how do you keep your people motivated? – Tommy, thanks for the great question. Obviously, being one of the
great managers of all time this answer’s gonna come
very easy to you and very natural, I think you’ll get it. I spend a lot of time
thinking about motivation and I think the key for me is I try to motivate in a couple of ways. Number one by example,
I think my actions will always speak louder than my words so how I carry myself, how I interact
with everybody, how I live my life as a man I
think really matters as an executive, as a person, I think
everyone’s always watching. But I also think I equally
try to reverse engineer every single individual person, right. They’re just all different,
they all have different KPIs, different objectives,
they’re in different parts of their lives, some are married
some just had kids, some are trying to make more
money, some don’t want to have four roommates in
Brooklyn, so they’re grinding. So everybody’s got a
different thing and I think what’s important for me to
motivate is to do a great job listening to what makes
them tick, both when I have the few moments with them in person. Alex, get over here for a second. Let’s do a real life example
on the #AskGaryVee Show. Alex, what motivates you,
what are you excited about? – What am I excited about? In life? – Yeah, what motivates you in life? – I just like doing cool
(beep), that’s it pretty much. I want to be successful
and just do cool (beep), that’s basically why I’m here so you know. – Cool man, alright, get out of here. So, Alex is easy, he just
wants to do cool (beep). So that’s easy, we do tons of cool (beep). He’s check, he’s good, he’s motivated. And you go on and on and on and you try to figure out, was he
scared that he was on camera and is that the real
answer, like are they really gonna tell me the truth,
they never tell me the truth usually upfront, few and
far between and so it’s a constant behavioral HR driven reverse engineering what they care about. India and I had a pretty
intense conversation about her future ambitions,
remember you wanted to be the head of social
media for museums. I take that very seriously,
like I know these things about my peeps, this is
even before India was on the inner circle of this team, like I I remembered it
better than you did. – Yeah, that’s true, you did it’s true. – So I take enormous, you don’t get to be a great all time leader without being
a great all time leader. There’s a lot of work that
gets put into being good at what I do and I’m very,
very up to the challenge and so it’s predicated on an
enormous amount of listening which is why I’m such a
paradox because boy do I (beep) love to talk but the amount
of listening that I’m actually doing always surprises
people when they start going a couple of layers deeper so
the answer to your question is I motivate, Tommy, by
figuring out what every single person is ticked and wired like and what makes them roll and I also recognize that that changes every
single day and they have four to seven, twelve
milestone things that happen in their lives,
which will change the trajectory of their
ambitions, wants, hopes, and dreams and I need to be prepared for every single one of those
for all of them forever. – [Voiceover] Dylan asks “Do you
still believe that there’s

“trade one of your weaknesses
for one of your strengths, “which two would you trade?” – This is one of the great questions ever. This is really good,
and I don’t wanna like, I don’t wanna, I’m
scared to screw this up, which is probably why I’m
giving it some thought. So, DRock, Staphon, find
some Jeopardy-like music that doesn’t get me sued as I ponder this and talk this out. A strength into a weakness, what am I really strong at that I don’t think is so needed? God, I love myself so much that I don’t want to change anything. This is why I’m struggling with this. This talks about the
level of happiness I have. What’s a weakness that I
can’t, God, I really… So first and foremost, the
answer to the question is there’s no absolute here. This is more like 80,
20, where maybe I would switch it from an 80, 20 to a 20, 80. That’s one of the first reactions I have. There’s nothing I’d
be, there’s no strength I wanna give up… So fast. You know at some level… (laughter) Yeah, like you know,
I’m a little combative in meetings at times with clients where, like I love competition so much, I would say being competitive is probably as big of a deal as it
is, but I would say that my competition, competitive
gene goes five to seven percent too far, I would give up
five to seven percent of it because it’s insane, like you know, I mean you guys know
how I play basketball. Like I really am mad,
like I wanna hurt people, like I wanna hurt people’s
feelings in meetings. (competitive banter) I literally, like in
meetings will turn red, my eyes will turn red when
somebody says something that I think is really
disrespectful to my company, and literally try to historically
clown them in the meeting so that forever their
contemporaries at that table, I literally want to say
things that the other people at the table on their side
tell to their grandchildren. Like, “Oh, I was once in this meeting with “this Gary Vaynerchuk guy and said that “Rick was a douche bag
boss, he said fuck you.” You know like I’m very into that. I wanna like end the debate in the room at that time, whereas I
could’ve done it afterwards, I could’ve done it a little
more politically correct. But if I get to that rogue
tilt place emotionally in a business meeting,
even maybe the first time we ever meet,
I let my competitive juices, I can feel it, it’s like that
Incredible Hulk type stuff. Like I can feel like, oh
crap, I’m about to destroy this person’s soul. So that’s one thing that I would give back five to seven percent. On a weakness that I’d like
have more of a strength on, I’d like to remember
people’s names better. Actually that’s very easy. I spend an enormous amount of time in our HR software trying to make sure I know everybody’s names. And then the answer really is, I have to listen a little bit better in the initial meeting. Like I’m like, hey, I’m Gary. You need to say, “Hi, I’m India.” – My name’s India. – But like when she says hey she’s India, I’m not listening. I’m already on to like oh, hey, I’m Gary. – I’m Staphon. – Alright I didn’t listen, right. So like not listening
when people say hello is a weakness because
if I actually listen, I’ll have a 50% chance of
remembering their name. It’s crazy, I will remember everything. I’m very visual, like
I can never get lost, I’m killer on directions. I will bring up stuff
that happened between us like 15 years from now,
you’ll be like, “What?” If I see it, it’s on. But if I hear it, it’s
on, but I need to listen in the first place to remember your name. So remembering names is
something I’m passionately upset with myself about,
like, Doc, you could see, I knew Sheldon right away. Visually I know his profile
side face, like hair, glasses, like I know exactly who he is, but names I struggle with.

“You say you don’t consume much media “but isn’t it kind of necessary in order “to put out relevant, current content?” – Albi, that is a tremend, man! I’m feelin’ really good about
this show, some new kind of topic stuff, like India’s
hacking, India needs new articles, so she’s forcing me in
a different direction, so I’m impressed India, I
see what you’re doing here. – [India] They’re all planned. – Albi, that’s a great question. The reason I think I produce
such relevant, good content, is because I’m listening
to my community and that is my consumption of media. So, I don’t listen to
other thought leaders, I don’t watch other shows, I don’t, this is my relaxation, right? Like I don’t need things to unwind, I’m always unwinding, even
though it doesn’t seem so. And so, to me, I think
the reason I’m able to produce good content, is I’m listening. Look at the content of this show. Ya know, don’t have to do
much, just gotta answer your Goddamn question, right? Giving people value by listening. It’s funny, I said
something the other day, that really makes sense. If you ever get a chance
to jam with me, or this is something interesting
for you guys to hear. When you know what somebody’s ask, so I cut people off constantly, right? As you guys all can
attest to, because if I, and I have good intuition
very often, like very often, I already know what you’re about to say, and I’d much rather us move on
to the next part of execution that giving you the extra
13 seconds to finish your fucking sentence. So, people don’t think I
listen, but all I do is listen, and so I think the reason
I produce good content is I’m watching, do you know
how many of you I’m watching of what you’re tweeting
about, when it doesn’t have to do with me? When you’re putting out at other places? Why do you think I get
so pissed at all of you? Right, because you all say, “Yeah Gary, “he’s right about this,” and
none of you are doing it! Do you know few of you
were actually listening? Do you know how many of
you that have watched all 97 of these episodes still still aren’t putting in that work, aren’t executing properly
on that platform, aren’t playing the long game, are cutting shortcuts,
aren’t putting in the time, having tested dark posts,
not playing enough. Like, do you know how many? Too many. (bass-heavy music)
– [Nicole] Benjamin asks,

“What usually prompts you
to walk away or turn down “great opportunities?” – Well, Antoine, I don’t
want to be in the business of saying no to great opportunities. I’d like to think that the
answer to the question is my intuition. I’d like to think my intuition
is allowing me to walk away from bad opportunities that
may look good on paper. You know, I just go with my intuition. Really nothing else. I mean, I’m not an analytical thinker. Right? I’m not going to look
at a whole lot of data. A lot of these big funds
that try to ask me like, well how did I know this
startup was going to be great or why did I think this
was going to be great, it was never predicated
on monthly active users or some sort of other data set. It was me, what I would like
to say is that I like to taste things. It’s me observing and then me counter
punching that observation. I tend to be very, very
all-in on my intuition, and so that’s, you know, that’s kind of how I make the calls. It’s funny the way you asked the question. You asked the question in
what I think is more of a defensive mindset, which is if you breakdown the question, it ends with the real kicker which is, run it one more time for
me, India, how do you– – [India] How do you,
what usually prompts you to walk away from or turn
down or know when to say no to a great opportunity? – To me that never runs through my mind. The thought of saying no
to great opportunities is just not in, I don’t
put those words in that pattern of a sentence. So, that is what I think you
should be thinking about. It sounds to me that you’re
crippled by the miss. I’m not. I just keep having the
at bats and the swings, and I know that I’ll
have more wins than loses and if I pass on something good, so be it. But literally, I mean,
we’ve talked about it on this show before, passing on Uber’s angel round
twice and leaving $300 million dollars on the table. Literally, outside of being
a great story to tell you how I feel, doesn’t
come into my mind ever. Well, maybe once in a blue moon. But, pretty much never, and I think that’s an important thing. And an offensive mindset
versus a defensive mindset, something I want to get
deeper into content team.

– [Voiceover] Jill asks,
“One, are you gonna pursue my idea? Two, do you get a lot of quality ideas when you crowdsource a question? And three, do you crowdsource ideas more to engage with your audience or to actually get
serious ideas like mine?” – Jill, this is a great question. First and foremost, it
is not only your idea. That idea of a subscription wine thing has been going on, oh
I don’t know, for about five and a half, six, seven years now I’ve been pounded with that idea, but to answer if we’re gonna do it, the answer is I’m not sure. I’ve been getting more involved
with Wine Library lately. There’s a lot of different
objectives that I want to accomplish that are more top of list, but the Gary Vee subscription or Wine Library
subscription thing is definitely interesting, and
it’s something we’re pondering. I mean, wine of the month clubs have been around forever, and of
course, personalization, or all the other variables
you can add to it. Get it, got it, solid
idea, love your picture by the way on Instagram. Yeah, I think we get quality ideas, and more importantly, quality subjective. To me, it’s my form of listening, and so yeah, I think I get
some quality ideas at times. The truth is I, to answer the
third part of your question, do I do it to engage or am I really looking for the ideas? You know, I’m very
insularly with my ideas. I don’t like getting
ideas from other places, and so I do it more to
engage and to listen and to get a pulse and to collect, and they’re inputs, they’re lightweight. It would be rare for me to
just take Staphon’s idea, but hearing Stephon’s
idea and India’s ideas and DRock’s ideas, and Stunwin’s ideas, and just they’re all little
inputs and then it forms some version. I always feel like I gotta
put my sprinkles on it. That’s been successful for
me, so I think that I’m taking the inputs of the world. That’s why I do so much listening, so much engaging, to get to like an 85, 90% place and then I do
my thing on top of that, and that’s where the
good stuff comes from. – [Voiceover] Megan asks,
“How much of you is creating

– [Voiceover] John asked,
“What are your thoughts “on creating a successful, long term “social media strategy for
yourself or your clients? “How long in advance do you create “the content you roll out?” – John, that’s a good question. I mean, I think this all comes down to something that I call reverse engineering. The truth is everybody’s different. You know, my vision is very long-term. I don’t know how you define
long-term in your question, but some people think long-term
is three to five years. I think long-term is until the day I die. And so, my clients may not be as patient when your Fortune 500 company that needs to hit numbers each quarter, your patience to build a three to five
year plan is nonexistent. When you’re a Series C Startup company that just raised 200 million dollars, and you’re only burning
four million dollars, you’ve got a lot of patience, and the idea of building brand and
having a patience game to your execution becomes more attractive, then we reverse engineer that. Then it’s more about branding, Instagram, doing high-end video, long-form content with no right hook, lot of jabbing. If you’re a startup that’s
gonna go out of business in 24 weeks if you don’t sell some stuff, we’re in full right hook,
ya know, Facebook dark post, SEO, SEM, influencer marketing with calls to action to sell. Ya know, all that stuff
completely is determined based on the client’s current
short-term and long-term needs, but the truth is short-term
and long-term needs really balance based on a moment in time, and so, ya know, the reason I think I’m
good at business is, for all of my talking, I am 10X at my listening skills, and it all just comes down to listening, and so the way we strategize
is predicated on listening, and I think the biggest
challenge for so many of the VaynerNation
that’s watching right now is I don’t think a lot
of you, and this is, with all due respect,
this is for everybody, I’m just picking on you
’cause I love you, tough love. I think a lot of people aren’t really sure what they want to accomplish
in a one-year window versus a five-year window
versus a ten-year window, and their behavior doesn’t map to it. Ya know, to me I got lucky. I just decided it’s everybody
shows up to my funeral, hedge forever, build up equity,
cash it in as I need it, if I ever need it, which has
allowed me to be very patient and really has allowed
me to dictate my behavior being probably a better human being. And in a weird way, and
again, I think a lot of people would find this funny. In a lot of ways, I’ve been a pushover as a entrepreneur because if you would look
at it in the short-term, I’m leaving money on the table. I’m not fighting for every cent. I’m not trying to drill it
down to the biggest advantage. I’m not even getting mine everytime because I’m just hedging along the way, and so just comes down to what
you’re trying to accomplish. I think the better question
to this question is how can you help someone
or are you capable of really understanding what
you’re trying to accomplish?

“How do you retain and increase followers after taking over social
media from a company who bought their initial fans?” – Clayton this is a great question. I think this is a good one at this point. In the maturity of social networking, people realize buying fans on any platform has absolutely no value. You eventually get exposed for being the scum-bucket that you are. And so, I would say that the, the… Listen, there’s two different
ways to buy fans, right? Like, buying ads on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, to then,
if people are interested, to follow is a smart move. Just buying, like you know, going on ebay and buying 5,000 bots makes no sense, but the funny thing is the
answer to your question is the same way you would if it was zero. Whether you have zero followers for a new wristband brand or you’re a coffee
company that they bought a thousand fans on ebay to try to make it seem like there was somebody, you’re move the next day is the exact same which is let’s start from the beginning and try to make it work. So, what you’re looking
for is engaged fans, converting fans, people
that will buy your book, your wine, will watch your show, will pass it on. Like, what you need to do for them is you need to provide them value, and so providing value is the whole game. Whether that’s listening
on Twitter and engaging. Whether that’s putting out great content. Whether that’s sweepstakes, entertainment, information. Whatever it is, you need to provide value. You need to put out good content, you need to listen. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. And if you’re Meerkat cooking
show is good, you win. And if your Meerkat cooking show is shit, you lose. It’s not really complicated. This stuff is quite basic. You need to put out good stuff, and the question is what is good stuff? Good stuff is different to everybody. You know, like Steve. Name three good music things. Musicians, bands, name three, any three music things that are good, go. – SoundCloud is good. – [Gary] No, no, no, no, acts.
– Acts? – [Gary] Yeah, things that you listen to. What are three things that
you want to listen to? You were willing to give your 20 minutes that is very valuable, and I will sit down and listen to these six songs. Name three acts. – Flux Pavilion. – [Gary] Good. – Maddy Young. – [Gary] Good. – And Lionize. – Good. I have no fucking idea who
any of those three people are. Staphon. Go to him. I know there’s a light but figure it out. Staphon, your turn. Name three good music things. – Kanye, Jay-Z, Kanye. – [Gary] There we go. Great. India? – Um, oh my God. – [Gary] I don’t care. Don’t blank, you know music, go. – I do, um, The White
Stripes, Colts and probably, like the Beach Boys. – Good. Let’s just figure out what just happened. Three lovely people that are into very different things. They would. Steve, what do you think about Kanye? – Um, I think he’s kind of a jackass, but I thought “Bound To” was a good song. – Good. Staphon, your overall
thoughts on the Beach Boys. – I’ll give you some when
I listen to the music. – There you go. India, what are your
thoughts on Lionel Richie, one of my favorites. – He’s great. – Good, me and India agree. So, bottom line is it’s
quite simple, right? What is quality is 100% subjective. There were plenty of people in Hollywood 20 years ago that said
this reality TV stuff will never work. It’s not produced well, it’s not good, it’s not interesting. There’s a million people that
think the Kardashian’s suck. There’s a million people
that think they’re great. There’s tens of thousands
that think I’m great. There’s tens of thousands that just don’t realize I’m great yet. I mean, the bottom line is
it’s all very, very simple. Quality content is subjective. What is not subjective
is what happens next. AKA, you may sit and say I’m
putting out great content, but after four and half years of 13 people are subscribed
and paying attention, you just might not be that good. You might not be good at the content. You might not be good at
getting the content out there. It’s a mix of the two. I’m a by-product of the mix of the two. I’m good enough to put out
content that people like. But I’m also good enough
getting it out there and using the marketing
to bring in awareness, and both matter. Both matter, but that’s really it, right? Like that’s really it. Like, whether you have a billion fake fans or zero fans, aren’t
you in the same place? Zero fans? Yes, you are, and thus, it’s like me. If I decided to start doing
wine content again, right? If I decided to do that, you know, I have to start kind of over. Like, of course I have my base. People that used to watch the show, and things of that nature, but if it’s not good. If episode 1,001 of Wine Library TV is just a disaster show,
then it’s very unlikely chance that it will be successful. So, the quality of the content
really, really matters. And then all the other growth hacking marketing strategies, all
the stuff we talk about, those are just support systems to give that stuff a better chance to succeed.

– [Voiceover] Nicole asks,
“How do you deal with reviews that could impact your business?” – Nicole this is a great question. One of the reasons I had
always been a big push against cut guy, I don’t
know what that means, why I was a loud advocate
in the other direction of things of Yelp, and
other things of that nature, was they were anonymous
reviews, and I knew of PR agencies that were getting
paid to leave negative reviews of their competitors stuff, which is why I was always a big
fan of Facebook and Facebook Connect, real identity. There’s two things to understand,
one I do think anonymous reviews, and anonymous review
sites are losing their equity. I do think that Steve and
India, and all of you watching, and everybody at Meerkat, what’s up. You know, I love doing that, Take anonymous reviews with
a grain of salt, right? Like that’s changed, like
from 2004, compared to now, you just take them with a
grain of salt because we have become cynical to knowing
people do it on purpose. The big thing that I think
you should do when somebody, your right, we live in this
crappy world, where you guys are serving at a restaurant,
and I always use restaurant because they– Or an airline, airlines are
doing things so right, on a like they’re flying planes,
machines in the air, on crossing the world, at
scale, landing at the proper times, leaving at the proper
times, keeping us safe, they’re given us wi-fi
in there, it’s cozy. These are big machines, they’re
like flying through the air, and if it’s like a 8 minute
delay, you’re like “Fuck you “Delta,” I mean it’s crazy,
it’s crazy talk, anyway, so you’re right, we don’t
get the credit for the good, we get dismantled for the
bad, right? Like the athletes that are doing wrong
things all over the place, all the one that are doing
charitable things and great things, nobody wants to cover that. It’s just unfortunately the way it is. Now, did my boy Aton get a rare, that he’s making a comeback. That makes me happy, I can’t
wait to see what he did, make sure you email me that
moment because I don’t watch the show. (laughing) I think that you should jump
into any Yelp review, or any foursquare review, or any
review, any negative review that you have to jump in
and answer every one of them immediately. “Hey, saltypants49, call
me, here’s the number. “I’m super upset. I don’t understand. “I remember you.” Don’t fight it. Fighting it is feeding the wrong energy. You’re in business, this is their opinion. They could be wrong, but you
need to at least have one more level of empathy and
listening before you get into the fight of it,
and so the way you can handle it is by jumping,
monitoring it, and jumping into all of them, because the
optics of you jumping in, to the rest of the world, is
actually more powerful in the amplification of who
and what your intent is, and the depth of actually
giving a crap about that one person, really, really matters. – Hey Gary, here’s my question,
when will social marketing

for Pencils of Promise and
documenting my daily videos on YouTube, what other
jabs could I use so that I’m not just right hooking for donations? – Hey Bren, as a proud board
member of Pencils of Promise, I want to thank you personally
for your adventures. You know, the jab, content
wise, obviously even this little question had a great
content, beautiful views, India was really taken aback. And so, let’s just show
India being taken aback— – Wow. – And so, that was amazing, and so– The jab that I’m looking
for from you, you know, you didn’t take this biking
adventure for kicks and giggles, obviously the charity component is in you, but it’s not the only thing,
people always do things that are selfish to them at some level, so you want to create
video content and document it. Maybe you’re a documentary
thing, you know, you’re using this great thing
you’re doing as a global jab to maybe bring you awareness
to an opportunity in the future. I want you to take a step back
because I think you’re gonna do all the jabbing right,
right put out good content on Instagram, and SnapChat,
and Facebook and different native, you know, The Book,
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” respect the platforms,
and put out good content. The one thing that I think
is missing from a lot of people’s repitouires when
they’re in this world, is the listening, the bionic ears
of what Twitter search is. If I were you, the other jab,
you can do at scale, is to go into Twitter search, and
search people who are talking about Pencils of Promise
and then jumping into their conversation, and
not jumping in and saying cool that you raised money,
like “Oh, I raised $48 for “Pencils of Promise in my school
book fair, fourth grader.” Tweets, right, or the
mom of the fourth grader. You don’t jump in and say
cool, “I’m doing this, “watch this.” That’s too much of right hook. You jab within the listening, oh I like that. You jab within the
listening, and so what you do is you jump in there and
say, “That is phenomenal.” And just by you interacting
with that person, they’re gonna maybe look
in your profile and then they’ll see your latest 3
or 4 Tweets were around this content, and then you’ve
really double jabbed into the funnel of that donation, right, you jabbed within the
listening. You jabbed with the content, that
became the gateway to the donation, or whatever
you’re trying to achieve the awareness, so a shit load more
Twitter searching, I think would be a tremendous opportunity.

“We’re an improv comedy
group that performs both in “New York City and throughout the country. ” How do we use social media to get input “about each town we’ll be
performing in ahead of time “so that we can create unforgettable shows “full of in-the-know references?” – Broadwaysnexthitmusical, let me answer this question for you, it’s called a very simple tactic
that I used to overindex in social in 2007, 8, and 9. It’s called listening. You go to twitter.com/search, and you search the zip code of the town you’re coming into, and it will show you every single person tweeting in that town. You read the comments, and
then you make references to being “in-the-know”. You’re welcome.