#AskGaryVee Episode 162: My Friend Brian Solis Answers Questions on the Show

“between bad marketing
strategy that’s not working, “and just having a crappy product?” – Got it, so Andrew’s been watching enough to know that I talk a lot about, like, even the best marketing in the world isn’t gonna fix your crap product. So he’s asking, how do we decipher? Bri, do you wanna take a shot at that, or do you want me to go? – You go, and I’ll add. – You know, to me, it’s pretty easy. There’s only those two
things at some level, and so I think what you do first is, if you’re unsure, you
change your entire marketing approach, and I would
say you do that twice. So, over a 12-to-24 month period, you change your marketing
approach radically. If you go oh-for-three, there’s chances that your marketing
sucked all three times, but it is starting to
give you an indication that nobody wants your pet rock, or your iPhone case
that glows in the dark, or your crappy wine that you made. So, the other thing to do is
to look at your lifetime value and repeat business. One of the reasons I know
that Wine Library works, is we have incredible lifetime value, and a lot of repeat business, so then the waves of that
business are usually predicated on the marketing, because
once we get people in, they stay. And so, I think we can feel
that as people that write books, you’ll look at your numbers this week, and you probably will look at, like, historically, since you’ve written seven. What’s your most successful book? – End of Business As Usual
and Engage were, I think, the most successful. – Got it. So, like, to me, like, it’s funny, I think that Thank You Economy
is the best book I wrote, but it’s the least successful, and I look back at, like,
yeah, I gave it the less umph, by far the least umph, because it was deep in the starting of running VaynerMedia. So, I think you look at lifetime
value and repeat business and what your product is,
because if people are coming in and they’re using it and
buying or what have you, well, then you just need to
figure out how to get more of them in. If you’re getting a ton of
people in, but you’re not getting any long-tail action,
that’s your vulnerability. – And I think we live in
a time of social media, right, and the key part of that is social, so I think some of the best marketing starts before the marketing, right, so, listening, talking,
being inspired by people through all these technologies
that humanize people again and humanize communities. I think you can actually take
that insight and build better products, and build not just products, but products that are experienced and so that you can
invest in relationships and lifetime value and retention
as well as acquisition. – Love it, let’s move it, India.

– [Voiceover] Elton says, “Hey, Gary, “what do you think about the crying emoji “being the Oxford word of the year? “Communication shift?” – I’m thrilled, I’m so
fired up about this, you can’t even imagine. I think it’s an important signal. I’ve been talking about
communication shifting, I use emojis, with 50-60 year
olds in the crowd saying, how many of you have used emoji. I just did a talk in Orlando,
ironically, two days before I went, had to fly back and forth for the Thursday night game, I told you I was right
about that Bills-Jets. Staphon, I’m on fire with my predictions. Anyway, little quick shout-out
for all you Houston Texan fans, I’ll be in the
stadium on Sunday as well, flying in and out for that game. Going to every game this
year, I think I’ve decided. I’m pumped, I think it’s
a great, significant step, it’s a headline that a lot of
people are gonna come across over the next 48 hours, and it continues the thing
that I care about the most, which is eliminating romance and just dealing with the reality. The world’s changing,
pictures are clearly becoming a way we communicate, emojis, a lot of it happened in
Asia where the keypads, and transitioned over here. Listen, we used to draw on caves. Like, inside caves, we drew on them. Did they get mad when
the words came along? Like, I’m sure there’s,
like, grandpa caveman was like, ‘this is bullshit,’ like, ‘we should always draw on
cave, these words are bad,’ we get used to our norms, you know. In 100 years from now when
we’re only doing emoji-like things, words are less used, I mean, do you know how
much better my life is that I actually misspell things on purpose and let autocorrect fix them? I don’t romance over spelling improperly, I just wanna get my words to somebody. – We live in a time when
a magazine is an iPad that doesn’t work, so it’ll work, too, the folks at Oxford, I will
give you this response. – Love it, love it.

“Gary, what does the future look
like for the auto industry? “Will local car dealers be cut
out of the business model?” – It’s a great question. Look, I think direct-to-consumer over a 50 year period is very real, and so, anybody who’s, including
what I do for a living, like, selling wine and liquor, like, I do believe that the
internet is the middle man, period, and I think a lot of industries just haven’t been affected by it yet. So, the hotel industry’s
been affected by it, airBnB, the car, you know, the black car industry’s
been affected by it, the bookstore industry’s
been affected by it. Systematically, over next half century, most of the things that sell to customers will be affected by it, and
I think auto is in play. I mean, look, Tesla’s selling direct, so, I think that, yes, I do think, now, I think way too many
people think about things, and they think they’re
gonna happen tomorrow. I’ve learned that,
that’s what I’ve learned. Now that I’m 40 and wise, where I was 20, I would’ve, if my 20-year-old
self was sitting here, since Brian looks 20, according to Brian, I’ll say Brian, I’ll say
Gary, 20-year-old Gary, not everything’s gonna
happen as fast as you think. And that’s the thing I’ve
learned, that it takes time, but do I think over a 50-year period? Absolutely. If you’re asking as a 48-year-old who owns a car dealership,
I don’t think you need to sell it tomorrow, but if you’re asking as a 12-year-old who wants to take over
grandpappy’s dealership, you may wanna consider going
in a different direction then you’re trying to
triple-down on the model. Bri? – I love car dealerships. Said no one ever. – That hurts. – Look, I just actually
came off some research with Google about this, and we sent in the moments of truth about the highly digital
customer shops for cars, and I think there’s an
opportunity for dealerships to be relevant to today’s society, it’s not based on yesterday’s model. – Sorry, just showing
my new kicks, go ahead. – But, if you study it is, look
up autoshopping micromoments and you will start to see exactly where you add relevance and
value to the value chain, but if you do not, Tesla-like
models are gonna take over, and it’s just inevitable, people
need to get what they want when they want it, and how they want it. – And things have been flow, like, we used to have the downtown market, like, the Main Street, American,
then we went to the suburbs, and we had, you know,
supermarkets and Costco’s, and now, more than ever, people are moving back into the cities, the
Detroits of the world, and now you have Main
Street merging again, so ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows, and so technology overlaying
that is gonna cause a lot of disruption
over the next 50 years, and I do think the direct consumer model is very real. It’s just economically
sound for the people that the take the biggest risk, who are the people that
actually make this crap. – I think that just
reminded me of Clueless,

“Gary, how do you analyze all
the social media data “that you get every day? “Personally and corporately.” – What’s the corporately part, like, how does VaynerMedia do it versus me? I do it completely on what got me here in the first place, and Brian, you know, this might be interesting, Brian, it’d be interesting, this is
probably to make me feel good, but you can go anywhere you want with it, you have an interesting perspective, because you were actually
there when my thing happened. There’s not that many people that were. So, you know, I did it back then on feel. I was right about a lot
of things intuitively, and that’s what I do now, I mean, I just read it, I read my feeds, I read my comments, I look
at the enagement levels on what I’m putting out, so
I’m analyst on my own stuff. Vayner as a corporate entity is doing it much more
Excel sheet than gut feel than I am, they’re
analyzing numbers deeper, they’re converting that into a report for their clients, I’m sure
you guys do similar stuff, but me, personally, I’m just reading it. Like, I’m watching how fast
I get likes on Instagram when it’s convenient, not every post. You know, if I’m on a plane
and I do it right before I take off, and as soon
as I get the Wi-Fi, I can look at it, like,
there’s kind of serendipity to the way I analyze, but I’m feeling it. I was very intuitive in
the way I marched in, ’06-7-8-9, a lot of
those things worked out. I continue to do that, I continue, look, I’m doing it even with the show. If you’re noticing, Brian
is now the culmination of a period here where we
brought in a lot of guests by comparison, so I’m
always testing and learning, looking at the comments,
trying to understand, trying to vibe with it. Bri? – The one thing I will say about you as your friend, is that
you’ve always cared, right, so at a time where, we’ve
come up with a lot of people over the years that just
really try to buy into the hype, create the hype, and really try to grow their fan bases,
and all of that activity, without actually adding
value to the community. You’re still hustling probably
harder than ever before, maybe more than you did early on. You take that feedback, I watched this, you take that feedback, you
actually do something with it, you do shows like this
where you can add value to people’s lives, people’s streams, with everything that you do, so I think your metric
system is just sort of a validation of the fact that
you’re listening to people and trying to give back to the community. That’s evident, and you
should be rewarded with that. – Appreciate it. You like that, India? And by the way, by the
way, I have been asked by 900 people to sit in this seat and do this, and we’ve been at 6, and, like, 5, and one of them was my father-in-law,
so it’s not, you know, I think it speaks to your ways. Well, and then there’s all
the behind-the-scenes stuff that you and I know, which is, there’s the business stuff, and you can be very business-oriented, this is a good lesson for
a lot of the youngsters, there’s the black-and-white
business stuff like, ‘yo, homie, support my book?’ Sure, I could do that, but
then there’s just life, right. Like when somebody’s sick, when you post something on your Facebook that you’re having a tough time, or the, all the people
that we share in common that we’ve never sat
in the same room with, that, how they talk about us to each other when we get brought up
in a setting, right? It’s all those other things that are part of the equation as well. – You know, I think, if
there’s one thing I’ve learned along this journey is to constantly give more than you take and. – 51-49. – Treat people in ways that
make them feel more special when they leave an engagement with you, and then, last is, just
live and act and breathe as if you want people to talk about you when you’re not in the room
in a way that’s complimentary. – 100%. Legacy and brand.

– [Voiceover] Meet asks, “Hi, Gary, “it seems like everyone speaks about “not giving up no matter what, “but how do you know when
it’s time to let it go?” – So, I’m, this is
something I struggle with, like, having a loss on
your resume is so scary, and the business ventures that I’ve had in the past where I
wasn’t actively running and I’ve talked about Cork’d or Forrst. Lindsay and Kyle, amazing entrepreneurs that I don’t feel that I supported enough and thus those two, Obsessed
TV with Samantha Ettus, where I try to produce a video show, that didn’t start me. I never was able to give it enough energy, and the thing I spent
the most time with is when do I let it go? Because there’s a point where you realize, by the way, I realize this with employees, you know, I know a lot
of VaynerMedia employees watch this, but I’m gonna tell the truth. There’s 5 to 6 employees that I think it might be time to not
work together anymore, and do I struggle with that? Boy, do I struggle with that. One, mainly because I don’t
like letting other people down more than anything. The truth is, Meet, I think
this is a very personal answer. I think it depends on every individual, but what I will say is, way
too many people watching this right now are holding onto
hope, or a non-reality, or don’t wanna make somebody feel bad, or dont wanna have the
reputation of having a loss on their record, and I
think that’s a huge mistake, and it’s probably the mistake
I’m most vulnerable to, and as I think about my next 40 years of executing, and you’re right, I am hustling more than ever, I’m feeling more fit and energized and feel like I’m gonna really
go into my golden years, especially the next 20
years, that’s just the truth, though I’m sure when I’m 60 I’m like, this is when I’m really gonna do it. I do think that that, this
is a tremendous question, I’m so goddamn pumped that this happened on my 40th, post-40th
birthday episode, first one. This is the one thing that
I’m spending a lot of time on. I think it’s hard, but it is, I think more people have
to let go more often. And the two things that I’m working on are both ends of that:
saying no more often, because boy that’s hard for me, and then letting go more
often, and really zoning in on that middle is my answer to that. So the punchline is, very personal, but, because I wanna bring value
to everybody listening, what’s up, podcasters, and watching, I really think that a lot of
you need to take this question, use it as a moment, use it as permission, let me be your olive branch, link to this part of
the show as the excuse or the frame that let you do it, there’s a lot of people
that need to let go. – And if I could have one thing, that would be, this book is probably the
first time where I felt like I was gonna fail in a while. – Interesting, because you, because you had to do the work? It wasn’t like what naturally was in you. – Right, it was, what was naturally in me was just write another book, you know, and I thought that I would
be letting everyone down by doing that, and in three
and a half years in the making, right, there were, I mean,
even up until six weeks before it was done, I thought
it was not gonna happen. – Meaning what? – Just, so many things
were going wrong, you know, in terms of production
and printing processes and finding the right shapes
and everything about it. Also, re-learning how to write sentences. Like, I was beaten. And there was a saying
that a friend of mine, Adele Ressie, had told me that, an entrepreneurship,
it’s always the darkest before the dawn. And I thought that, yo, maybe that is it, maybe this was just a test
to go a little bit further and see it through, but at the same time, it was the right thing to do, but at the same time, there are moments when you have to walk away, and just try to learn from them, because that’s all anybody wants from you is to show that you tried
and that you learned from something and that you did it better or did it differently the next time. – Appreciate it, my friend. As the guest of today’s show,