ,000 a week because streaming bandwidth costs in 2003 were literally like$50 ,000 if like 10 people watched three minutes. And then, you know, three years later, YouTube was like, It literally took me like 20 minutes to be like, no, no, it's free, it's free. I'll post it and YouTube's not gonna send me a bill. It's funny to think about those things.

7:49So I think you're on a good path. Try to add four more bells and whistles that aren't your staff as nicer. Those are right. But you're gonna need the thing. Exactly. The menu of like, oh, oh, oh, oh, of course, 150 more. Got it? By the way, you could go local college that has a sports broadcasting thing because I assume there'll be content at scale, right? There's multiple leagues going on all the time. And again, you could also create tiers. So one of the ways you could raise your price is whatever imaginary price you had for increase, you might not do it for everyone. You may have a double that price for the sportscast broadcasting way.

8:30You could still net out at the same top line revenue and have real justification of why more. And I just came up with one idea in two seconds that I think would work. I think you keep building on that. Yeah, for sure. Do you keep hardcore stats? For basketball, yeah. Yeah, I mean I - I used to do it across the board but it just got sloppy and like 15 % aside from basketball we're looking at it so it was just like not worth this. Yeah, I think with that gets me immediately into like really actually producing meaningful actual trading cards for everyone in the league with actual stats on it. There's just like you just keep looking if you can just you're just trying to arb.

9:05Notice how he picked up on like oh, there's no risk. Like I'm always thinking of like cost of goods against perceived value. Yeah, yeah. Right? Right, yeah, yeah. I like that you started there and I would tell you that that is a good cadence forever. I mean, there's a million ways to do this. Food and beverage. Food and beverage could be a reason. Like, where are you like physically? Anywhere from Weehawken to Wayne to Whippany. That whole area kind of thing? Yeah, yeah. A lot of W's there. I really think that the restaurant sitch in Bergen and Passaic County also is like an opportunity. maybe you start using your business as a platform for discovery of food so like you reach out to all 7 ,000 restaurants that are on 80 and 10 and say hey we have this we have captive audience high net worth individuals that are paying for this would you like to showcase you know another reason is like our food and beverage program is better another notice what I did there low cost I'm using my platform as a marketing engine so I can arb the cost of goods because I'm not going to pay for that food, but there's perceived value on the other end of people there.

10:09Yeah, show up at the field. Yeah, like my number one thing, especially with buddies that I play with, is like, oh, we could eat afterwards and shoot the shit and talk shit about the game. Just continuous stuff like that. What else? Tough one. Growth in new markets. So we came into New York City last year, stumbled a little bit just in terms of bandwidth from running in New Jersey, coming in to New York. We didn't have any boots on the ground in New York. Why'd you come to New York? The lore of it? Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Because then, you know, we take a step back and we're like, what the hell? Yeah.

10:41We're not even in Hoboken. You just ate every word out of my mouth. Like, knowing the size and scale of the New Jersey market and knowing the supply and demand of opportunity. Like, when I think about you going to Livingston, Shorthills, Millburn area and doing it there versus playing here, it's like, people do this all the time in business. like they get excited about expansion for the sake of expansion like the thesis the ideology the concept more than like the actual business reality like this business is way better executed in New Jersey and Connecticut and Rhode Island and all those places Manhattan just has so much pull and cogs and competitiveness you know yes ironically cogs are very very low for a field space and that's like one of our top things.

11:34Hidden cogs. Right, fair, fair. Got it, got it. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm using my own slang. You're right more than I am. Energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your time is the number one cog. Yeah, and especially living across there, you know, what crossing we take? I'm always sad. I do it plenty too, which is, I think I'm giving therapy to myself. When you haven't fully squeezed the shit out of this grapefruit, what the fuck are you grabbing that orange for? You know what I mean? There's still a lot of fucking juice here. Yeah, totally. I'm setting my stopwatch because I am going to be selfish. Don't worry, James, I trust him more than anything.

12:09But we can double it up. Go ahead. This is a big day for me because I worked hard to get back to this point. Just to give you some context. First of all, I want to say the reason I'm here, and you're always about context and relevance, I listened to your, I listened to the Gary Vee stuff that you reposted through my Spotify when I do cardio. I think it was on the first of the month. Of this month. Maybe last month. October. We run an agency. And you mentioned something about like, you know, maybe you lost a big client today. You know, right at the end of the month, oftentimes agencies don't turn over.

12:41That was super relevant. Then you guys started talking about Sasha Group and 4Ds. Yeah. And my assistant kind of looked it up and we booked. It's amazing. Thank you for that feedback. But just, here's my Eric Godfrey moment. Okay. Eric Godfrey is the kid I met outside when I was seven and when I literally moved to Addison, New Jersey and they were throwing a Nerf football and he said, who do you like in football? And I said, I was just in America for a little while at this point. He's like, well, you're a Jets fan. And that's literally how I became a Jets fan. And it's like the cornerstone of my interest in life.

13:12So here's my Gary Vee, Eric Godfrey moment. I went to Babson College, was one of the pioneers of premium SMS, made a shitload of money, got invited to some boat. I'm on my way to the casino to roll craps with the founder of Groupon and Living Social. And my friend Ryan Sesler goes, I'm going to see Gary Vaynerchuk, you gotta come with me. You weren't Gary V then, you were Gary Vaynerchuk. And I said, who? Because I was into Tim Ferriss, because I was a fan. Yeah, I love Tim, yeah. Ryan Sesler, who's just an acquaintance of mine, goes, Andy, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk. And I walk in there, you came out, you were, I guess you were 35 at the time, you looked like you were 16.

13:51you're wearing a shitty pair of cargo shorts and a t-shirt. That sounds exactly right. You did the best keynote speech I'd ever heard in my life. Gary comes out on stage and goes, I'm the most ruthless entrepreneur you've ever met. Does his whole spiel, he's the big boss. And he looks right at Russell Simmons and goes, fuck you, Russell. I did, I did, I did, I remember. In that moment, I've been the bootleg. I've been all in since. Anyway. By the way, to give you context so you don't think I'm a complete jerk off, and he's painting a very clear picture, what was happening was everyone here was my point I'm very good at I'm a good public speaker but I'm very good if I have a lot of context so what was good about this vote was I was speaking about a day and a half in all I do is watch so I was watching how everybody was rolling and what I noticed was right you're probably remembering more now even like I couldn't believe how first of all this was already a bougie fucking thing why do you need to look at everyone's fucking name tag before you decide how important they are.

14:51And this was at the height of like Google. And it was just very obvious to me that like what people were doing. And I was like, and I'm so into like loving people like blindly. It's just so foreign to the way I see the world, especially because everyone's on a journey, which was the point of like, you don't get it. I'm going to be the most important guy here, but you don't know that yet. And what my point was, was like, stop pegging everyone. Let's spend the back half of this boat just being nice to everyone. You don't know who you're gonna meet. One thing you did on that trip too, we got in a semi-circle.

15:23It started with like three of us. Then it was six. I think by the end, maybe ten people. You stayed up one night just talking to people. I went to bed at two in the morning, but I watched you walk off that boat going like this. I was like, what the fuck was the ROI in that guy doing that? But, I mean, it's just amazing. It's cool, man. I'm very humbled. Thank you. Go ahead. So anyway, it's been a long journey for me. I got into some legal issues in that premium SMS space. It took me out of the game for six years. I started working with a Harvard neuroscientist. We were trying to sell a military-grade mental protocol to DARPA, which is the advanced research division in the military.

15:58Wasn't making any money doing it, but it dialed me the fuck in. When I got out of that kind of six years of kind of going through legal health, and this guy, you know, he was doing brain mapping and all this stuff. I've been sober for seven years. I eat organic. I meditated. He really dialed me in. But I was making three grand a month. It wasn't doing much. and all of a sudden pandemic comes and I'm the most calm, clear-minded version of myself ever. Interesting. I'm sitting at my parents' home in Cape Cod. I get a call from a girl who remembered me when I was this young high-flying internet marketer.

16:28Andy, need your help? I've got$100 to my name. I'm some Jewish lady's nanny in LA doing her grocery shopping. I'm stressed out about getting coronavirus. So I'm only fans, but I can't figure it out. Yeah. So what the hell is that? I logged in. I said, oh, wow, you're trying to thirst. Right, yeah. The marketing logic is really robust in the sense that I can make these transactions. but it doesn't do a good job of taking a creator with a blindfold on and saying do steps one through ten and you're gonna make it back. Yeah, yeah. This girl had 50 ,000 followers on Instagram, no TikTok, no Twitch, no Twitter, no nothing, wasn't a creator.

16:56I shoved her out of the way and I started to storytell with her content, made her a quarter of a million dollars in a month. She starts running around LA, starts telling all these Instagram people, hey, don't trust your business to invite the promoters and eat, you know. Yeah, I get it. There's these guys in Boston. And it exploded. And what's happened is the owners of that platform, who are Ukrainian and Russian guys, they now use us basically when they've got larger celebrities like Denise Richards, me and Klaika, people like that that you can see on the back end aren't quite taking advantage of their opportunity.

17:30They bring them to us. Here's why I'm here. Built this company to$100 million a year company without a brand and without putting content on the internet. and it was all these kind of intellectual face-to-face zooms where I would get on the you know get on FaceTime with these content creators and really say like hey if you get a fan when you attract an audience you can make five dollars off them or five thousand off them what's the difference that's what we bring to the table the analytics especially oh my god I didn't know you existed after about year three I said it's time to brand this thing so we built our brand and Creators Inc.

18:09And went all in on that. We just had this big house party with Steve Aoki. We activated New York Fashion Week so all of our clients who don't just want to be OnlyFans creators could come and walk on a runway. We do stuff like that. Yep. Problem is, now that we've built this big fancy brand, they're not coming like they were when I just got on FaceTime with them and I was like, you know, what's quantitative analytics? Like, what's a wall post for? What's this for? What's that for? Is it a macro or micro thing, do you think? because the space is more mature as well. Like I think a lot of times people, remember when we lost the Subway pitch and I was shocked, were you here for that?

18:45We won like 13 pitches in a row and then like Subway said no and I was like baffled. I was like, how is that possible? And what I didn't realize at the time was, uh-oh, when we said social media in 2010 and 11, people were like, okay. Like my brother's laptop literally created the Pepsi and NHL and Campbell's Soup, like Facebook and Twitter. Like it was that early. Obviously, as that ecosystem has evolved, that's why I'm asking you, do you think it's a macro or micro issue? No, it's a micro because - Well, then that's golden. If you believe that it's micro, you just go back to the number one thing that always works in business, which is, and I can't believe the fact that your story touched on this.

19:27What was the ROI of that guy doing it? Scaling the unscalable always works. the cool part is your story is so simple right why don't you just go back and do that now you may not want to and that's awesome that's okay because then you can have a diluted version of that meaning you hire other people like nobody sells the way I sell my stuff but if I was the only person doing that then it would only be what it is so I'm okay with the B and the C and the B minus and the A minus I mean you're thrilled when it's the A minus version of what you do So all you'd have to do is replicate what you would do one-on-one with the Navy SEALs and the Green Beret.

20:07Not the general army that your 100 million is. You have to build a Navy SEALs or a Green Beret to be an A-minus, B-plus, hopefully B, no worse than B-minus version of you doing it. And you're also allowed to go back and do it as often as you want to. There's an interesting variable. Go ahead. So one of the reasons I never just took the content of me, you know, pitching and selling and talking about quantitative. Well, that I understand. Why? Well, there's two ways that people think about that. One, they don't want to be out in front. Like, that's just a human thing, which is very real. You're allowed or not allowed.

20:40And two, some people fear that they go too far in the details of it and people can replicate it. Yeah, and specifically in our case, what I didn't want to do was piss off the partners at OnlyFans to be like, oh, when you're chatting with so-and-so, you're actually talking to us, so we were respecting that. Well, that, I respect that. Because a lot of people screw up and do that and then they just kind of get, you know, they get mixed for that. But we're kind of coming to the point now where, I mean, a lot of our marketing was trying to say things without saying things and that's where I think we were screwing up.

21:11Yeah, that makes sense. That's where we were screwing up. I mean, the number one business that sucks is that. At some level. You can get humongous, but it's going to weigh. The other thing is, just on a side note, the other thing you have to think about is just the business itself because that work is going to get AI'd out for real, actually. for real actually. Like, OF is gonna do that, not let you do that. You're right, I mean, but in a lot of ways, I think we know where AI is gonna really help in this space versus like some of the parts where you would think that it might completely take over.

21:45Yeah, I would say this, and I actually am a buyer of what you just said, just do me a favor because I want you to win, never underestimate technology. It's always like, back to the era we met, that next 10 years, I watched so many people say versions of that CAC, ROAD you know this I don't have to tell you so just this one's such big technology I would argue even the people that are deepest about it are potentially underestimating how gnarly this tech is so I just want to make sure you keep that in mind I think the number one thing that everyone should always be doing is putting themselves out of business before someone else does I think you should go all in on assuming that truth and work backwards instead of whatever version of hope of what variation it becomes because I think that will lead you to innovate the next thing.

22:34I just want to tell you there's a lot of Gary Vee in our business so for instance like when I coach content creators and we talk about context, right? Yeah. Can I throw a left field thing at you that I'm just feeling so much I have to say it? I highly recommend and I think you will based on everything I've heard please when you leave here please debate starting a consumer product. Yeah, so I'm in charge of growth, right? All these things we're looking at, we have a large roster. Every day, we see clients of ours, their content's getting ripped and turned into Snapchat original shows. As we grow, we talked about this a little bit earlier too, we're trying to figure out how to navigate.

23:14There's this concept of people gatekeeping a good service when they find it in our industry. Of course. As we've now started posting content, we're like, how do we navigate going from talk to your service that's behind the scenes? to now kind of Walmart distribution in terms of media and kind of navigating that content chain? I think A, I think that's right. B, I'm talking about starting a cereal. Yeah. Or like a handkerchief. By the way, we have to show you cereal creators because on one of your things you talked about like eating cereal on a podcast. Yeah, cereal entrepreneur. I started something called Cereal Creators Breakfast.

23:50Cereal cereal. Cereal cereal cereal. Cereal cereal breakfast for cereal creators. Anyhow, last thing I want to plant in your head just so you know, in case you ever have anything to throw. Please. Out of nowhere, we've ended up with clients like Denise Richards, like A.E. Azalea, like, you know, these types of... Well, not out of nowhere. It sounds like you're great at your craft and the platform benefits for you making people that should be winning, win. I would argue it's the least out of nowhere thing. So much so that agencies like UTA looked at buying us because they were afraid Emily Braddock like Kowski was gonna come to us, make 400 grand a month and only fans and then we'd say we'll do your brand deals for free.

24:31They're right, you're higher value. And I just kind of wanted to, obviously like you've been in the service business. Yeah, I'll give that some thought. Send me an email after this, I'll keep it, I know where to put it. One other selfish question I have is, you were talking about Twitch for them, very tapped into culture, like we have kids that are some of the bigger IRL streamers, like Kik or Twitch, where do you see that with all of them? I think it's a I mean, yeah, I get it. All of it is going to end up going to the blockchain because even all of those exist because they're all scared to get banned for canceling on something.

25:08So you have these, we won't ban you until that becomes this. It's always, there's centralization and decentralization. Right, this is why people are grossly underestimating the blockchain. In the geopolitics that the world is in, in the media landscape that we live in, there is an inevitable outcome of an and to the world we live in now. It's not like a decentralized social network or streaming service is gonna put out a business Twitch or Facebook of the day in five years but both will exist and the best which is the game you're playing in the best will all gravitate to decentralization once they extract attention from centralization.

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25:45You know this all the creators are like yo fuck I remember when the Vine guys and girls went to Vine to go yell at them and I was like, tell me how that works out and I also tried to remind them that they were fucking babysitters and working at Starbucks until the attention that sat on Vine came to them. So that's how I think it'll work out. Are you streaming it all on Twitter? I'm gonna go around because I don't want James to get mad at me. The quick answer is I'm not because I don't think people understand that I work 24 hours a day. I'm one of the most prolific content creators but I allocate zero minutes a day to content creation I wish I could I get it trust me the problem is I'm inclined if it was old wine library days all of it because I'm sitting with sensitive information that I can get I just have you'd be stunned how little I can people who are crushing it all they really have versus the people who aren't is good spatial awareness with them I couldn't agree more man I so see it I get it trust me I've been thinking about it a lot.

26:51You stream ended up being a huge factor for me back in those days. Not just Twitter and Facebook. The early streaming stuff. All right, let me keep going. What's going on, Vancouver? Yeah, you, well, your first book was Crush It. You actually talked about a realtor that started on YouTube, started filming himself in his car. That realtor is Ian Watt. Yep, I remember. Who I actually consider somewhat of a friend. That's awesome. And so I kind of ended up just following that blueprint. Yeah. and ended up building a very good personal brand in the real estate space. You know, like, big, you know, World Beyond Bloomberg interviewing, you know, CBC News.

27:29But I guess the issue that I'm having, or I'm here as a personal brand, trying to figure out sort of where my next move or where do I pivot, but the residential real estate space, I find it's very hard to scale. And so I'm like, it's a shit business to scale. So I'm like - Most are. yeah and so I think I'm just looking ahead as you know I've been doing it now for 10 years I'm still a young guy and I'm like now I started this podcast it's called Looney Hour and what's that about? so it's myself I look at it from the real estate space yep of course expertise yeah yep and I've partnered up with the guy that runs portfolios he's like a macro macro investor basically runs client portfolios he's a money manager he's a money manager yep understood and then the other guy I worked for a hedge fund.

28:15Love it. So you guys shoot it. Yeah. Love it. We literally just shoot the shit. How old are you? 32. Yeah, I mean, this is perfect for me to answer. So from, you know, from 30 to 34, you know, when I was Gary Vaynerchuk, I was the wine guy. Just like you're the real estate guy in Vancouver. I decided to start making content about other things. as a personal brand who's built something, you gotta understand back to what he was just talking about. It's not just your pretty eyes. You have other communication capabilities, charismas. So you could actually deploy that to anything else that you can speak to.

28:54I decided to go very macro and go into overall communication and then that led me to the insights of how humans, I went through a really weird period where I was like, I'm literally telling everybody what to do. I'm like, do this on Facebook. And I'm like, no one's doing it. and that led me to like, oh, people are insecure. People are like, people do things, like all the shit I talk about. But I could have went into like, I thought about it, sports. Like I'd be McAfee. That's why Pat and I are friends. Whatever I was gonna do, it was gonna work. I just chose a certain lane. You know, I think what you need to do is decide if it's what's next or I don't wanna scale this, that blueprint continues to be true.

29:32The platforms change, the best practices within them change. but back to what these gentlemen were just talking about, whether it's streaming and spatial recognition, storytelling to the mundane, whether it's the next, I mean, the next TikTok is always one day away. It will happen. You know, it could be seven years, it could be four years but even back to like the nerd of all this, like the amount of money creators could be making on Snapchat because of the supply and demand of how much ad revenue is in there versus how many people create for it because everyone's fixated on TikTok and Instagram is enormous.

30:03and then OF goes from thirst traps to a broader market and Patreon there's just like a million things going on I think your biggest debate at this young of an age is what is your favorite stuff you can only win on passion or knowledge like someone like you there's a lot of ways to win but you my gut based on what I'm hearing you're gonna win on either you love the fucking Canucks more than breathing or you really know something Ouswell. I went with the well and passion, right? I went wine, business marketing. You know, I think you have a pretty clear, like what's also cool about the core real estate business is it's not like you have to retire.

30:48The fact that you can start something around Pokemon, video games, table tennis, pool, whiskey, while still doing the real estate and then integrating it the way I do because I'm all over the fucking place. You might get a fucking garage sale video for me or a Jets video or business. I don't think people realize the Renaissance man and woman thing is very real. Everyone's like, you got to stay consistent. The bad advice, don't worry about it. I'm not distracted. The bad advice that people go and be like, pick your niche and go, yes, but then once you have your steak, you can sell mashed potatoes.

31:21You can sell green beans. What do you think is going to happen, brother? You think somebody in Vancouver is going to see a video about you talking about whiskey and be like, Like, oh, he also likes whiskey. I can't take him serious about real estate. People don't deploy common sense to this conversation. They talk academia. So where I'm seeing that crossover, just for an example, is our Looney Hour show is now like, it's like the finance show in Canada. That's awesome. Full Canada. Yeah, full Canada. That's awesome. So it's doing well. The nice thing about that, right? Yeah. In Vancouver, you're set to that geographical limit of constraints.

31:56Yeah. It's like your clientele is only going to be people that like buy and sell. Yeah, of course. Buy and sell in Vancouver. Yep. Now we're opening up to Canada. Like we're literally interviewing like former prime minister and stuff like that. Yep. And it's lead gen for all of you, right? It's lead gen, yeah. But for them too, they're very broad where you're narrow. Yeah, so I'm narrow. I'm getting a lot of clients that are like, hey, I've been listening to the last 12 months. Have you thought about building a national brokerage? I don't think there's a lot of good money. Maybe it's because the Canadians, it's a little bit different.

32:27I think the brokerage model is shit. and I think it's actually dying. Where I do, I think this is kind of leading in some of my question is, so my co-host, who's a money manager, he wants to actually sort of help me, he wants me to help him scale his business and take equity stake. Because basically what's happening is through that podcast, unintentionally, he's pulling in, he's signing up two to three new clients per week. Not unintentionally. Which, yeah. Intentionally. In that industry is, you know, most people will generate their business. All of this conversation for everyone is just brand is the best selling.

33:04I always make fun of people who don't believe in marketing and branding who are great sales people. I'm a great salesman too. I'm like, cool, that's like when you're not good at marketing and sale and brand. It's not unintentional. You built brand, which is why he has sales. You wouldn't worry necessarily about a crossover of like a real estate and then sort of on the portfolio management side. He's like, oh, now he's kind of doing that thing. Well, let's play it out. I think when you hear it played out in conversation, you realize how silly it is. What do you think's gonna happen? People are like, what happened?

33:38It's just like maybe less than it's like, oh, I think he's not, you know, do I want to hire this guy because I'm not fully dedicated to... Would you take my wine recommendation? That's the answer to the question. Yeah. Right? You've proven your worth in that other space. The only reason why I look at that is because like, so his competition, The whole industry in portfolio management is regulated by investment advisors that work for a big bank. Big bank says you cannot do social media at all. You want to send a tweet? We need to get compliant. Oh, I'm very aware. There's plenty of versions of that all over the world.

34:13So I'm just looking at that and saying I feel like this is a huge white space opportunity. Of course it is. We have zero competition, but the banks are unwilling to... Correct. Yeah, I don't think you'll lose your whole real estate empire in Vancouver because you've also started to play in the money management space. And that's assuming you go front facing. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I think realistically, I'd actually end up probably more behind the scenes. Exactly. I'm not going to be the one that's physically managing someone's money. Correct. I'm just the guy that's building that business.

34:42Correct. So notice the clarity I just gave you on that. Yeah. Sounds like you're worrying about something that won't even manifest. Yeah. No, that's fair. I think it's like, I think it's... But this goes back to like what we... Yeah, I think this is what we do. If you just listen, while they are not running real business, the consumer doesn't care. These are philosophical things. Stay on brand. People don't care. What, are we not willing to take Mark Wahlberg seriously as an actor because he was once Marky Mark? You know what I mean? We do this thing, and I'm telling you, it's all grounded in academia.

35:16It's not grounded in real market dynamics. The consumer has spoken on this issue. We will change our mind. And if you show me enough of you're this, you're this. Mike Bloomberg used to be a SaaS entrepreneur to me. Then he became a mayor. Like, I don't know. Like, you become what you are at a consistent pace. Both good, bad, and different. So, don't fear that. Especially, it sounds like you have, like, yours is really fun because it doesn't sound like you're even going to confuse the market. Yeah, well, I mean, it's just nice to already have, like, the platforms and the brand is already built.

35:48So, it's obviously just kind of leverage that into, like, a more scalable business that that I feel like, okay, where do I see myself? Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think where you took it to a little bit of an interesting place, it sounds like you're fearing something that can't happen. Yeah, yeah, I think ultimately. Right, you're gonna be behind the scenes. It kind of feels like I'm asking for permission. No, by the way, the good news is that's a really good observation. I think we all do that. This is why I believe in therapy the most. Sometimes you already know the answer, you just need to talk it through.

36:19It's just a human trait for all of us. I guess my last question please so now again I know you've got your podcast but if you had one recommendation for scaling like my podcast is there anything that you see as like a huge opportunity where it's like oh people like people that have an audio video podcast they should totally be doing this yeah I mean I think I think I'm incredibly consistent about this I believe that if everyone here so I'm writing a new book called Day Trading Attention right I believe that we all have to day trade attention to maximize our upside what that means is you need to pay attention to everything that is going on so let's just use streaming because I fully agree with these guys what's going on there like I was one of the people early on that was like hey if you have a podcast film it and then post produce it and put it everywhere now that's incredibly common practice but I would also argue that you should stream it as well have four Twitch followers at first like while you're doing the now again everybody has a different process for me everything's always worked because I'm happy to just put it out there.

37:23Obviously, when you film something, you have the ability to post-produce it. If you're live, you're live. So if you go live and you're waiting for your guest, you might not want to do that live. You've got to think about what live means. But look, I think LinkedIn's organic reach is something everyone under leverages on this day as we all sit here today. I think people understand you can go viral on TikTok, though that's much harder than three years ago. I don't think people understand how consistently you can get organic reach that you didn't have the day before on LinkedIn and I'm very bullish on it.

37:57And I think everybody here, whether you sell a protein ball or you're actually in the B2B business, LinkedIn is more Facebook 2015 than it is the LinkedIn that I think everyone defaults into thinking it is. So I would say anybody who's not distributing any of their content, everybody should be distributing content on LinkedIn. It's a really good psychology audience too. The human that's on LinkedIn when they're consuming LinkedIn is a different version of themselves. Often very business transactional minded versus TikTok where you're just looking for escapism or entertainment. I would say that one really stands out for me.

38:34But then also just taking no assumptions. You need to film them and you need to post-produce them. But you also have to be great at the post-production. I know we'll touch on that. I don't know how much, have we touched on that yet? Or is that a backup? Have we done sock stuff a little bit? We've done sock stuff before. Good, you know, so like this stuff, like the world works on storytelling. First of all, thanks. We kind of built a studio video on the heels of like Thank You, Conny, and Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab. Thank you, bud. That's good. So since then, over nine years, we've grown to be kind of a collection of businesses that are like over$100 million, and we only have about 200 people on our team.

39:13We primarily grew with Instagram, So we like we started because we got on there and kind of Pulling back the curtain on like high-end design kind of make it more Kind of like approachable and be able to answer those questions. So we've basically grown Primarily most of our business off organic content and it was just like telling growing the brand brand above everything Telling that whole story Which was successful with a lot of business. I think now we're at a stage where we are adding in pay and we're trying to really measure the attribution. And within an Instagram environment? Yeah, Instagram, we're on TikTok.

39:54We had a Netflix show for like four seasons. Oh, wow. That ended last season. So when we first launched Netflix, we saw an incredible lift and kind of like... What was the show about? Called Dream Home Makeover. Yeah. We just, they took kind of what we did to still it down. We'd go in and like flip over like a room. Yep. Yeah. I mean, obviously in the beginning that must have been huge awareness. So you're just feeling a maturation standpoint right now? Yeah. Which is why paid is entered? Yeah. Makes sense. You kind of like just seen this mean reversion in the home industry over the last like, I'd say like year.

40:24Like there was a big, like a big, big bump during COVID and then when people were kind of let out their house, they're like, hey, let's go. Of course, of course, of course. Huge bump in like services businesses and now it's kind of like, okay, where are we at? Who's left? This is my father calling me every day. He's like, why are we not selling as much wine as we did during COVID? I'm like, dad, people are not at their home 24, like I'm sorry. Like somebody went to a restaurant tonight and ordered a glass of wine. That came out of your pocket. He's like, you have to fix it. I'm like, gee. Like thank you for the confidence, but I'm like, I can't change the world.

40:56So I think that's kind of what we left is like, okay, if we can either right size business a little bit more, which we have, we'd like to trim it up. Makes sense. Like we really like looked at business operations, like hardcore, went really efficient. But after having this kind of run, it's in your tummy to just want to continue to grow instead of be more efficient, right? Of course. Yeah, of course. Here's the cool, it's really funny because Thank You Economy and Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Day Trading Attention six months ago was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook. I'm literally rewriting the book because it's changed so much and I'm ready for a 301 course instead of the 201 that that book was at the time.

41:35The cool part is organic is here. It's just that you're not good at TikTok. organic is here it's just that you haven't even committed to LinkedIn and then thus can't be good at it so a couple things one you've won between Netflix and Instagram and that run on awareness leading to to sales that is still on a table for all of us it's just a lot harder right now right that that's all that's happened but it's actually never been greater it's like this weird thing. It's like there's always ebbs and flows. It's why I was so, and I know it sounds like a lot of you have had contacts on me for a long enough time.

42:12It's why I was so loud. Pandemic was March 2020. It was why I was so loud late 18, all of 19 about TikTok. The land grab of organic was better than anything Instagram ever had. But nobody moved because everyone was pot committed Instagram. So, couple things. One, let that little thing because you'll always, clearly what you have resonates. You just need to arm attention versus value. Right? Just make sure that every time there's another new thing, especially if I'm loud about it, because that means it already happened, I'm not guessing, to go triple hard. I remember I promised myself before TikTok, if I ever saw another YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, that I was, that was it.

42:54I was going to go into a cocoon. I wasn't even going to run Vayner. I was going to be, because I knew it. And sure enough, Musical.ly came, TikTok came, I saw it, I did great. But I fucking went like 20 % hard. Because I had other responsibilities. And boy, do I wish I went 100 % hard. Because it may be a long time before we have as big of a moat of opportunity as TikTok 18, 19 was. Anyway, that's all to be said that when they get into brand form and Slater, like there's definitely a play. Media's great. Like I think people get religious, especially when they're great at organic. Like I grew all this without media.

43:31I'm like, that's not a badge of honor. I'm like if you're a media writer. And I get why. I get why. It goes back to a lot of what we're talking about here. Like the subconscious. But when you really break it down. But if you could spend media perfectly and it would grow your business. Why wouldn't you? You know you get caught in these like ideologies. So I think A, don't demonize paid. Paid's scary because like it feels really hurtful when you like spend$100 ,000 and nothing happens. I'm an external agency they try to take credit for a lot so they're like hey I'm a huge market contributing like 25 % of your revenue you're like bro you just got here like six weeks ago 100 % I always make fun of our team I'm like every time a business is doing well you all say we did it and every time it's not doing well it's their fault I'm like you hypocrites you know yeah no I think you should build this internally I think most I say it all the time to clients all the time This is why I think Sasha Group and Vayner do well.

44:30I'm like, why would you hire us? It goes back to what I was saying earlier, the price. I'm always like, why would someone hire us? This is what we're doing. I really think about 4Ds a lot. I'm like, why? We put this video out. I think about this shit constantly. Like, why? Why? So anyway, couple things. For your business, couple really interesting things. I don't have the full answer on this, but I'm spending a lot of time on Pinterest personally right now. for your business Pinterest is bananas it's just that Pinterest has never found it's moment of like what we're all looking for like that true organic monster but I would A flirt with that a little bit YouTube Shorts is very important for all of us because YouTube's the second biggest search engine in the world and your business is very search oriented like when people go their journey and obviously they're doing that more and more on social but I think YouTube Shorts is a very big deal these are the platforms that I think you have to get as good you have to give yourself more credit for getting good at Instagram back in that era.

45:31I think a lot of times when people have organic pay dirt they give the platform credit not themselves. Now some things come more natural to people than others. One of the biggest reasons people didn't jump into TikTok is it didn't feel natural to them. By the way it's a challenge for me because I don't create. TikTok you have to really create. Like my post production shit does not work on TikTok the same way. I just have no options, I'm doing too many other things. So I'm gonna have to take that L and be like a C minus at it. My wife hates it, she's become like the face of our business, right?

46:02Yes. And she's like, damn, all the TikToks I do really well is like me talking. They wanna see me just talking. Can I have more to get on every day? I'm getting old, we're 39, we're gonna be 40. You're so young. We're fine, you know? But she's like, those just do really good resume. Yeah, I think, I mean, look, I think that that the game for you is to get paid and organic to work well on every platform to the best of your ability. And back to the different ideas that I was talking about over here for ideas for business, I think the thing I'm most proud of, and I hope you've all felt this, is like when you go to my grid, it's like a potpourri of randomness.

46:44Everyone's so obsessed with their grid being on brand. It's just not how people consume. They're consuming content to content. so the thing that's definitely happening in your world if your wife's like fuck this shit I don't want to do this every day you're not challenging yourselves to figure out other ways to do content people get into ruts they have something that works and they do it for the next seven years like you have to try different shit like again the thing I'm most proud of and I want you all to go look at my last hundred posts on Instagram we're trying all sorts of shit pouring fucking milk into coffee to say be you like I'm saying the same shit for 20 years But if you find different creative ways and you understand, you can find that pay dirt.

47:23So maybe it's just audio. Maybe the two of you should have dinner where you know you're recording the dinner and you know you're recording it and it's all audio. And you just literally talk about shit that you want to get out there and that's your podcast. And maybe that's your creative pay dirt. Because that would be some shit that I would listen to if I gave a fuck about a couple. Just them having dinner. Two post carousels? Yep, still working, but again, I'm already feeling the, you know, it's just, that's why I'm calling it day trading attention. I'm trying to get people out of the rut of like, oh, this works.

47:57They think it works for like the next nine years. You gotta be in it. You've just, you've hit that place we all have hit. Fatigue of the style of the creative or the distribution of the creative. You gotta challenge yourself. Does that make sense? Introducing new people. You know when a sitcom has a great run and it's getting a little tired, they bring in like the kid, like that fucking weird kid for you know the Brady Bunch and even Leo DiCaprio I think was like the kid for Growing Pains like you know like to spice it up Cosby show I think like every great sitcom when he gets tired introduces that new character with the hope you know like you may want to introduce a new character to your ecosystem I think that's what we were just thinking about like as we introduce new things trying to measure that to like that is where you know you know what's funny like you gotta make sure you have patience in that it's funny like always think about your purest self when you were winning, and then realize after levels of success how you're no longer that person.

48:51Me holding on to 2005, Gary, is probably my best business move. Because you weren't fucking ROI measuring in 2014 Instagram the way you are now. You've become mature. You've become corporate. You're looking for ROAS and CAC and LTV. Acronyms, you didn't even know what the fuck they meant eight years ago when it started popping off. 2005, Gary still runs this. As a matter of fact, you know this, you guys know this. 2005 Gary or 2011 Gary, if we're talking Vayner X terms, came back a couple years ago. Right? And it's been way better. Right? Because I wanted to learn what, I didn't know what I didn't know.

49:32So I started bringing in more of corporate agency DNA over like a five-year period. And then I knew what it was and I was like, all right, I'll keep the 3 % of this garbage that I like. and we're gonna go back to 97 % me and boy, right? It's like, and across, forget about feelings, like the P &L shows it and it's just real life. This whole content is you now. We've done it. So, themes that work, right? Yeah. That. Thanks, I'll end here. Just external, like, generating, let's see, taking advantage of external media opportunities, right? We have a bunch on our way now versus just deciding to go in-house with generating that?

50:13Is there a way that he like kind of evaluated that to make that call of like, hey, like do your own show on YouTube and just press that? I think it's and. I think it's and. Now, if you're saying show, like obviously an external production company, like I think right now if you're off the air, which it sounds like you are, I do my own show immediately so when the next production company comes and wants you to do something, you're like, yeah, but I'm keeping my show. And I'm like, yeah, you can do that. We're going to do a different version here so that would be on my mind on strategy. Hey, Gary.

50:42Hi. I started my consulting firm back in 2005 as an in-source, with an in-source embedded model for general market ad agencies. And so we would place consultants on-site at ad agencies throughout New York. And that worked and we grew for about seven to maybe ten years. And what would agencies hire you to come in? Yeah, please. They hired us to develop and manage their supplier diversity initiatives. Love. Great. Keep going. It's awesome. And I was hired as the first supplier diversity director. Makes so much. Love it. Unfortunately, we're having the conversation in 2023 that we had back in 2025.

51:312015, you mean? That we had back. Oh, five. Got it. Yeah. No worries. I'm just trying to make sure I'm hearing you right. No, keep going. And so the challenges we're having are few. Developed a platform in 2016 in order to scale. Because hiring consultants, placing them on site, that's really an expensive business. Yes. Right? And so a lot of what we do are the analytics, the database management, you know, just the business. Is it a SaaS-based business? Yes. Okay. SaaS-based business. Fully funded. Amazing. And so, and we built it, we get feedback that it's an amazing platform. Since holding companies have now come in and centralized resources and are having a - And since they own almost every single agency, bingo, bango.

52:26There you go. Makes sense. And our relationships were at the agency level, right? Can you create, and yeah, this is what sucks. the business needs to go into smaller, right? Because the place you can get independence is 10 million in revenue and lower, right? Before the holding co-buys it. The problem is those companies are so small that they're just trying to keep the lights on. They're not even thinking DE &I. You know, it's not that they're bad people. It's just like, they're like, fuck, I'm not sure I'm gonna be in business next year. And we're on the corporate side. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

53:01That really is requiring this in order for you to bring us in to do it. And so my business manager is suggesting that we break up the software. To serve from the company. Well, we did that initially, but he's talking about breaking it out up into smaller modules. Oh, okay. So that we can sell it at a lower price point. But I think to your point, because what I've experienced in this industry is that it's just as difficult to sell$5 ,000 as it is to sell$50 ,000, right? Yep, yep. Both pieces are right. You know, I can tell you, back to more Gary, consulting items as gateways to AORs, since I know I can talk to you in these terms, has worked for us.

53:46You know, because we had a very hardcore get-out-of-bed fee to do what we do best. And so, I do think cost of entry is a variable. I equally agree with you that sometimes it's just as hard, same effort, to sell something for$5 ,000 as$5 million, let alone$50 ,000. That's real too. You know, I'm not against modularizing down if you're asking one man's subjective point of view. What I like about it is it will give you more clarity. I always like eliminating things that you're debating for everyone. Like what I like about the modularity of like how much is it now per month, per year? It's 180 ,000.

54:23Right. And he's saying or she's saying instead of 15K a month let's have some sort of product that's 3K and you can Voltron it up and discount it. Here's why I like it. My biggest concern is that there's six holding companies, they're full of shit, and there is no business to be had. What I like about dropping it from a 180 commitment to a 36K commitment, if you've got some module at 3K, is you'll find out in a year if I'm right. Because that's a real low cost, and that should be easy. And if you go 0 for 90 with a 3K thing, then you could say, wait a minute, I gotta really think about this shit, and do I need to become like the Nintendo company?

55:00and that analogy for everyone is they used to be a trading card, not a trading card, like a playing card company. Nintendo started as like blackjack cards and at some point they pivoted into technology. What I love is your expertise and your career and what you've got going. This goes into like really interesting debate that everyone should be thinking about. Always think about things that you have permission to do that you can't see. Like if you emailed me in nine months, which you're more than welcome to, and on a long flight, I get to that level of email priority. And you're like, hey, thank you.

55:35This is not fun to write because I did break it down. I did go to market. And for the last nine months, 15 months, we're not selling anything even at three. You're right, it is. My reply would be like, listen, now you need to think about should you be an author? Should you change it into a experiential company? Because maybe you shouldn't be selling it to tech or CIOs. maybe you should be selling to HR as a one day retreat to rethink things. Like what's amazing is the talent you had as a kid in the SMS thing, that became the seeds of the same thing. We have our things and sometimes you just got to repackage it into a different item and remark, you know, containers and merchandising.

56:18Containers and merchandising, that's what we're all in. And so that's something worth debating. You know what's great about when he said we're getting old 39, 40, I was laughing. And I saw you snicker like, I saw, I saw. I saw. And I think, you know what's really cool? One big issue I have with the world that I'm excited to like, I finally am going to eat my own dog food and do something I've been wanting to do which is I'm going to go and donate my time to retirement homes but I'm also going to capture content. Because I realized as a young kid, even at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, I spent an ungodly amount of time with people that were 80 and 90 that weren't my grandparents.

56:58And for a long time I thought it was because I only had one grandma and one great grandma in my whole life, because unfortunately everybody died in Russia pretty early. But now I've come to realize, no, I've always just been attracted to macro thinking and wisdom and things of that nature. And right now I think we can all agree. By the way, 50 years ago in America, our grandparents were on a pedestal. Wisdom and experience was on a pedestal. Today we are all living where youth and technology is on a pedestal. 24 year olds are running around my company thinking they should be running this place.

57:29That's the era we're in. Which means we're gonna go back. This is how the world works. So I'm excited about wisdom and experience gaining momentum in the next two decades. And I think your timing I just think it's important for you to hear that because I think when I hear that narrative and like first of this and this and that and it's a really important issue. Like it actually matters. I really do think this is a young person's game. Yes, but I think we're, yes, but I really do think that trading on wisdom and experience is about to gain momentum. I'm actually telling you that I think we're in the pre-dawn of it being your game.

58:07And I want to get that into your head. I really believe it. I'm not saying it to be nice. I like to watch, and I think we're about to get there. And I think it's early. I think I'll probably clip this in like 11 years and be like, told you. It's going to take a little bit of time, but I think it's good for everyone to hear that, but for you specifically, where you are in your business life cycle, because I think you, I hope not, but I'm gonna be very black and white on this, I think you should module, and I think you should sell aggressively against the modularization, because I think you need the answer, because I think you're in a precarious spot, because I think they're full of shit, and there's none of them, there's six of them.

58:44We don't need you, we got it, internally. We have a chief diversity officer, we're good. Yeah, you know. So, but the modulization, my hope is that it will work out. And that you now do have a 3K a month, a 7K a month, a 9K a month, and a 20K a month item. And oh, by the way, if you buy them all, it's only 15K a month. I think that's a worthwhile thing. I think it also will give you a year of that data to then go back to this back half of this conversation and say, okay, I might need to take what I am and repackage it into some other business and merchandise that. That's what I was thinking. Remember when you said to me what was the time management system, it just happens to be applied to logistics.

59:23Maybe everything is good. And you might actually even like the business you find yourself in more too. That's what's fun about entrepreneurship. Sometimes you don't realize a tweak makes it more fun and more fruitful. And I love this when I got into it. It's been a long time. It's been a long journey. And markets change. And it has. I love when everyone's like, AI, I feel so bad for all the people that are going to lose their job. I'm like, what about all the people that sold Yellow Pages? we didn't feel bad for them when search engines came. You know how many people were in the business of selling yellow pages?

59:53Tens and tens and tens of thousands of people were salesmen and women just of yellow pages in America when Yahoo and Ask Jeeves decided to come along. Like shit changes. Some poor dope bought 5 ,000 horses the day before the car decided to cause trouble. Those horses became less valuable. So I think that it's unfortunate because you should be shining. And what we found is when people are woke, if you will, our business doesn't do as well as we do when they're not. I know. I know. Yeah, I get it. The modularization. Awesome. Scott? So before I turn it over to my wife, I just want to say 20-year digital veteran, CFO at iVillage.

1:00:41Do you remember that name? Of course. One of the members of the founding team at 360i. Amazing. but all on the finance side. So it's okay. Yeah. You're sitting in a meeting. Where I'm hearing operational. Yeah. Activities. We're trying to figure out how to digitize market to our customer. Yes. So I just want to. That's really cool. Appreciate your time. That's awesome. Of course. I do love that. So hi, I'm Laurie. Laurie. I'm the other half. Yes. Scott created these for me after I had breast cancer. I see. Six years ago. So we donate back to research. Love. We have a product. We've proven our model.

1:01:14People, people rebuy it. stores buy it. We're in the airports in 100 brick and mortar stores. We're here to really how do we expand on our DGC business. Got it. So we think that part of our issue is our content, our UGC. We don't think it's what it should be. We came in today talking about that we don't really know who our target market is. We listened to a great section about cohorts earlier, which was a hugely helpful for us. And remember, we touched on the accordion nature of it. Did we touch on that? Okay, cool. Back to cohorts. And I almost noticed how I knew that we probably didn't talk enough about it.

1:01:51The best part about cohorts is that it's accordion. The number one thing that you have to understand about cohorts is that it's a living and breathing vessel. Back to day trading. So cool. Like, of course, an immediate cohort for this group is 18 to 22-year-old coastal workout bros because it's fucking protein balls. Like, fuck, right? but after we do 16, 29 pieces of creative that we think we've done well enough, if we're seeing absolutely zero traction, it is okay for that cohort to go away. If we PCS properly and read everything, the most wild work I see is when we pick a cohort, we make for them, but the algo takes us in a different direction.

1:02:33We're like, wait a minute, this is actually for offensive linemen who fish and they pop them while they fish So let's stand up, you know, 18 to 30 year old, 300 pound white boys who love country music and work out. And like, as you can imagine, it's gonna be different content. So remember with cohorts, if you go down heavy, it's an accordion. Some expand, some contract based on the quant and the qual. The math and the feedback that you read from the PCS. The reason I'm onto stuff always is because I'm reading the qual. My wisdom thing is, again, and not kindness for us, for, get in here, brother.

1:03:11You know, it's for, I'm smelling it. Like, there's the tipping point. You can smell it. I had said earlier, exactly, that our customers are age 2 to 92. Your customers are anyone with a fucking mouth. Right? 100%. That's what you're saying. Okay, keep going. So, we do email marketing successfully. Okay. We have a good conversion rate. Nice. So, all they keep saying is, get us more traffic. Get more people to the site. So we have not done any paid ads yet. That's part of why we're here. We want to learn more about that. We haven't done paid ads or paid social. I mean, or paid search. What we have done is paid a PR firm too much money to do brand building.

1:03:50Everyone does that. And now we're taking that money and we want to repurpose it into building our brand more. We were told that you should have one face and that I should be making the content like we were just talking about, which does sound like a big job. but we will test it because if that's what people want then I'll do it. People, they taste the product, they like the product. Then they hear the story. Then they're more connected. Yeah, I mean the stories. Then they hear that we give back to research and then we're done. Yeah, I mean the story is so off the charts. But we're not reaching enough people.

1:04:23100%. It might be our content. I'm not reaching enough people and it's my content. So what do you suggest? Make more content. To me, content, Like, one day, we will all wake up and actually live in mixed reality. Just, I'll give you the preview. We will. We will live in mixed reality. The data is incredibly compelling. The technology is very clear. The new fucking Facebook Ray-Bans glasses, you've done it with the audio. The new one that just came out, right? It's, like, ear pods are in trouble. Like, you know, and that just, like, seems like, yes. Like, so, and when everyone wakes up, every one of you is gonna regret not making more content for social media because it won't be where the attention is and just like I regret not sending more emails in 98, not buying more Google AdWords in 2002, not like, so while we're in the era where this is the predominant engine of information, back to advertising, this is what happened when the radio and the television were switching.

1:05:28Literally, Budweiser is the biggest beer because Schlitz and Schaefer and Pabst Blue Ribbon blew it. They kept holding onto the radio and not realizing what the television was doing. It's insane if you look from 1950 to 1970, the switch of the biggest brands in every category from cigarettes to diapers. That's why Procter & Gamble is Procter & Gamble. They were the biggest spender on television. Do you know who the biggest spender on Google AdWords was in the first five years of AdWords? Amazon. There are moments where there is this thing, I spoke about it in the micro with him. TikTok versus like that.

1:06:03For you, it's just a macro. Back to why you considered hiring some people to get you a mention in a magazine. Got it? Or having you show up on the Today Show. You can be on the Today Show every day and you have no chance against somebody who knows how to make content for TikTok. That's the refocus. We've been on the show. That's the issue. And we have an edge. We're fresh from the fridge. That's what happened after I went through surgery and treatment, the nutritionist said no more protein bars. She said they sit on the shelf for a year. They have sugar, soy, preservatives. I got it. We have an angle, we have an edge, but we haven't been successful enough yet.

1:06:41How old is the brand? Our website's only been there for a year and a half. And before that you were selling in stores? Really, we're really pretty new. We were dipping our toe in it. But now you're ready to go all in. I have a friend and she said, get rid of everybody. Get rid of your whole payroll and just do AI. You know, put your content out on AI, do your blogs on AI. Did you ask her how? She sent me an email. She said, I just made this email for you in under two minutes. Yes. I think there's a lot to that. I'm gonna go with like, that's not the, I think her intent's in the right place. What's that?

1:07:15Yeah, I think you gotta go all in on things that actually work. You need a person. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm about AI. I think the bigger issue is everyone here is at the mercy of the creative they put into the world. So, a couple things. I think first of all now I'm gonna just kind of go not off script of the energy but let me make pretend that Harwood invited me to dinner to have dinner with you. And we're like full dinner mode. The number one thing I would say for sure is that if I could convince the two of you over this dinner to do a daily or minimally a weekly podcast so it can be filmed for content I do believe the story is off the charts.

1:07:52It's gonna pull in everyone. He's gonna be like the most loved man on earth. You know what I mean? He's a good man. He looks like a good man. He's got a good face. Like I feel the energy. Like all of us need to do is find sustained ways to produce as much content as possible. And I think what I figured out years ago was I'm just gonna film everything. Obviously then it's about can you introduce new people or different ideas. Like your spidey senses based on your words are right. The variable of your success will be based on your advertising. Seems makes sense. What's crazy about the world we live in now versus the proctor world or even when 360i I was invented and Vayner was invented is, now the Walmarts, right, the Wegmans, the dream places of distribution for you, what's that fucking place in LA, Air One, you know, like, they now will come to you if you're good at content, right?

1:08:41It didn't work like that back in the day. So I think the biggest thing that you have to, your product comes very natural to me in my mind. I think in these terms, I even said to these guys, like, take your skills and bring them to this show. the prime, the beast chocolate, that's the future. Human based, you're the future. If you don't succeed in this, you will see someone that looks exactly like you two with the similar stories in 11 years and you're gonna look at each other and be like, these motherfuckers. It's very, very clear that you have to have a very compelling organic social media presence.

1:09:17What you have to figure out, that's easy. You could have read that in a million places. how do you two, even if you two are not in it, though that would be my preference, but listen, as someone who's a public figure, a lot of shit comes with that. And it's not for everyone, right? It's not for everyone. And by the way, here's another thing real quick, good for you to hear as well. You can also come in and out. People think it's an all or nothing thing. Sometimes you're a public figure, sometimes you're not. It's okay. And you control your narrative. I keep my personal life very private. So it's not like you have to tell them your pillow talk.

1:09:51You're in control. But I think what you have to do is put yourself in a position to make as much, like if I was your third partner, and this is what I did full time, we'd probably put out 55, 60 pieces of creative a day across seven platforms. We're doing that with some of our clients for sure. And there's like, and we can talk about it later, I don't want to hijack this, but there's very cheap, simple software tools. That's what I was gonna say. How do we incorporate, like besides us making the content, how do we find you guys? The actual content library. Like you said, you can't skip that part.

1:10:23You gotta create all the content. But then getting it everywhere else, now that's where we're dipping our toes in. Okay. Yeah, and now with AI, it's even better than that. I built a team of people who had an eye for what to clip and when. AI's gonna do all that. Like you're gonna upload the raw videos and it's gonna spit it out and distribute it for you. You can do software right now. Clap, K-L-A-P dot app. Yep. There's another one called Get Munch. And we're gonna talk. Yeah, and by the way, I think all of you will, he can give you plenty that work for them here's even and both are good I like both those platforms let me give you something even more fun there's a website called Google and you type in AI software that helps you clip videos into good social media content enter what will happen you'll get two paid ads probably for weaker sometimes weak sometimes not all you have to do is actually just spend 10 hours which you would like this business to be successful I have a funny feeling that you can allocate 10 hours to reading and watching video.

1:11:25How do you think we found them? You're just searching. It's just, you got to put in the work to find that. But again, yes, that is efficiency. And efficiency matters. It's helpful for us to go from zero to one. Like if you haven't created content yet, like get the library going. Well, I want to talk about what he's touching on and where I'm really worried. I'm worried, what always happens with software is people think it does it for you. When he says the video library, like he said it quick, and he's right because for him it's just sick and nature of like without that you have nothing. You on the receiving end is like ooh let me write down this site and I'm gonna use that's gonna save me.

1:12:00That's gonna do it. It's not. The part that I'm saying is the well. The software is the sink. The well is do you all understand how to put yourself in a position to produce as much content as possible? The reason I like podcasts is because it puts you in a position to produce a lot of content. Also, when you have guests, now you can fucking prep for a podcast. So tell me about your childhood. What was your first house? You're an hour in if you just ask normal human questions, but then you have the clips. So I think, look, I think there's a lot of ways to think about it. There's other things. I don't know you two.

1:12:39Maybe you have a great 20, 30 person social crew with a bunch of extroverts. You just might. I don't know you. but if you do, all of a sudden I see this, I'm like, okay, you need to throw at, I always think about two for ones. Like, I think for a lot of us, there's probably, I assume all of us are kind of like similar in this. It's very universal. I don't think anyone spends as much time with friends as they actually wish they could. Like, if you're right, it's just a universal thing. Like, everyone's busy. Like, to me, let's say you two are just like, just we're talking about that. That you just aren't spending enough time with these four couples you love.

1:13:14My brain goes to, if we're lucky enough that you're thinking that, and we're lucky enough that those couples are extroverted or willing to be filmed. Now you can get together once a month, right? And have a protein balls and pairing with beverages. Literally actually have one human who's filming, friend, neighbor, youngest kid, or just set up a tripod, have dinner with eight of your friends, literally, and this week, everyone bring a bottle of whiskey and we're gonna do whiskey with protein balls. We're gonna film and then you're gonna post-produce at the end. and be like, all right, 80 % of it we can't share because the Johnsons were talking about how their daughter's a piece of shit.

1:13:52And so that's, but 20 % you can. And now you're one TikTok away of people falling in love that like Bullet Bourbon and this go great together. And then the next month, again, don't forget what you're doing. You're actually just spending time with friends, but you're getting doubles. Next time you're doing it with bottled waters and next time with sodas and the next time with clean beverages and the next time with protein shakes and the next time with fucking juice that's super pressed from organic fucking leafs from the Amazon. Like, I think for all of us, the big elephant in the room is, do you understand yourself?

1:14:28Do you not bullshit yourself? Are you self-aware enough to know what puts me in the best position to film as much shit as possible so I can post-produce it? Because having a shoot day is already like a different version of content anyway, and I'm not against it. You can supplement that with like one day when you do like 37 call to actions. You can have a shoot day. I think people are accustomed to that. But I think the big one is can you put yourself in a position to create content? Content is your answer.

From the publisher

On todays episode of the Garyvee Audio Experience, we dive deep into how entrepreneurs can make their businesses stand out and scale in today’s competitive landscape. From leveraging content creation, differentiating your brand, and exploring innovative revenue streams, I share practical advice you can start implementing today. Plus, we touch on the challenges of expansion, staying creative with your content, and why the "day trading attention" mindset can transform your business. Whether you're just starting out or looking to level up, there’s something here for everyone. Let’s get into it!

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