#AskGaryVee Episode 216: People Who Take Advantage of Others & Businesses On My Blacklist

People, organizations you
won’t work with for whatever reason? – That’s an interesting question. You know and actually, one thing I promised myself
on my comeback trail, here in episode 216 is I’m
gonna answer these questions not just kind of
literally, black and white, but I’m gonna really
challenge myself. I think the golden
eras of the show was when I could
answer the question, but also then know how to bring
value to the whole audience and I, right off the bat,
came in hot, I’m excited. Which is, I don’t and
now let’s talk about it. I truly believe that
anybody who has a shit list has a vulnerability. Because when you’re
using negativity to drive your success,
I think that’s a problem. To me, spending
any energy and time, with a list of people I don’t
wanna do business with or put out of business, or
negative, or like people that got me and
I’m gonna get them back, I think is insane. It’s stunning to me, looking
back at my 20 year career. There was a guy that I went
to a wine tasting of, went to the wine tasting in
New York City at the Hilton. The Wine Spectator
National Wine Tasting, all the best wineries are there. I came in, and I come,
and I go to this winery, and they have this great
Shiraz, Australian wines are getting super hot, and I’m
like selling a lot of them, more than anybody
in the country. And I come and I’d like
to taste your wine, thinking this guy was
going to react really well because we sold a ton of it. He goes into a curse
laden, I’m a piece of crap. And I’ve never lad this
happen to me in life. Like just drilled me. You’re the devil of the
industry, I hate you. Like nasty, nasty, nasty stuff. And it was because
I was selling his wine at the most aggressive
price in the country and he thought
I was killing his brand, meanwhile, there were 30
other stores selling it for that price, but he hadn’t
been on top of technology yet and didn’t know there was
a site called Wine-Searcher that allowed you to see
every price on the internet, and I was just matching the
best price in the country. But because I was
the biggest guy, when I emailed it
and promoted it, all the other stores that
were selling it for more called and complained. He did no homework,
he was immature, he was very hot at the time so
he had the audacity and ego. Needless to say, the
Australian wines got less hot, over the next five years,
and then that coincided with Wine Library TV’s explosion, and then this guy who said I
was the devil of the industry and the worst piece of
crap, and a loser kid and was never going
to amount to anything, emailed me, five years
later, begging for me to be on the show for
exposure for his wine. And with no hesitation
I said yes. I believe being the bigger man. I believe not holding grudges. I believe that one of the
reasons I’m successful in life, let alone business is I don’t
allow poison or negativity to be stored within my confines, and I think it’s a very big thing. I’ve been talking a
lot more about optimism and positivity being
a real factor, I’m starting to get
a little more zen in my older age, and
I believe that if you have a shit list, if you have a list, if you hold a grudge, you’re
coming at your own expense. That you’re not doing
anything, do I forget? No. But it’s just context,
it doesn’t mean I’m going to get you with it, it just
means I have to navigate around it, and that’s
a very big difference. I don’t wanna stick it to you. I just need to navigate
around your truth and there might be
some negativity there, and I wanna get around it. I don’t wanna walk into your
cancer over and over again, punch in the face either. So, I would highly
recommend for all of you, If I can do anything
with this episode, if this becomes the
moment in your life where you stop thinking
having a shit list. By the way, so many people
in my family love that. They love the grudge list,
Eastern European old school, we’re gonna get them,
we’re gonna stick it to them in the end. I think the positivity
and the winning. I think nothing sticks it to
anybody better than results. Instead of tearing them down, just get so God damned big
that that’s the ultimate I got you back. And that comes
through positivity.

– [Voiceover] Caleb asks,
“Would you work a nine to five “for all of 2017 if it
meant you would own the “New York Jets on
January 1st of 2018?” – Yes. – [Britt] 100%. – Yes, I mean. You know, now trying
to challenge myself to make these good questions. You know, I’ll take it here. Anybody who’s not
willing to do something that they hate so
much in the short term to have what they love
so much in the long term is usually the blue print of a person that is normally not winning. One of the biggest
separations between me and a lot of people watching this and other people that are
successful in your life. If you’re not, or vice versa,
you the successful person and the people that
are think you’re lucky or curious to why
you are winning is that most winners tend
to have much more patience than their contemporaries. I don’t need anything now,
and most of the people do. Most people are such
consumers in the US world. They want stuff. They want the new iPad. They want the new jeans,
they want the new kicks. They want the vacation,
you know, they want stuff, and social media, where
everybody’s PR’ing their best life and showing them the new car. I mean this weekend,
everybody is showing you the best barbecue that
they’ve ever been to, right? It makes people have FOMO
and really aspire to more, and I’m kind of the other way. Like I’ve just never wanted
those kind of things. I’m not affected by, I’m happy
for other people’s glory, not asking why I don’t have that or compare myself to that. I’m in my own zone and I’m
very, very, very patient so I would eat crap. How about this, I would work
a nine to five for the next 10 years if you told me
I owned the New York Jets on the next day after
that, how about that one? 15. 20. I would work every day,
nine to five, for the next 20 years, if
you told me at 61 years old I owned the New York Jets. 30. I would work every single day, nine to five for a corporation
for the next 30 years to own the New York Jets. It wouldn’t happen, because
that’s not how it’s, how it works. But I would, I would. Because by the way, you
know how much hustle I would do from seven pm
until two in the morning? Like nine to five is cake. Like you guys know that
that’s a half a day. That’s a half a day! That’s like right,
that’s the other part I don’t think people understand. I literally work 18 hours
a day, 15 hours a day. Like working nine to five, like that would be amazing. I’d play basketball every
morning and work out, and work and then work and then
hang out with my family too. That would be insane. 40 years.

– [Voiceover] George asks, “I’m curious to see where
grandmavee is headed. “Seems to be getting
a lot of traction. “Are you going to
make it a thing?” – For all of you that
missed Grandma Vee over I guess Wednesday
and Thursday of last week. There was a filter on
Snapchat, I went into character called Grandma Vee, grannyvee. I converted it to grannyvee
because it’s just better. And you know, she was
just, basically it was just really funny about it, she
was just basically saying the same things I say
except it’s funny. I think of myself
as an old soul, and it just makes more sense. Basically, she, I just made videos on Snapchat where
she said, in my day, and then basically said
the things I believe in. And it was a lot of fun,
and boy did it catch fire. People really
passionate about it. Unfortunate the granny
filter is gone now, and I dunno if they’re
bringing it back so. I don’t know where it’s going. I guess we could design it. I guess Andrew could just draw it and we could put it
over my head at times. I do think I should
do a grannyvee episode of The AskGrannyVee Show. I’m super willing to do it if
Andrew is willing to draw it and impose it, you guys
can figure it out, team. I will do a
whole episode, in costume. One little fun fact, Staphon,
you forget these edits sometimes, even still,
so do not miss this one. This is not the first time
I went into character. Way back in the day,
during Wine Library TV, there was a character
called Sir Gary Vaynerchuk, which was the classic,
more serious wine reviewer. Staphon, give them
30 seconds right now. – The key to everything is this. Gary is in Hungary, and
it is now the Friday show. Now obviously he could
not do this on Monday because it was raining,
and it was a Monday. And how could you possibly
do a Friday show on Friday. So I threw the couch out the window, and I jumped in and I’ve
taken over the show today. He’s not here, call it
a Coup d’etat for you. – So I’ve been known
to do this before, and it has inspired me to
consider going into character on Snapchat filters more often ’cause I think
it’s interesting content, I think I can pull it off, and I think it’s a blue
print for a lot of you. I think a lot of you
that are struggling that are comedians, or improv
actors, that have that DNA that are figuring out
what to do on Snapchat. I do think the filters
and all these characters is an incredible
storytelling opportunity. – [Voiceover] Brandon
asks, “Why are the reviews “for VaynerMedia on
GlassDoor so bad?”

“for VaynerMedia on
GlassDoor so bad?” – So this one’s tough for me. There’s a lot of reasons why our reviews on
GlassDoor for VaynerMedia are not as good
as they should be or the reality of our culture. I think, first of all,
I think it has a lot to do with many different things. First of all,
anonymous websites, right? So you look at Secret and
Whisper and Anonymous, you’re gonna get people that
are willing to go to extremes when nobody can figure
out who that person is. So anonymous leads to it. Two, we’ve gone from 30 to
650 people in four years. There’s a lot of pain in that, and a lot of people that
are employees struggle with the constant change and
the different decision making. I move very quickly
and a lot of times I don’t do the greatest job explaining my
actions to everybody, and I think that creates,
you know, I think that a lot of movement, and a lot of structural
changes creates a lot of angst for people
that are more comfortable and it’s easy for
the entrepreneur, it’s harder for the employees. Three, I think cynicism is
unfortunately quite powerful, so I think that that’s the case. I think some of the
early ones back in 2011 are just, I think I did a bad job. I wasn’t really the
active CEO of Vayner, and I don’t think we
micromanaged our youngest talent. So I feel good, I mean I feel
bad, but good about the ones that are in 11, I think
the last 15 of them, and I read them all
50 times a month are coming from employees
that I don’t think we saw the world the same way. I mean, I don’t know
what people expect from former employees,
but if they’re fired or if they quit, they
obviously don’t feel great about the business,
and that’s okay. I mean, I think you
go look at any, the is why I think
Yelp and GlassDoor, and all these
anonymous sites struggle, because what you don’t have is, I’m not gonna do
what most companies do, which try to incentivize
their employees to leave positive reviews to
offset the negative reviews. That’s not gonna happen. I use them as feedback loops. Even though we try here. But these are people
that are not happy with the way we’re doing things. But I think the problem
is the silent majority. It’s kind of like the Britain Exit. I have so many
friends who are like, I wish I voted. I mean, you had a
chance but you didn’t. I think its politics, right? There’s a lot of people
that don’t talk about their views on, you hear it, you look on the internet,
you see the loud minorities dictate a narrative. And then the
punchline is mainly, I think everything
starts from the top, which is I actually like having
a bad review on GlassDoor, I think that any individual
that takes an anonymous website of former employees,
and people say they’re current employees
that are former, I had somebody who
I did a nice thing for, call me and say look, I just
wanted you to know something, when I left a bad review, this
is somebody I did something nice for a year after
they are fired. They called me
because they felt guilty, and said I left a
really nasty review because I felt that was unfair. I was super immature,
and I also left it as a current employee
because I thought that would hurt you more. So like, you know,
I think that anybody who would stay
out of a company, any company looking at,
Vayner what have you because of GlassDoor or
any other anonymous site as the proxy to what’s
actually happening there, is exactly the kind of
people that I wanna keep out. It’s the people playing
checkers versus chess, they’re so, I don’t
wanna say basic minded, because I don’t
wanna razz, but like, I don’t understand how
somebody wouldn’t understand that this is an
anonymous site of people that are the least
happy about something. So I think there’s
a lot of reasons we have a tough review there. They don’t make me happy. I’m really upset when people
are unhappy with things, but I’ll be honest with
you, when you’re the CEO of a company that has gone
through 1000’s of employees over the last four years, I’ve
has a lot more conversations one on one with somebody
saying that they’re mad at me, or they don’t like things and
they’re saying it to my face, that hurts even kind of more
because I respect them so much for going that route. And I wanna fix it for them. You know, I’m in the
firefighting business. Everything is always hard. There’s always problems. But I’m pretty confident about what’s actually
happening here. I think that shows
in it’s results. I think when you look at the
macro turnover rates here, voluntary turnover
is what I look at, we’re crushing the market. People aren’t leaving
because they want, you know, ’cause they don’t like it here. And so, there’s always gonna
be a percentage of people that don’t like certain things, and I don’t think I’m perfect
or this company is perfect. Especially because we’re always
making different changes. But I know that no CEO
organization has more intent to have people
talk to us about it. Some people,
I look at my own father, some people keep things inside
and will never share it, and so I can’t fix
what I don’t know, and then when it
doesn’t work out, whether on their
choice or our choice because they kept
that poison in, a lot of those same
people can’t communicate in real life but love
to go on anonymous site and get that poison out. And to be frank with you, I actually love GlassDoor,
for A helping me not allow people to come in
that have low EQ and are looking at
a basic level, and B, I’m happy that
those people are able to get their poison of
what they feel about me or VaynerMedia out of their body and move on just like I
talked about in the beginning. I hope it helps,
and I hope with that out, they can take a step back,
look at the big picture and maybe reach out to me and
continue our relationship. I’m very proud of my relationship with a lot of former employees
that left on bad terms. And I will continue
to do that forever because I care about my legacy. Because I’m more selfish
about that than the money. Than things that nature. And by the way, you know,
as somebody who’s very close to their business,
I would say I’m 70% sure of the exact person
that leaves that review and there’s a lot of,
I’m never confused. You know, it just makes sense, like sometimes
things don’t go well. Inter-people relationships
and things of that nature and so it is what it is. It’s a challenge
because I care so much, but if you’re watching
this and you’re currently at Vayner, or you used
to be at Vayner and you still have
negativity in you, I’m super available. I’m Gary at VaynerMedia,
I’ve always been available. I’ll always be available. And I think that to me
is much more interesting. You know, I’m not worried
about the perception. GlassDoor’s 2.6 rating
on VaynerMedia isn’t stopping the 1000
applications a week we’re getting or the growth of my company. I care way more about the 20
people that are upset with me or this, I’m here to fix it. Forever, if there’s
actually something to fix, and even if there’s not. – [Britt] Do you
have time for one more?

“How do you deal with people
who take advantage of you? “You give, never take. “Does it get lonely?” – Yeah, I mean I think
what I tend to do. I’m tying a lot of
these things together. One of the reasons
I don’t try to manipulate GlassDoor like all my
friend’s companies do is it helps you
actually get the truth. I think one of the
things that’s great about meritocracy, open ended,
not holding grudges is that you get to see truths. One of the things that I
think I’ve done quite well, and I highly recommend
to a lot of you is not to manipulate situations. So by letting things
play out, you get hurt. But because I’m so
emotionally strong, or I like to think I am,
it gives me data. When people hurt me
or take me for granted or don’t see the bigger picture, I don’t look at that
as a negative, I look at it as a data point. It allows me to decide
what opportunities I want to give that person
if I’m in control. Do I wanna do things
with that person if I’m not in control. Do I give that
person opportunities because I am in
control in reverse. If I think that they’re
being very appreciative or they see the big picture. So one of the things that
I think is quite important is not manipulating one’s truth. And so, to me, somebody
taking advantage of me is very common. A, I’m most comfortable in
being taken advantage of because I like the leverage of it. So it’s a whole weird
think of my own mishegoss, which is craziness
in Yiddish I think. So, I’ve got my
own kind of thing. I love giving. I create environment. I’m self aware enough
to know that I create a lot of the beds that I make that lead to people
taking advantage of me because I don’t create
boundaries of my giving early on and the behavior
becomes it’s like just like anything else right. Like you know, rich
kid, by eating too much. By anything, discipline, if
you’re not creating parameters so I feel like I make
the bed to do that, thus I can’t be a hypocrite
and be upset about it. The reason I like it is
I think I win twice. One, it just feels nice. I don’t mind it, I’m good. I’m good so I’m not scared
by people doing negative things to me because
I’m globally good, emotionally, forever. Two, it’s just data, I just
love watching people navigate in a blank space. If you don’t make
too many rules, if you don’t have
too much to process, if you do run your
company quickly, if you do all those things,
you actually get to see what people actually do in
real life circumstances, not the manipulated rules
and structures and processes that you create that
inevitably slow you down, make you too big to change
and lead to your demise in the game of entrepreneurship. So, I’m very calculated
and comfortable, C-C, calculated and
comfortable in the way that I go businesses
and very honestly, whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not,
the results have spoken for themselves. I win, and I think that
when I look at other people playing similar games,
they win too, and so, you know,
how do I feel about it? I feel like I’m thankful
that I’m in an emotional place that allows me to be
able to eat it for breakfast, and I think any of you that
are emotionally capable to be taken
advantage of, should. It’s called leverage.