- On this episode I talk about Navy SEALs, swagging products
and what would happen if all 420 of these people quit?
(bass music) (cheering)
You ask questions and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee Show.
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Hey, everybody. It's Gary Vay-ner-chuk.
And this is Episode 48 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
Before we get into today's show,
I just wanna talk about glorious things on this Monday.
I hope all of you had a tremendous Thanksgiving week.
I've decided, guys,
that Thanksgiving week is now my favorite week of the year,
meaning it really has become Thanksgiving week.
By Tuesday late afternoon people were pretty checked out.
I just had an amazing Thanksgiving
at my parents' in Huntington County,
stopped by the Wine Library, a bunch of definitely,
I tweeted. Did you see I tweeted?
Got the wine bug again. I got the wine bug.
Actually, let's go right into a right hook.
It's Cyber Monday.
If you're capturing this in time let's link it.
I guess you can't link it here
because it goes to Wine Library
but in the comments section we have a sick deal.
Check that out.
Let's link the Wine Library Cyber Monday deal.
It's a $110 wine for $40,
so, for all of you looking for gifts and stuff like that
or for yourself.
I'm getting very itchy about the Wine Library.
A bunch of you saw the Pappy photo.
Let's put that up. (bell rings)
Take over to the, my little Pappy photo at Wine Library.
So that's pretty fun for me,
and then just enormous time with the family,
all of the grandkids for my mom
and dad Wednesday through Sunday,
and then tonight the Jets play the hated Dolphins.
I'm excited about that.
I'll be going to that Monday night game.
Let's get into the show.
(strong, beating music)
- [Voiceover] Blue Stripe Creative asked,
"How much, if any, time should be spent on your competition?
"Or should you just be focused on making your own path?"
- Blue Stripe, I'm super pumped you asked this question
because I was talking with my dad all weekend
about Wine Library and with that bug,
and I reminded him, and AJ was there to kind of talk
about what I've done with Vayner over the last three months,
I literally spend (clicking sound made with mouth)
Robert Parish, double zero on my competition.
I could care less.
I spend all of my time on people, my team,
where we're going.
Do I know what the competition is doing?
At some level, a little bit, contextually,
but I never go deep.
It's all headline reading.
I know who's making some buzz and some noise.
But I gotta tell you,
I truly believe that the biggest mistake
so many companies and entrepreneurs make
is looking around them.
We've talked about looking back, seeing who's behind you.
I just don't do those things.
It's full steam ahead.
I feel like if I take care of my domain, I win.
As a matter of fact,
I also do it as a little razz, as a little sizzler.
Like, people are pissed.
My competitor are mad.
When they meet me in social settings, and I'm very cordial,
I'm a good guy, even though I wanna slice their neck,
you know, in a business sense, not real life,
they actually, if they speak to me for five or 10 minutes,
somewhere in that 10 minutes realize
I don't know what they're up to, and it kind of hurts them.
I find it to be a competitive advantage.
I really find not paying attention to your competitor
as a competitive advantage
in a world where many of you who are watching this right now
and think it's a weakness to not know what's going on,
I'mma flip. I'mma flip, my friends.
I'mma flip.
(strong, beating music)
- [Voiceover] Jamie asked,
"Who would you recommend pitching an app idea to?
"What steps would you recommend?"
- Jamie, this is an awkward question.
Let's get an awkward alert here.
(bell sound)
I don't know what you're gonna come up with, guys,
(laughter)
but I'm excited to see it.
On my awkward alert, I don't even know what this means.
I mean, this is such a basic question.
I don't know why Steve loves this.
He was like, "I love this question."
I don't love this question, meaning, I don't know?
Who do you recommend pitching an app to?
Well, first, if you need money,
you pitch it to money people: angel investors, VCs.
If you need press to get awareness because now you're out,
you pitch it to the media
and press opportunities, influencers.
(laughs) Listen,
we know how much I love the reverse engineer thing.
Actually, I want to make this crazy link up episode.
Link, don't we have like four?
This is gonna take you a while to get up, DRock.
The Cyber Monday wine is gonna be completely sold out
by the time this episode gets up. (laughs)
Let's put up the reverse engineer hoodie specifically,
because that's the one I rock, to the page.
Who do you pitch it to?
Whoever you need at that moment.
Everything you do in business life
needs to be really strategic,
meaning it's gotta make sense.
Who do you pitch an app to?
You have an idea
but you can't code or create an app for crap,
so you need to pitch a co-founder or a dev shop
that you don't want to charge you a lot of money
to actually build it.
Then you need money. I already answered that.
Then you need to get it out there. I already answered that.
Then you need to sell it,
so then you pitch your app to a strategic buyer.
This is a very, very,
and I don't wanna pick on you.
This is more ...
Show Steve.
This is more on, more on--
- Can I defend myself? - [Gary] Yes.
- Okay, you were just on Seth Meyers
because you invested in Delectable.
So, if somebody thinks,
"Well, gee, have a really cool app idea.
"Gary invested in apps."
I think that would be why they would ask the question.
Right? How did Delectable come to your attention?
- A VC pitched Phil, who vets my deals.
It's obviously in the wine space, so it came with context.
Steve is saving himself and it's pissing me off,
(someone laughs)
so I'll answer this.
It's very strategic to understand ones history
to predict their future.
Obviously coming from the wine world
made me more susceptible to be interested in Delectable.
That's the real answer. (exhales loudly)
- Hey, Gary Vee, Scott Wisotsky here,
CEO and co-founder of Campus Pursuit.
I run a college marketing business,
and I wanted to ask you about niche marketing.
In Wine Library did you market to people interested in wine,
specific niches within the wine community--
- Yes. The answer is "yes" and "yes."
One thing in marketing that I'm a very big fan of
is broad and narrow.
Tanks and bombers and Navy SEALs,
there's a purpose for both,
so we marketed to wine lovers.
Then we focused on Burgundy lovers,
and especially when SEO came along and email segmentation
in the early 2000.
We were buying keywords on not just wine.
I always famously talk about owning wine.
What I don't talk about is what happened the next year:
Cabernet Sauvignon, Silver Oak,
Burgundy, Chateauneuf du Pape.
So we started going narrow.
All of us who've ever done any SEM know about the long tail.
That's where all the magic happened
once there was supply and demand
that's happening in social now, long tail.
And so, (thinking with mouth) the answer is "yes" and "yes."
You've got to really recognize the tactic dictates--
(phone rings)
Oh, look at that. I didn't have this off.
The tactic really dictates the purpose.
But you've always gotta go broad and narrow
to have a complete picture, in my opinion,
and so we did both, and I continue to do both.
And I will always do both
because they all have a mission at hand.
There's a reason U.S. government military has Navy SEALs
and Green Berets, because sometimes you can't just go big,
you've gotta go narrow, niche, surgical.
Facebook dart posts, 18 to 55-year-old males
because you're selling some male thing,
and then 18 to 19-year-olds in Texas
who like the rodeo and wine.
Got it? Both, both, both.
(strong, beating music)
- [Voiceover] Ruke S, "What would you do
"when all of the 420 wonderful, amazing people
"quit VaynerMedia?"
- Ruke, that's good work.
I like this question a lot.
As a matter of fact, if we can figure it out,
let's clip right now to the moment where I kind of ranted.
I know DRock, four hours editing.
I wonder, the right word in that question
is "ordinary person," right?
Was that an ordinary person?
Yeah. (clicking pen)
And I think that's the interesting part of your question,
which is this whole notion that pisses me off
that I don't believe
that the far majority of people right now
who claim that they are entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs.
You know, I don't get to claim that I'm an NFL quarterback
and then I just am one.
And that's what's happening, right?
A lot of people that don't have the skills,
you put that word "ordinary" in for a very specific reason,
and it's the reason I want to rant on this,
which is the ordinary person, aka,
the person that's not meant to run a business,
can probably only handle one punch, right?
I mean, that's just what it comes down to.
You know what my answer is? Unlimited.
You can punch me in the face 8,000 times.
I'm here to get punched, right?
I really do think of it like a UFC or a boxer.
Have you ever watched a UFC or boxing match,
and literally watched and thought to yourself,
"Holy crap. If I took one of those punches
"I'd be in a coma for the rest of my life?"
They're meant to be in the octagon.
I am not. (laughs)
On the flip side, you show me a world
where all 420 of these wonderful,
amazing people quit VaynerMedia,
and I know exactly what to do the next day.
That's how I roll. Those are the punches I can handle.
Top 10 clients quit? Cool.
Can't ship to a state at Wine Library anymore? Cool.
I can handle unlimited punches
because I'm purebred 100% entrepreneur.
And so from me to the person that is a wannabe-preneur,
who, first punch in is like, "Uh, I'm gonna go get a job,"
from there, everybody fits somewhere in between that,
and that's your answer.
(quick swishing by)
Alright, so obviously I put myself out there
and I said that I was going to be able to handle it,
no problem.
Punch me. I can handle it.
First thing I would do is take a step back and wonder,
"What the hell just happened? (laughter)
"Why did that happen?"
But, theoretically, if it was in a positive standpoint,
what I would do is I would take advantage
of everything I've learned for the last five years,
and I would decide, "Do I want to build back up VaynerMedia,
"or do I want to do something else?"
And what I mean by that, and this is why
this is gonna go a little bit deeper philosophically,
I would not make an emotional decision.
If it happened in a way that hurt my feelings,
I wouldn't go the route of, "I'll show them,"
even thought that's what I referred to in the last episode,
and then go out and rebuild it and start over.
I may want to do that,
to stick it back and show that I could do it,
but one of the things I take enormous pride in
is that I am capable of taking a step back
and not making the emotional decision.
This is the real answer, Ruke:
What I would do is I would say,
"Okay, what do I wanna do now?
"Do I wanna go and rebuild VaynerMedia?
"Do I ..."
I'd probably call it "Chuk Media," C-H-U-K,
just to get the heebie-jeebies out of the 420 leavings.
"Or is there something else on my plate
"that I've learned from now?"
I would just be reacting to the best opportunity for my time
getting close to 40, wanna buy the Jets.
"What's the best use of my time?"
If I was to rebuild all over again
I feel very confident that I could do it.
That's just how I feel.
(strong, beating music)
- [Voiceover] Sean asks, "How do you instill
"soul and swagger into a physical product you create?"
- Sean, this question is phenomenal for so many reasons.
One: The Wednesday before Thanksgiving
I met with a bunch of new employees at VaynerMedia,
and so many of them talked about this notion
of loving it here three months in
because that's usually when I see somebody,
two to three months in.
They're blown away by how competitive and great everybody is
but not at the expense of others.
Whereas every other agency they worked,
you know, you're killing each other politically to move up.
You're like climbing the dead bodies to the top.
And they're caught off guard by
what we have here.
My answer to them is, "Everything stems from the top."
And I really believe that.
I've said four or five times on this show,
"Everything that is wrong at VaynerMedia is 100% my fault
"because I'm the guy."
And I'm empowering Steve if things are screwed up
or anybody else behind me,
and so I have a very big belief in what I'm about to say,
which is products take the byproduct of its leader.
So if she has got swag and flavor,
then her product is gonna have swag and flavor.
I truly believe that physical products, right,
that physical products take the personality
of the people that are dictating it,
that literally, in essence, the soul, the swag,
the vibe, the DNA, is extracted out of the person
and put into the product.
And I've seen it 100 times
because I think when you pay attention,
a lot of brands change, and ebb and flow,
and a lot of times that coincides with the CEO,
the CMO, the people really dictating
the product's course.
You're making decisions.
Humans are the variable.
This doesn't come alive;
it's the people behind it that instill that.
So the answer to your question is
the humans behind the product dictate its outcome,
period, end of story.
I truly, truly, truly believe in that.
Question of the day:
I'm gonna ask Steve to ask the question of the day.
(Steve and Gary laugh)
- How was your Thanksgiving?
- That was very sweet.
(laughter)
You keep asking questions.
I'll keep answering them.
By the way, quick little question of the day:
Give me your Jets, Dolphins prediction.
If you're right you can get drunk.
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