#AskGaryVee Episode 90: Facebook Video Views, Leaving the Family Business, & eBay

my question is about the new Fountain app. I recently became one of the beta experts in the fashion and beauty part of it, and I wanted to know your thoughts on people using video to ask questions and do you think that they will
pay for it to ask questions and have them answered by an expert? Love your answers. Thanks, bye. – Dawn, this is a tremendous question with a very important answer. I think that people will pay for anything. Let me say that again. People will pay for anything if they perceive it has value. If there was an #AskGaryVee Show in 1967, and I’ll be like, “Hey, groovy cats, “it’s the #AskGaryVee Show, “really excited, ho, Dawn
you’re thinking like, “will people pay for water? “Are you, that’s totally
far out, that’s, no way.” That would be the wrong answer. What happened was Poland Springs, and I’m sure plenty of people long before Poland Springs
I’m just not educated, on the early days of the water industry, people came along and convinced people that bottled water had value. I mean, you go ask your grandparents. Here’s a little fun weekend challenge. Go ask your grandparents
what they first thought, if they can remember,
not ’cause they’re old, just like if they can remember, what they thought about the
idea of people paying for water. Think about how you feel. Steve, how do you feel on the notion that, I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but you have, at certain times, paid three to four dollars
for a bottled water at an airport or some scenario. You absolutely have done it. What do you think about that? – I paid three dollars for a water in Central Park the other day. – [Gary] And? – I was really unhappy about it. – Yeah, I mean, it’s a
absolute brain twist. People will pay for answers even though so many people
are watching right now, you have a free show here that
you don’t pay for answers, from somebody very qualified,
thank you very much, but I do think people will pay. Now, are you good enough? Have you built up enough brand equity and have you created the
perception of the value to your answers to have
that be the case for you? And more importantly, how
many unicorns are there to be able to do that? How many people have built up
enough historical execution, and have charisma and ability to answer? How many Jack Welches, how many Mark Zuckerbergs,
and then more importantly, the people that have
actually pulled it off have to be in a very
interesting part of their career or enjoy it. I love Q and A so much that I have to do this
show for me for happiness, not for the ROI on the time. I’m sure it’s building audience, there’s a lot of good variables, sure it’ll be a right hook
with the #AskGaryVee book, but the truth is, the amount
of money I’m gonna make on the book is shorter
than if I did six speeches, so it doesn’t make sense mathematically and so a lot of people
that would be good enough to pull off having people answer for them would never want to do that as a business. Like you know, so I think it’s an interesting challenge. What I would say is
there’s probably, uniquely, a hundred to 10,000
people that look the part, similar, to be very honest,
with as much humility as I can possibly say this, similar to me that can probably pull it
off to a meaningful scale. My intuition is, there’s a lot of people that can get eight people to
pay to answer their question, but that’s not real. – [Voiceover] Zac asks,
“What three questions

“do you most commonly ask your clients “when meeting them for the first time?” – Zac, wonderful question. For everybody in client
services, agency life, this should be fun. Number one is what is your KPI? What’s your Key Performance Indicator? Like what is the thing that
you want us to accomplish? Is it views, is it
sales, is it perception, is it press, is it your own judgement on how you feel about the creative? How are you judging us,
what are the results? And they’re really separate. How are you judging us,
what are the results are number one A and one
B that matters the most, and then, really, the
third one would then be what are you willing to
tell me about your warts? Meaning, there’s just a lot of people that are not gonna tell you about, the politics that are an issue, the money that’s an issue. I’m always trying to get them
to be very truthful to us once I understand what
the issues at hand are, so what do you really want to accomplish? By the way, people struggle
with answering that. People struggle with answering that. Number two, how are you gonna judge me? Sometimes they struggle with that less. Number three, what are the warts? Most people don’t wanna tell me up front. We try to sniff them out
early so we can navigate them, and it’s like a minefield
to get to the finish line. Those are the three, and they’re very important questions, and trying to figure
out in every situation, in absolutely every situation, in dating, in building your own
business, in having clients. I really think those three
are super fun, and by the way, they’re very important equally. I think, for example, I think people that struggle with dating are spending way too much on number three. They’re so concerned about
what the person’s warts are, or skeletons in their closets. They’re not trying to figure
out how they’re being judged to be a good partner in that relationship, or how that’s gonna be scored, and so, having a great balance of all three. That’s a little nugget there. Give you a little fun fact
at the end of this question. It’s the 33% execution
of those three questions that may be equally as important.

“Three seconds counting as
a view for Facebook video… “Moderately misleading metric “or incredibly bullshit metric?” – So, this is a great question, Kevin, but before I get into the question, that picture is adorable. Big shout out. VaynerNation, you can
learn from the creativity of that picture when you ask a question. Look, I think, first of all, marketing right now in general got a real problem of
width over depth, right? So, is three seconds pre-roll view on Facebook bull crap compared to people
buying views on YouTube as pre-rolls that are, I’m not sure if that’s
one, two or three seconds, but they’re pre-rolls, they’re actual ads whereas Facebook is putting it in feed. I don’t know, I mean I think, look, I don’t care about width
metrics to begin with. Any brand, startup, that is saying, “Oh, this got eight million
views or this got 87 views,” and that’s the definition of success, doesn’t realize the
technology can game that game, and so the interesting part is I’m not worried about that metrics, I’m looking at the
engagement, the comments, the click-throughs to the product or whatever else you’re trying to do, or I’m taking the width
for the width value. If I want 100,000 people, 500,000 people to at least see my face
once in their lives, that three seconds made them do that. It depends on what you’re trying to drive. It’s similar to question
number one on the show today. What is the KPI? Is the KPI is the number of views, you should be challenging that as your KPI in a world with YouTube and Facebook counting
the way they’re counting.

“What’s your best piece of advice “for a first generation
American entrepreneur, “venturing out on her own,
away from her family business?” – April, first and
foremost, India just shared some other photos from your Instagram besides your question and
your product looks delicious. There’s a pretty known thing
amongst the most hard Vayniacs is that when I go on book tour, I always start at Powell’s
in Portland, so… I’m on this hardcore diet but I think we may have to
sneak in when we do that February, March, April
next year, and try you out. Look, I think the biggest
thing that I tell everybody is number one, practicality. How much money do you have
to stay alive for how long? That is always my biggest fear. First-time entrepreneurs
make this mistake. Do you have one year’s
worth of rent and overhead, and then, you have to
make your actions respond to your bleeding of cash
before you turn a profit. When you start a new business, especially an ice cream parlor, a restaurant, kind of what you’re doing, you’ve got to make sure that you’re putting up upfront investment, financially, not just time. It’s not like you’re
building something with code, you’re literally paying rent
and buying supplies, and so, you need to have a high
level of practicality. The other thing that I tell entrepreneurs that are more practical,
again, a physical location, it sounds like the way
you asked the question that you’re leaving your
own family’s business and doing your own thing. Hopefully it’s not competing directly with your own family’s business, so there’s not some weirdness. I think the thing that you
really need to pay attention to is you have made a decision that does not allow you, in year one, any time to do anything
but build your business. You are not allowed… You’re almost not even allowed
to watch The #AskGaryVee Show going forward. Like, you are in such a code red zone, that every minute, call it 18 hours a day out of 24, if you want this to be successful, need to allocated for your business, even at the mercy in year
one of your family time. Even at the mercy of that, and so, I guess what I’m getting at
and you could tell by my tone and vibe on this question, is I’m scared, and I think one of the biggest reasons so many people go out of
business in the first year, first two years, small
business, practical, where that they’re burning cash, is they don’t realize how hard it is, and how all in you have to be, and so if you really want
this dream to come true, you’ve got to make substantial sacrifices. – Hey Gary Vee, Michael Pierce here,

and I have a question regarding platforms to sell your merchandise online. I run an online community designed to help other sellers succeed
on platforms like eBay, Amazon, and tree systems like Amazon FBA. Just recently, probably
the last six months, there’s been a lot of talk of
eBay really going downhill. A lot of sellers are
fed up with their fees, and they’re really disliking
the path that eBay has taken. My question for you is,
if eBay doesn’t innovate, if they don’t change,
if they don’t get out of this old school mentality, do you think they’ll become irrelevant in the next five or 10 years? Do you think places like
Amazon will completely take over the entire market, rather than just owning a
majority of it right now? – Name? – [India] Michael. – Michael, great question. I’m an eBayhead. Taught AJ how to be an entrepreneur
by going to garage sales and selling on eBay. eBay’s become more Amazon-like than what it originally started out, which was sell Pez dispensers and bobbleheads and Beanie Babies. I actually think there’s
a huge white space, so I think eBay’s doing the
right thing, believe it or not, competing a little bit with Amazon, and I do think resellers
are struggling with it, but manufacturers and people
at scale are enjoying it. I think what eBay is doing
is they’re recognizing there’s no alternative to eBay
in the world, so ironically, I think the white space is, I’m gonna make a prediction here, in the next, and I don’t
like doing predictions. I always say I don’t make
predictions, I just follow, but I’m gonna make one, and I failed in a startup
called Yardsale, mobile eBay, and I may be wrong, and I
actually feel pretty weak about this prediction, but
I’m gonna make it anyway. I do think that in the next 10 years, somebody’s gonna build eBay again. eBay is so much not eBay anymore, that when you look at it,
it’s all new products. I still think there’s enormous
commerce in used product, and so Etsy took its own
kind of crafter mold. Ironically, Etsy just
went public yesterday, so interesting timing. eBay is eBay but is evolving
more towards Amazon-like, Overstock retail! I think there’s a huge
open space for somebody to build a billion-dollar company in literally just becoming eBay again, and I mean restrictions. No new products, everything
on the site is used. You know, used. I just, I think it’s a huge play, still, especially with mobile
and smart tech, so much, I’m curious where that goes, so, do I think Amazon can be
the entire marketplace? No. Do I think that eBay’s
gonna go out of business in the next 10 years? No, I actually think what eBay is doing is actually smart for their business, until this alternative
comes, which may never come, thus, I’m pretty positive on their direction, and so, I think if you guys are resellers or certain type of niches,
I mean I’ve been saying, me and my homies that sold collectibles said eBay was finished, not
as good as it was, in 2005. Like, “Oh, eBay’s ruined.” That was 10 years ago, so that’s my answer. I’m so into eBay. I need, everybody’s got one,