#AskGaryVee Episode 22: The Big Difference Between Sales and Branding

over the Bears, 36-14. – [Voiceover] Lou wants to know, “If you bought the Jets today, “what would be the first
thing you would do?” – Lou, I’ve always said that
the first thing I would do once I buy these New York Jets, I’m pointing to the stadium, by the way, is I would start a program
that would send a jersey to every six year old boy
and girl in the New York, New Jersey tri-state area
with a handwritten note from me saying thank you. Or maybe just a note
that I would sign some, because that’s a big number but I wanna basically convert every
single youth into the green, not the blue, and so that
would be the number one thing I would do, start the program that I’ve been imagining and
dreaming about my whole life. – [Voiceover] Mahdi wants
to know, “What motivated you

– [Voiceover] Mahdi wants
to know, “What motivated you “to continue any project,
like Wine Library “without seeing any
significant growth prior?” – Mahdi, you know, for me,
that’s a very easy answer, which is, I just believe
in my holistic purpose. I’m blown away by how
many people are crippled by one project or the other,
to me this is a net-net game. I have a very clear vision
professionally where I wanna go but overall, I just want
to be a good human being, do business the right
way, the right process, put in the right hustle
and I control that. If I don’t get results, well
that means I made a wrong strategic decision, but that
doesn’t cripple me either because as a net-net,
I know where I’m going. So for every one or two times I decide to get in the wrong business
or invest in the wrong thing, I’m going to figure out
a win alongside of that and that’s all that really matters to me. – [Voiceover] Michael wants
to know, “As an entrepreneur

– [Voiceover] Michael wants
to know, “As an entrepreneur “how do you feel about
government officials “picking winners, like
Wynn getting approval “for casino in Boston.” – Michael, first and foremost,
I agree with you 100%. This kind of government
interface behind-the-scenes stuff happens all day long,
especially non-American. It happens in America all day long, but you start getting into
other parts of the world, there’s a lot of shenanigans going on. But I’ll be honest with
you, as an entrepreneur, and I’ve always felt
this way, don’t forget, I come from a regulated industry business. The Wine Library had plenty of headaches. I just completely ignore it. I’m disinterested and
not focused on it at all. I spend all of my time,
and I mean all of it, I spend all of my time on the
things that I can control. It’s why I fear the health and wellbeing of the people I love and care
for because I’m not in control but when it comes to business, even though there’s a lot of back-end deals,
people not rooting for me, deals that were made for me not to win, I feel that I have the
talent and the skills to still break through.

– [Voiceover] Hayley wants to know, “What is your response to brands “looking for 24/7 community management? “Is it worth the
investment, is it overkill?” – You know Hayley, I’m a big fan. I believe that everybody
that you engage with and say hello to, I believe that everybody I said thanks to or TY, over the weekend, for watching all 21 episodes of this show get affected by that. I do think the human investment matters. I do think that if brands committed more to one-on-one marketing that many of them don’t think is scalable,
they would get bigger depth. We talked in the last episode
about depth and width. A lot of you responded to that. I think that community management 24/7 can be valuable if you’re big enough. You have to be a global
brand, you have to be a Pepsi. You have to be Toyota to really
get the value out of 24/7 ’cause otherwise you’re
paying people to sit around and not engage with anyone. I’m not crushing it on
Twitter between 2 AM Eastern and 6AM Eastern, so I don’t need anybody, which in this case is me, engaging there but if you’re big enough, I believe in it. – [Voiceover] “Okay, I get
it, go native, go deep,

“jab, jab, jab, jab, big right hook “but when it comes to the
mechanics of making sales online “you need identification,
call to action, no? “Both here and on your Facebook post, “you have no links, no email signup. “Do you just trust that with
enough goodwill and trust “people will find your
website/email when it’s time to buy? “If I need my content to drive bookings, “should I not at least
have a link for more info “when people are ready for it? “Thanks, Big G.” – Jayce, you’re lucky you’re
catching me on Episode 22, because my favorite new rookie on the Jets is Jace Amaro, our tight end,
so I’m gonna give you that. Listen, spoken like a real
salesman and I’m a real salesman. I’m a real salesman but you’re not wrong, I’m all about the CTR,
right, the call to action, I’m into that, right, but
at the end of the day, you’re talking about the difference between salesmanship and branding. Anybody can be a good salesman, but being a great brander,
that’s where it gets going. The lift of being a brand,
being a Nike, being a Puma versus just selling a new
sneaker, that’s a big difference and so, tactically you’re correct and I’m sure a lot of
people who watch this think about those things where, “Why didn’t Gary create
a call to action?”, “Why doesn’t he have a pop
up when I land on his website “to collect my email?”, all this growth hacking thing,
as many other people do. The reason, at times, I don’t
do it, ’cause at times I do, and at times, I’m very comfortable
throwing the right hook is because I do believe in the jam, the jab, not the jam, and the jam. I believe that branding matters. I believe that there’s a time and a place. I believe there’s context. In this setting, yes, I do
think that in a 2015 world, people watch this show,
they see that I’m not trying to sell them
anything, I’m bringing value, I’m sitting here during my
favorite time in the world which is Jets parking lot time because I want to put out content and I’m just trying to give the best business advice that I can. And I do believe that when
somebody stumbles across this, yes, there could be a call
to action, and they can click and they can buy, but by
me asking for something like sign up for this or
buy that in this video or in this world of YouTube,
I’m also leaving a way, the situation where that person
can then look at my name, find this interesting,
control copy it, go to Google, search my name, go down a rabbit hole and let me build brand, because I asked, like everybody else out
there, for the quick sale in this context, and
I took away the chance for us to kinda, you know,
it’s kinda like relationships. Because I went to sleep with
that person on the first night, maybe I took away the chance
for us to get married. I, my friend, am playing the long game, the depth game, not the width game. So there’s a time and place
for a call to action, a CTA but that isn’t every single
at bat, every single time, every single channel,
because then you just become a sleazy salesman. Thank you for watching Episode 22,