#AskGaryVee Episode 41: Pet Peeves, Young Entrepreneurs, and Overcoming Fear

“What are your pet peeves? “And what skill do you
wish you were better at?” – Elliot, great question. My pet peeves are pretty basic, meaning they’ve been
there for a long time, and it’s something I’ve
talked about in the past if you’ve watched any of
my key notes or the show, I think I’ve sprinkled it in, but I wanted to kinda address it, and it’s really funny,
I’m even pausing right now and buying myself time because the second part of your question, “What would I like to be better at?” is a struggle for me to come up with, and maybe that’s the answer in itself. We’ll get to that in a second, but pet peeves are clearly
hypocrisy and cynicism. I hate the cynicism in the marketplace. Steve feels it’s a must-needed
thing, and I respect that, but I won’t focus on that ’cause we’ve done that in the past. It really is hypocrisy. I have family members, I have
people I’ve done business with who are so hypocritical. It kills me. They literally like talk, and by the way, the reason I answered this question is a lot of you in the comments and a lot of you listening
on the podcast right now that are interacting with me, you talk a good game about community, you know, I’ve been doing
a little bit of digging, I’ve been thinking about
making kinda this slideshare which, oh by the way,
link up the slideshares. We haven’t done some linking
up in a little while. Linking up is a much needed thing. The slideshares that I put out. Been thinking about doing a
slideshare on bull (censored). The hypocrisy of people tweeting like, “Be in your community. “Engage with your community. “Give for your community.” And then you look at their Twitter feed, 4713 tweets all time, and nine at replies. I have a lot of pride
with my at reply ratio, and so those two things
really stick it to me. What would I like to be better at? Look, you’ve all heard me
if you’re hardcore fans that I say that I’m 99% of things suck at, and I believe that. There’s a lot of things I’d like, I mean, I’d like to be able to, look, I’d like to be able to sit
down and read something for more than two minutes and
actually concentrate and do it I mean, this poor crew, and show them, because I wanna show how poor the crew is, and I don’t mean financially, I mean, how I feel bad for them
because they sent me these nice long e-mails,
and then literally after the fourth time they send
it, I’ll reply and just say, “Let’s just meet for five minutes.” ‘Cause it’s so audio for me,
and I struggle to consume, and there would be a lot of efficiencies if I was better at consuming,
so kind of that ability to concentrate on things
that are not that important. Take that the way it was meant, guys, which is, ya know, I can concentrate on a one, two percent kind of variable, but I struggle when I
think things are important, but not that important. – [Voiceover] Amanda asks,
“What ways can agencies

– [Voiceover] Amanda asks,
“What ways can agencies “make staff meetings more productive?” – Amanda, I love this question. By the way, I just took
my wedding ring off. Big week for me. Turned 39 and had my 10th
wedding anniversary this week. Thursday is the wedding anniversary, Friday is my birthday. That’s right, at midnight at my wedding, the whole wedding party
sang me Happy Birthday. That’s how I roll. Amanda, Amanda right? Amanda, great question. The best way to make
meetings more efficient is to cut them in half. To cut them in, to cut seven eighths out of them. The amount of bullcrap
that goes on in a meeting, the set-up, this and that, one thing I’ve just noticed, I hired a couple of very
senior executives recently, three or four SVPs, very
senior people here at Vayner, and to a tee, each of
them have come up to me and said, “Wow, your
meetings are so weird. “They’re five minutes,
they’re ten minutes, “they’re 15 minutes.” Because most of it doesn’t matter. This is becoming the theme of this show. It just doesn’t matter. So I think one of the best
ways to make it efficient is to cut them in time. One of the things that I realized is that people will fit 10 pounds of crap into a 10 pound bag. You give them a 15 pound bag,
that’s what they fit it into. They don’t overfill. What I mean by that is, if
you have a one hour meeting, if we have a one hour meeting, we’ll fit what we need to
get into that into that hour. We’ll banter a little bit,
we’ll go a little bit deeper, but if we cut that same
meeting to 15 minutes, we’ll still accomplish that,
and we’ve saved the 45. So the answer to your
question is restrictions. Create a mandate for the
length of the meeting. – Hi Gary, my name’s Brent Wampler,

and I was actually born in
Russia like you were as a baby. I’m 14 years old, and here’s my question. I wanna be an entrepreneur
when I get older, but I don’t know where to start. Like, what actions should I
be taking right now as a kid? Thanks. – B, listen to me. First and foremost, by
asking this question and knowing what The #AskGaryVee Show is, you’re putting yourself in a
position to be an entrepreneur. I like that. What I don’t like is the question because what you should know if you’re a purebred entrepreneur, so wanting to be an entrepreneur versus being an entrepreneur are
two very different things, and I have no interest
in giving the medicine to a 14-year-old, especially
’cause I gave the medicine to a 14-year-old Steeler’s fan yesterday, and it wasn’t pretty
and I’m not proud of it. On this show is probably the
second most competitive place I live in, and so what I
want to tell you is this. Look, if I were you, I would sell that Under Armour sweatshirt
that you’re wearing in the video to some other
kid in the neighborhood. I would go back in the woods
in the video that you just had and find some rocks and sell
’em to some nine-year-old girl. That’s what I did. I was that raw. Now, we’re not all the same. What I’m trying to tell you is the best way to become something
is to act like something. So, you wanna be an entrepreneur? Start acting like one, meaning start a business,
start selling things. Both will work, or find a mentor. Find the 18, 19, 20,
21-year-old kind of entrepreneur in your neighborhood and
start helping her or him out for free just to learn the
hustle, to taste the game. You’ve gotta put yourself in the position. There’s no reading about entrepreneurship. There was a question today that
came through for #AskGaryVee that said, “Gary, name the first, “name the four best business
books you’ve read this year.” And I laughed my ass off because I don’t think I’ve read
four books in my life, and definitely not four business books, and so there’s no reading, my man. There’s doing, and so sell
the shirt off your back. – [Voiceover] TJ asks, “As
a fellow son of immigrants,

“when you were 25, how
did you overcome fear “of not doing as much or
not having it as hard?” – TJ, this is a great question. In life, there’s certain
things that you can control and other things that you can’t. One of the things that
really stand out to me is how much I, this is something I’ve rarely shared. I think I’ve shared it once or twice, Stunwin, keep me honest here. I’d be curious if you know. I think I’ve talked
about it once or twice. I often, when I was 18 years old, would call my mom while I was in college and cry, literally cry, like a baby, get that emotional about the fear that, at that point, I thought I was going into the family business, right? I was in a crap college. I was all in. I was going home every weekend working, and I had a huge fear
that I was never gonna get the credit I deserved as being, this is, ya know, the confidence inside, by going into my dad’s business because everybody would always
say that Sasha gave it to me, that my par–
look there’s even in Crush It!, there’s even negative
reviews on Amazon of like, “Oh yeah, but his dad gave him “a 3 million dollar liquor store.” Now, you know, as, I underestimated people’s knowledge that a three million
dollar revenue liquor store is not a three million dollar grant, and things of that nature, and then obviously my skills. I said recently in an episode, a lot of you caught it and tweeted it, “The truth is undefeated.” If I was gonna be a great businessman, I would get the credit that
I desperately, clearly wanted at that age and still at this point do ’cause the narrative does matter to me, not just the dollar results. And so, it’s interesting, this question really struck a chord because I remember not
only having that feeling, but I had a separate feeling which is the answer to your question. The answer to your
question is very simple. One, I knew that I would never have it as tough as my parents, so what I did was I had to execute against that privilege. Executing against your privilege is the only thing that you can do. I remember two things
that stand out for me. One, growing that family business. I wanted to pay back my
parents as quickly as possible. I, the greatest two
feelings I have in my body as an entrepreneur, answer this question. One, the fact that me and
my parents walk around and all feel like we’ve
given to each other. I paid back, right? I built such a big business
that it helped them as much as it helped
me getting that at bat. And number two, the day my
dad a couple of years ago maybe 18 months ago, said to me that I work harder than him, and that was a good feeling. That was something I wanted because that was another way
to pay back my privilege. The fact that my dad sacrificed
his entire life working to set up the foundation
where our family is going is something that I wanted to
pay back by doing the same. Now look, to pay that
back, I also want to have a better work life balance, to
spend more time with my kids, something he wasn’t able to do. So there’s other things
besides just working hard, but the fact of the matter
is the only thing you can do is to execute against your privilege. – [Voiceover] Joy asks,
“What social media techniques

– [Voiceover] Joy asks,
“What social media techniques “do you think work best
for promoting a book?” – Joy, I was excited about
answering this question ’cause I was gonna go tactical, but then Steve reminded me
that I’ve answered this a bunch in the past, and I wanna
give that context too ’cause he’s right, and I
wouldn’t have answered it, so kudos to Steve for
making the show better. When selling a book, you
need to be selling it months and years in advance. I am actively, right now,
selling the #AskGaryVee book. Let me explain. I’m putting out content, and I’m jabbing, and I’m building an audience, and I’m building a lot of new fans. As a matter of fact, question of the day going right into it, How long have you been following my work? Please leave that in the comments. Podcast people, jump out of the earphones, and jump onto the
keyboard and go to YouTube and answer this question, because I want a lot of
people in the VaynerNation to see how many people are only
two, three, four, five, six weeks in because this
show is getting virality, bringing people in, and then
thus creating a scenario where, I was just thinking
about what’s the scenario, got excited, anyway, creating a scenario where
I’m bringing value up front, I’m not charging for this. I’m not asking for anything. I’m not trying to make a
gateway to a product, no. I’m just building leverage,
and then when I launch in early 2016 the #AskGaryVee book, which is probably gonna be
a hundred to two hundred of these questions that I’ve
done over the last year or two, if I can get that far. That was a little bit of
a gateway drug preview to how many episodes I’m expecting to do. And two, a bunch of new questions, and three is kind of a cool idea I have. (ding) A lot of people here
who’ve watched every show don’t really need to buy the book, right? I mean, you’ve consumed it, but at 18 bucks or 22 bucks, they will because I’ve guilted them into it because I’ve provided so much of value. And so number one, you need
to provide value up front before you ever sell your book. Let me get into some tactics. One-on-one marketing. One of the biggest mistakes
so many authors make is they send out a bulk e-mail, and it usually says this. “Hey guys, I never normally do this,” I mean, that’s my favorite. You like that, Zak? “I never normally do this, “but I have a book coming
out next Wednesday. “It would mean the world to me,” Why? They want to be efficient. People want to scale. What I did last August was I went to Connecticut with my family and I, one by one by one by one by one, wrote e-mails to people
that I wanted to help. Alex in 12 years. Alex, hey remember I really
gave you a break in your career. You know, we’re great buddies. Hey, nice job last week, da da da. I’d really appreciate
your help on this book. Can I count on you? And I basically went one by one by one and scaled the unscalable,
and what it created was a landfall of a lot of opportunity. The other thing is you have to
cess the market of exposure. That year, August last year, the podcasting was really
starting to happen, right? And so I wanted to really focus on that. So I went and I did a ton of interviews with all the emerging podcast people ’cause I knew that was the arbitrage, and what I mean by the arbitrage was a place where you would get
bigger return on your investment than other places based on its exposure. So whereas three years ago I’d
want to be in the Huff Post and guest blog post,
that played itself out because Forbes opened it up, and a lot of other people did that move, but the podcasting was starting to grow, and now there’s so many more podcasts, so much more competition for those earbuds that it’s changed a little bit. It’s not as valuable to be
a guest as it was a year ago because of the game, unless
a certain podcast overindexed and there’s more, and you keep playing this. So it’s really tactical stuff like that, but it’s really about
scaling the unscalable. The truth is, you’ve gotta get
to somebody’s emotion, right? So that it goes from heart
to brain to wallet, right? Heart to brain to wallet, oh I like that. That could be a really nice picture. Let’s, maybe a t-shirt. Heart, can you make a t-shirt? Anyway, heart to brain to wallet is kind of the way I
think about selling books. First you gotta get them emotional, then you gotta make them
think there’s a value prop, and you’ve got a storytell to them why they should buy your book. What’s in it for them above the fact that they feel that they owe you? And then that’s when they
start pulling out their wallet. And so I do that one by one by one by one, and when I do interviews,
one of the things if you go back and listen
to all of the podcasts, Lewis Howes, Peflen,
JLD, any of those people, when I was doing those interviews, I barely mentioned the book. As a matter of fact, when they asked me questions of the book
’cause they were good guys and they wanted to get me exposure, I’d walk away from it ’cause
the only thing I want to do in those 30 minutes was provide as much value for that
audience as possible ’cause that’s the first step, the heart. Thanks for watching episode
41 of The #AskGaryVee Show.