- On this episode, I go to floor 12
of VaynerMedia, and I answer some questions.
(cheering)
You ask questions, and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee Show.
- [Voiceover] I have a lot of traffic coming in.
- Good, that's what I want.
Let's go.
What's this? No?
Here we go. 98?
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
and this is episode 98 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
You can walk.
You guys are in black and white right now
'cause that's how we edit.
All right, let's do this.
That was good, right?
- [Voiceover] Jose asks, "Just catching up to #AskGaryVee,
"#cashisoxygen episode 96.
"So what's second?
"Product, team or service?"
- Jose, great question.
Your cash is oxygen, there is no second, right?
That's like the all-encompassing.
It's not that it's first.
I think, you know, the real question is really interesting
because the fact of the matter is
there's a hundred different things that could be it.
You could be amazing at growth hacking,
you might design the greatest product.
The truth is, you know, especially for me,
I like to give definitive answers
to get people moving, because the more you ponder
the more you squander.
What?
(laughter)
And so, and so, and so,
don't be crippled by what is that other thing.
I think that other thing could be the thing
that you're strong at and we all have those things.
For me it's sales, right?
Like both businesses I built, Wine Library
and now VaynerMedia is predicated
on I am extremely good at growing
the top line revenue of the businesses
that I'm at the helm of.
Later on I work about driving profit back up.
Some people are efficient at the profit from the beginning,
or architecture business that profitable
from the get, or financial engineering,
or amazing designers that are so overwhelming
they can't sell or build a business,
but they bring in that skill later
because the quality of their art or product
is so incredible.
You might design an amazing product,
and that might be at the core.
So there's a lot of different things.
Cash, though, is oxygen.
- [Voiceover] This is from Jack-Henry.
- Jack-Henry?
- [Voiceover] Hyphenated.
Jack-Henry.
- Jack-dash-Henry?
- [Voiceover] Jack-Henry asks, "What are
"the biggest mistakes you see young,
"20-year-old entrepreneurs such as myself making?"
- Jack-Henry, there are so many damn mistakes
you're making, you youngsters, that this actual show
would take the rest of my life if I decided to
list them all.
On the flip side, there's so many incredible
21-year-old entrepreneurs, I mean,
I don't wanna stand up here as the old dude
and be like you kids, you millennials are doing
all these things wrong.
I think there's market conditions.
I think market conditions right now for youngsters
are not creating strong disciplines in business.
it's so easy to do a startup, it's so easy
to raise money, that a lot of people are just
not, you know, when you're a 21-year-old,
and literally the last, even hardcore economic issue
was in 2008, jeez, you were 14
when that hit the fan.
That's insane, by the way, to me.
Number two, like you just have never lived it.
it's always been good for you John-dash-Henry,
it's always been good for all the 21-year-olds.
It's always been what I call peace-time generals,
and I think to be a great business woman or man
you need to be a war-time general as well.
Talk to me.
You know what's gonna be fun?
Episode 697 of the #AskGaryVee Show
when the stock market collapsed and when money
is not flowing, and when there's some geopolitical event
that's changing the landscape, and not everybody's
writing a, oh I should invest in the next
Facebook and Uber.
Then entrepreneurs are gonna really rise to the top
that are real ones, not fake ones,
and I think that not understanding the principles
of building teams, building good product,
knowing how to sell, these things
that have been thematic through these hundred episodes,
that's when they matter.
So my friends, if you've been confused,
let me un-confuse you.
I've been doing this show for the future moments,
not right now.
These hundred episodes, they're not about right now.
They're about what's coming.
And what's coming is bad times,
and then good times, and then bad times
and then good times and then bad times.
Staats, say it with me.
Bad times.
- Bad times.
- Then good times.
- Then bad times.
- Thanks, Staats.
That is what's coming, my friends.
You haven't felt the effects of that chant, India?
- [India] I have like five new followers on Twitter.
- Yeah, like five serious new followers
that loved the way you chanted.
What were we chanting again?
- [India] Cash is oxygen.
- Yeah cash is oxygen.
- I'll never forget that.
I'll forget everything else in life,
but I'll remember that probably.
- So happy right now.
- [Voiceover] Charlie asks, "What's your strategy
"when dealing with a pissed-off customer?"
- (sighs) Charlie, I've got a really interesting answer
to my thought process on pissed-off customers.
First and foremost I want to know if they're right.
So I use myself as the judge of that.
And I mean that, I mean I judge how right they are.
if they are 100% right in my opinion,
I'm coming in with nothing but empathy,
how do I fix it?
Lifetime value, whatever it costs me upfront right now,
it doesn't matter, because they're right
and in the capitalism meritocracy,
fairness of the world, I need to make good
on the mistake that Wine Library
or VaynerMedia, I made, and that's that.
Now if I think they're wrong,
which happens plenty of times as well,
maybe 50-50 of the time, I come with offense,
you know, I come to explain to them
that I get it, and I have empathy and I'm sorry, but.
Huge capital B-U-T, but, you're a douchebag,
and let me explain, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And so that is really the way it is.
So first and foremost I assess the situation.
I never try to put my best interests in mind,
and so if I think they're right,
Lauren don't be scared, and if I don't think they're,
and if I think that they're right, then I'm gonna
just do what I said in part one,
but if I think they're wrong, I'm gonna
play it a different way.
Lauren was scared.
(laughs)
- [India] This is from Jason.
- Mhm, Derulo?
â™Ť Jason Derulo â™Ť
- Start from the beginning.
I got you, DRock.
Edit that, dick.
- Hey Gary, Jason Hanson here
in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area,
I'm heading off to a networking event
and thought I'd ask you, what is Gary Vee's game
networking?
What do you do?
Love to hear from you.
Thanks.
- Jason, I think networking is super important to me
at this point, you know, there's two different levels
of networking for me.
Number one, I'm in an environment
where I'm known, right?
Through last decade I've built up some brand equity
and there's a very different strategy
of walking into a room where there's context
around me, I'm in a wine space,
social media space, marketing space,
I'm gonna be able to play that way
a little bit different.
In that world I'm kind of, I'm receiving, right?
I'm letting things come to me.
This is the opportunity for a lot of people to pitch me,
I wanna give them value, and so
in those environments where I have context
and brand and leverage, I actually give back.
I actually just set up shop and I get pitched for days, bro.
On the other side, when I go to many places
where nobody knows who I am, I'm on the offense to
not overthink it.
So I will never figure out like
who's the biggest dog or doggette in the room
that I'm gonna get to and like I'm gonna get mine
so what I really do is I come in and I go
really very open, and create a scenario where,
Jason, don't worry, you can walk, let's go,
yeah, don't worry.
Say hi to the VaynerNation.
- Is there no cutting?
You said there was no cutting anymore.
- There's not cutting.
- No editing.
- This is real.
- I know, it's going live right now, right?
- Yeah, just tell 'em.
- I don't like to be in--
- But look, look, I know you don't like that,
but say hello.
Be a nice guy.
- Hi, how you doin'?
- Okay, awesome.
Best accent at VaynerMedia,
half Boston, half New York.
Very conflicted.
And so in places where I'm not known,
I'm really looking to just let serendipity take over.
I think networking can get very skeezy
very quickly, right, you have such a hardcore objective.
To me, I let it come to me.
That is my overall plan.
I, by nature am a counter-puncher,
from all my aggression and bravado,
and what I project on stage, because that's
a different environment,
in real life I'm very much let things come to me,
and I like to react.
It's a little more chess.
it's kind of like, I wish I knew more about martial arts
because I feel like sometimes people
leave comments on Facebook and YouTube
and I feel like it's like martial arts,
I let the other person's thing give me
the leverage to do my thing.
- [Voiceover] Rocky asks, "What's your opinion
"of Nielsen ratings and how do you
"benchmark traditional versus social media
"success for big brands?"
- Rocky, this is a great question as you can imagine,
this is the world I live in, I do think
that all reporting, if it's not black and white
and quant, hold on, Tim is like being weird.
Come here, look at, what?
(laughter)
Are you all right?
- Yeah.
- Good.
So, you know, traditional metrics, you know,
reporting versus black and white quantifiable
data on the back end are very different.
Attribution models done on the web,
the whole way where you can see the whole funnel,
you can take more in that than you can the reporting,
and whether that's reporting from traditional,
like TV Nielsen's, or even digital reporting,
like there's plenty of digital reporting.
And so you gotta look at 'em differently,
and look, I'm a very big believer
in branding and marketing, what are called qual data,
and so to me that stuff's very important,
and I believe in brand.
I don't look at the hardcore quant data of this show,
I think I'm building brand, I'm bringing value.
Over the last several episodes,
I felt an absolute uptick in my Twitter stream,
and the Instagram comments of the show's getting good,
I'm bringing, you know, literally in the last week,
anecdotally, not hardcore data,
I've seen like 13, 14 people tweet or Instagram
about like, how the more they go into
my rabbit hole of content, the more value,
or like he's really hitting his stride,
so I can feel it.
It's like a branding thing.
Like I can feel this show and the last show
and the last show, like we're taking it up a notch
a little bit as we head into the crescendo
that is episode 100.
And so I think they both matter.
If I'm looking at data, I'm gonna look for something
as pure as possible, and so in general,
digital stuff attracts me more.
But I think there's a place for both.
- Hey Gary, what's a good place to get pizza?
- We need to get this guy into the office.
What's he asking?
- Pizza.
- What's that?
- Pizza, what's the best pizza?
- [Voiceover] Hey Gary, what's a good place to get pizza?
- What's his name?
- Aeson.
- He's so cute.
(laughs)
- Look on the computer.
- All right.
Clearly the VaynerNation is falling in love with Aeson,
like who cares about Gary?
It's all about Aeson.
Aeson.
I got some good news for you, and bad news, my man.
First of all, you're adorable.
Second of all, you should be Xander's friend.
Third of all, if you become Mischa's friend,
she's gonna boss you around, so stick with Xander.
Fourth of all, Mike doesn't let me eat pizza anymore,
so I have no goddamn idea.
Was goddamn with the kid okay?
- [DRock] No.
- I'm leavin' it.
- [India] It's fine.
- We don't edit, DRock.
Question of the day, what is your favorite topping on pizza?
And where is the best pizza in the world?
You keep asking questions, I'll keep answering them.