“that giving away some
of my best work for free “might mean others perceiving
it as less valuable. “Is this a true risk, “or is this where the right
hook balances it all out?” – Carlo, this is a solid question. You know, I think at some level, there is a risk about giving
away your best work for free. For me, that’s been the
gateway drug at some level, because I think best
work needs to be defined. It depends on what your work is. For example, I’m blown away by people who don’t realize that their best advice is exactly what you
should give away for free, because if you’re in the
selling-advice business, you really need to give contextual advice. So I can theoretically talk
about Snapchat being important, but then when I meet the tire company, we have to formulate it to
work within that context, and so that advice is
then gonna be specific. If you’re a painter, and your best work is the
greatest painting you ever made, and then you gave it away for free, that’s maybe a little
bit of a different game. But if you strategically gave it away, like to a very important museum, or to a very important billionaire, that puts it in the
prime spot in their home, could that then become the gateway? The problem is, with this question and this debate, is that when you are
doing something for free, it needs to be strategic, because what you’re looking to do by giving something for
free, is to create leverage, to then do something that is not for free. And so, you know, DRock
could’ve made a video for a bunch of different characters, and maybe it wouldn’t have
panned out to have the ROI that he received by doing
a video for me for free. And so, I think that often times, people look at this as
a blanket statement. To me, all the good stuff
I give away for free has strategic purpose. I understand why I’m doing it, and that’s why it becomes
so much easier to do, even though I don’t always expect the outcome of that action. And I think that becomes the big part. Way too many people do things for free, give away their best work for free, and then expect this windfall behind it, and when it’s not delivered,
they become disappointed, and within that disappointment, they don’t follow up, and do it again, and make it a replicable action, which has more upside in
three out of five times, where it brings value. You focused on the two out of five, and that kinda squashed you, so that’s my answer. – [Voiceover] Darth Bill asks,
“Should a new small business

– Hi Gary, it’s Amanda from here in LA.
– [Gary] Hey Amanda. – My question is, roughly what percentage of your business decisions
are based on a gut feeling versus being backed by actual data? – Oh, that’s a very good question. (laughter) I think all of my strategy is completely intuition, because if you look at my 20 year career, most of it has been guessing, I’d like to think projecting
where the market’s gonna go. And there was no data on what
e-commerce would do in 1996, there was no data on email
marketing when you’re one of the first hundred people
that’s doing email marketing. There was no data on the ROI of Twitter four or five months after Twitter came out and you’re starting to
use it for marketing. There was no data on what
a YouTube show less than a year after YouTube came out
was going to bring in value. There was no data on
what Instagram was gonna bring us in value when
AJ sold Brisk Iced Tea an Instagram campaign 13 days
after Instagram had come out. There was no data around what
Vine celebrities would mean when we started a Vine agency
110 days after Vine came out. So, from a strategy
standpoint, I mean truly I believe that I get
the accolades and have the luxury of doing a show that people actually watch, completely on intuition, because that’s what I have
that other people don’t have. It’s no different than
being great at basketball or being attractive or
all the other good things that can happen in life,
it’s just there, right? It was just always there. And so that’s my X factor. Now, I think that is equally then 50% quantified against data, right? So I make these predictions,
but then to run an actual business, this is where my
practicality gets underestimated. You know, this company grew very quickly, you don’t do that if you
can’t make payroll, right? There’s a lot of practicality
(laughter) that goes into running a business. And so, for me I’ve always thought I was a super 50/50 guy,
obviously my personality and communication style
gets most people’s attention and they bucket me into
that kind of place, but I take enormous pride
out of the fact that, for the first ten years
of my professional career, I didn’t say a single word
to anybody about anything and all I did was execute, and
I’ll be very honest with you, it’s been extremely gratifying to me to shut up all the people that thought, when I was building VaynerMedia that, “Mister Lot of Twitter Followers,” like there was a
substantial amount of buzz when I started VaynerMedia of like, “Oh, “this social media guru thinks
he can build an agency.” And now building one of the biggest and fastest growing agencies of all time and sticking that directly in
their throat feels tremendous. (laughter)
– [Voiceover] Yeah!

– [Voiceover] Scout asks,
“Should all young companies “have a sleeper website as a strategy “to not let the competition know how big “you’re getting or will
it hurt the brand?” – Scout, I assume you’re asking this because Vayner had a website for quite a while that seemed, oh, I don’t know, like we were going out of business. By the way, big shout-out
to the creative team. That was all my, I don’t want
anybody who builds the website for the company to get upset about that. That was all on my head, my fault. Look, I think what you do with your website needs to have a strategy. At the time, when I was building Vayner where we had that website,
I didn’t think we needed to showcase our work or our people or awards to get new
business or new talent. I wanted to be really known for what we were doing internally, it
was a very internal time, and the strategy was I didn’t want anything outward messing up what I was head down doing during
that period of time. I think every website, every tweet, every Instagram photo, everything you do, the way you suck in the oxygen, needs to have strategy behind it. We should really, we should expand on the strategy of the
way you consume oxygen. I’d like to see where I’d go with that. So, every action needs
to be well thought out. Do I think companies need to do that? I absolutely do not, I
think my company needed to do that because that’s what I thought was the right course of action,
staying low, not making– One of the big things is that people thought I was starting an agency, that Mr. Gary Vee Crush It Twitter guy was starting an agency and
it would be a front, right? I’d sell ya on the sizzle
and then our work would suck. And that’s happened so many times. I was so obsessed with
actually building a company, and so obsessed that people forgot that I actually built a company before, that I didn’t want it
to be about the sizzle or me or putting all this out stuff. So we just put our head down
and executed and the website really represented where
we were at that time. So I don’t think it was tricking anyone, like, “Look over here, we stink,” and then “We’re great, we got you.” I think that that’s a romantic way to think about it, I think the actions that you put out to the world need to replicate exactly what you’re trying to achieve at that moment strategically for the purpose at hand,
whether that’s to raise money, whether that’s to become more famous, whether that’s to build a business. And so that’s how I see it.

– [Voiceover] Todd asks,
“I notice that you post the same things multiple times. Please explain why this
is a calculated move and not obnoxious.” – Todd, everything I do is calculated. And so, the answer’s yes, it’s calculated and the reason I’m posting
multiple times a day and I think you’re referring
to clearly, Twitter, is the before mentioned answer
in the Instagram question couple questions ago which
is Twitter has gotten noisy. I’ve looked at data and intuition, looked inside myself, and decided that it’s okay
for me to do it multiple times ’cause the speed is happening. The hardcore fans who will accept that it’s okay, I’ve seen that and just so many, call it 90% of people that want to consume my
content, I mean still somethings that I’m on the 19th time on like the Twitter mistake on the deck, you know, I put out today
and people are like “oh” and like, you know,
there’s just so much noise that I feel the market has changed and I think it’s appropriate
almost like a scrolling bar at the bottom of ESPN, right? If you think about that, that’s looping the same stuff and it doesn’t bother me. I can choose to look at the bottom or not and weirdly and I’m
sure all of you do this, sometimes you just look
again and again and again. It’s kind of wild that way. I think that Twitter’s
fire hose now replicates the bottom ticker of CNBC and ESPN and I think it’s the right execution to put out your stuff at different times, different time zones. I wanna hit my European and Asian, and Non US family, what’s up, Non US? I wanna hit my West Coast peeps, you know? You gotta play it differently and that’s just the way it is
and I think it’s appropriate in a December 16, 2014 world to put out the same content
multiple times on the Twitter. I like calling it on the Twitter. In a world where in
December 16th, you know, 2008, I felt differently. I changed my mind consistently which is why I think I win. And honestly, which is why I think I’m worth the attention that
you’re applying to this show and why I think this format works because the game is
changing quickly and often and if you’re not adjusting,
you’re gonna lose. The ’85 Bears won on a system that doesn’t work in today’s NFL. Heck, heck, the 2000, who
won last year, the Seahawks. The Seahawks aren’t even able
to execute the same game plan as last year in the NFL because of the way the officials call pass interference and
things of that nature and so you just gotta keep evolving and if you don’t, you lose. And that’s the evolution of my game. So advice that I gave in
jab, jab, jab, right hook would have looked differently
today about Twitter because between the time I wrote it and this minute, the game has changed.

– [Voiceover] William asks: Is there any strategy behind following thousands of people on Twitter? – There’s an absolute strategy to following thousands of people. I employ it. I do not consume content
that much from Twitter, or if I do, I’m thrilled
to get the real stuff along with the emotional stuff. Too many people are utilitarian, it’s black and white. I’m only gonna follow people that put out good content or things that I’m interested in, because you use it as truly
your news consumption, and I think that’s great. As a strategy for a public figure which I am, Z-list, but I am, it’s incredible how much
it means to somebody when I go and follow them. And I’m very flattered by that. And I get it, because I get super pumped if a Jets player, I freaked
out when David Nelson our third, fourth receiver last year, followed me on Twitter, ’cause
it meant something to me. So I understand it, I
have the empathy for that. So what is the strategy? Guys, you’ve been watching a show we’re on 27 now, I’m in the depth game. I love the width game and I
do a lot of strategies for it, but I’m in the depth game. That’s why I’m doing this.
The unscalable. How many minutes late are
we for this taping today? 15? Right? I got real problems right now. Things are popping up on
my calendar right now. I got problems right now because it’s also a heavy Jewish holiday, and I gotta get the hell out of here before the sun comes down, or I’m in big trouble, and I’m trying to squeeze in, but I’m the depth game. I didn’t skip today, I’m taping for you, because I wanna continue to
bring you the stuff you want. And you know what’s the stuff you want? You want me to follow you on Twitter. ‘Cause it feels good. ‘Cause you get to brag around your friends who are also into social media, or the Jets, or wine, and be like Gary Vee followed me! I get this as a consumption. You know, it’s funny, I look at stars, celebrities, they go on red carpets and they run into another star that just bubbled up,
and the one person’s new, so of course they’re a fan of this person, but then they’re like,
“Oh, I’m a fan of you!” and they’re blown away
’cause they’re still fans! We’re all still fans,
no matter who you are. People that are way bigger than me, when they find out that I tweeted them, or favorite something, or
say something about them, they get so crazy, and I’m like, “You? What?” I mean, we’re all fans forever. And so there’s an absolute strategy in following a bunch of people. It is about giving them
something they want. And when you give people
something they want, they appreciate it.

“the #AskGaryVee Show in the evening? “Are you trying to target
to East Coast commuters?” – Robert, great question. I appreciate you having the respect in me to think I have that much strategy. I do like to say, everything
I do is on purpose. This one though, on the other hand, happens to completely
be on the heads of Zak. Not usually Zak actually. (Zak laughs) You actually have very
little to do with it. – Yeah. – It has a whole lot to do with DRock who’s on the other side of this, and it has to do everything
with my schedule. Here we are at 9:30 or 9:40
taping today’s episode, yesterday when did we tape DRock? – [DRock] One. – 1 pm yesterday, obviously
that came out later. It’s 9:48, I expect DRock’s mission, with only one video question
today, to bang this out and it should be up by 2 or 3
or 1, and we’ll be out soon so completely predicated on the insanity that is my schedule.