[00:00:00] Hala Taha: What's up, young improfiters? Welcome to the show. We've got an exciting conversation in store for you all. We are live at VaynerMedia offices. I have the honor and privilege of interviewing one of my all time favorite entrepreneurs, one of my role models as a marketer, Gary Vaynerchuk. And we are going to talk all about his come up story.

We're going to talk about how to become a successful entrepreneur, how to do what you love. And we're gonna get into his new book, Day Trading for Attention. It's literally a masterclass on social media marketing and advertising. I can't wait to share this conversation with you all. Let's get into it.

Gary, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:00:50] Gary Vee: Thanks for having me. 

[00:00:51] Hala Taha: I'm so excited. You know, you have been one of my inspirations as a marketing expert, as an entrepreneur. I've been listening to your advice for a long time, and one of the things that I really respect about you is that you're always giving consistent, productive, positive advice, very different from other leaders out there.

You really spend time with the underdogs, with the small dogs. And so my first question to you is, why is being humble and having humility so important to you? And why do you spend so much time teaching young entrepreneurs? 

[00:01:20] Gary Vee: That's very sweet. Thank you. Well, why is it important to me? First of all, I would say that I got very fortunate.

I think it's in me if I'm analyzing at 48 years old. It was in my DNA, and then it was reinforced at scale by the person that probably gave me the DNA, my mom. And it's interesting. I appreciate you saying that. I think as I'm getting older, people are seeing it in the action. Cause you know, I'm an interesting communicator, I'm competitive, I'm Jersey, I curse, and I think early in my career, I was very empathetic that like, humble wouldn't be like what people first saw, but I'm very proud that as a leader in my career, the actions, like for you it's easy as somebody watches carefully enough.

It's something I'm very proud of. And there's much that goes into it. Why is it important to me? I think it's an incredible trait. I think it's a very attractive trait. And I also think it's a very strong competitive advantage. I think humility protects you from delusion. It protects you from getting high in your own supply.

And it just protects you from a lot of things that I think are yucky for people that win. I enjoy being liked more by the people that actually know me than the ones that don't. And there are many people that we all put on a pedestal that are living the reverse life. It is in my essence. The reason I give back so much is I never want to get away from the kid in the dirt.

I know where I came from. It's important to me. I'm aware that we live in a world now where I will literally say something on this podcast For sure, because I'm confident in that, that's my confidence, that it's going to have a positive impact on someone in a real way, like actually. And that is incredibly fulfilling, it gets me high, and um, I'm so hardwired to understand why wouldn't I?

I'm very empathetic to why I wouldn't and why others don't. I'll give you an example. I have a friend, she believes leaving the home looking pristine is like the most important thing in the world. And, you know, is there a mix of insecurity there? Sure, but like, in her soul, like I know her well enough, it's like, no, no, this is important.

I don't know if I'm taking a minute to get ready and go out. Everyone's allowed to have things that are religious to them. Right? 

That are their North Stars. For me, being a nice person and providing back to the game. That put me on is everything, you know, it's everything to me.

Entrepreneurship as a framework, especially for kids that came from the dirt is what That was the game that allowed me to have my life. I must contribute to that game at all costs. And that's that. 

[00:03:58] Hala Taha: Amazing. Well that's super powerful and I know that me and you actually have a lot in common. We both have marketing agencies, both entrepreneurs, both have podcasts, both bullish on LinkedIn, both grew up in New Jersey.

[00:04:11] Gary Vee: What part of New Jersey? 

[00:04:12] Hala Taha: Uh, Wachung, New Jersey. 

[00:04:13] Gary Vee: Oh, I know it very well. 

[00:04:14] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

[00:04:14] Gary Vee: The Wachung, New Jersey. Mall, the Toys R Us and the Wadshug Mall was like a very substantial spot for me in 1992 and 3 when I would pick up toys and flip them at flea markets. 

[00:04:24] Hala Taha: At Blue Star Mall. That's what he's talking about. 

[00:04:27] Gary Vee: Was there a Caldor there as well?

[00:04:28] Hala Taha: Yep. Back in the day. 

[00:04:30] Gary Vee: Anyway, sorry, go ahead. 

[00:04:30] Hala Taha: Yeah, so we're both from Jersey. Now, I'm nowhere near as successful as you yet. Yet. Right? So, there's 500 million entrepreneurs. I'm just one of them. How did you reach the top of entrepreneurship? How are you so successful? Why are you an outlier when it comes to the other 500 million entrepreneurs out there?

[00:04:49] Gary Vee: My perception of it is it's similar to the iconic people in other merit based worlds. Sports, music, and entertainment. I think what's cool about business is you can't hide. What I love about sports is You can say you're good at it, but you have to actually play one on one basketball, and if you lose 11 0 to your buddy that you said you're good at it, you're not good at it.

Same with business. You know this. I grew up in an era where entrepreneurship was not cool. You're growing up in an era where it went completely the other way. Everybody is. And everybody says they are. But are they? You know, I'm a rapper, but am I? And so, couple things, one, I think because there's more entrepreneurs than ever, but they're not really entrepreneurs, they're aspiring entrepreneurs, they have entrepreneurial tendencies, and so it seems like there's a lot more.

That's one. So to your point, the base is bigger. When I was a kid, the word didn't even exist. When I was 13, 16, 19, I'm like, I'm going to be a businessman. 

That would be the only word I would use, I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was. As a matter of fact, the first time I even remember hearing the word, it kind of seemed You were a loser actually.

You said you were an entrepreneur, but you were living on the beach and your parents, like it had a really negative, and then it went like completely the other way. So that's one. Two, back to sports and music, Beyonce was born with her voice and her swag and her talents. Now she put in ungodly amounts of work as a child to today.

LeBron, as a child, I think where I really lucked out is I put in a work as a child in a world almost nobody was doing what I was doing at the time. When I tell you I punted school, I don't believe that people will believe me when I say this. Mm hmm. 

But I know that the Adam Blums and the Garrett Van Fleets and the Pam Moseses and the Robin Martzes and the Robbie Turnicks that grew up with me know this to be true.

In high school, I did not do one homework assignment in all four years. Not one. Not only that, somewhere around, I believe, sophomore year, but it might even been second half of freshman year, I, for four years of high school, did not open a book once. I did not hand in one book report, and I guessed on my Scantron all four years, A, B, C, D, E, all four.

I got zeros on tests, I was 243 in class rank, I had a 1. 6 something GPA, and I got a D in speech. I went so to the extreme, even today, where entrepreneurship's allowed, we're like a 14 year old entrepreneur now, we're like, yo, you got it, you're the next Zuckerberg, right? And we champion them. Even those kids aren't 100 percent entrepreneur and completely punch school.

It's very rare. So I think the reason I stood out was I put in way more work than everybody and had natural talent. And that's really the answer. 

[00:07:42] Hala Taha: Yeah. And so, I'm the same. I was always selling things as a young kid, leading things as a young kid, inventing things. I was naturally an entrepreneur. I dropped out of college to become an entrepreneur.

So it was very natural to me. For people who don't take risks naturally, who aren't naturally creative, do you think they're cut out for entrepreneurship? 

[00:08:03] Gary Vee: No. It's different. But risk is the requirement. Because you're naturally risking from the second you start. You are saying, I am good enough to stand on my own two feet.

And I will either succeed in all of your faces, or I will fail in front of all your faces. And the majority of human beings on earth do not have the stomach to fail in front of everyone's faces. One of the other ways I could have answered your last question is because I'm not scared to lose. Why did I achieve a lot?

Because I wasn't scared. There's many things I was scared to do. I don't want to jump out of a plane. So I'm not a good plane jumper. But like, when it comes to entrepreneurship, my giving a fuck about people's judgment on my failures is zero. And it's been zero for so long that it's so ingrained in me that And if you can't deal with judgment, and if you can't deal with taking a step back, you know how humility works?

Do you know what it feels like? You're going through a very interesting journey and so a lot of entrepreneurs right now, one of the worst feelings in the world is to make a lot less money professionally than you used to because you once taste the alternative. Never making 100, 000 a year and living 70, 000 a year and being happy is one of the great lives of all time.

Getting up to 400, 000 a year, but then having whatever happened, that job loss, side hustle loss, and going to 180, 000? Ooh, that's tough. Flying first class and then never being able to afford it, and now sitting middle seat coach. That fucks with people's psyches, not me. What are you going to say to me that's going to make me value your opinion in a world where I know you've got a lot of things not going well, too?

[00:09:38] Hala Taha: Okay, so sticking on this being a successful entrepreneur, I know something that you talk about often is doing what you love and how it's so important as an entrepreneur to actually do what you love or you're going to burn out. Correct. So talk to us about that and how VaynerMedia is doing what you love.

[00:09:54] Gary Vee: I love that. That's a great question. Doing what you love and also having the capacity to be comfortable with discomfort and being patient in eating shit is a very interesting enigma and I appreciate the way you asked the question because it's going to allow me to double click into it. The reason VaynerMedia and VaynerX, the holding co, is me doing what I love, it's because I'm willing to eat the crow in building this infrastructure to be the foundation of all my other future behavior.

So is VaynerMedia my full Nirvana moment? It is not. But I like it. I love operating. It sounds like you'll resonate with this. When you're a real purebred entrepreneur, You're happy selling anything. 

[00:10:37] Hala Taha: Yeah, it's fun. 

[00:10:39] Gary Vee: Like, I'll sell sneakers. 

[00:10:40] Hala Taha: My favorite thing to do is sell. 

[00:10:41] Gary Vee: That's right. I also have the capacity to be strategic, make less money, be uncomfortable.

I worked at my dad's liquor store until I was 34 years old. I need every kid to hear this. I worked in my father's liquor store until I was 34 years old. So I had patience. In one side, the reason I did it was, I was so thankful and grateful to my parents for bringing me to America, changing the course of my life, and I love them, and we're very close in age.

My parents were 22 and 20 when they had me, so we're like, borderline friends, and like, it's the best. I believed that I was going to be a great entrepreneur, and I somehow had the wisdom at 22 years old to say, you know what, I'm going to go in here and build something huge for my parents, and then I'll have time to bounce out and go do it for myself.

That was the greatest decision I ever made, but fuck it was hard. 

Like, you know what I mean? 

[00:11:32] Hala Taha: Yeah, a lot of people end up resenting their parents if they push them towards anything that's in the family business. But you were grateful, right? 

[00:11:39] Gary Vee: I ran I 

No, my parents, honestly, they were agnostic. It was weird.

By the time I was 16, it was pretty clear to both my parents that I was good. The reason I love my parents is they didn't go weirdo on me and try to turn me into like a slave. Right? It kind of just was. We were all just kind of moving. You know? It was very immigrant. Yeah. We're just like, you know, you're doing what you have to do.

And I walked into it. I was like, I'm going to come and wreck house. And literally took shoppers at Skellickers and built Wine Library, one of the biggest Wine retailers in the country and everybody from watching went to wine library. It was awesome and It was really a great chapter, but fuck, I'd be lying to everyone if I didn't say I'm unstoppable with judgment.

But I promise you, five years after college, at 27, when I'm working the floor, helping people select wine during Christmas, and some of my buddies that I grew up with now are in Wall Street and driving into our parking lot in their BMW, and they're buying a case of Dom Perignon, and I'm carrying it out to their car and putting it into their trunk, and I see the way they're looking at me, like, Uh, man, and I know I'm gonna fucking be bigger than everyone, holding your breath is fucking hard.

And I'm fucking unstoppable. So if it even registered to me, normal person, with their relationship with judgment, fuck that was hard. And the bigger thing that was hard was my dad was not paying me that much money. And I was building a huge company. And then I started forming, I think calling it resentment would be too much, but I started having feelings.

The business went from 4 million to 60 million, and I'm still making 80, 000 a year. I would have been better off going anywhere. I would have been making millions. But again, I was making my own bed. The reason it was cool was I knew I chose to do it. Just like I chose to leave. And start VaynerMedia. 

[00:13:24] Hala Taha: Makes a lot of sense.

Okay. One more question on entrepreneurship, because I want to spend most of the time on your new book, and this one is about mental health. So I feel it's going to become a hot trend where entrepreneurs are going to start focusing more on mental health. As I'm doing my podcast, I feel like more people are talking about it.

And I read that entrepreneurs spend 73 percent less time with their friends and family. 49 percent of entrepreneurs have some sort of mental health issue, anxiety, ADD, Things like that. So, my question to you is for all the entrepreneurs out there, or people who want to be entrepreneurs, what's your advice to make sure that we're taking care of our mental health and our relationships?

[00:14:05] Gary Vee: I mean, I've been pretty consistent on this. Long before I think we've gotten more thoughtful about the mental health aspect. I will never, to the day I die, understand why anyone would choose anything over being happy. I think people think money will cover up the scars and make you happy. I believe that people that don't have money believe that money is happiness and that if they buy a BMW or get an attractive husband or wife or have three homes or have a seven carat ring or a a private chef, that that will unlock the happiness.

I have lived a life where I came from the dirt, and now live a life where I see all the tippy top 1%, and I can promise you, and one day you'll find out if you don't believe me, that money does not buy happiness. It creates convenience. It creates opportunity to do things, but I'm talking about happiness.

So what is my recommendation? Fuck around and find out. That's my recommendation. If you do not believe me or the other people that spit it, who've lived it, the reason people burn out is because they choose money, not entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship without the money is the game. You and I weren't picking money when we're selling candy in school.

We're just like living our life. 

[00:15:19] Hala Taha: Inventing. 

[00:15:20] Gary Vee: Yeah, people were gravitating towards trumpet. People were gravitating towards Spanish class. I didn't read a business book in second grade to open up a lemonade stand. My mom didn't tell me to do that. It was the light. It was all I knew. It was my hard wiring.

And that's why this fake entrepreneurship era is tough. Because a lot of them are making a bad name for the game. That like entrepreneurship fucked with my mental health. It's because you fucking were trying to use it to cover up your issues. Therapy should have been what you were doing, not entrepreneurship.

Yeah. You know, I've never said that before and I appreciate your reaction. Like that's actually the truth. People thought the money could cover it up. The money accelerates it. Money exposes you. It doesn't change you. So what would I say? I would say what I've been saying my whole life. Even my first book, Coming Out the Gate, my message.

Even you said it earlier, like, it was crush it, cash in on your passion. Everybody who's listening right now, think about the thing you would do 24 7 if you really could. What is your play? What is your downtime? What is your leisure? What's your favorite? Golf? Cooking? Music? Skiing? Travel? If you can spend your 20s trying to make a career in that, you will win.

If you go and try to be practical and be an accountant because your dad said so, or you think it's cool and be an entrepreneur when deep down you know you don't have the stomach for it, you will lose. And so I think the reason that people are struggling is that they're not in their right path. 

[00:16:45] Hala Taha: But what about the entrepreneurs that are doing really good, but they're obsessed with being an entrepreneur, and they're spending so much time on their business that they ignore their relationships?

[00:16:55] Gary Vee: It means that they may not value their relationships as much as they want to say they are. You know, a lot of people like to talk shit without going to the third level. Gary, but you don't get it. I'm not spending enough time with my boyfriend. I'm like, maybe you don't like your boyfriend, because I promise you if you're obsessed with your boyfriend and your business, you'll make the time.

Actions over words. We become very wordy. We're really fucking wordy. And this is not just Gen Z or Millennials. Boomers are wordy as fuck on Facebook. Humans have become incredibly wordy because there's somewhere to put your words. Social media has allowed us to talk, and most people talk straight bullshit.

Gary, you don't get it. I miss my kids. Go see your kids. People are not accountable. People like to posture for optics, but have a different reality. Because if you actually mean it, you would do it. 

[00:17:46] Hala Taha: Yeah, be honest about it, you know, be honest about your priorities. 

[00:17:49] Gary Vee: I think people just are getting really good at looking for pity.

I'm gonna struggle to cry for someone who is actively fully in control as an entrepreneur, who's crying about it. And now someone's gonna be listening and say, but I have a job. I'm stuck. No, you're not. You could sell your home. You could pay rent at a smaller apartment. You could sell your car and take public transportation.

Many people did for many generations. We've just gotten so entitled and are looking for easy. Do you know how many people complain about money and buy Starbucks and take Ubers and go to Coachella? If you're complaining about money, save it. 

 Well, let's move on to some of the marketing and tech stuff.

[00:18:38] Hala Taha: I want to talk about your day trading attention, New Bucks. Yes. So, you've been on the cusp and the cutting edge of a lot of things. You were on the internet doing e commerce before it was hot with Wine Library. You were one of the first pioneers on YouTube. So how can you tell when things are going to get hot?

[00:18:53] Gary Vee: You know how there's like good A& Rs in music? Like how'd you know Lady Gaga was going to be big? Whoever discovered her, he or she was just had a knack for it. Usually that knack is because you know how people are going to feel. So, I have a very good feeling of what the general public likes and doesn't like.

But also, I put in the work. Back to what we were talking about earlier. When I jumped on YouTube in February of 2006 and went all in, I spent most of the summer of 05 reading TechCrunch every blog post. And they would write about the new startups. If I hadn't put in that work, I would have never clicked on TechCrunch.

The articles that led me there. If I didn't work 15 hours a day building winelibrary. com sitting next to Eric Kastner, my developer, who probably was the one that said, read this TechCrunch article. Because three years earlier I asked him, can I put wine videos on the website? How much would that cost? And after he told me like a billion dollars to host them, because it was old back then.

He was like, you're probably going to like this because it's free. I'm like, it's free? And so, I'm good at human psychology. I'll give you a real interesting one that you might find interesting since you're such a young buck. back in 2007, when I was yelling about Twitter, almost everyone would say to me, this is so stupid.

Who cares that you're walking the dog? Who cares if you're eating pizza? And my answer was everyone. And people were like brainfucked with that. They're like, what do you mean? Now that must seem mundane to all you youngsters. Everybody shares everything about everything. Back then, nobody shared anything about anything.

So, you know, I think human psychology helps me. Why did I understand Musical. ly? Because I understood that when it was only 14 year old girls, it was still putting in content in front of them based on content they liked, not based on following someone. I saw that in Tumblr when I was an early investor in Tumblr, and I knew why Tumblr was winning.

It wasn't the social graph, people. It was the interest graph, what are you into? And I always thought that was more powerful because Dustin and I could have been best friends in junior high, but then by high school if our interests changed, right, we all lived through junior high and high school, high school and college, college and post life.

We all saw, you know, one or two or three people stay forever. A lot of times it's just because they've been there for so long and you just got war stories together. It's not even like you are into the same shit anymore. But the natural human flight is you do change friends based on interest, times in life.

And so that made more sense to me. So it's the skill of human psychology. It's the putting in the work. I wake up in the morning and I look at the app store and then I play with things. If I think Reclip is interesting, I download and play with it. And right now the only ones that are playing with Reclip are Gen Alpha.

It's like me? I'm a nine year old. And so like, I put in the work, I stay curious, I watch, and then there's always moments where there's a tipping point. And I've been pretty good, Dustin's filming me in the back, for all the people that really follow me. Obviously DRock is doing his own thing, and I always have different people filming.

Dustin's now really been locked in with me for a little while, and he's been here five, six. So he's now seen a cycle, and here's what I mean where I'm about to go next, if we're getting very marketing nerdy. He was here when Be Real was starting to get hot. He was in the meetings filming me when I was like, ah, I think it's a feature.

Now it's not him reading about it. Everyone who's listening right now on podcasts, me talking about it. No, no. He lived it. So he can see. There is a skill set to being good at it, not just throwing against the wall and see what sticks. And so, you know, I'm excited about this skill. I focus on it very heavily.

For example, the cliche question people ask me all the time is, Okay, so what's next? I don't know. But the second I see it, I go all in, I taste it. And whether that was vine, where it did mean something, but then it sold quickly. Or it was social cam, or Vero, or all these other things. Peach. Was a big one for a week back in 2014.

I'm very focused on paying attention, putting in the work, saying maybe. You know what fucks everyone up? I say no. TikTok, no. And I always say maybe. With a hope to yes. I say maybe with a hope to yes in a world of people that say no. 

[00:22:50] Hala Taha: Yeah. Because you want to make sure you capitalize on it while there's still underpriced attention like you say in your book, right?

[00:22:56] Gary Vee: That's right. The thing that many people will definitely understand right now that are listening is if you did move on TikTok when I was yelling about it every day six years ago, that would have been good. And now that I think people have gone through a cycle, because I was big enough at that time, unlike ten years earlier, that enough people heard that.

Enough people didn't go, you know why? Insecurity. Everybody that could and go crush it was on Instagram and they didn't want to start over. Well, I got a million followers on Instagram, I have zero on TikTok, and people got caught. 

[00:23:24] Hala Taha: So talk to us about the supply and demand curve that happens on social platforms.

[00:23:29] Gary Vee: At first if they're meant to be big, the ones we all know, there's so much attention there but there's less content creators and so anybody that's posting is gonna get more of the percentage of the attention. As it becomes normalized, it gets harder to go viral or get as many people to see it. And then at some point, it becomes really challenging, kind of like the thing everyone's dealing with on Instagram right now.

Because so much attention got deviated to TikTok. Not that anybody on TikTok is only on TikTok and not on Instagram. Obviously, the very young may be that way, but most people aren't both. It's just that pre TikTok, it was four hours on Instagram for that person instead of two, because two is now on TikTok.

The problem is, at the same time that that went down from an attention standpoint, the amount of content that's being posted on Instagram is through the roof. So yesterday, more content on Instagram than any day prior in Instagram's history, yet the attention is now fragmented between YouTube Shorts, TikTok, by the way, streaming services, by the way, Twitch.

And so what ends up happening is there's only 24 hours a day. There's only so much attention, but there's more and more supply of content. So you have to know how to day trade it. Somebody who day trade stocks, you're buying a nanoseconds, whether it is the actual social media platform, buying ads on the platform, the influencers on the platform to do deals with or anything else in between and across all these platforms from LinkedIn to Pinterest, to Snapchat, to YouTube, to YouTube shorts, to Facebook, to reels, to Instagram.

And then the units inside. Do you post carousel? Do you post a video? Do you do a reel? Do you do a long form picture? Do you do a lot of copy? Do you do no copy? Do you do emoji? What time do you post? This is fucking science. And like talent, like if you're remarkably beautiful, that will probably work. If you're remarkably funny, that'll probably work.

For the most people, being good at it is the point of this book. This is the most textbook. That I've ever written. Like, I'm going going there. And, you know, I'm very proud of how well I've played all of the instruments. And I just want to try to help people get better at it. Because it is the game. 

[00:25:33] Hala Taha: I loved your book, by the way.

You guys gave me an advance copy, and I read it, and it was great. 

[00:25:38] Gary Vee: Can I reverse this on you for a second? 

[00:25:39] Hala Taha: Sure. 

[00:25:39] Gary Vee: So, You might be the first person, I'm really, or maybe the second, but I didn't get to ask them. Like, so obviously because of your success and your knowledge and your strengths, I kind of wrote this book for someone like you.

I'm curious what parts or what things or what hit for you. 

[00:25:53] Hala Taha: Well, it solidified things for me. So for example, I'm one of the biggest LinkedIn marketing experts. I teach a two day class. It's the most popular class. algorithm and that's why people hire me. So one of the things that's happening this year is that they're prioritizing interest relevancy over engagement probability.

It used to be that. You would post something motivational, something inspirational, if people shared it, you'd go viral. Now, it's all about posting a specific topic, educating people, and then LinkedIn will match users based on the things they like. The interest graph. 

Exactly. Can you go super deep on the interest graph?

Because I feel like this is the major trend happening with all social media sites. And that's what I, from your book, I was like, oh, he's right on the money. 

[00:26:34] Gary Vee: I told my brother that I thought Tumblr was going to be bigger than Facebook and Twitter. I went, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and my investing, those are the first three companies I invested in, in my life, out of a liquor store in New Jersey.

You can see I'm laughing at my, it's so improbable, like it's absurd. Comma, I thought Tumblr was going to be the biggest because of this conversation, it just took 15 years for it to happen. Again everybody, social media for the first decade plus. It was very simple. It was like email marketing. You would get as many people to follow you as possible, and then you would post, and a percentage of those people would see it.

That was the game. And that was easy for me to figure out because I did email marketing in 97, 98, 99 when that was new, and I was a big winner in that game. That was underpriced attention. I was competing against liquor stores that were making catalogs, but I was getting to the customer for free instead of how much a catalog costs.

And getting to them faster. It was huge. It was foundational. So I saw the same thing in social. So I amassed big followings. That was the focus. TikTokification of social media, like I talk about in the book. That interest graph algorithm is now going to eat up everything because it's better. It keeps you on the platform longer.

Let's use common sense. You go to your Facebook. You're now 27. You went on Facebook at 18. The people you followed are people you met like one night hooking up or at a random party or whatever. And now you're seeing posts of Them in Ohio with their aunt and you're like, I don't give a fuck but just like email We don't unsubscribe from our fucking list.

We just delete it or archive it We don't put in the work to clean up our shit. So you kept seeing shit. You didn't give a fuck about Which made you not spend four hours on it. It made you spend 14 minutes on your feed Then you go to tiktok and you're seeing unlimited shit that you fuck with and four hours later You're like what the fuck just happened?

That's good for tiktok. That was bad for facebook Now all of them are going to be like tiktok and every social network Is going to have the 4U page DNA in them for quite a while now. Maybe forever, because it's more humanly true. That's what I focus on, and that's why focus on your niche is about to fuck up everyone.

You're going to need to talk about more things than ever that are true to you Because you're going to need that content to find more different audiences for you to be as big as you want to be. 

[00:28:46] Hala Taha: Hmm, I was going to ask you does that mean riches are in the niches now because of the interest graph? But to your point if you've got multiple topics.

[00:28:53] Gary Vee: It's an and game. 

[00:28:55] Hala Taha: Got it. 

[00:28:55] Gary Vee: Think about how weird I am. The reason I know everybody from afar, especially in the game you're in, are like garage sale videos. My grid has been fucked up for 12 years. And it was like, make a good grid. It's gotta be on brand. I'm like, you fucking have no idea what you're talking about.

The grid is like 5 percent of the consumption, the feed is the whole game. So, you go to my fucking thing and you're like, who is this? Jets video, garage sale, keynote, board meeting. I'm confusing the shit out of people, because I don't care about the grid, I care about being as relevant to as many different people as humanly possible.

Let's talk about viral. I'm gonna use baseball, I know it's not as popular anymore, but it's the easiest one. Going viral is hitting a grand slam. Do you know anything about baseball? 

[00:29:41] Hala Taha: A little. I know. Enough. 

[00:29:42] Gary Vee: Enough to be dangerous. 

[00:29:43] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

[00:29:43] Gary Vee: You know what a strikeout is? 

[00:29:44] Hala Taha: Yes. 

[00:29:45] Gary Vee: Good. Most posts are a strikeout. 

[00:29:47] Hala Taha: Okay.

[00:29:48] Gary Vee: Right? Doesn't do what you want it to do. I'm in the business of singles and doubles and triples with the occasional home run and grand slam but could give a shit about hitting a grand slam. Or if you don't follow baseball everyone I'll, I won't use an analogy. I don't ever think about going viral. Ever.

I only think about making good content that is valuable to the people on the other side And that means that most of my stuff will consistently do solid. Occasionally do better than solid. And once in a while, go viral. I believe that most people suck at social media because they try to go viral on every post.

And when they don't, they cry to mommy. 

[00:30:23] Hala Taha: So you're more about posting as much as you can, hopefully they all do pretty good. 

[00:30:27] Gary Vee: And posting as much as you can is also based on self awareness. I start with, do I have something to say that can bring someone value? Again, I need everybody to hear this. That comes in all shapes and sizes.

I mean this, if you're funny, and you do a skit, like King Bach, that's value. You made somebody smile. And it's a fucked up world out there, and the feeds are fucking negative, and media's negative, and That little ha ha ha. If you're attractive, people like looking at attractive people. If you know something about LinkedIn, that's valuable to the people that want LinkedIn.

We all have value. If you know something about BMX, or wine, or sneaker, like, value, value, value. I think people have niched themselves in a corner. What happens if you know a lot about sneakers and you know a lot about bourbon? Post both. But I don't want to fuck, I gotta fucking, they all gonna. And then people are super insecure.

They almost never post because they don't think it's going to do well, as if that means anything. Okay, you normally get 5, 000 views on your video, and this one got 49. What is the matter with this? It's like we're treating our lives and social media like we're still in junior high. 

[00:31:30] Hala Taha: speaking of niches, let's talk about creating audiences, because like you just talked about, we can talk about multiple topics, we don't have to be scared about that, we can be a dynamic person on social media, which means we're going to be speaking to multiple audiences.

[00:31:43] Gary Vee: That's right. 

[00:31:43] Hala Taha: And you say we should develop cohorts with teats, so what do you mean by that? 

[00:31:47] Gary Vee: When I make content, sometimes I'm like, this piece of content that I'm going to make is going to hit 45 to 55 year old first time moms on the coasts. More New York, LA mentality. Then London, then Ohio, then Spain.

So if I know that I'm doing that, don't you think that my adjectives and analogies tone intent right? So I want everyone who's listening to start thinking about cohorts. Gary, what do you mean? I just do sneaker content. Okay, well there's a lot of different niches within sneaker content. There's people of high net worth, like myself, who can afford bougie fucking Nike Air Force One collaborations.

There's other people who just really like New Balance, the Reebok movement that I'm getting into as well. Like there's a lot going on Crocs. If you want to expand it a little bit. Do you know who you're making this video for? Because everyone's going to vanilla. I make content for entrepreneurs. I'm like, okay, knock yourself out.

Imagine how much better a piece of content is, is that, you know, that you're going to make, I'm going to make content for first generation Hispanic. Entrepreneurs that are 18 to 22 that came from immigrant parents that came from Mexico. I'm going to use analogies. I'm going to make reference to rigatone.

I'm going to talk about San Antonio culture. 

[00:33:01] Hala Taha: Use their slang and however they talk. 

[00:33:02] Gary Vee: 100%. It's called relevance, everyone. If you're not relevant to someone, the second I make a long tail barstool joke, every barstool dude is like, fuck, yeah. Like, it's not super complicated. And so, because everyone gets so boring and vanilla right away, people say to me all the time, they're like, it's a really funny thing that I fuck people up with, because I've been so consistent and growing and all this stuff.

But then like sometimes they'll be like, but Gary, you say the same shit. I'm like, what do you want me to make up stuff I don't believe in? And then, if they stick with me in that combo, they start to realize, ah, I say the same macro 15 things, but the way I say it differently, and how, and where, and what, and to whom, that's the game.

So, cohorts. These are consumer segmentations. In old television talk, it was, we're trying to reach the 18 to 35 year old demo. I like to think, and I know I'm looking at your crew a lot because I like doing that. I like to think everyone in here is at a point in their lives where they realize an 18 year old person and a 32 year old person, the same person, are very different.

But that was television. You didn't have the internet. Now that we have the internet, Everybody who's listening should be posting on Facebook. It's huge. Still, I'm getting 25, 30 year old audience on Facebook. Now they're on there like once in a blue moon compared to whatever, but you should be relevant to Facebook audience.

You should be relevant to tick tock audience, Snapchat's culture, slightly different than tick tocks and tick tocks. It's all different rooms out there and you want to be in every room. And so what I talk about in the book about cohorts is consumer segmentation. And the reason I say with teeth is. Adland, Don Draper, advertising, marketing agencies, the big brands that we work with.

The biggest brands in the world, they like to talk about consumer segmentation, but they have one. They're like, we're going to sell this beer to health seeking enthusiasts. They make it fucking broad as shit. Because they're going to make one commercial on television and health seeking, what they're basically telling you is.

Let's make a beer commercial where like the couple went to yoga and after had a beer. You see what they're doing? What I'm saying is if you want that beer to be relevant to a lot of people, you need to go deeper than that. It needs to be like young yoga moms in Kansas City. You're going to make a very different piece of fucking Facebook content or Instagram content than if you say professional moms in New York City who are their first child at 40.

And fuck with yoga. Can you imagine how different those two pieces gotta be? Yeah, very different. Well, that's called fucking cohorts with teeth. 

[00:35:26] Hala Taha: 

[00:35:34] Hala Taha: that was your first variable of your modern advertising framework, also the day trading attention framework, and then you lead into something called PAC, Platforms and Culture.

[00:35:43] Gary Vee: PAC is huge. 

[00:35:44] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

[00:35:44] Gary Vee: Platforms and Culture. If you take anything out of this interview and you want to crush social, you have to Obsessed with platforms and culture. Platforms are What are the platforms currently doing that they give a shit about? So when Facebook announces carousels, good news, they need to test it.

That means you should be making carousels because more people are going to see it organically, right? If the trends of the consumers on the platforms are people like skits, that's a platform and culture thing because you gotta always know what's going on in culture. Culture is pop culture. Do you know that baggy pants are back?

Because tight jeans were fucking crushing 7 years ago. Do you know that Crocs came back 5 years ago? Because 6 years ago they were dork bill USA, but 20 years ago they were killing it. Do you know what's going on with Aiden Ross and Sexy Red's controversy, or don't you? Do you know? pop culture, or don't you?

Because if you do know pop culture, you're able to create crazy relevance. Because you're able to integrate that into your copy or the creative itself. There's a few moments, there's three weeks to seven weeks there, where the corn kid is a social media obsession. Or that the Walgreens private label nice mango gummies are hot with Gen Alpha.

For a week. But if you're in the fucking gummy business, you should know that. Do you have a pulse of popular culture on everything? Because what's pop culture to maybe us, is definitely not pop culture to somebody that lives in Peru. Literally, I had a friend, literally, because I'm 48 now, so most of my friends are fucking finished.

And what I mean by that is like, deep pop culture. I literally had a friend, six months ago, text me, Yo, have you heard of this guy Bad Bunny? I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like, dude, please don't text anybody that. Like, you know what I mean? I literally took a screenshot of me DMing Bad Bunny in 2017 for him.

I'm like, yes, I've heard, like, you know, razzing him of like, he's Finnish and he's a fucking suburban dad. Do you know or don't you know? So culture matter is heavy for content because we're gonna have to be better than everybody else. And if you can interstitial pop culture, you will win. Like, do you know, it's a lavender latte at Starbucks for this season.

But notice what just happened? She like shook her head because that one hit for her. So imagine, if I want both of them to give a shit about me, I've got to do both those things, because I've got one second in feed for them to give a fuck. 

[00:38:06] Hala Taha: So, platforms and culture. To me, that's very point in time, right?

They're always changing, you've got to know what features are hot on the platform. You've got to know The algorithm. 

[00:38:16] Gary Vee: Day trading. 

[00:38:17] Hala Taha: You've got to know what's hot. 

[00:38:19] Gary Vee: Day trading. 

[00:38:19] Hala Taha: Then you have strategic organic content. 

[00:38:22] Gary Vee: Yes. 

[00:38:22] Hala Taha: And to me, that's more about understanding human behavior. 

[00:38:25] Gary Vee: Strategic organic content is the content that follows the PAC framework in my mind.

If you know those two things, then you make according to that, that is the outcome. That is the content. I'll give you an example. It sounds like, I haven't dug under the hood but I will after this interview, that you're doing real work in LinkedIn. So that means, most likely, that you want on the P part, the platform.

I know that because I also heard you talk about what the platform's doing. This is how you get way better. This is how I get way better every day. In the PAC framework, you could get to a place pretty quickly, six months, where you really know how the platform works. You've clearly done that on LinkedIn.

What? Is really cool for you to go to the stratosphere is if you actually knew what was in pop culture talk for literally sass salesmen. I know you're, this is gonna resonate with you. Like if you knew the fucking slang and the shit that every fortune 500 CFO cared about. Or every late stage VC CIO, now you're fuckin cookin 

Got it?

[00:39:26] Hala Taha: Yep. 

[00:39:26] Gary Vee: Because now it's not just, you know that this kind of content will work. Now you know even what the video or picture needs to do. Got it? Yeah. That's PAC. Okay. And then what we call SOC, Strategic Organic Content, is the framework. The reason I created SOC and we run it heavy here at Vayner is, organic content, meaning posting without media behind it, or amplifying it.

Is now the single most important thing in marketing in the world. It's the game. If I needed to put the S in front of it, because by making it strategic, I'm trying to make sure that everybody in my company and all my clients and anybody around me realizes I need you to think about this. That's what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes.

There's a lot of people listening right now that I can feel them right now as they're walking the dog on the treadmill. I can feel them saying, Ooh, there's a lot to this. No wonder my videos are not doing good. There's something to this. That's how I think about this. 

[00:40:18] Hala Taha: Yeah. I want to dig in on strategic organic content.

So one of the things that I want to write my first book on is human behavior online. Because I feel like if you understand human behavior, even if algorithms are changing, certain things don't change. You always want to see a face. You always want to have a hook. Everybody wants things shorter and skimmable, right?

So there's always things. 

[00:40:38] Gary Vee: That last one, the first two I liked a lot. The last one's an interesting one for me. 

[00:40:42] Hala Taha: I guess it depends on the platform and what the purpose is. 

[00:40:45] Gary Vee: And you'd be shocked. I mean, I promise you, we'll clip this in the future. There's gonna be seven minute videos on TikTok that crush in three years.

Crush. This goes back to a big thesis in the book. If it's good, you can do anything. If it is a wildly compelling 19 minute video, you can crush on Instagram, though it is very unlikely to be good enough to be able to do that. The reason I jumped in is, you're not wrong. I just wanted to add a curveball to everybody It's not universal.

People make unlimited 7 second videos that people stop watching after a half a second because it's a shitty 7 second video. And there's also incredible amounts of outliers, if you pay very close attention, of longer form video in social, a minute, two minute, three minute, four minute, that have a lot of validity, and honestly, for a lot of people listening, They might have just heard something that got them excited because in their gut, they're like, you know what?

I really can make epic 4 minute videos. I guess TikTok's not for me, but it is. There's a reason these platforms, back to P, have extended the length of their video time. 

[00:41:48] Hala Taha: What should we do when we have really good performing content? 

[00:41:51] Gary Vee: We should amplify it. If you can afford to spend media dollars after a piece of content went crazy, Then you should do that.

And if you're just a creator by yourself and you're like a kid, if you're listening right now and you're 16 and like you dunked on your little sister in the basketball room in your room and it has 3 million followers on TikTok and you have ambition to be known and you want to do something with it.

Don't let the algorithm be the only way you get reach. Google, how do I run ads on TikTok? Chat GPT, how do I run ads on TikTok? Read and learn how everything works. Or watch a video. And then you as a 16 year old, take your 40 bucks. And spend it on getting more people to see it. 

Yeah. Okay, so we Because the world has shown you that it's good.

[00:42:35] Hala Taha: Hmm. 

[00:42:35] Gary Vee: You're not guessing. You didn't dunk on your sister and then spend 40 up front. This is how all advertising works, as you know. We guess. Now we can live in a world where we can do it post spend media, not pre spend media. It's huge. 

[00:42:48] Hala Taha: So once we see something working, lean into it, invest in it, don't just invest in things that you haven't tested yet, basically.

[00:42:54] Gary Vee: Think about it. It's like working out. Like, if you see something's working and your physique is like, why would you stop and try to do something else and hope it works? Like, you've got it. Go. We have not figured it out because the way media had worked forever was you spent the money on something you were guessing on.

You thought the commercial would do well. You thought the billboard would go well. You thought your newspaper ad was good. You know what I mean? 

[00:43:12] Hala Taha: Yeah. So where does storytelling fit in with all of this? 

[00:43:16] Gary Vee: Like oxygen. Storytelling is omni. As you know, apparently it's not something I really touched on a whole lot.

Because it's oxygen. Life is storytelling. Everything's a story. I don't want to get super philosophical here, but everything, every person in the world, all 8 billion of us, Everything we believe in is a story, all of it. It's the whole game. The reason I don't really go into like storytelling all that much is my book on storytelling would be literally one page.

It's everything. The end. Meaning like, the reason you believe in anything you believe in is because you bought the story. 

[00:43:50] Hala Taha: So I think a good way to round this out would be to get a full example of somebody using the modern advertising framework. If you can just think of an example and walk folks through 

[00:44:00] Gary Vee: Mr. Beast, let me make it easy and lazy for everyone. Be perfect at one of the greatest platforms with attention. Thumbnail for a second, every beat at three or four minutes or whatever the science is there, copywriting, what time to post, language translation, crush, be consistent, eat shit for years to figure it out, then explode, then use that attention as a platform to build.

A absolute media empire and CPG empire and notice what does he goes and tests Twitter, right? I'm here and Twitter is gonna give me a trillion views I've never really fully crushed youtube because there's a lot of post production and i'm not living that life We've had better years and worse years, but that was a commitment.

I mean king batch I mentioned him but like vine comes out bring value. You can be funny make skits It was underpriced attention, him and Jerome Jarre and Logan Paul and all those characters, you know, Rudy, Juan Cuso, like, they're like literally in fucking, like, I mean, is anybody paying attention who's in these movies?

They were from Vine, right? They stole, I almost said stole. They didn't. They operated as a great marketer on that attention they built. I was there, so I'll tell you what they did. They took all that attention from Vine and most of them put it on Snap and became big Snap story people. And then boom, TikTok and Instagram kind of went to short form video, and they took it over there, and then to YouTube, and then to television, and then to film, right?

And it works hand in hand. Klix, the video game player, like, and all these streamers, I mean, streaming is such an opportunity. KaisaNet, and like, Aiden, and Klix, and Bugha, and like, all these, you know, like, there's really unlimited opportunities. Opportunities poppy soda prime energy drink ocean spray. I spoke about they didn't even do it opening of my book A random guy is drinking a fucking ocean spray with Fleetwood mac music in the background going down his skateboard longboard It goes viral on TikTok and it sells out of Ocean Spray around the country.

Like, this is marketing now. The era of television commercials is over. Outside of the Super Bowl, where it's very important, and I recommend anybody who's listening who's a Fortune 50, Fortune 500 company, to deeply consider the Super Bowl because it's very underpriced attention. I can run every wheel and cranny that I have.

And I can't spend 8 million to get 150 million Americans to watch a full 30 second video. Are you fucking kidding me? What Super Bowl does, people watch those Super Bowl commercials. The problem is if the video's not good, you've lost, right? We no longer live in a television commercial world. We now live in a social media advertising world.

And everything starts there. And then you can do marketing campaigns and billboards. Everybody's billboards. Every big company's billboards. Billboards. It should be imagery that was already proven out to be successful on social. That's a very different world for everybody who doesn't come from marketing.

It's the reverse. 

[00:46:55] Hala Taha: So, short question before we close this out. In terms of entrepreneurs and your marketing advertising framework, your day trading attention, how can they use this to compete with the big dogs, the Fortune 500 companies? 

[00:47:08] Gary Vee: It's the first time we can, because for the first time ever, the creative is the variable of the reach.

And that's marketing jargon, so let me say it again. For the first time ever, how good your picture or video is can lead to millions of people seeing it that never existed before. In the history of time, you'd have to be on television or on the biggest magazine or newspaper to ever get a million people in America or the world to know anything.

And you'd have to spend millions of dollars for that. Now every day, we all know every day that happens to somebody. Now what we've also learned is just because you go viral once doesn't mean you're going to be a billionaire. It usually means that you're going to have this moment that you refer to your whole life and you're actually actually be sad six months later because you weren't able to capitalize it.

That goes into being a real entrepreneur. For the first time ever, entrepreneurs, you have a fighting chance. Amber Chamberlain's coffee can compete with Folger's. Charlie D'Amelio's popcorn can compete. Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink is really competing. Mr. Beast's chocolate is really competing and they're the preview, not the anomaly.

I started a wine brand and sold it to Constellation for tens and tens of millions of dollars because I made organic content on the internet about wine and then started a wine brand. That will be a very normal occurrence for a long time. 

[00:48:23] Hala Taha: Well, Gary, this has been amazing. This has been a masterclass in day trading attention and social media marketing.

So I end my show with two questions I ask all my guests. What is one actionable thing our young improfiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:48:39] Gary Vee: The number one thing they can do is to be honest with themselves. Every single person, stop this podcast right now, go to the mirror. And literally actually tell yourself what are you actually good at.

Not what would you wish you were good at. What are you actually good at. If you're asking me though, I'm answering your question literally. How to be more profitable is completely and utterly based on self awareness of what you're good at and or what you like. And most people lie to themselves because they hope instead of their being real with themselves.

[00:49:08] Hala Taha: And what is your secret to profiting in life, and this can go beyond business and money? 

[00:49:13] Gary Vee: By giving more than you're taking. The reason most people struggle on growing in social and in life is when they post on social and when they act in life, they worry about what's in it for them.

I'm looking to go viral. I want to get followers. I want to sell something. If you think about your audience instead of you, the things you want will come to you. 

[00:49:36] Hala Taha: Amazing. Well, you're really easy to find. So where can everybody go find you? 

[00:49:41] Gary Vee: I'm Gary Vee everywhere. So that should be it. 

[00:49:44] Hala Taha: Amazing. I'll put all the links in the show notes.

Gary, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:49:48] Gary Vee: Thank you so much. 

[00:49:53] Hala Taha: Yeah fam, this is an interview that I feel like I've been waiting for my whole life. Well, for at least the past six years. I've been trying to interview Gary Vee since I started this podcast. And I can't believe that in my first interview with him, I got to meet him in the flesh, at his office, and do an in person interview.

Which, by the way, I'm going to be doing a lot more of. Gary Vee inspired me to become a podcaster. Gary Vee inspired me to start my personal brand on LinkedIn. He is hands down my idol. And they always say, don't meet your idols in person, but meeting Gary in person did not disappoint. From the moment that he walked into the room, he was so humble, so kind.

He shook everybody's hand from my assistant to the video producer. He treated everybody like equals. He was highly engaged. He was super smart and he really gave a damn. He really does care about entrepreneurs. He's not just about making billions of dollars. He's so successful, but he cares to take the time to help entrepreneurs.

He is the goat of entrepreneurs. He is the goat of marketing. If there was somebody that I would recommend to listen to when it comes to all things entrepreneurship and marketing, it would be Gary V. This conversation with Gary got me so reinvigorated about being an entrepreneur. I love being an entrepreneur.

It really is something that I was destined to do. I've really always been an entrepreneurial person since I was a little kid, but not everybody is born to be an entrepreneur, just like not everybody is born to be an athlete or a musician. You have to be willing to embrace risk, to stand on your own two feet, to fall flat on your face when things don't work out.

Entrepreneurship is not as glamorous as people make it out to be. It is hard work and it is stressful. I love it, but it's not for everyone. And Gary attributed his success as an entrepreneur to a lack of fear. But that didn't mean that he was reckless or hasty. He took a long time before he became an entrepreneur.

He worked at his father's liquor store until he was 34 years old. But he was willing to experiment, to F around a lot and find out, as he put it. And he always put entrepreneurship ahead of money. And he doesn't let age be an issue. I really believe that you're never too old or too young to start something new.

And Gary is of the same mindset. You shouldn't think that because you're 30 or 40, it's too late for you to become an entrepreneur. It is not too late. I started my podcast when I was 30 years old and everybody told me I was too old to start a podcast. Look at me now. I'm literally the number one business and entrepreneurship podcast at any given day.

Had I listened to everybody else, none of this would have happened. So listen to your intuition and don't let age ever be a barrier. Gary also had a boatload of useful tips for digital marketing. We are in a war for attention online and on social media. You have to know your audience, your platforms, and your own strengths inside and out to succeed in that kind of a marketplace.

Gary talked about what he sees as the major current trend, the TikTokification of social media. With other social platforms moving to imitate TikTok's interest based algorithm, there's never been a better opportunity to make waves online, and to even compete with large, established brands. Because it's all about relevance.

And to succeed, you need to be plugged in. To understand pop culture and the latest trends, you have to day trade attention, as Gary says. And that's the title of his new book that comes out May 21st. It's called day trading attention. I was able to get an advanced copy and boy, does this book deliver if you're an entrepreneur or a marketer trying to compete in 2024 and beyond this book is a must read.

I'm going to be making it mandatory reading for my team. And if there was one book that I would recommend to get this year to transform your business and the way you approach social media, this book would hands down be it. Day Trading Attention. It comes out tomorrow. And thanks for giving us your attention.

If you listen, learn to profit from this conversation with Gary Vee, then please share this episode with somebody in your circle who could benefit from it. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something, then please drop us a five star review on Apple podcast. If you prefer to watch your podcast as videos, this is a good one to watch on video.

We did it in person. So if you want to watch it again and take notes, I recommend that you go find it on YouTube. Just look up Young and Profiting and you'll find all of our episodes on there. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. And I did want to shout my incredible YAP production team.

Today I wanted to highlight Kate, who is my business partner. She's a VP of social at YAP Media. And she also comes to all of my in person events with me and helps to coordinate. And she does such an amazing job. And Kate, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for coming to this interview with me. Thank you for making my day as easy as possible and just for always being my rock and my right hand woman.

I love you. This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA the Podcast Princess, signing off.