Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 30

5 Common Company Problems and Solutions That Demand Attention

As we go into this New Year, I wanted to round up four problems you may face as a company leader in 2016 and offer my solutions to those problems. Whether you’re a small start up or a Fortune 500, these four pieces of advice have always helped me in growing and maintaining my businesses.

1. How To Motivate Employees When They Don’t Want to Put in the Work

Everybody is motivated by different things. We all have our own dreams, aspirations and beliefs that drive us. Never think for a second that money drives all motivation. It’s simply not true.

People are in the game for multiple reasons and the only way for you to understand that is to listen. Once you understand then you can set them up to be in a place for them to deliver on it. And that gives them incentive to always work their hardest for you, because you did it for them. Get it?

So you need to use your ears and listen to your employees. You need to sit down with them and understand where they want to take their careers. What’s their ambition? What do they want to do with their life? By sitting down with people and actually listening, you’ll be able to set up your employees for success while also motivating them to work hard and fast.

Also, it makes you a good boss. So there’s that.

2. Is the customer really always right?

When I have an angry customer, the very first thing I want to know is if they are right. I talk to the parties involved, and I get all the information possible that I can. In the end, someone has to make a call, and as the boss, that is probably going to have to be you.

Nobody likes a boss who passes the buck.

If the customer is 100% right, you apply something that everyone in sales or customer service needs: empathy. You come in with nothing but empathy. I ask questions and I listen before trying to fix it. I’ve talked in the past about how great leaders are listeners. This applies just as much to this situation as well.

3. Meeting Client Demands and Agency Capabilities

As I’ve been building my agency VaynerMedia over the last six years, there is something I often hear from clients, which is this: “Well, you do social, not digital. So we are going to go with _____.”

I believe that the top seven people are what make any company tick. Now if those top people picked up and went to a new company, that new company would start to like the place they all came from. Think about it. What about sports teams? There is no “The Lakers are great.” It’s Kobe and Jack playing on a team, so the Lakers become good. It’s not the Knicks winning when the Knicks have Willis Reed and Clyde Frasier. It’s the people who make up the team.

Get where I am going with this?

If you’re a decision maker at an agency, or running a company yourself, and you’re disappointed because you’re not as good as some other company, or you’re jealous that they are doing something you’re not…stop it. Stop being jealous of their capabilities and go out and hire for your client’s needs. Find the people that are doing it and make them part of your team.

4. Culture Comes From the Top, Including Bad Culture

I’ve talked a lot about how everything stems from the top when it comes to company culture. The way you act and behave in your company dictates a huge amount of how the culture will be.

Don’t like how some of your leadership is acting? It’s on you. Talk to them. Set an example.

Want to establish a casual dress code? It starts with you.

Think the company needs to have less meetings? Once again, you need to start having less meetings.

Everyone will be looking to you to dictate the situation. Don’t forget that in your day to day around the office.

5. Create speed by giving trust

The reason that so many companies and teams go slow is because first time managers struggle to trust their employees.

So many people talk about how “trust is earned.” I think that’s slow and egotistical. There comes a time when you have to let your kid “swing the bat.” There comes a time when you have to throw them in the water and let them swim.

That’s what I do from the start.

A lot of managers withhold trust because they fear the ramifications. They fear the anxiety that comes with losing. They’re afraid of what will happen when an employee messes up, or when mistakes happen.

When you’re afraid of losing in the short-term, you make people earn your trust. Ultimately, that makes you go slower in the long term and it hurts your chances of success.

I do the opposite — instead of putting restrictions around my employees to start, I give them free reign. If and when they do something to lose my trust, I’ll put restrictions around them.

Most managers do the reverse — they’ll put restrictions and barriers around employees from the start, and remove them as they “prove” themselves.

This is why so many managers tend to “micro-manage” up front. This is especially the case when a manager is new to the role — because they’d still be in that “execution” mindset that they had before they got to their role and they’d find it difficult to hand everything over to someone else.

 



Giving trust easily is crucial to my success as a CEO and entrepreneur.

Post 4Ds: How a Recruiting Firm Grew Sales By Building Brand

Over the past 8 years, VaynerMedia has worked with companies large and small from AB InBev, Chase and GE to small 1-100M dollar SMB’s.

As the CEO of VaynerMedia, it has been an enormous goal of mine to be able to share this expertise and share the stories of other companies and entrepreneurs we have helped, from seasoned veterans to those just starting up.

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.

In these “Post 4Ds” articles, we’ll feature in-depth testimonials and interviews with attendees of program. It’s an article series I want to do much more of in 2019.

Today’s interview is with Joe Mullings, founder of Mullings Group, a recruiting firm focused on the medical technology industry. They’ve placed over 7,000 candidates in jobs with 500+ companies all over the world.

I’m so proud of the results Joe got from the program after attending 4Ds.

I asked my team to interview him so I could share his story with you all:

“Why did you sign up for 4Ds?”

Being a follower of Gary’s, I wanted to take a look “behind the curtain.”

I followed all his shows and all the content he puts out on a consistent basis — the podcasts, DailyVee, and more. I wanted to know what machine he had in place to put out content on a daily basis like that. It’s very similar to the model that I wanted to implement.

So I bought 2 seats to 4Ds – one for my camera man, and one for myself.

I already had a decent brand at the time in the business I’m in, primarily focused on LinkedIn because my company’s in the recruiting space. I wanted to figure out a “Gary-esque” approach for LinkedIn content.

“What was the most impactful part of the program?”

Personally, I wanted confirmation that I was on the right track. I wanted to get a more specific sense for what Gary was doing to build his brand.

For me, the most impactful part was the patience and sincere interest that Gary had as he went around the table and listened intently to each person’s business model. I followed Gary’s content online for a while and loved what he had to say, but it really drove it home when I saw his authenticity in person.

I walked away from 4Ds with a great appreciation for the fact that Gary actually walks the walk. I could tell that he genuinely believes in the stuff he talks about. Feeling that authenticity and legitimacy made it easier for me to double down on building brand because you know he’s not just selling a BS “master course” or selling a false dream.

“How did 4Ds impact your business?”

I was already a successful business owner before 4Ds. I was already investing money in my team and my personal brand — over $700,000 in total by the time I had signed up for 4Ds.

But there was one main thing that helped me grow my brand (and my sales) even faster:

The concept of the booms, the beats, and the sawdust.

It was a strategy we learned to squeeze the most out of every piece of content that we put out. When we record a 15-minute video, for example, we really take a look at what all we can do with it, how we can repurpose it, and everything we have to be mindful of. For example, what kind of guidance to I have to give to my camera man? What do I have to tell editorial?

4Ds helped us look at our content production strategically and tactically.

Before 4Ds, I was taking home about $2 million / year. After executing on what I learned at 4Ds, I started taking home $3 million to $3.5 million.

I attribute that to Gary’s “handbook”, as well as my team for going out and executing.

“Were there any non-monetary benefits you noticed in building brand?”

When I first started out in business, I didn’t completely understand the value of brand. It kind of made sense, but I didn’t fully grasp it.

Now, I don’t know how anybody could open a business and not have brand as one of the core pillars and drivers.

I have people coming to me now and saying, “Joe, you’re spending all this money and investing it into your brand. Aren’t you worried about the recession?”

I tell them, “No. It’s actually all the more reason to do it.”

If you look at the companies that thrived in recessions, it’s always the ones that have the strongest brands.

When I walked out of 4Ds and sat in execution mode for the following six months, I realized that even though you can’t put a clear value on brand, you also can’t live without it. That’s something I didn’t fully understand before 4Ds.

Now, I see how branding applies to everything.

For example, I’m building my 13-year old’s brand right now because he knows he’s going to apply to MIT. So I took videos and pictures of him at Google Labs so that when he applies to MIT at 17, I would have “branded” that 13-year-old for years around science and STEM programs.

My other kid is a high end soccer player. So we’re putting together an entire branding package around him because it’s going to allow him to get into a different college to accomplish his goals.

Once you start to look at the world through branding, everything changes.

“Was there anything you got that you didn’t expect to get?”

Claude.

Claude Silver’s session (Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia) was incredible. She talked about building culture, and the way she talked about it was very impactful — you could see that she was the “other end” the stick when compared with Gary.

Gary is very high energy, but Claude brought a very peaceful intensity to the room. She had a very intense, passionate message on how to treat other human beings in your organization. Gary says the same thing, but with a very different energy.

I was able to see how they play on the team together.

“What did you think of the VaynerMedia team?”

The entire team was very generous, and was sincerely interested in everyone’s goals coming in.

The level of service was very high, and there were a lot of nice touches along the way. The follow-up was classy, yet not overdone or overreaching.

Interacting with other members at 4Ds was also a huge value-add. The ability to “corner” someone during a break and ask them deep, insightful questions was really helpful.

All in all, I could tell I was dealing with a first class team. 4Ds was easily worth over double the price I paid.

“Who do you think 4Ds is for?”

You’ll learn a lot of things that you didn’t know before about brand, and you won’t be able to “unsee” what you saw.

But you should only go to 4Ds if you’re willing to work and execute afterwards with a large amount of time and money.

If you can do that, the program will be the best ROI you can get.

One Man’s Point of View: Buying a House in Your 20s – 40s

I wanted to create some context and clarity on my point of view on buying a home.

Context is what I believe in most, and sometimes it can get lost in the Instagram clips I post or my showmanship on stage.

Here’s what I think about the American dream, and buying a home in your 20s – 40s.

Why the American dream is vulnerable

Buying a home might have been a great idea for most people many decades ago. Maybe it worked in the 50s and 60s (like college) — the problem is, it’s 2019 now. Things aren’t the same as they used to be anymore.

To clarify, I don’t think that these are reasons why people should rent or why they shouldn’t buy homes. These are just my observations as to why I think the American dream is vulnerable.

Here’s why the old American dream of buying a home is vulnerable:

You can’t prove home ownership to others

Industries like fashion will never fall because they’re predicated on expression and showing off to other people. Same thing with luxury cars. If you’re driving a Lamborghini, you’re signaling a lot of things about yourself to other people, and people love doing that for a variety of reasons.

With a home, other people have no idea whether you rent or own the home. People don’t know if you have a mortgage on that property or if you’re just paying rent. Your “status” is just predicated on whether or not you’re “in” the home.

People can live in fancier places if they rent

If people rent instead of buy, they’ll be able live in nicer places.

Instead of using that capital on a downpayment, they can use that money to pay higher rent for a better place.

Even if it is a better investment to own a home over the long term, it’s just human nature to “keep up with the Jonses.” It’s human nature to want to “peacock” and prove their worth to other people, and staying in a fancy place is one way to do that.

Student loans are going to tear down the economy

There are so many kids all over America who are in a ton of student loan debt. They’re not getting the kind of salaries they need to pay off that debt, and on top of that, they’re borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a home.

The banks are lending money to people like that all across the country.

It’s just math – that kind of lending is not sustainable.

What many 20-40 year olds get wrong

If you’re in your 20s, 30s, or 40s and you’re entrepreneurially minded like I am, I don’t think the best strategy for you is to buy a home.

We live in a culture now where it’s almost normal to liquidate most or all of your net worth to put a down payment on a home. Instead of that, I believe more entrepreneurs should continue renting for longer, and use all that up front capital to go on the offense in their business. There are just much better ways to use that capital.

If you rent instead of buy, you could take that $20,000 – $200,000 down payment and put it to work in ads or your business. You could use that capital to grow more aggressively.

With the way Instagram ads are underpriced right now, I almost wish I didn’t own a home so could spend more money on ads.

Once you go on the offense using that capital, you could buy your home later at 39, 42, or 52 years old. I have a funny feeling that home would be a lot nicer, and also wouldn’t take them away from the opportunities that they want to pursue.

Too many entrepreneurial people in their 20s – 40s are taking cash out of their business to put towards buying a home, and it’s limiting the amount of success they could have.

I’m not saying that “no one should buy a home” or that buying a home is a “bad investment.” It could very well be a great investment. I also don’t think that my opinion on what a small percentage of Americans should do with their money would impact the value I always try to bring to realtors and agents in the real estate industry.

I just think that people who want to go on the offense should use their capital to do that.

Over time,  I think more and more people will do it.

7 Tips for Dealing With Anxiety

Mental health and dealing with anxiety are topics I’m incredibly passionate about.

Even though we have it so good in 2019, suicide rates are up. And a lot of people feel anxious and unhappy in their day-to-day lives.

Sometimes, the answer is really just to see a professional. But if you’re feeling anxiety that’s not a result of an actual medical illness, here are some mental shifts you can use to get past it:

1. Spend 24 hours looking for the “good”

I really believe that you find what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for negativity in the world — people to disagree with, people to blame, people doing wrong to one another — you’ll find it. I see so many people in this position on social media and in real life. If you’re looking for negativity, the world will start to look “glass half empty” real quick.  

But if you look for positivity and kindness, you’ll find that too. There are thousands of random acts of kindness people do every single day. There are tons of people who see the “opportunities” instead of the losses.

Just go to Twitter search. There’s literally so much of it.

There are plenty of things going wrong in the world, but there are plenty of things going right too and how you look at it makes a massive difference. I feel that many of you look for negativity and the “bad” – that’s why you see so many problems in your day-to-day.

If you’re reading this article, I challenge you to spend the next 24 hours looking for the good.

Watch what it does to your outlook on life

The Rise of Audio Branding

In the past 36 months, I’ve been talking a lot about how the next “wave” in marketing is voice – but what I haven’t talked about a lot is audio branding. 

Audio and streaming in particular has increased massively in popularity with the emergence of Alexa and Google Home. And it’s super clear to me that this is just the beginning.

As voice gets more popular, branding in the audio world is about to become significantly more important. I even pulled my team into a room a few months ago and talked about how we need to adapt.

Sonic branding is about how your brand sounds and how it gets recalled or remembered — like the little jingle in the beginning of video games or the sound when you boot up your computer. It’s about to become dramatically more important for every single brand.

What is sonic branding?

To me, the thing that I am probably most passionate about with voice is the fact that “branding” has never been more important.

In a decade, a percentage of people will buy their product, goods, and services on a voice-first device. When that happens, you will start realizing how smart the branding strategies of companies like Kleenex, Xerox, and Uber really were.

If you do not start the process right now of branding your respective “Chips Ahoy” over “cookies,” what’s going to happen is we’re just going to say “Alexa, send me some chocolate chip cookies,” and the battle becomes which cookies are then sent – whether that’s Amazon’s private label, a Mondelez product, a Nabisco product, etc.

When you ask for jeans, imagine how much Calvin Klein or Levi’s are going to have to pay to be that go-to product, given the margin that Amazon could make in having their own private label.

The problem is, most companies haven’t thought about what their business sounds like.

It’s the same reason that we probably never thought about how important a username would be in a social media environment. When you ask a brand what their “tone guidelines” are, for example, they’ll have answers like “we’re an aspirational brand”, “we’re an accessible brand”, etc.

But when you ask them what their business audio identity is, many of them will just quote back those same adjectives.

But creating audio identity requires different thinking. For example… is your brand’s voice the voice of a 25-year old surfer? Is it the voice of a celebrity? Is it a song? Is it a whistle?

Over the next decade or two, what your brand sounds like is actually going to be an unbelievably crucial variable of success in a world that will be driven primarily by two things: voice and brand.

The real reason why audio branding is so important  

Sonic branding isn’t a completely new concept.

Listen to these sounds and notice how you feel:







If you’re like most people, when you hear these sounds, you have pretty strong feelings.

But over the past decade, we’ve lived in such a visual world that disproportionately rewarded video content and images over everything else. In a Facebook and Instagram world, it’s important to have captions on videos because a lot of people don’t even have the volume turned on when they scroll through their feed.

For that reason, audio branding just hasn’t been as “top of mind” as it used to be.   

But it matters for one care reason:

Speed.

Normally, to capture the attention of the end consumer, cement your brand identity in their mind, or stimulate recall. you’d have to run a 10, 15, or 30 second advertisement on a relevant channel to capture their attention.

But sound is incredibly powerful because of the speed at which you can capture your audience’s attention and “cement” your brand in their mind.

In the voice world, brands have incredible opportunity to form deeper relationships with their customers. The reason we put famous singers and artists on such a pedestal is because of the connection we form with them through their music. Sound has a powerful ability to get us to trigger specific emotions and memories, and that’s impactful when it comes to brand.

It’s the same reason why podcasting is such an incredible medium — you’re in your audience’s earbuds, and that creates a bond with them that’s deeper than anything else.

Brands that have gotten in on audio branding early have able to rapidly create recall and brand association by playing their audio tag at concerts and other events. For example, P.C. Richard (an electronics store) created a jingle that’s used by the New York Yankees after striking out an opposing batter. A brand like Pepsi could play an audio tag at the Super Bowl halftime show to align themselves with pop culture.

Ultimately, sonic branding is the audio equivalent of a brand’s username. If a company plays their tag alongside advertisements or content that match their brand’s positioning, eventually that audio tag by itself will conjure up the intended feelings around that brand.

Personally, I’m adding my audio tag to every single one of my videos starting now, in early 2019.

Here it is:



Why Super Bowl Commercials Should Cost More Than They Do

Super Bowl commercials are incredibly underpriced – even at a $5 million+ price tag, they should cost way more than they do in 2019. 

If you told me that you have $25 million and you wanted to sell some stuff, I would look at Super Bowl commercials first — then I would look at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ads.

This is why I talk a lot about being in the attention business over the social media business. The only reason I’m interested in social media is because it has captured the attention of so many.  

The Super Bowl is one of the single biggest events in America. Virtually everyone is watching – and the attitudes towards Super Bowl ads haven’t really changed for over a decade. 

Source

I felt it back in 2014, when I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I just laid in bed. It felt surreal – it was mind blowing knowing that all of America was doing one thing, and my brother AJ and I were just sitting in silence.

For me, that really drilled home the fact that this is such a massive event in America with so much attention around it.

From a marketing standpoint, there’s a “brand” that’s been built around Super Bowl commercials. The reason I’m so bullish on them because the commercials actually get consumed. During the event, there are always a ton of people watching them, and even after the event people love to look up Super Bowl commercials on YouTube and vote on the best ones.

When it comes to regular TV, the “event” is to consume the actual TV show and reach for your phone during the commercial breaks. The event is not to consume  the commercial — but during the Super Bowl, the commercials are a big part of the fun. .

And that’s why I think the ROI is there — even if it’s $4 million or $5 million for a short spot.

I think it’s worth $10 million or more.

I spoke to Jennifer Saenz (CMO at Frito-Lay) and Greg Lyons (CMO at PepsiCo) about how they’re thinking about Super Bowl commercials as marketing leaders at major brands.

Listen to the podcast here, or read below for the full details:

The ROI of Super Bowl Commercials

When we first started talking about commercials and how we thought about them, Greg took the conversation in a fascinating direction.

For PepsiCo, what has also been a great opportunity (in addition to running commercials) is sponsoring the Super Bowl halftime show. Given the context of the show and the brand of Pepsi, they’ve been able to use the halftime show to help cement themselves into pop culture. Every year that Pepsi sponsored the halftime show, they were the most talked about brand on Twitter.

I also asked Jen and Greg about the actual business impact of Super Bowl commercials as well and how she thinks about that at Frito-Lay.

I always enjoy talking about ads that drive sales. I’m a salesman at heart and driving business results is a super important part of this whole equation.

For a brand like PepsiCo, it’s a clear positive ROI investment. People consume Pepsi products while they watch the game. People shop for their products before the game. Unlike an insurance company or a car company, there’s a stronger level of practicality for a brand like Pepsi to invest in these commercials.

The thing about Super Bowl Commercials in 2019 is that companies are able to release a portion in advance. Instead of just releasing a commercial and having it consumed during the game, they’re able to release teasers for the commercial leading up to it.

And that helps. A lot.

Because companies are putting out teasers of the commercials ahead of the Super Bowl, it makes even more sense. That means that they’re able to influence the purchase decision before the game when consumers are in Walmart or Safeway shopping for snacks.  

It can also be incredibly exciting for employees at those companies to see their company’s ad on TV.



How Brands Have Gotten Smarter About Their Commercial Strategy

Over the past several years, companies have taken a slightly different strategy when it comes to creating commercials for the Super Bowl. 

Dr. Pepper did this years ago with the #ImA hashtag:

Reebok did this as well. Notice the screen at the end of this old Reebok commercial:

This was the start of brands trying to focus on continuing the conversation around their advertisement. The best commercials create some sort of action that viewers can take after they finish watching the commercial — whether that’s tweeting a hashtag to be part of a conversation, liking a Facebook page, or something else.

For example, one really good way to do this is by playing part of the commercial on TV, and forcing people to consume the rest of it on a social media platform.

How This Is Similar to Small Business Marketing 

I wanted to contextualize the conversation more for my readers and listeners, since I know most of you aren’t in high level positions at brands making marketing decisions. So I asked Jen and Greg what small businesses could learn companies like PepsiCo or Frito-Lay.

I loved what Jen said:

Ultimately, it comes down to storytelling and understanding what types of content will create buzz and get people talking. It becomes even more important to tap into those currents of conversation. As long as you’re interested in stories and creating content around what your audience would love, you’ll be able to crack an amazing creative idea.

Companies like Pepsi can afford to use celebrities to “cut through” into relevancy, but small businesses and startups can use influencers. At the end of the day it’s the same game, it’s just a smaller version of what a brand like Pepsi can do.

 

All in all, I have a tremendous amount of respect for these two — being the inside of this industry, I know how much work it really takes and I admire them so much for it.

Listen to the full podcast episode here:  

7 Essential Tips for First Time Managers in 2019

Many first time managers face significant challenges as they go from a place as someone who “executes” to someone who’s responsible for a team.

Here are some tips to remember if you’re transitioning to a management role for the first time:

1. Understand that you work for your employees, they don’t work for you

This one is hard for a lot of leaders to understand.

Most new managers think that becoming a manager is the “graduation.” Truth is, it’s the reverse.

Leaders work for their employees.

That means you have to understand what your employees want at a deep level. You have to be constantly adapting to their needs and what they want from the organization.

For example, one of my employees might want higher pay when he’s 24. But maybe he falls in love at 28 and decides he wants to spend more time with his family. Another might be more interested in a fancy title. Another might want to get access to me and build a relationship. Another might want to go to one of our international offices and work there.

There are a million different variables, and it’s on you as a leader to adjust to reality as it changes.

When you go from being someone who “executes” to someone who’s managing a team, you go from trading on IQ to trading on EQ. You go from doing the actual work to listening to employees, catering to what they want, taking blame, and being the bigger person.

The best managers are actually the best mentors.

2. Lead with empathy and kindness

Empathy and kindness are two massively underrated qualities when it comes to leading a team. They’re not qualities that most people would think makes a good leader, but I believe in them so much.

I genuinely believe that the best leadership qualities are maternal, not paternal. It’s a lot more appropriate and helpful to have a caring, empathetic, understanding personality when you’re a leader than something stern, paternal, or aggressive.

A lot of people overlook the idea that showing emotion is important. 

Even if you already think of yourself as an empathetic or kind person, becoming a manager will change how you practically apply that empathy. 

A lot of this just comes down to self-esteem. If you’re not secure in yourself, you’re not going to feel as comfortable being kind, positive, and empathetic to other people. It won’t come as natural to build someone up (instead of tear them down). It’s why so many leaders lead with aggressive, mean personalities. Many of them are just insecure on the inside and they project that insecurity on their understudies.

At VaynerMedia, you can’t lead with ego. We suffocate that out. People who lead with negativity and ego get fired really quickly.

3. To build culture, focus on firing

When I hire, I do look for certain qualities.

For example… emotional intelligence matters above everything else. Then, I care about the actual tangible skills candidates have.

It’s not even close. If someone’s a jerk, I won’t hire them – even if their numbers are phenomenal. It’s similar to sports — a team that sticks together will end up beating a team of superstars that were put together for one season (over the long term).

Another big piece of advice I give is hiring people that complement your strengths. If you’re a visionary type of person, hire someone who is obsessed with excel and freaks out if you’re a minute late. Hire someone who loves details.

A lot of leaders get “caught” because they hire friends that are similar to them, but aren’t what they actually need.



But ultimately, to maintain great culture within your team, you have to do one thing:

Focus on firing.

In the early days of VaynerMedia I would hire people real easily — but I would fire quickly if and when I realized they weren’t a good fit on my team. It didn’t matter to me how great they were on paper or how talented they were — if they didn’t play well with the other people on the team, they were out.

If you don’t cut that “cancer” out quickly, your team will crumble long term.

4. Being nice is ROI positive

Truth is, you could have the greatest HR tools and software of all time to “monitor” how your employees are doing – but if you don’t actually care about your people at a deep level, you will lose. None of those tools are going to do anything. 

As a leader, it’s my job to give my employees 51% of the value in the relationship.

But I’m not Mother Teresa. It’s just practical.

If you’re using negativity as a way to extract value from employees or people on your team, they’ll build resentment towards you and it’ll kill your culture long term.

I want to create a conversation around the practicality of positivity, kindness, and empathy within my organization. I’m not just saying it to be ideological —  instilling those characteristics and traits as part of your culture has significant long term impact for your business. At VaynerMedia, Claude Silver, our “Chief Heart Officer”, is number two in the org chart at our company.

And if there’s ever a debate on what’s good for our employees vs what’s good for our bottom line, she’ll win that debate nine times out of ten.

Nice guys always win in the end.

6 Sales Tips on How to Sell Without “Selling” in 2019

Sales has changed dramatically over the past half decade – now, the best sales tips are more about branding and less about “converting.”

Here are the best strategies for salespeople and entrepreneurs to close more deals in 2019.

1. Focus on branding over sales

If you have a personal brand and you’re focusing on selling courses and books, you’re limiting the upside of your speaking career.

This is something most people don’t realize.

When you’re focusing on selling books, you’re doing sales. Not branding.

The reason I’m one of the highest paid speakers is because my audience is so “bought into” me. I don’t sell you $1000 courses or seminars. That’s why so many people are willing to come to Vayner4Ds or pay for a conference ticket to hear me speak.

The best advice I can give anyone aspiring to build a well-known personal brand is to hold off on monetizing their audience for as long as possible. The longer you go without monetizing, the more economics you’ll build on the back end.

The reason why 15-year-olds love brands like Tommy Hilfiger or Fila today is because they built on brand. Not because they had a sales funnel. It’s the same reason why Spiderman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman do so well at the Box Office.

The only caveat here is that you need enough sales to not go out of business. But build as much brand as you can.

2. Lose your ego around your craft

Scaling a business to the next level takes two very important traits:

Humility and patience.

The reason most people aren’t able to scale well is because they have ego around their craft. They don’t want to hire someone who might do a better job than they do, so they create arbitrary hiring standards in their own heads that no one can live up to. That way, they scratch their own egos at the expense of their business.

The second big thing is patience.

When I walk into a sales pitch, I’m incredibly optimistic that the person on the other end is going to say “yes.” I’m completely convinced that they’re going to spend a ton of money with me.

And if that person tells me “no”, I’m not deflated. I stay just as optimistic that the next prospect will buy.

“Patience” is also about not buying fancy things too early. Most people are in such a rush to prove to their friends and family that they “made it” by buying a flashy car, and it creates a vulnerability for long term success.

My biggest business failures have occurred when I chose to buy fancy things over investing in  smart business decisions.

The real reason I passed on Uber was because I bought an apartment. If I had just stayed in the apartment I was in for one more year, I would’ve invested in Uber. And I would have an extra $400 million today.

Scaling is predicated on your humility, patience, and how “fancy” you want to live.

3. Go “all in” on LinkedIn as a B2B marketing strategy

2019 is going to be the year of LinkedIn.

Whether it’s through the written word, audio, or video, my biggest advice for you all is to publish an enormous amount of content on LinkedIn every day.

This is especially true if you’re in the B2B space.

The organic reach on LinkedIn is similar to what Facebook’s reach was several years ago. The ads are expensive because there’s a “floor” on pricing, but there’s a massive opportunity with organic content right now on LinkedIn.

Just putting your profile URL in your email signature (if you’re someone who emails a lot) is enough of a “match” to start your LinkedIn content career.

4. Create more ads on social media

I get some emails and DMs from people who tell me their Facebook advertising strategies aren’t working for them anymore.

Truth is, it’s only because their ad got “saturated.”

They run one ad for a long time, convert customers from it, and after a while, it starts to lose its effect. And on top of that, the feed gets more competitive.

The answer to this is to just make more content. If you make more content contextual to the audience, you can tailor messaging to very specific types of audiences — everything from 42 year African American people to 23 year olds joining the military.

 

Targeting 42 year old African Americans on Facebook

The narrower you go, the higher CPMs you’ll pay. But your advertisement will be more specific and more likely to get your audience to take the action that you want them to take.

5. Spend money on influencers – even if some of them “don’t work”

When you’re running a business, you shouldn’t be sitting around predicting whether an influencer is going to be around in 5 years or not. It doesn’t matter. If they control the attention, you should pay them to promote your products now as part of your influencer marketing strategy. 

I don’t overanalyze which influencers I pay. To me, it’s just about whether they’re underpriced or not.

For example… if you had the option to buy a $400,000 home for $3,000, the smart move is to take the deal — even if you don’t have all the little details figured out yet. Even if the seller requires you to buy 2 or 3 other homes at $3,000 a piece.

Cast as wide a net as you possibly can. Hire hungry interns to work for free (or low pay) to DM influencers all day and map out which influencers are underpriced and which ones aren’t. 

6. Use content creation as your leverage

If you think back to high school, there were a lot of kids who were ranked “in the middle” in terms of popularity at the start of freshman year. But by the end of the four years, they rose up to, say, the top 5-10%.

A lot of them weren’t “meant” to be popular on paper, but they figured out the system: If their parents weren’t home a lot or just didn’t care, they had the chance to host parties for the popular kids. And the fact that they were the “host” dramatically elevated their brand.

Same thing applies to B2B marketing.

If you’re the “host” of events or dinners where your target customers are attending, your elevate your brand in their eyes and give yourself a much better chance of closing the sale.

If you’re in B2B, you can host a niche podcast and email people that you normally would pitch. But instead of sending them a sales email, send them an email inviting them to be on your show. A lot of upper-level executives have tremendous insight and knowledge on their industry, but don’t have the name recognition — so they’re not frequently asked to be on podcasts.

And once you build that relationship, you’ll be stunned how much easier it gets to get their business.

Watch the full video here: 6 Tips on How to Sell Without “Selling” 



4 Key B2B Marketing Strategies for 2019

When enterprise companies ask me what B2B marketing strategies they should leverage, I always tell them the same thing:

The “High School Party” Strategy.  

Think back to high school…

For a lot of “mid-tier” popular kids — kids who weren’t the coolest —  an incredible opportunity came up in during sophomore or junior year.

If their parents traveled a lot, weren’t home much, or just didn’t care, they had the ability to host parties for the cool kids. And that made them dramatically more popular over the years because the popular kids needed a place to hang out.

Many of them started out say, “lower middle class” in terms of popularity. But they rose from that level to the top 5-10%.

These kids weren’t necessarily built to be popular on their own, but “hacked the system” and figured out how to elevate their brand. You might know a few kids like this if you think back to high school. You might have even been that kid yourself.

(Not that popular high school kids are necessarily “better” humans — they were just good at figuring out the game).

What people don’t realize is… same thing applies to B2B marketing. Imagine if you could be the “popular kid” among your clients and customers — and get them to give you business on the back of that popularity.

You can get to that level faster than you think.

Social media marketing has made B2B advertising so much easier – yet most companies in the space just don’t see it. In B2B, you know exactly who you’re targeting. You know exactly whose business you’re trying to get and what they look like.

And you can target that exact person through Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or LinkedIn.

The best way to do it is through the “High School Party” Strategy.

It’s what I want you to do in 2019.

Here’s how you can apply it B2B (and high ticket B2C):

1. Host small in-person events using social media

Leveraging Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn to create and promote in-person events is an unbelievable opportunity.

You can position the event however you want.

If it were me, I would do it around wine because that’s authentic to me. But you could host a dinner, a golf competition, or a number of other things.

Here’s a very tactical example of how you would do this if you had a business that sells to dance studios:

Step 1: Run ads at low cost 

On Facebook, the broader your reach is, the lower your cost will be generally speaking. Pick an area to host your event that has a lot of “ideal clients”, so you can run ads at a lower cost.

If you have a business that sells to dance studios, pick an area with a lot of dance studios. To target people who own the studios, you might target people within a certain radius who are admins of a Facebook business page who are also interested in dance.  

Step 2: Record an authentic video ad 

Record a video straight from your phone or webcam. Keep it as authentic as possible.

Say something like this:

“Hey Phoenix, I’m going to be in your city soon! We rented out a room at Johnny’s Steakhouse — I’ve seen the great Yelp reviews and I’ve been wanting to go there for a while. We got some incredible food and wine, and we’re going to be putting on a 20-person dinner where we’re going to talk about the state of the union of dance studios.

Things like opportunities in social media, how to make more margin, how the TV shows have affected us, the macro trends, and more.

My family’s been in this business for 35 years, and I’ve worked in it for 15. I think we’ll have an awesome conversation.

Please fill out the form and I will pick 20 of you to join us for a private dinner. Can’t wait to see you!”

The reason I’m such a big fan of “raw” content is that people can tell that you’re being “you.” This is super important on a platform like Facebook where your content does both branding and sales (so you don’t hurt your brand while you’re trying to convert).

Step 3: Put all the information in the copy

Include the event details plus the Google Form in the copy of the post.

Step 4: Design the survey with an open-ended question

In the Google Form, include one open ended question where the answer will give you an indication as to whether or not you can convert them.

You can invite the people who give the “right” answer to this question to your event.

Step 5: Host the party with a captive audience

Let’s say you spend $500 on Facebook ads, and pick up a $1000 tab at the end of the dinner. For $1500 all-in you’ve got a captive audience where you’re the host of the party!

Hosting the event doesn’t have to be super complicated either. If you’re introverted, you could literally prepare note cards in advance, and start the event by saying something like “Thanks for coming guys. Today we’re going to talk about the state of the union of dance studios. Let’s go around the room and share our two cents.”

2. Start a niche podcast

People in B2B always complain about not being able to “go wide” when they create content. But the truth is, many B2B companies don’t need to go wide.  Even if you have 1500 people listening to your niche podcast, that could be enough to do millions of dollars a year in revenue!

If you’re the host of a small podcast in a niche, and you’re reaching out to experts or thought leaders and asking them to be clients on your show, you’re essentially “inviting” them to your party.

You’re telling them that they’re valuable enough to be on your show, and it plays to their ego. You get a valuable guest, and they get to send a link to their buddies from college that they were on a podcast.

And you’ll be stunned by how much easier it becomes to get their business. If you’ve got a popular podcast in a narrow niche and your guests are senior execs at the companies you’re trying to do business with, they’ll be so happy to be “fake famous” that they’ll just give you the business.

Hosting an event or “owning” the medium (i.e. podcast, vlog, etc) where the popular kids (i.e. the people you want to get as clients) want to hang out is an unbelievable arbitrage in 2019.

The host always wins the land grab.

3. Focus on what your customer wants, not on the service you provide

A few years ago, a lawyer asked me how she could leverage content to grow her business.

The answer I gave her surprised her a little bit, but it’s still so true – even in 2019.

Take Guinness beer, for example.

Guinness beer had a problem about 60 years ago. Their sales in pubs in the UK declined for the first time ever and they had to figure out a new strategy.

They went out and did old school market research and surveyed people in bars. Guinness found out that the two biggest things people talked about were soccer and trivia.

So they created the Guinness Book of World Records.

They started a “media company” to solve their problem.  By owning the media company that produced content that people at pubs consumed, they were able to “bake in” advertisements that increased beer sales in pubs.

I told the lawyer to do something similar. I told her to become a media company.

But instead of just putting out content around legal topics, I told her to think about putting out content around topics that her clients would be interested in – and advertise her business natively within that content every now and then.

For example, she could start a golf website that covers golf topics, and advertise her legal business in every seventh post in the form of “branded content.”

Guinness was early, but I fundamentally believe that this is going to be the blueprint of how companies in the future do business.

4. Create “pillar content”

I put out an 86-page slide deck around my content strategy.  

Think about “pillar content” as one long-form video/audio show from which all other content is derived.

For me, my “pillar content” is DailyVee on YouTube. It’s a “documentation” of my life  as an entrepreneur and operator. From there, I create short form pieces of content that are repurposed from DailyVee — this includes articles, memes, mashups, images, and more.

Source: GaryVee Content Strategy

After that, I’ll distribute content across all my social channels.

I believe in this strategy so much for B2B companies. Even though you’re selling to businesses, you’re targeting human decision makers. And humans will respond to your content.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a team. Think about how you can create as much content with the resources you have. Maybe you can’t produce 100+ pieces of content as I do, but maybe you could do 50. Maybe you could do 10. Maybe you can only do 1 right now.

Whatever it is, please understand that putting out any content (even if it’s totally unrelated to your niche) is better than not putting out anything at all. And too many people think it’s the reverse.

Being the “host” of a vlog, podcast, or show that people in your industry consistently consume will give you massive leverage with the decision makers in your space.

 

The Best B2B Marketing Strategies for 2019

When enterprise companies ask me what B2B marketing strategies they should leverage, I always tell them the same thing:

The “High School Party” Strategy.  

Think back to high school…

For a lot of “mid-tier” popular kids — kids who weren’t the coolest —  an incredible opportunity came up in during sophomore or junior year.

If their parents traveled a lot, weren’t home much, or just didn’t care, they had the ability to host parties for the cool kids. And that made them dramatically more popular over the years because the popular kids needed a place to hang out.

Many of them started out say, “lower middle class” in terms of popularity. But they rose from that level to the top 5-10%.

These kids weren’t necessarily built to be popular on their own, but “hacked the system” and figured out how to elevate their brand. You might know a few kids like this if you think back to high school. You might have even been that kid yourself.

(Not that popular high school kids are necessarily “better” humans — they were just good at figuring out the game).

What people don’t realize is… same thing applies to B2B marketing. Imagine if you could be the “popular kid” among your clients and customers — and get them to give you business on the back of that popularity.

You can get to that level faster than you think.

Social media marketing has made B2B advertising so much easier – yet most companies in the space just don’t see it. In B2B, you know exactly who you’re targeting. You know exactly whose business you’re trying to get and what they look like.

And you can target that exact person through Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or LinkedIn.

The best way to do it is through the “High School Party” Strategy.

It’s what I want you to do in 2019.

Here’s how you can apply it B2B (and high ticket B2C):

1. Host small in-person events using social media

Leveraging Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn to create and promote in-person events is an unbelievable opportunity.

You can position the event however you want.

If it were me, I would do it around wine because that’s authentic to me. But you could host a dinner, a golf competition, or a number of other things.

Here’s a very tactical example of how you would do this if you had a business that sells to dance studios:

Step 1: Run ads at low cost 

On Facebook, the broader your reach is, the lower your cost will be generally speaking. Pick an area to host your event that has a lot of “ideal clients”, so you can run ads at a lower cost.

If you have a business that sells to dance studios, pick an area with a lot of dance studios. To target people who own the studios, you might target people within a certain radius who are admins of a Facebook business page who are also interested in dance.  

Step 2: Record an authentic video ad 

Record a video straight from your phone or webcam. Keep it as authentic as possible.

Say something like this:

“Hey Phoenix, I’m going to be in your city soon! We rented out a room at Johnny’s Steakhouse — I’ve seen the great Yelp reviews and I’ve been wanting to go there for a while. We got some incredible food and wine, and we’re going to be putting on a 20-person dinner where we’re going to talk about the state of the union of dance studios.

Things like opportunities in social media, how to make more margin, how the TV shows have affected us, the macro trends, and more.

My family’s been in this business for 35 years, and I’ve worked in it for 15. I think we’ll have an awesome conversation.

Please fill out the form and I will pick 20 of you to join us for a private dinner. Can’t wait to see you!”

The reason I’m such a big fan of “raw” content is that people can tell that you’re being “you.” This is super important on a platform like Facebook where your content does both branding and sales (so you don’t hurt your brand while you’re trying to convert).

Step 3: Put all the information in the copy

Include the event details plus the Google Form in the copy of the post.

Step 4: Design the survey with an open-ended question

In the Google Form, include one open ended question where the answer will give you an indication as to whether or not you can convert them.

You can invite the people who give the “right” answer to this question to your event.

Step 5: Host the party with a captive audience

Let’s say you spend $500 on Facebook ads, and pick up a $1000 tab at the end of the dinner. For $1500 all-in you’ve got a captive audience where you’re the host of the party!

Hosting the event doesn’t have to be super complicated either. If you’re introverted, you could literally prepare note cards in advance, and start the event by saying something like “Thanks for coming guys. Today we’re going to talk about the state of the union of dance studios. Let’s go around the room and share our two cents.”

2. Start a niche podcast

People in B2B always complain about not being able to “go wide” when they create content. But the truth is, many B2B companies don’t need to go wide.  Even if you have 1500 people listening to your niche podcast, that could be enough to do millions of dollars a year in revenue!

If you’re the host of a small podcast in a niche, and you’re reaching out to experts or thought leaders and asking them to be clients on your show, you’re essentially “inviting” them to your party.

You’re telling them that they’re valuable enough to be on your show, and it plays to their ego. You get a valuable guest, and they get to send a link to their buddies from college that they were on a podcast.

And you’ll be stunned by how much easier it becomes to get their business. If you’ve got a popular podcast in a narrow niche and your guests are senior execs at the companies you’re trying to do business with, they’ll be so happy to be “fake famous” that they’ll just give you the business.

Hosting an event or “owning” the medium (i.e. podcast, vlog, etc) where the popular kids (i.e. the people you want to get as clients) want to hang out is an unbelievable arbitrage in 2019.

The host always wins the land grab.

3. Focus on what your customer wants, not on the service you provide

A few years ago, a lawyer asked me how she could leverage content to grow her business.

The answer I gave her surprised her a little bit, but it’s still so true – even in 2019.

Take Guinness beer, for example.

Guinness beer had a problem about 60 years ago. Their sales in pubs in the UK declined for the first time ever and they had to figure out a new strategy.

They went out and did old school market research and surveyed people in bars. Guinness found out that the two biggest things people talked about were soccer and trivia.

So they created the Guinness Book of World Records.

They started a “media company” to solve their problem.  By owning the media company that produced content that people at pubs consumed, they were able to “bake in” advertisements that increased beer sales in pubs.

I told the lawyer to do something similar. I told her to become a media company.

But instead of just putting out content around legal topics, I told her to think about putting out content around topics that her clients would be interested in – and advertise her business natively within that content every now and then.

For example, she could start a golf website that covers golf topics, and advertise her legal business in every seventh post in the form of “branded content.”

Guinness was early, but I fundamentally believe that this is going to be the blueprint of how companies in the future do business.

4. Create “pillar content”

I put out an 86-page slide deck around my content strategy.  

Think about “pillar content” as one long-form video/audio show from which all other content is derived.

For me, my “pillar content” is DailyVee on YouTube. It’s a “documentation” of my life  as an entrepreneur and operator. From there, I create short form pieces of content that are repurposed from DailyVee — this includes articles, memes, mashups, images, and more.

Source: GaryVee Content Strategy

After that, I’ll distribute content across all my social channels.

I believe in this strategy so much for B2B companies. Even though you’re selling to businesses, you’re targeting human decision makers. And humans will respond to your content.

Being the “host” of a vlog, podcast, or show that people in your industry consistently consume will give you massive leverage with the decision makers in your space.