– Hi, Gary. This is Nick Folk from the New York Jets.
– [Gary] Kicker. I’m just wondering what are
the few things I can do now to prepare for business after football. – So, Nick, I think similar to B Marshall, there’s a lot of networking aspects. But the other thing I
think you could be doing especially during the off season. Let’s talk about another thing real quick. Right now we’re very focused on the Browns and the season. Guys, all of you, let’s not
worry about these answers. We can focus on that in
February, March, and April. Let’s get really focused on football, but I got your back Coach Bowles. But, Nick, I think one of
the things that you can do is start becoming a
practitioner and an executor in the place that you’re passionate about. You know, you’re gonna kick
out of football at some point, and what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna want to go and do something. Being good at that actually matters. If you’re passionate about music, or you want to start a music app, downloading all the music
apps, reading about music apps, engaging with people and talking
to them about music apps. To me the advise here, and for everybody’s who’s
watching in the Vayner Nation, is listen way too any
people want to be something versus actually putting in the work to be a practitioner for it. And a lot of you are jumping
into things, by raising money, by quitting your jobs, by
putting your other asset the one you have most,
which is your time between 7 p.m. and two in the morning, into something without prepping for it. The amount of people that are
jumping into the cold pool of business without warming up, right? The amount of people just hitting the court without stretching. The amount of people that are
just jumping into business, doing no prep work. By the time I was 22 years
old to run my dad’s business, I’d done eight years of
real prep work, right? By the time I started VaynerMedia, you know this thing? It’s not winning by accident. It’s winning, because 2006, three, four years of
being just a social media personality and practitioner,
15 years being business. I’ve put in the work. You can’t run a marathon cold. All five of these phenomenal athletes, they didn’t just roll out of bed, this Sunday morning coming up, and play. They’ve been in mini camp,
they’ve been in training camp. They’ve been prepping, they’ve
been studying the film. I hope you guys are studying the film. They’ve been getting ready for this game. And, so, way too many
of you entrepreneurs, and, Nick, the thing that
way too many athletes take for granted, and celebrities, and other people that
transition other things is like cool, you just think because
you were a great kicker in the NFL, you’re gonna
be a great entrepreneur. It’s not just how it works. You’ve got to put in the work. And, so, I would say to you, and this is why I broke up
you and Brandon’s questions similar points of view. Brandon and Nick, it’s
about not only networking and having relationships, but then you’ve got to be
able to bring tangible skills to the table. And, so, that’s what I
would be doing, Nick. Now, getting deeper into your studies on the thing that you
want to be doing post NFL. There’s just no, there’s
no better show for me

Has there ever been a point for you where you’ve kind of been
overwhelmed with options for where you wanted to go,
kind of, in your career, and life and what was
the thought process, and the decision making
process you went through when you ultimately made a decision? – I think it’s happened
more, unlike what I think you’re going with your
question as you’re younger, you may be in school,
there’s a lot of options. You know, to me, I was
set at your age, right? I was, I mean, I barely went to college, I was like, I that badly wanted to go into the family business and do my thing. Where I started having
these things happen really is more of like the last
five to seven year phenomenon where I’m crippled by business options. Do I want to be a venture capitalist, do I want to start companies,
do I want to do more econ, do I want to do TV shows? Like, I’ve had a lot
of options in the last five to seven years, and I think for me, you know, what I like to do
is run on two parallel paths. So, here’s my piece of advice. One, I’m constantly debating them, right? I mean, you just have
to, you’re a human being, you’re thinking about your options. But I’m always doing something. I think the thing that bothers me is that people are
crippled by their options, and then actually aren’t
doing anything in parallel, they’re lollygagging while they decide, and to me, whatever you’re deciding, given that these should
all be loaded questions, whatever is in your option
point, you need to be doing. Right, you need to be executing. So, if there’s three
or four tangible things going on in your mind,
you need to make sure your internships, your
free time, you know, whatever you can do to let you taste them and get context around them
is what really matters. – Sweet. – That’s it, good. – Awesome.
– I thought there was gonna be a follow up. – Oh, in terms of that, I mean, that makes a lot of sense, just… – It’s about execution, right? Like, to me, what I was
doing was I showed up on TV a lot, I did angel investing, I ran VaynerMedia, like, I
was doing all these things. I think people are
confused that you could be doing a lot of things
at once if you’re able to stretch that rubber band. – But how much of it
would you say is like, following your passion
versus kind of like, trying new things, and
experimenting, and seeing… – I would never try anything
that I’m not excited about. Like, to me, when I hear you
say following your passion, literally, what I heard is,
how much is it about oxygen? Like, to me, that’s the only thing. Like, everything I just
mentioned are all things that I want to do. Like, do you know how
many people have asked me to go into politics? – I’d vote for you. – So, but I don’t want to do that. And so, I’ve never pondered that. Right? And so, you know, to me, you know, teaching is interesting. I think I’m a modern teacher,
I like it, I love this, but I don’t wanna do
it, I don’t wanna do it in the way that USC actually wants me to teach a course. The guy that I came, and did that course, where he’s like, look,
we’ll set it all up for you, you can be a professor. And there was a part of me
like, my mom would really get a kick out of that,
but other than that, I’m like, I don’t wanna do that. And so, all of it has to do with passion, but you can have passion about a lot of different things. So, to me, if you’re
contemplating anything that’s practical or money
based, get the hell out. Like, oh, I can go into
finance and make more money. That’s, like, I think
that is a terrible idea.

“people missing deadlines they set?” – Ben, this is an
interesting kinda question. Poorly, because usually I… Let me break this down, actually. The way I struggle, the way I react to people who set their own deadlines and miss them are predicated into the A and B bucket that I put them in, meaning, either I put you into a bucket where you’re a hardcore executor, you’re extremely reliable, you’re on your shit, you’re T’s and I’s and everything, and that’s what I value in you because that’s what you’re great at, if you miss a deadline, I am pissed, ’cause that’s what you do. Now if you’re in the magic category, gray, stumbling all over yourself, calling out sick randomly. Weird, but you got magic
and you make stuff happen, well I kind of think
you’re gonna miss your, I actually don’t even believe
you in the first place when you set a deadline. And so then I’m okay with
another two or three days. So I think it predicates completely on where I have you bucketed. And then are you actually
executing on that bucket. So that’s how I react to that question.

– Gary Vee what’s up? Lewis Howes here from the
School of Greatness podcast. Big fan of the
#AskGaryVee Show keep it up, love what you’re doin’. I’ve got a two part question
for you and it’s geared around selling books. Now I’ve got a big book launch coming out in October, in the fall. It’s called the School of
Greatness, very excited about it – Good plug.
– [Lewis] and I’ve got a two part question for you. One with Instagram ads looking like they’re gonna be opening up here soon, – Somebody’s paying attention. – and if you could only
spend money in one place on ads Facebook or Instagram,
where would you be putting your money on a book launch
coming out this fall? That’s part one and part
two if you were looking to get 10,000 preorders
through bulk orders where would you be focusing
your energy and efforts to get 10,000 preorders come through.
– [Gary] Piece a cake ’cause I’ve done it so many times.
– [Lewis] That’s the question. Hope you like it. Thanks for all you do.
– [Gary] I love it Lewis. I would, I’m hedging here
because I just don’t know exactly what Instagram’s gonna do. If I knew that Instagram was
gonna fully open up the funnel, the firehose and ads are just rolling in, and we’re seeing five,
seven ads a day on our feed then I would say Instagram. I really would ’cause I do
believe the attention is sitting in Instagram the problem is my intuition without any knowledge is they’re
gonna be a little tighter on the spigot and it’s
gonna be a little tougher to actually break through. And so I would spend 50 cents on a dollar in Facebook and Instagram. The problem is your book’s
coming out in October. The ad platform’s supposed
to come out in October. My belief is it comes out later so I think I want you mentally in Facebook,
Facebook’s gonna dominate. Number two’s a piece a
cake ’cause I’ve done it multiple times and I’ll do
it again in March or February for my #AskGaryVee book. The place to go is to your homies. The place to go is to your homies. What I mean by that is
reverse engineer everything you’ve done for people
for the last 18 months and send them one by one, not in bulk, biggest mistake people
make is send a bulk email and say this is the one time
I wanna send a bulk email. You know I just need all
of you to buy my book. I get that all the time, that
is a piece a crap execution, it will not work. I don’t feel like it’s
personal, I never buy but Lewis when you email me and
you write a whole thing like hey remember when
we first met in Ohio and I drove you around, or St.
Louis, and I drove you around and this and that and
you know thanks for being on my podcast and hey
remember a couple months ago I asked this question on the
show so here’s my thinking and hey it was great to see that. Like real stuff, like real
stuff, like the party in LA that I helped, like real stuff, real stuff that happened between you and I. Not a bulk control c,
control v, this is you and me. You spend five minutes writing this email. It would really mean a lot
to me, I’m gonna be guilted into buying 100 books. And that’s it. And you’ve gotta lotta people like that. And some people are
even more homie with you and they’ll buy 1,000 or
they’ll buy 40 or they’ll buy 90 and literally when Jab,
Jab, Jab Right Hook came out in that August, it came out
in February, in that August or when did it come out? In January, I don’t even remember, when did Jab, Jab, Jab,
Right hook come out? Anyway, in that August. Maybe December? Anyway, in that August I emailed thousands of people one by one, wrote
them one by one emails, it took forever and I got a lot of sales and well into the tens of thousands so that’s exactly what I would do. I’d reverse engineer, CRM,
your whole social graph. The 25 to 7,000 people
that most matter and one by one by one remind them
the nice things you’ve done. I know how you roll, you
build up leverage one by one by one, one by one by one, one by one by one. Tedious, long but effort that
converts into actual sales and follow-up. I went in right in there be
like look you need to say no in this email or, at the time
Nate who’s the CEO of the book, or Nate is gonna email
you and ask you every week on the week and I’m cool
as shit if you go with no ’cause I get it. Cool but you need to say
it ’cause I will bother you until you tell me and
so put them in a corner, suffocate them, don’t let
them be able to just delete it and not answer, pound them,
let them basically understand that you will not have a
relationship going forward if you don’t at least answer
and that no is equally as awesome as 1,000 and that’s what I did. I really made everybody
feel very comfortable in saying no ’cause I get it
as I did with them being 1,000. It’s funny after I did Jab,
Jab Right Hook, even though I did it for Crush It
and Thank You Economy after I did it for Jab,
Jab Right Hook it’s funny I’ve been giving this advice
to a lot of people and as you guys know we’ve been buying a lot of hundreds and two hundreds
and putting them out for Vayner. So that’s the scoop my man,
that’s what I would do. Guys, thank you for watching the show.

Yes, sir. Founder of Aspire. Aspire is a productivity
community for millennials. We’re trying to get
millennials, Generation Z to be more productive– – Love it. – So, I know that you work,
16, 17, 18 hours a day. 19 hours depending on
who says they work more you work more.
– [Gary] That’s right. – So, – 25 hours a day bitches, – So, my question is
especially for my audience how are you that productive? How do you do this every single day? – Well, I think we have
to define productive cause it’s interesting to
Garrett’s question, right? Like, you mean how am I actually physically executing that many I would argue that I am not
so outrageously productive. – So, I guess the first question–
– You know what I mean? Let’s break it down. – I guess the first
question would be what is your definition of productivity? Is it hustle? Cause every time I think
about productivity, I just think about
– [Gary] I think results. – You know, like when I
think about productivity I think about results, and then I think about short term results
and long term results. Like, I feel like the #AskGaryVee Show was a productive venture because I am very humbled right now that all of you came here today and it makes me super duper happy, right? I can also think it’s productive
because multiple companies have now paid me instead of
going publically speaking because I can’t make every event they’ve actually paid
me for a custom version of the #AskGaryVee Show. So, that was productive, I get
paid a lot of money for that. That seems pretty cool, I like that. I also think it’s productive
because my next book that comes out in February is
going to be called #AskGaryVee and the whole thematic
around it is that so that’s going to be productive so there’s a lot of
different ways. It depends on how one defines productivity number one. To me, it’s the output, and
so you guys heard insight into another thing, right? This seven person team
is giving me a blueprint that I’m pushing against
to try to figure out a bigger business model. I mean, look, my marketing
activity, for Wine Library was productive because I
grew my family business to a big business. It also became the output of my learnings that became the foundation
of my “personal brand” which became the beacon
to building the fastest growing social digital agency ever. Right, like so, like I’m always I’m doing things that people feel are not scaleable in the moment that I find to be very scaleable if you are willing to look at them in five to 10 year window. Got it?
– [Mina] Yeah. – Was it productive for
me to take that meeting with Chris Dessy when he randomly e-mailed me and said “Hey, will you take this meeting?” And I said sure, which
then lead to a 15 minute I’m just going to pay
forward to this kid moment which I love to do because you never know. Well, this time I didn’t
know because it lead to he being one of the early
employees at BuddyMedia. Which was a company Mika Lazzaro had and I will tell you that
lead to free office space for VaynerMedia when we started it. In the ocnference room at BuddyMedia it also lead to me giving a quote to Mike Lazzaro for BuddyMedia where he gave me warrents to his company which later sold for a billion
dollars to Salesforce, so I made seven figures
on a quote to a website so I called that productive
for that 15 minute meeting. But, it also lead to a friendship that has become the core
friendships for Lizzie and I and this Saturday night
I got to spend time with a very small group for
his oldest son’s bar mitzvah and the speech that the son gave and the speech that Mike gave is something that’s engraved in my heart for the rest of my life, I’d call that productive, but then there’s a
billion 15 minute meetings that I take where the kids a piece of shit and nothing good happened. So when you play it in a net net game I think the people are over
thinking their at bats. Right? And I think intent matters, I think people are trying
to be too technically sound they are not allowing for serendipity. and serendipity is where
all the magic is my friends. All of it. (audience applauding)

“#cashisoxygen episode 96. “So what’s second? “Product, team or service?” – Jose, great question. Your cash is oxygen,
there is no second, right? That’s like the all-encompassing. It’s not that it’s first. I think, you know, the real
question is really interesting because the fact of the matter is there’s a hundred different
things that could be it. You could be amazing at growth hacking, you might design the greatest product. The truth is, you know, especially for me, I like to give definitive answers to get people moving,
because the more you ponder the more you squander. What? (laughter) And so, and so, and so, don’t be crippled by
what is that other thing. I think that other
thing could be the thing that you’re strong at and
we all have those things. For me it’s sales, right? Like both businesses I built, Wine Library and now VaynerMedia is predicated on I am extremely good at growing the top line revenue of the businesses that I’m at the helm of. Later on I work about
driving profit back up. Some people are efficient at
the profit from the beginning, or architecture business that profitable from the get, or financial engineering, or amazing designers
that are so overwhelming they can’t sell or build a business, but they bring in that skill later because the quality of
their art or product is so incredible. You might design an amazing product, and that might be at the core. So there’s a lot of different things. Cash, though, is oxygen.

“Do you distinguish between
‘idea people’ and ‘doers’? “Is there value in someone
with great ideas “who needs others to execute?” – Ya know, I think that,
one of the things that I’ve pounded home in a hundred episodes here is how much pride I have
in being a practitioner. How much I am, how much
I respect practicality. Like, how much ideas are shit, and execution’s the game, that’s
one of my favorite quotes. Right? So, but it’s interesting. This question, as it rolled
off of India’s tongue, made me realize, ya know,
truth is there is value in it. Ya know what? Here’s a good way to put it. One of the reasons I think
I pound ideas are shit and execution’s the
game, is because I think the majority of people that
spend a lot of time watching me, aren’t at a place where they can afford the luxury of ideas. Silent pause for profoundness. Let me explain. Ideas are great. Ideas are, ya know, you can really overt, I like being a contradiction
of ideas are the game, right? Ideas are a seed. But so many people don’t have the luxury of being able to afford the
ability to have those ideas. For a long time, I
didn’t have the luxury of building a company that
had great video people who could come with me and
tape my garage sale show, and now I do and I can’t
wait, I’m so pumped. We have to find a town sale, that’s where all the action is. Anyway, so, I think there is a
place for idea people, India and VaynerNation, I think it is a, it’s a (chuckles), Ranger
people are excited. I think that you have to have
the luxury of those people. I think, the reason I’m
hedging here is I’m scared so many of you are like, “See? “He said idea people,
and I’m an idea person.” Ya know, ya can’t be, you’ve
gotta be in the right setting to get the right value of
ideas, which is a huge company that could afford R&D,
research and development, ya know, that kinda thing. You just got really
lucky that your partner is so Goddamn practical that he or she respects your
idea skills and wants them. But it is a really rare situation
for ideas to be valuable in its execution form,
especially for the far majority of the VaynerNation. (light bass-heavy music)
– [Nicole] Albi asks,

“Gary, how can I prevent angel investors “interested in investing in my enterprise “from potentially stealing our IP?” – Christopher, this is
a really interesting Monday morning show. Christopher, this is also a shit question. Ideas are shit, execution’s the game. People walk around going, “Gary, please sign this NDA
before I pitch you my idea as an angel investor.” Let me reenact it. India, I’ll get to that later, let me just catch up on my email. “Hey, Gary, I’m a really big fan and you’re the best guy I’ve ever met. Anyway, listen I’ve
got this big time idea. But before I pitch it to you, please see the following attachment and sign the NDA because I
just can’t let you see it. I don’t want it stolen.” Great, delete. Out of (bleep) business. If you literally think
in 2015 that your idea is so profound that
nobody’s ever thought of it, that when I sit with you and I pitch I go, you’re a dope, but
I’m gonna take this idea and give it to somebody else, you are lost in the
reality of the marketplace. Again, if that is where
your mindset is at, I just don’t see that as a winning mindset for 2015 and beyond. The days of patent or idea IP, every idea has been thought about. There is nobody who has come
up with a big time idea. I’m telling you, every idea
has been thought about. All of them, every one of them. People executing, or having the pieces in
place to be able to execute, or the right time in their career, the right resources financially, energy, skills, opportunities, those are the variables. Not the ideas.

“do you most commonly ask your clients “when meeting them for the first time?” – Zac, wonderful question. For everybody in client
services, agency life, this should be fun. Number one is what is your KPI? What’s your Key Performance Indicator? Like what is the thing that
you want us to accomplish? Is it views, is it
sales, is it perception, is it press, is it your own judgement on how you feel about the creative? How are you judging us,
what are the results? And they’re really separate. How are you judging us,
what are the results are number one A and one
B that matters the most, and then, really, the
third one would then be what are you willing to
tell me about your warts? Meaning, there’s just a lot of people that are not gonna tell you about, the politics that are an issue, the money that’s an issue. I’m always trying to get them
to be very truthful to us once I understand what
the issues at hand are, so what do you really want to accomplish? By the way, people struggle
with answering that. People struggle with answering that. Number two, how are you gonna judge me? Sometimes they struggle with that less. Number three, what are the warts? Most people don’t wanna tell me up front. We try to sniff them out
early so we can navigate them, and it’s like a minefield
to get to the finish line. Those are the three, and they’re very important questions, and trying to figure
out in every situation, in absolutely every situation, in dating, in building your own
business, in having clients. I really think those three
are super fun, and by the way, they’re very important equally. I think, for example, I think people that struggle with dating are spending way too much on number three. They’re so concerned about
what the person’s warts are, or skeletons in their closets. They’re not trying to figure
out how they’re being judged to be a good partner in that relationship, or how that’s gonna be scored, and so, having a great balance of all three. That’s a little nugget there. Give you a little fun fact
at the end of this question. It’s the 33% execution
of those three questions that may be equally as important.

“How can efficiency and
creativity better work together?” – They will be inefficient into the time and space you give them, to be honest. I mean, I was a creative a long time, and then I became the
boss of the creatives, and I knew how much fat was
built into their writer’s block and their, you know, thinking
and everything, and– – The zen room they needed. – And I had to come out
of the associate press, where you had to turn out
seven, eight stories a day. I knew that the creativity
expanded into that space. And of course, you gotta be creative, and creatives need some time
to decompress and so forth, but we give them a little bit too much, or maybe not we in general, but it is easy to listen to them moan and
groan about needing more, and so creatives can be efficient. – To get efficiency,
you gotta be creative, and you gotta have creative people. And efficiency doesn’t
mean some guy or woman in a hole, driving every day. It means that people
are thinking of new ways to do things, coming up with
incremental improvements, making things better every day. Finding a better way every
day takes a thinking head set, and you want that
mentality in your company. You want the whole company
to be thinking about, every day, what is a better way
of doing what I’m doing now? – I’m a big fan of
betting on your strengths, and also really
recognizing putting players in the best position to succeed. And we have nothing but creatives here, of the 500 employees, 200 of them, and if I’ve deemed, if we’ve deemed, if Tina, who runs our
Creative Department deems that this person is bringing us quality, I think one thing that a
lot of people try to do is mold them into being more efficient. I’ve done that plenty
of times in my career. One of the things I’ve
decided now is to look at it more as a net-net game, right? You know, I may not like
that they need to be in a zen room with unicorns in it, I may not, but if I’m
okay with the output. If I’m okay, net-net, 365 day year output, I’ll take it, right? You could have the most
prima donna creative, but if they do that one
thing that you decide drives the ROI, on the flip
side, you could have somebody who’s the most efficient
but lacks the magic. What you have to really do is, it’s wide receivers in football. Listen, they’re at the
mercy of the quarterback getting them the ball, that’s why, they don’t get to touch the ball. The quarterback touches the ball, the running back touches the
ball when the call’s played, the receivers don’t, so many variables, and I’m very intrigued by that psychology. That being said, you know, I value speed and execution over everything. And so, I definitely sit
on that Mendoza line, if there’s a coin toss. If I’m even debating it, if
I’m even debating your value as a creative over the
efficiency and the output, you’re in trouble. – That’s sensational, one of the things. No it is!
– Thank you, Jack. – One of the things that
really can kill a company is the innovators sit over here in a box, and they are Thomas Edison,
and they are Steve Jobs, – The ninjas. – And they’re these people. And then, everybody
else, keep your head down and be a grunt. You lose the minds of these people. You want everybody to be an innovator! – Right.
– 100 percent. And it’s interesting, here at Vayner, we’re a classic agency,
we want more practicality from our creatives, and we
want our account strategists being creative, and that’s
been a big benefit for us. And, you know what else it
does, it creates mutual respect. Because when the innovators are over here, they sit on a higher ground,
and it deflates the momentum and the equity. – Right, any time you get prima
donnas in an organization, it enervates everyone around. – So, let’s wrap up with this, we don’t do a wrap-up session, but we’re
gonna make a unique thing.