Why Every Business Needs Long-Form Content

0:00Today we helped a latte for Sam coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure a floral delivery van was able to make someone's day. We're the Hartford with decades of experience insuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance. Thank you. One size absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at the Hartford dot com slash small business. Long form content like long YouTube videos are dead. Uncomfortably false. We just sat here for 40 minutes and gave a ton of fucking value. Plus now we have a piece of content that we can chop up into 13 pieces of content.

0:43Long form video I would argue is the starting point. Long form video is crushing on Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, podcasts. That's an excuse of the week. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. This guy doesn't need an introduction. We've got Gary V. Widely regarded as the original influencer. Gary was listed as Forbes' top social influencers in 2017 since he's built Vandermedia into a global powerhouse and been voted a six-time New York bestselling author. Pleasure to have you on, man. Thanks, my man. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Listen, you were born in Belarus and came to America as a child.

1:26and you started trading cards. You know, let's just talk about the early hustle to get, just get everybody familiar with how you got started. Yeah, even before trading cards, which was really fifth, sixth, seventh grade, you know, I was, you know, you know this, Tony. Like, some people are just born for certain things. Like, when I see athletes or when I see musicians, you know, back in the day, like, a lot of tennis players were like 14 and 15 and winning Grand Slams, especially on the female side. These Olympians that are like 12 and winning the gold medal. Like, I was just that person with business.

2:00Like, by fourth grade I was getting D's and F's because I couldn't understand why it mattered. I was so passionate about lemonade stands and washing cars. Like, if it snowed, I wanted to shovel snow five bucks instead of sledding. If it was 90 degrees out, I wanted to sell lemonade or ring doorbells and wash cars. It was just so in me. and yeah, I just refined that game as a child and then as a teenager. I've just always been in both business but also hard work. I think there's some people smarter than me that are business people but they figure out, let me code this and I've just been in both get dirt under my fingers and grind.

2:44I've tried to be smart but I love the process. I love the practice. I love the late nights. It's like, I'm just that person that's processed over profits even. Like the money has shockingly not been at some level the motivator even as a kid. It was just like more fun for me to create a fake little store in the neighborhood and have people buy things than getting the money. I didn't even want to buy shit. Like it wasn't even like that. It was just the fucking game, you know what I mean? yeah yeah so you know so the money didn't matter one of the things i've noticed you know right now we employ 1300 people and the people that came as immigrants they're relentless they're not afraid of rejection they are like this is the united states of america do you think being an immigrant just gave you a one-up yeah and i would say that for a lot of immigrants like myself you know because I was born in a shithole.

3:41The USSR was a bad place. And then we came here and we were dead fucking broke so we lived in a shithole in Queens, like New York. I don't think it was per se the immigrant. I would argue an American born in a trailer park has that same advantage. Which is like when you're from the fucking dirt, you're a different animal. I mean it's not complicated, right? Like, does a zoo animal beat a, does a lion that grew up in the zoo beat a lion from the jungle? Never. And so, you know, and then I had the, Tony, I had the best circumstance, which is we didn't have shit, but we had, my mom filled every room with nothing but love and optimism and joy.

4:27So some people grow up in shit, but the parents are in a shit place and it's dark, you know? I grew up, we didn't have shit, but we had the most important shit which is fucking nurturing, love, fucking, you know, I just had a fucking monster mother and so like I was destined to be unstoppable because no one was going to fuck with me because my mommy said I'm good, you know? Like it was like what do you want from me? Like I'm not going to believe you. My mom said I'm good. My mom said I can. Fuck you, you know? Yeah, 100%. I felt like I got the most love if literally I got in a car accident and the person that lived, my mom would come out with a shovel.

5:06Doesn't have the best back, but she'd be like, let's go ahead and take care of this. If I did go to prison, she'd move next to the prison. I mean, I'm her baby boy. Like, that's it. Like, she's gonna be close. But my dad was relentless. Did your dad have a, like, competitive, like, no participation trophies? What was your dad, what is his claim to how you turned out? His best claim is, word is bond. He really, my dad, I don't know what my dad thought. I didn't see him until I was 14. He worked every minute. He showed me how to live a certain life. He didn't tell me. My dad wasn't, I didn't have a dad that told me life lessons.

5:45My dad showed me life lessons. How to be a man, provide for your family, fucking your word is what you fucking back up. He was old school like that. He didn't even know what I was doing in sports. I think my dad, this is real, showed up to one sporting event in my life and it was because the baseball game was like five minutes from the liquor store and he popped out. It was huge for me. I mean, I can't even explain to you what it feels like in my body right now. I was shook that he was there. It was that out of character, out of my norm. He woke up and went to work before I woke up and he came home after I went to bed and he worked seven days a week.

6:20So I didn't fucking see my father until I started working in the liquor store that he had when I was 14 and that's when I really got to know my dad. The next 20 years was all my dad. I was in the liquor store all the time. And he was cynical and like different than my mom, but my mom had already laid the foundation, and my dad was able to sprinkle in his things, and I'm obviously incredibly grateful for my parents. Yeah, so you started working at your dad's Jersey liquor store, and you started the e-commerce giant, the Wine Library TV. What do you think you learned in the process of watching dad and just, even before you constantly were thinking about the business?

7:06Well, there was only probably one year of that tone. There was only one year where I wasn't thinking about the business that I saw my dad. It was the first year I worked in the liquor store. I fucking hated it. You know, I just came from making actual money, 300 bucks, 600 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks, at the malls of New Jersey selling cards and fucking being my own boss at 13 and fucking feel like a fucking million bucks and now I'm working my dad's liquor store on the weekends instead and I'm getting paid$2 an hour to bag ice in a dungy fucking basement like I was sloth from Goonies with some 17 year old fucking degenerate who hated my fucking father and I'm fucking bagging ice for 10 hours a day my fucking pinky's about to fucking fall off because it's so fucking cold in that icebox and I'm like what the fuck is this could give a fuck was in the basement I hated it and what I learned was what I didn't want to do.

8:00My dad was a dick to his employees. Straight up. He would yell at them. I didn't like it. This was not, where's this fucking optimistic rainbows that I was used to with my mom? It was year two when I went upstairs and started stocking shelves where I started thinking about the business because I could watch customers. You know, I was a psycho. I was like watching how they bought, what they bought. Why? I was fucking 14 psycho, bro. Like fucking business, like savant in hindsight. It was my norm. I didn't know anything else but now looking back I'm like that's just crazy like that I was so in that game and what I learned a lot of things no question the thing I learned from my dad was no complaining and hard work period end of story you know like did not complain like like it just it didn't even cross his mind nor my mother for that matter everything was so shitty back in the USSR in the 60s and 70s when they were growing up that the worst things happening in America like my mom my grandma got mugged the first week we were in America and we were just happy that like, she didn't go to jail for 10 years.

9:03Like, you know what I mean? It was like such gratitude of being in America so, you know, it was hard work and discipline and non-complaining. I also learned not to eat breakfast and lunch. My dad didn't eat breakfast. Is that still today? Yeah, my dad did not eat breakfast or lunch and I don't eat breakfast or lunch. like 35 years later that's been like my framework. All this intermittent fasting that got popular like five years ago, I've been on that shit for 20 years. Let me ask you this, so this is an out of the box question I didn't have written down, but if you got to go, if your dad hired you today, and you know your dad, what would you tell your dad about pricing?

9:47Would you tell him raise your prices? Obviously before the internet game, because that's what you really revolutionized the business, but we gotta give him a couple tips. What do you think you'd tell him? Well, if I'm thinking about your audience and all that and what I, good news, let me tell you the real story. I started working at my dad's store in 1990. I didn't launch winelibrary.com until 1997. I made a big impact on my dad's business before the internet. The internet obviously took us to the moon and then Wine Library TV, I got wine internet famous and that took our business to the moon but there were several things.

10:18First, I was into merchandising. so my father's the first impact I had on my dad was making signs for the store like there would just be a box with wine and be like$4.99 I'm like no one wants to buy this shit I'd make a big ass sign and be like this wine pairs with fucking chicken and it's better than$10 wines and all of a sudden we're selling three times as much I'm like that was number one number two was the customer's always right even when they're wrong my dad was very good about customer being right but my dad's very principled so if a customer was trying to be cute he didn't like that shit and I definitely changed our culture that's a battle not worth fighting you cursing out a customer on the floor forget about stealing I'm talking about being cute with a coupon or something well the other customers see that dad and that's bad for our reputation so a little bit of that controlling the emotions and then the biggest thing my dad's liquor store was called Shopper's Discount Liquors we sold beer and liquor I was very good at listening to the customer I knew that people wanted to buy more premium wine from us so I brought in a lot more premium wine and I also got educated about wine and started really getting wine nerdy there was more margin in wine than there was in beer and liquor so really those were some of the big and most of all brother employees if my dad was on right now and you're like yo OG Sasha that's his name Sasha what the kid teach you he would say to treat the employees better.

11:47And I don't blame my dad. My dad's not a bad person. Let me tell you, Tony, what was going on. You know, it's like, you know, what was going on, Tommy, was that in Russia, everyone stole because the government owned everything, Tommy. Right? So my dad just thought everyone was going to steal in America too. He just grew up in an environment where employees stole everything. Everything in Russia was the black market. You worked at the butchers, the government owned the butcher store. You would steal some of the meat and try to trade it for some clothes. Everything was scarce, you know? So, you know, my dad's first piece of advice to me the first day I went to the store was keep an eye on the employees they try to steal.

12:34That was his first piece of advice to me. Wow. So I think I transformed him from seeing the employees as enemies to seeing the employees as teammates.

12:47Very valuable lesson. You know, it's funny. I didn't know you were there seven years before the, what did you see about the internet? Because there's Bitcoin right now, there's AI, but you were like, I mean, this is before you even had anything to buy domains, really. It was hard to get a website up in 1997. How did you see that, the World Wide Web, and what was gonna happen with it? you know how like some people are like talent agents or like remember like back in the day how old are you brother tommy how old are you 42 great you're a hair underneath me i'm 50 you might have caught this and but you definitely are probably aware of it back in like the 70s like these a and r guys in music they'd have to go to a fucking club and like catch fucking you know guns and roses playing to 50 people and be like these guys you know what i mean like someone discovered Pearl.

13:38That's right. Exactly. And in sports, you see a kid and you're like, I see, you know, like somebody. High school. Yeah. So I have that in business. I do. I have it. To be dead serious, here's your answer. In 1995, I went into a dorm room because there was some commotion and they're like, you got to see this. And I've heard of it a little bit on the news or something. The World Wide Web. The information superhighway. bro I did not own a computer I was not a tech nerd like I wasn't that kid but I literally watched literally for the young kids listening I watched someone go on the internet on AOL like I stood behind him on a desktop computer and heard that shit if you remember and watched a human go on the internet and I was like what the you know like quick and then I waited in an hour because everybody got like five, ten minutes to fuck around and I sat down.

14:39This changed my life, brother. I fucking just typed in like buying baseball cards and we didn't even go to the web. We stayed in AOL and I found a bulletin board where people were like Eric Davis rookie card, nine bucks. Like looking for Donruss 82 bucks. I was like what is like my brain was and I was like is this that prodigy shit that some kid told me about a couple years? Like this is real. I'm giving you my internal thinking and bro 20 minutes later I swear to God on my kids health I was like this is going to change my life that's it like I don't know what else to tell you I just knew that every fucking person on earth was going to do this shit and that I had to figure out how to use it for business and the two things I used it for were the only two things I knew I found eBay a few months later and started posting and buying and flipping and I started trying to convince my father that we We needed a fucking website for a single store liquor store in New Jersey and I registered winelibrary.com.

15:41That was the name I was kicking around with my dad because I wanted to change our store from shoppers discount liquors. And we launched one of the first five e-commerce wine stores in the country. Quite the story. You know, I found out about Craigslist early on and that changed my life forever because I posted 500 ads a day on Craigslist. and you know this brother hustlers like us we find the thing we're not scared to waste you know what my biggest strength is I wonder if this is yours Tommy and I wonder if I want people to hear this I'm not scared to waste my time even now when it's extremely valuable bro I get paid I'm just gonna be very honest here I get paid$350 ,000 to give a keynote speech for an hour right in New York City which takes me 10 minutes to get to but I'll sit and spend 9 hours on something that might never materialize because I know if all I need is one of those things, Bitcoin, blockchain, AI, social media, I mean it's happened to me time and time again, I've wasted many hours to not waste several hours that have changed the course of my life and everybody out here brother that's listening, many of them are scared to waste their time when their fucking time is worthless.

16:57us yeah well they'll watch their netflix and they'll do the you know jeff bezos said and this is probably one of the best quotes is uh in baseball you could get four runs but in business if you hit a home run you get 10 000 yeah it's a great quote so that's basically vcs you know you don't hit them all in the park but you got to be willing to take the time meet the people and what you've learned how to do is recognize winners and i'm sure real quick for people that you invest in? Because you can invest in Bitcoin is a little bit different. But when you're investing in a business, what do you look for in the person?

17:32What kind of traits? I've run the gamut. Again, I don't know if you're doing video or audio, but these stock certificates above my head, which rate those, that's Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. They were the first three companies I invested in. I killed it. like you know like you know sometimes your first album is your best actually in music a lot of times your best album is your your first album is your best album but you know in those scenarios I looked at the horse and the jockey so Twitter Facebook and and and Tumblr had already existed when I invested they were early first first little couple first year first couple months first year so I could see what it was I could taste it back to like you know the internet thing and then when When I met the kids, Ev Williams, who was Jack Dorsey's partner, he was primary for me, they were really co-founders.

18:23Mark Zuckerberg obviously went on to be one of the iconic businessmen of all time. And this really brilliant kid, David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, who I would argue understood where social was going. I think TikTok is more Tumblr than it is Facebook. You see interest instead of social. Anyway, all three of them, workaholics, you know, ambition. I felt like they could will their way to the other side. Later, Tommy, because I want to teach people about my mistakes, after those three where I loved both the platform and the person, later I started investing in companies even earlier so I had to hear a pitch of an idea and judge the kid.

19:05I started to overvalue education which was crazy because I fucking hated school and thought it meant nothing but too many of the startups, the kids went to Stanford and Harvard, so I got tricked, and so I started overvaluing the college they went to, that was bad. I started overvaluing the idea, because I couldn't see the product, because they were pitching me the idea, it was early, and I thought about how I, as a good operator, would operate it, but I didn't know how to judge a kid if they knew how to operate. I could judge their energy, their tenacity, their hopes and dreams. So my chapters for a long time in very early startup life, early stage,$4 million valuation, angel round, that proved to be great because I hit some real home runs, Venmo and other things of that nature.

19:56But definitely in hindsight was a little bit more guessing than I would like because if I want to gamble, I'll go gamble, right? If I want to invest, I'm now looking for the jockey and the horse and I want to see the horse. Show me your little pony. Show me it six months. Now when I meet with people that get. It's gotta be a little bit more proven. Just show me. I don't even care. You don't need any success. I need to fucking see it. Right? I can't look at the deck anymore. Show me the product six months. I can project if it's gonna be different. Netflix was fucking very different when it came out than what it is now.

20:32Venmo, I can project, but I need to see it. I need to touch it. And so that's where I'm at as an investor now. let me ask you a few read me questions I ask every person that comes on what's one piece of game changing advice that you wish you knew in your 20s it's not advice it's I wish I knew what my kryptonite was in my 20s so I could fix it Gary V Tommy as you can tell on this podcast he's as a public figure very candorous shoots it straight Gary Vaynerchuk in real life if I like you even if I I don't even need to love you if I like you I struggled with giving you actual feedback because I was scared that you would get scared and get fucked up or like I didn't value candor so I wish in my 20s I understood that candor was a gift you were giving to people not a scare tactic.

21:28Really really wise feedback there's a great book Firm Feedback in a Fragile World because very hard to accept feedback. And it's probably the hardest thing about business, but when you get good at it, the world's your oyster. We call it internally kind candor. Kind candor. Yeah, I have 2 ,700 employees at VaynerX, our marketing firm, VaynerMedia, and we call it kind candor. And I've been training it to my team and it's changed our business. Give me an example. You know this, brother. You're now in your career. A lot of our managers use candor or feedback as an excuse to be a dickface. Yeah. The end.

22:15We have managers, you and I, who have kids that are more talented than them reporting to them, and the manager's gonna suppress them because they're scared they're gonna leapfrog them. So if you just call it firm feedback, or if you just call it candor, well, now you got a fucking problem because people are gonna weaponize it. By calling it kind candor and holding our leaders accountable to it, they know they're getting graded by the people that they're giving feedback as well and one of the things we ask is, did they have any, question, did the person giving you this feedback show any level of humanity?

22:51What does that mean? It means that, you know, it's that old Mary Poppins song. I don't fucking remember it, but it's like, little sugar on it. Like, you know, I don't remember. What's that, a little spoon full of sugar? A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down. That's it. Like, I'm a buyer. Like, you know, you're gonna have to tell someone that they're on the verge of getting fired or they're not doing a good job. But starting with a little bit of like, hey, brother. And not like fucking over-coddling bullshit, like just checking the box. Just be a fucking human. Be like, yo, you show up, you're a fucking dude.

23:21Like, hey, lady, you're awesome. Like, you got a lot of creativity, but like, hey, these things have to happen or like the calculus is gonna, you know, it's sports. You're gonna get benched. You're awesome, we love you, but you're gonna get benched. And sometimes that's less opportunity and sometimes unfortunately that's getting cut from the team and like, but I think you gotta be a human. I love it. If you had$10 million in your account, that's it. You have no businesses, still got your contacts, where are you putting the money? So I got 10 million but I have nothing else. You have no other businesses but you still have connections, you still have relationships.

23:59Oh, I'm starting a business that I'm in charge of. You know, I'll decide what I want to sell or do, but like I'm not investing it, I'm not buying real estate, I'm not buying Bitcoin, all things I like, I'm starting a business because I can turn that 10 into 100, easy. I mean, you can take my connections away and I'm doing the same thing because I just know how to, I'm an operator, bro. I have seven meaningful businesses I call myself the business juggler I have seven real businesses I have a TV production company called VaynerWatt I have a huge sports agency for all the sports fans VaynerSports reps Bo Bichette just signed with the Mets for a buck forty Sauce Gardner, Aiden Hutchinson, Kirk Cousins we got tons of UFC fighters Ian Gary about to have a huge fight Pfeiffer's got a huge fight with Israel coming up so I got VaynerSports I have a huge restaurant group with five I have very successful restaurants in Manhattan, three in Vegas, brand new, Ripping called the VCR Group.

25:00And then I have VaynerMedia, 400 million in revenue this year, Tommy. 400 million in sales, not valuation, not some bullshit, 400 million in sales. I got VFriends, which is my Pokemon meets Sesame Street thing that I'm building that could be the biggest company I ever build, right? Like I'm a real fucking operator doing over a half a billion in revenue in my companies. Like I'm an operator. yes I'm a motivational speaker and an author and a personality and a personal brand you know yes I know people see me in 15 second clips in feed or on LinkedIn but like I'm a real fucking operator I was 34 years old before I made business content on the internet and I already built a big business for my dad you know and restarted with nothing because I built a business for my dad sometimes people try to fucking you know flame me and they're like don't listen to this guy trust fund baby his dad gave him a winery they make up all sorts of shit they have no idea my story I work 22 to 34 every minute, fucking 100 hours a week, seven days a week in a liquor store, and started VaynerMedia in a fucking conference room in another company because I had no money to my name for rent because I got paid nothing working for my liquor store because my dad didn't pay himself either.

26:10It was all going back into the business. But the problem for me was he owned the business and had that asset. I had shit. So, like, I don't need anything. I'm a fucking operator. Well, one question. You got these businesses, you're juggling, is there ever, you know, I've always built a sell. If I can't sell a business in five years or less, not that I have to sell it if things are going well, but that's generally like, you roll that. I'm a different player. I love that. And good for you, and that's awesome. And you like that game. I'm completely the other way. I want to die and leave it to people.

26:48I love it. So there's no businesses you plan on selling ever? I've had to sell two businesses. One was Empathy Wines. You can see it right over my shoulder here. These wines. We sold, in 18 months, we sold that business for just short of nine figures to Constellation Brands. I had two partners that started as interns with me at VaynerMedia. They were my partners in that direct-to-consumer wine brand. They were also both about to get married. We got this opportunity. They looked at me with those four puppy dog eyes and I was like, god damn it. So we sold it. They made some money. it's really lovely and the other business I sold in my career was I was the co-founder and co-creator of Resi the restaurant app that sold to American Express that I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with that company I co-came up with the idea I was an investor and put money in we housed that company in VaynerMedia I was always there for Ben Ben was the captain I was the co-pilot I definitely made some big cash and strategic moves I feel like my DNA is in that exit but that was a big exit for Ben specifically, especially.

27:52And so those are the two businesses that have sold in my time. But neither one of them were like, the majority of my businesses were, I'm like, the lead, it's me. I own it. I don't have to factor anyone else's needs into the decision. Just one quick thing. Have you ever heard Die With Zero, the book? I have not. Die With Zero. Tell me. So the book's just like, listen, when you're 35 compared to when you're 85 a trip means more right yeah you could go do more you can go hiking you do more yeah and you could give and actually see your money be given if you're you know 56 years old and you just see wow i'm actually making an impact yeah see your impact so i'm not i'm not disregarding what you're saying i'm just thinking so many people they make they do all this work and they're workaholics and then they go to their grave and then they don't get to see the to the labor that, by the way, don't spoil your kids.

28:46But I have, let me explain. I run very profitable businesses. I just did a$10 million over 10 year commitment to charity water. I'm gonna see that impact. I've been to Ghana. I've watched the schools I've built with Pencils of Promise. I don't want stuff, right? I don't want a Lamborghini. I don't want four houses. I don't want them. All I want is the New York Jets to win a Super Bowl and I'm not in control of that yet. You know? You know, I'm a workaholic not for the, I don't want the trophies. I want the process. I don't need validation from the money. I also have plenty of money. My apartment's plenty nice.

29:30I've had multiple homes. Like I've got stuff because I run profitable businesses and kick myself distribution. But I don't need much, you know what I mean? To your point, I love how you frame that. I've been able to do enormous amounts of impact financially through charitable work. And then also why I spend so much time building the Gary Vee brand. I've literally fundamentally changed people's lives because of my content. And that feels, so I'm fulfilled as a human. And then for me, selfishly, Tommy, I, you know, I've said this a couple times recently because it's the only way I can explain it.

30:06Tommy, I don't know how you vacation, but the way I like to vacation because I go so hard is I want to plop my ass on a beach. fucking do nothing, listen to music, eat three times, go to sleep. On some of these vacations, as I've grown in my career, the places are nicer, right? You go from Club Med to fucking Amanyara, right? I've always been fascinated with the kid that is just building a sandcastle all fucking day and then the sun's coming down, it's time to get cleaned up and go for dinner and mom and dad are like, yo Johnny, yo Tommy, it's time to go and this kid fucking I'm just laying there just listening to music and thinking and vegging out and literally have watched this kid from 9am to fucking 5pm build this fucking immaculate whether he did a good job or him and his sister or the sister or just her whether they did a good job or not I've watched eight hours of work hey Tommy time for dinner and then the kid just smashes it and runs up bro I'm that kid I just need to I just am curious and I'm enjoying to see how big I can build all this juggling.

31:14I don't need the financial payoff. I get enough of what I need from the day-to-day distributions and all that. That's what makes me happy. On the flip side, it was funny when you were like, I build businesses. I was smiling inside. I'm like, that's fucking awesome. That's his chemicals. That's how he likes the game. I like my game for me. I don't recommend my game for anyone unless what I just said for the last four minutes lit you up on this. if you're listening right now well then let's go then do that you can do that too you got the Tommy way you got the Gary way and you got a hundred thousand other ways just do it for you do it for fucking you did you ever see Rocky IV with Drago?