January 14, 2020

Hard Work or Nothing – Gary Vaynerchuk on The Business Casual Podcast

Check out the Business Casual Episode Page & Show Notes

Gary’s secret sauce:
- Being just a hair early on big trends
- Not focusing on social media comments, whether positive or negative
- Giving more value than he takes
More people need to communicate their happiness and gratitude on social media
At the moment, Gary believes TikTok is THE social media platform to be on because of its incredible organic reach
Gary’s parents taught him two important lessons:
- “Hard work or nothing… and kindness over everything” – Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary’s secret formula for success? – Being just a hair early on big trends
- “I think my story will be a story of timing” – Gary Vaynerchuk
- (But you also can’t be too early, Gary believes something big will happen with VR but it still needs time to develop)
- One example of Gary’s secret sauce in action: Launching an e-commerce wine business in 1996 before the massive popularity of the internet
Gary doesn’t focus much on the comments his social media posts/videos get, whether positive or negative
- By not letting his ego get too high or low, Gary is able to continually put out content
  - “Once you’re not scared of the feedback, you actually post the truth” – Gary Vaynerchuk
    - (And once you post the truth, you become unique)
Another secret to his success: Give more value than you take
- Gary is constantly creating content and gives it out for free across several platforms
- 🎧 He’ll never stop a video midway to ask viewers to buy a bottle of wine or a pair of his shoes – he focuses on providing value, not taking it
  - His motto: “Build a brand and bring value. Then, you basically karma and guilt people into doing business with you.”

🎧 Which of Gary’s projects excite him the most?
- “That I’m tricking young entrepreneurs into valuing patience and kindness and empathy” – Gary Vaynerchuk
  - Why? – He wants to see more creators displaying patience, gratitude, and kindness within their content
More people need to communicate their happiness and gratitude on social media!
- One easy way to do so: Write a thank you comment on airline’s Instagram page if you experience great customer service

Gary believes TikTok is THE social media platform to be on now because of its incredible organic reach
- Twitter and Facebook were the hot platforms in the mid-2000s
- Instagram was the hot platform between 2011 and 2013
- TikTok is the hot platform of today
  - Why get on TikTok? – “When you move fast, you land grab… Best always wins, but first is a great place to be too.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Why aren’t many brands advertising on TikTok yet?
- New things are sometimes scary
- You can’t legally market to kids under the age of 13 (and TikTok is filled with young users)
- Many brands don’t target customers under the age of 18
  - (Unless they’re selling fashion, candy, etc.)
Gary is also bullish on LinkedIn – he believes LinkedIn today equals Facebook in 2012
- “LinkedIn is wildly underpriced” – Gary Vaynerchuk
In summary: If you focus on LinkedIn and TikTok over the next 6 months, your business will gain a lot more customers than if you were to focus on Instagram

A ton of Fortune 500 companies make the mistake of focusing on potential reach instead of actual reach
- Potential reach is known as GRP (Gross Rating Point): A measure of the size of an advertising campaign by a specific medium or schedule. It doesn’t measure the size of the audience reached.
- Another way of thinking about this – You may have 50k people subscribed to your mail newsletter, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get 50k opens.
- Part of the problem: Fortune 500 companies are so big that they can’t tell which advertisements are responsible for which results
  - “I feel bad for them. I don’t think they’re stupid or don’t care. I think the company scores on reporting, not actual business results.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary is obsessed with nostalgia and calls it the “most under-priced asset in the world”
- He plans to buy up nostalgic brands (Blow Pops, Cap’n Crunch, Ocean Pacific, etc.) during the next economic collapse for cheap and then make the brands contemporary

What is a brand?
- “It’s what people think when they hear a word” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary’s parents taught him two important lessons:
- “Hard work or nothing… and kindness over everything” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary is a big believer in hustling but says people took his message too far
- He sleeps eight hours/night thinks other people should too
Constantly produce content and feel free to cut-up and repurpose existing content:
- Take a blog article: Share quotes on Twitter or images on Instagram
- Take a podcast: Create audio clips for YouTube and TikTok
Gary believes Chinese entrepreneurs are beating American entrepreneurs because they’re hungrier and more raw
Gary is anti-venture capital
- Too many founders are spending more on building pitch decks to raise money instead of focusing on their customers or developing a better product
- “We stopped building businesses in the last decade because of VC and all the money. Let’s make this decade a decade where we went back to actually building businesses” – Gary Vaynerchuk
🎧 Gary is anti-school system for people who have “natural, artistic talents” and entrepreneurs