#AskGaryVee Episode 57: Christmas Shopping, How to Sell Wine, & Instagram Followers

– [Voiceover] June asks, “My
husband is a big picture “kind of guy, but so is his wishlist. “Any advice on Christmas
shopping for this type?” – June, this is a great question. If he’s a big picture kinda guy like I am, I can answer this
perfectly so I hope he is because I know exactly what I want, which is one-of-a-kind experiences or effort, let me explain, meaning, you don’t need to spend a lotta money. For example, here is the greatest gift that Lizzie could ever get me. She could go around for months, my 40th is coming up next November, she can go around and
interview every person that I’ve ever met, or she should come to Vayner and basically get everybody on video telling me that
I’m the greatest, right? That to me is an ultimate present and it’s unscalable, that’s a lotta work. To me, the way to really wow your husband is to make something
that is a one-of-a-kind and something that is not scalable. See, my friends, the reason people like those kind of gifts is it’s effort. Money… A lot of times, listen,
it’s hard to get money, but a lot of money from a
gifting standpoint is easy. You spend and you buy
something, that’s great. But your time, your effort,
your heart and soul, those are the things you can’t replace, and so for my wife and I
and the likeminded people that I’ve met in my life, it
is about those experiences. It’s about the dinner that you have that’s special that somebody cooks, or when somebody makes something. Lizzie got me a gift for
our 10th wedding anniversary that I’ll keep to myself
that is so incredible and it speaks to that
world, and so I would try to do something that’s not scalable. Call up five of his
best friends growing up that he’s fallen out of touch with and have them create an audio podcast of reminiscing of stories
when they were kids, something that just isn’t replicatable, something that can’t be bought, something that took your
effort to execute for him. – [Voiceover] Antoine asks,
“What keeps you up at night?”

– [Voiceover] Antoine asks,
“What keeps you up at night?” – Antoine, that’s a very
quick and easy question, literally, and I think
at some level the reason I took this question ’cause it’s not– I’ve probably even addressed
this before with VaynerNation, but every so often it’s a worthwhile venture to bring it up again, which is the only thing that keeps me up at night is the things that I can’t control and the only thing that I can’t control that really cripples me is
the health of my family. The health of my family is
what keeps me up at night, which is just something I can’t control. I can do everything right, but an accident or something unfortunate or a disease that we all hate so much can come along and change the course of my life. When it comes to business, when it comes to my relationships, I
feel in utter control and I really, really recommend
to a lot of people here… It’s amazing to me in
the stress-filled world that I live in, by outside
standards, my calendar, what I’m trying to achieve,
my own stress on that, all the things that are pulling at me, none of it stresses me because it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. I’m gonna execute
against my skill and some of the serendipity that
comes along with the game and I’m very comfortable
and zen in that game. But the thing that does bother me, the thing that makes me
upset or I’m concerned about is 100 percent the
well-being of my family. – Gary Vaynerchuk, I have
an #AskGaryVee question.

– Gary Vaynerchuk, I have
an #AskGaryVee question. I’m here in Tasmania at the opening of a brand-new cellar door
winery and oyster bar. It’s a small three hectare
vineyard, seven acres. Now, I’m gonna ask you a question. If you had a seven acre
vineyard and it didn’t have these wonderful
views that we have here, how would you sell lots of wine? How would you do things different to all the other vineyards
that are out there? Cheers, I love you, boy, thank you. – Ah, it’s nice to see the wine stuff show up in the #AskGaryVee Show. I really appreciate the question. First off all, I’ve been to
Tasmania, an incredible place, making some of the most interesting sparkling and Pinot noir-based wines that I think are coming out of the world, yet so many Americans don’t
know it and it’s really sad. Think about how many of
you when you hear Tasmania thought about the Tasmanian
Devil cartoon character and that’s all you got,
which is really too bad considering how incredible the place is. Look, I think that we’ve addressed my– You know, it’s funny, we made a movie. DRock, you crushed it,
let’s link it right here ’cause I know you can do
that in the YouTube world. The Clouds and the Dirt, and
the answer to your question are really clouds and dirt,
or as, way is that I used to say it to my dad, big and small. The way I would sell a lot of
wine is we’d be big and small. Let me explain, you’ve got
a small kind of parcel, you’re not making that much wine, and so the small would be handselling. I’d be flying over to Australia, I would be going into the big
cities within New Zealand, I would probably pick one
or two markets in Asia, and I would literally fly in and hustle. Literally knock on doors,
walk around with sommeliers and salespeople from the companies
that represented my wine, and one by one, restaurant by restaurant, retailer by retailer, sell the product. Taste and sell, taste and sell. The unscalable, the small. Now on the big, and you’ve
heard me give this advice in the past, I would
become a media company. Now look, it’s very easy for me to say that that’s what I would do
because I actually did it. In 2006, while doing the small stuff, the tactical e-mail service, the website, building a wine shop, working the floor on a Saturday and selling. If you haven’t seen my comeback video, (snaps fingers) I know, a lot of editing, Staphon. Those are the small things, but the big things were Wine Library TV, right? I decided to make myself The Critic. I would if I were you for your winery become the authority of food and wine, food and wine, I wouldn’t
go lifestyle and travel, but I would be the
authority of food and wine for New Zealand food and wine,
the cuisine and the wines. I would actually review and
talk about your competitors. With a small parcel, you’re
not competing with anybody, really, ’cause there’s room
for everybody at that level. So I would literally turn yourself, and clearly you’re a very charismatic and good-looking man on
video, you just did it. You felt comfortable doing it. I would execute that at scale. Literally replicate what I
did by putting out content, whether video, which I think you should do based on what I saw, or written form. Become an authority, you
need to be a media company. You need to be bigger than you are brought to you by your wine, so
I would go big and small. But by the way, don’t get
caught up in the glam. While I was showing up on Conan and everybody was quoting me for TV shows and everything was great, I
was still downstairs hustling, trying to sell one more
bottle of Pinot noir. I was still in my office to 11 PM answering people on Twitter,
answering my e-mails tryin’ to get a good deal on a Barolo. I was still doing the small. It’s not playing in the
middle, it’s going big. You need to become the authority of New Zealand food and
wine, and the small, and you have to have the humility to get on a plane, sit in
the middle aisle and go to the Philippines, and
sell a couple of bottles to some random restaurant, got it? – [Voiceover] Scout asks,
“Should all young companies

– [Voiceover] Scout asks,
“Should all young companies “have a sleeper website as a strategy “to not let the competition know how big “you’re getting or will
it hurt the brand?” – Scout, I assume you’re asking this because Vayner had a website for quite a while that seemed, oh, I don’t know, like we were going out of business. By the way, big shout-out
to the creative team. That was all my, I don’t want
anybody who builds the website for the company to get upset about that. That was all on my head, my fault. Look, I think what you do with your website needs to have a strategy. At the time, when I was building Vayner where we had that website,
I didn’t think we needed to showcase our work or our people or awards to get new
business or new talent. I wanted to be really known for what we were doing internally, it
was a very internal time, and the strategy was I didn’t want anything outward messing up what I was head down doing during
that period of time. I think every website, every tweet, every Instagram photo, everything you do, the way you suck in the oxygen, needs to have strategy behind it. We should really, we should expand on the strategy of the
way you consume oxygen. I’d like to see where I’d go with that. So, every action needs
to be well thought out. Do I think companies need to do that? I absolutely do not, I
think my company needed to do that because that’s what I thought was the right course of action,
staying low, not making– One of the big things is that people thought I was starting an agency, that Mr. Gary Vee Crush It Twitter guy was starting an agency and
it would be a front, right? I’d sell ya on the sizzle
and then our work would suck. And that’s happened so many times. I was so obsessed with
actually building a company, and so obsessed that people forgot that I actually built a company before, that I didn’t want it
to be about the sizzle or me or putting all this out stuff. So we just put our head down
and executed and the website really represented where
we were at that time. So I don’t think it was tricking anyone, like, “Look over here, we stink,” and then “We’re great, we got you.” I think that that’s a romantic way to think about it, I think the actions that you put out to the world need to replicate exactly what you’re trying to achieve at that moment strategically for the purpose at hand,
whether that’s to raise money, whether that’s to become more famous, whether that’s to build a business. And so that’s how I see it.

– [Voiceover] Scott asks,
“Why are you moving “a bunch of energy to Instagram? “Is it a trend you’re reacting to?” – Scott, the answer’s yes, it is a behavioral trend that I’m reacting to. Instagram, in my opinion, 2015, is the number one social network on the Internet from a
pure attention standpoint. Facebook still has the
reach and the product and has the overall attention
collectively, but from a depth per piece of content,
I think Instagram wins. I think people are really carefully going through their pieces of content. Ads aren’t there, old
boyfriends or friends that you were in high
school with aren’t there. It is who you want, people
have been very hesitant to follow people that they followed on other platforms because
it’s a safe haven, right? And everybody’s in it, and absolutely that’s why I’m pushing,
absolutely that’s why I want everybody here at the VaynerNation to follow me there, because I think my behavior will shift more and more to doing exclusive things
there, to telling you about things that I won’t,
don’t say in other places. It’s becoming a real one
B to my Twitter world and my Facebook fan page, so I’m in a one ABC world right now, whereas Instagram was a two or a three at the beginning of this year. So it is absolutely just
like the last question. My friends, VaynerNation, let me make it perfectly clear here on episode 57. Big shout-out to my boy Bart Scott. As a matter of fact,
let’s put up the video where Bart Scott gave me a shout-out and I can’t wait for
the Thank You Economy. Find it, it’s there, it’s out there. Let me make it perfectly clear. Nothing. (clicks tongue) Nothing I do isn’t a
strategy that’s reacting to consumer behavior. It’s how I roll. Question of the day, what
is your Instagram handle?