The greatest way to sell is to bring actual value. Convincing is a bad sales energy. Conviction is a tremendous sales energy. The content you should be putting out on social is maybe educating people how to be more financially literate so they can afford the life insurance versus talking about the life insurance.
This is the GaryVee Audio Experience. It's a pleasure. It's our pleasure. I want to get right into that.
We've got a room full of people that are trying to build their brand. They're on different levels. Somebody started yesterday and somebody's been for 12 years. And you know, I was messing around on social media a couple of years ago, and somebody was like, what do you see the most on social media?
And I said, GaryVee. And he said, how did that happen? And I don't know. I'm not GaryVee.
Can you talk to us about any basic foundational issues that we need to start with for everything that we need to know now? Well, I have some really good news. You know, social media, when I got involved back in 2005, 6, 7, came very natural to me because I built my dad's liquor store on email marketing. And email marketing was get as many people on the email as possible, put out good information, a good wine deal, a good price, good information, and a percentage of them would convert.
Social made sense to me. Get followers, put out good information, and that will build a real brand. And then if I wanted to sell wine or books or collectibles or hats, that would work out as a business. I have really good news for all of you.
I have, and thank you for the kind words, and I think a lot of you know this, some may not, but I've done a damn good job for 20 years doing the game. And literally four years ago, all the advantages I had on every one of you went away. And that's good for you, and it fucking sucked a little bit for me, but it didn't scare me because the game of marketing is the game of marketing. We talked sports in the back.
Business has always been like sports to me. Like there's no crying in baseball. Like things change. We've watched the greatest athletes of all time look a shadow of themselves because, you know, mother time is undefeated, as they say.
And so this is really important because it's going to make a lot of you feel very encouraged. I'm happy because seven, eight years ago, I would come, and if I did this talk, I would have to talk to you about the thing that I know most people are not good at, that I'm very good at, which is patience. I would have sat here six years ago and told all of you that you need to make an enormous amount of good content for the next two or three years, seven days a week, every day. And you'll get to some nice baseline and then you'll start to cook.
We no longer live in social media, friends. Social media died four or five years ago. Now, nobody has coined the new term. I'm trying to say what I call it.
It's called interest media. All of you know this. How many people here have been on social media, one of them, Facebook, Twitter, one of them, for over eight years? Raise your hands.
Should be an enormous amount of the crowd, right? You know what I'm talking about happened. 10 years ago, eight years ago, you would see content from the people you followed. Now you're seeing content based on what recently you're kind of paying attention to, whether it's bullshit politics, whether it's sports, whether it's bikini clad, you know, girls or dudes with abs, cooking, baseball.
We are now in interest media. Why is this super intoxicating for everyone in this room? It's because so many of you have actually been horrible, underperforming, not diligent, not disciplined, not gangster about the single most important platform of attention in the world called social media. And now that's irrelevant because you've actually not lost time, not lost advantages, not been outflanked because literally if you start tomorrow, your third post with nine followers on TikTok or 48 followers on Instagram can get more views than my post in three days.
That's a level of merit and opportunity that is insane and it should have every single person here running the fuck out of this conference room right now because you know what I'm about to say for the next 45 minutes anyway and go and post some shit. I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting.
Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. Don't make my mom super happy. Did everybody really listen to what I just said? It's a pleasure.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's insane that that happened. Again, back to me being like, I'm not pissed because I love the game, but damn, I was so right for so long and put in all that work and literally we're on even playing field. The creative now, the creative itself, the video and the picture itself is the merit of distribution, not how many followers you have. That is profound.
What I know is I'm still going to outflank all of you tomorrow because I'm committed to posting on all eight platforms. I've got millions on LinkedIn all the way to Snapchat with TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and YouTube shorts and Twitter in between. Even the best people at social just want to do one or two platforms. Most of you don't want to do another platform because you don't have the humility to start at zero again.
How many people remember in 2017 when I was screaming at the top of my lungs to do TikTok, but you didn't jump on because you thought it was teenage girls and you didn't want to start over because you had Instagram followers. Raise your fucking hand and own it. That was huge. That was a huge mess.
I'm going to give you one right now. It's called Substack. How many people here consume Substack? Raise your hands.
Almost no one. I'm telling you right now, Substack. I saw that man with the hat shake his head and said he was right, but I'm stunned by how few. Substack is fucking huge.
It was predominantly newsletters, very long form written content for free or subscriptions, but I'm watching them move. They're bleeding very heavy into Twitter's category and now they're doing video and podcasts. Every one of you need to write down Substack. How many people here are embarrassed or like not in love with video, but they feel like they're very good writers?
Raise your hand. So every one of you that just raised your hand, you have to spend two hours on ChatGPT or Google and learn what Substack is and you must start. These are platforms of attention. Attention is the only currency that matters.
You can't sell shit if you don't have someone's attention. You cannot sell shit unless you have someone's attention. And you can do that door knocking, you can cold call, you can do email, but there's nothing you can do where you make one post and it can reach a million people for free. I'm about to leave.
I'm good. Thank you. Like, you know, I don't know where you're going to go, but like, it's so fucking, you know, what's funny about marketing? I think of it as health and wellness.
Do you know how many people here by show of hands would like to get a little more fit, get more muscle, get a little more tone? Raise your hand. Watch this. Do you know how you do that?
You fucking eat better, stop putting shit in your body that's chemicals and eat cleaner, go to the fucking gym and do the exercises properly. Easy, done. There's a problem. Now go do it.
My friends, information is fucking worthless. We live in a world where information has become worthless. Memorizing and knowing information is worthless. You can ask ChatGPT or Gemini anything and get the actual answer.
Life is now fully about mindset, perspective, motivation, discipline, execution, and all the emotional intelligence strengths it requires for somebody to be a winner versus a loser in any game they play. And that's where we're at. And for some people, it's great. And for other people, it's not great.
But I just wish on everyone here, besides health, the accountability and self-awareness to know they're fully in charge so they can go and get it. Awesome, man. I agree with you a long time talking about all these issues, but I have absolutely no question. Literally, I work more now.
So what I'm talking about with Patience is pretty motherfucking different. And certainly like WatchPop. Here's those names. Here's all the things.
So you know, you have companies that have been here for a little over 10 years, but we have folks that have been here a year that are not having million dollars a month, only in a year, and it's still like, but I haven't had it. Or somebody that's not even getting there. They're on the lookout. I'm like, well, when do I?
I don't know, I'm trying. Like I'm trying harder to do it. And in the sales part, it beats me. What you're talking about did not.
The recruit part didn't post it. And also, I got it. I want to sell. I didn't want to do social media stuff.
So from a patient standpoint, how do we get people to continue to push? Patience is easy for me because I don't give a fuck about other people's opinions about me. There is one core reason people are impatient. You want to make as much money as possible to buy dumb shit, to impress people you don't even like.
Let me say it slow because a lot of people just got called out and they didn't clap. Patience is a problem for a lot of you in this room, specifically this room, because you're trying to Non-compromising. I will not compromise on kindness at any turn. I will only speak my fucking truth.
I will only sell something I believe in, period, end of story. If you could go back and look at videos of me 10, 11 years ago, and I said it then, I said, watch what's about to happen this next decade. A lot of people that look like me on the internet or like me, or people think we're the same, we're different. I'm different.
And my difference will continue to grow from this point on, because to your point, no matter what you sell, whatever you're saying on social is going to attract the quality of what you're getting. You want a good team, you want good clients, you need to say good shit. If you say dumb shit, a.k.a., sell all the sizzle, not the actual steak, you're putting garbage out, you're getting garbage in. No wonder you're rolling through a bunch of people, teammates, clients, team, because you're selling the fucking small thing.
Don't sell me on fucking bullshit lifestyle. Sell me on truth. Thank you. Of course.
Lot of frustration. It is frustrating. When I had leads and I knew that it was about people's families, my mom didn't write. Good for you.
I'm happy with this. Great. Yep, yep. I'd have it.
I get it. And in fact, if I may, because of the way you said that, I would argue so much of my motivation as a public figure is a blend of gratitude with guilt. I know it was, you know what I mean? I don't sit here thinking I'm a great, better.
I don't think I'm better than... Real talk. On that high horse I just came from, I promise you, I don't feel like I'm on a high horse. I don't think I'm better than anyone.
I think I just got lucky because it wasn't just my mama. I was born in the Soviet Union. A lot of you were born in America. You won from day one.
You didn't even realize it. I knew that I got lucky coming here. I was born in a shit place. It got even better for me.
When we got here, we were poor as fuck. I lived in a studio apartment with six, seven family members. I remember it. And when you have love in your home, but you have no money, you are taught from the beginning that money has no association with happiness.
That is the greatest gift that anyone could have on earth, in my full belief. I've seen it a million times. I'm grown now. I'm fucking 50.
I'm grown. The greatest gift anyone could be given is to be put into a home, born into a home that does not have much, but love is coming out of every fucking door and window. That motherfucker won. So I respect that.
I know that. And I think for me, seeing these families, our leads, millionaires, if I had 20 years ago, probably the first time in my life. And I have small policy here and there for work, and they probably filled something out because something happened and affected them. Somebody died, they knew.
Family member, work. Somebody got sick, can't get life insurance. Now somebody like, damn, I'm 40 years old. I've got a wife, three kids, I don't get my life insurance.
And I think that's not the reason why. She can't do it now. So you been selling. My frustration, when I saw this, I was like, I don't want to hurt anyone.
And I actually believe, I mean, I believe to my core that if somebody fills out a lead and we don't go ahead and put all our shit aside and give the best shot to help you hurt, they're not solving this. They get a lot of false hope. I'm stumbling. So from a sales standpoint, what advice would you give all of us as it pertains to, they're calling people up, they got a cold calling.
This is the person buying the insurance. Let's break it down. I'm telling you, I can jump right into this. This is the curveball I want you to think about.
The greatest way to sell is to bring actual value. Convincing is a bad sales energy. Conviction is a tremendous sales energy. Let me break it down for you.
The content you should be putting out on social is maybe educating people how to be more financially literate so they can afford the life insurance versus talking about the life insurance. You understand, Sean? I'm talking about this like chess or like boxing. Very hard to knock someone out if you throw right hooks every time.
You've got to set them up with a jab. My point of view is if I had to sell life insurance, I'm selling it a year before I'm actually talking to them by putting out content every day about stop buying fucking Starbucks for $5 a cup and put that $5 in your saving account and make some fucking Folgers at your house. I'm doing little pieces to educate people how to save a little bit of money because the biggest reason people that are in that demo don't buy insurance is because they can't afford it. Because of my switching.
Yes. Real talk. This is important. Everything in your life right now, relationship, buying dumb shit, whatever, literally every single thing in your life right now that's a problem is 100% your fault.
This is incredibly important because whatever you're about to tell me about your mom or your daddy or boss or circumstance, someone else lived that life too and had the discipline to figure it out and get at it. And since that person exists, what the fuck is your excuse? That's a macro statement. That's for y'all.
That's what's keeping some of you in a C or D place instead of an A place. Every minute you spend on complaining or dwelling or blaming is a minute you're not spending on offense. And by the way, if you're a complainer, if you could be honest with yourself right now, you may not want to even call it out, but to yourself, you're like, yeah, I do bitch a little too much. Pay very close attention to who listens to your complaining.
There's only two groups, other fucking losers or someone who loves you and your family and they don't realize it and they're just enabling you. So I respect that. I know that. And I think for me, seeing these families, our leads, millionaires, if I had to pick a term probably the first time in my life, and I have small policy here and there for work, and they probably filled something out because something happened and affected them.
Somebody died, they knew, family member, work. Somebody got sick, can't get life insurance. Now they're like, damn, I'm 40 years old. I've got a wife, three kids, I don't get my life insurance.
And I'm like, that guy's great. So this is how I walk around the last few years. And I help them know, recruit distributors. And overwhelming people say, I just am uncomfortable talking about what I do.
And I say, in what way? Because I'm not trying to impress you, but they're scared. A lot of the time I'm trying to talk shit. This time this person says, what would you say?
Now I'll be honest with you, I was like, I would say fuck you to what he said. But you don't need to say that because you're not going to impress him. Why don't you ask what he's asking? There's people asking questions.
And I said, how much money do you spend on leads? Unequivocally, I take my money, it's life insurance, it's me basically just calling people. And I take it, go out and do this. I'm like, we have so many people out here that they, I can see what they're both thinking.
They're thinking about checking out a book about life insurance, about a group about hiring, about what do we partner for life. They don't do it because they're paralyzed by not trying to impress. They're paralyzed by the mistake. Or they don't fully believe it.
Which is fine too. Like this is just life up here. Like you're grown, friends. You're grown.
You're right, Sean. Like they need to be posting. But if they're posting because they're scared about other people shitting on them, they need to ask the next question. Are you insecure or maybe you don't believe in the format?
And that's okay too. This is what I think universally they can all agree with, which is what I want them to post about, is about the actual service of insurance and teach people how to get to a place of affording it. And then that good will trickle down and create the things they want. You understand?
I see. It's just the real reality of it. It's because it's either you actually don't care about what other people think, which is great, or it's not that you don't believe in the format. Fine, you're allowed.
You can change your mind and everyone here can go do whatever the fuck they want, right? But what you can't do is be half pregnant. And a lot of motherfuckers I'm looking at right now are half fucking pregnant. Listen, I just want everyone literally in this room to be good.
They're not my children. No one here is my first cousin. Like I can only do so much, but I'm obsessed when I say yes and I'm going to come and talk to bring value. And what I'm telling you is either go in the ring fully or don't go in the ring fully.
Both are allowed, but you need to make a decision because otherwise you're going to be caught. And then you're not here and not there. And that's just the worst fucking place to be. You understand?
But what I think that I apologize for, what I know you can all agree on is teaching people how to be fiscally responsible. Little tidbits like that. Educate them truly on the value, like the real The last event, is this talent, that is zero talent. How do we get people to understand that without messing up in that business, you just start and go away?
You know, a couple things. I do think it's a mental talent. It's not a physical talent like baseball. Number two, let's just talk macro.
The single biggest reason that I've built real companies in my life is because I don't start businesses to take money out of it to buy things for me. I start businesses to take the money that the business makes to put it back in the business to make it bigger. It is not lost on me that 95% of this audience, not because you're good or bad, it's just literally 95% of humans, literally think about their entrepreneurial ventures or their businesses as jobs. This is important.
You take the money out to live on. When it becomes your thing and you're trying to build something right, the job, the business, your org is what needs the money, not you. Too many people try to do something to get the money out to buy those dumb things I told you about. There's too many people here that think money leads to that happy.
You actually think a bigger home with seven rooms you never go in will make you happier. Every fucking person has way too many rooms. Almost everyone I know that's done well that lives outside of New York City or a city has a home with literally six rooms that no one's ever been in. Right?
Or things, just stuff. Like, again, too many people are taking the money out, all the money back in. Kudos to my father. It blew me away.
Like, he just never really, everything he made. I mean, I built my dad's business from 22 to 34 years old and got paid $50,000 to $80,000 a year during that 12-year window. Friends, who here is under 34 years old? Stand up right now.
Stand up if you're under 34. Jesus Christ, you were right. They are young. Everybody who's standing, I need you to hear this.
Because you're younger, stand back up. Don't be lazy on me. You're under 34? Oh, you're older.
Fuck, you look great. I was making $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 up to $80,000 by the time I got to 34 dollars a year. Now you know why I believe in patience. Sit down.
Thank you. So, I, not part of a team, not needing your fucking help for leads, I myself, on my fucking back, solo, pops, went right into the passenger seat. When I drove, I took that business from $3 million to $65 million in sales. No credit line, no venture capital, no rich friend gave me money.
I made money, put it back in, made money, put it back in. I did that. Sometimes people wanna take a pot shot on me in public. They're like, don't listen to this guy.
His dad gave him a liquor store. Motherfucker, my dad still owns a liquor store right now. That motherfucker didn't do shit. Other than drop that sperm to create the fucking guy.
So he did everything. But for the business, I built that business for my dad. I'm one of the rarest fucking humans on earth that my mom was so great. I was so grateful for my dad working every minute as an immigrant.
So my mom, I was smart. I was like, damn, mom is the best, but thank God dad fucking worked every minute because we had no fucking money and my mom didn't work. My dad built it 12 hours a day. I was so obsessed.
I still am so obsessed with my parents. I'm like, fuck, man. I'm Kobe and LeBron and Jordan and Brady. Fuck it.
I'm gonna give my first decade to them. And that's what I did. And at 34 years old, I started VaynerMedia, my current company. I had no money.
I had to start the company in the conference room of another company because I had no money for rent. That's the business I started at 34. This year, that business will do $400 million in sales. I built that while I built the GaryVee brand, six New York Times bestselling books, one of the biggest sports agencies in the world with my brother, a massive restaurant group.
I'm building the next fucking Pokemon and Marvel right now with VeeFriends. Like, and all this happening because every interaction I have, I wanna give more value to the other person than I extract for myself because I don't need anything because I don't need to buy anything because I don't need to buy anything to prove anything to anyone, including myself. You understand? You need to get there.
How the fuck do you get disciplined to make content and call people all day long if you don't feel good? People are always like, how do you have so much energy? Because I'm good. Because I'm light.
By the way, on the record, I sleep fucking seven to eight hours a week. It's just when I'm awake, I'm fucking effective. It takes no talent. He said it doesn't take physical talent, but it takes mental talent.
What do you mean by that? This shit I'm just talking about, right? Like, notice what I said to them. I'm like, look, I don't wanna judge.
I don't judge. By the way, the biggest issue in our society right now is that everyone wants to judge everyone. Right? The reason we're fighting.
You know how crazy politics is? Could you? You know why I never fucking argue with people about politics? Could you imagine having the audacity to think every person on earth should see the world exactly how you saw it, even though we've all had very different upbringings?
That's why I was right. For example, for example, early in my career, you guys can see how I talk. Some of you called me back in '09, '08 when I was coming up. This is who I was.
I went to Mobile, Alabama to give a speech. I came out. I was feeling good too, Sean. I was like hot, right?
It was that first year I was like, oh fuck, I'm gonna die. I came out and I was like so chill. And I started cursing. These motherfuckers booed me the fuck out of there.
Because I was a Jersey fucking street kid. I thought cursing was normal. But these fucking church-going fucking Southern grandmas fucked me up. And there was obviously some people like, you know, hitting me up on Twitter and like, sorry, they don't get it.
They definitely do get it. They were raised by a woman that said to them, cursing's the devil. I came out and I was the fucking devil. I deserved to get booed.
You know? So, what I know is this, is that why I was willing to do that back then, why I am who I am, why every word that came out of my mouth right now is, is because I'm living my actual truth. And I just wanna push everyone here to actually live your truth. Which is why, notice what I said, I just know a lot of people here are compromising.
You know? In different ways. I don't know what it is. I don't know.
Including, let me give you the good one. I think a lot of people here think they need to wear a suit and have a nice watch and have a nice car to have the perception of success to build more success, but they're compromising because they're like me and they're humble and simple and it's fucking them up. You know? By the way, but other people, like this is why I never shit on people that wear suits or have watches.
For some people, they really like it. They like the craftsmanship. They're not doing it for the flex. They like it.
They like actually understand the fucking switches in there. I don't fucking know. I really have no judgment. I don't think anything is better than anything.
I think compromising what's in your soul is a death sentence. To have the mental talent to get to the self-awareness of what I'm talking about to get to the level of humility. I wish all of you really knew me, straight up. I really wish you knew me.
One of my favorite things is when people hear stuff like this from me, some of you might be thinking this actually right now, which is okay, I understand. They're like, yeah, you're saying this now because you've got it. And I'm saying to you, I got it because I thought like this forever. And I'm saying it and I appreciate the class, but you can't really believe me, but you know who believes me?
My fourth grade class. My ninth grade class. The homies that grew up with me, they know. I never compromised on being nice.
Bro, do you know how hard it was to be nice in New Jersey in 1993 in high school? Like the whole currency was being mean. Like the pretty girls wouldn't even like you if you weren't a dick. And pretty girls matter in high school.
You know? Like, I just wasn't willing to compromise. I was just not gonna make fun of anyone. And if my friends were all doing it, I was just willing.
Do you know how much strength that takes? I just never compromised my morals. I just would never fold. I won't fold.
For what? For what? And I just think a lot of people are. And I get it.
I really do. Because when you get desperate, you're like, I need money. Like, a lot of people just said, I'll compromise my morals for my children. I get it.
I get it. But there's so many ways to do it. That's what's so amazing about the world right now, Sean. Everyone's like, shit's terrible