#AskGaryVee Episode 156: Rebranding, Overstaffing, & Prepping Employees for Leadership

“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.

“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.

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.