This is Ward from
London with one question. How much of the success of being
VaynerMedia do you think is down to the brand GaryVee? I think GaryVee might be the
best content marketing strategy in history so how much of the success of VaynerMedia
is down to that? What if GaryVee the brand was
not there and what if GaryVee was just running VaynerMedia
without producing any GaryVee content out there? So thank you.
– That’s a good question. Ward, I think he answer is both. I think I have the luxury of
proof being in the pudding as a 22-year-old in a five year
period, I grew a business from 3 to 65 million
in the old world. No capital, no real internet at
scale and so I’m proud that if Gary Vaynerchuk CEO not
out in the ecosystem started VaynerMedia seven years ago you
know it would be successful and the truth is of course it would
be because really here’s the punchline Ward nobody in
corporate America, Pepsi Campbells, the NHL, none of our earliest clients
gave a shit about me. You know what? 99% of my clients don’t now. Now, that would be naïve to not
understand that over the half decade that I’ve been really
running the company, first two years I was somewhat involved,
sales, mentorship with AJ and I was involved but I’m full pledge is what
I do for living now. GaryVee is this is my
side hustle, right. I think that
there’s been benefits. You know people walk in here. I can think of a brand we just
won that there’s the truth is it’s because of the
GaryVee stuff and so I think the answer’s both and I think
that’s what’s really cool. I think one day people will realize how much
I like to hedge. I think of it as a hedge like both matter they
help each other. One’s there if the
others not there. It’s kind of a little
bit of immigrant in me. For somebody who’s so on
the offense I’ve a lot of conservativeness and
practicality that is the foundation of what I do and
I think brings a lot of value to a lot of people watching if
they can get through the layers. And so, the answer is both. It’s a really smart question. I think many people
have done both. Plenty of people have done a lot
of business on the back of their brand when they
entered it. Right? Plenty of restaurants that
are named after famous, millions of things. Just clothing lines, unlimited
and many people are just unknown assassins. Met with a guy the other day he’s built two $400
million businesses. Never heard of them in my
entire life nor have you. You can’t even find anything
about him and you know they have the humility and the kind of
personality that allows that. And so everything works,
not everything works for you. Plenty of people built huge
agencies not being known, just operators and there’s been agencies built on the
backbone of individuals. P Diddy’s agency is P Diddy
and great people that he hired underneath but it
wouldn’t have been there.

I’m a dad and I’m wondering
what’s one of the biggest life events or especially events that
you had to miss (child babbling) due to your commitment to
the work but how’d you (child babbling) and how
did you overcome? Thanks man. – You know, Ernest, first of
all, that what was remarkable and about as
adorable as it gets. Ernest, you know I haven’t
missed anything, I missed some you know school plays. I haven’t missed any, no birth,
I would never miss a birthday. There hasn’t been
a signature event. They’re seven and four. There hasn’t been, you
know, Xander’s bris. That would be insane to me to
miss anything of that nature. I guess we all have different
scale of what’s important. There’s dads out there who
would never in the world miss a baseball game of
their son, ever. I would. I just don’t think the fifth
game in a season for Xander if something that is remarkable for
me and Xander, my family’s life is coming that place. I wouldn’t miss Xander’s
fifth baseball game for a big meeting or a new client. Would I miss it for the
opportunity to close a $78 million deal for our family? Yes, I would.
I just would. And I know one would
say well that’s money. Yeah, but but would I miss
Xander’s championship game after he played baseball every day of
his life for nine years and it was his number one
passion in the world to close a $78 million deal? I don’t know, it’s closer. I wouldn’t say definitely not. I just don’t know,
I mean I don’t know. First of all, if Xander was 13,
Xander at 13 after watching all my business YouTube videos
might want me, I don’t know. Here’s what I would say,
Ernest and everybody else, first and foremost, I would
never judge anybody else’s parenting or process. I have the greatest
relationships in world with my parents and I a lot of things
that were done differently than others and I think we all have. But knock on wood, I think
there’s a far more interesting question maybe
5 to 7 years from now. So far, I’m rolling. There’s been nothing even
remotely intense that I can think of that I’ve missed. They’ve been micro little play
this, play that, you know, last day of school like
a teacher conference. Yeah, there’s been a couple
little things that are like kind of lightweight. They’re also very, very young
right now but so far nothing. I haven’t had to pick. Everything that I felt, I missed
a lot of business things that are solid business things that
I’ve missed because I wanted to be there for the first day
of school or you know the Tot Shabbat day that’s the one
time Xander gets to do that in little Temple Israel
school that he went to. There’s single little things like that but it’s
weighing things. It’s weighing things and I’m not
crippled by the current state of political correctness of how
you parent because news alert, my friends, it’s going to be
different in 15 years and it was different 15 years ago. Yeah, thank you. – Tot Shabbat?
– Tot Shabbat is cute.

Do you have any thoughts about recent YouTube
monetization changes? Do you their competitors
will benefit from that? Do you have any names which companies we
should look out for? Which platforms like
YouTube we should look out for? Thank you, Gary. – So what’s the punchline? The truth is I’m not super sure. I know they went with
this subscription stuff. Are they like making less ads? Does anybody know
the context of this? I know you guys probably
assumed that I know but I’m not paying
attention. Eliot? – [Eliot] They’re making
monetization on YouTube, there’s an algorithm to say
which videos they can monetize and which videos they can’t. And they’re making it kind of
fuzzy can be monetized and what can not be monetized. – Based on IP and
stuff of that nature? – [Andy] Basically
demonetizing anything low brow. – Got it. – [Andy] (inaudible) – Janek, I think, look
this happens forever. You have to
understand something, Janek. Anybody in this world, is I’m
gonna give a very good answer that doesn’t
answer the question. I just got the context. You know, I’m gonna give you
a really good fuckin’ answer. I’m really fired up now because
I’m gonna level this up and I’m in a every leveled up
mentality for this show. Anybody who’s watching the show
that is tying their economics into a platform that
is privately held is making a massive mistake. For all the people that
made all their money on Google optimization, this is back
today, like where else are we gonna go when Google changes
the algorithm and they take down lowbrow, it’s the same game. The platforms have their
users interest in mind. People come along and try to
extract value that have their best interest in mind. The platforms have big
scale and opportunity. People want to make
money off of that. As people want to make money off
of that they look for angles, shortcuts,
lowest common denominator, you know, arbitrage. They look for their move and
so whether it was affiliate marketing and AdSense AdWords
arbitrage, Commission Junction, YouTube, Facebook Pages. There’s always these moments
where you know there’s the ebb and flow, the seesaw of like the
cat and mouse game of the people that produce content
on these platforms. MySpace, this is just history this has been the last
20 years of the internet. What happens is the platform
will make a macro decision that’s in the best interest of
the end users at scale and it will hurt the people that
been hacking the system. Slideshows on the internet that
allow those advertisers to make money, those media companies
make more money against advertisers that sat in the middle and didn’t care
about the quality. This is a quality-quantity game
that plays itself out so Janek here’s what I would say and for
everybody else that’s watching whether it is
Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or podcasting, diversify your world. You need to be everywhere
and creating brand and scale everywhere that you are capable
of and if you’re not well then maybe you don’t deserve to make
as much but relying solely on the revenue one platform is a
humongous mistake especially when that platform is a private
business that is going to make the decisions for that platform. I loved everybody when the
Facebook algorithm change and organic reach dropped and they
we’re trying to drive their ad revenue up that all you had
real puffy chest and saying, “Well, we’re gonna
go elsewhere.” How’d that work
out for you, Rick?

– He said I’m soft. – And my question for you is
were you too soft to start a mobile development agency, brah? Was that too hard for you, blah? (laughter) – [India] Brah!
– That’s amazing. I love that whole, are
you, do you lift, bro? So did he say am I too
soft to start a mobile? – [India] Development agency. – I want to say, I want to fight
you is really what I want to do but I think, yeah, I mean, look, to answer it in a straight way the reason building a development
shop in a genre is not interesting to me is that if I was to build
a development shop in a meaningful way, right
now, I would build a messenger development shop way before I’d build a mobile
app shop, brah. Because I don’t care about 2016 legacy software. To me, the reason I built the
company I built is that, unlike, a VCR or a video game console or a cell phone or virtual reality, messaging is tried-and-true. The mechanism that delivers
it gets killed eventually. Right? So the guy caveman Rick who took a rock and
carved it into the cave he was messaging and
communicating, right, but the platform of the day, where the
eyeballs were, were inside the cave and the smoke signals and
the written word and a telephone and a television and a movie
theater and a cell phone and a VR world and apps within cell
phone and so brah, the reason I didn’t go with a mobile
developing shop is it was just too small and I needed to
win the communication game infrastructure that I can deploy
against any mechanism that delivers the story, brah. (laughter)

Now I know what you did at
age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting involved in wine and selling
sports cards but what would you be doing if it were 2016 and you were 12, 13,
14 and 15 and 16? Appreciate your answer, appreciate everything
you do, thanks. – Buster, Buster, Buster
honestly what I would tell you is to give you the answer that
you’re looking for which is what what I do what
should you be doing? How should you be
thinking about things? Reverse engineer
your strengths, right? You like the NBA you should hit
up Dunk first of all and have him put you on but besides that
I think that you need to figure out what you’re good at and
what would you want to do. I would basically be
today, I’m trying to think. There’d be so many
things I’d be doing today. I give a lot of that advice, I would’ve made bank
on Snapchat filters. I think that one guy who did
the Pokémon GO consulting. I think that was super smart. Having the
internet to buy and sell. I’m a salesman. Buying and selling, uh, just
buying stuff on you know in Asia and re-marketing in the US. I think I’d be doing pretty much
everything I was doing at scale. So because when
I was growing up sports cards were
what people collected, I would just be focused on
whatever that version is now. Sneakers, I’m telling you right
now, I would be, my stories of Toys “R” Us and garage sales
would be waking up, you know, at one in the morning and
standing in line at a SoHo sneaker
store to get that thing, flipping like I would
be doing a lot of that. I think the truth is, Buster, I’d be focusing on
what I was strong at. What I think I’m really
good at is buying and selling. I did that with
stuff my whole life. Now, I do it with
people’s attention and the end consumer’s attention. That is my strength that
I would double down on that. You, my friend, need to
figure out what you’re best at? Is that making
content on social media? Is that being a charismatic
personality that I think was shining through the question? Is that being a salesperson,
buying selling stuff? Connecting with people? When you’re 16 you have time. Like, Jesus, remember
when you were bored? Remember when you could do that? Andy, do you remember when
you’re like, “I’m bored.” You don’t have that kind of time
when you grow up and so I would take advantage of that time
because that is the asset. – [India] That’s good. – ‘Member being bored?
– Yeah. Was good times. (laughter) – From Brandon.
– Brandon.

First off, I want to start by thanking you for putting
out all that content. I’ve been an entrepreneur for
over five years now and I feel like that I am becoming
a better businessman, a better entrepreneur
thanks to your content and insight so thank you for that. This is my question. I’ve been working to get with a
few interns for couple years now and they’re always around
21-years-old and I feel that they’re lacking two
important skills. The first skill is critical
thinking or self-criticism. They should think about what
should I do first and what next. Why am I advising this? Is what I produced
really good enough? The second skill is
taking ownership. When all given tasks are
finished do they start thinking about what the next
best step could be? Do you have any idea how I,
as a boss, as a guides, can help them
develop their skills? Thanks. – Jelle, listen, I think that the answer to your question is the critique that you
are putting on them. You are critiquing them for
this kind of thoughtfulness, critical thinking and then
action and taking the initiative in being on the offense. My answer to you is you need to
do the same with you as a boss and you need to audit
yourself to do that. Meaning there is no reason
that you should be in a scenario where you’re struggling with
21-year-old interns for long period of time because the
truth is if you put the time and effort to really audit them and
really spend time with them and then decide for you whether
you’re right or wrong as the judge and jury, as the boss,
that they’re good or they’re not good you could speed up
this process very quickly. So my answer to you is go deep
and spend more time with them whether that’s virtually
or in reality or in real life where these interns are. Figure out if they’re good. Give them very detailed
feedback at scale. Suffocate all the excuses and
then make a decision whether that person should be in
your organization or not. For me, if I wanted to know if
anybody here should be in my organization or not it would
literally take me two days. Just make it the
thing you do today. Today you should decide
if these interns are capable, have the talent and
the capacity to deliver on your
expectations or not. Have you been clear in them
and move forward so I think the answer to your question is in
the same way that your upset with them that when
their task is done, they’re not doing
the next thing. I’m upset with you which is
if you slept last night you could’ve allocated some of those
hours to auditing your interns and giving them clear feedback
and making the decision if you wanted them here or not. Now I know what you did at
age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting

– Hey Gary and Simon. My name is Bill Clanton,
billclantonbooks.com I’m an adult
coloring book illustrator. I live here at the Jersey Shore. I make coloring
books for grownups. Up ’til now I’ve been a
one-man band as far as controlling my operation
and doing everything myself but I’m looking to expand
and start building a team. Do you have any
suggestions as I grow to help new team members buy into my why, or my mission as to why I’m doing this. Is there any best
practices or ideas suggestions to help
them buy into what I’m trying
to accomplish here? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks a lot and
keep up the good work. – Yeah. Sure. – Wants suggestions. – Well one is having
clarity of why. Which is something you
have to have the ability to talk about what you believe what you’re trying to build
beyond the business itself. So he’s into adult coloring
books, what specifically– – By the way, which puts in
a good spot to begin with. Right? I mean if you just think
about that in thesis– – Yeah. – there’s a lot of smiling
that comes along with that, there’s like a
lot of positive vibes. – If that’s why he went into it. It could have been for
some zen calm thing or some stress relief thing.
– Or some weird thing maybe he’s a really bad guy
and he’s mad at children. I don’t think so. – But even beyond the
coloring coloring books what is it that he imagines the ability to talk
about his vision and if he can’t talk about
his why in hard terms can he tell stories of
his own experiences or people he admires that
if somebody hears enough of those stories they can kind
of get a sense of who he is? What you’ll find is that the better you are at
communicating your why people will want to work for you regardless of the opportunity
that you afford them. They want to be a part of it. – Yeah. – We do a little thing,
which we’ve been doing for years and years and years,
called a give and take. Whenever there’s any
kind of relationship whether its an outside
partnership or even somebody
who joins our team we do something
called a give and take where we want
somebody to be selfish and selfless within
the relationship. So not give and get,
but give and take. So we’ll ask them, what is
it you have to give to us that you have that you
think that we need, right? And they’ll tell us. And then we’ll say, great. What is it that you
selfishly want from us? And we want them to tell us
what they can get from us and no one else.
– I believe in that so much. – And when those
things match you have a balanced relationship because for example, I’ve had
it with people who they’ll tell me what
they have to offer and that’s awesome
’cause that’s what I want. And then they’ll say what
they want to take and they go “Oh, I want to work
with smart people.” I’m like,
plenty of smart people, what is it you want
to take from me? They’re like “Oh, I want
to help build something.” Wonderful. Do that anywhere. What do you want to
take selfishly from me that you can get nowhere else? And if they can’t
answer the question I won’t engage
in a relationship. And the reason
is because, in time the relationship is unbalanced they’re going to be giving
but they’re not taking and I don’t even know how
to give them what they want. Then they’ll complain they’re
not making enough money– – Yep, yep. – because it’s not balanced. – That’s right– – So that’s a big part of it. – And I think the other thing
you know as being out there a lot of people play the reverse of that. – Yeah. – You know, they wanna give
you something that is very low in value and they want
something insane in return. “Hey GaryVee,
I tweeted about your book. “Now I want a job with you “I want you to babysit my
dog four times a week.” It’s insane with that. – That’s right.
So it’s about balance. – And to me,
I’ve thought a lot about that I think a lot about it,
I call it 51/49. I fully believe in that.
– Yeah. – And then what I always
think about is how incredibly important it is to me to
slightly give a little bit more not because I’m the
greatest human ever I actually just think
it’s a leverage point. I like the feeling, and
I’m not sold that, I don’t know if that makes
me a good guy or a bad guy it’s just my natural state
to slightly over deliver as close to the
middle as possible. I like that. – So one of the
richest guys in China he might even be the richest, since the Alibaba guy,
not so much but one of the
richest guys in China he’s a real estate
developer, and he always gives the majority share
to all his partners. He always does 51/49,
or even more imbalance. And somebody, again, sat
down with him in an interview and said “Why do you
never do 50/50 deals “why do you give away
the majority stake “in all of your partnerships?” And he smiles and says “‘Cause everybody wants
to do business with me.” – That’s right. – I mean it’s that easy. – Makes tons of sense. To answer the question
in a little bit of detail I think you have the
benefit of being out there I think all of us have the benefit of
being out there today. And I think all of us,
whether your audience and we’ve been at audience
sizes of just starting to where we are today,
whether your audience is very large or quite
small, there are always a small group of people that
are attracted to your message. And I think what I would
do in this scenario is if you’re looking to
hire that first person I would look very hard
at the people that are engaging with your content
on social and start there. I’m a very big believer on that because I think
it’s quite practical. They’ve already
been self-selected they’re using their free
time to comment on your stuff consume your stuff,
buy those coloring books and so I think that’s
a very important place. I’ve had enormous amounts
of success with Wine Library and both VaynerMedia
in the exact same way. – And they have a passion
for you and your work before you even met them.
– That’s right. And by the way,
sometimes you lose. Because they had a
vision of what they were attracted to and
then the reality is it’s work, or this and that. But I do like that starting
point, from a practical nature. – Hey, Gary, it is JJ at
97.9 The Box in Houston.

– Hi GaryVee. – Hi GaryVee and Simon,
hope all is well. Question that
I have for y’all is, can somebody’s personal why,
on why they work for a business vary from the business’s why,
or is that just never good? Thanks a lot, keep climbing. – So, if it’s your business,
the business’s why and your why are
exactly the same thing. – Yeah, but he’s asking if he
works for an organization– – If he works for
a separate company. – He knows the organization’s
why, I mean a lot of people– – He knows the
organization’s why– – A lot of them know
Vayner’s why, but they may have separate
whys within it. Can they co-exist? – Sure. – Can an employee’s
why and an org’s why co-exist, and everybody wins? – Sure. The simple answer is,
yes if they go together. Everybody has their
own unique why, and the organization
has its own unique why. And if they are compatible– – You mean go together in
a peanut butter and jelly kind of metaphor.
– Yeah. If they’re compatible, then
you will look to the people who have joined
the company and say, “Ah, you’re good fit,
you belong here.” And they will see
themselves as a good fit, and each one is
mutually beneficial. In other words,
it’s like any relationship. You and your wife
have different whys, but they’re compatible. You see her as–
– A hundred percent. – Helping you grow,
and she sees you as– – Hundred percent.
– Helping her grow, etc. It’s the exact same thing. – Which is why– – And sometimes it isn’t
compatible, just by– – Which is why divorce
rates are very high. – Well I don’t know,
it’s sometimes incompatible. That’s a decision
making problem. – Okay. But it’s also an evolution
problem right? Like, if you think about it,
one’s whys can be really aligned with the
organization’s today, and five years from
now they may not. – No, absolutely not. Not if both– – One more time. You’re saying no to that? – No to that. – So you’re saying
that there’s a frozen– – Here, let me tell you why. – No, no hold on before you do, I wanna give you
more framework because I’m fascinated by your
decision to say that. You’re saying that things
are frozen, frozen! And that one’s context
of how the world… For example, that it’s so
frozen both North Stars, that one who’s an employee
who’s rolling quite along, and has a why, but then
his child dies from cancer along the way, isn’t
reframed into the context of where maybe it’s
not aligned anymore. – No.
– Okay. – The word,
I wouldn’t use frozen. You’re saying that there can be no growth when
you use the word frozen. Your why is fully formed
by the time you’re in your probably late teens, and the
rest of your life is simply an opportunity to
live in balance with your why or not, so
the decisions you make. And so, whether
somebody’s living, that’s why I said before
which is as long as both organization and person are
working hard to remain in consistent with their
cause then it works fine. Now, the example you give
of someone’s child dying, you know, tragedy doesn’t
form or change your why. Tragedy usually gives us an
opportunity to live our why because it makes everything
else in the world seem stupid, and it forces us to say there is something bigger and
more important here. Very often tragedy
pushes us into why, not the other way around,
not pushes us away from it. – I totally agree with you. I think the most extreme
things that happen in people’s lives actually
just accentuates the reality of what’s going on.
– It’s accentuates of who you really are.
– Hundred percent. – The test of someone is not
when everything is going great, it’s when everything goes wrong. That’s where your
true colors show. – Or, similar to that, but
a slightly different version for everybody, I’m
fascinated by people’s wealth and fame really not
changing them at all, just finally exposing
who they actually are. And that’s not a tragedy.
– And that’s a hard thing – It’s usually in theory,
a good thing. – That’s a hard thing.
– But it’s a real thing. – Absolutely.
– Alright. – It’s fine if they’re
different, as long as they’re compatible. And this is why you
wanna know your why, and this is why you wanna
find out the company’s why, because otherwise you’re
going to make decisions based on money and benefits,
and then there’s nothing. – A hundred percent. – It’s like making a decision
about who to marry based on– – I don’t wanna
side-track the show, but it’s funny I’m sitting here, it’s why I’m so confident
in what I’m building at VaynerMedia because the
platform is being built to be in their benefit to
reverse engineer what they want
based on their DNA. Whether that is
enormous ambition, which is then this is a platform
for them to create that, or within a very
close ecosystem to me, or quite passive and
very nice work life. I have actual
zero emotion, one way or the other
of what they actually want. I just wanna build a
framework and a platform that gives them those
options, and I think that’s the great mistake that
most businesses make. – And isn’t that what you
preach in your work as well? – A hundred percent. I have no interest in– – So the why is clear
internally and externally? – Hundred percent. – I love that. – Which is what, because
to me, otherwise everything crumbles in its hypocrisy
if you don’t do that. – Amen.

My name is Jenny A. Hansen, and I’m coming at you from Utah. And my question is, do
you go with your passion, or do you go with
what you’re good at? I’ve been doing
nails for 12 years, my grandmother did
nails, my aunt did nails, and there aren’t any decent
nail salons in my area. So, do I open a nail salon? Or do I go with my passion,
which is more in consulting? Which, consulting
salons would be good. But again, there aren’t any
good nail salons in the area. So, what are your thoughts? Thanks for the show,
thanks for your work. Thanks VaynerMedia. – Jenny, thanks
so much for the question. Look, I mean
I’m a big fan, Jenny, and I think you know
this, of practicality. Awfully hard, Jenny, to
consult for nail salons where there are none, or there
are none that are good enough that would actually
pay a consultant. So, I think your
options are you can move, and go to LA, New York,
Philly, you know, places where there are more, or you open a salon. You’re a young lady, so I think you have
time and a long career. Maybe you open up
one for a little while, build up some dollars,
some equity. It’s easy for me to say go move. Maybe you’ve lived in
Utah your whole life, your whole family’s
there, everybody’s there, you’ve gotta be there. You can consult virtually. It is 2016,
technology has caught up. I wrote a book
in 2009 called Crush It!, and it became successful,
and it started a huge debate in my ecosystem
of passion over skills. I don’t think anybody
can answer that question for any of you
watching right now. Really, I don’t. I think what you need to do is deploy as much
self-awareness as possible. I do believe,
it’s why I wrote Crush It!, it’s why I’m thinking about writing a follow-up
to Crush It! right now. I do believe that
there’s nothing greater than being able to do the thing you’re most passionate about. And I think that
if you’re blessed, and you’re able to make
the most money that way, and I actually
think I’m in that category, well then that’s like nirvana. But, I do think that a lot
of people should consider, I am of the camp,
and you know what, that’s the question of the day. Where do you sit in this camp? In the comments,
lets sit on this one. Where do you sit in this camp? Here is my theory, that if
you make $130,000 a year doing something you don’t
love as much, or at all, versus making 89 and loving it, that you should
always go with B. Now, people could say,
that’s easy for you to say, because I have student loans, because I have all
these other headaches. I have a weird
thesis that that 89, because you’re so happy and you’re willing
to work 18 hours a day, becomes 131 over time. And 130 becomes
fired or flat forever. I really do believe that
passion works out that way. And I’m not a secret,
I’m not Oprah. I’m not like sunshine
and rainbows, especially not after the
fuckin’ Jets miss an extra point and lose by one point. I just think it’s practical. I just think being happy
brings a better energy and a work ethic. Listen, I don’t know
if you’ve heard, I believe in work. And I believe the easiest way
to work is to fuckin’ love it. And so, I think, Jenny, you
should go with your passion, I just don’t think that it’s
practical for everybody. I think a lot of people’s
passion is to become the biggest rapper in the world. I think a lot of people’s passion is to
become a supermodel. I think a lot of
people’s passion is to become
a professional athlete, or the next great
director, or this or that. I think people
are completely tone-deaf to their actual skill sets, and they make up ludicrous,
unachievable goals, which then means the blueprint
is broken from the get, which means they
have no shot at victory. So, I think if your passion is to be the greatest
rapper in the world, you should deploy some
self-awareness around, maybe your passion should be being around the greatest
rappers in the world, if you have no flow. You know? I don’t know. I think there’s
a lot of things, Jenny. I think self-awareness, I think recognizing
you only live once, realizing how
much regret is poison. And just really,
and really, Jenny, I’ll give you a
really good answer, try your passion. I’ll give everybody
a good answer, try your passion for two years. What’s gonna happen? Your debt’s gonna compound? It’s not the end of the world, I mean you can
always get practical. You could always get practical.

My name’s Chris. I’m out here today, in
the fucking pouring rain making content for my fixed gear blog, that you’d call my shop. My question is,
lots of my fans are under 18 years of age, and don’t have credit cards, and can not pay for shit
that they want on my website, that they express
what they want. Do I pitch to retail, and if so, are there any
special tactics or ways that I should go about that? Thanks. – Chris, if your demo
doesn’t have credit cards, and that’s what’s stopping you from selling direct to consumer, your answer shouldn’t
be, how do I go to retail to go to my consumers? Your answer should be, how
do I get money from my demo to make my transaction,
meaning, whether it’s Venmo, or PayPal, or virtual currency, you know, there’s a much
bigger lift, my man. One of the great things
about the world, today, is that all of
us entrepreneurs can create a Shopify account, or Magenta,
or whatever you want to, and go direct to consumer. Do you know how difficult it
is to get retail distribution? Do you know how much
they’re gonna hose you? Do you know that you’re gonna
make 50 cents on the dollar? Do you know that you’re gonna, they’re gonna ask you for
things like trade dollars, which is if you even
wanna be in our store, you have to
pay us for the right? Do you know that if your
product doesn’t sell well in the first 30 days,
they discontinue it? Do you know that you’re
gonna spend 94% of your time trying to knock on doors and
get into the retail shop, instead of actually
building your community, and building your business? I think that if, you know,
I think at the highest level, for so many of you,
going back to the well, instead of fixing the sink, which is an analogy I use a lot, maybe your whole business
is broken if you can’t get the money from the people
that you wanna get money from. Right? A lot of people try to target,
somebody pitched me like, I’m gonna sell to
12 to 14 year olds, and they’re gonna
make the decision. That’s the worst zone,
because that 12 to 14 is exactly when kids are
in-between their parents buying them everything, but
them not being able to transact, and so, I would spend a lot
of time trying to figure out whether, what way you can
collect money from them, including things like, I’ve always thought a fun
tactic would be, instead of an add to cart button, an alternative
button to that audience, which is, send the email
to your parents to buy it. So, you have add to cart, but there’s also send
the email to your parents to buy this for you, and you
click it, and it’s got like four different templates, like
the sorry one, the happy one. You know, like, what’s the
angle, depending on your parent, with a transaction
link right there? You need to hack
how to get the money direct from your consumer, not how to go down the
traditional path of retail. – This one’s from Richard.