#AskGaryVee Episode 158: Things Get Really Crazy

“Is it wise to form a startup
around an app or website “which will solve a problem,
but without yet knowing “how to monetize it?” – Yes, Anthony. Solving problems in utility form is one of the greatest ways
to make a shitload of money. You know, for, I mean like, absolutely. Like, like, if you, you know, yes. I’m like, anytime you solve things for, anytime you solve things for people, monetizing becomes the
easiest part of the equation. The reason I’m pausing a
little and jumping around, Vayner Nation, is I’m
rolling with disrespect for Anthony, ’cause. It’s Anthony?
– [India] Mmhmm. Because it’s, it only
speaks to me not believing that you’re gonna solve the problem, to be very honest with you. It, it like, I have a bad
feeling in my stomach. Anthony, I love you, thank
you for supporting the show. I have no interest in dropping venom on Halloween here, but, um. Yes, that’s so like crazy to think about. There’s a million ways to monetize. If you actually bring value to people, even if you make people laugh
and escape their real life, you make tons of money. It’s called the entire
entertainment business. Right? Like, if you solve something tangible, like invent a car so we
don’t have to take horses, ya sell it. Like if you make something, sell something that’s a thing that makes thing better, you monetize by charging
for something that, I’m just. I don’t even wanna answer this question.
– [India] Sorry. This is crazy question. – [India] I’m sorry. – Again, the last part,
even if you don’t know how you’re gonna monetize it yet? – [India] If you don’t know yet know how you’re going to monetize it. – You’re gonna sell it! You’re gonna sell it. You’ve solved a problem, you’re gonna sell it! Either to a human, or
to a business that wants to sponsor the fact that we’ve
solved somebody’s problem, which is the height of value in humanity. – [India] Mmhmm. – Oh look, I created this potion that makes people feel better. How am I ever gonna make money? I mean, what the (bleep). I mean seriously, people. We’ve done this for 158 shows. Like, seriously. Ah! I wanna, I feel like I might,

“I noticed that you endorse certain books “and allow yourself to
be quoted on the cover. “I thought you didn’t read books?” – Over the last year, I have
given two or three quotes to books, which is highly
unusual, I see Steve about it, and Steve’s always cynical, look, he already dissed me in the show, like, you know. You said, “Oh, Gary.” You know, but I had to
explain myself to you. (laughter) Um, uh, so I rarely do it. Steve’s shaking his head because he sees the millions that come through, requests. And we always say no,
’cause I don’t read them, and how am I gonna put my name on it. The only reason I’ve put my name on a couple of books, is
because I know the human being. And so, that’s what uh, that’s what. As I’ve gotten to know Jay Bear, and others of that nature. Actually, that one’s not even out yet, so Louis, you know. These are people I know,
I feel comfortable with. And if you actually
look carefully, at the, and Steve knows this because he helps me edit some of these quotes sometimes, I won’t say things more
specific about the book. I’ll say, “Jay has a
great read on the market.” So I’ve very careful with saying, “In this book, he will
change your, on page 147,” you know? It’s very Jay. And so as I’ve gotten to know people over the last seven to 10 years, and I feel like I’ve gotten to know them, I’ve felt comfortable
to give them something. These are friends of mine who are trying to leverage my name to do something that’s important to them,
and I’ve been careful with the way I’ve positioned the quote. You know, to make it more about them. And so that’s it, I’m
really glad you asked that question, India,
’cause it’s the right. I saw it and I was like,
even I was a little too scared to send it to you
and say I should answer this. So, but it’s the right thing to do, to answer these questions. That’s why we have the show,
not just to pick the easy ones. I like that you do that. Keep doin’ it. You know what, by the way? Go harder. LIke, luckily lately,
because I think the show has painted a better
360-version of myself, people are dissing on me less, because I think the depth has been able to be sucked out, and so, but I’m always happy to
answer the toughest of tough. – [India] Wanna do a hater episode? – I mean I don’t know if I wanna,

“How would you market
an HR staffing agency?” – Um, Kamil I would market
an HR staffing agency by creating enormous amounts of content. I would probably reach out to the biggest HR software companies in the world to see if they had a
blog, and then email them and say that you would
love to write guest blogs around HR dynamics in organizations. I think that would be
incredible way to do it. I think guest blogging
is a stunning arbitrage that most people don’t take advantage of. If you are starting any
business right now of any, a landscaping business, a
chocolate making business, a candle selling business,
you go map the 15 sites that most of the people that
are likely to buy your product are spending their time reading, and reach out to the editors and ask them to guest blog, whether an audio form, video form, or written form,
depending on your skills sets. They may be a written blog,
you can’t write like me, and they won’t take video or audio, then you’re going to miss
out on the opportunity. But maybe you find two or three, being able to siphon that
attention to awareness around you, as long as you
don’t make your article about you selling stuff. You have to level up
and be a media company. So for you, what’s the name again, Kamil? – [India] Kamil. – Kamil, what you need to do is talk about six behaviors you look for in an employee that’s
been in your organization for three years, and
then you write about it, instead of saying, why using a staffing
agency is a good idea. Can’t be in your best interests, it has to be in the
audience’s best interests. Hence this show. This show is to bring
as much value as it can to build up equity, to bring up value, to bring up leverage. To guilt everybody who watches
and listens to this show to buying many, many books
of the #AskGaryVee show. Or tell people to watch it. That leads to speaking engagements or clients of VaynerMedia. Or, what I really care about,
’cause those last three things are nice-to-haves, turn
everybody in the world into a New York Jets fan when I own them. So, you know, I think that um. By the way, you know what’s
gonna be funny about that? I’m literally gonna clip that in 30 years, and I’m gonna play it in the stadium. Just want you to know. Um, so, I would do that. I would start putting out infographic or visuals in Instagram,
and use the right hashtags for discovery around HR. That may sound very weird. It’s probably very, very, very niche, but there are tons of
HR people on Instagram. I mean, we have a HR department,
they’re all on Instagram. So there’s a lot of hacks,
but it’s all about content. Level yourself up and
act like a media company instead of an agency. Put out content. That’s what we do for VaynerMedia. I, at the forefront, am great
at it, and that’s just truth. I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m great at producing content. My team’s great at helping. You know, that has been
a huge gateway drug to new business and building
the brand of VaynerMedia. Then you have to deliver. Because what comes along with it, especially when your a personal brand that is charismatic, as
good looking as I am, is there’s a level of cynicism
that comes along with that. So a lot of our early clients were like, “Eh, is this Gary Vee with a
buncha bullshit behind him?” So then you gotta deliver too. So there’s a lot of things you have to do to be good at business. You have to bring ’em to the table, and then you gotta serve ’em great food. And then, they come
back to your restaurant. Get it? You like that? – Yeah, you can’t just get
’em to the restaurant, India.

“Can you build a strong
social media following “solely by engaging with your audience “or is content an absolute must?” – Content is an absolute
must, interesting. (laughter) Listen, I mean, I think you
could build up something really, really interesting by
being a full-pledge listener. You know, it depends on
how you define content, which is why I kind of wavered off. If you’re listening, you’re gonna respond. Your responses are your content. So, if you’re asking me,
“Can you just search, “engage with conversations
and put out those answers?” I would argue that that’s what I did do in 2006, seven, and eight. Outside of me just putting a link to the Wine Library TV show, which is a pretty big piece of content, so I can’t really go there, so. Look, I would you I’ve
disproportionately gotten value from my engagement, but
I think historically, I’ve underminded, or even
slightly disrespected my content. I’ve changed over the
last three to four years on that point of view. I realized the content did matter. I think it’s a really
interesting question. But I think your answers are your content. I mean, very honestly, I
think that’s why my brand in the business world
and entrepreneur land and startup land has gotten stronger, because I think I’ve positioned myself to actually use my
responses as my content. We are literally, this is
literally a very meta-answer. We are in the context of a show that is predicated on me giving answers and engaging versus me
self-starting around the content. But then, that in itself is
the depth of the content. So I think it depends
on how far you take it, in the, you know, semantically,
I would say, yes you can. Because I think you can put a lot of depth and a lot of oomph and a lot of weight, you know, this is heavy,
and a lot of weight. Um, you know what Mike makes me do? This crap. It’s the worst. Um, uh, yes, because I think
you can put a lot of oomph behind the content in response. I call it counter-punching. I would argue that Floyd Mayweather is gonna go down as this
generation’s best boxer completely predicated on your answer, so take that for what it is.

“Is there question you wish people “would stop asking you?” – Joshua, it’s that question. Um, well the first one
got my panties in a bunch. – [India] Yeah, that’s true. – Um, no not really, man. To be honest with you, I’m too overwhelmed with
gratitude and flattered that people want to ask me questions, that it’s hard for me to
get going around the notion of judging those questions. These are questions that, everybody’s in a different life cycle in their careers and lives to where they think I could bring value, whether they’re a parent
with an entrepreneurial kid, whether they’re an entrepreneur
and just realized it, whether they’ve always
been an entrepreneur and can really associate with my immigrant and selling hustle, I think everybody’s in a different place when they come across my content. Since so many people are
discovering it these days, ’cause there’s a lot of
virality going on on Facebook. As a matter of fact, you know what? This is a good opportunity,
I put in the comments with the Share Monster? I really, really would love
some support on Facebook. I mean look, I’m selfish
like anybody else. I’m enjoying the discovery
of all these new audiences. Everybody who’s sharing for me, and there’s a consistent crew that I wanna give so much love to, everybody that’s sharing, I
really, really appreciate it. And if you’re listening
or watching right now, if you’re listening,
literally pull over your car on the highway in traffic,
take out your phone, go to the episode on Facebook
and hit the share button. And by the way, if you did that, you are the most amazing
person of all time. But if you’re watching on Facebook, or a lot of you I know
are watching on YouTube, coming over to Facebook,
that would mean something. I would love to see, I’m curious where this call to action,
where this right hook lands me in the share lexicon
for my normal average. That being said, no, that’s
it, that’s the answer. I have high empathy for everybody being in a different place
in their mind at the moment where they feel compelled
to ask me a question, and the only emotions in
my body are gratitude.

– Your favorite costume you ever had as a kid, that you were just like pumped to go out and wear and you felt so proud and excited. – That’s a great question. I’m gonna go with when me and my sister dressed up as Tom and Jerry. – Nice. – You know what’s interesting,
this is a great opportunity. I never talk about the year that we lived in Dover, New Jersey. Do you know that? – I did not know that. – Right. None of you know this. It went, I always say Queens to Edison, but the truth is, I don’t even know why, I just forget about that
year and a half in Dover. Maybe because I don’t like it. Maybe the reason I love the Jets so much is that the kids were nice to me and we played football, and they wanted to be Jet fans and in Dover. Do you, one of you have heard this story where the kid made me drink
pee out of a Pepsi can? – Yup, we have heard that story. – You’ve heard it right? Steve you didn’t hear it? – [Steve] I feel like, I don’t know, I’ve blocked it out.
– [Gary] Yeah! – [Gary] Yeah, I got picked on quite a bit ’cause I didn’t speak English yet. I was little. And so, and so um my sister and I dressed
up as Tom and Jerry, and my mom likes to tell the story that, my sister was still in a
carriage, she was young. I would go up stairs, knock
on the door, get the candy, and then I would always
get candy for my sister. ‘Cause I’d be like, my
sister’s down below. It’s just the story means a lot to me about the relationship that
I have with my sister Liz, and so um, that’s the costume
that always sticks in my mind. – Nice.
– Yeah. – It’s a good costume.

– So. – Actually I’m scared. – Ready? – Yeah. – So VaynerMedia has always been in like, turbo growth mode.
– [Gary] Aw, crap. – [Gary] Yes. – Right, like always. It’s always bring on more clients, hire more people, run out of space, rinse and repeat, right? – Yes. – Do you think there will ever be a time where VaynerMedia prioritizes depth over width in terms of charging more, you know, bigger, fatter — – Scopes? – scopes, and — – Subjective call on the
quality of the output? – Right, or, but then that
laddering up to sort of… – A plateauing of people? – Turning into like big,
huge, lavish benefit packages and things like some agencies get really, really, really
crazy with that, right? Where we’re scrappier, right? – Yup. – And I’m not saying that’s the point — – No, no, no, you’re not. – But do you think Vayner will ever slow down —
– [Gary] You mean like, paying people 200 thousand dollar bonues to be the best creative director
in the world kinda thing? – Well, yeah sure, I guess. – I mean, I’m just, I wanna
quantify that part of it. – Right, exactly. So it’s like depth over
width in terms of like, sheer dollar amounts as
they relate to clients, employees, benefits, all that stuff. And I’m not saying it’s bad right now, by any stretch, right? – Yeah, no. I’m not worried about that. So I think, for me, the way I run my business, which is why I think I’m running a much better business than all these other
agencies that do that, is because I think you can
achieve both in parallel. So I think what I uniquely
as an entrepreneur am good at, is running both trains. So I think you could easily, as, in the context of your question, speak to a very different level of quality in the building from 18 months ago. – Right. – So, if you just project out, if you think about the fact that we didn’t have a single SVP
or real creative director like of any, real’s not fair. A creative director of 10
years or more experience just 18 months ago. – Mmhmm. – That you can see that
happening in parallel. I think that, I think
where it gets disguised is we have people that come
from Gray and Ogilvy and things of that nature. We also have, what’s
been very happy to me, to see Aton and Harry and Pensoot and all these people
leveling up in parallel. What it gets disguised by is the thing that’s much more obvious. What’s much more obvious is
hyper growth of people, right? – Yeah. – It’s just, getting
crammed when we grow, right? What’s less obvious is,
you know, anyone’s ability to really truly dissect 550
people’s depth of skill. – Yeah. – And there’s pockets of clients. You’re always gonna have
variable depending on the people. Plus, hiring the right people. So, to me, the answer is,
it’s happening in parallel. I think the only thing that makes people think that it’s happening,
is stop the hiring process and then they’re like, “Oh! “We’re not going hyper,
we’re going deeper.” – Yeah. – I think we’ve gone stunningly deep in 18 months by two variables. One, bringing the outside
talent in their 30s and 40s, right, depth, which is gray hairs. in a lot of people’s
subjective point of view. And number two, the actual growth of the people that have been at Vayner that are totally different animals. And I think that, for every
individual it’s different. And I also think that for the people that have been here longer, it’s a different context point
than it is for other people. You know, and so, no I mean, I think as long as I’m running the business, I’m never comfortable in thinking one has to be done without the other. I truly feel that you’re
capable to do both. And I think if you project
out what’s happened in the last 18 months on the depth chart, that it’s actually tremendously scalable and gets way deeper
because as you get bigger, you deploy those dollars to those things. – Mmhmm. – And as far as like, benefits
and packages, you know. I’m very weird when it comes to bonuses. I think bonuses, so we’ve
hired two people recently that left their agencies
because of bonuses. Because they felt they deserved more. I think when you have a graying zone of, I get to be the judge
and jury on the bonus, I think what is safer
is to just try to get to a number together. And I think that those
things ebb and flow. I also think that when you’re
in a fast-growing company, what a lot of employees don’t calibrate, ’cause they shouldn’t,
’cause it’s very hard for anybody to care about anything besides what they care
about for themselves, is the notion of what happens in a 36-month window
versus a 12-month window. So I’ve been happy to be honest with you, of getting three to four
emails in the last six months from former employees
who left because of money who now make less money than some of their counterparts here
because VaynerMedia is growing, and we’ve been able to rise all ships, and in their other places they haven’t. And so, those are my answers. – Bonus question. – Please. – How fast do you think
we max out the space at Hudson Yards? – I think we might of already. – Nice. I think, you know, I do think that every company has to bear the negatives that come along with the positives for their individual
self around the person that runs the company. I love insanity. (laughter) I like it. I like when we’re like this. I like when we’re sitting
this close to each other. I like it. And if you are not that, if you’re somebody that really like that, and your space, and this
is where I put this, and this is where I put this, then, you know, Vayner
can be tricky at times. Though, no question, I
think it’s a leader’s job to adjust to his reality,
and I’ve definitely deployed more empathy towards the way we plan on scaling Hudson Yards, and if we need secondary offices to try to come back a little bit
on my own selfish love of that kinetic energy. Mainly predicated on, because
the floors are so big. So I think I’m gonna be
able to scratch my itch, ’cause they’re just big floor plates and there’ll be three, four
hundred people comfortably on one floor. And so I’m hoping that
solves that problem. So, thanks Steve.