#AskGaryVee Episode 121: The Biggest Mistake My Employees Can Make

“of all time?” – John, my favorite swear
word of all time is dickface. There’s something about
dickface that really, really, you know, I don’t know why, but
like, I think when I use it, people just really, like,
actually, I’ve never really even thought about the
word until just right now and I mean, it’s pretty self explanatory. – [India] I thought you
were gonna say dickface.

– What’s the unforgivable
sin that one of my employ, I mean, actually there’s a lot
of things that I really think are very important to me in
like, not lines in the sand, but you know, what’s
interesting is, it’s funny, hustle and people, I’m
not worried about people’s work ethic, you know it’s funny, actually I’ve been thinking about DRock, Staphon, I’ve been thinking about
making a video, actually about hustle may be my super power, right, but it doesn’t have to be yours. Right back to everybody’s
strength and weaknesses. Mine just, you know, I’m
a little bit concerned that a lot of you who are watching this, you know, you hear my mantra
of hard work, 24/7/365, and you start trying
to force yourself into going into that direction
and really I’m just speaking to the small group
of people that are watching or listening to the show
that actually have that skill of being able to, when they’re passionate, work their faces off and that is one of the competitive advantages. One of my favorites,
mine, in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t have to be yours. So, you know, it’s funny
how the question was asked because I think it’s a leading question to, you know, if they only
work like Steve, right, you know, if they work
like Steve here, right. So, you know, that’s not
the issue at hand at all. I think the only sin and the
quickest way to get fired from VaynerMedia is to
not figure out a way to play nice with the other boys and girls that you work with. To me, the number one thing that I judge VaynerMedia employees
on is how they interact with every other VaynerMedia employee. Some people in the
organization are really good at leading their teams. They have 12, 15 people and
their team loves them to death and they love their team to death. However, cross department,
if they’re on account with creative or with
the paid team or with IT or the video production
team, they’re not as good. They’re fighting just for their team and they’re burning bridges
in those departments. Not good. Other people are tremendous with clients and are great with the
other senior people, but they’re not treating the people underneath them with the respect and their team doesn’t
love working for them or micromanaging them and so. You know, managing styles don’t bother me. People have to learn their
cadence on micromanaging versus giving people air
cover, but being disrespectful or being selfish to what’s
in your best interest, not the logo’s interest as a
whole, within the organization, to me, is just completely unacceptable. Letting your emotions get the
best of you and talking down to somebody or creating
conflict, unacceptable. So, those are the things that are the sins within my environment.

– What has been the
largest or biggest failure you’ve had either in
your business or in life, that’s propelled you forward
towards the most success? Also, I hope to see you next week as I film the #GaryVeeShow with you. Thanks. – That’s a great job, Aaron. Sorry you lost. Great question, love the video. You know I think, you
know, I’ve been lucky. I think the one failure I’ve had was that 2009 to 2011 window
where I was trying to be Gary Vee, ’cause of Crush It!. I was running Wine Library. We started VaynerMedia. Misha was just born. I was trying to do Obsessed TV. I was trying to do the wine
social network, Cork’d. I was trying to do the
social network for developers and designers called Forrst. And I was very stretched thin. I was investing. And so, I learned that I
was trying to definitely put my ass on too many toilets. That’s a Russian translation
for all you Ruskies out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And so, I wasn’t able
to balance all of that. And even now, I really, I
feel like I’m starting to take on a lot of stuff. The difference is, I did
a better job up front. There was more selective of the people that I’ve partnered with
on Resy and Faithbox and BRaVe ventures. And this has nothing
to do with the Obsessed or Forrst or Cork’d team. I picked partners that I needed to provide too many things to, besides
capital, and made those promises so, it’s my failure, not theirs. This time around I found
people who had skills that were more similar to mine. I also have dramatically
more infrastructure with VaynerMedia and my team. And so, you know, DRock’s
helped out with Faithbox, you know, and so, you know
Zak has helped out with BRaVe. You know, everybody’s helped
out a little bit here with Resy you know, so there’s,
that’s really it my man. I’ve been very, very, very lucky. I think for the most
part, I think in only, you know, this is the reason
I struggled with yesterday’s question with what I
don’t like about myself. I think there’s something
interesting in the way that I process, that I’m really
getting deeper into myself through this show, through your comments. Just really, really gathering
a lot of pieces right now. And what I’ve realized is wow,
I am really a net net guy. I mean, if you think about all the things that are not working
in my world right now, there’s a ton, there’s a ton
of shit not working out there. Different initiatives,
different departments, a ton. But I can’t help but not
recognize that we’re gonna grow, you know, outrageously this year and be massively successful. And so, there’s probably
tons of flaws with me from yesterday’s question. I’m just not capable of seeing them because in a net net
game, I’m a decent dude. And so, one thing that I
would implore and one thing I would challenge and one thing I would actually want so many of you to shift into is why are you allowing
yourself to look at every small loss along the way? Instead of taking a step back and looking at, minimally, a year. You know, preferably a five year window and say, have you won in that environment? And so, who cares if you, you know how many
investments I’ve lost on? You know, like, in the last two years, you know how many
employees didn’t work out? You know how many flights I took that took up a lot of time
that materialized into nothing? You know how many negative
comments I’ve gotten about this show? You’re allowing yourself, and
this is based on your DNA, so listen, if you need
to go speak to somebody and lay on a couch. If you need to write and express yourself. Find your way to level up your ability to look at things at a net
score versus the minutia from a day to day, week
to week, month to month loss game and I promise you, you will have a happier and more
successful career slash life. – [India] Jay asks, “If you’re
in a wholesale business,

“where volume is more
important than content, “how would you take
advantage of social media?” – Jay, what’s the matter with you? Volume’s more important
than content everywhere because volume of selling shit
is what you do for a living. Regardless if you sell
weird looking statues or phones or, I love taking off, kicks. You know, like, volume always matters. Content is a liaison
to more volume, right. My content wasn’t more
important on Wine Library TV. It was the fact that that
lead to selling stuff. And so, whether you’re
in wholesale or retail, or B to B or B to C, the
end goal within the context, is to drive a result including
if you’re non-profit. You’re not making content
that’s gonna make somebody cry about, you know, the dogs in
the wild that we need to save because you just want somebody to cry. No, you want them to
take out their wallet, this is what you want, Jay. You want them to take out their wallet and give them the cash. Right, that’s what you want. And so, please don’t
get it twisted, anybody, that so much of this is predicated on how do you provide that value to then have leverage to get the
result that you’re looking for? And so, sorry India, it got
a little bit heated there for a second. Word it for me one more time. – [India] He says, “Your
wholesale business where “volume is more important than content, “how would you take
advantage of social media?” – Yeah, I mean, no I
mean, you know, you know. First of all, when you’re
in wholesale, you’re in the B to B business, so you
have it easy, in my opinion. Go and map who your customers are. Go to Facebook. Run ads against the
companies of the people you’re trying to reach. Employees of the company
you are trying to sell this. Go run it against Foot Locker employees. People that work at Foot Locker. Do you guys have Facebook accounts? I feel like people haven’t
been updating them as well, but the data’s still incredible at scale. This is just a quick test. Do any of you put
VaynerMedia in your profile? – [Voiceover] Mm hmm. – All five of you? Even better than I thought. You can reach all five of these characters by targeting employees of VaynerMedia. As a matter of fact,
somebody could have probably been flown in next Friday
if they were smart enough to spend $40, 40 measly dollars on ads against VaynerMedia employees, where they used the VaynerMedia employees to pressure me to bring that person, but you didn’t, you just didn’t. And so, execution my friends and being a practitioner
is always, always better than headline reading. And so, I will tell you it is very easy. LinkedIn, Facebook, target
your actual customer and then make content
that is valuable to them. Right? Which means different than B to C. So, back to this. I’m a sneaker producer. I’m new, I’ve got to compete
with Under Armour, Nike and Reebok and Puma and crap. Maybe my ad is, hey, introducing
the new Gary sneaker. More profitable for you than the others. Like literally, it is a
B to B promotion, right. Like, here’s a chart. This is what you make on
all these other characters. Sure, they bring people in, but here’s my offer and
I’m able to bring you dramatically more profit and as a kicker, if you email me back, I
will also run ad dollars directly to your store for my sneaker because you’re one of
the first hundred people to contact me.

As you know, I’m a humanist and I’m really big into human beings, hanging out with human beings and building real relationships. – Me too, Simon. – And I love technology
and I love social media, but I’m also aware that there’s a balance and if things go out of
balance, it can actually hurt the relationships that we form. And it’s amazing for me
sometimes to watch people you know, every notification they get, their Instagram, their
Facebook, their Twitter, everything that shows up
on the top of their phones, they can’t help but look
down and see what’s going on. My question to you is, do you think that companies who use social
media as a primary means of marketing, or any means of
marketing, for that matter, have a responsibility to actually
help us find that balance? Do they have a responsibility
to help us manage our real relationships or is it entirely the responsibility of the user? Thanks for your help. – Simon, first of all,
since we’re buddies, I’m dying to have dinner. Let’s get together, ’cause I’m
gonna ask you questions like, do you think that it’s the responsibility of New York City to
limit the size of sodas or is it the responsibility for us? Do you think it’s the responsibility of McDonald’s to no longer make anything that is over 180 calories or
is it the responsibility of us? Do we think that we should, you know, and it’s a very, very
slippery slope, right, I mean, I think that
politicians and other humans have for a long time tried to say, we know what’s better for the user than the user themselves. Not to mention, in a business environment, as you know, Simon, you know, Dunkin’ Donuts and
Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee can be like, cool, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna limit, we’re gonna only Tweet and post on Instagram three times a day. And then like, Gary’s
Coffee’s gonna swoop in and do it all day long and
see results in the white space and then the other companies were like, screw that, we’re back. And so, I think it’s an
interesting question. I also think, and this
gives me an opportunity to go there, Simon, to say the following. I promise you that when you and I go and have these drinks
or dinner in a couple weeks that I will rarely look
at my phone, if at all. You know why? ‘Cause you’re interesting. ‘Cause I like you. ‘Cause I don’t see you that often. And because that’s what I want to be doing when I’m there. On the flip side, if me
and Staphon were just going to hang out right now for a quick coffee, I might look at my
phone a couple of times. I get to see him more often. We don’t have that much to
talk about right this second. You know, and so I’m like,
I’m gonna be choosing what I want to do besides
what I’m doing right there. I think that us people looking at phones. Looking at notifications is
actually a true indicator of what we value. You know, about to take
a drive with my mom, will not be looking at my phone so much ’cause I miss my mom
and I want to hang out. But if I saw my mom every single day, I promise you I probably would. Which is the truth. It’s just us choosing what we want. And so, technology has given us options. You know, I always talk about the couple you see in a restaurant, where like, me and Lizzie will walk in. Well, me and Lizzie don’t talk about this ’cause of my point of view, but I know so many of you have
walked into a restaurant and you’ve seen a couple and literally, both of them are on the
phone the whole time. And you and your partner are having dinner and saying like, look
how sad that is, right. All of you have done that. Or at least you’ve heard
of somebody doing that or you’ve been part of a party. To me, I don’t think that people
recognize that same couple, 20 years ago, they just sat
and ate dinner in silence looking at each other. Have you seen that weird thing? Have you seen that weird thing, India? Yeah, it’s weird. – It was weird. – It’s weird so I actually
am happy for that couple because what they would
have had to do 20 years ago, which is sit there in silence,
they’re at least actually keeping up with the ball game. Looking up on their Instagram. Deciding what they’d
rather do in that moment than hang out with the other person because they don’t have a great marriage or great relationship. That’s just real. This is real dynamics. I think it’s a very
dangerous slope to say, look, all these
relationships, how sad is this human interaction when
you have absolutely zero, triple zero, not double
zero, Robert Parrish, triple zero, follow me here DRock. Triple zero context to
what’s actually going on in the relationship. Do you know how many
people, I got it DRock. Do you know how many
people are in you know, out in public with each
other that hate each other at that moment. That are struggling. That are having problems. That are on the verge of breaking up. That have a business issue at hand. There’s so many dynamics
and I have no interest in sitting on a pedestal and saying, they should be interacting
with each other. And so, yeah, I think
there’s a responsibility and I think the responsibility goes in many different directions. And I think it’s a tremendously
interesting question. I still think that ultimately,
it’s very difficult to do anything other than
to rely on the end user to do what’s best for her or him. And so, that’s kind of
where I sit on the issue.