#AskGaryVee Episode 14: Refuse to Lose!

what role does internal culture play in the company’s success? Can you give one concrete
tip on building that culture? Ekaterina, how are you doing? It’s always great to hear from you, I’m glad you’re on the show. Company culture is actually the only, you know what’s funny,
it’s funny this question’s coming up today, I actually
on the way to work today said, “you know what, the
book that I’m gonna write that’s really gonna like,” you know, I always think is Crush It!,
ooh, Thank You Economy’s gonna sneak up on people.
I know, as I sit here today, the book that I write
on culture and how to build an organization through humans, not CFO cash tactics, is
gonna be my book legacy, so whenever I get to that,
so it’s everything to me, as an operator I’m all E.Q. over I.Q., the one concrete tactic I have is way too many people make
decisions on who they fire or hire based on money. “Oh, we have the budget
to hire another designer, or camera person, or” like
it’s a financial decision. All my decisions on hiring
and firing are emotional. What is it gonna do to
the collective community? You know, if I fire this
person, who’s so popular internally, because they
have great people skills, will that hurt everybody else, and can I can I push that person
into another direction to help them get another job over 90 days instead of firing them
abruptly in one day? That costs me a lot more money, but does a hell of a lot for me in the culture. And so, that is my one concrete kind of curve ball haven’t heard a lot of
people talk about that kind of stuff, example.

– Hi Gary, this is Jelle from Amsterdam. This is why I need to be in Episode 14, because our biggest Dutch soccer player called Johan Cruyff he wore the number 14, so it’s really important
for us, for our Dutch man. And here’s my question, Gary. I’ve read a book in 2011 called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And that book changed my
life in a very positive way. I’m very curious about
you, Gary, did you read any books that changed your
life in a very positive way? Thanks. Big shout out to all the Dutch Vayniacs. The answer to this question
is pretty interesting, this is gonna be one
of the shorter answers. The answer is no. That pre-mentioned book that
I am planning on writing, if it’s my fourth or fifth
or sixth book, when I hit eight books, writing, I will
accomplish a very rare feat, which is that will be
the moment where I’ve written more books than I’ve read. I believe that one of
my core weaknesses is my lack of reading books. I just don’t read books. It is, I’ve read three
business books in my life. If you call the Steve
Jobs book a business book, John Battelle wrote a book called Search, about Google, and then
I’m trying to think, my favorite book I’ve
ever read was called Nine, it was about the Supreme Court. I’ve read like seven books.

– [Voiceover] And Tory
asks, as I launch The Shift in paperback, what were
the three most effective things you did to drive book sales? Tory, thanks for the
question, really was excited to put your question on the show because I just really want the
Vayniacs to know about you, I’m a fan, we’ve done
some events together, good luck with the book. Without knowing the true
contents of the book, though, and everybody will have
to do their own homework on that part, there’s
a couple secrets I have for everybody who wants
to write a book that have really worked for me and
they’re not really secrets they’re actually quite boring. My belief is that you actually
sell your book a year to two before you’re actually selling your book. By providing, by the global
jab jab jab right hooding, here’s an example Tory. I’m actually selling my
fourth book right now. I’m putting out a show
everyday, I’m taking time which is my number one asset, I like time. I like time more than money. I prefer time, wish I
had a watch, over cash. That’s how valuable it is. And here I am taking time
every day out to just answer questions, to provide
value, to give value, to entertain, to give an
answer to make somebody think, to provide value in their
entrepreneurial venture to the people that have
deemed me worth their time, thank you, and so,
you know, I’m selling my fourth book right now
because I’m providing value to a whole new
audience, as a matter of fact, a quick question of the
day, leave in the comments section if you’ve discovered
me because of #AskGaryVee. That’ll be interesting to
see what happens to comments. Please do that if you
are, don’t be a lurker. Okay, I haven’t used
that term in a long time. So that’s number one. Number two, and this
is a big unknown thing to a lot of people. It surprises me how many people have not figured this out. People don’t want more content as much as they want more access. Everybody wants to do book
offers where if you buy three books you can get
a free Ebook or this that more content, right? Get into this. What they want is access. One of the biggest things
that I did Tory that really sold a lot of books for me was give myself to the audience. If you did this many books
or bought this many books I would do this live stream Q and A, I would come to your
school. I would make a video for happy birthday. I
would literally give, sell, the number one thing people want from me, which is more access, and
it’s the thing you want from everybody that you appreciate. You wanna spend more
time with that person. Those are two I’m giving
you, I’m not giving you a third one ’cause those
are the two that matter. – Hey Gary this is Ian Westerman from EssentialTennis.com, I’ve
got a quick question for you

– Hey Gary this is Ian Westerman from EssentialTennis.com, I’ve
got a quick question for you for #AskGaryVee.
First and foremost though, thank you so much for what you do. It was six years ago that I
was commuting an hour in each direction to a job back and forth, listening to Crush It!, and
that book fired me up so much. So, my question for you is,
when you played tennis or at if you’re still playing tennis now, do you see parallels
between tennis and business and being successful in
either one, or in both? What are those? I’d be really curious
to hear your thoughts. – Great, great question,
you know it’s really interesting to me, tennis
is a game I love a lot, and I’ve recently figured
out how not good I am because I’ve met a lot
of private school kids, rich kids who play tennis
a lot, and were on the college tennis team,
and so I love the game and I like playing the
people that give me good 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 kinda
matches in both directions I have a lot of fun with
it and I like it a lot and as a matter of fact I
really do see one parallel and I never thought about this before, and this is really why I
love the #AskGaryVee Show, (bell) ting, you know,
I do see a parallel. I’m blown away that I
once lost a match that I was winning five zero in a set. And I’m also super happy,
can somebody get Nate, Zak, can you get Nate? This is gonna be fun. I’m also happy that you
know and you’ve heard me talk about half time adjustments, right, I’m the coach, they’ll be down 21 nothing, and then it’s 23-21 and I won because I didn’t game plan well but I adjusted? That to me is tennis, right? To me tennis is fascinating
’cause the set is very long, and you can be down three zero and then you’re adjusting. You’re seeing patterns. For example, – [Nate] Yo. – [Gary] Nate, is it true,
is it true that you’ve never beaten me in tennis? – Unfortunately yes. – Now, is it also true
that you once had me down five, you’ve had me, like help me here, you’ve had me down 5-2 twice? – Yep. – Right, and you lost those matches. – Yes. – Okay, so what I did
in those matches were – Done? – That was it, thanks bro. So in those matches when
I was down 5-2 to Nate, what happened was, you
know, one I just like refused to lose, but two,
I really kind of took a step back, looked at
what happened in those first seven games, and
started attacking either weaknesses of his or strengths of mine, it’s a very mental game, I was reacting to what was already happening
in that specific set, and I was able to adjust
then and win 7-5 much to my happiness, and so
much like in business, people set out to do
things, it’s kinda like the Mike Tyson quote, right? “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” You know, that’s what I see in tennis and that’s what I see in business. You have your business plan. You think you’re gonna succeed. And then you’re out in
the market and somebody copies your product for
less, or is better than you, or nobody really wanted your stupid app. You gotta adjust. And in tennis, ’cause it’s a
set, it takes a lot of time to that for that kind
of like set to like form and you’ve gotta adjust to, wait a minute he’s playing off of
his backhand, let me go at his backhand, things
of that nature, let me go to the net because I’m not
winning this baseline game. The adjustments in real
time, and the emotion and composure, and the
intestinal fortitude to be down 5-2 and come back
and win, that’s how I see it.

– [Voiceover] Trey wants
to know what situations do you find yourself most comfortable in? – Trey, this is a great
question, you know, I loved it when Steve brought it up, like how he wanted to do this
question, of course, this is like a humble brag question. (bell) You know, I mean, where am I most awesome? You know, listen, the
thing I take most pride in is I’m probably probably
best when it’s chaotic. And I think a lot of
people fold in that sense, but to me I take enormous pride, what I don’t know is I’m really great in chaotic non-threatening,
I’m being very honest here ’cause I don’t I wanna (bell)
disguise this humble brag with a little humility, ’cause
that’s how I like to roll, you know, I I’m great in
business when we’re in real trouble, like I’m
great, that’s my world. I’m really good when people
are upset, you know, like, a kid in my class died in
a car accident senior year and like I like I was
proud in the way I helped a lot of people I’m
really strong emotionally. What I’m not sure about is
if like somebody came up and punched my wife in the
face, like, what would I do? Like I’m such a lover not
a fighter, that I always question myself in that
moment, I actually think I come out guns blazing, but
it’s never really happened. But I’m most comfortable in chaos. As a matter of fact, and
people can tell you this in the office, these guys
can mention it, I mean you’ve seen this stop, I’m
like rolling my, ringin’ these, I hate quiet and standard. I like walking into
VaynerMedia everybody’s got their headphones
on, like, can somebody play some music? Like, all this is like
way not enough for me. My wife actually like
keeps making fun of me because the other day I
somehow said something like New York’s too slow for
me, she’s like “shut the” you know like like I I’m best when there’s a crapload going on. My friends, I really appreciate
you watching this show.