My question for you is what’s your sales process when you’re working with a prospect? How involved are you with your sales team in pitching concepts,
ideas, strategies, tac– – VJ, I’m heavily involved
in getting the client. New business pitches
I’m massively involved. Our success rate is over
the top with me involved compared to me not involved. But once they come in, I’m
more on the hunting side. On the farming side, I’ve a lot of SVPs high level strategists
who learn the business and then are pitching
on a day to day basis. Don’t forget we, we’re
heavy retainer-based and then we do incremental above. And so the retainer base
kind of takes care of it, and then the incrementals added value. So there’s a little less stress for me to make sure that’s checked off. But the SVPs, the senior
people driving the business, are the ones that really are involved in the incremental sales
pitch day in and day out. And I’m really involved in
up front locking it down. And that is a scalable model. Because if I do my thing,
and it locks it down and creates that base, and if I can create it
that it’s profitable, not that everything is up side after that, then that’s a good business model. – [Voiceover] David asks,
“What are your thoughts “on Facebook and their need
to start TV advertising?”

– Hey Gary, my name is Pavel Kravchuk. I’m here with members of Slavic Chorale. – [Both] Hi, Gary. – We just sang at
VaynerMedia San Francisco, and we have a question for you. Answer our question. We are a choir and orchestra that has existed for about five years, and we’re looking to grow. We have an audience of about 3
to 5,000 at our big concerts. In order for us to continue to grow, we need to get more corporate sponsorships from bigger companies, but they already support orchestras like the San Francisco Symphony. So how do we get them
to support us as well? – First of all, thank you so
much for coming to Vayner SF, and wowing them with your skills. You know, look, I made a
very classic, old-school Gary Vaynerchuk video from way back when. I’ll link it up right here, DRock. You know, this one is the cold call video. This seems to be a very
simple answer, my friends. I think that you guys may
be tremendous at singing, but selling might be a
very different thing. And so you need to find
who can sell and sing, or who can just sell, while you guys sing, because the truth is, you
just hit the ground, right? You like, there’s a billion places to go, and you just literally go ask all of them. I’m always blown away by people saying, “Oh, we’re in big trouble.” Like, people are supporting other things, or there’s nowhere to go. There’s always somewhere to go. Get creative. Like, you know, are they in San Francisco? Yeah, I mean, Jesus Christ,
you’ve got nothing but funded, read TechCrunch and Re/code everyday, look at every code company that just raised 50 million dollars, and go knock on their door
and say, “Give me 3,000.” I mean, like, you know, I
mean it’s like, it’s crazy. You know, this question to a salesman is like me asking you, “How do I sing?” Right? Like, you would answer, “You just sing.” Now, what the funny part is, is I just might suck at singing. Right? And you might suck at sales, and so I think you need to figure out who can do that for you, because the answer to your
question is extremely basic. Literally go to the phone book. What I mean by that is, literally hit up every single
business in San Francisco. All of them. Rick’s Car Wash to Google. From everybody from Rick’s to Google. That’s right, DRock, you
weren’t expecting that, were you? And so, Google, Rick’s Car Wash, and every company in between
gets hit up by you guys. Somebody’s gonna give you cash, and I’m gonna guess it’s gonna
be more than just somebody. – [Voiceover] Apollopoetry asks,
“When all is said and done,

on sale tomorrow, if
you were a Girl Scout, how would you maximize your sales?” – Damon, one of the moves I would use is try to go viral and go very practical. Clouds and dirts, so I would do hardcore
one-on-one activation. Literally, I would have
a five minute meeting with my parents and ask them who their 11 best friends are, and then call them and ask them to buy the damn cookies. I would also then go outside and knock on every single
door of every person and I would ask them multiple times. I would twice knock on
doors and ring door bells in the course of a week to
show them that I’m gonna relentlessly bother them until they buy a box of cookies. Hardcore aggressive in the dirt stuff, and then I would try to do one kind of viral move. I would take a picture of
me holding a sign saying if you guys help me sell
1,000 boxes of cookies, I’ll do X. That kind of stuff tends to work. I would do that on Instagram. See if I can get a couple celebrities I’d hit up on Twitter to show
them awareness around this, and then try to create some
sort of big event that allows me to really blow it out of the park, going real up there while that’s trying to get viral, knocking on doors. – [Voiceover] Daniel asks, “How
do you decide what to trust

– [Voiceover] Jonathan asks, “I import wines from Italy and sell via e-comm and through distributors. I’m currently focusing on
obtaining new distribution and have fallen behind on the e-comm side. Question: What percentage of my time should be split between
each side of the business, and what’s a good way to balance the two?” You know, Jonathan, it’s interesting. I’m trying to give a general answer to the whole market, but I
know your business so well. When you’re importing, I don’t
know what state you’re in, but when you’re doing e-commerce, are you selling to the end consumer? Because you can’t do that
in New Jersey or New York. Are you in a state- He’s in California, and Kermit Lynch, I think, does do that, so I think he can. I think in California,
I was about to say that, thanks, India. In California, ’cause
Kermit Lynch does that, you’re able to actually
sell to the consumer and also sell to distributors. You know, to me, if you
can sell e-commerce 100%, you’re no dope. You know that you’re making 50 cents more on every dollar by selling that way than selling to distributors, but what you know is you’re not that big, and you’re not necessarily
a retailer by trade, and it takes a lot of money and skill to be able to be a good
retailer to sell enough, where the distributors are
giving you the buying power. So my strategy for you is- Now, I’m giving you as
black and white a strategy as I’ve given on this show’s history. 80% to the distributors, 20% of your time, energy, and money to the consumers. Once you get that established, you spend every minute
to turn that into 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, 80/20, 90/10, maybe 80/20, right? Because you wanna get some restaurants and key retailers to bring
some awareness to it. And for everybody who’s watching, the reason I’m giving him that advice is he just makes more money
if he sells it direct. He’s also far more in control, where you sell to distributors, they’re maybe giving a deal to a retailer, that retail sells it cheap,
and that all of a sudden screws up the pricing in the market. So, that’s the answer. By the way, before you’re
done editing here, DRock,

– 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] Brendan
asks, “Does VaynerMedia “focus much on winning
awards, and what’s your take “on the ad industry’s obsession
with awards in general?” – Brendan, great question. One that I’ve been talking
about for a long time in these halls and in the industry. I think awards are horsecrap. I don’t even know why I’m
not saying horse (beep), because the reason
agencies want to win them is for two reasons. It allows them to recruit talent and they use it as something
to get more business and what they’re doing is,
they’re putting out work for clients that is actually
trying to get awards versus actually trying to sell something, and that’s my real problem with it. I don’t begrudge the
agencies that focus on it because I understand
their business rationale but for me, it’s a unhealthy culture because it takes your eye off the prize which is actually do
something for business. And for us, you know, we’re
lucky because of our work and because of my personal
brand, to be honest with you, we’ve been able to get
a lot of new business. And now, our work is the
word-of-mouth of our business and two, as you can tell, people know this is the right place to
work, so we don’t focus on it. I understand why people do focus on it. I think it’s an energy sucker away from the thing that matters, which
is you need to sell something. – [Voiceover] Rich asks,
“What advice do you have

– [Voiceover] Bill asks, “I’m
in sales for third generation “residential construction,
getting my at bat. “How do I increase business,
but keep old minds happy?” – Bill, that’s a great question, and I’ve got to set this up. I may not be the right
person to answer this because my answer comes
with straight venom. So get ready. I truly believe the way
that you get old minds to accept, consume your new ways is to be extremely rogue and aggressive, and massively disrespectful to them. I get it, but old minds are tough to move if you’re gonna play within the lines that they draw you’re not gonna be able to do what you want. At some level, I had empathy
and respect for my dad, and the truth is he
gave me plenty of room, so I didn’t even really live this, but I live it now with VaynerMedia where I’m trying to move old minds where they’re B to B,
and they’re not my dad, and they don’t know my
brilliance sometimes upfront, and they’re not quite sure, and
it’s hard for me to move it, and one of the ways to move it is to be out and out disrespectful. I’m telling you right now, I get it, and you don’t want your
grandpappy firing you, and I understand all those dynamics, but the truth is if you
want to move mountains, it’s not gonna be by like (blows), you can’t get it done like that my man, and so to make change, to move things in the right direction, you’ve
got to come with thunder. It’s just the way it is,
and so you’ve got to be a little disrespectful, you’ve
got to tell them they’re old, and, and this is the big
one, if you God forbid get your chance to do
it, you better execute, because if you don’t,
then you’re just a kid. Then you’re just naive,
then you’re just young. And it’s international mountain, show

“If you don’t care about the competition, “what do you say when a client asks you “about a competitor, “and why you’re better?” – Mike, this is a tremendous question. I’ve dealt with this in
the past on VaynerMedia’s road to success, and I still do all the time. People bring up competitors and I answer in a very condescending way towards them. I dislike my competitors
in the context of the game. Some of them are friends
outside of the game and I can share a beer, I can separate it. I can share a beer at a game or be cordial in public, but deep down, I’m not
a fan of my competitors. I dislike them. And when people bring them up, I tend to tear them down
as quickly as possible or remind them why I’m better and come up with historical things like, you know, in the agency world for example, I say, Oh you mean those people
that try to win awards in a world where I grew
up trying to sell stuff? Anything that I think will make that person realize that it is a worthwhile
venture to go with us and why it’s a wasteful conversation to
care about somebody else. That is something I will do. Now look, I’m a good salesman, a good talker, I’ve got great tact, I have enormous empathy and great feel. I can read the room. So I know where to navigate in real time, which is why I sell and win so often. You may not have that skill set and you may come across as you know, inappropriate, awkward, you know, inappropriate. And so, you know, for all of you on this side over here who can read the room, can move quickly on your feet, can rock and roll that way, just punch your competitor in the face. Over here, not as smooth, you’re not quite as sure, you don’t understand
where they want to go, you’ve got to go with a different route. I don’t know what that route is, but it’s (bleep). – [Voiceover] Dan asks,

“I know you hate talking about ROI, “but how do you show someone
there’s a true return “on your efforts on social media?” (sighs) – Well, how did he set
the question up again? “I know you hate talking.” – [Steve] I know you
hate talking about ROI — – Yup. – [Steve] but how do you show someone there’s a true return on your efforts — – Robert, I love you for this question. DRock, definitely edit this
out and make it one question. It’s called “ROI of Your Mother, Part Two” because I want to put this
right to bed once and for all. The “ROI of your Mother”
concept is to make fun of traditional media ROI, not to get away from social media ROI. I, Robert, I love to talk
about the ROI of social media. I don’t want to run away from it. I’m all-in on it. Once and for all, I wanna talk about this. I love ROI. I sell stuff. It’s what I do. Nothing matters to me otherwise. No marketing media reports, no rewards, no AdAge mentions, that’s
not what I play for. I wanna sell coffee, I wanna
sell cheese, I wanna sell wine, I wanna sell gadgets,
I wanna sell sweaters. I wanna sell you if you let me. That’s how I roll. And so, how do you prove it? You prove it. Meaning, there’s a lot of ways to do it. I don’t know what you’re trying to sell and I know a lot of brand
managers from big brands kind of follow me and watch me here. It’s very easy to prove
the ROI of social media. When we post the T-shirt
that we want to sell, let’s link that up. By the way, never got
around to posting T-shirts, so now it’s 20 bucks not 14,
the reverse engineer thing. I apologize, VaynerNation. We see the sales. When I post, when we run
dark posts for Wine Library, we see the sales. When we ran that campaign
for that one organization, we got 2400 sign-ups, versus
the 60 sign-ups they got for doing YouTube videos
and billboards and all that, and they spent 10 times more there. It is very easy, my friend, if you have the direct channel connect. What I mean by that, I
don’t know what that meant, it just spewed. But if you can prove
it out on the back end. So for example, let me explain. For most of the clients we work with, when you’re a CPG company, and you sell your product to
Walmart and then they sell it, it gets hard to prove the ROI of a post. But when you’re Gary Vaynerchuk and you have winelibrary.com
and you post it, and it goes directly back
to you, you can see it. Guys, the only reason
I have so much bravado is I’m seeing the math. I come with bravado when
I have intuition, right? But I’m always hedging. Watch my narrative. I’m always like, “There’s
something happening here.” Look what I just did with virtual reality. I’m nuancing it. Yes, I’m making, I’m hedging, but I’m still making a commitment. But the insanity that you’ve seen from me on Facebook dark posts,
or the emerging insanity on Pinterests’ ad product once it gets a little bit more price
effective in that scale, that’s nothing you’ve seen
from me since maybe 2009 “Crush It!,” when I really
believed in YouTube because I was feeling it. Guys, I’m feeling it right now. How do you prove the ROI? You create a connective
tissue to show you that this thing did that. Now that’s direct response selling, right? That’s D.R., and that’s fine. I’m a branding guy. You need a mix. Because if you keep throwing right hooks, it has diminishing returns. But it’s never been more easy to prove the ROI of social
media than it is right now, because you can just link it directly to the dot com attribution,
whereas you cannot do that for print, outdoor, radio, or television. You just can’t. You can’t do it in the same exact way. You can create a call to
action in those commercials, and you could track it,
and you can and you will, and that’s why those channels
matter still as well, but it’s very easy to put a
link in any piece of content, even an Instagram where
I put in my headline, you guys know what I’m talking about. So, you know, misnomer. I do like talking about
the ROI of social media. I just don’t like that
it’s not understood that it’s more obvious to track
it than it is in traditional. And more importantly, I don’t wanna talk, turn, t-t-t-turn all of you into direct response sellers, because then you’re far
too much right-hooking. So a lot of times the
best pieces of content are engaging and jabbing where there is no link
out to a call to action, so there’s a drop in the
correlation of sales, but you’re doing the better
overall thing for the brand. My friends, it’s branding and marketing, not just sales, but social
media can show you sales. – [Voiceover] Roberto asks,

So I co-founded a company called Shimmer and we’re just building
a whole bunch of assets around social media and filter space. – Okay – So as you know, you work with the space, it’s really raw. – Yep! – So, what do you think the
biggest opportunities are there currently untapped? – In social media influencers? – Yeah, like, obviously
there’s brand agencies, there’s events. All that stuff, where do
you think like the next you know, like the next big
thing can be in the space? – I’m gonna go over arch again. I know we already had
an influencer question, so I like how this is working … We’re you, like holy
crap he asked way too .. We’re you pissed? Yeah. – That’s not cool. That’s why I gotta go first. To me this is the biggest thing that people don’t understand about the influencer space. Not only do influencers create content, they create distribution. So for the first time ever, in one entity, you get both things that people want. You know, if you think about television production companies or
movies, Steven Spielberg. But then you need distribution, right. So what I would say is, the biggest opportunities for these guys, for you, for me, for everybody’s that ‘s
playing in the space, is to recognize that unique principle in today’s internet world where they actually can drive two things. And then apply them. The other place that I think
there’s a huge opportunity, to answer you question, to give everybody more
information, go a little deeper as I’ve been trying to go, is product. I think that the infomercial space, the leveraging of like, you know of like celebrity into product. I at one point could have easily sold tens of thousands of glassware sets because of my wine influence. I think retail and
product, call it QVC 3.0 is another place that
people need to think about. – Okay.
– Thanks brother. – Appreciate it, Gary.
– Good luck to you, stay well. Next, let’s go.