#AskGaryVee Episode 148: Pampering, Politicians & Ad-Blocking

“from politicians begging for money. “How would you do better
if you ran for president?” Hashtag ready for Gary. – Yeah, I mean look guys. We’ve addressed this multiple times. If you’re new to this show I
will never run for president because I wasn’t born in this country and if I can’t have the top gig I’m not playing the game. How would I do it better? Easy, it’s the whole thesis of all 148 episodes of this show. It’s all about depth, not width. Like, nobody’s winning the random I’m going to blast you with email give me 20 bucks game buy my stuff game. The blanketing and
hoping and praying versus the depth is the complete
misunderstanding of how to sell. I think oftentimes it makes sense to me that politicians are bad at this because most of my politician friends are terrible business
people and salespeople so it makes sense and usually you know, it’s really, it’s actually stunning what kind of level of disrespect I have for most politicians’ salesmanship. They can sell themselves,
but not other products and I think that that at some level is an intriguing aspect and
fine line in this whole thing and so email marketing
is no different than, you know, the direct
mail that they used to do to try to get dollars
and so, I don’t know, I mean there’s so many
ways to do it better. I mean look. I think one of the best
things a politician can do is literally sit in the room,
sit on our God damn ass, and for 15 hours, take a phone, take a phone, and literally do, and literally do, you know, Twitter reply videos. Literally search your name,
because everyone’s talking, and they either love you or they hate you, because if you’re neutral
you’re in deep crap, and just reply to them and say “No Rick, that is not my policy.” or “Thanks Susie for the support.” It’s the depth over the width game. So the same stuff that
works in selling stuff, selling anything, works in this scenario, and so I think Twitter replies I think would be
disproportionately powerful. I think Facebook is the most important platform for a politician due to the fact that older people tend to vote and that I think that
Facebook is the holy grail of 45 to 70 year old reach right now. Even better than television. So I would put a lot of
content in that world and talk more about my
policies and my thoughts and more importantly show
the human side of me. I don’t know if people
have been paying attention but I believe the last four
to five presidential elections have been completely predicated
on a popularity contest and we’re in the
entertainment of politics era. Not to get political, but if
you just look at all of them. I mean like, whether you
hate Obama or you hate Bush, these are likable people to those sectors. In comparison we’re in like complete and what’s going on now. We are in entertainment mode. And so I would be entertaining
if I had that opportunity because that’s what would work and so that’s what I would do. I mean cold emailing is
doing absolutely nothing. It feels completely cold. It, you know, won’t do it. – [Voiceover] Ian asks,
“Gary, what’s your opinion

“on incorporating curse words into “your actual brand and
not just the content?” – Yeah, I think that, Look, I think that if you’re
going to go down a path where you’re going to be doing something that you consciously
know that a lot of people aren’t going to like
whether that is cursing, whether that is before
mentioned politics, religion, gender issues, you know, race. There are pillars in our
society that evoke emotion and have lines in the sand. Cursing is one of them. A lighter version than some of
the other things I mentioned, but you have to weigh the
pros and the cons of it. You will turn off a stunning percentage of people by over-cursing. And there will be a smaller sector that is super motivated by it. For me, it’s just very simple. Cursing for me is very simple. It’s just what happens when
I have the camera on me. Like the more people that look at me, it’s what I do. It’s very, and so it’s
just entrenched in me. And so I believe that I
have to always at all costs be me because that’s my biggest upside. If you’re forcing the curse word because you’re targeting
16 to 22 year olds, and you think they’re
going to think it’s cool and it doesn’t come from your soul, you’re going to lose. But if your cursing comes from your soul. If you are like, if you are like this is peanut mother (censored) butter, like this is it! Like if that’s where you
going with it, then like cool. Like if I truly believe that people have a stunning positive reaction to disproportional authenticity. I am an absolute biproduct of it. I’ve watched as my maturity and comfort zone with it has grown. What’s it meant to me. It allows people to,
it’s just a nice thing. And so if you’re
authentically there, cool. But like coming from your soul. Coming from your heart. Not forcing it is the key regardless of cursing, not cursing. You know many people do the other side? We don’t talk about the other side. You know, I always get talked about being rogue or aggressive
or things of that nature. What about the people that
are forcing the kindness? Or the bullshit? Like that’s going on way more. There’s way more people, way more people forcing the acceptance and approval and following the path than are people, that’s why the people that
are going the other way have disproportional anomaly results. So how about that question? How about any of the people that don’t curse when they feel it.

“but often wears us down. “Do you ever pamper yourself “like maybe go in for a
pedicure or manicure?” – Minnie Mouse? No, Mini. I was hoping. Mini, do I ever pamper myself? Not in the cliche like
I bite all my nails. My nails are a disaster. Now that I’ve been
working out for 15 months Mike makes me do massages
because I need them at times and I like it, it’s nice. It’s a good thing. No, I’m not really into,
not the cliche things. I pamper myself by doing whatever I want at all times always. So I would call that
the ultimate pampering. So that feels good. That to me I think is, by the way, that, you know what, that might have been a
very interesting moment. If you want to talk about
what the best outcome of being a successful
entrepreneur, it’s that. The money is really fine. The admiration is fine. There’s nothing close than knowing that I could just get up right and just, like, you know, like you noticed before, like I slammed India’s laptop and she’s like “great
you have no questions.” And I’m like “Great.
Great. What? “What are you going to do about it India?” So you know, like, I like that. I like being able to do what I want. I don’t know what that just was. If I want to get up for a second I’m going to get up for a second. I think the way I pamper
myself is if I do want to, if I want to turn my
40th upcoming birthday into a family celebration,
I can afford to do that. That feels incredible. And so I pamper myself by the experiences. Going to London in a couple
of hours to watch a Jets game. That’s my pampering. Doing the things that make me happy. But, you know, I don’t get excitement out of a two hour pedicure
where I unwind and read gossip. But many people do. I walk around New York City and watch it happen 74,000 times a day. So, cool, awesome, do your thing. So, you know, I don’t, you know. I’m trying to make my
life a pampering moment.

“You don’t talk much about ad-blocking. “With more people doing
it, how will small and medium “publishers and blogs survive?” – They’ll survive by adjusting to the reality of the marketplace. There used to not be ads and they would make native content and soap operas integrated their products into the shows. The Ed Sullivan Show put a big fat car, a Lincoln town car that paid
for that entire show in it. And Alpo, or whatever that,
that’s Alpo’s dog food, right? Alpo used to bring out it’s, right? Used to bring out the
dog on the Today Show and eat the God damn Alpo
right in front of America. And so ads my friends are
just one way to monetize. I didn’t run ads on Wine Library TV all those years when everybody told me. I decided to get paid millions
of dollars to write a book, and to speak, and to
actually build an audience and monetize them differently instead of making nickels
and dimes on them. Nickels and dimes are cool. But you know what’s way better? Hundred dollars bills. I feel like that’s from the movie, right? I mean that’s what it is though. And so I’m laughing at everybody’s panic because I think lowest common denominator, average players are going to
get forced into being better. I actually think this is
going to motivate people to step up their game
and not just mail it in. And so I’m excited to just
watch smaller and large. You know, it’s way more, you know, it’s a funny question and I’m sure it’s coming from an entrepreneurial place. Big companies have a lot
more to lose than you. Like ad-blocking, listen. It’s all relative right? Like your 400 bucks,
their 40 million, fine. But like everybody’s equal in this. Everybody’s going to be disrupted. Not just small businesses
and small publishers. Big publishers that make
all their God damn money on banner ads and things of that nature have a real issue at hand and
I think it’s God damn great. Because what I think is actually happening is that it’s better for the end consumer. I mean it is not fun for me. Especially now that we’re
on full, I need it back. Sorry periscope. How are you guys doing. I’m just showing you DRock. Actually I’ll show you myself because you don’t want to look at DRock. Well they’d rather look at me. It’s the #AskGaryVee show DRock. You know, I forgot my thought
because I got mad at DRock. You know, because, got it. Because I don’t want to go to like ESPN.com and check a score and a big fat banner ad pops up and I got to X it and then I miss it and then I’m going to
something I don’t want and that costs me six seconds
and time is the asset. And so I really really think it’s great. I’m not talking about it because I’ve been talking about intrusive
advertising my whole life. This is just a continuation. It will get, Tivo, ad-blocking,
whatever comes next. Feedblocker. Like whatever it is,
it’s all going to happen. It’s all happening India. – It’s all happening, feel good?

“How does the engagement on YouTube “compare to other social platforms? “Is the reward worth the effort?” – Absolutely. YouTube is like literally one of the great platforms of the world in the engagement’s very high,
there’s tons of, matter of fact, I put on my phone, I
won’t take it this time, I just put YouTube finally
at the front of my phone because I’m engaging more in the comments because there’s so much going on there. And thank you so much for everybody who’s watching the show on YouTube. The engagement’s super
worked, I won’t even, who said this? – [India] Rachel.
– Rachel! – [India] I’m sorry Rachel. – Don’t be sorry India. Rachel, come on! What do you mean the engagement? Have you not seen a video on YouTube? Even shit videos have like
three people saying “You suck!” I mean they don’t even waste their time to do that on Twitter. The engagement’s incredible on YouTube. The commenting is bonkers. Videos that do well get tens of thousands of people saying things. Maybe YouTube’s the best engagement platform on the internet. I mean, Rachel. Sorry Rach.