Salesforce Interview Gary Vaynerchuk | San Francisco 2017

now today we're going to be discussing the three pillars of success uh with a very special guest someone that I've worked with before at a couple of our events uh he's really changed the game in so many of different Industries I won't try and introduce you yourself but uh Gary welcome to the show thanks for having me I'm excited to be here so Gary uh you've got a really interesting background I think obviously moving into the US uh the baseball cards the Wine Library perhaps for some of the people that aren't familiar with yourself can you give intro you know it's fun right now I'm very much known as a marketing guy a social media guy but the truth is at the end of the day and why I really wanted to do this today is I'm a sales guy right I mean from the age of five with lemonade and I mean five Lemonade Stand franchise really doing sales to the core of my adolescence which was be a poor student but sell pencils and erasers and bubble gum and then ultimately uh because I'm a 41y old male and baseball cards were a huge phenomenon in America um I was selling baseball cards at 12 13 14 15 and making thousands of dollars a weekend selling baseball cards but it was sales and then my dad saved all his money as a Russian immigrant you mentioned I wasn't born in the US and bought a small liquor store in Springfield New Jersey and my late teens early 20s were about hand selling wine you know you come in for Santa Margarita penio and I'm going to try to sell you the penio we make more money on that we think is better so uh that has been the constant I actually think branding and marketing is sales it's just top of the funnel work uh we were just talking about that before camera like the book The new TV show I'm doing it's all sales at the end of the day and so I'm an entrepreneur for everybody who's watching uh built a very large e-commerce wine business in the late 90s uh early 2000s called wine library. com and then uh saw the world changing was using email marketing Google AdWords banner retargeting and then ultimately YouTube as sales and marketing funnels from my wine store YouTube sells for $2 billion 1. 7 uh to Google I think this is a big change in the world of the internet I decide that my skill of understanding consumers um can make me more money in my quest to buy the New York Jets which is my ultimate business ambition and I decided to become an investor uh my first three Investments were Facebook Twitter and Tumblr okay uh I did very well and uh and then I decided seven years ago to take a step back and build a sales and marketing machine MH uh and that became Viner media uh which I started with my brother AJ seven and a half years ago almost eight years ago uh and over the last six years we've grown from uh 30 to 700 employees uh to $130 million agency Full Service Media buying creative um uh production planning all that work and uh and in January of this year I created a holding company called Vayner x with my acquisition of pure wow a female uh me modern Media company and so now we have a publishing arm and the agency and at the end of the day all of it one way or the other gets into the sales world right and so clearly the Investments you've made in those different companies uh what you're doing with Vaya media disrupting the whole media industry uh in general the whole sales world and buying world has been completely disrupted number one from a technology point of view there's clearly so many Technologies out there uh but then also number two uh around the actual mindset of that buyer and of the salesperson people don't want to be sold to uh I've always found it really interesting you create all this content you put it out there for free uh and a lot of people kind of question that they go why would you do that for free but I'm a strong believer you need to give these insights out for free and ultimately build that connection uh so for any sales professionals watching where would you advise that they start in terms of creating their own content or sharing their content uh adding their own context as well before I go directly into the tactics of should you make a video uh should you do a written blog post or podcast I think the bigger thing is and I think you get this as well is you have to reverse engineer who you're trying to get to you know if you're a salesperson out there right now if you're trying to get to me and so many of you are I get 50 70 bulk emails bulk direct messages bulk Twitter direct messages Instagram uh business cards all sorts of weird stuff sent in the mail I'm busy right I'm busy and like I'm just not interested in you selling to me not because I don't like you cuz I respect the game it's because I'm just busy it's nothing personal so I think the first thing you have to do is reverse engineer the person you know because I'm not in the market to buy anything I'm going to be tougher but if I need certain software if I need something that's a good time to attack right so I think the number one rule of salese is to listen know your audience know what they did if you see an m& a just happen if you see layoffs just happening if you see one of their if I see Burger King doing something I'm thinking what does McDonald's think of this um so that's number one number two where are they spending time I'm easy to sell to if you realize that I'm spending time on social networks but I'm not going to want you to spam me in my direct message with a link and no context you should be producing content for me to see it in my feed I think to answer a question directly everybody has a salesperson has to figure out how do they best communicate is it written word is it audio is it video is it in person and how to use the digital world in audio written or video form to create the gateway drug to in person one thing that people are very confused by me is I don't even do phone call sales calls I need to see you face to face I'm supposed to be this digital guy and I need to see you I use digital and I use all my content on YouTube Facebook Instagram Snapchat LinkedIn Medium as gateway drugs to this um so I think anybody who's a salesperson whether Entre if you're an entrepreneur or startup and you're not producing content at scale podcast video blog uh blog posts uh random Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube clips then you're losing that is unacceptable in 2016 that is losing DNA if you're not producing content for social networks uh and the mobile device and the platforms on it you basically don't exis mhm uh

sometimes a lot of people may try a new initiative and then they don't get an immediate re action they and they think it's a failure I want to go back to your YouTube videos with the Wine Library you know you had so much content out there how did you stick in keep yourself motivated because I believe in my strategies and I'm patient as like all great stuff especially when you're innovating doesn't happen right away this notion that like oh Gary I tried it I spent 500 bucks on Facebook ads it doesn't work well what if your video sucked what if your product and service sucks I tend to do things that are very early that has been my career MH I when I do things I believe in them uh I stick with them based on intuition even though for 18 months nobody watched my wine videos at all I knew it was right I was right there's been things I've done that I've jumped off of very quickly I started a Gary V app uh V chat ve like WeChat I thought it was funny for my fans great CRM oneon-one didn't feel right after a week or two spent plenty of money building it knew stopped it after you know couple months uh Wine Library TV 5 years every day YouTube decided to change it to daily grape insular app you could buy stuff subscription for reviews it was a lot of fun only did it for five months stopped it because I didn't feel right anymore okay um it's always hard to know when to jump off something new um but I find that people don't believe in what they're doing they hear a guru and they do it be grudgingly cuz their boss wants them to or they're like well Gary's right a lot so let me do it but they don't believe it and so then they jump they're looking for NOS instead of yeses everything I do every Business Development every event I do every time I try new marketing tactic or sales tactic I'm looking for the yes right and if the no punches me well then I'm like crap the no punched me I believe the majority of people when they try new tactics are looking for the no mhm and you're going to getting a lot of subtle NOS immediately right and so I think that's

why that happens and you mentioned a guru there I know you uh met up with Tony Robbins the other day and he obviously did that great documentary I am not your Guru uh other than the fact that he cursed and so you were extremely grateful for that uh it was really interesting just hearing the dialogue between the two of you because again to your point people look at these gurus or thought leaders and then maybe try something and then just go it didn't work and then blame you for it yeah I mean honestly like I don't even I the good news for me is I'm not selling my audience anything so I have very uh very good vibes with my community because when you're not selling them anything it's really easy you don't get really blamed they may have a judgment call on your stuff doesn't work and that's fine I think that a lot of people that are watching this right now don't have the talent to achieve what they want to achieve many people I've met that wanted to be great salespeople and I can you know if you're a salesperson you can smell other salese you know it's like dogs sniffing each other it's not super confusing to me and I'm like you're not going to be a Salesman or you're great salesman um so I uh yeah I mean being a thought leader or having a personal brand or doing the self-promotion or this and that it's part of my world but it's really something I spend very little time thinking about I'm an operator the Gary ve thing is my side hustle right uh I'm running a very large organization and Company um and uh I'm very empathetic and I try to be very Frank with my audience I have a piece of content that's really on the verge of huge virality where I spoke to a 22-year-old on my askary V show the other day for like 20 minutes really dug it with her she was really great and it was very real and the reality is that a stunning amount of people behind that camera right now are not going to be successful in sales CU they're not willing to work hard enough MH they love the automation they love your product right you guys do great like they love all these tools the problem is if you have the greatest hammer and the greatest screwdriver and the greatest wrench the greatest in front of you MH if you don't use them properly you will lose right if there's a nail that I have to put in that ground but I take the wrench and I hit it when the hammer was right there it still comes down to the practitioner MH and you have to be good at your craft love your if you don't love sales it you have no chance because it's so hard it's so painful there's so much rejection right um so those are the things I think about so technology is

clearly enaer as you just said there though the person is equally important uh more important right and going back to like I just apologize for jumping in but let me make it perfectly straight if I go play Roger feder right now in tennis and I have the greatest tennis racket ever made like from taken from the Mars's new like resources and he took a John mackenro 1974 tennis racket he would whip my ass like I'm crushing salespeople that have every Salesforce every one of your competitors 37 features upgraded went to every Pro conference watching this I will beat their ass in sales every day of the week pure talent right uh so Gary look we're

nearly up on time uh we'd love any closing thoughts from you for sales professionals whether it's a startup at an Enterprise what should they go out and do today tomorrow I look at sales very differently than the far majority I think way too many sales people are patient are impatient transactional I think way too many sales people are lowest common denominator spam blast LinkedIn um email bulk business card business bus card business card so I think I've got a different tactic on sales but don't get it twisted it's what I am if you're not happy with your upside if you're not fully fulfilled I think a lot of what you heard from me today I'm doing things reverse of you I think a lot of you are doing things that are directly in front of you numbers that they put you're trying to achieve that because you have a beach house you want to buy or go on that vacation sales is a funny game if you work in a big company they man ulate numbers to create your actions I believe that the best salespeople are doing things in a different way I think you need to care about the customer for real reverse engineer them and give them what they need and so I have a funny feeling that for 87. 9% arbitrary number that 87. 9% of the people watching right now I'm a better sales person than you because I'm the anti-s salesperson and I think that's the best salesperson think about that think about how you yourself air cover to not do behavior that is short term um please understand that the world has changed and the attention of the person you're trying to get to is moving into different places and uh and this big one stop complaining sales people aren't allowed to complain the market is the market your bosses are your bosses a great salesperson shuts their mouth and she goes to work every day and tries to bring value to the end user and is patient and over time wins the marathon of sales put yourself in that position