Why Action Leads to Strategy

25:44Yeah, I do. I love real life. I love real life. I'll give you another one. You want to really get value at events? Spend the extra money to do something crazy that everybody wants to take a photo with. That's a good idea. You see where I'm going? Yeah. Spend like an extra, now it's break even, charge a little more and then buy a$4 ,000 like 800 foot foot. I mean we're okay with even losing money on these. I bet you because it's branding, you're smart. So like the number one thing that I love about real life is the Instagram photo. Because now you're taking 300 people and they're building you the awareness up to 6 ,000 people.

26:22And if you give them the ammo for the ridiculous photo, you win. I wouldn't even think of that. Well, that's why I keep coming back. Yeah, exactly.

26:33So if, right now I'm doing this as like a side hustle. So if I'm trying to, I got some feedback on this earlier. If I don't necessarily want to be a brand, is it better to create like a company brand or create some kind of a character Did you want to, real quick, did you want to sneak anything out since you're leaving? That was my biggest question, yeah. Did it hit? Unbelievably, which is part of why I gotta go. So do me a favor, do me a favor on that. Like, one of the proudest, I'm very good at doing what comes natural to me at a 40, not a 10. But I was also very good at what didn't come natural to me to do at a zero, that's why I failed school.

27:16I've come to learn I was more than smart enough to probably get C's, but I got F's. I was really good at completely punting something I wasn't good at. The proudest thing that ever happened in my life at this point from a personal standpoint, forget about kids and stuff like that, was when I recognized at 38 and a half that I needed to get serious about my health. The fact that I then turned that into not what I first thought in the plane, which is at 40 I'll get serious, on my 40th birthday I'll start, and then within two hours of that flight started literally the next day is kind of what I want to inspire you to do which is the only way this good moment means anything is if you actually put it directly into practice even though it doesn't come natural you know because you're doing what comes natural so give that some thought like really push whatever tricks you to do it you know right now good awesome likewise thanks appreciate it I hope you enjoyed the rest of the day absolutely thank you Keep my attention.

28:14If you don't want to be the personal brand, right? Right. I'm a little limited right now. Of course. What, the question is what brand do you build? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. I'm just curious, is, do I start branding like as a company or I've thought about just kind of creating some kind of a character? What kind of character? Talk, I like it. What kind of character? You know, like a Western type character. You acting as it? Animation? Hiring somebody? Person or animation, yeah. Animation I love because Mickey Mouse is a lot easier to control than Susan Sarandon. You know what I mean? So I'm a big fan of animation.

28:51Like a big one. And I actually think it's one of the big white spaces in social marketing right now. Like I'm probably going to create a augmented reality character that's going to start showing up in all my content. It's a big conversation we're having right now. And then he'll be wearing, just like he wears goosebumps, he'll be wearing like my virtual dog that always barks when people do dumb shit. And then everybody's gonna think it's cool and I'm gonna sell stickers and plush toys and barky bark. And then like to piggyback off their question, if I was gonna do some kind of an event deal just because I wanted to - Talk to me where we're at right now in the side hustle.

29:29You've made stuff? Yeah, stuff is in production currently. Yep. But we haven't - And who's we? Theoretical we or your partners? No, I have. It's my wife and I. And then I've hired somebody to help me kind of navigate the fashion industry. Okay. It's a side hustle. And she has a lot of experience with this type of fabrics, this type of stuff, design and everything. Awesome. So just to try and like. Yeah, get off the graph. Yeah. I'm going to make this very simple. Your job is so simple and extremely hard. You have to make people aware of it and compel them to buy it. Right? Yep. You're gonna sell it on your own website?

30:08Yeah. So right away that has extra friction that a lot of people right now don't want. Right, because this is why Amazon and other places, like people don't wanna put their credit card into shit. It's like even though they have automatic fill out, like this is where, like people don't understand how powerful convenience is. It's why the Apple credit card thing is really interesting to me. Like it's just friction. like I would be more likely to buy your product if I could just like not fill out anything and that's like where this is all going right so anyway nonetheless you have to build brand the reason I get obsessed with LinkedIn and TikTok is you don't have unlimited funds so you need to be most efficient there's two ways to do it one you win on art or you win on math right math is you you had the kind of background I'm making up this scenario you come from financial services so you're grounded in math and you become incredible at Facebook and Instagram arbitrage and your CAC is under your LTV and you're just crushing it.

31:11You're one of those guys, right? It doesn't even matter about that much about the marketing. It's just that you're so good at buying the ads and it's converting so well and you're not underwater and you're happy. Or you're in the art stuff which is like you understand how to make the creative that actually gets people. Like Dollar Shaped Club was an execution of art, not of math, even though it was a classic DTC brand that is completely built on normally being reliant on math. So this is why I think people will forever follow me because if they keep just doing what I'm doing and layer their own self-awareness on it to know which part they can and can't do, it's great that you know that you've decided for yourself maybe because of your other business, your job, or maybe just who you are as a human.

31:57I don't want to be the front. The good news is that is not a requirement at all. There are far more brands that are winning than personal brands. So it's more common for that. I think influencer marketing is a beast for you. Like, I don't think people understand how apparel really works. Like, you're one person deciding to wear it away from doing more for your business than 9 ,000 other executions. So I think that's a very heavy place to focus on. But a lot of the rest of what 4Ds was about has laid out for you the game.

32:34Happy birthday, Gary. Thank you, brother. And thank you for your staff. I was scheduled twice in LA, so Nick and Arjun made it. Awesome. It's good. Thank you. So let's say you have to purchase your wine library today and Sasha had run it old school way for 40 years. Yes. And you purchased it today. Yes. What would you do to get the word out That there's new ownership? Not necessarily. Understood. Word out for acquiring talent internally or external clients? External clients. Keep going. Understood. B2B. And in California. Yep. And I assume the business, based on 40 years, why you brought up Sasha, is, and at that level, has strictly been a hardcore grinding, word of mouth business for 40 years.

33:24Exactly. Understood. The guy was hardcore grinding. he has a showroom no no exactly that's what 40 years and 3 million looks like yeah no this is what I do for a living I understand so we have a showroom presence in Northern California it doesn't work everywhere but in Northern California it does work what do you think your value prop is in Northern California or just California in general California in general California in general next state ground service to anywhere in California but I assume everybody in California can do that too next state ground no why Because most of their head office, they're moving out of California because it's just the cost of doing business in California.

34:02Yeah, fuck California. Yeah. So, and then face-to-face, you actually see a face-to-face. You can call us from a customer service standpoint. You can actually reach a customer service person directly right away. And then also face-to-face, you can actually see your rep. Do a couple things. I would start a podcast around supplies. And I'm not kidding. I'm a big buyer of very narrow very small very niche podcasts and I would invite the runners of the companies to be guests to talk about their careers I'm not kidding and I would be the host of this show and I would invite the executives on the show to talk about life by doing that you become you gain the leverage on brand of becoming the place of authority and all you're doing is interviewing your actual potential customers and making them feel famous which then builds awareness if you emailed the 900 clients that you know who you're trying to get right?

35:07Correct. If you emailed them and said hey it's me I want your business that's one thing if you emailed them and said hey I have something called the show and I noticed that you've been the seven year head at Canon you know We saw it together next week. Amazing. So we'd love to have you on the show to talk about life, nerd culture, what's going on in the industry, your personal career. You'll never get anybody to reply on the first one. You'll get half of them to reply on the second one. I would do that. I would then do what I do with DailyVee and my podcast. I would have that interview. Then I would cut it up in a post-production world and I would run ads on LinkedIn of snippets from other people for them to see it.

35:54Yeah, because LinkedIn is huge in terms of... No, LinkedIn's your world. You run LinkedIn ads against employees and engineers of the companies you're trying to reach with the content being something smart that one of the people said on your show coming from the account that is you or your business. Game over. You build a business. So you run LinkedIn ads against prospective companies. with content, not commercials. With CNBC content, not infomercial by my program content. Got it? So no call to action? No call to action. Yeah, because we just need... Because everything else he's doing is a sales organization.

36:36He's a sales organization. Everything he has in place is a sales organization. Whatever he has is sales. This is building brand. Once we get face to face, we close probably 75 % of the time. I would argue, VaynerMedia is the fastest growing revenue agency in the world. I would argue that we are in the bottom 1 % of worst new business processes. We legitimately don't know how to do new business. That's how much top of the funnel brand we have that just, people hand us business. The companies in the world that only do RFPs and only have procurement literally hand us the business because of top of the funnel brand.

37:18and then the best part true word of mouth of the people that have actually worked with us steak and sizzle only two things are going to be left the actual product and the variable within it and the ability to communicate and the ability to communicate is more powerful than a product because often times the product has already been told you of its quality based on the communication you've been told you've been told it's the best burger you've been told it's the best handbag why is this handbag$8 ,000 it's the best, really? because if I take that burka off its name and give you the same thing it's$800 brand

38:04along a similar process you just did of diagnosing and then coming through it so the company's called Reventure Sasha Client we last year about 100 ,000 leads converted to 2 ,000 starts. So the revenue generation happens when the student starts. And over the lifetime of that student we get about$100 ,000. So we want to get those starts. Our business challenge today is... Have you spoken to those 98 ,000 people? In what way? Have you called them and asked them why they didn't do it? we've done a lead conversion failure study. But it's 100 ,000, 2 ,000, right? Yeah, so 2 % conversion rate, right?

38:49Yeah, understood. How many of the 98 ,000 have you actually had a conversation with? What's your gut tell you? Probably. For real, for real. Give it to me. 60 % contact rate, so there's been at least one contact over the phone. But like, no, no. Asking them why, not... Oh, okay, so of those... Posting. Of those 24 ,000, we know they didn't convert because of one or two issues. Because we have training locations across the country and they didn't want to relocate. So relocation is the number one reason. Stop running ads that go into those regions. Into those regions.

39:30That's start point number one, right? Yeah. How are you guys acquiring leads? Facebook? I'm getting through job boards. Understood. So Indeed, Handshake, Nuvo, all the classic job boards. We don't do Google or Facebook today. Really? Which is the reason why. It's great. I'm glad. Because it's great. Those are great lead gens because it's intent-based. But if we can focus on being regional with our lead gen from a Google and Facebook environment, it gets real good. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing is to stop in those regions where we just don't get much. If you can. And I'm not familiar enough with the job board's regionality capabilities.

40:08Yeah, and part of the struggle trying to figure out is, you know, when you're in an operation, you know, you're obviously testing and learning all the time, but pulling back from job boards, because it's worked so well, it's fueled our growth. Now you're talking about why everybody goes out of business. The number one reason people go out of business is they're romantic about the thing that got them there. Yep, I understand that. Yeah. And then on building the brand, this podcast thing, It's real for you. Because you could just market to. You know how everybody's like, oh, my company's got a purpose and we're doing things for like, you know, now we've got to all be woke and amazing people.

40:46So every fucking startup is like, we give back a dollar to the rainforest or we really give a fuck about snails in Portugal. Or like, we care about people with hangnails. Like everyone's got to have something. I actually think the right way to do that is to actually have a content arm of every business that acts like a complete church and state editorial. I predict that in 15 years, every single business will have an editor-in-chief who cannot be touched by anybody. If you had a content arm that had no intent of it being a top of the, my friends, the reason I believe I win is because when I make content, there is absolutely no thought of how it trickles down to these moments.

41:34Yeah. That's the punchline. It's not intentional in the performance of the funnel. It's just content. A former employee tweeted out yesterday that there is no such thing as free content. And somebody jumped in and they're like, because this person's always given me good accolades that I've helped them. And they're like, what about Gary V? And this person was like, even him. And I laughed. I was like, you didn't hang out long enough to actually get it. Of course there's something that happens but I know who I am as a human. I know when I make a video. I know what's happening. People don't understand that that's actually the punchline.

42:11If you can stay disciplined and actually try to bring entertainment value and information value to every employee. You'll get business because people are gonna want to be on your fucking podcast after a year. Mark my words.

42:27Yours has more. You know, more like, there's a lot more shows for like going into the workplace, HR, millennial workers. Now you're in the game of being best. You have to do what these guys did on Instagram. Instagram was at scale a year ago, enough scale that if them getting all these results, they were good at it. Now I'm trying to get them to get what he has, which is like TikTok, you don't have to be good at it. just go hard, yeah, because there's more of a buy there. He's going to win just on actually creating it. He only needs 47 people listening to his podcast for it to change his business.

43:03It's cool. This is why I love B2B marketing. He legitimately, this is no joke, because you guys are in the C business like me, he actually needs fucking 400 people actively listening for it to double his business overnight. I actually need 10 clients that I can double my business. It's 10 % No seriously 3 million And it works for all of us Even B2C Like you could start The ice cream show I was thinking about that So So after I bought out my partner I just had to change Branding Sure Like packaging And you know You had to do the things You had to do the things You wanted to do all along I get it And then there's also A fear factor to it Where I didn't want to Do anything And make mistakes So it's kind of Surprising to me that we're as good as we are without any brand, you know, without trying to build up the brand.

43:57Is it possible, this is exciting to ask, is it just a great product? It's, I mean, I'm good. I know, it's your baby, I get it. It's my baby. I do think it's a really, really good product. That happens, you know, that happens. I really, no, but it's not saying that that's great. I get it, I get it. It's saying that it's, you know, so now I'm at the point now where I have to raise the brand awareness. Yes, we are going into e-commerce. I don't want to start it unless, you know, we have the sales going there. So, you know, I'm sort of starting at square one. Yeah, you are. That's great. Is it? I don't know if I felt like that.

44:30You know why it's great? You have no choice. Right. But like, for example, like TikTok, I know it's a younger audience. Yes. That's not necessarily the people that are, you know, it's the moms, it's the, you know. Well, let's talk about a couple things. One thing that you should know is that teenage girls influence mom decisions of buying products in the home at a level that we've never seen. So one viral video, so let's talk about LaCroix. LaCroix sparkling water was completely a phenomenon of Instagram girls which then led to the moms. I would argue the best thing that can happen to you is virality in TikTok, not mom blogger.

45:11but as far as creating that content does that all come from i mean i sort of you the human or you the executive who empowers something to happen for the brand to do it i guess me the executive yeah yes it does all right that's right yeah you have to be educated enough to make the right hire this is what i always yell out in my conferences you know i'll do my talk there's always this great moment when i'm in that kind of talk where i'm like i get the whole conservative crew or people that haven't done it like super on board. And then I'm like, then I switch it on. I'm like, but now I know what you're thinking.

45:41Now that I've got you over the last 20 minutes, you're about to hire your niece. You're about to hire the cliche 23-year-old from school because you think they get it. If you don't have the ability to judge that person, you're vulnerable. My favorite thing is I can do every job here. I can't do it well. Like I can't do any of the jobs at Boehner well, but I know them all. I can definitely judge it. And that's super important when you own a business. Yes, for sure. So if I'm trying to find somebody to post on TikTok, let's say, to create content for TikTok. Let me give you a real insight that I used to, I only said it once publicly, I'm gonna say it again now, I'm gonna say it a lot more.

46:17I really, really, really want you to download TikTok. I do. Great. And I really, really, really want you to spend five full hours over the next 30 days, next 60 days, of just consuming it. Right. You will be blown away by how that little exercise will make you far more knowledgeable. Mm-hmm. You'll just have context. You're like, why are they all doing that dance? First you're gonna say, man, God, what society do we live in where every 11-year-old talks about sex a lot more than I ever thought? Like, you start doing all those things, but like, you'll learn. You'll have a much better shot of making a judgment, but yes.

46:55No, but as far as like, then who do you, you're trying to hire somebody to help create that content that understands TikTok. So aren't they the 17 year olds? I'm 44.

47:11Notice how I blurbed it? I was like, I said 44, now you're talking fuck it, I got a couple more hours. So maybe that's the misconception of my part. It's the biggest misconception of all time. Like we do such typecasting. I hate that. Like people that understand the Latino consumer don't have to be Latino and vice versa. There's plenty of Latinos that understand Caucasian mindset. You need somebody who's capable and that doesn't mean a 17 year old. to your point it's far more likely that it is right now but what I love about the five hours is I mean I gotta tell you it's so fun life like if you came back if I got an email from you in nine months and it said you will not believe this before I started reading it I'm like she's the one making the TikTok like you just never know I don't know what to say this thesis is what brought me to Gary V I was 34 years old before I made content I was running I didn't think I was a personality.

48:05I didn't move to LA and wait tables to be on TV. You don't know until, you might be the person. You just might. It seems foreign as shit, but after you get five hours of it, you're like, huh, you just kind of make one. It's the cliche story. You're like sitting there, you're thinking back to this exact moment. You're like, what do I have to lose? We have no followers anyway. You do some sort of funny thing with the, there's a huge trend where people pour soda or beverages into a cup against this one song until it overflows. You might just be like, I'm gonna do that with our ice cream. Sure enough, this is why TikTok's special.

48:42You do that on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, nothing happens. But because there's free organic views on TikTok, you do that, and the right TikTok-ter sees it and does their own version of it, and you wake up in a week and you're like, Gary is a fucking genius. Yeah, that's a real, that's completely the way TikTok. Like literally, so Drew makes awesome content. I posted, I was at Costco, the chicken's coming out of the oven. It got 400 ,000 plates. It's still going. And this is like the most random. It's so stupid. Hold on, hold on. It's literally that. My daughter keeps showing me the one of the woman that tests kombucha.

49:18Oh, kombucha gal? She's a monster. Kombucha gal. She's all over the place. I got like 400 ,000 plates. I was just at Costco. I was like, what? Like it's literally that crazy. But when it's good content, it can really go. And all those chickens are unbranded. If you did that with your ice cream, like that visual, that much awareness, this is how it works. You know, when that Texas kid goes to an HEB after you get distribution, and they're like pissed that they're there with their mom at the supermarket because after softball practice, but they saw that TikTok and they said, they're like, mom, mom, get that.

49:49That's real life.

49:54All my friends who were making fun of me about my TikTok propaganda, all have gotten really quiet because if they've been with me in the last three weeks, they've watched an eight-year-old run up to me and lose their mind and take a selfie. And every time they look at me like TikTok. Gary, do you worry about the perfect demo coming out of TikTok? Because it's wild, it's kind of wild to go west. You just say fuck and go for it all? I'm trying to reach every person on earth.

50:20Right? So I don't, the demo is somebody who's alive. You know? What about us though? Do we want to reach everybody that's alive? Of course you do. They'll self-select out of your shit. You know how many people hate me because I curse? Doesn't mean I'm not trying to get them.

50:41Building a personal brand. Yes. Assuming baseline. Yep. What do you recommend? Self-awareness of how you best enjoy communicating and that allows you to make the most content. Written word, audio, or video. Starts there. And then once you've done that self-assessment, let's say it's written and video. Yep, then you make that scale. And if, yeah, and if you're not able to sign up for VaynerTalent. You do it on your phone. Just do it on your phone. That's what I do. Yep. Every day. Just every day do it on the phone and post it. I did it for eight years. I didn't have a single person on my team. And you post it.

51:19So you just wake up every morning, do a video. Just wrote tweets on Twitter. Just put it on Twitter. I had a flip cam. Remember those things? Just like set it up and be like, all starts the same way, right? It's all the same shit, right? Oh, we don't have the amps and the guitars to be like you guys. I'm like, they didn't either. They were a garage band. They had a shitty thing they bought at a garage sale and went to guitar store. Oh, we don't have the, I can't be like Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg had a shitty fucking camera and made background movies. Like it's all the same shit. You don't need an Equinox membership to work out.

51:58You can go outside and, Dio does that kind of random, jump on fucking buildings or something, I don't know.

52:06Everybody uses an excuse. If you can write, you've won everything on your phone. Go write your point of view on the current job market to millennials on LinkedIn right now as a blog post, right now. Actually, you know what, I wanna add that. I wanna add that to four Ds. I want to add to 4Ds a forced moment of 15 minutes for people to actually make a piece of content on the spot.

52:33That's a good idea. Especially on the two that are organic reach. LinkedIn and TikTok.

52:41I like that. How much time do you spend doing personal content development? What do you think? You two? What you got? How much time do I spend? On a daily basis? Developing his own personal content. An hour, 30 minutes maybe, less. Yeah, you do it like first thing on the board. I write everything, every single tweet you see, I wrote that, every single piece of copy, all the written words under an Instagram post, that's me. I post every single Instagram post. I would say maximum 40 minutes. Do you have a habit, do you do it morning? Think about that. Think about the fact that I'm at, Think about, yeah, just think about 40.

53:22Yeah, just like, think about 40 minutes, though. Like, there's not a, yeah, nobody's, no executive's doing that. It is the single most important thing in the world. Communication's the only thing left. Everything else is getting commoditized.

53:45How about events? You talked about events for them. I think you start with the podcast because it gives you permission to do events. Once you have 400 listeners, when you promote your own event on the podcast and then 12 people RSVP, you're like, holy shit, people are listening. Start with the podcast. Do that. It will work. Put that flag in the ground first. Cold email. You know how fun it's going to be to fly home and cold email the 50 people that you dream wish, that knew who, you wish that they knew who you are and now the email says, I'd love to have you on our podcast. you're gonna get yeses.

54:19It's crazy. We did that. It works. Yeah. Even just DMs on Instagram work for us. Yeah, because that's more your world. His version of that is LinkedIn messages for sure. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.