- Hey Gary, quick advice for the Hispanic community.
- The same fuckin' advice I give everybody else.
Hard work, patience, bring value, patience,
hard work, bring value, patience,
hard work, bring value.
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You're talking to somebody who had 90% open rates,
and 68% click to cart rates in 1997.
That doesn't exist anymore.
But you know what else doesn't exist anymore?
Getting fuckin' 50% of your Facebook page to see something
with your organic reach.
Or so, I think it's a very viable option,
but I do think that email, thank you,
email is a mature platform,
which means it's going through mature things.
Which is it will continue
to subtly decline in the macro, but it's not dead.
People love dead.
Prints not dead, it's overpriced.
And my big thing with email is
it's not my favorite thing to be,
I only like to be one dimensional
when that thing is the hottest and best thing of the moment.
I'd much rather be one dimensional social,
and when I say one dimensional on social
I mean really good at it,
and really good at social and only social
than I'd like to be really good and only email.
And then eventually when social's not the hottest thing,
then I won't wanna be that,
I'll wanna be only one dimensional in voice,
or VR or blockchain, or whatever, text, got it?
That's the answer.
I make pretend that my parents died.
- Say that again.
- I know it's a little weird,
it's actually the truth.
I don't know if it works for everybody,
but I recalibrate my perspective
if I'm frustrated in the micro,
and say if this was great, and I bought the Jets,
and I'm Time man of the year,
and I invest in the next Facebook,
but I got a phone call that my parents were going to Miami
and the plane crashed and they died,
how would I feel?
Horrible, worst ever, fuck everything.
Makes me not worry about losing the client.
It's because I don't think I'm building an agency.
I'm building a human infrastructure
to scale all my ambitions and wants and needs
in the next chapter of this mission.
I have a 150 million dollar company in revenue,
and highly profitable,
and it's not even the business I'm building.
My plan is to wait for the economy to collapse,
and buy underpriced assets that were over-leveraged,
and then run them through the IP that I've been creating.
- Legit.
It's like banking on the economy collapsing?
- I am.
- In like what, 10 years?
- Whether it's tomorrow, or whether it's 31 years from now,
I'll be ready.
- Crazy.
- So I thought that my super power
after meeting super men and super women
was oh, I'm better at this one thing than everybody,
ah fuck, the way to really scale that is humans.
Thank God I love humans and I'm good at HR,
and the vulnerability you have in that
is actually mitigated by who I am.
Let me build it.
My ability to push awareness around a disease,
to sell a sneaker,
to make you the governor of Texas
in a decade is gonna be uncomfortably large.
- Right on man.
- And I'm almost like,
a lot of superheroes comic books
start with the doctor by accident
doing it on themselves,
that's literally what I'm doing.
I've deployed my thesis on myself
to create brand awareness, aka fame.
- [Man] Seems like it's working.
- It's absolutely working.
What's that?
- [Woman] Did you wanna be famous?
- Not necessarily.
The answer is no.
I wanna be right about my thesis,
and it's the collateral of that.
If I wanted to be famous,
I wouldn't have been a wine merchant, right?
My behavior proves that I didn't.
I would've went to Hollywood.
I was 34 years old before I made a single piece of content.
You know what I mean?
No I don't wanna be famous.
- It's like baked into you though right?
- What's baked in to me is I like people.
What's baked into me is I'm charismatic.
What's baked into me is I have gift for gab.
I'm creative,
like I got it.
But it's not my agenda,
the machine and the strategy of creating,
I am far, and I mean far more fulfilled
that I'm the person that created me,
not that I'm me.
Because it proves my thesis's.
It's also why I'm such a hard core practitioner.
Do you know how good it feels
to sit amongst people that are doing
and know you're doing
and you know what you're talking about.
You know how hard it is for fearless leaders,
and sales or CEOs, or whatever it is
to actually still be practitioners?
You know how many people get an inch of success
and then wanna sell how to be successful?
I don't sell that.
People sometimes elude to me doing it.
I don't do that.
There's nothing for sale.
You're not giving me money.
I'm actually the reverse,
I'm giving the best shit away for free.
I think both.
But a personal brand will always outpace a business.
- [Man] So I need to start with one,
because of course I have a Facebook page
which has got a lot of followers.
So if I need to make another one,
then I start from zero again.
- Your Facebook page is probably at zero as well.
Because even though you have followers,
not a lot of them are seeing the content.
- [Man] Yeah they see my,
it's at my personal name,
so Instagram and Twitter and so on,
it's only my Facebook is my company Eficado.
But I changed it in my own name.
- Yep, understood.
- [Man] So I just now know,
because I hire again,
and the person I hire says okay I work for Eficado,
which is my company,
but at the moment I don't use a brand anymore
because I'm focusing on my name.
So I'm now struggling, what should I do?
- There's no right answer.
I think if you have the bandwidth and the capital
you build up both
because you're building up brand
during underpriced attention.
I don't think Facebook is underpriced attention anymore.
I think Facebook is appropriate priced attention,
and if you're the best at it,
and you can do long tail Facebook, it's incredible.
- [Man] And would you also do it on Instagram, both?
Because now I'm only using it personally on Instagram.
- I think so, because there's things your business can do
that you don't wanna do.
- [Man] Yeah, of course.
- A business can throw more right hooks.
A business, when you want,
by the way, when you get burnt out for a month maybe,
a business can continue.
So I think both if you can.
Osmosis.
I'm not crippled if they're off a little bit.
- [Man] You're not expecting them
to be like you, basically.
- I prefer it, I think I'm right about what I'm saying.
I'm just not crippled by them being a little bit off.
Not a lot off.
- [Man] So if I was an employee, you can't really control.
- Media I want to be more on, because they're math.
Creative, I don't wanna over-impose my will.
I'll let them lose.
As long as I feel like we're a better deal
for the customer that's paying us than the alternative,
then I can put my head on the pillow.
But I'm okay if the company is an 84 to my 100.
Because I think if they spend two million dollars
on somebody else they'd get a 39, got it?
You hunt.
And the way you hunt is you network.
Have you gone to your phone
and texted every single person
that's in your address book
and asked them do you have anybody
that needs marketing services?
My business is young.
Whether you met them once and put your phone in,
or whether it's your best friend from four years ago,
I'm sure you haven't.
'Cause nobody does that.
But that's the ghetto shit you have to do
when you're at your point.
You hunt, right?
You need customers.
- [Man] I mean, yeah.
- You have a phone book with address,
both of you have it.
You just, like everybody, me included,
it feels uncomfortable sometimes to ask.
- [Man] It's just not everybody in my phone
can really afford.
- No no no, you didn't hear what I said.
I didn't say do you,
I said do you know anybody.
This is where I'm very fascinated
by the way I give advice,
versus the way it's consumed.
Words matter.
Notice how I said,
notice how you, this is very interesting.
Notice how the subtlety
of you asking everybody on your phone,
do they know anybody who needs marketing services
means that you can hit up everybody.
But when you thought I said to you asking them,
it made you say no for a lot of people.
I'm in the business of yes.
And so everything I do gives me a chance for yes.
By me changing the little subtle word
that you might have not heard 'cause it was loud,
or your brain heard it a different way
of you hitting up everybody on your phone
and asking do you know anybody who needs marketing services,
my agency is young and I need customers.
Versus you hitting up somebody
and saying do you have money?
Now you didn't ask them for money.
You asked them for a referral,
which means you can ask everyone.
By making it about them, not about you.
You have 20 people, sit down with all 20.
When you get home,
let me give you something very tangible.
When you get home,
I want you two, you guys are partners you said?
I want you two to take every single employee out
for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
- That's happening tomorrow actually,
we're planning our whole team tomorrow.
- Love, love.
When you get back home,
I want you to sit down with them individually.
I want you to have 20 meetings
that are an hour and a half,
and I want you to start the meeting with
we are building a big company for the long term,
we need you to be here in five years for that to happen.
If you actually thing all 20 are great.
Even if you don't,
you have a different conversation, ready?
This is our company.
I think this guy's great.
I sit down and say bro, I need you,
we're building something real.
What do you want?
Are you motivated by challenges, money, title?
Don't be scared,
we don't have it all to give to you right now,
but I need to know you.
And by the way, in four years,
you may fall in love and get married
and start a family,
and then it might change.
But right now, the way you're living,
what are you about?
What are you about?
And then you go to the next person,
and the next person,
and by the way, you go to this person
and you're not as pumped about them
and say hey, Karen,
I feel like, so we're building a real thing here
and we wanna have dinner, we wanna talk to you,
couple things.
We'd love for you to be here,
as you probably know, like we know,
it's not perfect right now.
We control this company,
what are we not doing well
that isn't allowing you to be pumped or on fire?
100% accountability, and 100% about them
is how you build a big thing long term,
that's all I know.
I don't know anything else.
It absolutely works.
Firing them.
After I take on respon,
- [Man] Exactly like you then.
- But, so we call VaynerMedia the honey empire.
The Honey Empire, so firing is empire,
you gotta build the business.
But honey's first, honey over vinegar.
So how do I deal with it in the macro?
Firing them.
In the micro, before I get to that,
taking on full accountability for their non-success
like I told them,
and seeing if I can fix it.
And if they don't,
it takes two to tango, it's my company.
Like if they're not willing to help me
make it better for them,
then I'm willing to move on.
We fire very slow, but very comfortably.
'Cause we've exhausted,
and we've gone radical candor.
We've gone optimism and honey,
then it's not working, we go into,
then it's the reverse,
Claude, our chief hard officer
tomorrow has a difficult conversation.
We've tried extreme honey on somebody,
tomorrow's gonna be radical candor,
this is not gonna work.
- [Woman] What's been the thing that you look for
when you're hiring people?
- Kindness.
- [Woman] That's nice.
- I think so.
I think skills are commoditized, I really do.
I do.
And I don't wanna underestimate craft,
but shit can be taught.
It is much easier to teach somebody a skill
than to rewire their childhood.
The end consumer.
All of you.
My mentor, and my inspiration, and my oxygen
is the collect of everyone.
That's why I don't know a lot of shit
about things that people think I know.
I mean I had Tillman Fertitta today on my podcast,
who has a multi-billion, owns the fucking Rockets,
owns like all these fuckin' restaurant brands,
I knew nothing.
I'm interviewing like I interview you right now.
I know of him.
Because I know of, because I live in the world,
but I never go deep,
'cause it's not gonna inspire me or tell me anything.
Your actions, that's why I'm always so good at what I do,
I see it first because I'm in it.
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