Why Personal Branding is Not Required for Business Success

0:00I believe in what I'm about to say more than I believe that the sun will come up tomorrow. It is not required to build a personal brand to build a business. You will not die, your business will not die if you're not a personal brand. It is a lever, but let me tell you what else is a good lever. Being good at sales. Let me tell you what else is a good lever. Being good at making social media content that does not have you in it. Let me tell you what else is a good lever. Being such a charismatic, warm-hearted boss that everybody wants to work for you forever. I mean, there's a million levers in business being an innovator, you know, an inventor of new things.

0:33There's many things that one can be that will explode their business. Personal brand just happens to be one of them. Is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. Hi, everyone. Hi, hi, hi. What's up, Vibe family? Great to see you. You don't have a ton of time, so we're going to jump on in. We so appreciate your coming in and letting us ask some questions. So we've got six fivers that are going to be chiming on in today. And we're going to kick off with Miss Diane with a brilliant question. Diane. Hi, Gary. Nice to meet you. I'm Diane, and I am the fashion designer of an impact brand called Bien Abie.

1:18we make product with artisan women in Haiti and I also wear another hat where I'm the founder of an organization called Fleur de Vie that does, promotes education in Haiti as well and so I have two questions. The first one is in regards to the current market and how the current market is shifting away from sustainability and social impact product. How would you say such brands to try to stay relevant and break through barriers in this market? That's a great question. Do you want me to ask all questions at once? No. Oh, sorry. That's good. You guys can hear me, right? Yeah. Great. Diane, it's a great question.

2:00Here's what I would say. I would say that, I wouldn't say that the current trends of consumers are walking away from sustainability or social impact. You know, I was really there when sustainability and social impact brands started to really pump out. And I would tell you that one of the things that really bothered me was a lot of the early brands actually meant it. Right? Like if you go back to 2006, 7, 8 when you started to see this movement gain a lot of momentum, a lot of the brands that I was pitched to invest in or the founders I would be on the same stages with, they really meant it. Right?

2:42It was like in their soul. you know kind of like the way I'm sure it's in your soul that I can sense right what ended up happening was we're we're not in this place because of political changes we're in this place because so many people started companies and used social you know and used sustainability as a marketing tactic it wasn't authentic I remember when there was a tipping point somebody came in and pitched me an umbrella brand. And they said, Gary, this is our umbrella brand. And for everyone who buys one umbrella, we donate an umbrella to someone in like a third book. I was like, and then when I looked under the hood, the consumer was paying double for the umbrella.

3:30And it just got yucky. And I think the consumer caught up to it. so here's what I would say many people me included would buy something because of a social reason or a sustainable reason many other people might buy something just because they think the color blue is pretty or they like the flavor of the coffee I don't think that you can get into a mental place where you think that your business or your product is on its back foot because it's off trend right now, if your product is only selling because it's more charity than it is product, you never had a real business to begin with. So you need to think about the social impact or sustainability as a plus up, as one of the reasons someone's buying something, not the reason someone's buying something.

4:34You understand? I do 100 so I think getting your head into like okay now let me make pretend like when I do altruistic things or or if I'm involved in a business that has a noble cause or a sustainable cause my brain goes to let's run this as if it doesn't and then we'll just get extra because it does and I think you need to operate that way and so you need to make sure your product your service is priced properly, is a good product, and has a proper marketing demand engine. And you should not shy away from making content around the nobleness, but you should also make content around other reasons people should buy the thing.

5:18And you should be in the and mindset, not the or mindset. Completely understand. Thank you. You're welcome. And then my next question is on the non-profit side of me, where Fleur de Vie is all about promoting education in Haiti. What we do is we partner with schools in need in promoting education, health, and environmental sustainability to the primary school kids. And so currently we're building a school, we're rebuilding a school in Haiti, and we're actually doing mental health with our school in the capital. And what we've noticed is there's been such bad press around Haiti that there's this shift.

6:01it's kind of like donor fatigue. So how does one get beyond donor fatigue and still keep promoting the need to educate the masses?

6:17There's a lot to this. Give me one second.

6:31Donor fatigue comes in many shapes and sizes. Again, I think everything is storytelling. Everything in life is communications. Everything is about empathy when you're a marketer, right? So to me, you know, I think that there's always donor fatigue and occasionally there's not. So I sit on a ton of non-profits. I consult a lot of non-profits. I'm very passionate about giving back. And I always remind people, do not have the audacity that what you care about is what everyone should care about. Right? Someone who is from Haiti, who's been donating to Haiti, God forbid tomorrow might have a child that gets a disease that's life-threatening and that person has all the rights to start shifting their dollars to curing that disease versus Haiti, their beloved nation that they were born in and their parents and grandparents.

7:35Again, I think we need to have compassion to donors. I am very aware of the narrative that you're speaking to on Haiti. I can tell you that there are plenty of people that do not. There are plenty of people with a video or a picture today on Instagram or Facebook that would be hearing for the first time a compelling reason why they should care about giving to Haiti and that might be the day. And so this concept of donor fatigue is very insular to the people that have given in the past and you know this, there's always something that pops up that gets the attention of people. I wouldn't overly dwell on the shortcomings of the narrative because there's nothing that's going to be productive of us being worried or concerned about the fatigue or the narrative that's currently out there.

8:28What I would focus on is telling stories in a contemporary way and getting them out there, whatever those stories can be. So, you know, donor fatigue is universal. We see it everywhere. St. Jude's, you know, Charity Water, Pencils of Promise, these things where I see the data clearly, they go through ebbs and flows of their donor fatigue, Sesame Street, you know, but one piece of content, that one documentary, one interview, one social media post can change the narrative. So I would say my long-winded answer to you is don't give a shit about it and make more stories. Okay. Thank you, Gary. You're welcome.

9:09I love that. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, Gary, good to see you again. Great to see you, Craig. All right, so I'll just dive right in. So years ago you spoke at the Inman Conference for real estate agents, and you said something to the effect that you need to be the digital mayor of your town. Does that sound familiar? Very much. It gets brought up all the time. That one line has had such a profound impact on our business, it would blow your mind. So we have bridged the gap in the real estate community to actually making that come to fruition for top agents. So I'm the CEO and founder of American Dream Media.

9:43The way you would want to look at it is when we think of TV shows, reality TV, we're the opposite of that. Real shows, real professionals, airing on major networks. We have about 1 ,200 of the best agents in the country. and I would look at it through the lens of, think of it like a B2B model first that creates a B2C show that airs on major networks. I know the model very well. Cool. So that's what we do. And we've done well. And it's a napkin story that's grown into a pretty successful company and we're looking to level up. A lot of things I could ask of you, but I want to bet on the future here.

10:15Another quote you have is, it's a technological tidal wave. You better surf it or you're going to drown. So we're ready to surf. So we're making a big investment into the future, AI, building our brains, so to speak, integration. And we want to innovate into the real estate sector beyond what we've already done in media. So if you were us, what would your approach to the future be in the vertical of real estate, niched in media, marketing, and AI? How would you gain what is going to be a very unique addressable market in the future and what really is a scorched earth and the greatest disruption we probably will ever see in our lifetime?

10:48So obviously your business, correct me if I'm wrong, your addressable market is real estate agents who have an interest to use the television medium as a demand creation for their personal brand to build up their business. Everybody wants to be Ryan Serhain. So I think it's very obvious that you can create products and services for that same addressable market that are AI tools for them. So you building the AI apps that they become customers of at a low cost SaaS entry that is a appetizer, a moose bouche or dessert for your main business is what I would build. And I used the terminology in a restaurant very specifically.

11:41and a moose-boosh and a appetizer as a gateway drug to your core business or and a dessert that is something that they do with you after your core business is the ecosystem I would build. I agree I think what we're trying to do is know the way then show the way so the way I've kind of framed it for my team my leadership team is with AI we're going to integrate we're going to show how we can integrate this into our business become more creative, more efficient, more scalable. Through Innovate, it's, well, as we're learning these things and building our brain and all these cool things that are applicable to us, we can not only take them to our constituency, but our hope is to take it outside of those 1 ,200 realtors to the 1.5 million real estate agents as a whole and even into other verticals.

12:28I think that's right. I think you just want to not be too naive. And as you start to think about other verticals and have bigger eyes know that you're going to start running into companies that look like open AI and anthropic and Google. And so I, you know, I would just say, be thoughtful of how you play it because once you, once you go into bigger waters, you're going to find very different sharks. Sure. Well, that said, it's, it is a media company, but you know, primarily to the client base, It's a marketing company and AI just disrupts all of that. So we're really excited about it. I know that you have kind of dabbled in real estate.

13:13I saw you at Agent 2020. Do you remember that event? Of course. In Miami. And so a lot of what you've taught, a lot of what you've done, VaynerMedia and Gary Vee are in the DNA of our organization. So I owe you a tremendous. Very humbled. Very humbled. Thank you for all that you've impacted what we do and our growth and the value you provide to our clients. Thank you, my brother.

13:37I could definitely keep going. I'm going to be happy to hijack this meeting. Andrea, you're on mute if you want to tee up. Yeah, Gary, so you might remember Supergirl. I do. She's still off on Passover celebrating, but she's got a quick question on video for you.

14:01I can't hear it.

14:05All right, why don't we switch gears and we'll go to the next one. Asa, while we're fixing that.

14:15It's fixed, if you want to just give it. Yeah.

14:22Hey, y 'all. Sorry, I can't be there today, but thanks for taking this question. I'm Sarah. I'm the CEO of a small but hopefully growing disruptive CPG brand doing plant-based soups, and now launching a new salsa, Pico de Gaia Lime, which we're really excited about. And I'm learning that the real differentiator between private label, which is taking over the industry, and brands is a good founder story, along with a great product and all of that. The concept of a personal brand is not natural to me. I don't love the idea of creating one, but I understand it's necessary. How do I write the band-aid?

15:05and get started and do it right. So. Hey y 'all, sorry. I can't be there today, but thanks. So team, here's a fun one. I believe in what I'm about to say more than I believe that the sun will come up tomorrow. It is not required to build a personal brand to build a business. So my answer to you is you don't need to do that. A founder story is amazing. It's another great weapon. it's obviously incredibly unique, right? It is a differentiation. Everyone here is a snowflake. We're all different. Even though we look like other people, we have similar stories, but no one has the same. I find it very challenging to tell people they have to do something.

15:52I actually think life is about figuring out what you do well and what you like to do. And then you do that because you will have higher upside and most importantly, more peace of mind. So even in the way she asked that question, like that would be like a perfect person that I would want to talk directly out of building a personal brand. Now, much like when children don't want to eat vegetables or try a new food, I think everyone should try. I think there's very little harm in trying. So I think my advice is try. How do you break out? The same way, you know, I was scared of swimming when I was a kid because I thought I was gonna drown.

16:31I started swimming when I was nine years old. A little late. But how did I break through? Well mine was a weird story. My sister started swimming one day at the pool when she was six and I had no ability to believe that my sister was gonna learn how to swim before me so I literally got up from my knock hockey table and jumped directly into this pool and just started swimming and now try to claim that I started swimming before her even though it's not true. But it's like anything. Kissing, I'll just use my life. riding a bike, kissing a girl, swimming in a swimming pool, all were scary and all of them just required a final moment of internal courage to do it, right?

17:14That is what doing a personal brand piece of content or doing it for a month is. It's being a grown-up and getting rid of your adolescent fear, jumping in, not worrying about people's judgment, making the content, writing the article, making the video. But after 30 days, if it's not your joy, if it's a burden, unlike the thing that does not come natural to me that I do every day, which is go to the gym, I need to do that because that's really health and wellness. Like, I don't want to die. You will not die, your business will not die if you're not a personal brand. It is a lever, but let me tell you what else is a good lever.

17:58being good at sales. Let me tell you what else is a good lever. Being good at making social media content that does not have you in it. Let me tell you what else is a good lever. Being such a charismatic, warm-hearted boss that everybody wants to work for you forever. Like, I mean, there's a million levers in business. Being an innovator, you know, an inventor of new things. Like, I don't know, being an anthropologist of consumer behavior and trends. There's many things that one can be that will explode their business. So personal brand just happens to be one of them. The words she used, required, or I have to, are inappropriate words in business.

18:41Great.

18:47Hi Gary, I'm Alexandra. I'm the founder of Who is Amsterdam Tours. We create storytelling-based walking tours around real human connection in Amsterdam. So we bring locals into the tours and that's pure magic. That's cool. 100 % offline and 100 % connection. It's highly rated. People always tell me I wish that would be in other cities too. So I have a strong team. I have a strong product. My challenge is that I'm the bottleneck. I'm handling marketing, sales, operations, and I'm still relying heavily on platforms like Viator and Airbnb. So my goal is actually to build a stronger brand, create more direct bookings, and also take this concept internationally.

19:32So my question to you is, I know content is key, but if your goal would be to create more direct bookings, what would you focus on in the next 90 days? Content. Okay. And any specific channel? Yeah, let's talk about it. So correct me if I'm wrong, You want to reach me when I'm going to Amsterdam on vacation to book an authentic tour with you, yes? Exactly. Great. How much content does your company put out now? And I assume your biggest markets are Europe and America, yes? Yes, English-speaking tourists, yeah. How much content does the company put out now? A day, a week, a month? It has been very inconsistent.

20:24So maybe three times a week. Three times a week. So you're saying right now at this point you think that you're putting out three posts a week. Yes? Yeah. Well more stories. Yeah. But it has been very inconsistent. Yes. Three. I see. Not posts. You're putting it into one Instagram account in stories not in the main feed. Yeah. How many main feed? like what is your, how many platforms are you on? So Instagram at this point. And what's the name of the Instagram? Who is Amsterdam Tourist? How do you spell Amsterdam since I can't spell? A-M-S-T-E-R-D-A-M. Who is Amsterdam Tourist? Thank you. Okay.

21:16This is making me laugh very much. Alex, you're a very funny girl. There's three posts that have happened in the last week, but prior to that, the last post prior to that was September 30th. Alex knew exactly where she was coming. She knew, like, to this moment, this is making me smile. All right, so, a couple things.

21:39You're not very far. Like, the first thing that I'm excited about is you clearly do not post anywhere close enough to the ambition you have. but the content you're making is a good start. Like normally when someone's not posting often, even what they're posting is a disaster, your content is good because your product is good for content. Right? Yeah. So a couple of things. You, if you want to be off of the drug of Airbnb and all that, right? If you want to be off that drug. Absolutely, yeah. You must post on eight platforms a day, twice a day. You must post 16 pieces of content every day. Now, you're a small company, one woman show.

22:35I'm okay if you take the same video with the same copy and post it on YouTube Shorts, Twitter, Facebook, threads, LinkedIn, I'm okay with that. I prefer over time you do what I do, which is it's slightly different, different copy, different first three seconds, all the stuff I talk about. James or Andrea will put in garyvee.com slash attention in the thread right now. It's a 35 page deck I made to teach you how to do it even better. But if you want to get off the drug, you need to post 36 pieces of content a day. You know, like you need to post 50 content a day. We're gonna start with 16. Two original videos on eight platforms twice a day.

23:32What you're gonna do then is... Hey everybody, hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. When something actually gets a lot of views, like, you know, right now you're not gonna get a lot of views but something is gonna hit eventually. Do you know what the most views you've ever gotten on one of these videos is? Oh, I think in the past it was like 10 ,000 views. You're gonna take that 10 ,000 view when something, this is advice for everyone, when a piece of content gets 100 ,000 views the first time, Ready to transform your career in real time from where you are?

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24:37you're gonna then take that piece of content and you're gonna run advertising on facebook and instagram and on tiktok to people that live in new york and los angeles and high net worth london high net worth zip codes in america and europe who have a higher likelihood of being able to afford your tour. Right. Okay. I just feel like the content which is hitting, it's more generic, but my brand is not like a generic brand. It's really about human connection. You're talking about overall? Yeah. Like, so the content I made, which was working, it was more generic, like pretty pictures of Amsterdam, but that's not my brand.