- Now today we're gonna be discussing the three pillars of
success with a very special guest.
Someone that I've worked with before
at a couple of our events.
He's really changed the game in so many different industries.
I won't try and introduce you myself but
Gary welcome to the show.
- Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- So Gary, you've got a really interesting background.
I think obviously moving into the U.S.
The baseball cards, the Wine Library.
Perhaps for some of the people that aren't familiar with
yourself, can you give an intro?
- You know, it's fun.
Right now, I'm very much known as a marketing guy,
a social media guy but the truth is at the end the day and it's
why I really wanted to do
this today is I'm a sales guy, right?
I mean from the age of five with lemonade and I mean
five lemonade stand franchise, really doing sales.
To the core of my adolescence which was be a poor student but
sell pencils and erasers and bubblegum and then ultimately
because I'm a 41-year-old male and baseball cards were a huge
phenomenon in America, I was selling baseball cards at
12, 13, 14, 15 and making thousands of dollars
a weekend selling baseball cards but it was sales.
- Right.
- It was sales and then my dad saved all
his money as a Russian immigrant.
You mentioned I wasn't born in the U.S.
and bought a small liquor store in Springfield,
New Jersey and my late teens, early 20s
were about hand selling wine.
You know you come in for Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio and
I'm gonna try to sell you the Pinot Grigio we make more money
on that we think is better.
So that has been the constant.
I actually think branding and marketing is sales.
It's just top of the funnel work.
We were just talking about that before camera.
The book, the new TV show I'm doing,
it's all sales at the end of day and so I'm an entrepreneur
for everybody who's watching.
Built a very large e-commerce wine business in the late '90s,
early 2000's called WineLibrary.com.
And then saw the world changing.
Was using email marketing, Google AdWords,
banner retargeting and then ultimately YouTube as sales and
marketing funnels for my wine store.
YouTube sells for $2 billion, 1.7 to Google.
I think this is a big change
in the world, the internet.
I decide that my skill of understanding consumers
can make me more money in
my quest by the New York Jets which is my
ultimate business ambition.
And I decide to become an investor.
My first three investments were
Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
I did very well and then I decided seven years ago to take
a step back and build a sales and marketing machine and that
became VaynerMedia which I started with my brother AJ
7 1/2 years ago, almost eight years ago.
And over the last six years we've grown from
30 to 700 employees
to $130 million agency.
Full service, media buying, creative,
production, planning all that work.
And and in January of this year I created a holding company
called Vayner X with my acquisition of PureWow,
a female modern media company and so now
we have publishing arm and the agency.
And at the end of the day, all of it,
one way or the other, gets into the sales world.
- Right.
And clearly the investments that you've made in those different
companies, what you're doing with VaynerMedia,
disrupting the whole media industry in general the whole
sales world and buying world is being completely disrupted.
Number one, from a technology point of view there's clearly so
many technologies out there.
But then also, number two, around the actual mindset of
that buyer and of that salesperson.
People don't want to be sold to.
I've always found it really interesting
you create all this content.
You put it out there for free.
And a lot of people kind of question that.
They go, "Why would you do that for free?"
But I'm a strong believer you need to give these insights out
for free and ultimately build that connection.
So for any sales professionals watching,
where would you advise that they start in terms of creating their
own content or sharing their content?
Adding their own context as well?
- Before I go directly into the tactics of should you make a
video, should you do a written blog post or should you do a
podcast, I think the bigger thing is and,
I think you get this as well, is you have to reverse engineer who
you're trying to get to.
You know if you're a salesperson out there right now,
if you trying to get to me and so many of you are.
I get 50, 70 bulk emails, bulk direct messages,
bulk Twitter direct messages, Instagram,
business cards, all sorts of weird stuff sent in the mail,
I'm busy. - Right.
- I'm busy and like I'm just not interested in you selling to me
not because I don't like you, 'cause I respect the game.
It's because I'm just busy.
It's nothing personal.
So I think the first thing you have to do
is reverse engineer the person.
You know because I'm not in the market to buy anything,
I'm gonna be tougher.
But if I need certain software or if I need something,
that's a good time to attack. - [Tim] Right.
- So I think the number one rule of salespeople is to listen.
Know your audience.
Know what they did if you see an M&A just happen,
if you see layoffs just happening,
if you see one of their comp, if I see Burger King doing
something, I'm thinking what is McDonald's think of this.
- [Tim] Right. - So that's number one.
Number two, where are they spending time.
I'm easy to sell to if you realize that I'm spending time
on social networks but I'm not gonna want you to spam me in my
direct message with a link and no context.
You should be producing content for me to see it in my feed.
I think to answer question directly everybody as a
salesperson has to figure out how to they best communicate.
Is it written word? Is it audio? Is a video?
Is it in person?
And how do you use the digital world in audio,
written or video form to create the gateway drug to in person?
One thing that people are very confused by me is I don't even
do phone call sales calls. - Mhmmm.
- I need to see you face-to-face.
I'm supposed be this digital guy and I need to see you.
I use digital and I use all my content on YouTube,
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn,
Medium as gateway drugs to this. - Mhmmm.
- So I think anybody who's a salesperson whether entre,
if you're an entrepreneur or startup and you're not producing
content at scale, podcast, video blog,
blog posts, random Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube clips then you're losing.
That is unacceptable in 2016.
That is losing DNA.
If you are not producing content for social networks and the
mobile device and the platforms on it,--
- [Tim] Right. - you basically don't exist.
- Sometimes a lot of people may try a new initiative and then
they don't give immediate reaction and
they think it's a failure. - [Gary] That's right.
- And I want to go back to your YouTube videos
with the Wine Library,
you know, you had so much content out there,
how did you stick in there?
How did you keep yourself motivated?
- Because I believe in my strategies and
I'm patient as shit.
All great stuff, especially when you're innovating,
doesn't happen right away.
This notion that like, "Oh Gary I tried it.
"I spent 500 bucks on Facebook ads.
"It doesn't work."
Well, what if your video sucked?
What if your product and service sucks?
I tend to do things that are very early.
That has been my career.
When I do things I believe in them.
I stick with them based on intuition.
Even though for 18 months nobody watched my wine videos at all,
I knew it was right. I was right.
There's been things I've done that
I jumped off a very quickly.
I started the GaryVee app, VeeChat.
V-E-E like WeChat, I thought it was funny,
for my fans.
Great CRM one-on-one.
Didn't feel right after a week or two.
Spent plenty of money building it.
Knew, stopped it stopped after, you know,
couple months.
Wine Library TV, five years, every day YouTube.
Decided to change it to Daily Grape.
Insular app, you could buy stuff.
Subscription for reviews.
It was a lot of fun.
Only did it for five months.
Stopped it 'cause it didn't feel right any more.
- Okay.
- It's always hard to know when to jump off something new.
But I find that people don't believe in what they're doing.
They here a guru and they do it
begrudgingly because their boss
wants then to or they're like,
"Well, Gary's right a lot. So let me do it,"
but they don't believe it and so then they jump.
They're looking for no's instead of yeses.
Everything I do, every business development,
every event I do, every time I try a new marketing tactic or
sales tactic, I'm looking for the yes.
- Right.
- I'm looking for the yes and if the no punches me,
well then I'm like crap. The no punched me.
I believe the majority of people when they try new tactics are
looking for the no. - [Tim] Mhmmm.
- And you're gonna get a lot of subtle noes immediately.
- [Tim] Right.
- And so, I think that's why that happens.
- And you mentioned a guru.
I know you met up with Tony Robbins,
the other day.
He also did that great Netflix documentary,
"I Am Not Your Guru." - [Gary] Yes.
- Other than the fact that he cursed and you were extremely
grateful for that, it was really interesting just hearing the
dialogue between the two of you because again,
to your point, people look at these gurus or thought leaders
and then maybe try something and then just go,
"It doesn't work," and then blame you for it.
- Yeah, I mean, honestly, like I don't even.
The good news for me is I'm not selling my audience anything so
I have very, very good vibes
with my community because when
you're not selling them anything it's really easy.
You don't get really blamed. - [Tim] Mhmmm.
- They may have a judgment call on your stuff
doesn't work and that's fine.
I think that a lot of people that are watching this right now
don't have the talent to achieve what they want to achieve.
- [Tim] Mhmmm.
- Know how many people I've met that wanted to be great
salespeople and I can, you know, if you're a salesperson,
you can smell other salespeople.
You know it's like dogs sniffing each other.
It's not super confusing to me and I'm like you're not gonna be
a salesman or shit you're gonna be a great salesman.
- [Tim] Mhmmm.
- Being a thought leader or having a personal brand or doing
the self-promotion or this and that,
it's part of my world but it's really something I spend very
little time thinking about, I'm an operator.
The GaryVee thing is my side hustle.
- [Tim] Right.
- I'm running a very large organization and company.
I'm very empathetic and I try to be very frank with my audience.
I have a piece of content that's really on the verge of huge
virality where I spoke to a 22-year-old on my #AskGaryVee
Show the other day for like 20 minutes.
Really dug in with her.
She was really great and it was
very real and the reality is is that
a stunning amount of people behind that camera right now are
not gonna be successful in sales 'cause they're not willing to
work hard enough. - Mhmmm.
- They love the automation.
They love your product. - Right.
- You guys do great. They love all these tools.
The problem is if you have the greatest hammer and the greatest
screwdriver and the greatest wrench,
the greatest in front of you. - [Tim] Mhmmm.
- If you don't use them properly,
you will lose. - [Tim] Right.
- If there's a nail that I have to put in the ground but I take
the wrench and I hit it when the hammer was right there,
it still comes down to the practitioner.
- Mhmmm.
- And you have to be good at your craft
and you have to love...
If you don't love sales, if you don't love it,
you have no chance 'cause it's so hard.
It's so painful.
There's so much rejection. - [Tim] Right.
- So those are the things I think about.
So technology clear enabler as you've just said.
- [Gary] Yes.
- The person is equally important--
- [Gary] More important.
- Right and going back to-- - More important.
I apologize for jumping in but let me
make it perfectly straight.
If I go play Roger Federer right now in tennis and I have the
greatest tennis racket ever made.
Like taken from the Mars' new like resources.
- [Tim] Right.
- And he took a John McEnroe 1974 tennis racket,
he would whip my ass.
I'm crushing salespeople that have every Salesforce,
every one of your competitors, 37 features,
upgraded, went to every pro conference,
watching this.
I will beat their ass in sales every day of the week.
- [Tim] Right. - Pure talent.
- Right. So Gary, look, we're nearly up on time.
Would love any closing thoughts from you for
sales professionals, whether at a startup,
at an enterprise.
What should they go out and do today, tomorrow?
- I look at sales very differently
than the far majority.
I think way too many salespeople are inpatient.
I think way too many salespeople are transactional.
I think way too many salespeople are lowest common denominator.
Spam, blast LinkedIn, email bulk,
business card, business card, business card.
So I think I've got a different tactic on sales.
- Mhmmm.
- But don't get it twisted, it's what I am.
If you're not happy with your upside,
if you are not fully fulfilled.
I think a lot of what you heard from me today,
I'm doing things were reverse of you.
I think a lot of you are doing things that are directly in
front of you.
Numbers that they put in front of you,
you're trying to achieve that because you have a beach house
you want to buy or go on that vacation.
Sales is a funny game if you work in a big company.
They manipulate numbers to create your actions.
I believe that the best salespeople are doing things in
a different way.
I think you need to care about the customer for real,
reverse engineer them and give them what they need and so
I have a funny feeling that for 87.9%,
arbitrary number, that 87.9% of the people watching right now,
I'm a better salesperson than you because I'm the
anti-salesperson and I think that's the best salesperson.
Think about that.
Think about how you give yourself air cover to not do
behavior that is short-term.
Please understand that the world has changed and the attention of
the person you're trying to get to is
moving into different places.
And this big one.
Stop complaining.
Salespeople aren't allowed to complain.
The market is the market.
Your bosses are your bosses.
A great salesperson shuts their mouth and she goes to work every
day and tries to bring value to the end-user and is patient and
over time wins the marathon of sales.
Put yourself in that position.
("Unbreakable" by Ben Katz)