– John I would argue that entrepreneurs should
be soft at business, I lead with my heart. I made 13 decisions today
that were predicated not on the dollars, but
on what made me feel good, what feels right and
what the lifetime value of that decision is, how
it’s gonna impact others. So I think there’s a
completely wrong point of view that you need to be raw, unemotional. Family businesses don’t stay
in business for 54 years if they made just decisions on the black and white bottom-line. I’m sure, what are some of the longer, tenured employees over here. Get over here, Isaac. – We have employees for 26, 27 years. – And you don’t get there by just making black and
white financial decisions. – No. – I assume that you made tons of decisions that didn’t make the financial
sense at that moment? – We use common sense, common sense and we have a culture where
people love to work here, they’re all involved,
everybody has an idea, we listen to everybody’s idea and they make a difference. – All right, Isaac, you gonna keep talking I’m gonna lose the show,
they’re gonna be the Isaac Show, I’m gonna be out of
business, get out of here. – [Isaac] You called me. – I’m sorry but I messed up. The bottom line is that’s it guys, you’re not in business for 54 years, two generations, three generations. You gotta make calls that don’t
just lead with your wallet, it needs to come with your heart. I actually think the future of entrepreneurship
businesses that are big will actually be considered
soft by today’s standards. Because if you’re gonna go too hard, there’s too many alternatives
for people to do other things than to work in that environment as all these opportunities arise. So I’m a proud, soft entrepreneur. – [Voiceover] MAngiolillo
says, “Waiting for “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook to
ship from Amazon, and asks,

I’ve got a question for you, my man, but give me one second first. So, I’m a photographer and a director, and I’m also the CEO of Creative Live, which is the world’s largest live streaming education company. My question is about creativity and what role does creativity play in business in the future
of business leadership and strategy. Please tell me, man, I’m dying to know. – Well, Chase, let’s talk about strategy. When you are a Seattle Seahawks fan in the last 36 months, and you decide to finally send the video that we’ve been waiting
for for a year now, on maybe the only Sunday
in the last 36 months, on the Monday after a Sunday where the Jets won and the Seahawks lost, I would argue, if
somebody’s nerdy about this, please tell me the other weekends, and there’s probably, I
mean, the Seahawks lost like, two, three games
a year for the last two, so maybe serendipitously, but there is probably the
likelihood of, 16, 48, you know, a 48 Monday shows after Sundays, there was probably three, maybe two, that have the situation
that we had yesterday, where you put on a Seahawks jersey and dissed the Jets, right, like, that makes me so happy that your timing is so off strategy that
you so poorly planned the strategy of this video, it makes me happy with that
move that you just pulled. Creative strategy, I forgot the question. I blacked out with the
Jets thing, gotta get done. What role does, give me the punchline? And replay it, Staphon. – My question is about
creativity and what role does creativity play in business, in the future of business
leadership and strategy. Please tell me, man, I’m dying to know. – I mean, Chase, first
of all, an amazing guy, every photographer watching should watch, every entrepreneur should
catch up with Chase, he’s an amazing guy. Creativity is the variable of success. All the strategies you
create come to the punchline. This is a creative process, this show. This content, content
is a creative output, and everything you planned to that moment, you could have the greatest strategy ever to ask that girl out, right, ever. Like, planned out everything, but that moment where
you go in for the ask, that content is the variable possibly of a yes or no, right,
there’s other variables, but, you know, creativity
is the absolute variable. Like, you might’ve understood
who you’re going after, what to do, when to
release that video game, let’s make it Steve-esque,
but if the graphics suck, or the gameplay suck, or if it sucked, like, creativity is
the variable of success in our society. Including things that we
don’t have control of. Like, if you were just born gorgeous, if you’re just a massively
good looking dude, right, your strategy might’ve
sucked on that ask out, but your creativity, the creative, maybe the words sucked, but what you said might’ve just been enough, like, you’re just a pretty
boy, you’re just pretty. I mean, you know how that is, Staphon. I mean, guy’s got no game, but he wins, he’s just pretty. (laughter) I mean, look, that’s real, and you know what’s funny, actually, using looks and the way
you spit game to girls is actually a tremendous concept of strategy and creativity. Like, the way ugly dudes
get chicks is strategy and the creativity of
their words and charisma. Just the way it is, I know.

“if Lizzie had a successful business, “what would you do to
support and encourage her?” – So, self-awareness is important, I will say this, this is
gonna be really interesting to see how everybody handles this answer. As long as Lizzie’s business
was smaller than mine, I would, don’t forget, I say the following and
I say it all the time. I wanna build the
biggest building in town. I’m obsessed with it. I wanna do that by building
the biggest building in town. And I’ve no interest in tearing down anybody else’s business. I would 100% struggle if
Lizzie ran a business, and it was financially
more successful than mine. It would absolutely cripple me. Just, the truth. And so the question becomes, I would help it with
all my heart and soul, but God forbid I even feel any indication that it was about to pass
whatever I was up to, I would pull out of there, and then start undermining
it in weird ways to make sure that wouldn’t happen. This is tough, right, I
mean, it’s just the truth. I mean, and listen, I married Lizzie because I knew what I was looking for in a partner, in a spouse, like, but people change, I don’t think Lizzie, maybe I didn’t even realize
how insanely workaholic it would become. I mean, I thought I was
working a lot before, so things change. It’s interesting, though, I will say this, and this really is an interesting
part of the whole thing, even I’m fascinated by it. There’s a part of me that’s sad
about what I’m about to say. I would be way better about it today than I would’ve been five years ago. I can feel it. And it scares me to think would I be willing to do maybe
even 10 or 15 years from now. I feel like it, I feel like
it’s like a competitive softening, and I think it’s
true, at least with Lizzie. Not for any of these guys, like, I’d kill Staphon, like, physically, dead. Like, you know, so, that’s the truth, I would do, as long as I felt that it was not gonna be as big as my businesses, I would give her anything
in the world, period. But there’s a very dark,
competitive side to me when it comes to business. And I have friends who
have much more successful businesses, and it’s stunning to me how happy I am for them. Like, I wouldn’t have
thought that 20 years ago, but it doesn’t mean
that I don’t think about every day beating them,
and I want it badly. I don’t know if I’d be able to handle that with a spouse, though. Yeah, I just, that’s not what I was
looking for in a partner. Really, I was looking
for somebody who really was the CEO of our family, somebody that I didn’t feel like I had, I compete with everybody in the world. You know what kind of,
what kind of comfort zone my wife is for me? Like, I compete with
everybody in the world. She’s my teammate, I don’t wanna be forced by my own craziness to compete with her. So, that’s what would happen. Yeah, yeah, real talk.

– Hi, Gary. This is Nick Folk from the New York Jets.
– [Gary] Kicker. I’m just wondering what are
the few things I can do now to prepare for business after football. – So, Nick, I think similar to B Marshall, there’s a lot of networking aspects. But the other thing I
think you could be doing especially during the off season. Let’s talk about another thing real quick. Right now we’re very focused on the Browns and the season. Guys, all of you, let’s not
worry about these answers. We can focus on that in
February, March, and April. Let’s get really focused on football, but I got your back Coach Bowles. But, Nick, I think one of
the things that you can do is start becoming a
practitioner and an executor in the place that you’re passionate about. You know, you’re gonna kick
out of football at some point, and what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna want to go and do something. Being good at that actually matters. If you’re passionate about music, or you want to start a music app, downloading all the music
apps, reading about music apps, engaging with people and talking
to them about music apps. To me the advise here, and for everybody’s who’s
watching in the Vayner Nation, is listen way too any
people want to be something versus actually putting in the work to be a practitioner for it. And a lot of you are jumping
into things, by raising money, by quitting your jobs, by
putting your other asset the one you have most,
which is your time between 7 p.m. and two in the morning, into something without prepping for it. The amount of people that are
jumping into the cold pool of business without warming up, right? The amount of people just hitting the court without stretching. The amount of people that are
just jumping into business, doing no prep work. By the time I was 22 years
old to run my dad’s business, I’d done eight years of
real prep work, right? By the time I started VaynerMedia, you know this thing? It’s not winning by accident. It’s winning, because 2006, three, four years of
being just a social media personality and practitioner,
15 years being business. I’ve put in the work. You can’t run a marathon cold. All five of these phenomenal athletes, they didn’t just roll out of bed, this Sunday morning coming up, and play. They’ve been in mini camp,
they’ve been in training camp. They’ve been prepping, they’ve
been studying the film. I hope you guys are studying the film. They’ve been getting ready for this game. And, so, way too many
of you entrepreneurs, and, Nick, the thing that
way too many athletes take for granted, and celebrities, and other people that
transition other things is like cool, you just think because
you were a great kicker in the NFL, you’re gonna
be a great entrepreneur. It’s not just how it works. You’ve got to put in the work. And, so, I would say to you, and this is why I broke up
you and Brandon’s questions similar points of view. Brandon and Nick, it’s
about not only networking and having relationships, but then you’ve got to be
able to bring tangible skills to the table. And, so, that’s what I
would be doing, Nick. Now, getting deeper into your studies on the thing that you
want to be doing post NFL. There’s just no, there’s
no better show for me

– Are we good? Hey Gary, Demario Davis.
– [Gary] Double D. – Linebacker, New York Jets,
number 56, aka Double D. Coming at you. I got a question. When it
comes to start up companies is it better to use your own
capitol, raise money for it, or to take out a loan? Hit me back with an answer, please, sir. – I love it. Demario, got
a couple fun facts for you. Number one, you maybe 56 now, but you’re looking at a human being, probably the only one who has
a number 49 Demario Davis, because when you were drafted
out of the third round by us two funny things happened. One, I ordered your jersey immediately, because I knew what Double D
was gonna bring to the table, because I got a story that you don’t know. Which is, I got some friends in that team that I don’t like as
much called the Patriots. And when you were drafted
in their draft room, they were really sad and scared. Which excited me, because I
knew Double D was gonna bring it to the New York Jets. You didn’t know that, huh, Staphon? You didn’t know that, Double D, but I did. Now, let me answer your question. All three work. They all can work. Again, if you’re asking
for selfishly, for you. If you got some start up ideas, I think that raising
money is the way to go, because you can. It’ll come to you easier. You have the leverage of your notoriety and things of that nature. And, so, that’s the route. And really for a lot of people, if you’re able to raise money. The terms of raising money
are so attractive these days, that you can mitigate a
little bit of your risk without using your own money. And loan you’re on the hook, and interest, and things of that nature. So, to me it’s raise money first, closely followed by using your own money. Especially if you can afford it, and especially if you
really believe in it. But the reason I think raising money instead of your own money is a little bit more attractive is because the people you bring money from there’s dumb money, and
there’s smart money. By bringing in smart money, people that write
$50-$100,000 dollar checks that happen to be in that business, or that can happen to
have leverage to get you your first five clients. If you got a wine, spirits,
or social media start up, I’m a great investor, because I’ve got clout in those worlds. So, I’ve got my money on the line, right? And I’m gonna go use my power to bring opportunity for it. So, smart money is really
the most attractive. Then dumb money, just
the money for the money versus your own money becomes a debate based on your own financial situation. Third is the banks. Third.

– Gary, what’s going on? This is Brandon Marshall.
– [Gary] B Marshall. – Question. What can I do now to set up myself for business
when I’m done playing ball? Thank you. – Brandon, first of all, thank you for helping me
curate this tremendous show. I’m super excited. As you can tell, by wearing
your number 15 t-shirt. You’re gonna rebrand 15
in green the proper way. You like that, Andrew? There’s a lot of things you could be doing to prepare for life after football. I think a lot of it has
to do around networking with the right people
in the business world, or any other place you want to go into. Especially when you have celebrity status as a football player you can
leverage that during your time. It’s amazing, I’ve watched this happen with a lot of my athlete friends. It’s amazing. The level of leverage lost the
second a player stops playing from literally the day before. It’s incredible. And, so, while you’re active
being in the New York market is a tremendous opportunity. You have a huge opportunity
to leverage that, because you have access
to so many individuals. So, what I think you have to do is reverse engineer what
you want to accomplish, and then start networking
and using that celebrity to get access to people
and start learning, and start executing, start
making real relationships. So they’re tangible relationships, and they’re not built on, “Oh, I want to hang out with
my favorite football player.” They’re real relationships post-football where you actually have that rapport. And you go into business, or motivation, or nonprofit, or whatever is your driver. And, so, there’s that. Brandon, I’m gonna give you
a little prediction here.

– [Gary] My quarterback. – I wanted to ask you about franchises. Specifically, fast food
chains and the pros and cons of getting involved with that business. And the second part of that question, how much money does Chick-fil-A lose in being closed on Sundays? Thanks. Look forward to your response. – Fitz, super excited for
the starting quarterback to start off this tremendous show. First of all, epic beard. I mean, geez Louise. I thought I was bringing
it a couple months ago. That thing is a beast. Super excited. A little quick shout out to
my brother-in-law, Alex Klein. I’d yelled at him
profusely in 2009 and ’10, telling him Fitzpatrick was
better than our quarterback. And, so, now I get my
chance five years later to have Fitz QB this team up. I’m excited to see you Sunday, Fitz. Great question, you know. You’d expect that from a Harvard grad. I think the QSR business
is really intriguing. Once dominated by McDonald’s, Burger King, couple of other players,
Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, things of that nature. What we’re seeing now is fast casual and a whole revolution. Whether it’s Shake Shack, Chipotle, different things of that nature. And then a bunch of sub
brands popping up everywhere. So many of my entrepreneurial friends are jumping into the space higher quality food,
different marketing tactics. I think we’re gonna see
the biggest shift in quick serve restaurants that we’ve seen in the last 50 years
happen over the next 20. And, so, for entrepreneurs out there I think it’s a very
intriguing business model. It’s a tough business. The restaurant business
is a tough business, but when it hits, it hits for real. And, so, I’m a big fan of the industry. I’ve been looking at it. I’ve been looking, and
poking, and prodding into is there any opportunities
for me to get involved in it? Here a little fun fact,
and if you in Jersey know, Wine Library sits right
next to a Taco Bell. Dad and I just bought that
Taco Bell a couple months ago. It’s sitting empty for extra parking. I’ve been thinking about coming up– Staphon, get in here. I’ve been thinking about
creating some brand from scratch. I’ve been thinking about
creating some brand from scratch. So, I’m looking for any
chef partners out there that have always wanted
to do premium hotdogs or some other random idea. I’m open for business. So, Fitz, I think it’s
an interesting industry with a lot of opportunity, with the biggest shift
in it’s opportunities in maybe a half a century coming up. As for Chick-fil-A, they lose
a ton of business on Sundays. But I think, for the people
that know that business and the family that runs it, they’re more passionate about the reasons they’re closed for that. And I respect that
everybody’s got the things that matter to them most. For example, the Jets matter to me most. If, during Sunday’s game at 1:00 o’clock, at 1:47 I get 8,000 texts
emergency, emergency, and I look, and I’m told by friends and family that the liquor industry and the internet have been shut down forever, I could care less. All I want to make sure is that the Jets are whipping the Browns’ faces. So, everybody’s got their own religion. That’s my answer.

– [Voiceover] Gregory asked,
“If you ever become the CEO “of a local Chamber of
a community of 12,000, “what would be the first
thing you would do?” – If I became the CEO of a
Chamber of Commerce for a small group of 12,000 people, 12,000 members or 12,000 people in a town? – [Steve] Community, yeah. – You know, I’m a very big
fan of scaling the unscalable. Right, I talk a lot about engagement, one on one engagement, Twitter
videos, depth versus width. When you’re talking about
a town of 12,000 people, even if we’re answering this incorrectly and it’s a membership of 12,000, it’s still a very small number
in the scheme of things. So, what I would fundamentally
do is create a infrastructure to allow me to connect one by one with every single member of the Chamber, and even considering if it’s
a 12,000 person community the thousand to 4,000
people that really care about business in town, and
connect with them one by one via coffee, via Skype, via phone call as much face to face as possible, and ask them to reverse
engineer their objectives, meaning what can the Chamber do for you? What do you want out of it? I’d also have a better
understanding of what I was trying to get out of it
if I was the CEO of that. So, I don’t know if that’s fees, I don’t know if it’s something
as simply noble as making business better in town, if
that’s the objective at hand. That’s a little bit of a tongue in cheek for the people that don’t get my humor. I think I get razzed a
little bit too much for this. I was reading plenty of
comments on these three weeks. Basically my job would be to make the business environment in
this community better, and I think the number
one way to do that is to get people aligned. I think leadership comes
from getting entire group of people aligned on a mission. I actually think the most
effective way to do that is to actually understand
each individual person’s goals and objectives and
then come and find that little sweet spot that
is the closest thing to the overall masses that brings value across the board, and then go backwards. What’s the number one thing
that I can do that brings value to all 600 people at Vaynermedia? That brings value to all 12,000 members, and then go down the
list to where the number 10 thing maybe brings value
to half of the people, but it’s still better
than to three people. So, I reverse engineer
by listening upfront, collecting the data, and
then executing against the top 10 things that will
bring value to everybody in the organization.

“with someone who is constantly negative “about entrepreneurship?
And what if it’s your mom?” – Louie, I I think the biggest way
to handle that is to stick it to your mom. I think you go out and you execute, and then you tell your mom I told you so. You were wrong mom. You know what’s great
about entrepreneurship? The market, business, life is it’s a net net gain, meaning at the end of the day,
either your mom’s right or you’re right. She’s negative about
entrepreneurship with you. Louie, she doesn’t think you can do it. I don’t think your mom, over arching doesn’t believe that
entrepreneurship exists or is an option. She just doesn’t believe in you. Now, I’m drilling you right now, because I’m trying to light a fire in your ass to be like, really pissed, the way I get. Nothing excites me more
than the adrenaline that I get. Right now I’m fired up for you Louie. I’m making pretend that I’m you Louie, and I’m so god damn pissed. I wanna literally punch
my mom in the face. That’s how I feel, and so, but like figuratively. I’m not condoning
violence against your mom. My moms my favorite person on earth. My mom is the compete opposite. No one believed in me more or ever will. That being said Louie, she doesn’t not believe
in entrepreneurship. She doesn’t believe that
you’re an entrepreneur. Now the question is back to my self-awareness
content that I’ve been pushing out a lot, maybe she’s right. Maybe you’re delusional. The real question is who else in your ecosystem does believe? And more importantly,
forget about everybody else. This is really the crooks
of the whole damn thing. Do you believe? Right, because I think one of the weird things that has happened in my life that I think has created the scenarios of my existence is I have an incredible ability. I’ve had my whole life to literally tune out every other voice except my own, and I think that it’s
equally a vulnerability. I have no mentors for that reason. I love my parents. I would give them the mentor mantle, but I really don’t. I literally just listen to my own voice, and so if you’re lucky as I am, and I know millions of people are I’m sure to be able to tune out everybody, if you believe you’re an entrepreneur then you’re set. I would argue the fact
that you’re even asking me this question means
that you’ve put weight into your mom’s opinion, which I think needs to be dissected by you to begin with, because I put zero weight into anybody’s opinion about myself because I know exactly who I am.

“if the price is right? “Or do you turn down based on your values “and beliefs?” – This has been interesting. We’ve been having some
interesting situations happening at VaynerMedia
where I would say that East coast and West coast
political correctness bias over certain clients has
been rearing it’s head at VaynerMedia, and I’ve
been really struggling actually quite a bit lately on what, I don’t want to
be the judge and jury of VaynerMedia’s moral
compass on which clients we take and so I’m trying
to figure out if it’s legal in America, should
that be the line in the sand? It’s a great question. We have, I’ve been, this is a really,
really tough question and a great question. We have passed on clients, because of my own personal compass, you know like the Patriots, and we haven’t passed on the Patriots. That’s unfair to them. Though I still hate you Patriots, but I love Vayner Nation Patriot fans. I just hate how you roll with football. The answer is it’s
starting to rear it’s head. America has never been more divided. We have growing offices in middle America which
I think will take away some of the East coast,
West coast mentality. Everybody in this office
is divided on things like, should we not take sugar water? There’s plenty of people in this company that think we shouldn’t. Guns, I mean Jesus especially with the tragic events of yesterday and this
entire year and just like the last several years in America. Alcohol. Tobacco, I mean what if the biggest tobacco company came along to work with Vayner. I think there’s plent of people here that would have a tough time working on it would bow out, wouldn’t
want me to take it on. Is that my, you know, I think I made those
decisions my whole life for me as a person. It’s easy for me. It’s me, I’m accountable to me. I don’t do the sponsored
stuff that I don’t want to. I don’t do any sponsored stuff, but I’ve, for example,
I’ve been thinking a lot about getting a lead
sponsor for the #AskGaryVee show in 2016, because I need and want those dollars to apply to a lot more advertising to
learn more about growth of content online. I need real dollars. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, that’s interesting. I’ve never thought about that before, and never did it with Wine
Library, things of that nature. Would I take any brand? Absolutely not. I think that money is the last thing that drives me, but I also absolutely have no interest in idealistic over political correctness
dictating my decisions, and I think we have that, especially when you
live in New York, L.A., San Francisco, and so I
have to think of things as collective including
a global collective not just the United States of America. That’s my answer.