- On this episode, I'm a little under the weather
but it made me thoughtful.
(upbeat music)
♫ Gary Vee
♫ You ask questions
♫ And I answer them
♫ This is the #AskGaryVee Show ♫
What's up everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk,
and this is Episode 187 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
I've been a little bit under the weather.
Mike, Mike the trainer, got me sick.
Said he had a migraine, and next day he was like
full flu-d out and I was like, "What?"
and then like, the thing in the throat and (sniffs).
India, do you ever get of getting sick?
- No, stay away from me.
No, I'm not, I refuse to believe it.
- I think it's mental.
I've told everybody I refuse to get sick so,
- Not getting sick.
- I've been fighting it off mentally.
And so India, let's get into this
show. - Let's get into it.
- [India] Show, show. - Show.
- A week from the book.
Can we get a book?
Can we get a book here?
Alright, India, there we go. (laughs)
That was a good inside joke.
A week away from the book,
which I'm super excited about and
thank you all so much for your support and
and so, here it is, it's very exciting.
My Dad is super pumped.
He's in it but he's like, his hair's flopping in the wind
and he's super sad about it. - [India] Oh yeah.
- So, Dad, too bad. - [India] (laughs)
- And, oh Alex, what'ya got Alex?
- Nothin'.
- What are you doin'?
- We need some book signed.
- Well, let's do it, right here in the middle of the show.
Let's do it while I talk about the book.
Was talking about the books anyway so.
- All the books.
- Jesus Christ.
- These are just regular Hancocks.
We need a marker, don't we.
- Yeah, you gotta set me up.
Anyway, this will be a great time
to throw my right hook.
So many of you have supported me on Super 8
and I thank you so much but it would mean a lot to me,
a big spike the week before on Amazon is
quite important actually for how they order more
and how they promote.
So, if you were considering to buy the book
at any point, in any way, or any shape or form,
one, two, three, 700,
this would be an amazing time to do so.
It would mean the world to me.
Jesus Christ, look at the difference in thickness
between - [Alex] That is crazy.
- This is nuts. - [Alex] That's crazy.
- Holy crap. - [Alex] (laughs)
- That's, how thin "Crush It!" is?
- [Alex] I don't remember it being this small.
- It feels so small, I mean "#AskGaryVee" is a beast.
I, wow, I'm pumped,
I can write the next book in like, one day.
Like, you know like, no wonder the audio took
one day with "Crush It!",
and six years with "#AskGaryVee".
So, thank you guys so much.
I appreciate all the support.
It's obviously been a lot of book talk.
That's coming to an end sooner than later
so we're back to our regularly scheduled
two years of jabbing, minimum,
and that's that.
Notice how there's never "Thank You", f...ing, "Economy".
It pisses me off so bad.
It's my best book. - [India] Yes it is amazing.
- It's literally, I feel like
"Thank You Economy" is my sister.
My sister's the best but we never talk about her.
She's in the middle. (laughter)
Liz, I think you are the "Thank You Economy".
Yes, my wife and sister's name is the same.
So, that's that.
DailyVee is rock and rolling.
If you haven't checked it out, Staphon,
throw it up right here.
Episode 18 was posted today.
It's a good one.
DRock is in the middle of 19 right now.
Who's this go to?
- [Alex] Sandy, Chef's mother.
- Okay, Sandy? - [Alex] Yeah.
- Like, S A N D Y? - [Alex] Yep.
- Okay.
- [Alex] And then her father, Jorge,
she wants something more like,
- J O R G E? - [Alex] yep.
- Sorry for the boredom.
Done, cool.
AJ.
- Hello.
- Hey.
- Can I get you for a minute?
- Yeah, we're in the middle of the #AskGaryVee Show.
- Oh, you're filming right now?
- Right now.
- Cool, I should definitely not talk to you
about that talk now.
- Okay, cool.
- It looked like you were not filming.
- I know, I know you got caught off-guard by the signing.
- Okay, I got caught. I got caught.
When are you done?
- Yeah, soon.
- Keep all this footage.
- We do, (laughs) don't worry.
Cool, India, let's get in the show.
Anyway, it would mean the world to me.
Link up, anything you can link up.
If you can link up in YouTube direct to Amazon, do it.
Put it in the copy of Amazon, and Facebook.
Right now is the time to buy the book,
if you're debating it at all.
One, two, three, four, five, six copies.
Please, it would mean the world to me.
Today is a big day.
And leave a comment, I'm actually gonna
drive back from Connecticut tonight.
You should probably have this up in like three, four hours?
- [Staphon] Yeah.
- Please, leave a comment, if you did,
with the number, you just can leave the number.
Three, one, seven, four.
I wanna, on the way home, I'm gonna reply
and thank you one-by-one.
That's how important it is for me today.
India, in YouTube and Facebook.
- [India] Ben.
- Ben?
We'll get into--
- I thought it was Ben Benrubi
'cause it looked like--
- Oh my God, it does look like Ben Benrubi.
- But it's not.
- And his name's Ben? - [India] Yep.
- Hey Gary Vee, I just wanted to find out how you scaled
VaynerMedia so quickly?
Do you do joint ventures or partnerships?
What strategies allowed you to scale?
- So quickly. (laughs)
- You know, I think the number one, overarching thing
with me is that I'm, you know, in a place where
I'm a top-line revenue driver, right?
Because I'm able to drive sales and was able to get clients,
you know, a funny thing happens.
Money solves a lot of business problems.
By having money continue to come in,
I'm able to overinvest and so right now,
most of our organization (sniffs), you know,
is not actually at capacity.
You know, we talk a lot about capacity here at VaynerMedia.
We probably have 20% more capacity meaning
people can be on more accounts and we can
get paid for it and most agencies would
drive that down to even-stephen,
even sometimes under-capacity to drive profit.
I, on the other hand, really because of my ability to sell.
That's what it is.
Because of my ability to sell, am able to drive
growth at such a rapid pace.
Parallel that with HR capabilities and actually
caring about people and scaling HR
and be an HR-driven CEO,
you have the two combinations for hyper-growth companies.
One that cares about its people
and one that's able to make money.
It's really not complicated.
And then the third variable of
one that's not being built to sell.
So, I'm not worried about my margin because
when you sell your company,
you're often not looked upon at your revenue,
you're looked upon how much money you're making.
People are paying you on a multiple on that.
Because I'm not worried about that,
I'm able to pour more dollars into people,
into culture, into being on the offensive,
to opening up London.
If those were things that,
if I was trying to sell this company,
I wouldn't open up London,
I wouldn't have 20% extra capacity.
I'd be trying to organize it and orchestrate it to a sale.
And so I think it's a mentality and then
I think it's the capabilities of me on the CEO level
on Sales and HR.
- [Voiceover] Jered asks, "You mentioned
"publicly documenting one's journey,
"but isn't advertising inexperience hurtful
"when seeking paying clients?"
- Confused, one more time.
- [India] So like, you probably document your journey--
- I said the other day, in DailyVee
it would've been cool to see Vera Wang
or it would've been cool to see me
starting Wine Library, right?
- [India] Exactly, but isn't that hurtful
if you're trying to seek clients who want to
pay you because you have experience?
Like say you were in advertising
and you don't have experience like--
- Yes, Jered, you should not be paid for faking the funk.
You should not be a 20-year old life coach
telling people how to live their lives
because you're just starting yours.
You should not be paid as an advertising expert
if you're not an advertising expert.
I mean, unless I'm wrong here, and I don't think I am,
it seems like Jered is talking about the classic,
Fake It Till You Make It, which so many people get away with
and you're more than welcome, Jered,
if that's what you're saying.
Maybe, maybe you're not.
But I'm gonna use it as an opportunity
to talk to everybody right now.
Yes, I think that telling the truth exposes
the things you want to lie about.
Yes I do.
(laughs) Yep.
- [India] From Bobby. - Bobby.
- He noticed that you wanted a video from Mount Rushmore
so he had to improvize.
- Oh he improvized, I thought about it.
- Hi Gary, it's Bobby here.
If you were selling custom animated Instagram videos
for companies, how specifically would you find buyers today,
given that it's not something that the majority of companies
are jumping on just yet?
Thank you.
- I would do exactly what you're doing, Bobby.
You hustled your way into the #AskGaryVee Show.
This was just shown.
A lot of people are gonna now know about you.
Let's throw up Bobby's Instagram handle
if we can figure that out, can we?
Right here.
I just gave you six or seven leads.
I would highly recommend that you do it
for a very low price for the VaynerNation
because one of the things that people do
when they're selling something that's the future
is they overprice their service.
You need case studies, you need it out in the wild
and so, instead of whatever you're charging for them,
if you cut that by, you know, three-fourths,
and give the VaynerNation a good deal on it,
they're gonna post it on their Instagram,
that's gonna lead to awareness on you.
And so, couple of things.
One, growth hacking, hustling, exactly what you did here.
The other thing is, I would go to a lot of the accounts
that you're seeing on Instagram,
that have a lot of followers.
I would search hashtags.
I would use Explore.
I would go to their account,
let's get right into details.
I don't know if you're gonna be able to see this but,
let's get real practitioner today.
I would go into, you know, Instagram.
I would go into Explore, I would Refresh.
So, I'm in my Explore.
I would look at the different accounts.
There's a golf picture, looks nice,
Scottish Golf podcast, right.
5000 followers.
It's a Scottish Golf Podcast.
I would say, "Cool, I can do animations around Golf."
And so, I would look now,
they put their Snapchat account, they don't put their Gmail.
Most people do put their Gmail and that would have
led me to emailing them and saying,
"Hey, I saw your Scottish Golf Podcast Instagram account.
"Here's my animated things, I'd like to get some exposure.
"I normally charge 300 bucks for it but
"because you're one of the first people,
"I'll give it to you for 30 bucks or maybe free,
"and you can post it on your account."
Now, because there's no email here,
the only URL is their podcast, so I'm hitting, Yes, here.
Now I'm going to their dot com and my hope is,
here I will find their email so I can contact them.
I'm going all the way to the bottom
'cause it's where it tends to be,
and I do not see it.
Now, I see their Twitter, so I'm gonna click the Twitter
and now I'm on here.
So I'd probably reply to them on there and say, "Hey".
(shutter click)
So, I'm just doing that 'cause it's funny but
that's what I would do.
I would grind.
When people don't remember (shutter click)
and what I don't talk enough about with Wine Library TV
is that nobody watched the goddamn show.
And so what I just did on Social Media
I used to do on the Internet.
I used to search the word, wine, and go
40, 50, 60 pages deep in Google results.
You know, 400, 500, 600 results deep.
Click every link, find a blog, find their email
and email them and ask them if they wanted to biz dev,
if they wanted an interview, if they wanted my content.
If I could bring them value to give me exposure.
These were sites that nobody was,
30 people, 40 people, 60 people.
And I hustled and I hustled and I hustled
and I hustled and I hustled.
And so, that's what you can do.
You can do what you just did with me.
You can go through a rabbit hole on Instagram
that I wish I had when I started Wine Library TV.
And you put in the work to biz dev one by one by one
from the Scottish Golf Podcast to the
India Art Producing Instagram
to whatever you do
and so that's what I highly recommend.
It's the grind on the biz dev hustle that matters.
- [Voiceover] James asks, "How would you deal with
"a cofounder who isn't as ambitious as you?"
- I'd break up with them.
I think that if you have a cofounder
that's not as ambitious as you are,
you're leaning to an inevitable breakup
and I would try to cut it earlier
so that feelings aren't as deep.
It's easier to break up with somebody after three weeks
than it is after three months
than it is after three years, right?
And so there's less baggage.
Now, the cofounder may be so talented and brings you value
that maybe you don't have to judge them on ambition.
But I would say that when you and your cofounder
are not aligned,
you're headed towards a negative
and so, I would communicate first.
I'm giving you the finish line but what I would start with
is I'd be like, "Hey India, can we have a coffee?"
- Sure, yeah.
- So, listen, I really think - [India] (laughs)
- that I have bigger ambitions for this business
than you do and I'd like to talk to you about that.
- That's probably true.
- Yeah, it's definitely true. - [India] (laughs)
- And so, I think you have that conversation.
One of the things that it's led to,
and I've given this advice a lot,
is that India and I who started off at 50/50,
India recognizes that and sees that I'm putting in
18 hours a day and she's putting in seven.
And she may say, "You know what,
"I still want to ride that train.
"I believe in us, I can't do that, I'm not as ambitious,
"I don't have as much energy, I don't want to,
"I have things at home that I want to do,
"dah dah dah dah dah.
"Maybe I should give you back and now,
you have 70% and I have 30."
And so really, there's always a deal to be had.
If the deal ends up being 100/zero
'cause I don't value India, even at 30, or even at 20,
or even at 10, or even at zero,
well then you have to break up.
But everything in life, every relationship, you know,
boss and employee, boyfriend and girlfriend,
partners in business, cousins, Mom and Dad,
every relationship on Earth is predicated on communication
and you have to have the
backbone to step up and actually have that conversation
and have it in a truthful manner.
And it's super scary and a lot of people
are intimidated by it.
And I'm not, it took me a long time to get good at it.
I still don't always get great at it but,
it is the only answer to this question.
It's about having the conversation and seeing
where the things fall because a lot of times,
the other person doesn't want you to bring it up.
They may, you know, recognize it.
Sometimes they don't even recognize it.
Some people are blind and lack self-awareness.
So, you need to make sure you're connected
in whatever that arrangement is.
- [India] Now's one from Sarah.
- Sarah.
Looks like Rebecca a little bit.
- Hey Gary Vee, I wanna ask you a question
about competition. - Yes, I love competition.
- A lot of solopeneurs are advised that
don't look at the competition because it can drain you
and make you second-guess yourself and
everything like that but I, you know,
through my business that is and things like that
I've realized that, or I've been taught
that you can't operate in a silo, you know.
Your landscape, you have to keep your eye on
the landscape of your industry.
So, my question is, what do you think
about competition and how you approach it?
Thanks.
- What's her name again, one more time?
- [India] Sarah.
- Sarah, thank you so much.
I like the taxi photo in the background.
You know, this is a tricky one.
I think this comes down to the individual.
I don't spend a lot of time on my competition.
I haven't historically.
But I keep, you know, a fifth of an eye on it.
You know, you want to know context,
you can't be blind to things completely
but I don't dwell or allow my competition to drive
my mentality or where I'm going.
I think it's a very fine line.
I think it's a very, very fine line.
And I think it's a very individual thing so.
I don't know much about the agency world,
as a whole, I don't know the names of most of the CEOs.
I don't know how much revenue they're doing.
I don't know who their clients are.
I don't know what the work they're doing.
A lot of my contemporaries spend all their time on AdAge
and DigiDay and other websites
to keep up with what's going on.
PRWeek, AdWeek, in the trades.
I think that there's a lot of entrepreneurs that do
extremely well by knowing what's going on
with their competitors and using that as a proxy,
as a guiding light.
I think a lot of entrepreneurs are B and C entrepreneurs
and they need somebody else to be the leader
and they follow it and they pick up the crumbs.
And they get 20 and 30% of the action
and that's enough for them.
And that's where they deserve to be.
I think others like me are super driven by not knowing.
I don't even want to give my competition
the satisfaction of knowing.
I mean, I literally hate my competition so much
that I literally want to be disrespectful
by not even amassing a minute of my time
on what they're doing because I think
that's the ultimate insult and I like that.
Because I don't like you, competition.
I don't like you.
Now, I like you as a human being,
like in, when I put my jersey on, I hate you,
but as like a human, there's plenty of executives
from competitive agencies that I adore
and think are really good people.
But, when I put my jersey on, I hate you
and the way that I can teach you that I hate you
is to not even allocate a minute on you
because I disrespect you that much.
That's me.
You may be somebody who learns from your competitors
and that's how you navigate.
So, I do not think that anybody who taught you
one way or the other, emphatically,
don't forget, #AskGaryVee Show,
I'm one dude, with one personality trait,
with, you know, one life that is trying to communicate
my points of view but I never,
and I've said this on DailyVee recently,
I have no interest in you following, you know, my footsteps.
I have you, I have interest in you trying to
figure out yourself the way I figured out myself. Right?
I know that about me so I don't force myself to
look at the competition 'cause I know, deep down,
it's not who I am or what I want to be doing.
And so I know that about myself.
You need to know yourself.
And it may be a balance.
Some people are 50/50.
It all works if you're most self-aware about you.
Question of the day, question of the day:
What's the biggest thing you've learned
about yourself this year, and we're only eight weeks in?
India, what about you?
What's the, yeah it's a good one, caught ya.
- Biggest thing I've learned about myself?
- Yeah, in the last nine weeks, or whatever we're at,
eight weeks, what's the biggest thing--
- Oh I know.
- You got something?
- I do.
- So give me some depth.
No, don't, we'll sit-- - Can I say it?
- No, we're gonna cut it off as a cliffhanger.
- [India] Alright-- - Yeah, say it, of course.
- No, no, I was joking, I desperately want you to say it.
- I used to think I always really needed to be
around people, like 24/7 because
I was super extroverted.
- Right. - [India] But--
- Like you would keep a boyfriend around
just because you thought you needed it?
- (laughs) No, I didn't do that.
But I would always be like, "What are you doing?"
"What are you up to?" to like everyone
on like, weeknights or weekends - Right, right.
- when things like, always, always.
But I like really like being alone,
especially when I'm making my art.
Like I really need to be alone.
- What do you mean, making your art?
You're a painter?
(both laugh)
This is my favorite meme.
I Tweeted out some, P.S.A. I'm not a painter.
I know, I know, I know.
- Yeah, I like to be alone.
- You know what's funny? - [India] What?
- I like to be alone. - [India] Really?
- And that freaks people out.
I like flying because of that.
I like taking a poop, and a shower because of that.
I really don't mind being alone either.
I'm like stunningly chameleon.
I'm pumped with 80,000 people onstage,
one person onstage, you know,
listening to me, by myself.
I get it. I value alone time quite a bit.
A lot more than I think.
I bet you a ton of people are like, whoa, just now.
- Yeah, I mean, - [Gary] It's cool.
- [India] it's surprising. - Staphon?
- Anything you learned about yourself this year?
- [Voiceover] I'm learning how to like hustle more.
Like I'm just, like, really trying to get like,
what that means.
- You know I like that one.
- Yeah, it's good.
- You keep asking questions.
We'll keep answering them.
(upbeat music)