0:00

The most important question is what are you trying to do? Like,

0:03

are you trying to make more money? Are you trying

0:06

to build a huge company? Are you looking for legacy?

0:08

But if you have better people, you'll probably

0:10

make more profit in 2020 and have more

0:13

time for yourself. Like when you

0:15

put yourself out there, you deal with the

0:17

ramifications of the end consumer or the B2B

0:19

consumer judgment. Everybody gets

0:21

hyped when I hype them like this. Then

0:23

they do it for four days, a week, a

0:25

month, nothing happens. They're like fuck that. It

0:28

depends on what your

0:31

ambition is. Right?

0:36

So like, you know, that's the most

0:38

important question. Like for me, the number one ambition

0:41

for me coming out of school was to repay

0:44

my parents. So that's what it is.

0:47

Built a business for my parents for 12 years. Then

0:49

I went on to my, so like they're just the most

0:51

important question is what are you trying to do? Like

0:55

are you trying to make more money? Are you

0:57

trying to build a huge company? Are you looking for

0:59

legacy? Do you want to move to

1:02

Seattle? I'm sure those will

1:04

change over time. I agree.

1:07

There are things that I would

1:09

like to do for my parents. They don't need me to take

1:11

care of them by any means. They've done

1:13

all right for themselves. God bless them.

1:15

But sure, there's something that I

1:17

would like to get my dad for sure just because I feel

1:19

like he would have fun in that car because he drives an SUV

1:22

for work every day. So does that come in the form of like

1:24

you just want your business to grow? Yeah, I

1:26

just want the business to grow and so being just an army

1:28

of one and not having maybe what we

1:30

all have. Facebook and Instagram video content

1:32

about you being a real estate agent.

1:35

People struggle, all of you struggle producing content

1:37

because you think you have to have something

1:39

to say. And

1:42

my point is if you just

1:44

tell me what happened, that's

1:47

more than enough on the delta

1:49

of not doing anything at all. What

1:51

I need to get people to understand is most people

1:53

say, well, my life is boring and I have nothing

1:55

to say and they just don't put out content. And

1:58

I'm just like. If you first video

2:00

of every day was about the nationals or the

2:03

capitals or the wizards, you will get business. Because

2:06

I promise you, if you made fucking Jets content and

2:08

I saw it, I'd buy my house from you. It's

2:11

how I make decisions. It's

2:15

better than not. But

2:18

I love how quickly you responded.

2:20

It's a very important moment. Just

2:22

so you know, 99.999% of everybody who's

2:25

ever heard anything from me decided not is

2:27

better than the wizards thing. So

2:30

the answer is more volume. But

2:32

the part that everyone's struggling with is

2:34

nobody's, it's all insecurities. Nobody's listening. I

2:37

only got two likes. It doesn't look good. Is

2:39

anybody listening to this? Everybody quits. Everybody gets hyped

2:41

when I hype them like this. Then they do

2:43

it for four days, a week, a

2:45

month. Nothing happens. They're like, fuck that.

2:47

Did you look carefully at the 2009 and 2010 tweets? How

2:50

much engagement they had? Versus

2:53

now? Yeah. Did you or not? Oh

2:56

no. You know that some of those tweets only had two likes and a share?

2:59

I didn't, yes. People

3:02

forget what my 2009 and 2010 looked like. Everybody

3:09

starts with only one like. Here's the tactical part. You

3:11

put a ton of content, eventually something kind of goes

3:14

viral and you spend a fuck load of money against

3:16

it because people prove that they gave a fuck. This

3:19

is actually a

3:21

stunningly easy answer and

3:26

outrageously difficult for small businesses to

3:28

execute. Number one, pay

3:30

$18 an hour. Let's

3:33

go block by block. If

3:35

I bought into

3:37

your business and now we were partners and we started tomorrow and

3:39

you're like, all right, here we are. 9

3:42

a.m. Monday, right? You'd say this is our biggest

3:44

problem. I'd say, okay, who are

3:46

our competitors and or similar businesses

3:48

to us even if they didn't do the

3:50

same exact thing? Doctors, offices versus dermatologists,

3:53

dentists, whatever, right? And

3:56

how do we figure out, and I'm being dead serious right now.

3:58

How do we figure out, like I used to go. to

4:00

liquor stores as a

4:02

customer. And if I thought somebody had

4:04

any level of hustle or charisma,

4:07

I took no, I didn't try, I always,

4:09

it's funny, I would go to see it.

4:11

I never would poach somebody in it, because

4:13

that for some reason was my line of

4:15

disrespectful. But then I would always come back

4:17

to my store and ask my sales people who

4:20

were part of the industry to get me that person's

4:22

number, or do you know this person? You

4:25

could call, read

4:27

Yelp reviews, you could figure out

4:29

who they are and literally just pay them

4:31

more. When I hear I wanna grow,

4:33

create abundance for my family, but not

4:36

always be there, that means you

4:38

have to hire people. Like

4:40

if you don't wanna be there and you

4:42

wanna be home, or you wanna at least

4:44

be able to mentally relax on a Friday

4:46

afternoon, well then, you need to pay 18, not 14.

4:50

People create these arbitrary numbers, well, sales

4:52

people in the Sugar Land area, they

4:54

get this commit, like, why?

4:58

Do you know why people are charging 30% for

5:01

back-end kind of infrastructure on technology?

5:04

Because Apple decided 30% was the

5:06

rake they were

5:08

gonna take for the app store, and that became the

5:10

standard. And had they decided 27, bless you, Reid, or

5:13

33, or something else, that's what everybody

5:16

would do. My senior executive team was

5:18

like, but this is what's going on in the industry. I'm like, that has nothing to do

5:20

with Vayner. There's places where we have to

5:22

overpay, and there's places we should

5:24

not pay anything because we're Vayner. You

5:26

have to play in the reality. So the first thing that

5:29

comes to mind is you'll get better people if you pay

5:31

18, and if you

5:33

run the math and you can afford that, there's

5:35

something funny that happens. You may make a

5:37

little less profit in the next six months,

5:40

but if you have better people, you'll probably make more profit in

5:43

2020 and have more

5:45

time for yourself. Number two, then you get

5:47

into retention, and retention's really completely

5:49

predicated on communication. You

5:53

have to be willing to. My dad would never talk

5:55

to his employees because he didn't want them to ask

5:57

him for a raise. It's real.

6:03

And so that worked for nobody. He

6:06

might have extracted a little less cost for

6:08

six or nine months, but

6:11

then he had to deal with the ramifications of people

6:13

leaving, right? I

6:15

think it's communication. If

6:17

you're trying to reach B2B

6:20

people, you

6:22

run ads on LinkedIn for employees of those

6:25

B2B organizations, so they pass on that content

6:27

and that content is strictly for B2B. On

6:30

B2C, when you run Instagram story ads with

6:32

swipe up to your landing page, you run

6:34

them. What's crazy is it's funny.

6:37

This is back to and versus or. Because you

6:39

come from a TV back, this is like back

6:41

to like me literally on a plane being like,

6:43

wait a minute, I'll hire somebody, then I'll feel

6:45

bad if I let him down. Like strategy's

6:48

crazy. You're literally one thought away

6:50

from changing everything and you can't even see what's in

6:52

front of you. You're asking

6:54

an or question when the answer's an

6:57

and. It's a both. TV

6:59

was tough. You had to pick one commercial. This is

7:01

why you guys overthought the shit out of it. That's

7:03

why you tested the fuck out of it because once

7:05

you had it, whatever the fuck you were

7:07

doing, it was running on remnant

7:09

late night and you were at the mercy of

7:11

how good it was. So why Proactive got so

7:14

big, because they had call centers and they really

7:16

ran data and they were doing a bunch of

7:18

different commercials and they're like that, but

7:20

you didn't do that, right? You like did your shoot,

7:23

you fucking did your best and you

7:25

fuck it right. You

7:27

called action, that was it. That's right.

7:29

The content was the same. But on

7:31

social, you just run 58 pieces of

7:34

content because it doesn't

7:36

cost you a lot to make the content and

7:38

you just see what actually converts. Facebook is not

7:40

your foundational page. Got it. It's the content. It's

7:42

the content. Gotcha. You know, like

7:44

I don't care if you have a single, like

7:46

if somebody said, Gary, but I'm embarrassed, I have,

7:49

hey, Matt Higgins, I don't have

7:51

a single follower on Instagram. I'm like,

7:53

cool, just run ads. Your Facebook page

7:55

is not your foundational page. was

8:00

foundational for people maybe six, seven years ago

8:02

when the organic reach was so bonkers, but

8:04

that went away. So even if you have

8:06

two million followers on Facebook, it's not

8:09

your, I'm getting a 20th of the

8:11

organic reach I got two years ago from Facebook,

8:13

even though I have 15% more

8:16

followers on it because they killed organic reach

8:18

to put more ads into the funnel. Got

8:21

it? So Facebook, so basically,

8:24

they used to call them dark posts,

8:27

right? Basically, you're just running ads on

8:29

Facebook and Instagram, but you're driving them

8:31

to your mobile optimized landing

8:34

page, right? Don't forget you're in a mobile

8:36

world now. A lot of people, if they've

8:38

been around for a little bit, they've maximized

8:40

the desktop, but when you land

8:42

on a mobile device, which is where Facebook and Instagram

8:44

is gonna be consumed, got it? Yeah.

8:51

The vulnerabilities you create on the judgment of the

8:53

people you're trying to sell to, right?

8:56

Pfizer awarded VaynerMedia a

8:58

three million dollar piece of

9:00

business four years ago, but then a

9:02

board member saw me cursing in a YouTube video and

9:05

killed the deal. You said that

9:07

you were a Patriots fan and I no longer wanted to be

9:09

your friend. Like when you put

9:11

yourself out there, you deal with the ramifications

9:13

of the end consumer or the B2B consumer

9:16

judgment. Some struggle

9:18

with the judgment of just the human aspect,

9:20

but on the business side, you will win

9:22

and will lose business because there

9:24

are plenty of people, like I like your energy, but I

9:26

know your energy. There's a lot of people that wouldn't like

9:29

it. You know

9:31

your life. I love what I do. The end. And

9:34

I think what will work for you based on

9:36

my quick read is you probably realize it's a

9:38

net, net game, right? If

9:40

you have 17 people that love it and 13

9:42

people that hate it, you're a plus four. Versus

9:45

a zero. Yeah. Yeah. Look,

9:48

you're talking to somebody who's first 20

9:50

years of his career, I couldn't sell

9:52

wine on the internet to the state

9:54

of Texas. you

10:00

sleep in the bed that you choose. The

10:04

end. Like

10:06

you're in that industry. The good news is nobody else

10:08

can do it too. Right?

10:11

So you have to lay in that bed. Like

10:13

we work with Chase, we work with Diageo,

10:15

I have a cannabis agency, like they don't

10:17

take Facebook and Instagram ads. That's

10:21

what I do. Right? So

10:24

you just live in the reality. What I would say

10:26

though is knowing a lot of these rules and regulations

10:28

because of the clients I have, there's a lot of

10:30

lawyers that are lazy as fuck and

10:32

would rather just say to you something basic

10:34

without actually pushing it. Could you put those

10:36

things in your profile and then not have

10:38

to put it on every piece of content?

10:41

It depends on the interpretation of the lawyer. Got

10:43

it? So like where I get

10:45

upset for people in regulated industries is

10:48

they have lazy legal advice that

10:50

is so conservative because they just don't even

10:52

want to deal with shit. Right? Because

10:54

that's how you maximize your money if you're a lawyer. And

10:57

so it's your job to push. You

11:03

know, you have to take the temperature of your company. I remember when

11:06

Smith and Wesson, the gun company, came

11:08

to us, I decided to pass on it because I just didn't

11:10

feel the culture at Vayner would accept us

11:12

taking a gun climate client

11:15

during nine months after the

11:17

school shooting in Connecticut. You know, even the

11:19

money was huge. You

11:22

know, Steve Ross, the owner of this stadium and

11:24

the Dolphins, when I decided I wanted to take

11:26

cannabis company clients, I knew that the NFL and

11:28

cannabis just was gonna take some time and so

11:30

I had to make an investment in another company.

11:35

Yeah, I mean, then there's other

11:37

times where the liberal nature of my company

11:40

goes the other way. I remember when we

11:42

wanted to work with a gas company,

11:44

we assigned somebody who I love very much, I'd

11:46

actually like them to come back into our world,

11:48

doesn't work at Vayner right now, he came

11:50

to me and said, I'm not gonna work

11:53

on this brand. And

11:55

I don't think a lot of people are gonna work on it. And

11:58

I punched him in his fucking face, verbally. You

12:00

know, because I was like, well

12:02

then why, then let's not work with Pepsi because

12:05

sugar's bad too. And as a matter of fact,

12:07

let's not work with Calvin Klein because textiles are

12:09

the second worst contributor to the environment. I'm like,

12:11

fuck you with your liberal bullshit. Like, I'm

12:14

outrageously socially liberal. I was passed on Smith

12:17

and Wesson. I passed on other things. But

12:19

then there becomes a line where you're just

12:21

getting into foo-foo fucking New York, LA, Europe

12:24

shit. And that's when I get pissed. And

12:26

so like, and by the way, that's what my job

12:28

as the CEO is. So every

12:31

company, this is the best part about a

12:33

CEO, everything right and everything wrong is unbelievably

12:35

tied to her or him, right? And so

12:37

I make those judgment calls all the time.

12:40

If you put out a daily show

12:42

about the trials and tribulations at

12:49

your dealership and you put it

12:51

on Facebook and YouTube, your business would

12:54

explode. Now, nobody's gonna give a

12:56

fuck for a year. So for a

12:58

year, you're gonna put some real money in, but

13:00

it's a hell of a lot better than the bullshit advertising

13:03

you're doing now in the paper and billboards and radio, if

13:05

you're doing that, and amortize

13:07

it over time. But it will work because

13:09

you've got one, you know right

13:11

now that you have one employee that's a

13:13

real character and that becomes your fucking, you

13:15

know, Fonz. I really

13:18

want somebody to do that because it's really

13:20

gonna work. Let's do it. And

13:23

what you can do, let me tell you

13:25

how I would direct it or produce it. So

13:27

now you got Caleb, he's just filming all day.

13:29

Funny things are happening. Fuck you, Charlie, like you

13:31

guys speak, whatever you make. But what

13:34

Caleb does better than DRock or

13:36

better than anybody who's ever filmed

13:38

me is he will ask

13:41

me questions while we're

13:43

filming. He just did it on the back of

13:45

the cab now about how I post on Instagram.

13:48

And I think you should do that. I think you should film the show

13:51

and then stop and go to the Parts

13:53

and Service team and start

13:55

a segment in each episode called How

13:58

Not to Come Here. Let me

14:00

explain. If you have a segment

14:02

that's two minutes long in every episode, so

14:04

think about it, it's almost like it's a

14:06

show, but then it stops, and

14:08

there's now an information piece in the middle of it where

14:12

the people that do parts and service for you

14:15

tell the viewers at home how not to

14:17

come to the auto body shop because the amount

14:19

of people that come to parts and services

14:22

when they could have done something very simple at home,

14:24

but they're like me and have no, when

14:26

I tell you I have no fucking idea,

14:28

I'd rather throw my car into garbage than

14:31

figure out how to fix it. And

14:33

I'm talking about two minutes. If you're like change the spark plug, I'm

14:35

like I'm gonna leave it on the road and go buy another

14:37

car. Like literally there's a lot of

14:39

people like that. If you

14:41

had a segment, the amount of trust

14:45

that your organization would get, it's what I did with Wine Library

14:47

TV. I literally told people to

14:49

not buy wine we sold, and

14:51

I did it like emphatically. I'm

14:54

like this shit sucks. Right?

14:57

If you did that, it would change your

14:59

business. And then you'd be able to chop out that little

15:01

piece and do it as a separate one minute video on

15:03

Instagram. You see where I'm going? And that's what Linz will

15:05

go into a little bit, but that's how I would produce

15:07

it. And

15:09

then you can strip the audio and have a

15:11

podcast for no cost. Now that

15:13

looks like it paid for. Get

15:15

it? Two PS forrob. Go have

15:18

the