- On this episode, India turns into junk, I mean Dunk.
(laughter)
(hip hop music)
- [Gary] You ask questions,
and I answer them
this is The #AskGaryVee Show.
- Because I did Wine Library TV last I don't remember the intro.
- Hey everybody, this is Gary Vaynerchuk and this episode 224.
- Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk and
this is episode 224 of The #AskGaryVee Show, okay got it?
(laughter)
Jesus, ready?
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
and this is episode 224 of The #AskGaryVee Show.
Ty, I want to keep, I want you to keep that little thing we
just and right before the show.
That's right I am that rusty that I couldn't even remember
how to intro this show.
We've been on a major hiatus.
In general, I feel like we made the switch from DeMeo to Tyler
on the assistant front, Tyler hasn't prioritized this show as
much as we've needed, Dunk,
so hopefully we'll get back into great rhythm.
One of the, maybe this is the
third or fourth show in the new office.
That makes me happy.
India has transformed into a
good-looking, young, Swedish boy.
- Yep.
- Dunk, tell 'em who you are real quick?
- Vayner Nation my name is
Eliot Robinson otherwise known as Dunk.
I'm 18-years-old, I'm from Sweden and I'm the co-host for
The #AskGaryVee Show today.
- [Gary] Very cool.
Dunk and I interacted on Snapchat and Instagram where he
did some great work under his Dunk account.
I met him for five minutes, he flew from Sweden to London
when I was there.
I sat with him for 5-10 minutes and I said,
"I need this kid to work with me in
"the United States of America." - Mhmmm.
- And that was even before that
I knew that you didn't need all sorts of legal paper.
That's how committed I was.
Whatever these overheads are I'm gonna cover them because
I believe in you so much and by the way he has made an impact.
Even AJ who's really tough, I think, I'm very optimistic,
I think everybody's really talented.
AJ's like, "What's up with this Dunk kid?"
I'm like, "Alright, VaynerSports, relax."
Alright, let's do it Dunk.
Now listen, for all the great things that you bring I do not
think you are gonna do this well.
I have a feeling that you're not gonna do a good job but let's
see how it plays out.
- Hey, I think I'm charismatic but we'll see.
- I know your charismatic.
- First question. - Yes.
- My friend and I are both digital marketers with very
credible experiences--
- Well, you've already screwed up.
You're supposed to say the person's name.
(laughter)
- And it says anonymous, that's why.
- Is that true? - Yeah.
- Interesting. Okay, keep going.
- [Voiceover] "My friend and I recently started working
"for an app startup.
"The person who manages digital marketing is inexperienced and,
"in our opinion, stunting potential growth.
"We are looking for an opportunity to show our talent
"to execs without overstepping our boundaries.
"How can we show that we are
"better for the role to the execs?"
- I feel this is actually your question and you don't believe
in Andy and this is not real.
This is more you projecting your
opinions about what's going on here.
- And that's why it's anonymous. - Yes.
(laughter)
Yeah, listen, I think much like what goes on here and this
is why it's funny and this is for the whole team.
I think we've got a good situation
so many of you don't. My advice here is what
I do think we create more of.
You know what's funny?
I create a company where you can start hacking and doing things
you know that you can do that but it's your own trying to be
nice to whomever that may hurt that's supposed to be doing it
that holds it back.
So this is a really fascinating thing at VaynerMedia.
I've created a world where I never want people to not show,
if you can show it, you know,
then you can do it then just do it.
Show that person.
Now the tough part of that advice is,
let me give you a great scenario.
In this exact scenario where there's a lot of people on my
team that are talented and everybody's got different roles
and a lot of your mishmoshed into different responsibilities.
Some that aren't even their best skill set versus other things
that other people are doing, they start liking each other.
My team in general, I mean, they don't all have to be the best of
best friends but you guys genuinely like each other and so
what's really holding it back is not hurting that other person's
feelings of, "Why are you going into my territory?"
It's very complicated.
I mean look, here's part of this, this is much like life
it's just a black-and-white answer.
Either you step and run through the china shop and show your
skills and take the risk of saying here and by the way
there's a good way and a bad way to do it.
My real answer would be go to
the person that is doing that
role and saying, "I really believe in myself in this craft.
"I know this is your role I know I'm in accounting and you're the
"creative director but can you help me show you
"or give me the air cover to show Gary that I can do this
"because here's how it's gonna play out.
"Either that's what's gonna happen or I'm gonna quit and
"leave here and go do it somewhere else and I want to us
"to be teammates not adversaries."
Now, eight is a big number,
8 out of 10 times that person is
gonna try to hold down the other person.
Out of insecurity, fear, all these things but you might get
lucky and it might be one of those 2 out of 10 times.
That's my favorite way to do it because I think that's the only
middle step to the black and white thing which is to answer
the question show somebody. - Yeah.
- Like edit an episode of DailyVee and be like,
"Told you, Other Tyler, I'm better than you."
Just do it.
Or don't and be miserable and let a little kernel of
negativity eventually become cancer and it's gonna end up
with you underperforming, getting fired or you quitting.
That's the punchline of all of this.
All the things I talk about to not suppress are predicated on
the outcome's gonna be the outcome anyway.
So why not just speed it up but with humility.
So like I get away with a lot of stuff because I get to the
punchline but I coat it with as much honey and humility so that
it becomes swallow-able.
Consumable would have been a better way to go.
- Cool.
Next video question from Jan. - Jan.
- I wanna ask because you don't do it often but from time to
time you mention China WeChat,
the other internet and stuff like that.
So do you actually spend time on studying these things,
how they work, how they're different and
if so what do you focus on and
have you learned something already that you're applying in
your business or that you are sharing with the clients in the
US and all around the world?
So thank you very much for the grind.
Thank you very much for answering my question
and have a great day. Bye.
- Jan, great question and I'm really dying to see if you guys,
I feel like you guys are being very smart and
asked that question.
Something very funny happened two days ago, yesterday?
Yesterday, right?
Yesterday I sent a team wide email about this?
Was that yesterday or two days ago?
- [DRock] Yesterday. - Yesterday.
Yesterday, I sent an email to my entire teams and it said China,
it's time.
Let's start transcribing my content.
It's time to get serious, Jan, so the answer is the other
internet, China is something I'm very, very passionate and a
believer up on a religious level but I've never gone to church.
Meaning I know it's right.
I know it's big.
I know the biggest consumer set in the world is there but you
can't get to everything and much like there's a lot of things
I'm not doing well even within the US,
I've not been able to open up a can of worms.
VaynerMedia eventually's gonna play in that market.
It will have to do as we're becoming global leader and so no
question the thing I'm most disappointed about on a
microlevel in my career over the last 36 months is that I haven't
forced myself to spend four or five separate trips in China.
Taste it, get used to it
and really articulate a real strategy.
Literally, literally I became so fed up with myself that
yesterday I sent to the team it's time for me to become a
player in that market and so I'm sure that's why the question was
asked or maybe it's just serendipitous but the answer is
no I have not spent time analyzing the WeChats,
TenCents and the rest the market but it is something
I better get around to if I have to expand
on the aspirations that I have.
I think both VaynerMedia and me as a brand have enormous
opportunities within that market.
I think we fit the mold on an entrepreneurial level and so
I'm excited about the next frontier.
- Cool.
Next is a video question from Diogo Silva.
- Hey Gary, I'm Diogo from Portugal and I have a very
simple question to ask you.
Are you good with names?
Are you able to remember every single employer and people you
do business with names'?
And how important is that skill for your business?
Thank you Gary for answering my question--
- This episode, I feel like this episode, you know what?
I feel like since we haven't had a lot of time that there's been
a whole lot of work, I'm very intrigued by this episode.
I am terrible with names.
It's devastating.
I have so much pride
and I know that people that watch DailyVee
are probably surprised by how many names I know but there are
so many names I don't know.
And I don't know names of like 18 months in clients.
I don't know names of like people, it's unbelievable how
much context I know but names I don't.
Meaning there's employees here that I don't like things that
are going on with like the well-being of their relationship
because I follow them on social and follow their boyfriend and
then figure out about you like literally, literally like and
definitely know their performance and remember that
they had a bad day or recall this or just deep, deep, deep
stuff but I'm like is that Karen or is it Susan?
It's super tough for me.
It's something I'm very bad at and it's very important.
People like, here's what I think,
tactically it's important
and people would be disappointed if they've been paying
VaynerMedia for two years and they're an important client and
I don't know their name.
I understand that.
What overrides that while I feel great is that's the tactic to
the thing that matters which is knowing one's name is one
version of caring about that person.
I know how much I care and though I hate that the easiest
version of that is not something I have a skill for, it's all the
other stuff that I have skills for that make up for that
vulnerability because that is a surface level vulnerability,
not a deep vulnerability.
And so, I think at a macro level it is stunningly unimportant.
What it perceives to mean is the most important thing
but tactically I don't think so.
On a micro level, sure, it's important.
You like that answer? - [DRock] Yeah.
- Question-- - I like this kid.
- from Ryan.
- Hey Gary. I'm Ryan.
In a video with Joe Polish you said that you can sell rocks on
the street and still make 100 grand a year.
Is that true?
If so, would you make a video where you sell a rock to someone
who doesn't know you? Thanks.
- So Ryan theoretically, it is true.
Practically, listen the truth is,
actually I'm surprised I'm answering this.
I think I can make 100,000.
I wish I was at a point in my life where I could be so crazy
and right now off of this, do it.
Go with DRock to some crazy place where nobody knows who
I am which, oh, by the way and I love you all for this,
which is almost everywhere.
Like down the street but you know, go to a place where
I'm not me and I know that, trust me,
you guys perceive me bigger than I am.
I'm just me and I think, now look, here's what I would do.
I'd go to place, first, I'd go to a rich upper-middle-class
area where it's not too rich
but upper-middle-class demo and
I would set up shop on the corner of the street and
I guess most of my day would be,
and it'd have to have rocks in the general area.
Access to rocks--
- Hmmm. - No, no I'll tell you why.
I understand but like if I'm trying to make 100,000
and I can pick anywhere like you might as
well if there's a perfect ZIP Code
where it's got the right income level that I want and
there's access to it efficiency but I know I can buy 'em on the
internet and all that stuff but nonetheless I guess I would try
to market myself as somebody who is creative on top of a rock.
So I don't think I would if I was selling rock I wouldn't
try to sell you a rock 'cause that wouldn't work but what
I would do is I would doodle
and create on top of rocks and try to sell them.
And I genuinely with my entire heart believe that I can make a
$100,000 a year in year two, firm.
In year 1, I would make
$36,000 in profit.
- Could.
I believe it's possible to sell just a rock.
- It is but I think what I would do because I'd want to get
100,000 is the doodling on top would then constitute as art and
that becomes agnostic and then marketing can take over and then
all I need to do is have Leonardo DiCaprio take a picture
on his Instagram that he's bought this rock 'cause it's art
and then it's game over.
It's just high school arbitrage, all of it is.
- Alright, next question is from Betty Liu--
- Oh, Betty! - Yep.
- Awesome.
- So Gary, you're so successful.
You run a $100 million revenue company.
How do you stay hungry?
- Period.
Betty, I think that truth is
I think a lot of us are hardwired.
I think because I didn't come from much,
because I didn't speak the language,
because I wasn't physically large.
I actually think that's a dude thing for sure.
And because I think I'm wired to love underdogs.
I've always loved them.
I think where I've come from, there is no I've never made it.
First of all, I don't like the physical things.
That's a huge advantage.
Not needing to buy a plane or an $8000 pair sneakers.
There's no physical thing I want.
Just like the awesome Instagram photo that Tyler you put
together of the game (bell chimes)
I love the process. I'm hungry forever.
I'm the hungriest.
I'm super hungry.
I threw up this morning and I'm theoretically physically I'm not
hungry right now 'cause I'm feeling a little woozy but
emotionally as an entrepreneur, I'm the hungriest.
It's incredible.
I'm dramatically more successful than I was 10 years ago,
I'm more hungry not less.
- Because?
- Because I just think it was hardwired from the get.
'Cause I just think it's black and white.
I just think at some level
you're just wired the way you are.
There is nothing that's gonna fill my appetite because what
drives my hunger is the process not the results and then by
nature in that construct it goes forever.
The only thing that changes my hunger is if is if the two other
most important variables in this game play themselves out:
the health and well-being of my family or the way I feel about
the allocation of my time and
the depth of that time with my family.
Those are the only vulnerabilities.
There's no $14 million check
or $48 billion check or buying the Jets.
There's nothing that will stop the hunger.
When I put my jersey on, when I'm in the context of being a
businessman, the hungry vibe will be there forever.
It's when I'm Gary as a person where there's other things in my
life besides being on the field that could play out that could
get me to be less hungry professionally.
But on the field, I'm going to
be a psycho through and through forever.
- Like it. - That's it.
Great, it's a good show.
Did a good job, Junk.
I like you asking-- - Junk?
(laughter)
- Listen, I was just proud I said episode clean.
I messed that it up the last four times.
I messed it up the last four times.
Question of the day: Tell me about the end of your summer.
I've got a lot of flights coming up and I feel a little out of
touch because we haven't done this in a little while,
Vayner Nation so this will be a good way for me to just get a
sense for 3 to 400 of you that I've really, it's funny you guys
are fans of my work and I appreciate that.
You'd be shocked how much I'm a fan of your feedback to my work
and who mixes it up and who like tries to say like rogue stuff on
purpose to game the system and
who's totally into it now but fades off.
Who's always into who comes in and out.
It's amazing on how much I know
about you even if I don't know your name.
You keep asking questions, I'll keep answering them.
(hip hop music)