Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 28

The Biggest Problem With 360 Performance Reviews

I’m fascinated by how performance reviews are conducted in companies.

In my point of view, the methodology behind “reviews” and feedback in most organizations is flawed at best. 360 performance reviews usually don’t give full context on what’s actually going on in a company.

Why most performance reviews are flawed  

Reviewing the people you work with and giving feedback is a great thing to do. It’s something I advocate for at all times.

But what I’m concerned about is, a lot of people take feedback blindly during 360 reviews. Managers and bosses who are evaluating the feedback just look at the raw statements or “ratings” without thinking about the context around it.

For example… if Karen says Susie is a bad employee and gives her a low rating, you can’t accept that feedback as a manager or CEO on face value. You can’t accept it without understanding where that feedback is coming from.

Is it coming from a pure, well-intentioned place? Or is Susie rising up the ladder, and Karen’s afraid that Susie might take her spot one day? Did something bad happen in Karen’s life, and she’s just taking it out on Susie?

I see this happen all the time. Many managers or directors get to a certain spot in their careers where they get comfortable with a $200,000 / year salary, and then try to “tear down” everyone around them who might be a threat to their spot.

Because of that, they might try to suppress their direct reports or their understudies.

I believe people should be “reviewing” each other at all times – not just quarterly or yearly.

How to give better feedback to your employees

Giving feedback to employees who are underperforming can be tough, depending on how you’re wired.

Personally, I deal with them the same way I deal with any employee. Someone might be a very hard worker, but lack talent. Someone might have insane talent, but struggle with work ethic.

At the end of the day, if you have the luxury of being the “judge and the jury” (i.e. a CEO or a leader), the pressure is on you to give the right type of feedback and manage employees the right way.  

There are some employees at VaynerMedia that are highly talented but underperforming, and it’s entirely my fault. It might be because I haven’t created the infrastructure that allows them to shine. Or their bosses might not be “clicking” with them and that’s making them less passionate about their work. Or we haven’t asked the right questions around what interests they have and where they want to be working.

There’s a lot of serendipity that comes with where you work within a company and the situations you’re in, so it’s super important to have a lot of communication around that.

The way I come at it is, “Hey Rick, I noticed you’ve got talent oozing out of your eyes but you’re not delivering on the hustle – and that’s an important variable there. When you’re a leader, you’re creating the rules of the game.”

If you don’t like it, you’ve got full freedom to change the rules.

How to give better feedback to your boss

It can be hard to navigate the dynamic of giving feedback to your boss. We’ve all been there: you’re saying “I hate my boss” because you’re pretty sure they’re messing things up.

But no one wants to say anything because, well, they’re the boss. But as the situation progresses, giving feedback to your boss seems more and more like the right thing to do.

How do you tell your boss they’re wrong without jeopardizing your position or sounding like a jerk?

The first step really here should be this:

Checking over and over that you are sure they are wrong. Giving feedback to your boss is one thing, calling him or her out incorrectly is something totally different. It might sound like a cliche, but you really don’t want to get caught looking like an idiot in this type of situation. That can backfire majorly.

But in the end, I truly believe this: if your boss is a great boss, they will welcome performance feedback, and they will listen to you.

If your boss is good at being the boss, they will take your feedback and actually listen to what you have to say. Period. An enormous part of being the boss is about learning to be a better listener than speaker. You help the team out by being aware of what is going on at all times.

What does that take?

Listening.

The key to performance feedback is respectfully pointing out things you disagree with. If you go down that route, it’s a win win situation.

Think about it: if you give that information to the boss, and the boss agrees with you, you’ve won points and hopefully the situation will be dealt with. If they don’t, and they completely disrespect your feedback, then now you know what kind of person you’re working for.

So, with those two points about talking to your boss in consideration, to me there is no risk in giving feedback to your boss. As long as you keep your cool and are diplomatic about the situation, the two outcomes we outlined above can only end well.

If you are putting your future into the leadership of an individual, don’t you want that person to be respectful of feedback? Or learning from their mistakes? This could be the question that determines if you are in the right place.

So if you have something to say, don’t hold back.

Be respectful and approach it from calm ground. But don’t stick around if they won’t take you seriously.

It’s not worth your time.

The post The Biggest Problem With 360 Performance Reviews appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.

4 Parenting Ideas No One’s Talking About

In the past year or so, as I’ve been exploring the topic of effective parenting in more detail, I’m noticing that my POVs on the topic are ideas I don’t see others talk about. 

The truth is, many people are parenting their kids from a place of insecurity, and treating their kids like “products” instead of actually doing what’s best for them.

But before I get into it, I want to clarify that I don’t want to tell other people how to raise their children. I don’t have the context. Raising kids is super personal, and I don’t want to give blanket advice.

I’m just sharing my opinions and perspectives as someone who was raised by two incredible parents.

The difficult conversation parents need to have with their kids

Your kid’s life is your kid’s life. They’re the ones ultimately in charge. Sure, there are a lot of other important people (like parents) that surround them, but ultimately, it’s their life.

It’s why I’m pushing kids so hard to do what they want to do, even if it goes against what their parents want.

My intent is not to get kids to be disrespectful to their parents, it’s actually the exact opposite — I want kids and parents to have incredible long term relationships. And if a kid is living their life to win on his or her parents’ terms (instead of their own), they’re going to have resentment later in life once they realize they’re not actually happy.

And that’s going to destroy happiness, for both kids and their parents.

1. Allow your child to feel like they can achieve what they want – without handing out “eighth place trophies.”

It doesn’t matter if your kids want to be music producers or basketball players or anything else.

As a parent, creating “permission” is an important idea. If you as a parent, say “yes, you can do this”, it’s a big deal and will make a huge difference in how much they believe in themselves.

It’s how my mom treated me, and it’s how I treat my employees. When I hire someone, I’m incredibly positive and blindly believe in their potential. I’ll trust them to execute. I’ll hype them up and encourage them as much as I can.

But at the same time, I balance that with not handing out “eighth place trophies.”

If your kids want to be producers and they put something out on YouTube and everyone says it sucks, you look at them and say “the market said you suck — let’s try again.” It’s a balance between having blind faith in them and their abilities, but at the same time, letting the results be the results.

It’s stunning to me how many parents do the reverse. So many tell their kid that they probably won’t be a great soccer player,  but tell them they “did a great job” when they go on the field and lose 8 – 0.

Many parents don’t understand the idea that you can hold kids accountable for losses and mistakes without making them feel bad about who they are. For example… my mom never made me feel bad about not being good at school. I never felt like I sucked for not being a good student. But I did get grounded every time my report card came out. My mom made it clear that there was a price to be paid for not delivering good grades. And if I didn’t deliver, I had to pay that price.

It was encouragement balanced with practicality. It’s important to create “friction” between the two to put the kids in a good position to win.

2. Stop using your kids’ successes to fix your own insecurities.

We saw this with Hollywood parents in the college scandal that happened – parents paid for their kids to get into the best colleges.

There are a couple of huge problems with this:

When you do something like that, you mess your kids up. A lot of people talk about how bribing a college to get a seat for your kid takes away seats from other kids (which is true), but the kid who got the seat through a bribe also gets messed up for a lot of reasons.
They’re creating a “fake environment” for their children. When you reward people for behavior not based on their own merit, you create a huge vulnerability for them later in life.
They’re showing that they care about what other parents think about their children more than their actual success of their children.

When you use your kids’ accomplishments as the source of your own self-esteem, you end up treating them like “products” more than children.

Please let your kids win on their own terms, not your own.

3. “React” Instead of “Force”

My parents were unbelievably supportive of my ambitions.

But they never “forced” me down any path.

There’s a big difference between the ideas of “reacting” and “forcing” that a lot of parents don’t get. Reacting means giving your kid permission to explore. It means giving your kid rope.

If your child is selling shoes or lemonade and they’re young, all you need to do is react to the fact that they’re already entrepreneurs and give them a lot of rope. Same thing applies if your kid is really into baseball, soccer, art, or anything else.

Reacting is about giving your kid encouragement and support around something they’re already drawn to — and building up “steam” around those actions.

When I was young, I would rip flowers out of people’s yards and sell it back to them. I was making thousands of dollars every weekend selling baseball cards.

My parents’ idea was to encourage me to explore that side of myself.

You can enroll them in theater class, or violin class, painting class, or something else to see if they like it.

But there’s a BIG difference between doing that vs forcing them down a path because it makes you feel good as a parent.

My kids are still young. So right now, all I’m doing is listening. I’m watching. I’m seeing what they’re drawn to, so I can create a supportive infrastructure around whatever they’re drawn to later.

I have absolutely no intention of imposing anything on them. Not even entrepreneurship.

4. Stop judging micro-moments that don’t matter

Many of the things parents overemphasize or judge themselves for don’t actually matter.

Parents tell themselves they’re going to go to every little league game or never miss their kid’s recital, yet they undermine their self-esteem and happiness in other ways.

Personally, I know I’m not going to be at every recital not at every little league game, nor do I feel I need to be.

I care a lot more about being there for my kids when they really need me. I care more about turning my kids into emotional “ninjas” who have enormous self-esteem, empathy for others, and know how to use adversity to their advantage.

For two excellent videos on this topic, check out The Reason People Are Struggling With Parenting and Let Your Kids Be Who They Are.

The post 4 Parenting Ideas No One’s Talking About appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.

4 Ideas for Effective Parenting

In the past year or so, as I’ve been exploring the topic of effective parenting in more detail, I’m noticing that my POVs on the topic are ideas I don’t see others talk about. 

The truth is, many parents are parenting their kids from a place of insecurity, and treating their kids like “products” instead of actually doing what’s best for them.

But before I get into it, I want to clarify that I don’t want to tell other people how to raise their children. I don’t have the context. Raising kids is super personal, and I don’t want to give blanket advice.

I’m just sharing my opinions and perspectives as someone who was raised by two incredible parents.

The difficult conversation parents need to have with their kids

Your kid’s life is your kid’s life. They’re the ones ultimately in charge. Sure, there are a lot of other important people (like parents) that surround them, but ultimately, it’s their life.

It’s why I’m pushing kids so hard to do what they want to do, even if it goes against what their parents want.

My intent is not to get kids to be disrespectful to their parents, it’s actually the exact opposite — I want kids and parents to have incredible long term relationships. And if a kid is living their life to win on his or her parents’ terms (instead of their own), they’re going to have resentment later in life once they realize they’re not actually happy.

And that’s going to destroy happiness, for both kids and their parents.

1. Allow your child to feel like they can achieve what they want – without handing out “eighth place trophies.”

It doesn’t matter if your kids want to be music producers or basketball players or anything else.

As a parent, creating “permission” is important. If you as a parent, say “yes, you can do this”, it’s a big deal and will make a huge difference in how much they believe in themselves.

It’s how my mom treated me, and it’s how I treat my employees. When I hire someone, I’m incredibly positive and blindly believe in their potential. I’ll trust them to execute. I’ll hype them up and encourage them as much as I can.

But at the same time, I balance that with not handing out “eighth place trophies.”

If your kids want to be producers and they put something out on YouTube and everyone says it sucks, you look at them and say “the market said you suck — let’s try again.” It’s a balance between having blind faith in them and their abilities, but at the same time, letting the results be the results.

It’s stunning to me how many parents do the reverse. So many tell their kid that they probably won’t be a great soccer player,  but tell them they “did a great job” when they go on the field and lose 8 – 0.

Many parents don’t realize that you can hold kids accountable for losses and mistakes without making them feel bad about who they are. For example… my mom never made me feel bad about not being good at school. I never felt like I sucked for not being a good student. But I did get grounded every time my report card came out. My mom made it clear that there was a price to be paid for not delivering good grades. And if I didn’t deliver, I had to pay that price.

It was encouragement balanced with practicality. It’s important to create “friction” between the two to put the kids in a good position to win.

2. Stop using your kids’ successes to fix your own insecurities.

We saw this with Hollywood parents in the college scandal that happened – parents paid for their kids to get into the best colleges.

There are a couple of huge problems with this:

When you do something like that, you mess your kids up. A lot of people talk about how bribing a college to get a seat for your kid takes away seats from other kids (which is true), but the kid who got the seat through a bribe also gets messed up for a lot of reasons.

They’re creating a “fake environment” for their children. When you reward people for behavior not based on their own merit, you create a huge vulnerability for them later in life.

They’re showing that they care about what other parents think about their children more than their actual success of their children.

When you use your kids’ accomplishments as the source of your own self-esteem, you end up treating them like “products” more than children.

Please let your kids win on their own terms, not your own.

4. “React” Instead of “Force”

My parents were unbelievably supportive of my ambitions.

But they never “forced” me down any path.

There’s a big difference between “reacting” and “forcing” that a lot of people don’t get. Reacting means giving your kid permission to explore. It means giving your kid rope.

If your child is selling shoes or lemonade and they’re young, all you need to do is react to the fact that they’re already entrepreneurs and give them a lot of rope. Same thing applies if your kid is really into baseball, soccer, art, or anything else.

Reacting is about giving your kid encouragement and support around something they’re already drawn to — and building up “steam” around those actions.

When I was young, I would rip flowers out of people’s yards and sell it back to them. I was making thousands of dollars every weekend selling baseball cards.

My parents encouraged me to explore that side of myself.

You can enroll them in theater class, or violin class, painting class, or something else to see if they like it.

But there’s a BIG difference between doing that vs forcing them down a path because it makes you feel good as a parent.

My kids are still young. So right now, all I’m doing is listening. I’m watching. I’m seeing what they’re drawn to, so I can create supportive infrastructure around whatever they’re drawn to later.

I have absolutely no intention of imposing anything on them. Not even entrepreneurship.

5. Stop judging micro-moments that don’t matter

Many of the things parents overemphasize or judge themselves for don’t actually matter.

Parents tell themselves they’re going to go to every little league game or never miss their kid’s recital, yet they undermine their self-esteem and happiness in other ways.

Personally, I know I’m not going to be at every recital not at every little league game, nor do I feel I need to be.

I care a lot more about being there for my kids when they really need me. I care more about turning my kids into emotional “ninjas” who have enormous self esteem, empathy for others, and know how to use adversity to their advantage.

6 Music Marketing Ideas for Artists in 2019

Music marketing has changed so much in the past several years.

Before, it was much harder to “breakthrough.”

A handful of music executives would decide the fates of so many artists. They would listen to your CD or demo tape, decide whether or not they liked you, and sign you based off of that.

Even if you somehow got in front of the right people and got signed by a record label, you would still have to pray that they put actual marketing dollars behind you to promote your music. And you’d have to hope that they selected the “right” ten songs to be on your album.

Because one of those 10-20 songs didn’t “pop”, you’d be finished.

Things are different now.

Now, we have so many social media platforms, and there are so many opportunities for artists to get noticed. You don’t have to wait for some executive (aka “gatekeeper”) in an office to notice you.

A lot of artists complain about how “no one pays for music anymore” because everything is so freely (and cheaply) available. But the truth is, there are so many more artists that have built a fanbase because of streaming services and free platforms like Soundcloud or YouTube.

If you’re an artist, here are some ideas you can use to grow your fanbase and get more ears on your music.

1. The real money is in brand, not in the end consumer

More and more artists are starting to understand this now.

In the “old world” of music, you would have a handful of artists making millions and millions of dollars by selling songs and CDs. But the internet has democratized everything. Instead of having a handful of artists making a ton of money, you’ve got thousands and thousands of artists making $30k, $50k, or $100k+ / year from their music.

But most of them aren’t making it by selling songs.

They’re doing by building brand.

Brand gives you the option to monetize in a variety different ways — you could do live events, private hangouts for your “top fans”, and more.

2. Eat caviar with a 40 oz

This is a concept I articulated in my meeting with Juicy J.

What I mean by that is, stay true to your roots even as you get bigger and bigger. A lot of artists completely flip and change their music to match the environment when they move from their hometown to a big city like LA.

But the way I think about it is, when you move to a big city or start to get more successful you should still keep 80% of your “street” vibes while mixing it with 20% of your new environment.

Faking or being inauthentic is a bad idea no matter where you are. But mixing styles makes you unique.

3. Interact with your audience

You know why people tend to make fun of trendy pop songs?

Because they’re fleeting.

Artists like Michael Jackson, Grateful Dead, and Madonna are so popular because they built a community around their music. Of course they had unbelievable talent — but there are a lot of people who had their level of talent that didn’t achieve the level of success they did.

The reason they did is because they built a community around their music. It’s why people wear Grateful Dead t-shirts or Michael Jackson gloves.

For example, I gave A Boogie some advice on doing a random popup show for his fans.



4. Do music collaborations outside your genre

Collaborations are huge because they allow you to “trade fans” with other artists. Especially when they’re outside your direct demographic.

If you’re a rapper, one of my biggest pieces of advice for you would be to do a collaboration with a country star tomorrow. Get a Latin trap artist to sing the hook of your next track. Hit up R&B stars that used to be huge 10-20 years ago.   

People grossly underestimate how much this matters.

Think about it… the entire genre of hip hop took a massive step forward when Run DMC did a collaboration with Aerosmith. Most people don’t understand how much Kendrick Lamar’s collaboration with Taylor Swift mattered to his career.

There’s only one asterisk:

It has to be authentic. You shouldn’t do collaborations just because you think they’ll get you more awareness. You should do them because you like the music.

5. Produce a higher volume of music

The number one piece of advice I have for artists is to put out music every single day.

Most artists hedge against this because they don’t want to dilute their craft. But here’s the thing:

People only remember the hits. They forget the other stuff. If you put out 100 songs in a row and 70 of them don’t get traction, there’s no loss. People will only remember the songs that hit.

So if you’re a talented artist, the upside of having 100 “at bats” is enormous. All you need is one song to reach the right person to take your career to a whole different level.

The downside is practically zero.

6. Promote your music through vloggers and influencers

Remember all the artists who got huge because their songs were always playing in the intro of Madden or NBA Live video games?

Same thing applies to vloggers.

DM every major vlogger that has over 100,000 views on their videos and give them your music for free to put in their vlogs. Having an influencer listen to or promote your music is the ultimate word of mouth.

There were so many artists (like Good Charlotte) that got famous because their music was playing in the background of Madden when you were picking your team.

Figure out who the top 500 – 700 Twitch players are. DM them and ask them if they would play songs to your music. It would give you new reach with new people.

Three years from now, some random person (who just so happens to be the executive at a major record label) might discover that episode where your music was featured, and that’ll change your life forever.

Here are some of my meetings with artists that you might get value from:

Meeting with Young Jeezy:



Meeting with Juicy J:



Meeting with Jessie Reyez:



The 79 / 21 Rule to Build a Long Term Business

Diversifying attention is the only way to build a real long term business.  

So many people only focus on the platform that’s getting the most reach and ignore the rest.

People make this mistake all the time. How many artists and bands on MySpace ignored Facebook, and then disappeared when MySpace became irrelevant? How many Vine stars dominated that platform, but “fell off” when attention shifted? How many influencers with a lot of Instagram followers will become irrelevant when attention shifts away from Instagram?

Because I promise it’s going to happen one day.   

That’s why I talk so much about tasting and exploring other platforms. It’s why I’m on virtually every platform – Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Podcasts, written word (on my blog), and more.

That’s why I’ve won and built big followings everywhere in a world where so many influencers rise and fall.

In this article, I’m going to articulate a concept I call the “79 / 21 rule” to build a long term business by not putting all your eggs in one basket.

If You’re Not Diversifying Your Social Media Strategy, You’re Vulnerable

First of all, even getting to a point where you’ve built an engaged following is super difficult – so I’m pumped if you’re there already.

But I’m also scared for you.

I’m honestly more worried about those who are starting to win on platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram because that’s when they start to get complacent. They start to put “what’s working” on a pedestal and start romanticizing it — just like bigger businesses put channels like billboards or television commercials on a pedestal even though they don’t work nearly as well anymore.

It’s happening right now with people who are winning with AdWords and landing page optimization (as the world becomes more mobile and brand-focused). It happened with MySpace stars. And it’ll happen with Instagram influencers.

It’s human nature.

Most people who are on social spend 100% of their time on the hottest platform, and only put in about 70% effort into it.

I spend about 80% of my time on the hottest platform, go as hard as I possibly can on it, and spend 20% of my time getting a feel for everything else.

I call it the 79 / 21 rule, just to be a little different

Why You Should Let Your Kids Lose

Modern parenting needs a much healthier debate. 

Many parents are creating “fake environments” and entitlement which make kids fall hard later in life. These are some of my honest POVs and ideas on why it actually be beneficial to let kids lose up front.

1. Adversity can be the ultimate foundation for success  

So many parents try to protect their kids from adversity. They try to create safeguards and barriers in every area of life so that kids won’t feel the pain of losing or face the consequences of their decisions. 

The truth is, you can decide whether adversity makes or breaks you. It’s in your mindset. 

I shared a clip from my meeting with Kickstrodamis in Episode 540 of DailyVee where he talked about how every challenge he faced in life helped him get to where he today.



There are athletes who get injured and then completely give up on trying anything new – and there are others that go through terrible injuries and decide that that’s going to be the platform through which they’ll change the world. 

Two people can look at a situation and see something completely different. It comes down to perspective, and it’s a lot smarter to instill that mindset in your kids instead of overprotecting them from any struggle or challenge they’ll face. 

2. Kids who get fake accolades will get destroyed in the real world  

This also ties in to my concept of “fake environments.” 

A “fake environment” is when a person’s living in a manner that’s not predicated on what they’re actually contributing. 

In other words… you’ve got so many parents subsidizing a fancy lifestyle for their kids because they love them so much and want to protect them. 

Many kids in their early 20s are traveling the world on the back of mommy and daddy’s credit card. Or in an even more subtle way, they have a job and are working but their Uber expenses are going off of their dad’s credit card. Or their mom’s paying for their gym pass. 

Listen, I have enormous empathy for those with student loan debt or those who really need the extra support. I get it. 

But when you make a kid believe that they are winning in business or in life because they’re living a lifestyle that subsidized by someone else, you’re doing them a massive disservice. 

Eighth place trophies create fake environments. When you make kids think that they’re good at basketball or baseball when they’re not, they’re going to fall hard later in life when they realize it’s not true. 

There are a lot of “fake environments” today and they don’t just apply to kids.

When you can come up with an idea for a business and raise a million dollars for it, that’s a fake environment. When you trade stocks and “win” because the economy is doing great, that’s a fake environment. 

Fake environments give you the illusion that your success is predicated entirely on your merit – when in reality it’s because of something external. 

One of the biggest reasons I thank my parents so much is that they never put me in a fake environment. 

They punished me when I got bad grades (even when they knew I was good at business). They didn’t pay for any of my expenses after I graduated and went into the real world. They forced me to learn how to “hunt” to get my food instead of just feeding me out of their pocket. 

I think merit-based compliments are awesome, and it’s what my mom did for me – she would “exaggerate” my strengths while holding me accountable for my losses.

But when you make kids think that they’re winning when they’re not, that causes problems.

3. Many parents use their kids to fix their own insecurities 

It’s time that parents stop parenting kids on their own insecurities and stop worrying about what other parents think. 

I see this so much now. Parents are pushing kids to win on their own selfish terms, not on their kids’ terms. 

That’s why parents are forcing their kids to take on debt to go to college when their kids have other ambitions. It’s why so many parents push their kids to be baseball players or basketball players to fulfill their own selfish wants and needs. 

A lot of parents put their kids in “fake environments” because they care about what other parents say about their kids. They don’t want other families to think of them as a “loser” when they talk to them at the country club. 

My parents did the opposite. They allowed me to play and win on my own terms. 

Even though they made me respect the alternative (i.e. I still had to go to school, and I got punished when I got bad grades), they still supported me when I wanted to go sell baseball cards or lemonade. 

It was a mix of freedom and accountability.   

4. “Forcing” instead of reacting can lead to bad outcomes

There’s a big difference between “reacting” and “forcing” that a lot of people don’t get. Reacting means giving your kid permission to explore. It means giving your kid rope.

If your child is selling shoes or lemonade and they’re young, all you need to do is react to the fact that they’re already entrepreneurs and give them a lot of rope. Same thing applies if your kid is really into baseball, soccer, art, or anything else.

Reacting is about giving your kid encouragement and support around something they’re already drawn to — and building up “steam” around those actions.

When I was young, I would rip flowers out of people’s yards and sell it back to them. I was making thousands of dollars every weekend selling baseball cards.

My parents encouraged me to explore that side of myself.

You can enroll them in theater class, or violin class, painting class, or something else to see if they like it.

But there’s a BIG difference between doing that vs forcing them down a path because it makes you feel good as a parent.

My kids are still young. So right now, all I’m doing is listening. I’m watching. I’m seeing what they’re drawn to, so I can create supportive infrastructure around whatever they’re drawn to later.

I have absolutely no intention of imposing anything on them.

Not even entrepreneurship.

 

This is an important read for parents – if you got value from this, please share it on Twitter!

5 LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for 2019

LinkedIn marketing is something I really, really believe in for 2019.

LinkedIn has transformed so much as a platform. Years ago, it used to just be for job seekers. People would post resumes, and only connect with people they knew and no one else.  

Now, it’s become more of a content platform.

People share status updates, articles, and interact with each other within a business or professional context. And because the platform is still relatively early, they’ve made the organic reach insanely high.

It’s where Facebook was at 5-7 years ago.

In this article, I talk about some strategies and ideas on using LinkedIn to grow followers and get actual business results for your organization.

The only way to build a big audience online

You have to understand what value is. That’s the only way to get really big.

It took me 10 years to get to 1.8 million followers on Twitter.  And it’s taken me 3 years to get to 5.2 million followers on Instagram.

It’s because I understand what “value” is on Instagram. I know how people consume content and how to make my content the most contextual to that platform.

I believe value comes in two basic forms:

Entertainment.
Education.

For example, on Instagram, entertainment can come in the form of being very attractive, being funny, or a number of other ways.

Education can come in a number of different ways.

But the problem is… most people create content that’s not built to entertain or educate. They create content that’s in their own self-interest instead of thinking about what value the end consumer is getting out of it.

Here are some marketing strategies and ideas on how to build an audience on LinkedIn by giving value to other people first:

1. Use the $1.80 strategy for LinkedIn

The $1.80 strategy is a concept I came up with a couple of years ago when people were asking me how to build audience on Instagram.

My advice was to find the top performing posts in your space by searching relevant hashtags or looking at the “top posts” in your area — and add your “two cents” in the comments.

Not fluff comments that so many bots leave, but something meaningful that shows that you actually consumed the piece of content.

Do that 90 times a day, and you’ll start building a community and a personal brand. 

What people don’t realize is, the same strategy can apply to LinkedIn.

There are different ways you can find trending posts …

You can look at the “What People Are Talking About Now” section to see what news topics are trending.

 

If you click on them, you’ll see posts from people who are adding their two cents to the topic in the form of status updates:

You can share your own POV along with an article on the topic that you find interesting.

You also can search the top 5, 10, or 20 hashtags related to your field, click on them, and see what people are talking about:

Go through the posts, and comment on anything you find interesting.

You can also follow influencers and leave thoughtful comments on the content they post.

There are so many different ways to engage. If you leave the best comment on a post that gets a lot of reach, people will notice — especially if you stay consistent with it.

The reason why most people don’t do it is because it’s hard to implement. It’s hard to really consume 90 pieces of content a day and leave a thoughtful comment on each of them.

But if you want to build a community of followers, you have to care about adding value to the community before you can expect them to care about you.

2. Write native articles on LinkedIn

There are two ways to “attack” content:

Either engage with it, or produce it.

The $1.80 strategy is about engagement. It’s about seeing what posts and topics can be relevant to the niche you’re playing in, and leaving thoughtful comments to build a following.

The other way to do it is by actually producing content through video, written, or audio form. One thing that I’m seeing get a lot of traction on LinkedIn is native articles and text posts with content contextual to business.

For example, if you’re a travel company, you might be posting a bunch of beautiful travel photos on Instagram. But on LinkedIn, the right way to do it would be writing an article about something like, say, how CEOs can travel more efficiently.

(It depends on your market and your ambition, but you see where I’m going with this).

3. Add your profile link to your email signature

When you create content and publish it on LinkedIn, the people who see it are those who follow you (or are connected with you) and those who follow the hashtags that you’re including.

Here’s one hack to build your audience if you’re starting out without many connections:

If you’re someone who sends a lot of email from your personal or business account, add your LinkedIn profile to your email signature.

It’s a quick way to get more exposure to your LinkedIn profile and get more followers. As you get more and more connections, it could be the match that starts the process of your content getting higher reach.

4. Don’t spam out messages

What doesn’t work on LinkedIn is spamming people through messages.

The thing that blows me away is, so many salespeople and entrepreneurs get spammy LinkedIn messages and hate receiving them — yet they’re so willing to spam other people.

There’s a lot of tone deafness and hypocrisy there because the truth is, it’s just not the best way to build a following and extract value out of LinkedIn.

The proper way to do it is by giving value to the community first by producing or engaging with content.

5. Use LinkedIn to host in-person events 

Hosting in-person events is a strategy I really recommend, especially if you’re in B2B.

People in B2B recognize how valuable it can be to host conferences to get leads and clients – but many don’t consider the value of hosting smaller events.

If you host a small event with attendees that resemble the type of clients that you want to get, you’ll put yourself in a disproportionate advantage to convert those clients down the road.

You can use LinkedIn’s organic reach to get those attendees, or you can leverage the ad platform to target people in specific locations. I recommend Facebook advertising because you get away with lower cost, but LinkedIn could help you get more of the right kind of people.

Structuring the ad itself can be super basic – I would just record a quick video from my phone telling people about where you’re hosting your dinner or event.

Then, ask people to sign up by filling out a Google Form that you link to in the copy.

In the form, make sure you ask an open ended question that gives you insight into whether or not you can convert them.

Based on the answers and the people who filled out the form, send out invitations to your dinner and host a valuable event. You could talk about the “state of the union” of your industry, ask everyone to share their two cents, or a number of other things.

I talk in detail about how to do it in this article.

 

There’s so much opportunity out there my friends – hope you all to go out and take advantage of it in this era

Effective Ways to Build Trust in the Workplace

I give trust to my employees at work a lot easier than most CEOs would.

To me, it’s about “offense.”

A lot of people struggle with giving trust freely because they fear micro-losses. When you trust someone blindly especially at work, they might make mistakes. If you’re driven by the fear of losing in the short term, you won’t find it that easy to “let go” and let the other person make decisions without micromanaging their every move. 

But building trust and giving it freely are both incredibly important parts of the equation when it comes to climbing the ladder in the corporate world or running your own business.

In this article, I give some thoughts on how I think about trust at work, and how to build it whether you’re a manager or a new employee.

Share your honest perspective, even if that means “dying on your sword”

Recently, I got a question on LinkedIn from Mike, who asked this:

He asked, “What is your best piece of advice from the perspective of a new employee learning the culture and building relationships at a new job, to earn the trust of leaders within an organization? What’s the #1 thing to do in month 1?”

It’s a tough question.

The thing that really scares me is, often times the best way to get trust as a new employee within an organization is to pander to the judgement of senior leadership. It’s by aligning yourself with their point of view.

But their point of view might not actually match with your own.

For example, a common problem I see at big companies is executives and leaders deciding to spend a bulk of their marketing budget on things like billboards or television commercials. Many companies will struggle or go out of business in the next decade because they’re not adapting to the current landscape of advertising and attention.

Toys R Us was just the preview.

If you’re a new employee in a marketing role at an organization and you want to grow within the company, it would be easier in the short term to just align yourself with the POVs and decisions of senior leadership. Even if they go against what you believe.

Personally, the advice I would give would be to “die on your sword” and bet on winning in the long term.

Here’s what I mean by that:

If you express your authentic point of view and disagree with the people “above you”, you might “lose” with many of the leaders within your company and it might stifle your growth within the organization. But you’ll win over the smart people in the company, especially when they leave and move on to other organizations.

I have empathy for those who decide to pander to the POVs of senior leadership to move up within a company, but expressing your honest opinions respectfully and being historically correct will help you more in the long run.

Never sacrifice your ethics for a business “win”

It’s the right thing to do.

Many times, you’ll make more money and get more accolades in your career if you don’t immediately grab what’s right in front of you. On top of that, there’s always someone watching – and you’ll always have to worry about what they’ll say or do after they see you do something unethical.  

For example, I have an assistant with access to my emails. He’d know immediately if I did something unethical or shady, and then he’d question everything I’ve ever said to him.

He’d stop trusting me.

Not only would that be devastating to the kind of impression I’m trying to leave, but it would also slow us down. A healthy company culture is built on trust and openness, and even though there can be healthy debates, there should be never any question of anyone’s intent.

Same thing applies if you’re trying to level up your career within an organization and get promotions – sacrificing your ethics to get what you want might “work” in the short term but it will leave you in a very vulnerable position over the course of your career.

Life is long.

Give trust up front, then take it away if necessary

A lot of managers and people within organizations struggle with giving the people they work with the freedom to win or lose on their own.

To me, “ultimate scale” is allowing people to roam free and expose themselves. By giving people a “blank canvas” to express themselves on, I’m able to get a true read on someone and who they are.



I tell my team all the time that I trust them blindly. And I will continue to do so until they do something that makes me takeaway that trust. If they have questionable intent or if they prove that they’re not capable of handling the challenge they’ve been given, I might take away that trust and put restrictions around them.

But I operate on a different playing field than “trust is earned.” I believe that trust is given first. Who am I to have it earned?

Some people will take that “rope” and create enormous happiness and wealth in whatever we do together, and others will get tripped up in that rope and lose.

Be the bigger person in every situation

A big part of being a leader is being the bigger person – in every situation. 

It means “giving” even when you don’t get anything in return sometimes. It means taking ownership and accepting blame.

You can’t simply impose your will because you’re now the boss. There will be plenty of times where you will need to swallow your pride and do what’s in the best interest of the team.

This means empowering those around you to do their jobs, but it also means something else: you need to be able to accept that certain things are your fault. At the end of the day, you’re the one leading the charge, so you need to be willing to accept responsibility for your successes, and more importantly, your failures.

It all falls on you.

No one likes a boss that passes the buck to an employee in a tough situation.

If you take the blame, your people will know that you’ve got their back – no matter what the situation is.

Why I prefer to earn someone’s trust over time 

Even though I give trust up front, I prefer to earn other people’s trust over time.

It comes down to giving without expectation. I trust and empower other people, but I’m not crippled if someone doesn’t trust me at first.

When people watch my content for the first time, they might be confused when it comes to my intent. But over time if they keep listening and consuming my content, they’ll slowly begin to understand my truths and what I really stand for.

Same thing happens in corporate America. One of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make was the decision to “put myself out there.” I knew that the “establishment” might not respect my self-promotion, and that it might somehow undermine my success as a businessman and operator in their eyes.

But I wanted to stick to my truth – and over time, many of them have come around.

I give trust to others, but I don’t expect it at first – and it’s a big key to my happiness.

How Having “Less” Can Make You Happier

Being happy with “less” is a topic I’m really passionate about.

So many people measure success based on money or materialistic things. I measure success based on happiness.

Recently, I received an email from a guy named Derek – he’s been following my content for a while, and he sent me a very moving email about how he found happiness by selling his house, car, garage sailing, and following some of the advice I’ve been talking about for the past few years.

I get so many of these moving, emotional emails in my inbox every single day, and I want to share more of them with you guys.

Here’s Derek’s:

Hey Gary,

I know you probably get a 100 of these emails a day and may never even read this, but I just wanted to share my story and what your advice had done for my life.

I live in western Canada where my life basically consisted of life on the road in the middle of nowhere in the Alberta oilfield working as an electrician being the most miserable piece of shit ever. In October 2016 I started into affiliate marketing or basically online sales as it should be called for a company. It’s in doing that I realized how much I hated my life, how badly I needed a change and I was on the path put forth for me on the opinions of others, which as someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression his whole life spent many days wondering if life was worth living.

I did alright with the company making a decent chunk of money in the first little bit and learning a bit about the online world, but I had no passion for it, felt like it was more of a world of fake people and fake it until you make it, which I’ve learned is the worst fucking advice ever. 

I had never felt more lost and the depression I deal with started to creep back in, the idea of going back to my old life, with my old job, I felt I would rather die than go back to that. I had followed so many in trying to change my mindset, but everyone spoke about the same shit with a super pricey upsell after to learn more about their methods. Just buy my program, for $10,000 and change your life, blah blah and their advice never stuck, go to a hyped up convention, get pumped, 2 weeks later be back being lost in life.

Now to state for the record I had created a life that was extremely overleveraged still trying to live like a Rockstar with fancy unnecessary shit because I was making upwards of $125,000 CAD a year as an electrician thinking that money and trinkets would buy me happiness, which it obviously didn’t and combined with a lack of work here my monthly bills were insane. And that’s where you come in as I had heard of you but had no fucking clue at all what you were about or had ever watched one of your videos until June 2018. Someone I knew posted of one yourvideos and the swearing and keeping it real without wanting anything in return attitude had me hooked. I found your YouTube page and from that moment on every morning while working on trying to find my direction and gain the strength to push forward in life your videos and advice would be playing in the background.

It was in August 2018 that I shutout everyone else’s opinions, was on the brink of being broke and realized my true passion was inspiration and motivation and that I would try to spread that message via starting a small clothing brand focused around those topics. I know a hard market to bust into and I was scared shitless, but my gut was telling me to go for it. My gut feeling combined with my new mindset and work ethic from your advice completely transformed me from a scared depressed mess who considered suicide at least once a day to someone determined not to fail. With your advice I created the first 10 designs, really learned the value of social media platforms for marketing, taught myself how to build and create my own shopify site and basically took over all aspects of the business to gain the knowledge and cut costs wherever possible.

I officially launched online in late November 2018 with high hopes and in the first 2.5 months fell hard on my face with virtually no sales, except instead of letting the depression sneak back in and having a pity party, I dug down deep, watched you and put forth new methods and ideas to increase reach and potential customers, improvements to the site and whatever else I could find.

I have never been busier, sometimes stressed, yet happier than I am right now as sales have started happening in the last month. Now not breaking any sales records and obviously only 3 months in, but it’s your constant reminder that shit doesn’t happen overnight, takes time and hard work to achieve success that keeps me pushing forward. I have completely cut down my expenses by not buying dumb unnecessary shit anymore, sold my snowmobile, my $62,000 brand new truck I absolutely needed goes away next week to be replaced by a more cost effective, older and fuel efficient SUV I have purchased and yesterday placed my house on the market and will be going back to renting as of April 1st.

I will be using the $30-40,000 equity from my over the top priced house to live and grow my business while living in a much smaller and cheaper place. I don’t think I would be where I am now, maybe not even alive if it wasn’t for finding you and all of the value you bring daily and for that I say thank you sooo much. I know the road ahead is a long one if I want to see success with my business, but my mindset shift has me fully prepared to deal with that thanks to you.

Oh and before I end this let me touch on trash talk as I started flipping shit on EBay, mostly just stuff I already owned, just recently started hitting thrift shops and stoked for garage sale season. I’ve made $4069 CAD after fees and everything the last 3 months, it was from making that I realized how over leveraged I was from bills and decided to cut down on expenses.

On top of that my dad has also really gotten into it, mostly loves the shopping part, but we have never been closer thanks to the time we spend together out looking for stuff to sell. So thank you again and I hope someday to be able to hit an event where you’re speaking, hopefully meet you in person to shake your hand and be able to tell you in person thank you. Anyhow back to the grind.

With Gratitude and Appreciation,

Derek Todd

HPI Apparel

 

I asked my team to put together a new podcast series called “From My Inbox To Your Ears” where my writer narrates this email with additional context – check it out on Spotify here.

POST 4Ds: How 4Ds Helped A Photographer Build a 7-figure Revenue Stream

As the CEO of VaynerMedia, it has been an enormous goal of mine to be able to share our learnings from working with Fortune 500 brands to help grow smaller companies and help entrepreneurs. 

It’s part of the reason we created VaynerMedia’s Daily Digital Deep Dive (4Ds).

In 4Ds, we take attendees “under the hood” of VaynerMedia — both analyzing the work we do for some of the biggest brands in the world, and showing how those tactics can help small to medium businesses.

Our most recent “Post4Ds” article featured Joe Mullings, the founder of a recruiting firm that grew sales by building brand on platforms like LinkedIn.

Today’s interview is with Jasmine Star from JasmineStar.com. She’s a photographer who built a business around giving entrepreneurs tools to grow their social accounts and their businesses..

After 4Ds, she ended up building a new product and revenue stream that did seven figures in the first 12 months.

Here’s her story:

Can you tell us a bit about your background and what your business is about?

I dropped out of law school in 2005, and had his crazy dream that I wanted to be a photographer.

But there was one problem:

I didn’t own a camera.

In early 2006, I went out and bought a camera. By 2009, I was voted one of the top photographers in the world by American Photo Editors.

It was insane. I couldn’t even believe it when the article came out.

Naturally, people wanted to know what happened between those years – especially how I built my personal brand and got name recognition. That’s when I started sharing photography tutorials, marketing tutorials, blog posts, videos, and more.

Then, in 2016, my Instagram and Facebook accounts exploded.

People would ask me how I was using Instagram to grow my business, so I created my first digital course on how to use Instagram for business, and sold it for $197. It was a 15-hour video course.

That generated a seven figure revenue stream for us.

But even though it did really well, it just didn’t feel in alignment with me or who I was. I didn’t want to sell information that people could just Google. I wanted to build a business where I gave people actual tools to solve their problems.

After 4Ds, I created a resource called Social Curator, a membership program where people would pay $30 / month to get access to pictures, templates, captions, etc that they could post on their Instagram feed. And I started giving away all my information for free.

Today, Social Curator has grown to over 6,000+ members.

What did you expect from 4Ds coming in?

A lot of people might know automatically that 4Ds is exactly what they need and that they need to hit the “buy” button right away.

But personally, I’m a small business owner. I listened to all of Gary’s podcast content and read all his books, but I was intimidated by all the things his was doing on a day-to-day basis.

When I visited the 4Ds page for the first time, it was just a checkout for a $10k+ ticket. I don’t think there was even a real website associate with it. I was asking myself, “am I getting punked right now? Is this legit?”

As I got to learn more about the program and watched the 4Ds videos on YouTube, I thought to myself if I’d be able to generate at least $10k in revenue after going to the event. And in my mind, there wasn’t much doubt that Gary and the team would deliver.

So I invested in it.

I ended up going to a 4Ds event in 2017. I went in without an agenda. I’m pretty familiar with Gary’s content, but I wanted to have an in-person experience because I wanted to understand Gary’s team and his vision on a deeper level.

I didn’t go in thinking that I needed to learn XYZ to grow my business. I was thinking, “I’m going to stay open to everything and see what I can get out of it.”

What was the most impactful thing you learned?

After going to 4Ds, I have a much greater understanding for how Gary values culture and how he thinks about it.

He talks about culture a lot in his podcasts and interviews, but when you hear it from Gary and Claude Silver (Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia) in person, you really feel it.

They talked about the holistic approach that they take to caring about their employees which really resonated with me. I don’t have a big business yet, but if I aspire to get to that level, I need to bring in someone who is a “culture creator.”

I walked away with a deep understanding that the most valuable asset I have is my team.

The other big thing that happened after 4Ds was that I completely shifted focus in my business. 4Ds was a clear unveiling that my path wasn’t to continue monetizing my information. It was to share information for free, and monetize on the back end by providing tools that allow people to actually “show up.”

Hearing the same message from Gary really solidified it for me.

We pulled back from monetizing education and built a new revenue stream in our business with Social Curator.

Within 12 months, it was doing seven figures.

Hearing the words from Gary through podcasts, videos or articles is one thing. But seeing him and his team in person and how their actions reflect their words really makes the message “click” in a whole different way.

It gave me the confidence I needed to change direction in my business.

Were there any “non-quantifiable” results that came from building your brand?

Absolutely.

I saw a lot of benefits that came from positioning myself differently in a crowded marketplace. For example, there are so many people out there selling Instagram courses and products. But after the program, I learned how to position myself as someone who provides you with the tools to “show up” and execute.

It wasn’t a positioning strategy I made up. It’s something that played entirely to my strengths. I’m a writer, I understand marketing, I’m good at social media, and I love helping other people out in building their businesses. So I repositioned my business to reflect that.

My product kind of became a “creative Netflix” for entrepreneurs who want to grow their business. It became something that nobody else had ever created.

It positioned me as someone who could talk about these topics from a very different point of view. It’s part of the reason why I’ve been interviewed by companies like MSNBC, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, and more.

If you come from a creative field, you tend to lead with your talent or an “end result” (like a photo, a graphic, etc).

But after 4Ds, I pivoted my brand to lead with me. I felt a lot more empowered to go in that direction and position the brand around myself in an unapologetic way.

What did you think of the team?

Everybody was super professional and set the bar very high. They were even willing to introduce me to other people in other parts of the agency who weren’t even affiliated with the 4Ds event.

The team is always trying to find ways to help you even 1-2 years after you finish the program — whether that’s meeting with you and answering questions, introducing you to the right people, or anything else.