It just doesn't have to be

your thoughts and words every time.

My friends, the key to content success

is you've got to start documenting instead of creating.

Let me tell you how.

Just start.

(upbeat music)

Hey guys, I know I look like the Emperor

from Star Wars right now,

but I'm very high in the air back from London

headed to New York City.

I decided to do a video.

So many of you are stuck and can't start,

and I broke it down into the what, how, and where, right?

WHW, right, like what are you gonna talk about?

But the way all of you need to do this

and how you actually start is by doing.

You haven't done anything yet.

You know, this whole, "Fake it 'til you make it"

brings no value to anybody.

You need to make something, and that thing is a manifesto.

It's always been obvious to me,

it's always been obvious what causes success,

what I needed to do, you know.

Every time I watch content on the internet or on television,

I watched Oprah the other night,

Lizzie was watching, I was working.

She was interviewing George Lucas

and he was saying the same shit.

- We took it to all the studios,

every single one of 'em, and nobody wanted it.

- So what did you do?

- So I said, "Well, I'm not gonna give up now."

- You're stuck.

You haven't started 'cause you're stuck.

I think the fear of losing trumps

the excitement of victory for so many people.

So here you go, what?

What are you gonna talk about,

what do you wanna be known for?

Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself,

"What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life?"

Do that.

And see, what people need to understand is,

the way we communicate today is so different

and the platforms have been redefined.

You wanna be in health and fitness,

you wanna be in strategy, you wanna be in social media,

you wanna be in sneakers, you wanna be in coffee,

you wanna be in electronics, you wanna be in fashion?

You collect Smurfs? Smurf it up.

You can make $70,000 a year talking about the Smurfs.

Whether that's your mission or where you're at right now,

your truth, manifesto.

Tell me what you're thinking about it,

like, if somebody made a video eight years ago

that I think fashion should be high-low,

I think people should wear expensive stuff

and inexpensive stuff in one wardrobe,

they would've been like, the queen or king of the vision

of the fashion industry just by making a video.

- Predicting that Facebook acquires Instagram.

- I was like, "Facebook's gonna buy Instagram."

Four months later, it happens.

So I was on Piers Morgan.

This company's 550 days old.

How the hell is it worth a billion dollars?

And my opening line is.

They stole it.

And then, I guess last year this time, right,

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $18 billion

and every article like the next day after the news came out

is like, "Oh, wait a minute, they fuckin' stole Instagram."

The how is, there's only certain few ways

to communicate in the world.

Whether this is video form.

Something extreme, like just get on a train

and go away for a week or something different.

You have to break pattern.

Whether this is audio form.

Sitting here listening to my music list

and I'm starting to find a little clarity.

Audio being a podcast.

- You're an outspoken advocate

for both hustle and self-awareness.

- [Gary] Yes.

- But if you had to put them in order,

even if it's a 1A and 1B.

- [Gary] Self-awareness.

- Self-awareness is more important than hustle?

- [Gary] It's not even close. - Really?

- Yes, when you know who you are, hustle's sexier.

Like, it would've been cooler for like, the people listening

for me to say hustle 'cause it's cooler.

Right, heck, you don't even need to do a podcast.

Put the recorder on your phone and just speak your truth.

As I sit here right now writing this article,

or at least memoing it 'cause that's how I do it.

Get in front of a camera, selfie-style.

You know, I'm old now, kids,

so at 40, I've observed a lot,

and I could tell you that optimism

and positivity is a huge variable.

Good morning, Instagram.

It's me, Gary.

Instead of a motivational quote or some sort of clip,

I just wanted to go camera to face,

just tell you how much I appreciate all of you guys.

Your attention means the world to me.

Set it up on a tripod or have a DRock,

if it's your nephew, your sister.

Nate, give me this, give me this real quick.

Nathan, the intern is here.

Some of you guys might remember him.

Or you write it, but the way all of you need to do this

and how you actually start is by doing.

I create an obnoxious amount of content

because of the strategy of how we do it.

Don't do anything, just keep watching.

Keep watching my stuff.

Keep being entertained by my energy.

Keep being inspired, don't do.

Don't fuckin' have dinner at 7:00 and drink two beers.

Like, when your strategy is right, you win,

and so we have figured out that pillar content

creates content underneath it at scale.

Hey everybody, welcome to the first #AskGaryVee.

I think it's the first one,

but I actually do think I tried to do this once before.

I feel like I've got the team now in place

to actually do this more often.

It's macro patience.

Macro patience.

Deploy patience.

You've gotta deploy patience.

You've gotta love the process.

What's the ROI of social media?

So I look at her and go, "What's the ROI of your mother?"

There are so many people in here

that shouldn't be producing video

because that is not the best way they communicate.

Only a decade ago, if I was speaking here,

all I would be talking about is blogging,

yet, there are people in this room

that are caught up by picture and video communication

and they are tremendous writers

and they don't realize that blogging or posting on Medium

or even my favorite little hack right now,

if you're a good writer and you wanna build up a profile

for your business or for yourself,

I actually highly recommend you start blogging

inside of Facebook and Instagram.

I literally mean writing seven, 15, 25 sentences,

three, four, five paragraphs of written content

within your feeds that people will absolutely consume.

So that's number one and two, the what and how, right,

like how are you gonna do it, and then where, distribution.

That's what you need to figure out next

and it's the hardest part for a lot of you.

The hardest part is to start, and a lot of things are hard.

Hard to start, hard to know what format to do it in,

audio, written, video, and then number three,

how do you get people to see it?

It all goes down in the DM.

The key is providing other people more value.

I just don't see people doing it.

It blows me away, and it is absolutely,

I want the full,

and it as absolutely going down on Instagram DM.

Influencers or you pay for it.

Either you pay in Facebook ads,

Instagram ads, sponsorship deals.

YouTube pre-rolls against people of those interests,

fashion, you know, food, wine, sneakers, technology,

or, or you reach out to people that have audiences.

Search hashtags, click them, look at the account,

then see how you can bring them value.

DM them, go in soft, bring value.

Rinse and repeat, two, three, four, 5,000 times,

so the thing you Manny should do is go Upper East Side.

Looking good, this guy, look like a good picture.

Hey G.

Instagram influencers right now today for doers

is probably only behind Facebook ads,

the single best arbitrage in marketing.

And then you try and then you learn.

When you're a pioneer, you have to taste it.

There's no report. There's no white paper.

There's no modeling mixed metrics

that are gonna teach you how that's gonna work.

When you're the first explorer,

you have to taste the berries,

and hopefully they're not poisonous.

We're living through this incredible era

of massive opportunity, yet everybody's talking and reading,

and nobody's fucking doing.

Start fucking executing.

So, what does that mean?

That means you should write a Medium blog post every week.

Content, podcast, video, written,

quotes, pictures, and then tactics.

What scares me quite a bit is that most of you,

when you see these logos,

you think of a piece of content that you make

and you think of those five channels and more

as places where you distribute it.

Twitter and Facebook are tools.

Twitter and Facebook are markers and crayons.

They're a fax machine.

These are not just distribution channels.

These are channels where you have to natively story tell.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram

are ABC, NBC, and CBS,

and what I've figured out for the last decade

is how to make MASH and the Andy Griffith Show

and ER and Seinfeld.

- And my question is, how I hustle and stop being a pussy?

Like, I wanna be where you are.

- [Gary] What's blocking you?

- I don't know.

- [Gary] Other people's POV?

- Yes.

- [Gary] That's the one, man.

It's good to see classic and in style.

I wouldn't guess Santa Rita Hills.

Yes, that's a dig, little sniffy sniff.

Please, take a step back and think about

how awesome it actually is.

It is imperative that not only do you start thinking about

your content strategy on these platforms for your business.

Facebook targeting.

I mean like, I mean that's it.

Like, you can literally put your business address,

run a radius around it,

or everybody in the 07081 zip code

or the 08802, Asbury Jersey in the house, zip code,

and everybody will see it in that zip code in that feed.

It's a piece of cake.

So if you talk about coffee, Google the word coffee

and the word blog or coffee and media company

and literally email every editor and writer

of every coffee blog on the internet.

The way you're gonna make money online,

and by the way, anywhere, is by grabbing it.

So if I were you, I would do this.

I would go to Google, I would type in beer.

So I would click this one, PubGlasses.com.

I'd go to this site, I'd see what they have.

I would find the phone number of this place.