#AskGaryVee Episode 65: Breweries, Books, & Super Bowl Predictions

– [Voiceover]
Comstock Brewing asks, “Gary, if you were going to
crush it by starting a brewery, what would you do?” – Comstock, great question. You know, obviously I’ve
thought a lot about this, because I always do think
about producing products and selling them. I come from a retail background,
and a lot of our clients are CPGs, consumer packaged good products that sell to consumers, and I always say, what if I had one, and obviously beer, coming from the world I grew up in. As a matter-of-fact, when I first
got into my dad’s business, that was the real first boom of microbrews back in like, 1995, 6, 7, 8. It was a huge boom back then, and I’ve thought a lot about that. Look, I mean, I think the
thing that’s going on is, a couple different things. First of all, I’d win locally. I think microbrews really
need to focus locally, so I would probably go
to every local business within a five-mile radius by hand, and shake hands and kiss
babies to create relationships, so that they use–
you know, like, there’s an insurance company
that has 147 employees down the street in Cincinnati, and you go there, and you become friends, and they use your beer
for their events, right? So I think localization really matters. Next thing I would really focus on would be probably Instagram. I would go all-in on creating
a very serious profile in Instragram, and then using
Facebook dark post ads to drive links from the
Facebook ad to your Instagram to get people following
there because I think the 21- to 30-year-old demo
is living and breathing in that platform, and I
think it matters for you to win in that platform. Number three, I would really focus on getting two to three
states to carry my beer, and then build very strong
relationship with the sales team of that small distributor, because you’re a small microbrew, you’re probably going to be
with a small distributor. You don’t want to get lost in a big one. What I mean by that is the
people that represent Budweiser and Sam Adams, and things of that nature, your little 500 cases a
year gets lost somewhere in the back of the warehouse, nobody cares, so you want
to go somewhere small, where you’re a bigger
fish in that smaller pond. I think you pick two or
three strategic markets and then I would run
Facebook dark post ads and Twitter local ads in that market to build up some hype,
so now all of a sudden, they’re like, oh, your stuff sells, so those are some of
the tactics I would do. – [Voiceover] Dawn asks,

“Gary, I’m ten years old, which one of your books
should I read first and when should I read it? I can’t decide.” – Dawn, first of all,
big shout out to you, because at ten years old, I
had read zero books in my life, so I appreciate you
debating the three books. You know, actually for you, I’d probably just start with
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. I think the Thank You Economy– I think Jab, Jab, Jab,
Right Hook in a lot of ways is a modern version of Crush
It! with less kind of oomph, and rah-rah and hype, so
if you want to get pumped, at your 120 months of existence, then Crush It! is interesting. I think Thank You Economy
is probably the one that I want most in your
veins and your religion, so that, I might even save for last, but Jab, Jab, Jab, Right
Hook has modern-day execution of what Crush It! is. You’re going to really
understand it better than a lot of people in the VaynerNation because you’re so much in a
place where you’re growing up native to the digital communication world, so I’d go Jab, Jab, Jab,
Right Hook, Crush It, Thank You Economy. – [Voiceover]
Lean Box Company asks,

“Gary, how long do you spend
creating a single piece of content? Do you focus on video because
it’s more natural for you?” – Lean, this is a great question,
and really ironic timing. So, obviously you know,
from 2006 to deep into 2014, every piece of content that
came out came out from me. Then, we started building
this amazing team, and so, I assume you’re
asking about my content. I don’t think about it at all, meaning I have religion
of Thank You Economy, Crush It and Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and I execute off of that,
clearly comes from me. Weirdly, insanely that we’re
doing this question today, because last night, I started
using Twitter’s new video product, where I can reply within app, and so I’m replying a lot more with video and so, when I was putting
out content to put out, it was video first in mind, because I thought that was the best way that I could communicate. The reason you’re seeing so much more Medium and GaryVaynerchuk.com
written articles is Steve and India helping
me transcribe these things into written form. So, I think that for me, I did think video first, but it was hard to execute video first. For a while, back in 07, 8, 9, I’d had a flip-cam with
me and I would tape stuff, kind of that whole process, now I can do it right
from the Twitter app. They made it available for verified users, so if any of you are verified,
you can go check it out. And I assume they’ll roll
it out for everybody soon. So, I don’t overthink it. I think way too many people overthink it. We’re living in a culture
where kids are growing up overthinking it. Every 14-year-old girl on the planet is taking an Instagram photo
that’s taking her 47 minutes because she needs the lighting just right, and then if it doesn’t get enough likes within the first four
minutes, she’s taking it down. I have the reverse of that rigor. Mike and I were working out last night, talking about how much I’ve leaned down and all these things, and then we were talking
about people commenting, and I was like, yeah, of course, because I would take literally take the most unflattering
pictures of all time, I could care less about lighting. I don’t even understand how– I think only this year, I realized, oh, the lighting’s got to come this way versus me being in the light, right? I really, really don’t
care about the angles and things of that nature. I care about the substance. I know I’m pretty. (people laughing off-screen)

“In episode 62, you asked
if we were going to submit a question via Instagram. I said, No, because I
don’t have a smartphone so I can’t get an account. So I borrowed my daughter’s
phone to open an account and upload this stupid question. My question is, are you
(beep) happy now, Gary?” – Doc, you and I have been
jamming and interacting on Twitter for a very long time, and the fact that you care enough about me and this show, to jump into
new waters is in essence, the entire thesis of what
I do for a living, which is try to get people to stop
drawing lines in the sand, and not be religious and
jump in and do new things, and taste them, and then
decide if they’re stupid. I am (beep) happy, but I’m going to be a
hell of a lot happier in nine and a half months,
when I go back to your account that you just put up, and see enormously beautiful
selfie shots from the Doc. Question of the day.