#AskGaryVee Episode 220: YouTube Growth Strategies, Business Risks & VaynerMedia's New Office

“channel, what do you suggest
people do in order to accumulate “more subscribers and views?
Anything absolutely necessary “or does it all just
come down to patience?” – I wanted to answer this because I thought this would bring a lot of people value. There’s so many of you, that hear patience. And then you just think, okay, I’m just gonna continue to make shows and content, and you’re gonna wake
up four years later, going from
85 subscribers to 219. And I don’t wanna
be on the hook for wasting your time. You have to understand, and I talk about this a lot, and you guys hear it
from me a lot actually. A lot of the homies that
are sitting out there, distribution. Distribution is the game. So what do you do
when you have 85 people following your channel? Or 200 or even 2,000, or even 20,000, or even 200,000, is you need to understand that you need to keep hustling
for your awareness. Of course, and just so
everybody knows this, of course your show has to be good. You have to continue to
make your craft strong, you have to continue
to be interesting, you have to
continue to bring value and produce good content. But, you need people
to know about it. And so I think one reason
I’ve always done well is I understood that. And so one of the great ways to do that is collaborations. I think if you’ve
got a YouTube channel, you need to
basically reach out to, I don’t know,
the other 7,000 people, that are in your genre. And reach out to them, and see if you can
bring them value, right? Hars, you love UFC, you decided to start a channel. You need to reach to
the 40,000 UFC channels and be like, hey,
I’m in the network, so I go to gyms, I could get you original content, can you put me on your show, to bring me value for my show? When you have 44 viewers, you can’t offer somebody
who has 400,000 viewers, let’s trade, you’ll be on my show, I’ll be on your show. You’ll get laughed
out of the room, and people do that. That’s not the way
you’re gonna win, that’s not 51-49. What you can offer
is something in return. What you can offer is access, because you’re in those gyms, with original content. So maybe you can be doing on location interviewing, for that big UFC thing. And then, you know, and
then for yourself too. And then that
person puts you on. You could offer money,
if you’ve got it. That’s fine. I mean, whatever it is,
so it’s about distribution. So collaboration with
other YouTube shows for sure, social media
through and through, creating enormous
amounts of content. Spending even more
time paying attention to how people are building organic followings on Instagram. And hashtag
culture really works. For the people
that are really patient. And I ebb and flow
with my hashtag work, Dunk, you do a good job with me on Musical.ly. You’re like this is
the one that works. Just, I would even argue that I’m being lazy
with my hashtag work in Instagram, for sure. But for a lot of you, you have to go down that route. It really, really, really works. And then reverse engineering, content creation, let me explain. As we speak right now, I have a video going viral. It’s called August. I made it so we could
run it on August 1st. Producing content that
you know has a chance of going somewhere, based
on when you make it. A Monday morning rant that you post on Monday morning. Making relevant content to what’s going on in the world, either in pop culture. You know, your thoughts
on what Miley Cyrus did on Wrecking Ball. Or the Kanye and Taylor Swift, Kim and Kanye, Taylor Swift fight. Or the Olympics starting. Making content that’s relevant, that gives it a
little bit of legs for shareability
is very important, from the content creation. Look, there’s only two things, the content and distribution. And so whether it’s
becoming a part of forums around UFC, I keep using yours. Become a member of forums. Become a member
of Facebook groups. Most of you are
not hustling distribution. You’re focusing on the content, and you think magically, if you keep patient, and you keep doing it, something’s gonna happen. Nothing’s gonna happen. For four of you, all time. For four of you here,
something’s gonna happen. That little motivational kid, right? The Jamaican trainer kid, that went viral
over the weekend, somebody clearly
posted that video and it started the process. It’s great content. Like, that’s clearly
content that’s got a shot. But he’s putting out
content for a little while. This is not his first rodeo. And so yes, it happens, right? Yes, it happens. But it’s far more
interesting for you to take control
of your distribution through collaborations, through proper
hashtag distribution on the Instagram world, from reaching out, biz dev-ing.
Reaching out. Being a part of forums, and other internet communities like Facebook groups, to become part
of that community, so when you put out stuff, people wanna support you. I would tell you, with Wine Library TV, I spent 20 minutes
making the video, and I spent five hours
creating the distribution. A day. That’s a great way to end that. That’s the answer. – [India] That’s good.

– Hey Gary, congratulations on two years of a successful show, I just love it, I watch it all the time and I get all sorts of
great advice from you. My name is Shauna, I’m from HasteandHustle.com and I just wanted to ask
you a quick question. My question is when you’re at the beginning of your business, or I guess at any
time of your business, how do you know how much
risk is too much risk? And when to kinda pull back? Thanks again. – No worries, thank you. Shauna, I got a really
good answer for this. I believe that risk is a
very interesting thing. And I’ve got a pretty
good career with it and I will tell you here’s
what mine looks like. I risk as much as I’m
willing to completely lose. And I push it as far as possible. And that’s always my model. That if all goes to
zero on this move, can I still be
breathing and stay alive? Anything that would
put me out of business, put me out of business! And people do that, they
borrow too much money, they dilute themselves
in the company, that could make them lose
control from the board. Anything that would
put me at risk, I stay away from. So, the punch line
is very simply, I’m willing to lose every penny, other than the first penny that I need to breathe. All of it. You know, we do things
here all the time, Vayner, where I invest
and buy things, buy companies, buy,
AcuHire people. And the number’s
always gotta be, if it goes to dead zero, will I still be alive
to fight another day. But I take it right
to that edge. And really not like,
to the penny, probably to
the million dollars. A hundred million
dollar business, the one… you know, just
some little nest egg. But I think, I’m stunned by people that take risks that
actually puts them out. Floyd Mayweather doesn’t take any risks like that as a boxer. That’s why he’s undefeated. Yeah. – [India] From Sean.
– Sean.

– What’s up Gary? This is Sean from Denver here at the top of Mt. Evans, 14,000 foot plus
mountain here. I got a question
for you here about breaking in new accounts. What’s your recommendation? Do you recommend starting high and then going low? Or low and then going high? Does it depend on
the size of the account, small or large? Would love your
advice and insight, thanks so much. – I always think it’s a
lot easier to go lower, than it is to go higher. So, if, again,
if you needed an account more than anything in
the world to stay alive, you go in low. You what you have
to do to stay alive. But if you have the luxury of I don’t need this
thousand bucks, but I want this client,
I wanna grow, but I don’t need. Want and need are two
very different things, then I would go higher. You can always go down, you can never go up. Hey, I want $3,000
a month for this. Great. No actually, $5,000. Not so easy. Hey I want $30,000 a month for this. Neh… Alright, $2500. So, to me, it’s just always better to go higher. Or what I tend to do,
to be very frank with you, which is an interesting
negotiating move, I tend to go the number. I tend to go, it’s… with Vayner, when we started. It’s $5,000 a month. And people are like,
I don’t wanna pay, you wanna go $4,000? Because people maybe
thought I was going higher. And I said no. It was a very important thing to have that leverage
to not negotiate down. And so, we’ve walked
away from things, we didn’t do things. Which sucked, at times. But it definitely created a reputation in the marketplace that I wasn’t overevaluating stuff. And it was the number. So to me, it’s higher
or the number. You know when I do (beep) trades, I go higher. Actually, cut that part, I don’t want the guys. (laughter) Let’s move forward. (laughter)

do you think it’s a bad idea to
give your boss a heads up before receiving job offers so they
can prepare for your departure? – I think that’s every single person. You know,
that’s a tough question. A very smart question. To me, I wouldn’t tell them. I just think it’s a
survival of the fittest kind of thing. Like if you think
it’s a vulnerability that you’re not
gonna be able to find. Like I just don’t, that to me that’s
the risk thing. I just wouldn’t do that, because if they reacted poorly, even after five years,
thank you very much. Thank you, that’s very nice. Thanks Tyler, it made it! You know, I, I wouldn’t do that because that
could get you to zero, and I, you know, don’t forget, they fire you on the spot, then you start taking a job that you don’t necessarily
want just to pay. And now you’re
in a two year cycle of having crappy jobs. Like it could turn
into a whirlwind. Now, if your moral compass
is going off inside, like crazy and
you can’t sleep at night, then do you. Like, I just think everybody’s different. To me, doing the right thing is always the right thing and if for you
that’s the right thing, then that’s fine. But make sure that’s
the right thing for you, not the way your
mom sees the world, or your friends or anybody else. That has to be your decision. And if you’re okay
with the consequences, I’m okay with
the consequences of speaking the way I speak. Meaning, I leave lots of money on the table for cursing. I’m okay with that. You have to be okay
with the consequences. I hate people that are ideological, and then when they have
to face the consequences, they regret. You know, it’s the right thing. What’s the name? – [India] Erik. – Erik, it’s the right thing to do sounds good on paper. If it’s truly the right
thing to do for you, then great, then do it. But, if it’s not,
and then you get fired, and then you don’t
have another job, and who what? You showed a couple of people, “you’re a good guy?” Like, I think a lot
of people front. – [India] Interesting.
– Yeah. – [India] That’s actually not
what I expected. – You expect me to say,
yeah say it? – [India] Yeah. – It’s easy for
me to say, though. Right? By the way,
I wouldn’t do it, India. And people don’t do
it here all the time. Like, I know two
people right now that are actively on
the way of going out. And I don’t, I’m not
mad at them, I get it. Like, you know… I’m not
paying their mortgage. I’m not feeding their family. You know business is,
businesses fire. Like, you know, right? So, I don’t know, I get it. But I’m giving
the real answer here. I think that everybody’s different. But I definitely would
not tell my boss. I would work on it, get the job, and then I would go. That’s why I’m not a hypocrite. I never get mad when
people do that here. I understand, you know.
– [India] Yeah. – It’s scary. You know how
many people are living in this crazy, big, city, that we can now see. It’s expensive,
and they’re on their own, and they’re parents
couldn’t help them, and you know,
like, that’s scary. And then what
I really get sad is, people have done that here, people have quit,
without having a job, not for that reason, but for different reasons. And then they go
into a crappy job, ’cause they’re just scared, they’ve held off
for a couple months, but now they get really scared, and they take anything. And then they’re like, two years step back, you know? Alright…

Kevin Widdop at
Kwiddopia on Twitter here. At the Masai Mara,
Kenya’s world famous Safari destination. Here a lion. My question this week is, in a market such as this, even here,
everybody has a smartphone. Huge smartphone penetration, twins with very
early stage social media development and promotion. What type of content
driven online business would you advise to set up? Thanks very much. – I don’t know the market
in Africa and Asia, as well as I do the
rest of the world but, I’m very aware of
the phone penetration, payment through phones, lack of… Did you see that? That was amazing… Something just dripped. – [DRock and Staphon]
Oh, the pipe. From my pipe… (laughter) That’s amazing. That was so cool. Did you see that? Did you know about that? Are they gonna fix it? Eventually. (laughter) I would say that, I would reverse
engineer the audience. So, what I would do, is would spend months
in the Africa market, figure out what
people wanna buy, and I would start
an online business that worked in
the U.S. or Europe, that’s around psychology. Not just because it
was the U.S. or Europe. Certain things are
tried and true human. Certain things are contextual to the neighborhood, the country, the cadence, the pulse, the slang of a marketplace. I would use my best of ability of understanding what’s human, what’s innately human. E-commerce, you know,
buying stuff, water needs, whatever it may be. Whatever the
market’s interested in, and try to build around that. To me, it’s understanding the users, with those phones, what they’re doing. I would look at what
they’re doing now. Whether it’s gaming
or music downloading, or things of that nature. And then try to project, what needs do they have that they’re doing in a traditional way, that the phone could solve. And I would look at the
progressive phone markets in Asia and the U.S., to see where they’re two
or three years ahead. I think a lot of
people have looked at the U.S. market
and have tried to replicate that
in their market. And some have
been very successful and some have not. And I think some things are inherently U.S. centric, and I think some
things are human-centric, and that’s what
you need to decode. And I think I’ve
done well with that, in social networks. Something are just
human based like, if you get big
enough group of people, they’ll drag other people into it. Snapchat, that’s why those are easy
for me to predict. Great, very serious show.