- On this episode, we talk about
prepping employees for leadership, overstaffing,
I'm fairly grumpy about the Jets loss.
(upbeat, hip hop musoc)
You ask questions, and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee Show.
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk,
this is episode 156 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
India's a little under the weather.
- Just a little.
- I'm also under the weather, for my football weather.
I'm really pissed, whatever,
I don't even wanna that much.
Like, I'm in a bad mood, I'm in a good mood,
there's a lot of good, there's plenty bad.
I don't know, I could go on a rant of, like,
the dealings with the Boston fans.
But, what's that?
I am six for six on my prediction.
I hope you guys are making money on this.
But, yeah, yep, yeah.
Let's get into the show.
- [Voiceover] Dan asks,
"How do you prepare employees transitioning into
"a leadership role when they've never managed people before?"
- Dan, I think one of the big mistakes a lot of people make
running organizations as me, CEO of this company,
is they, eventually somebody gets into a place
where they're good enough, they go into managerial roles,
so they go from being a mason to an architect,
they no longer do the day-in-day-outs,
they have to architect people doing it at scale
and the CEO, or the business owner, or the boss,
never put that person in position along the way
to do that.
Like, I'm really curious how many people at Vayner
are gonna watch this or listen to this answer,
but it may make them start rewinding
a lot of their day-to-day things that they may not realize
that I'm puppeting from here,
because they're getting told by their bosses,
but a lot of people, whether you're a, you know,
an account manager or an account supervisor
about to become an account director or group director
where you're managing more people,
there's a lot of things I'm doing,
changing the accounts you work on,
changing the team that's underneath you,
there's a lot of puppeteering going on
to really a lot of different, like,
groups I want them to be a part of,
just different little things that are happening
to create a proxy and a context point
and a data point on who they would be
if they were manager.
And so I think the answer to this question is,
I prep by prepping them along the way,
versus ripping off the band-aid,
and then, I hope they can be a manager.
You know?
I think you've gotta prep people,
and I think you've gotta give them some context points
and put them in positions to succeed
and really, like, know them, too.
Know if they were babysitters or the head
of their sorority, or, you know, how they roll.
Like, really auditing them as human beings,
360 outside of the context of just them being an employee.
There are all very important parts, and if you
can replicate some of the versions that matter to you,
a lot of my people, I think,
are really capable of being managers from a skill level,
but they don't have the HREQ,
they're too type A, they need to take a step back
and zen a little bit to let their employees breathe.
They need to realize they can't impose their skills.
Biggest mistake a lot of managers make
when they first become managers, is they try to turn
everybody underneath them into them,
versus turning them into the best version of themselves.
- [Voiceover] Jim asks,
"Where do you see the health and wellness industry
"going in the next five years?"
- Jim, I think it's much of the same that we've seen
over the last five years.
I think we've never seen such growth,
and everybody caring about their health.
I got caught up into it, I think we're eating better
that even, we're more educated about food than ever,
I think people working out more than ever,
I think the vanity of Instagram and selfies,
I think everybody here wants to look better
than they used to, I think we're becoming PR versions
of ourselves, so I think people putting in more work,
I mean, especially with butts, you know,
with butts you can actually put in the work.
Like, you can actually make your butt better
by putting in the squats, so I think people really focusing
on that, that's clearly been a trend.
It's just true.
You know, and so,
and so I think more than ever, one other thing,
back on the 360 point of view on this.
I'm seeing an enormous meditation trend
growing in the US, I will argue that five years from now,
which is a long time from today,
a lot more people are doing meditation
on an everyday basis.
The way we probably saw yoga play out
the last 15 years.
So, I see a lot, a lot more focus on longevity,
health, and I think what I like is,
because of information exchange on the internet,
I think we're seeing a lot more healthy ways
to go about it, I think if you look at the 80s,
and early 90s, a lot of the ways that people
wanted to get younger was by having surgery,
and I think more and more people are trying
to actually do something about it
in their 20s, 30s, 40s.
I'm so impressed with the healthiness that
the US health culture has exploded over the last decade,
and I see much of the same tripling down.
I think there's a lot of upside in that space.
I think that means a lot more scammy, quick,
buck-making people are gonna join the space,
I think we've seen that.
I think every fitness guru now thinks
they're an entrepreneur and wants to sell their program,
or their shake.
A lot of the same DNA that being great at working out
and discipline map to being an entrepreneur, yet,
I find a lot of people that are
strong at working out every day don't put the same
vigor and work into their business,
which I find very intriguing,
so that's kind of what I see happening.
- [India] From Tim.
- Tim.
DRock, were you sad that you watched
the Jets game yesterday?
- [DRock] Yeah, I was sad.
- And you've just started really becoming a fan,
and that was weird feeling?
Did you notice yourself caring a lot more than you thought?
- [DRock] Yeah.
- Staphon, who do you like in football?
- [Staphon] I don't really have a team.
- Cool, so then does that mean that you were
also getting sucked up a little bit
into, like, you're here all the time,
like, when you don't care, you probably care a little more
about the Jets than you did before
because I'm suckering you in, right?
- It's all I hear, so I can't help but to, like,
check the score.
- So, like, were you, like, too bad?
- [Staphon] Yeah.
- [Gary] India?
- [India] Yeah, like, I feel like I've been checking
the score, which is really weird,
because I've never watched football my entire life.
- [Gary] So did you, like, did you check the score?
Like, how'd you find out yesterday?
Did you watch a little bit, or did you just check the score?
- Checking in as I knew the game was happening.
I was, like, refreshing Google to see the score.
- [Gary] Amazing.
And when you finally knew we lost, you were like, oh, darn.
- I was like, oh man, Gary's gonna be sad tomorrow.
- Yeah, and Staphon, how did you follow, did you watch?
- Yeah, I watched some of it, I was checking the scores,
fourth quarter, and I was like, oh, 17-16 chance, I was like,
oh, they have a chance.
And then I was like, so the final score.
I as like, oh, tough one.
- [Voiceover] Tim asks,
"You've joked about being overstaffed,
"but what's the balance between hiring
"for capacity and waste?"
- Tim, that's a great question.
For all of you that are growing quickly,
I think one of the things I take the most pride in
is my ability to have a pulse on my organization
from a sales top-line revenue impact,
and on the bottom-line cost thing.
I think I grow businesses way faster.
I do believe that if I end up operating two more businesses,
if I have four businesses in my career before I die,
that I've hypergrown, I have two now in my bag,
like, really fast, like, all-time, like, really,
especially non-technology companies, really fast,
I will be known, I mean, I actually think my legacy
as an operator could be speed to victory.
I think what I'm really good at is I have disproportional
understanding of the pulse of what I'm selling,
and I'm willing to bet right to the brink,
because I don't need to take home a lot of money.
Like, I've always left my own moneys
and my own vices on the table to reinvest back
into my business, which allows me to overstaff,
which means I'm them ready for the new business
that comes in, and I don't have to go crazy
finding the talent, and so,
because I'm trying to build culture, sure,
you can freelance and outsource less margin,
but you can do better cash role, make more profit,
but I want those people part of my team,
and grow with them, let them learn the religion, grow.
So, I think everybody's got their own balance,
but I think it's completely predicated on your stomach
for risk, because it comes with risk,
you don't wanna overstaff, then you lose an account
and you have to let people go, that changes the vibe.
I think it comes down to your salesmanship ability,
can you always, in a pinch, sell some more stuff
out of nowhere, and I think that it comes down to
the understanding of where your business is positioned
compared to the landscape, meaning,
I always knew that I'm ahead of the market,
and the world's gonna come to me.
A lot of our scopes, our contracts for 2016,
are growing very quickly, because I knew the world in 2009
would spend more money on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, or whatever was there
at the time, you know, the current state
of the internet, so I'm riding that wave.
It lets me bet a little bit more.
It's a pulse-cadence feel, taste thing
that allows me to get away with it,
but ultimately, more than anything,
it's the balance of your own selfish wants
of your take-home income, versus how much you wanna
reinvest in your business.
It's as simple as that.
If you're running a business and you're making
a million dollars in revenue, and you have
$600,000 in expenses, you're taking home $400,000.
You could make it $850,000 in expenses,
take home $150,000, and then know that that
extra investment will allow you to make three million
the next year.
I believe in myself ultimately,
any entrepreneur, CEO, or decision maker
that's taking money off the table,
I believe is betting less on themselves along the way
and are playing a short-term game.
To me, the time I start extracting dollars
is when I believe less in the growth of the company.
Yeah, good ones.
- [India] Video from Suli.
- Hey, Gary, first I just wanna say it's a pleasure
that I can actually ask you this question.
I'd really like an answer to it.
I wanna ask how important is it to create
a new lane for yourself?
As an artist or entrepreneur,
if something is working for you,
do you just carry on doing that,
even if you have new ideas that you may wanna explore?
I guess the whole point is,
how and when is a rebrand necessary?
- It's a great question.
Great question, and you obviously probably know
that I went through a rebrand to a lot of people,
which was, I was the wine guy, I became this business guy,
social media guy, whatever you wanna call me.
I did it in parallel.
I'm a very big believer that all of you that have
real passion and belief that you have skill
to create another lane, should.
And I would call it my version of an 80-20 rule.
I would spend 80% down on what's working for you,
but I would always have a 20% lane
for testing, learning, tasting,
creating new revenue opportunities.
I do that all the time within my business.
Vayner tries a lot of things, a lot of it fails,
but holistically, we win, because that 80%'s enough.
One could argue that we would do a lot more business
if I went 100%, I would agree with that,
but then that wouldn't open up the capabilities.
We're gonna be the best 360 video agency in the world.
That was a bet, an investment, and so that's
how you have to play it out.
80-20, my friend, it's a great question
for a lot of you.
If you can keep 80% of your practicality and execute,
there are, especially if you play the way I do,
which is if you layer on top more hours,
then you're kind of getting 100 over here,
and you're getting that free 20% testing,
and you can test one thing at a time
in that 20% lane,
so you can go 12, 18, 24 months on that 20 on this.
That doesn't work?
Try another thing.
But I wouldn't break up that 20% into four, five percents,
because you need at least 20% of your energy
to get something going, off the ground,
in the way that works for me.
Everybody's different,
but that would be my direct, black-and-white answer
to that question.
- [Voiceover] Sarah asks,
"How can a consumer soft goods company
"capitalize on the exposure of being in a department store
"this holiday season?"
- Sarah, great question.
You know, a couple things.
I think Twitter search is incredible,
so anybody mentioning a Macy's or a Sax
or a Bloomingdales or any of the store
that you could be mentioning,
anybody that mentions it,
anybody that mentions it on Twitter,
for you to jump in as you as a human,
or as the logo of the company,
and engage with them.
Not for the right hook, you know, but find a sweet
or clever or interesting way to mention
that you're there, you know,
you could literally reply, like, somebody says,
'Going to Macy's to shop,'
you could literally reply of like,
'Oh, have a great time, we love them, we now are there.'
You know, like, just like, or, like,
our new home for the holiday season.
If you stumble upon us, let us know,
or you make it cheeky and fun and you say,
hey, take a selfie with one of our products
and we could do something cool,
and then you do a random contest.
Depends on how much you wanna go from
right hook to a jab, but I would mix in the acknowledgement.
Even if it's as simple as, like,
we're happy to be there, too, have a good time there.
We're so thankful for them.
You know, something a little more self-depricating
and appreciative to the organization
that gave you distribution,
but I think Twitter search is probably number one.
If you have some ad dollars, I would run it
against fans of that organization,
a lot of people follow these department stores
for their coupons and deals on Facebook or Instagram,
you can run some ads against them
because you know you're there.
If you have a small test around zip codes,
if you're in 13 locations, you can run ads
amongst people that are most likely
to buy that product depending on interests
within a one mile radius of that store,
because you know they're probably going to that store.
So there's some tactics you can do there
that would be an,
I would use it for content, like, if you
or any of your salespeople or anybody
in your organization, or just you,
I would buy inexpensive plane tickets
and go to different stores
and take pictures with the products,
showing that you're hustling in Texas
and New York and San Francisco,
so that could be a cool thing for content.
You could make some Periscopes,
live from, like, you know, it's a very proud moment.
I'm planning on doing some really cool shit
with my book's distribution this year.
I think I'm gonna go to a lot of Barnes and Nobles
and bookstores and just sign them
and leave Easter eggs and, like,
I'm gonna pick a page in the new book,
whatever's a white page, and I'm gonna come up
with codes that if you email me
and take a selfie that you actually bought that book,
that you then win, like, DRock for a year.
DRock, you're gonna work for somebody else.
You know, like, stuff like that,
like cool stuff like that.
So, I think there's a lot of clever things you can do.
Those are just a couple that came off the top of my head.
Cool, is that it?
- [India] That's it.
- That's the show?
Do we have a Friday show this week?
Alright, so i'll be able to do my prediction.
Six for six.
Have you guys, did you make some money?
Did you bet this week?
You don't gamble, I respect that.
That's all I got.
Grumpy.
See you.
You keep asking questions, I'll keep answering them.
(upbeat, hip hop music)