Salty Vee, Passion vs Skill & the Best Platforms for Filmmakers | #AskGaryVee Episode 225

- On this episode, I'm in a salty mood, 'cause the Jets lost. (hip hop music) - [Gary] You ask questions, and I answer them. This is The #AskGaryVee Show Hey everybody, this is Gary Vaynerchuk, and this is episode 225 of The #AskGaryVee Show. Sid, good to see you. Sid works at VaynerMedia, on my team. The Jets lost. I'm not in a good mood by any stretch of the imagination. It was a devastating loss. I'm angry. Thursday, we play the Buffalo Bills. We've been struggling with them lately, and if we lose on Thursday, literally, in three days, my season's over of the only thing that I like in life. Sid, what's the first question? - It's by Prosper Filipe (mumbles) question. - Filipe? - Prosper.

Filipe. - Hi, Gary, Here is Prosper from Journey to Real Life, here in beautiful Neuchâtel, taking my morning swim after waking up. So, my question today is, how would be your approach of creating a more sustainable world with a media company? Thank you for your answer. - Prosper, I think it's an interesting question. I've been thinking a lot, actually, about this over the last couple of months. You know, impact on world. I get a, somebody on, whether it was on my team or my family, I'm trying to think who said this to me. I don't think I realized that getting 15 to 25 emails a day in your inbox, telling you that you've changed one's life, that I was doing, it's so interesting that people think giving a $10,000 check to research for a disease, or to fix an animal, or put up trees is the way to do it. It's unbelievable how much, you know, you were with me when we were just in New York where the guy's like, get a tattoo, and I'm like, that's the easy part. Like, not missing a Jets play since '82. I think people are very stuck, Prosper, on tactics over religion, and I talk about that in business all the time. If you've been following me, you've heard that a million times, but it's how I think about a more sustainable world, meaning, as a media company, as an individual, I think we take a lot of shortcuts. Tweeting something to support something is not making an enormous impact. It can make an impact. You know, you supporting something, if five of your friends care how you support, or if a celebrity and 50 people care, but it is stunning how much more important action is over little words or tactical things, so for me, I think it's a day in, day out thing to deploy to the things that matter, and I think it's a very human game, I think, I like depth over width. For me, if I can impact my little circle, and this whole thing, the Vayner Nation, VaynerMedia, all of my inner team here. I'm impacting them on a individual basis, and then they go and impact other people. I'm completely confident, because I've watched it many times, that the self-esteem and confidence that I deploy, Andy, do you think that you're a more confident person, because you've rolled with me? - Yeah. - [Gary] And do you think that you've maybe deployed that on other people within your circle? - [Andy] 100%. - That's the game. So, I think my answer to your question is, as a media company, or as anything else, way too many people are looking to reach too many. Go individual. It's what you're doing behind the scenes that is way more important than what you're doing optically for the PR'ed version of how you wanna position yourself to the world. - [Sid] This one's from Chris. - Thanks, DRock. - Hey, what's up, Gary?

My name's Chris. I'm out here today, in the fucking pouring rain making content for my fixed gear blog, that you'd call my shop. My question is, lots of my fans are under 18 years of age, and don't have credit cards, and can not pay for shit that they want on my website, that they express what they want. Do I pitch to retail, and if so, are there any special tactics or ways that I should go about that? Thanks. - Chris, if your demo doesn't have credit cards, and that's what's stopping you from selling direct to consumer, your answer shouldn't be, how do I go to retail to go to my consumers? Your answer should be, how do I get money from my demo to make my transaction, meaning, whether it's Venmo, or PayPal, or virtual currency, you know, there's a much bigger lift, my man. One of the great things about the world, today, is that all of us entrepreneurs can create a Shopify account, or Magenta, or whatever you want to, and go direct to consumer. Do you know how difficult it is to get retail distribution? Do you know how much they're gonna hose you? Do you know that you're gonna make 50 cents on the dollar? Do you know that you're gonna, they're gonna ask you for things like trade dollars, which is if you even wanna be in our store, you have to pay us for the right? Do you know that if your product doesn't sell well in the first 30 days, they discontinue it? Do you know that you're gonna spend 94% of your time trying to knock on doors and get into the retail shop, instead of actually building your community, and building your business? I think that if, you know, I think at the highest level, for so many of you, going back to the well, instead of fixing the sink, which is an analogy I use a lot, maybe your whole business is broken if you can't get the money from the people that you wanna get money from. Right? A lot of people try to target, somebody pitched me like, I'm gonna sell to 12 to 14 year olds, and they're gonna make the decision. That's the worst zone, because that 12 to 14 is exactly when kids are in-between their parents buying them everything, but them not being able to transact, and so, I would spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether, what way you can collect money from them, including things like, I've always thought a fun tactic would be, instead of an add to cart button, an alternative button to that audience, which is, send the email to your parents to buy it. So, you have add to cart, but there's also send the email to your parents to buy this for you, and you click it, and it's got like four different templates, like the sorry one, the happy one. You know, like, what's the angle, depending on your parent, with a transaction link right there? You need to hack how to get the money direct from your consumer, not how to go down the traditional path of retail. - This one's from Richard. - Richard.

- Hey Gary, my name's Richard. I'm a filmmaker living here in Los Angeles. Recently, you connected with Chase Jarvis, and you humbly bragged that you were one of the first people to say that Vine is a great place for filmmakers to grow an audience. - Just like if I was a filmmaker or video person, I'd be very much paying attention to Vine, and trying to figure out how to make six second micro-videos that bring awareness to me, that leads me to gateway you to my YouTube, which led to you to gateway me, to hiring me. It's just this evolution of opportunity. - It's now 2016. Is Vine still the best platform, or is there something different that filmmakers like myself should be looking at? Thanks Gary. I'll see you and the Jets in week four. - Yeah, I mean, look, it's... - Richard. - Thanks, Richard. I'm not looking forward to the Seahawks week four, though the Seahawks didn't look so good yesterday, and now Russell looks hurt. Might not play next game, but they won a Superbowl, so it's like over. Richard, you know, obviously Vine had its moment of attention. That's also one of the reasons, you know, one of the fun things about creating video at scale, as I have three screens on my, right now, it'd be so fun to look at me doing this in 1996, seven, eight, nine, 2000, 2001. Email, or Google AdWords. There's a lot of predictions that are right. There's also things that were 100% right that get outdated. That attention of that demo on Vine is clearly right now on Instagram stories, and Snapchat stories. So, I think those two places completely dominate. I also think there's some kind of old school places, and here's a funny old school places, I'm a big fan of people getting into some of these Facebook communities, right, these private pages. You know, with other filmmakers or Hollywood types or what have you. Facebook groups is an interesting little hack. I think it's just all work. Look, it's all very basic. I always layer the current state of the market on top of my general thesis, which is, where's the attention of the people that you're trying to reach, and then, how do you figure out to be creative on it. And so, obviously, if everybody's listening to SoundCloud, but you can't be creative in audio, you're not gonna be as successful as you are in creating long-form video. Long-form video of great quality on Vimeo is gonna be a different opportunity for some of the filmmaker characters here, than for somebody like me who, why do you think I've done well? I do well in 30, 70, 90 second quick thoughts, quick, I don't know if you noticed this Larry King, let's link that up, actually, right here, this Larry King, actually, throw a little box up here showing it. This Larry King interview I did, it's so funny how some of my smartest friends have been hitting me up privately, of how great of a format that is when it's quick and witty and fast. That's what I'm good at. So, you've gotta find the medium that you're good at. And so, if you're a filmmaker, there's the Steven Spielberg filmmaker, and then there's the filmmaker that's emerging today that understands how to make it in a Vimeo, in a YouTube, in an Instagram story. Do you know how much storytelling capabilities there are in Snapchat and Instagram stories? There's so much, but who's great at it, and it's a totally different skillset than making a 22 minute sitcom. So, the attention is very obvious. It's on Instagram, it's on Snapchat, it's on Facebook. It's there, right? It's on YouTube, it's on Vimeo, but which one of those five, as a filmmaker, can you really play in, and what's the different versions, because there's a very big difference between making a 41 minute film on Vimeo, and making a great 7 minute Instagram story everyday on Instagram. - [Sid] This is from Derrick. - Derrick.

- Hey Gary, Derrick from Common Man Cocktails. I have some people telling me that producing YouTube videos three times a day is too much content, and you'll create more views by having content produced less, like once or twice a week. Do you think that anticipation really breeds additional views? Should I slow down my production? - Derrick, I think there's some truth to that. I think about the amount of content we put out. I also just think it comes down to how good you are. Derrick, there's some people that should make zero videos in their entire life. I mean, it just comes down to your skill set, right? So, do I think having a scheduled time, not filling up peoples' feeds, are there some tried and true things that YouTube knows from a big data standpoint? Yes, I do. And actually, I think we break them a lot of times 'cause I just want to. So, I don't follow every best practice because, I don't know, I just don't. And I don't want to, I don't know what else to tell you. I just want to pump out a lot of content, because I don't think of it just as a show, I think of it as archived content. I think in a 40-year term, not in a four-month term. I'll be very honest with you, I'm not worried that I have 300,000 or so subscribers and I should have a million. I just don't care. There's just a lot of people that have four million subscribers on YouTube that are not as happy or successful as I am. That is not feed metric. I think a lot of people get caught up in just the numbers. And so, Derrick, first and foremost, brother, I would tell you that you should do what makes you the most happy. Now, if you're trying to make money, and it's easier for me, as I make money, I'm achieving what I need as oxygen to do my thing. If you need the dollars, following the best practice is a good idea. I just think it comes down to you as a person. I think there's art, and I think there's science. I think there's business people, and there's artists. And you have to figure out what your mix is. If you're an artist, and you get excited about making three pieces of content a day, well then that's good. If you're a business person and you need that show to build up subscribers so you can sell sponsorship to alcohol brands, you may want to try a period of time of best practices. I'm in a really bad mood. - This one's from Jenny.

- Hi Gary and team. My name is Jenny A. Hansen, and I'm coming at you from Utah. And my question is, do you go with your passion, or what you're good at? I've been doing nails for 12 years, my grandmother did nails, my aunt did nails, and there aren't any decent nail salons in my area. So, do I open a nail salon? Or do I go with my passion, which is more in consulting? Which, consulting salons would be good. But again, there aren't any good nail salons in the area. So, what are your thoughts? Thanks for the show, thanks for your work. Thanks VaynerMedia. - Jenny, thanks so much for the question. Look, I mean I'm a big fan, Jenny, and I think you know this, of practicality. Awfully hard, Jenny, to consult for nail salons where there are none, or there are none that are good enough that would actually pay a consultant. So, I think your options are you can move, and go to LA, New York, Philly, you know, places where there are more, or you open a salon. You're a young lady, so I think you have time and a long career. Maybe you open up one for a little while, build up some dollars, some equity. It's easy for me to say go move. Maybe you've lived in Utah your whole life, your whole family's there, everybody's there, you've gotta be there. You can consult virtually. It is 2016, technology has caught up. I wrote a book in 2009 called Crush It!, and it became successful, and it started a huge debate in my ecosystem of passion over skills. I don't think anybody can answer that question for any of you watching right now. Really, I don't. I think what you need to do is deploy as much self-awareness as possible. I do believe, it's why I wrote Crush It!, it's why I'm thinking about writing a follow-up to Crush It! right now. I do believe that there's nothing greater than being able to do the thing you're most passionate about. And I think that if you're blessed, and you're able to make the most money that way, and I actually think I'm in that category, well then that's like nirvana. But, I do think that a lot of people should consider, I am of the camp, and you know what, that's the question of the day. Where do you sit in this camp? In the comments, lets sit on this one. Here is my theory, that if you make $130,000 a year doing something you don't love as much, or at all, versus making 89 and loving it, that you should always go with B. Now, people could say, that's easy for you to say, because I have student loans, because I have all these other headaches. I have a weird thesis that 89, because you're so happy and you're willing to work 18 hours a day, becomes 131 over time. And 130 becomes fired or flat forever. I really do believe that passion works out that way. And I'm not a secret, I'm not Oprah. I'm not like sunshine and rainbows, especially not after the fuckin' Jets miss an extra point and lose by one point. I just think it's practical. I just think being happy brings a better energy and a work ethic. Listen, I don't know if you've heard, I believe in work. And I believe the easiest way to work is to fuckin' love it. And so, I think, Jenny, you should go with your passion, I just don't think that it's practical for everybody. I think a lot of people's passion is to become the biggest rapper in the world. I think a lot of people's passion is to become a supermodel. professional athlete, or the next great director, or this or that. I think people are completely tone-deaf to their actual skill sets, and they make up ludicrous, unachievable goals, which then means the blueprint is broken from the get, which means they have no shot at victory. So, I think if your passion is to be the greatest rapper in the world, you should deploy some self-awareness around, maybe your passion should be being around the greatest rappers in the world, if you have no flow. You know? I don't know. I think there's a lot of things, Jenny. I think self-awareness, I think recognizing you only live once, realizing how much regret is poison. And just really, and really, Jenny, I'll give you a really good answer, try your passion. I'll give everybody a passion for two years. What's gonna happen? Your debt's gonna compound? It's not the end of the world, I mean you can always get practical. You could always get practical. - That's it. - That's it? Good. I asked a question. Jets lost. You keep asking questions, I keep answering them. (hip hop music)