- On this episode, we talk about landing pages,
Nintendo, and shitty social media experts.
Ew.
(hip hop music)
You ask questions, and I answer them.
This is The #AskGaryVee Show.
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
and this is episode 106 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
Alright guys, get back to work, relax.
You didn't have to go so quiet, geez.
Alright India, let's get into the show.
- [India] This first one's from David.
- Oh, they really got back into it.
I'm shocked.
- [Voiceover] David asks, "If you were going to be on TV,
"and you could only promote one platform to be followed on,
"which one would it be?"
- David, tremendous question.
The answer would be, I would reverse engineer
the audience of the show.
One of the biggest reasons I think
that I've had success as a communicator
is I'm not religious about what I have to say
at that moment.
I'm religious about, what does the audience
on the other side need or want to hear
if I was them, using the empathy radar.
And so, if I'm at USC, I'm gonna throw on
a guru shirt as a hahaha and really just jam on
how do I bring them value?
Like, if I really took an entrepreneur class,
like let me prove to you that you shouldn't
be in that class, go and be an entrepreneur, right?
If I'm on TV and I'm on CNN or FOX
or CNBC, I need to hit the masses.
That's gonna be a, ya know, it's gonna be everybody
but 35 to 75, so I would answer Facebook
in that environment 'cause it's gonna reach
the most potential people, but if I'm on
the youngest skewing show I can think of,
I don't know, some sort of show that's targetting
15 to 20 year old's, though they're not
watching TV any more, but let's say,
ya know, if I was at a YouTube show talking,
then I would probably drive Snapchat as the one platform,
probably Instagram actually, if I'm gonna fully,
fully answer that, probably Instagram.
So, to me, I'm answering you and one of
the interesting things is I really got into
the community this weekend.
The kids were playing around in the backyard.
I had a lot of pockets to kinda check out my phone.
I engaged a little bit, big shoutout to a lot of you.
A lot of you saw me jumping into your Facebook comments.
It was interesting to see how people
were analyzing the show and I wanna say that,
to me listening, I wanna say,
if you just watched the way I answered that question,
I'm trying to bring as much value
across the board to everybody.
I answered the question, it's Facebook, it's Snapchat,
but I also want people to understand,
it's reverse engineering the audience
that's listening in every environment.
In every interview with Inc. Magazine,
in every TV show, in every, "I'm in Ireland,"
you know, I'm in the middle America.
You know, if I'm in Alabama, I curse a little less
'cause cursing's not as great in the Bible Belt.
But if I'm in Brooklyn and you know,
to 16-year-old's, I'm gonna bring it.
So, you know, that's that.
- [Voiceover] Chris asks, "Do you think that the Nintendo
"NX running on Android would be a bit bizarre?
"Feels like Nintendo might not want to invest
"so heavily in home consoles any more."
- Thanks Mike.
Chris, great question.
Sorry to randomly jump into your question and answer it,
but that's what we do on The #AskGaryVee Show.
You know, I don't think, first of all,
Nintendo should be concerned
and should not bet on just being
a home console because there's no such thing any more.
That's like being a TV provider
and only caring about the TV set
in a world where this is the number one device
in our society and so, I would argue,
it's about time, Nintendo.
Where have you been for the last 48 months, Mario?
Because you've been wasting your time away
as other people have been jumping and this should be,
no Angry Birds, that should have been
princess from Zelda, but no,
Nintendo was slow and old,
and to Nintendo's credit, once a playing card company
in the way back, uh huh, little history lesson
for the kids, Nintendo needs to pivot again
and start acting 2016, 17.
So, if they're betting on being a home console
or holding on like, oh, there's still
a place for home consoles,
they're completely out of their goddamn mind
'cause everything's going on over the top
of a television set and so, to me,
it's not like weird.
Shouldn't they be worried about that?
It's weird, where the hell have you been?
- [Voiceover] Paul asks, "Do you recommend
"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
"who specialize in social media never have
"a clear cut social media brand except tweeting links?"
- Matthew, Matthew...
Matthew Roth, thank you so much for asking
this question to the world, that I just jumped into
and rode into the show.
I agree 1,000%, I'm flabbergasted.
As somebody who wrote a book called
The Thank You Economy, that talked about engagement,
and all the social media, this was 2011, where I was
definitely supply-and-demand-wise at the top
of a pyramid of social media experts,
I'd like to think I still am, but I like separating myself
by actually putting in the work.
It was stunning to me how many people were like,
"Gary Vee, that was the best book, you're so right,
"you're so right," and I jump in, look,
they never replied to anybody.
Like all they do is go around and just share links
trying to build up, literally,
want to talk about not understanding the game that matters.
Literally their behavior was caring about
how many followers they had.
You want to talk about an action I will never care about,
it's how many top-line potential awareness I have.
Width, I care about the depth.
I care about the 24 people that jumped on
this last week and watched 40 episodes
and really care and really intrigue and see some value.
That's what I care about, it's about depth.
24, 24 people, that's how much I get excited about it
in a world where people wanna, I'm gonna get to
10,000, I'm gonna get to 100,000.
A lot of social media professionals
share a crap-load of content because
it gets re-tweeted and that's how they get followers,
not recognizing, what is that behavior towards?
I mean, just to remind the market,
I was you know, what I did by speaking about the future,
social media, duh, duh, duh, was that it allowed me
to build a business. Allowed me to build a foundation
off that thought leadership.
And it was a clear-cut plan, right, it wasn't like
super like, oh, how did we get here, oh weird,
how did we get here.
No, it wasn't any of that.
It was understanding that my behavior had a map,
what I wanted to happen, and by the way,
even this in itself in five years when you watch something
that I put out will make sense that this wasn't even
the end goal, the end goal is not to build a
hundred million dollar a year agency.
And so, I think the reason they suck,
is 'cause they suck.
I think the reason that a lot of social media professionals
suck is because I think a lot of real estate agents
and a lot of SEO experts and a lot of like,
whatever's hot let me jump on it,
people jumped on social media because
nobody knew what the hell it was.
And there's a lot of players who jump ahead of things
that nobody understands and tries to collect
fast nickels and pennies during that indecisive gray period
instead of looking for the long dollars,
or the long Benjamins as P. Diddy and B.I.G.,
may he rest in peace, Staphon, used to say.
And Lil' Kim, I like the way she used to say it.
You're a big Lil' Kim fan, India.
- Sure, yeah.
- Tell me what you feel when you hear the word Lil' Kim.
- Lil' Kim, I don't know.
- Like Queen Bee, like--
- Yeah, yeah, like the Yas Queen, yeah.
- Yeah, good.
(laughter)
- I'm more a Lisa Left Eye girl.
- Oh, Left Eye.
- Doc has been on the show with--
- Doc Sheldon?
I was giving my little, that was my,
that was a little left eye.
Doc Sheldon?
- Isn't on the show but this is a
really good question. - [Gary] I love Doc.
He's been pounding me, Doc, I apologize.
I know I have to answer something for you,
I'm like insane in the membrane on my email.
Like, worst all-time, like I'm so humbled by the,
I'm getting 500 emails a second hurts your left eye.
- [Voiceover] Doc Sheldon asks, "If you could instantly
"trade one of your weaknesses for one of your strengths,
"which two would you trade?"
- This is one of the great questions ever.
This is really good, and I don't wanna like,
I don't wanna, I'm scared to screw this up,
which is probably why I'm giving it some thought.
So, DRock, Staphon, find some Jeopardy-like music
that doesn't get me sued as I ponder this
and talk this out.
A strength into a weakness,
what am I really strong at that I don't
think is so needed?
God, I love myself so much that
I don't want to change anything.
This is why I'm struggling with this.
This talks about the level of happiness I have.
What's a weakness that I can't, God, I really...
So first and foremost, the answer to the question is
there's no absolute here.
This is more like 80, 20, where maybe I would
switch it from an 80, 20 to a 20, 80.
That's one of the first reactions I have.
There's nothing I'd be, there's no strength
I wanna give up...
So fast.
You know at some level...
(laughter)
Yeah, like you know, I'm a little combative
in meetings at times with clients where,
like I love competition so much,
I would say being competitive is probably
as big of a deal as it is, but I would say that
my competition, competitive gene goes five to seven percent
too far, I would give up five to seven percent of it
because it's insane, like you know,
I mean you guys know how I play basketball.
Like I really am mad, like I wanna hurt people,
like I wanna hurt people's feelings in meetings.
(competitive banter)
I literally, like in meetings will turn red,
my eyes will turn red when somebody says something
that I think is really disrespectful to my company,
and literally try to historically clown them in the meeting
so that forever their contemporaries at that table,
I literally want to say things that the other people
at the table on their side tell to their grandchildren.
Like, "Oh, I was once in this meeting with
"this Gary Vaynerchuk guy and said that
"Rick was a douche bag boss, he said fuck you."
You know like I'm very into that.
I wanna like end the debate in the room
at that time, whereas I could've done it afterwards,
I could've done it a little more politically correct.
But if I get to that rogue tilt place emotionally
in a business meeting, even maybe the first time
we ever meet, I let my competitive juices,
I can feel it, it's like that Incredible Hulk type stuff.
Like I can feel like, oh crap, I'm about to destroy
this person's soul.
So that's one thing that I would
give back five to seven percent.
On a weakness that I'd like have more of a strength on,
I'd like to remember people's names better.
Actually that's very easy.
I spend an enormous amount of time
in our HR software trying to make sure
I know everybody's names.
And then the answer really is,
I have to listen a little bit better
in the initial meeting.
Like I'm like, hey, I'm Gary.
You need to say, "Hi, I'm India."
- My name's India.
- But like when she says hey she's India,
I'm not listening.
I'm already on to like oh, hey, I'm Gary.
- I'm Staphon.
- Alright I didn't listen, right.
So like not listening when people say hello
is a weakness because if I actually listen,
I'll have a 50% chance of remembering their name.
It's crazy, I will remember everything.
I'm very visual, like I can never get lost,
I'm killer on directions.
I will bring up stuff that happened between us
like 15 years from now, you'll be like, "What?"
If I see it, it's on.
But if I hear it, it's on, but I need to listen
in the first place to remember your name.
So remembering names is something I'm passionately
upset with myself about, like, Doc, you could see,
I knew Sheldon right away.
Visually I know his profile side face, like hair, glasses,
like I know exactly who he is,
but names I struggle with.
That's everything, cool.
Question of the day, what is your favorite
all-time Nintendo game?
Favorite all-time Nintendo game.
Andrew, favorite all-time Nintendo game?
Give it to 'em.
Show me, show me, show me.
- Hang time, NBA Hangtime.
- Just the worst on camera.
(laughter)
Dude, you're just the worst.
He's just the worst.
Just the worst.
You keep asking questions,
I'll keep answering them.
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