- Just got back to London and about to
go into a meeting and they've got my billboard here.
(laughs)
- [D-Rock] Make money.
♫ We're unstoppable
What's up vlog?
I like calling you vlog by the way.
What's up vlog?
About to do an all hands on meeting with the team
here in London, should be a lot of fun.
Give 'em a little update on where my mind's at.
Every time I go to the satellite offices,
it's good to get peeps together.
I think we've been more disciplined here in London
with all hands on than we've been in,
hey guys, in Chattanooga and L.A. and I wanna fix that,
and so let's go do that.
(indistinguishable chatter)
Hey guys.
Hi.
Hello.
Hey Ry.
I have a really cool thing about selling guys,
It's what I'm good at.
I sell things people want.
And I mean on an individual basis.
I mean, I don't care what Meghan or Rysa want,
I just wanna know what it is, and then it's my job
to work for all of you to build the infrastructure
to what you want.
I don't care if you like, if you wanna be like me,
great, work here, build leverage with me,
and then I'll help you go do your thing.
You wanna see every one of your child's sporting events?
Great, make sure I know that, and then we'll make sure
you end up in the right place where you have
enough flexibility to do that
while making enough to appease you financially.
I really have no horse in the race
of what anybody wants, you or a client.
The answer to your question is,
what do they want?
Now, what do they want slash what do we believe in
is the far more interesting part right?
So they want a lot of shit we don't believe in,
so the question becomes we need to stay really passionate
about what we believe in.
So for example, we could probably be spending
another 500 million dollars in media
if I was willing to waver on things
that they want us to do that I just don't wanna do.
We could hire three people by print
from Group M and MediaCon, we could,
I just don't want to.
I think it's finding our niche of what we do
while deploying and executing things
that we're passionate about and capable of,
whether its influencer or marketplace social,
things of that nature, but it starts
with knowing the reality.
Spending 17 hours on trying to convince
(beep), (beep), or anybody else
to do something with us when we could've already known
that's not gonna happen no matter what
because it's already locked in is what I wanna do.
We spend so many hours on ideological points of view
instead of selling to the reality.
I spend no time on things that are not sellable.
So I understand they're your current clients
and it's what we have to work with,
but it's up to the account team
and to the leadership, to me, to make sure
it's even a feasible conversation,
'cause they'll take the meeting,
and they'll yes me to death, and then they'll resign
with fuck (beep).
(indistinguishable conversation)
- Got about 10 minutes to get there.
- Yeah, okay.
What's your views on emerging tech and say AR space
at the minute?
- Goin' into a client meeting,
but just had a really interesting conversation.
I love people that take the initiative
to spark conversations that are on the offense.
I'm an offensive player.
Fuck defense.
Don't worry about what you think I care about,
tell me what you care about and let me react to it.
- [D-Rock] Alright now they're going in the meeting,
I am going for a coffee shop.
Here we go.
- Boy I wish that was filmed.
Big shout out to Burno Mars, big, big, big fan Burno.
(crew laughs)
Love your stuff.
Your spam is incredible.
Headed to a helicopter to go do a networking speaking
event at Facebook.
Is it at Facebook?
- [Assistant] No, it's offsite.
- Not at Facebook, but a Facebook event,
and meet some agencies, partners and brands,
and so that should be good.
Then we'll helicopter back.
This one's going there D-Rock,
this one was coming back.
- [D-Rock] Yeah.
- So I get sad when peppers get crushed.
But I love peppers.
Just when they get crushed D-Rock,
I get super sad.
I try to get here once every other month or so,
do client meetings, do meetings with the staff.
About to go on a helicopter, we got a conference
with Facebook that I'm speaking at
and meeting other business partners
and other agency partners and potential clients
and shake a couple hands with current clients.
So it's usually a 24-48 hour blitz of as much
VaynerMedia stuff as possible.
When I get to London, it's VaynerMedia
all the way through and through.
- [D-Rock] In the old days we would've
made a feature outta that.
- Yeah, not right now.
Too tough out there.
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
- [Female Interviewer] How was the flight?
- Flight was great.
- [Female Interviewer] Yeah, short right?
25 minutes? - Awesome.
Great flight, countryside here.
D-Rock keepin' tabs on me, some horses,
some helicopters, beautiful, great landing,
bunch of people with cameras which is interesting
in the background.
Not quite sure what's going on, but let's go.
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
About to give this talk here at a Facebook offsite
with a bunch of people in the industry
and clients and potential clients,
and you know how I do it.
State of the union, whether it's in a hotel in Amsterdam
or a conference center in Anaheim
or some barn here in the countryside of London,
wherever I need to do it, I will spin it.
There's a reason Woolworth's went outta business.
There's a reason IBM is not the consumer technology leader,
it's all the stuff we're living through.
I just don't think we've grappled with how fast
it's happening in the next 10 years.
Listen, we always talk about, you brought up millennials,
it's not about millennials.
65 year old men sitting next to me on flights,
watching Star Wars on their mobile device.
We like to say this is our teenage children,
this is us.
There are 50 year olds in here who sent
a poop emoji last night.
(audience laughs)
This is us.
There's not, I don't know a single 42 year old female
that doesn't have a six figure income in her home
that isn't living on Instagram.
What are we talking about?
What's this future we talk about?
You act one way when you live your real life,
and then you have different points of view
when you put on your jersey for your firm.
That's just real.
Yeah so, vlog, I like calling 'em vlog D-Rock,
vlog, I hope D-Rock caught that snippet,
and I don't know how high quality
or low quality you got it D-Rock.
- [D-Rock] Mm-hmm.
- It's just the consumer.
If you understand the consumer bet,
it's amazing to me that me, with no connections,
no education, nothing, no money
am able to always win on the same game,
which is complete and utter religion of the consumer
of what I do, and then everything works out.
It's unbelievable.
We have a complete disconnect.
So I would say your biggest advantage is fresh eyes.
If you understand the consumer,
not the EBITDA, not who you're gonna emanate,
you know, you're an entrepreneur,
who you're gonna emanate to.
Three years of the actual customer
and that's why social is so big for me
was consumer insights that scale for free.
It just took all my time.
15 hours a day on Twitter and Facebook in 2006,
seven, eight, nine, just reading every single comment
about every single piece of content
about every single genre, and then you get an insight.
And there's no quant and qual data
that beats really putting in the work
for a considerable piece of time in a narrow field.
So I would just spend every waking moment
that you can, and listen, I like the dirt.
So I'm empathetic to there's different styles
of entrepreneurship, whether it's you,
or somebody very important that doesn't go anywhere,
a deep understanding of the consumer insight
that is free.
Not a company in the middle of the fire hoses of the APIs
analyzing it so they can make margin,
you with them, and that's where I think you can win.
That's what I would do, and that's why I always say
naive eyes, I mean I didn't even know anything
about the agency world the first four years.
Nothing.
I couldn't name the CEO of Omnicom right now.
Couldn't name him.
- [Crew Member] Who? - Who?
Yeah, right, so you know what I mean.
But I sure know that eight year old girls make slime.
You know, all of you give me so much credit
for engaging and listening and being with you,
but you've given me so much more than I'm giving you
because you're the punch line.
It's all consumer focus.
The reason I don't pay attention to my competition
is not 'cause I'm brash or cool,
'cause it doesn't fuckin' matter when you're
obsessed with the end consumer.
Bring them you, why do you think I'm asking you
if two channels works?
Because I need to give you what you want.
Everybody talks about well, if you listen
to the consumer this, yes of course.
You can't only be about what the consumer is.
You have to go through your lens,
but it starts and it ends with you guys,
and I will always do actions that bring you the most value
because then I get value in return.
51, 49, that's the fuckin' game 'til the end.
Biggest companies in the world,
and for us little entrepreneurs.
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
Just got back to London and about to
go into a meeting, and they've got my billboard here.
(laughs)
- Make money
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
It's goin' really well.
I mean look, I'm trying to build a platform
for my future business behavior.
The key is building ninjas who don't get romantic
about anything other than consumer attention.
And the contextual creative that makes them do something.
- [Interviewer] That is the dream.
- So what's interesting is we're building,
but by the time we buy Peroni, it might be Alexa voice,
it might be AR, it might be some device
that two girls in Chelsea are inventing
right now in their basement.
So where my challenge is for the people at Vayner
is for them to understand that if I started
Vayner today, we would be a voice shop.
- [Interviewer] I heard you say that.
- You know, and so, that's the interesting thing
to navigate the company.
I think I've done a much better job
in the last year, I think compared to 18 months ago,
I think everybody understands, okay we're not
a social media shop.
Then there's plenty of people that think we are,
but 18 months ago I think everybody thought
that's what we were, and now I think people
are like, oh okay.
- [Interviewer] No, I think people at least...
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
- Just got off a call, gave some real
hardcore feedback to the team
on my insights and how we pitch and position VaynerMedia.
At some level that's my responsibility
of structuring and positioning our shop
in the right way, and so that was super good.
Felt good about it.
I had a bunch of leaders on the call
that I thought got what I was saying,
and I think it's gonna be disproportionately
fruitful for Vayner going forward.
So really productive 20 minute call here
in the middle of the street at 11 p.m. in London
is a call that is gonna move the business.
And I think more leaders need to get into the dirt
to have these impact moments to build their businesses,
especially when you're running a big company.
Do you know where I'm going?
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
- [Alfie] Hey Gary man, you good?
- [Gary] Really well mate, how are you?
- [Alfie] Yeah, good, nice to see you.
- [Gary] Good to see you.
D-Rock - How you doin'?
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)
The thing with me startin' this journey as a talent
is the bubble was this big of what I could do,
but what I've done and what I've seen
is this big.
- That's right.
- And I've done this very well,
and now I'm meetin' people like yourself
and other people that I've met with,
and they're like, oh I'm doin' this, I'm doin' this.
I'm like, yo, I haven't even thought about that.
I've been so busy doin' this and masterin' this
that I haven't even, like producing content
and sellin' it to Asia, and it's not even
touchin' anywhere in the U.K.
- This becomes available when you become great
at something like this.
The problem for everybody right here
is they're tryin' to do all this
before they got great at this.
Patience.
- Yeah, patience, literally.
- Fuckin' patience.
Vayner nation, follow this man, we'll tag him up,
he's really a worthwhile follow.
He's payin' attention and he's executing.
That's what matters D-Rock, execution.
("She Makes me Comfortable" by Maxwell Young)