#AskGaryVee Episode 149: London Calling

– What’s the DNA of a good sales pitch? – Yeah. – Um, I think the best DNA
trait of a great sales pitch is predicated on
reverse-engineering what that person actually needs. Way too many people try to sell, it’s really jabbing and right-hooking. Most people want to sell you
what they want to sell you, versus what you need. So, one of the reasons I
think I’ve been successful is, whether I’m selling a bottle of wine or I’m selling myself or
I’m selling VaynerMedia, I have a thing, but I’m
reverse-engineering you, meaning, people used
to come into the store and one of the things I was
proud of is, people would say, Do you have a good red
wine that I could have, and I would always say, Well, what are you going to do with it? And it was stunning to me how
many people were taken aback by that, because every other liquor store, wine shop,
– [Mimi] Why that? – [Gary] would just, give them something they wanted to sell. Oh, I’m giving it to a boss. Well, then I would go
with something that had name brand equity that
made them look good. Or, I’m trying to impress wine friends, I’d give ’em something nerdy. So, in their DNA, the core DNA, is reverse-engineering, and I think the other part
that really matters, Kat, is, I do think passion and energy sells. Like, monotone, not
caring, like not believing. So, I think fundamental,
100% all-in belief and then reverse-engineering
what they need. – That makes sense. – Thank you. – Thanks for being on the show, alright. – Okay, I got two, but I’ll
start with the main one.

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Like, what’s the main
purpose of what you do? – For me, it’s pulling at
two opposite directions. One is very noble and one is very selfish. One, I’m aware, and even
before Alex, like, I’m aware that my biggest fans are the
ones that have felt the effects of all of my free information, and it has fundamentally
changed their lives. – Yup. – The thought that a human
being could stand right now and say, Our hap, like,
our great thing is based on the blueprint that
you put out to the world, that is mind-blowing. The selfish part is, I want to win. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna grow, I wanna build big businesses,
I wanna buy the New York Jets, I want to accomplish
things, I want stuff for me from a legacy standpoint,
not necessarily the money, but that I’m that guy, that
I created the blueprint, the future business and
marketing, and I wanna build an empire, an empire, on goodness. – Right – You know, when I look at
the way Steve Jobs’ position, he was a genius and
everybody looks up to him, but he wasn’t great to people. I don’t want that. I want to be the version of
that where everybody also comes to my funeral because
I was such a good guy. – Okay, second one, can I go first? – Can you go, yeah. – Okay, so what’s one question
that nobody’s ever asked you but you ask yourself all the time. – You know, I always ask,
the question that nobody can ask me that I ask myself is, my own personal question of, Am I happy? The biggest fear I have in
life is that I don’t accomplish the things I think I’m
entitled to based on my talent, and that as I get older,
I become more bitter. But it’s easy for me now
to give away so much, but if I’m 80, and I didn’t get there, am I going to look back
for 60 years and say, ah, it’s because I didn’t
throw enough right-hooks, it’s because I didn’t get my fair share. And so, I’m always asking myself, are you okay with what you’re doing? Are you okay with what you’re doing? Because you’re putting
yourself in a position where you might be regretting
what you’ve decided to do, and so, I fear that, and so, that’s the question I ask myself. – Thank you.
– Yeah.

in social and what are
they doing that’s so good? – Truth is, you’re so much,
you’re way better in a position to say, answer that question than I am. I’m not paying attention
to what a lot of musicians are doing, but I’ll tell you
that the musicians that are doing it best will understand
the framework that created the greatest bands and
artists of all time, which is, again, it’s the theme
of the show in London, it is providing value. It is so easy to see what
Talyor Swift is doing, it is so easy to understand
what Phish and Grateful Dead and Dave Matthews Band did. It is disproportionately
helping an audience, and then leveraging that
to get them to buy in. So, whoever right now
is replying to people on Twitter and video,
randomly creating meet-ups, like, put, saying happy birthday
to fans, randomly knocking, where are the artists that
are knocking on fans’ doors, and they open it up, and they go, get. Whoever’s doing the things
that nobody else is doing, that the fans want, which is the touch. – Taylor Swift is into that? – Taylor Swift is perfectly
executing it, and it matters, and it becomes word of mouth. And so, I don’t know specifically. – Yeah, yeah. – But whoever’s bringing
disproportionate value to the people that are potentially
interested in her music, and notice, I said potentially
interested in her music, that’s the key. Whoever is doing that,
that’s who’s winning. Alright, man.
– Thanks so much.

– Hi everyone, I’m Nancy
El Gaudi, at Nancy ElJudge on Twitter, (laughs) a
little plug (laughs). So, as someone who is just working out building their personal
brand, would you say, quality of concept is more important, or quantity of content. – Both! – Okay. (laughs) Should I be putting out stuff every day? – Yes! – What if I’m not passionate about it, what if I’m just going–
– No! – No, only stuff I’m passionate about. – Yes!
– Okay, cool. – And now, the question
becomes, do you have enough? – Right.
– And that’s why I just did that funny little exercise with you. Guys, we’re not all entitled
to have personal brands and make millions of dollars. – Yeah. – It’s predicated on
if you have the skill. Like, I really knew a shitload about wine. I really know a shitload
about business and marketing. You clearly are doing your thing with him. Like, you have to decide if
you’re actually good at it and you have enough, but
you’re gonna need both. – Yeah. – And, if you’re great,
and you got the content, you can do both, but that’s where the rubber hits the road, right? Like, you know, building a
personal brand is just like becoming a rock star,
musician, or a famous athlete, or a politician. We don’t all get to do it,
but you know what’s cool? Unlike the way our parents grew up and our great-grandparents grew up, we all get a chance. We all have a camera and a
phone, and we all get a chance. But, the cream is going to
rise to the top, my friends, not everybody’s entitled
to be a personal brand. – Okay. – making millions of dollars doing what they want to do at all times. It’s just not that easy. What’s special is that you get to find out if you’re good enough, because
there was millions of people that were good enough, but
didn’t live in Hollywood, that didn’t have parents that
could send them to Hollywood. And, that’s what’s special, not if you, that we’re all going to be famous, it’s that we all have a
chance to create something. – [Nancy] Thank you so much.
– [Gary] You’re welcome. – I really appreciate that.
– Thank you. Get in here, let’s go. Let’s go, big man.

– So, (chuckles) my mum started a clothing business a few years ago. – Okay. – A kids’ clothing goods business.
– Okay. – So, she wants help building our brand, but then, the selfish part of
me is focusing on my business, viewing myself as a
entrepreneur and whosoever. – Yes. – How do I balance my
self-desire with my real desire to help my family and help
my mum do what she’s doing. – That’s a great goddamn question. So, a couple quick questions. Is your mom, since she just
started, so, small business? – Yes, quite small business, quite small. – So, I would tell you, Danny, that you got something really going for you. Here it comes, guys, get ready. How old are you? – 21.
– 21, perfect. Kinda thought that’s where we were going. Danny, most people, so,
one thing that’s really pissed me off about London so far, is I’ve been running around to meetings, starting at 4 PM, there’s been
millions of people at pubs, and, I’m like, are these people working? If you follow me on Snapchat, you’ve already seen what, I’m angry. So, anyway, taking a step back, you’re 21. You can stay up 18 hours a day. I know that you ran out
of, like, class right now to be here, so I guess you
gotta balance some school hours. But, how many, how many,
I mean, you got hours. – Yeah, hours.
– Right? So, I work two full-time jobs every day. I work 18 hours a day,
that’s nine hours every day. That’s more than a lot
of you work, in half. A lot of people who are watching right now don’t even work nine hours. I work 18, that’s two. So, I think you can do both. – Cool. – You just hafta go to less
pubs, go watch less football, as you call it, soccer, you
just hafta to less shit, like, stop chasing the girls, or whatever. You just gotta, you gotta
work, if you want it. And, if you don’t, what
you gotta do is figure out what balance you gotta do, and
whether it’s 60/40 or 50/50 or 90/10, for your mom, for you, whatever you break it down
to, the way to really fix it is by more, having more hours. You know what I mean?
– Yeah. – And so, I’ve been able to
solve a lot of my concerns, my ambition, my work-life balance, on just doing more hours to a net score.

The first one would be, do you
believe that unique content is not the way to go anymore? – Meaning? – Everyone’s trying to
product unique content. – Yes.
– Because it is the way that it’s set up. – Okay. – Do you believe that the process
of creating unique content is what’s going to create engagement? – Meaning? – So basically, instead of you producing a nice piece of content for me, – Yes? – that I go to someone
and I create a, a process where millions of people
create that unique content and then– – A platform? – Yeah, more or less, because, basically, instead of engaging with
people just towards the end of the product you are producing, you engage with them
throughout the process of making this product
that you’re presenting. – Are you recording the, that, or – Yes, it’s all part of the process. – Yeah, I mean, I think that’s engagement, an interaction with other people, I think there’s potential
in something like that, for sure.
– [Phil] Okay. Alright, and one more
question, what do you think

– So, I’m an investor. – Okay, that’s something. – So my, my, my thought of it
is disproportionately jaded, not to mention I love Casey. He’s been on the show, as you know. I think it’s absolutely going to happen. Of course, I desperately
want Casey to do it, because I’d love him in it, and I’ve invested in the company, but, right now, the amount of people that would be interested in seeing
what I’m seeing is high, meaning, I really would
actually, I don’t, so, I don’t love music concerts so much, but I would absolutely right
now, if Beme worked at scale the right way, the way
I see it in the future, through glasses or contact
lenses, if I could watch what Taylor Swift is seeing
when she’s performing in front of a hundred thousand
people at Wembly Stadium, that’d be cool, I’d watch
that a little bit, right? I’d love to watch what
an athlete is seeing as they’re going on the field. Or, me in a business
meeting, just like as I enter and how it flows, how my,
you could actually really figure me out, of how I
sell, just by how I behave, if you actually saw how I am seeing it.
– Yeah. – So, I think first-person
viewing and disappearing, the way life actually
works, is gonna win in the, so, I hope he wins, but, so,
I believe in the thesis 100%, because, look, the contact lenses are coming.
– Yeah. – Like, they’re coming,
and you’re going to be able to record and watch. They’re not even going to
be knowing if somebody’s recording or watching, so
that means we’re all going to be living and believing
it’s always going on. – Yeah. – The world’s going in a
very interesting place. So, I think he’s, it’s
very progressive and I’m excited about it, I think
it goes way beyond the phone, and that’s why I’m bullish on it.

So, the question to you
is very business-related. – Please. – As you know, we built
something similar to you, we got inspired off of Crush It! – Yes, yes. – So, did the same
thing, did a lot of jobs, put in a lot of work over the years. – Built leverage. – Yeah, built leverage,
put the trust in the brand. – We have a substantial
business now in seven figures. – But, now that, it’s been
a couple years we’ve kind of stagnated.
– Yeah. – Because, so. – Happens all the time. – So my question to you is, and I think, one of the weaknesses
here, is actually scaling, because we tried to do
everything ourselves, we have a small team,
but how do you actually build that team with you, and
the most important question is that, how do you build
and maintain that culture and that, that love that, the same love that you have for the business, – In other people? – In other people. – (laughs) This is a very, this is a very eastern European question,
is very common things that. So, the answer is, you don’t. If you expect somebody
else to love your business as much as you, you two are
out of your (beep)in’ mind. And, this is something
I tried to teach my dad. As a young kid, I’m like,
Dad, you own the business. How the hell do you want them to love this as much as you do? What you need to do is
several different things. First of all, thank you
for asking me the question. I lived it. I did it at Wine Library,
from people that are more like you. You guys went to zero to
something just like my Pop’s. And how I scaled it was, I
taught him these pillars. And I taught him these pillars. Which is, number one, get over that. It’s over. They’re never going to
love it as much as you. If you’re lucky enough, like I find, like that amazing man behind you, if you can find people that can
love it 8.5 as much of a 10, 9.2 as much of a 10, 9.7 on a holy grail moment out of 10, well then, you’ve won. So, that’s never gonna happen,
and it’s actually completely, completely disrespectful
for you to even want that from somebody else,
’cause you never loved somebody else’s business as
much as you love your own. So, why are you going to try
to make somebody else do that? Number one. Number two, the biggest mistake
people make at this point is you start wanting to cash
in on some of the fruits of this amazing hard work. It’s a little bit more exciting to dress a little bit better, to
live at a better place, to take a vacation, to
do all these things. I get it. The way to scale and grow
is to have the dollars to continue to scale and grow. If you’re doing everything yourself, there’s a couple reasons. One, you’re a perfectionist
and don’t think anybody else can do it. Two, you see other people do it and they do it as an eight to your 10, and that’s not good enough. Three, you do not want to
deploy the money because you want to use those
monies for other things for yourselves and other things. All three are massive vulnerabilities. Fix those three, and you’ll grow. I run my businesses the first five, 10 years of their lives at no profit. And I did it, and people
can say, now, easy for you. Bullshit. I was 28 years old, I
build a humongous business, and I was making $40,000 a year. I had friends that were half
me and a hundredth of me making more money, had better
cars, were having more fun, I was 28 years old, making $40,000 a year, and I build a $30 million
business at that point. That’s eating your own dog food. So, get over yourselves,
and be thankful that people want to work for you, and get
them to an eight or a nine, and you get them to an eight
or nine, by loving them more. What you did for your audience, you need to do for your
employees 10 times more. Biggest mistake entrepreneurs make, they treat their employees worse than they treat their customers. Biggest mistake. Treat them better than
you treated your audience. Then they’ll get from a six to
an eight, and that’s amazing. They’ll never get to a 10. It’s not their business. Number two, decide how much
you want to live great now versus every dollar, every dollar, you take that trip to
Spain, is three dollars less that you make three years from now. – Well, what if you have
still substantial money after vacations, after
everything, and you– – Invest it. – And into? – People. – But, people, how do you
find these people who are still eight even or a seven? – But easy, because you
need to treat them better, because you’ve got them,
you just need to change the way you treated them. And, if they don’t get
there after you treat them way better, you fire
them, and you find people who do react to you giving them more value than they’re providing you. – Cool. – You understand?
– Yeah. – Really?
– Not fully. – So, that’s why I’m not letting you go. Here’s my thing: you kick it. So, how many employees do you guys have? – Uh, around the world, seven right now. – Great, you need to really vet them, the number one thing I
would do if I were you is, I would call them right
after the show, and say, What can I do to make
this much better for you? – We do that. – Good, good. Do you deliver on everyone? – Yeah.
– Great. Well then, you should
be having no problem. Then, then, I’m a little
bit more confused. Then, either you have not
built up enough trust with them for them to tell you the truth, or, you’re just not hiring fast enough. – We’re not hiring fast enough.
– Good. – ‘Cause no, because we’re,
we’re, we’re trying to have everybody be like fully 10. – So, you know, (laughs) – [Alex] We want Eric’s– – [Gary] Eric, Eric was
what number in place, 17? 17. He watched Vayner go from 17 to 200, then, for personal
reasons, he went to Boston. He’s back now, and we’re 600. What Eric can tell you
(laughs), all the VaynerMedia employees from 17 to
200, stick with me here, this is not an insult, he
knows how many four, five, six, seven and eights. You need four, five, six, seven
and eights when you’re big. You can’t make seven 10’s,
that’s not how you scale and win. That’s the secret. It’s not about you guys
getting seven people to a 10, it’s about you hiring 40 people at eights. So how about this, here is
the last question, follow-up.

If you’re starting– – Hold on, if you had a
question that you’ve wanted to ask me for a very long time, how the hell wasn’t that the
question you started with? – You needed that preface. – Got it, okay, go ahead. – Okay, so the question is, knowing we have a successful business, we have money in the bank, everything’s great,
business is still growing, everything’s awesome, – God bless, go ahead. – Yay (chops words), but, the thing is, who would be your first
five, like, you have, say, customer service hired. – Yes, – And, well, a marketing person, but who’d be your next five hires. – I’d have to look at your
business and understand, so, first of all– – E-commerce. – So, first of all, I’d reverse– – Product. – First and foremost, I would
reverse-engineer you two. Whatever you two like doing
the most and are the best at, I would surround the hires around that. I’d let you continue to do that, ’cause a lot of people try to replace the thing they’re best
at, that’s a mistake. Stay doing what you do
best at, and whatever the two of you collectively
do the weakest, that’s when you hire, in
order, five next people. – Alright. – Whether that’s finance, HR,
product, e-comm, technology, whatever they are. – But, what’s been your most
best hire for you in that first kind of, in that Wine Library
when you scaled, what was one of the best hires
for you, that, you’re like– – The best hires I’ve ever made have been the friends that I’ve hired. That’s the big secret for me, but– – Position-wise. – Probably the financial
people, you know, like the CFOs, the lead financial person,
have been the best hires, ’cause they’ve given me a context to, hey, ’cause I’m so aggressive, I
want to spend every dollar, so that gives a vulnerability. The reason I’ve never
got out of businesses is, I’m so much better at
selling than everybody else in the world, I can always keep the flows, even against my enormous investment. Um, I, so, I, at VaynerMedia, I would say, Marc Yudkin, a lawyer, creating Legal in-house was a huge hire, Kelly, an early mananging director because she created a lot of context,
and then people that look like Eric which were
disproportionately talented and open to allow me to mold, because we were all playing a new game. People that are moldable but
talented are very attractive. – That’s a good one, yeah, cool.