GiantThinkers.com.
– [Gary] Giant thinkers. – Recording this from Sydney, Australia. I am an author, a blogger,
a podcaster, a speaker and CreativeLive instructor
that helps emerging designers be employed. I have a “what would
you do” question, Gary. Currently I have one book
and CreativeLive courses for all of us bloggers
and podcasters out there that are looking to better monetize. What would your next right hook be? Would it be to create another book, potentially a video course or
even a membership component? Cheers. – That’s a good question. Ram, right? Ram, great question, big
shout out to Australia. Looks like Australia next
March for the book tour is becoming very realistic. So going down under could be fun. Haven’t been there since
I’ve been in the wine world. Not true, actually just
remembered I flew in and flew out for a business talk
three or four years ago. Ram, I think it comes down to what’s the best product you could put out? Whatever form you think
that you can execute in. Whether that’s a second book
’cause you’re a great writer or an online course ’cause
you’re charismatic on video or a membership site because
you think you can provide enough value worth paying for
in a differentiated market, and yes you can taste my cynicism there, or continuing to build
up your brand to become more of a persona that
gets to publicly speak. I think speaking is a very
lucrative way to monetize one’s personality. I think it’d be really interesting
if, since it sounds like you’re teaching other
people to become employed, I think it’d be really
interesting for you to do more of that yourself. So instead of teaching
people how to make money, maybe you go out and get employed more so that you can speak to, like, “I did a million dollars
worth of gigs this year.” I think you know that from
me, I’m cynical to people just teaching for the sake of teaching. So I enjoy the fact that I’ve built, of course with AJ and team, but, like, I’ve built a
machine that does, soon to be, a hundred million dollars
in social media work. It sure give me a lot of
oomph to say now, like, this stuff works ’cause these companies don’t keep us around
’cause I’m charismatic. And so, you like the recall there? Recall. Go ahead, Stephon. Stephon? (laughs) Hey, Stephon. Hey, Stephon, over there.
(everyone laughs) Talk to Staphon.
(everyone laughs) And I’ll take a recall
(laughs) component here. Little rusty, a week away and… I think all of those are viable options. And for everybody who’s watching, you can tell the back-end
ones were the ones I’m more excited about because
I love proof in the pudding. I love proof in the pudding. I love proof in the pudding. That make you think of Bill Cosby, too?

– What’s the DNA of a good sales pitch? – Yeah. – Um, I think the best DNA
trait of a great sales pitch is predicated on
reverse-engineering what that person actually needs. Way too many people try to sell, it’s really jabbing and right-hooking. Most people want to sell you
what they want to sell you, versus what you need. So, one of the reasons I
think I’ve been successful is, whether I’m selling a bottle of wine or I’m selling myself or
I’m selling VaynerMedia, I have a thing, but I’m
reverse-engineering you, meaning, people used
to come into the store and one of the things I was
proud of is, people would say, Do you have a good red
wine that I could have, and I would always say, Well, what are you going to do with it? And it was stunning to me how
many people were taken aback by that, because every other liquor store, wine shop,
– [Mimi] Why that? – [Gary] would just, give them something they wanted to sell. Oh, I’m giving it to a boss. Well, then I would go
with something that had name brand equity that
made them look good. Or, I’m trying to impress wine friends, I’d give ’em something nerdy. So, in their DNA, the core DNA, is reverse-engineering, and I think the other part
that really matters, Kat, is, I do think passion and energy sells. Like, monotone, not
caring, like not believing. So, I think fundamental,
100% all-in belief and then reverse-engineering
what they need. – That makes sense. – Thank you. – Thanks for being on the show, alright. – Okay, I got two, but I’ll
start with the main one.

– [Camera Man] It’s rolling. – Oh, it’s rolling. Gary, Eric Decker. – [Gary] Eric Decker. Jersey right there. – I want to know how can
athletes use social media to expand upon their brand. – Eric, I think one of
the biggest, first of all, super pumped you and B Marshall tag team. I love this. Best receiving
core we’ve had in a long time. Probably since ’98. I think athletes need to engage
with their fans a lot more. You know, just pushing out like, “Come to my nonprofit event.” “Buy my jersey,” “Support my friend.” You obviously have a
celebrity spouse as well. So, bring exposure to her stuff. All celebrities, not just athletes, are always pushing,
pushing, pushing, pushing. Like, you know, “Come and see my stuff,” “do this stuff,” “do this
for me,” “do this for me.” How about doing something for them? The amount of people,
Eric, right now on Twitter that are saying, “Eric
Decker, can’t wait.” A lot of people saying,
“Eric Decker, you’re so hot.” You know, why don’t you engage
with some of those people, and literally just use Twitter
video, like I love to use, grab your phone, go to Twitter, reply. I’m gonna do it right now. You know what? DRock,
I’ma do it right now. Let’s just randomly pick somebody. This is the way to do it, right? You’ll probably edit and
do whatever you’re doing. Here we go. Just hitting notifications. Boom. There we go. Let’s see who says something. Here we go, D-Rock said something. DRock, get out of here. Let’s just find something here. All right. Let’s keep
going. Just scrolling. A lot of regramming. Let’s
see if somebody says hello. Dustin Riddle, “Gary
Vee, have a great day.” So, I hit the reply button. I hit the camera on
the bottom left corner. I hit the camera on the top right corner. I switch it to camera mode. I flip it to selfie mode, and now I forgot the
God damned guy’s name. Son of a bitch. Let’s exit out. Let’s go back. Done. Dustin, got it. All right, Dust. Here we go. Here we go. Yeah, that’s what happens
when you do it live. Dustin, video, camera. Dustin, it’s Gary Vee. I
appreciate that, brother. I hope you have a wonderful,
wonderful weekend. Thanks, man. And that’s it. And now, I’m actually
bringing value to Dustin. Eric, the amount of people that when you wave to them in the crowd, or you throw them a glove, or you say hey, they go crazy. You can scale that. You can scale that on social
and create real depth. You know, real depth. The amount of people that
I’ve done those videos for and just engaged with and said hey. Then the next day go out and
buy Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Or when Jason Glenn,
number 58, special teamer gave me some daps at a Jets Patriots game, when I was on the field and just said hey. The next day I went and custom ordered his jersey at $100 bucks. That is what’s happening. It’s very easy for you to get
into the trenches of Twitter at scale and engage with your fan base. And I highly, highly recommend that.

– Mike? – [Webly] Yep, Mike. – Okay. – [Webly] I think it’s waste of my time to comment on your videos and answer the question of the day. Tell me why I’m wrong. – Well, Mike. Let me help you tell you why you’re wrong. – [Voiceover] Here we go. (laughs) – No, I think it’s a
really interesting question and I think that– Mike, I think it’s a great question and I think that there’s
a couple of things to figure out here. One, I’m gonna assume, maybe not, that one of the good reasons
to think what you think and I think a lot of other people think, there is because I’m
not reading that right? Like why say something if
it’s not being consumed. I think a lot of people
recognize I do read them because I’m engaging quite a bit. Not on YouTube which is because of the app and because I have a
awkward sign-in structure on Google between Gary@vaynermedia and the account we use for
a lot of the Google content. I have to figure that out. I would comment more
because now it’s all mobile, I only comment mobilely. So, I’ve gotta figure that out
but quite a bit on Twitter. Outrageous levels on Facebook
in the last month or so. More on YouTube, I will figure it out. I will use this as call to action. But now I’m gonna give
you a really good answer to your question. The reason you’re actually
gonna start commenting. It’s because I have nothing
to do with the equation of what’s actually happening here. Let me explain. That’s not fair. I do have something to do with it. I’m (claps) the match of what’s happening with the #AskGaryVee Show. But the truth is, to really
get what I want out of it, I want to build a comminity. A community can not be built predicated on a dictatorship or an individual. It needs to be predicated on the fact that people are communicating
with each other. What you haven’t realized yet, Mike, is that if you look deeply into
what’s going on on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook there is a group of 30 to 40 people that are quietly and
subtly, and I would say of those 40 people, 25 are
doing the wrong version of it. Which they’re in there
communicating with the other people for their own interest in
mind to siphon them into– If Webly was to do that, she’s
in there ’cause she wants some of the other small business
people to take her services and that’s all she wants
in a right hook, right hook right hook, right hook way. 25 of you, I’m paying attention,
are playing that game. 15 of you are not,
you’re playing more of a jab, jab, jab, right hook game and let’s just remind everybody, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook to that person that
emailed and said they were disappointed in me, that is a game that plays like this. Jab, jab, jab, right hook. The right hook is not you get the sale. The right hook is you’ve been given the permission
to have a chance to sell. So, when you jab, jab, jab and right hook you go for your right hook
but you’re not disappointed. I have not even asked
any single person here what the update is on how
many books have come in. It’s just not the part, it’s
the permission that it created, not necessarily what the
results are just yet. The real reason you should
be commenting on this show is because you’d start putting
out content on your two cents in context to what was just
put out in the show format. Other people that are in the trenches are actually reading
those comments, plenty. More of you should be. And then you start
engaging with each other. And out of that serendipity,
much like on Wine Library TV, where there are over 20
different wine tasting groups right now that have been
hanging out with each other for the last seven to ten
years drinking wine together, once out of every, once a
month on every third Wednesday for the last five years
and have built their disproportionate best
friends out of being part of a community of a web
show started by some kid in New Jersey talking about wine. The community that’s being
built underneath here. The way that these three get
to interact with each other for the rest of their lives
on this connection point and the way that you guys
all have the ability, if you’d like to, to create
connections of likeminded people with very different angles and to have an interesting situation unlike politics or
religion or other things where you have a guy who’s a pardox which then creates fan
bases in opposite directions so it’s not a complete sheep
game but yet people that can actually have empathy for
other people’s points of view and collaborate, you
now have the beginnings of a community that has value to you that has nothing to do with the person that’s putting out the content. That, my friend, is why
you should be commenting.

Where you couldn’t sell shit? – Wow. (laughs) I’m gonna throw a lot of
people for a curve ball here. I actually wish that existed. I actually think that I would
be even more successful. I think I have, I think
I’m doing fine financially. I’m actually, in my behavior,
I wish my accountant was here. I’m very conservative, way
more than people think. I don’t value the dollars that much. I’m not– We should go into James’ office right now. Of all the money I’m leaving
on the table at VaynerMedia because I like the feelings
and all the other things that come along in life, I
actually think that if the world had no money that I
would be more successful. Because I think, and I’ve eluded to this, that my ability to communicate to people and to storytell and
to inspire and motivate is maybe my disproportional skill. And that if I wasn’t drawn
to running businesses, that I would be absolutely
in hype-man P. Diddy or preacher. I push very hard against
my motivational aspect because I don’t wanna be bucketed into a motivational
speaker because I do think that it’s the cliche thing
that we talked about earlier that you two really hit on. And I’m scared that people
struggle to cut through the noise which is why I’m impressed with the– You know it’s funny, you two
are the most interesting for me because you’re both the parallels
that happen with me right? There’s only one third person
that wasn’t your story, it would’ve been perfect
of the three versions of my content that’s put out. Instantaneous understanding. Perseverance, but liked it up
front but it was perseverance. And, at some level,
thank god you’re not this but like the, this guy’s full of shit and I just eventually got
there and won that game, right? So I actually think that if the
world was stripped of money, that I would be dramatically more impactful on society. And the weirdest and only scenario that ever goes through my mind. Ever. Of me not buying the New York Jets. Ever. Ever. Is that somewhere along the line, the chemicals inside tweak just enough to where I become guilted by myself to give up that part of my journey to triple down on the other
part of my journey a/k this. It’s a funny story, somebody
sent me an email yesterday and said they were
disappointed in me for sending the email and creating the contest of asking for the books
to be in the question. And I sat there with the
question for like 20 minutes, I said, “My god, I will
never win this game because people are unable
to see one level deep.” (scoffs) I’m not forcing people to buy that book. I’m putting out a show every single day that is free in a world where plenty of people monetize video content. And you’re more the
welcome not to participate in that part of it and I am
picking 500 other questions to put in there and it’s just interesting that there’s so little breathing room for any kind of commerce to some people in a world where you could
provide dispropotionate upfront value and people
want you to be stuck in the jab, jab, jab, jab world and I’m wired as a jab,
jab, jab, right hook guy. If money was taken out and the game of business was stripped. I would then have less of a
right hook mentality of commerce My right hook would then be to
get people to actually do it. So I’d be like chasing all
of you around and be like, “No, you gotta go do it.” Now, motivation isn’t enough. I actually think the
answer to your question in a long-winded way is I’d be really happy and really successful in
communicating to the world my points of view. – [Voiceover] Love it.

“your website’s landing
page be a jab like a blog, “or a right hook?” – Paul, you’re welcome for all I do. The answer to your question is, you know, I think it depends
on what your business is doing, and so to me, if
you’re selling something you need to have some level of right hook, ’cause you just have such infinite amounts of time when people land. But if you’re selling information, or you’re looking to
bring a brand awareness, or you’ve been so sell-y
as an organization for such a long time
you need a counter-move to soften your right hooks, and that’s it. That’s the theme of 106 episodes which is that every answer’s different. It’s a reason I can give
away my best advice here, have all my competitors at other agencies and other things come here. I mean I had a bunch of
competitors, literally, small VaynerMedias
asking me for advice over the weekend in email,
which I was answering because at the end of the day, I can give my best advice
because it’s all in theory, right, it’s all in theory. I can give this kind of detail,
which is pretty significant, but then you’ve still got
to get into one extra layer, the clients of Vayner,
the things that I work on have to get to one extra layer
of detail to be successful. And so to me, I’d have to audit what the business or organization
was doing for the last 12, 24, 36 months, if it existed. And then I’d need to understand
what it needs to achieve. But once you understand what
you’re trying to achieve, all your behavior has to match that. And that’s why a strategy,
a religion, a belief system is so imperative in what you do. The amount of people that
are watching this show right now, that are
wishy-washy on what they’re trying to achieve, caring about dumb shit, like oh, I want a nice watch or a car. Like, you’re gonna lose. If you understand how to level that up, I can get any watch and
any car I want because I leveled up, and I still
don’t want that bullshit. And so, I’m not judging you, you do you, you do what you want, but I promise you, push yourself to understanding
what you’re doing at one, two, three levels higher, and you’ll amass that
success along the way that are beneath you. If you want that thing
right in front of you, if you go above it, that
thing is a by-product of you shooting for a higher plane. So, I think it comes down to the details. – [Voiceover] Matthew asks,
“Why is it that people

“reach your b2c audience. “Wine and books for example. “But how does it impact b2b?” – Jane, my right hooks
are not made for b2b, so you’ll never see me Tweet, “Hey, if you have a business, “I want your business at VaynerMedia.” It’s just not feasible for me, but my jabs do. My content, where I talk
about my thought leadership or my ambition to be a thought leader, or my hope that I’m a thought leader. You know, the more I say
things that are right. You know, somebody watching
or listening right now, #AskGaryVee episode 88, I say something about smart
technology that makes them say, yeah, they need that for their business. Hey Gary clearly seems to
be paying attention to this maybe I should talk to Vayner about doing some activations around it. We have clearly benefited as an agency from my outward content as a gateway drug to RFPs or out and out
handed the business. So VaynerMedia has clearly
benefited from all of this and you know, this is something
I’m very passionate about for all of you that are
watching and listening. It’s super important to
me for you to realize that you’re always one
great piece of content away from having your life change. Let’s just understand what I mean by this. It’s no different than
being an artist with a song. Everybody you know started
off not being known and then had a song
that changed their life. Every investor you’ve
heard of that has done well and made lots of money had an investment, Twitter, that changed their lives. Content, though not to the
level of Madonna or Chris Sacca, right? Content has the potential
to change your life. So if you love something, music, photography, running
culture, diet culture, museum culture, like whatever you love, you have to understand,
by talking to the world. Even if one person’s listening, all you need is that person to share it, the pipes of social
network get into motion, this is why I love Medium, Medium will hand pick
content from nobody’s, not big followers, just
a good piece of content and that becomes your
one piece of content away from what you want to happen happening. Now here’s the problem, most of you are not good enough to make that content, and I get it, that was rough, and I’m like, and I apologize, but talent matters, right? Like baseball players that
get discovered in Japan that come over to the US
and make lots of money. They had to be good
enough to be discovered. You know, the quality of the content you put out matters. Like you can’t just be
like, museums are nice. That’s not going to lead to
you being the CEO of a museum. Do you understand? You got to be right. When I got out and put out content that says Instagram’s going
to get bought by Facebook and then everybody says I’m an idiot and then it happens, I’m not an idiot. Get it? So, you know, the things, the
pressure I put upon myself to answer these five questions on every episode is these are historic. We’re going to look back at that and if I’m like, wearable
technologies have no chance it’s a fad and then it happens, idiot. That wasn’t my piece
of content that took me to the next level. It was a piece of content
that took me a step back. So recognize that we have the opportunity to win this game. Recognize the quality of what we say, what we produce how we put it out there is the variable to that outside. – [Voiceover] John asks,
“Which industries do you think

“differ for a free service
versus a paid one?” – When you’re throw the
right hook that’s free I get excited because
there’s less friction, and it feels like I’m gonna really be able to land that right hook. The problem is, there’s a
really funny thing about free. Free creates a scenario where people value it for what it’s been put out. It’s really interesting. I think that a lot of people who watch this show value it quite a bit. I think that the 10% left,
if I started charging four bucks an episode,
or two bucks an episode, the you know, actually you know what, that’s gonna be the question of the day. And I know this is a tough question, and by the way, I will
not be charging for this, so don’t worry, don’t hedge and say zero, I don’t have any plans on it. But if I was, what would you pay to watch an episode of
The #AskGaryVee Show? And yeah that’s the real question. And clearly, I expect most
of the comments to be zero, or no, because I respect that there’s so much content out
there, but I do believe that my content is better
than a substantial amount of content out there in the world. Especially when it talks about new platforms, business,
running businesses, leadership, entrepreneurship,
start up, tech culture. So, I do think that we’ll
see a surprising number, and I’m sure you’re
probably getting answers right now in Meerkat,
so Staphon, feel free to not shout it out, cause
I want to be surprised. But I do think that
it’s really funny to me to think about the 10% of
you that I would expect to pay for it that if you
were paying four bucks for it you’d actually value the show more. It’s really quite interesting psychology. So, how do I act differently? One, when I throw right
hooks, for example, when I tweet out later
today that episode 80 is up. You know, I expect to
land more than saying, “Episode 80 is up, pay
me three dollars Snapcash “if you want to watch it.” You know, I have a little less angst of the conversion because I know that there’s no friction financially, which is one, besides time,
finance is the friction. And so, I think it’s got a
totally different cadence, different expectation,
different pressure hold. I think it’s easier. – Hey Gary, answer my question.

for Pencils of Promise and
documenting my daily videos on YouTube, what other
jabs could I use so that I’m not just right hooking for donations? – Hey Bren, as a proud board
member of Pencils of Promise, I want to thank you personally
for your adventures. You know, the jab, content
wise, obviously even this little question had a great
content, beautiful views, India was really taken aback. And so, let’s just show
India being taken aback— – Wow. – And so, that was amazing, and so– The jab that I’m looking
for from you, you know, you didn’t take this biking
adventure for kicks and giggles, obviously the charity component is in you, but it’s not the only thing,
people always do things that are selfish to them at some level, so you want to create
video content and document it. Maybe you’re a documentary
thing, you know, you’re using this great thing
you’re doing as a global jab to maybe bring you awareness
to an opportunity in the future. I want you to take a step back
because I think you’re gonna do all the jabbing right,
right put out good content on Instagram, and SnapChat,
and Facebook and different native, you know, The Book,
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” respect the platforms,
and put out good content. The one thing that I think
is missing from a lot of people’s repitouires when
they’re in this world, is the listening, the bionic ears
of what Twitter search is. If I were you, the other jab,
you can do at scale, is to go into Twitter search, and
search people who are talking about Pencils of Promise
and then jumping into their conversation, and
not jumping in and saying cool that you raised money,
like “Oh, I raised $48 for “Pencils of Promise in my school
book fair, fourth grader.” Tweets, right, or the
mom of the fourth grader. You don’t jump in and say
cool, “I’m doing this, “watch this.” That’s too much of right hook. You jab within the listening, oh I like that. You jab within the
listening, and so what you do is you jump in there and
say, “That is phenomenal.” And just by you interacting
with that person, they’re gonna maybe look
in your profile and then they’ll see your latest 3
or 4 Tweets were around this content, and then you’ve
really double jabbed into the funnel of that donation, right, you jabbed within the
listening. You jabbed with the content, that
became the gateway to the donation, or whatever
you’re trying to achieve the awareness, so a shit load more
Twitter searching, I think would be a tremendous opportunity.

Big Ed Barnum here from Big Ed Barnum’s Bubble Barn and Garden with an important question for you: If my right hook is Watch my web series, what
are some appropriate, I should have stretched. Uh, jabs? – Actually, you know what Staphon, why don’t you do a little
walk around the office right now, this way
they’ll miss this question so that will make them
have to watch it later and then they can also see
a bunch of Vayner stuff. Big Ed, first and foremost,
as a hardcore WWF, not E, fan growing up, you feel like a wrestler, and this is a wrestler promo,
and that feels amazing to me. I just love that. You know what’s so funny? That’s what I want. I want people to go to GaryVaynerchuk.com. I want that, and I want
people watching my content. Get in here, Staphon. And I want those same things, and so I think that content
itself is the jab, right? Put out micro pieces of content. I’m a big believer, I think
that I’m hitting a golden era in my content production. Live streaming, my Snapchat
Stories game is up, my Instagram game is up, my
Twitter’s still on point, my Facebook fan page content is up, LinkedIn is stronger than it was before. Pinterest we’re still lagging. When you can really get our
Pinterest game up, right? – [Steve] It’ll happen
for Wine Library I think. – I know, but we’re talking
about me now, not Wine Library. Pinterest needs to get up a little bit, but you need to put out micro contents. The reason I wrote
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” is to get you to put out
different little pieces of content that still thematically ladder back up to what you’re doing on your website that are contextual for the platform. Big Ed, don’t get lazy on me. You’re Big Ed. Go out there and put out
content across the board, and don’t just make it, remember, the jabs need to be jabs. Don’t just make the
content where you’re like, my biggest idea ever is, dot
dot dot, go to my website. Your website will get
traffic as a byproduct, and you were able to throw right hooks on those social platforms,
but put out jabs of value to the audience where they
actually spend their time. Big Ed, they love you and they
want to go to your website, but they’d rather, more
than being on your website, be in all these other places,
and it’s up to you to be there and use that as a gateway
drug to get them back. (upbeat music)
– [Voiceover] Laurie asks,