#AskGaryVee Episode 122: What I Would Do If I Was Graduating College Today

“today and didn’t have your family business “how would you handle the job market?” – Natalie thank you so much. Big shout out to
everybody who’s out in LA. That was a really phenomenal
night for me as well. A lot of peeps came out, I appreciate it. Well, first of all, I wouldn’t
attack the job market, because even at the age of nine or ten, long before I even realized
my parents had a liquor store as my dad managed that store and was buying into a business I was already slinging, as
you heard in episode 118, you know blue curtains and alarm clocks. And clearly you’ve heard
the stories of lemonade and baseball cards. There is no attacking the
job market from my DNA because I would try to start a business especially right now. I would completely take
advantage of the fact that there is an enormous
amount of dumb money trying to become
investors in start-ups. Meaning, unlike the
generation where I became an angel investor in
2009, 2008, 2010, 2011. Right now every dentist,
every real estate agent, every trust fund baby in
their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties anybody who had a good
career on Wall Street is now an investor looking
for their Mark Zuckerberg. I would take advantage of that. I would network. I assume if I was in college
I would ask professors. I would ask friends and family. I would just ask. I think when you’re at the bottom, asking is quite important. And so I would ask for at bats, try to network. I would use the incredible
tool that is known as Twitter and I would be replying
to people that I aspire to get in touch with. I don’t, you know it’s funny
to me to see the people that give up after asking to meet with me for a few minutes, after three or four nos. And I know that I’m inducing
now a ton of Twitter chatter to meet with me. And I hope you saw the
video I made for myself, the advice I’ve given myself. DRock, give them a two second clip. I need to get my shit together so I apologize I’m letting you down. But the truth is I need
to heed to this advice I’m giving myself. You know, so I won’t see you but I would have saw you six months ago and Cuban, or Jack Welsh,
or Zucks, or Elon Musk, you just never know when they’ll
actually sit down with you. And then there’s a
million people that maybe you don’t know who’ve been successful, who’ve got leverage, who’ve got money. And so I would attack the
reality of the marketplace. And the reality of the
marketplace right this second is tons of cash, looking
for young people with ideas. I think it’s a broken bubble. I think that gets exposed. I think 99% of people
are not going to deliver on that investment. I think I’d be one of the 1% that would deliver on that investment. So I’d be looking for while in college and like I did in college instead of looking to
hook-up and do keg stands I’d be looking for business partners and business opportunities. I think for anybody else
that is not wired like me which I think is a far majority
of this show’s audience I would tell you this piece of advice. If you were 22 years old, if you were the amount of people that settle for the first paying job versus living with 19 friends on the floor and eating 99 cent meals blows my mind in lieu of trying to get your dream job versus what you’ve settled for. Please from 22 to 24 don’t settle. Go for your dream job. Pound for it. And if you can’t get
into VaynerMedia (ping) then go for the second
best, or third best, or fourth best on your list. Please start with the
moon and go backwards. The amount of you that start at a hilltop and just settle there
is an enormous mistake because 22 to 24 is when you should live really, really humble, ghetto, dirt. Like that’s it,
that’s the time. To settle in in the
middle only lends itself to so much upside. So aspire for as high as you possibly can and be patient. it sucks not having a job in September when all your friends do. Or your friends that were
juniors the year before are going back to school
and the pressure is on and maybe your parents don’t
like that you don’t have a job but that’s exactly when you
should be buying random stuff at Goodwill and selling it
on eBay to pay your $80.00 worth of rent because you
have 94 roommates in a studio. That’s it, get dirty. Cause, and I know a paused there, cause getting dirty is the price to having what you want. The dramatic misunderstanding that amazing things come with a price. A lot of people talk about rich kids. I really negatively look at rich kids because I look negatively at my kids because they’re about to be rich kids. That’s just real. Sorry Xander and Misha, eat it. But you know what comes with the price of being a rich kid? People completely do,
you’ve basically lost in the game of winners. You’ve basically from day
one you were born into money. You actually aren’t
good, you were handed it. You suck.
That’s it, you’ve lost. That’s the price that comes along with it. And take it from somebody
who cried everyday because his dad had a
small family business and I was petrified because
I knew I had the talent that everybody would say
things were handed to me. Cried everyday with my mom on the phone I’m not coming into the family business even though I could help it, even though I want to, I don’t. Because then everybody is going to say, that it was handed to me. In the scheme of things I was an idiot I didn’t realize how
small it was to the world. But everything’s got a price. Everything’s got a price. You’re beautiful?! LIfe is much better when you’re beautiful. That’s what we all say.
I agree with that. But, more realistically, you
get completely disrespected. You get disrespected. You can’t be smart, you can’t be good, you’re just too beautiful. I’m serious. I’m really tired of people
thinking everybody’s got it better. Everybody has advantages. You know what the
advantages of being ghetto and on welfare and being
nothing and having nothing being a child of a homeless parent. You know what the advantage is? You’re (bleep) angry. You’ve got a ridiculous
chip on your shoulder. You want to stick it to everybody. All of ’em. Use what you’ve got.
Use what you’ve got.

– Hey, Gary! Huge fans of your show. We’ve watched all 109 episodes. – And we thought it’s about
time we ask you a question. – Here it is. I co-founded Ice Cream
Social a few months ago and we’re planning to have a
livestream summit in September. Here’s my question. Without having a huge
following and brand equity – how do we approach
companies to participate in our livestream summit? – Thanks, Gary.
– Thanks, Gary. (electronic music) – Hold on, I like the music. That’s a tremendous question and actually a very easy
one for me to answer. You need to sell people the
upside versus the reality. Selling often times is also
predicated on where you’re going versus what you have to offer now– (electronic music)
India. And so what I would sell
to them is like look we’re two badass chicks,
we’re going to win and you’re going to want
to be a part of this. And if you invest in us now,
if you give me a $1,000 check now although we might only be worth $350, or it might only be
worth $500 in your mind, I promise you that when you
write us a check for $2,000 in two years, it’s going to be $10,000 cause I’m going to give
you an 80% discount cause you Ricky Thompson
are making the committment and you’re believing in me. That is absolutely the only way to sell something that you don’t
have is to sell something that you’re about to become Period. And by the way as somebody
who bets on that kind of stuff all day long there are plenty
of people that like the idea of locking in the next
three years of sponsorship. And, again, if you guys bail on this you know you gotta give the money back. You gotta be honorable.
It’s a long game. The only way for you to
get sponsors is to sell where you’re going and make promises of financial upside
for them in the future. Again, hey conemaker, hey people… this is ice cream social, right? Like I’m not exactly sure
exactly what you’re doing but hey business that
cares about the audience, this year it’s going to be smaller but we’re hustling and this is who we are. And they’re either going
to believe you or not. This is something that
I’m talking a lot about with people who have worked
here for two or three years at Vayner and are complaining about stuff. And I’m look if you’ve worked
for me for two to three years and you don’t fully, blindly believe in me then you should not work here. If I’ve not been able to
prove to you at this point we’re not getting anywhere
because my patience is running out and so… I don’t know why I just
wanted to randomly say that for anybody who’s
watching at VaynerMedia. The point of it is, the point of it is you, they’re either gonna…oh, I remember they’re either going to trust you or not when you sell them the
dream of where you’re going over the next two to three years. So sell them the dream and then execute the dream. – [Voiceover] Melissa asks,
“When are you going to make

“an app and what would it be like? “why not have a jab jab jab app?” – Melissa, on this show I
talk a whole lot about betting on your strengths and not
focusing on your weaknesses. I as a product, leaders don’t
feel like very strong on it. I’ve got to much going on right now. I don’t want to stretch myself thin. Everytime I build products
they’re always half pregnant. If I ever build an app
or product it will be the singular thing I do or at least the one-a a la VaynerMedia. And so I’m not interested in building it. It doesn’t, like even the question… It’s crazy, India. Like even when I started
like answering the question it doesn’t feel good. Like I was clearly passionate
about the things I talked about in the first question. I’m clearly not passionate right now. You can even tell by my general
energy in answering this. I just have zero interest
in building an app. I’m aware that apps are good. That’s the word on the street. They do well.
You can build big businesses. I understand but I understand
myself better than my ambition to scratch that itch which
is actually quite low. It’s been higher in the past but I think I mature
along the way as well. And, you know, sorta
eating my own dog food and I just don’t, I
haven’t invested in it. The only reason this show exists is I invested in infrastructure. If I decide to hire two
full-time developers and really, really decide to
hire two full-time developers which I could do at any point. That’s not the problem. It’s me giving them, him and her, the energy to actually architect the map. Right now I just don’t feel
compelled to do that at all. And so, and so I’m actually gonna like… you can see I’ve brought the big comma in. This is where I want to
make it more valuable for a lot of you. Way to many of you and
obviously this weekend I got to see a lot of
engagement and really dug into some rabbit holes on you. Way to many of you are doing
one of two things incorrectly, in my opinion. One you’re letting the market
tell you what you should do. You should start an app,
you should be a guru, you should sell ebooks,
you should start a company. You should, you should, you
should, you should, right? Number two. You are actually convincing
yourself because you aspire to be something you’re not. I aspire to build the next
Instagram or Snapchat. That’d be really rad,
it’d be really great. It’s just not in me. So more self awareness, less pondering, less listening, listen to yourself. Except when yourself is bullshitting you then counter it with stop
bullshitting me, Gary. Alright, sorry. – [India] (mumbles)

and I’m wondering how small businesses can best utilize Snapchat? Like should they be posting
coupons or promotions or maybe doing day in the life diaries? Would love to know your answer, thanks. – Annemarie? Annemarie, the answer is yes.
All of the above. You need to put out compelling content. Compelling content in my opinion falls into two very distinct categories. One, entertainment and escapism. Two, utility and value. That’s it.
That’s how I see it. Either you’re entertaining
me because I need to escape the reality of I can’t pay
rent, that I have 94 roommates because this idiot on the
Internet told me to find my dream job. (rewind sound) buying random stuff at
Goodwill and selling it on eBay to pay your $80.00 worth of rent because you have 94 roommates in a studio. That’s it.
Get dirty. Or–
(laughter) You like the recall? You like the recall, Steve. You always like the recalls. – Well, you know, callbacks are good. – Callbacks. Thank you for the proper terminology. Or two you are a utility. Like you just bring absolute value. I think the show works because I think I mixed
both in pretty nicely. But it’s one or the other. So on Snapchat you either gotta do that entertain them, make it funny. Don’t forget the context of Snapchat, skew is younger. You know a lot of it
is mundane silly stuff. Or you can bring utility which is you gamify it
and say here’s a coupon or a code, save it because
it’s going to disappear. You play with that. Utility or entertainment.
It’s very clear. It’s funny.
You led the question. Amber, you know the answer. I love having you on the show but you absolutely led the answer which is you gave the
examples that would work. You know what to do. Now it’s less about asking
me and more about doing it.

– Hi, I’m Amy Porterfield and
I’ve got a question for you. So in your book, The Thank You
Economy you talk a lot about letting your audience
decide if they want to get to know you more versus
persuading them that they should. So when it comes to email
marketing what are some tips you have for communicating
with your audience in a way that doesn’t kill the connection because you’re being to persuasive? – Hmmm.
That’s a good question. Email marketing is a tricky one. You know I think, Amy,
it’s funny you reference Thank You Economy. I think the answer to
email marketing is found in my next book title which
is Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook. I mean think about all the email services you are signed up to and/or have been over the
last three or four years as so many of you start to siphon off of being on email lists. So many of those email
lists are in pure utility. Right? They’re retail,
they’re giving you deals. They’re very action-oriented. Nobody in that space is
throwing enough jabs. We at Wine Library aren’t. I still think I want to,
I’m going to use this to take my own advice. We need to start sending at
least once or twice a month. It’s so hard because you’re
siphoned on the drug of sales. But you’ve got to put out content. As a matter of fact,
Steve, I want you to work with Brandon right now. I want to send an email with
the last five stories we wrote on the site and I want
to send it out as just with a title of like Reading
For You Around the Wine World. Although let’s play with it a little bit. So that. So instead of everyone being
like here’s a deal, $49.99. Game Boy, old school. You know you need to start putting out the history of Nintendo. Right?
So more content. More content that kind of allows people to be less on the defense. Every mail that comes in
is like it’s at you, right? With content that has
no purpose other than to entertain or inform or
bring utilitarian value to the user, you’re
getting their guard down. You’re bringing them
value which opens them up so much more for the sale. And so I think that’s the way to go. I really do. I think and I think mixing
the two is intriguing. You know I’m curious what
Steve and I are about to do with Wine Library lends itself
to more content in the mix of the sale. And I don’t like blending
jabs and right hooks but I always like testings. A bunch of people always ask me, like Gary did you read Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook these posts on Facebook
and Instagram this weekend don’t feel native. Well maybe they are. I mean by results of the way
people responded to Facebook. Maybe they’re very native,
maybe native changes because native does change. And so, always testing.
Always testing. That’s it?
– [India] Yep.