“that is growing fast, is it more important “to perfect the system and process “or focus on adding more
people to the team?” – Jared it’s a good question. I’m a big fan of both. I don’t understand why
not both, I do both. As building VaynerMedia, I
was perfecting the system while hiring people and training them up and building out the team. This is not an either,
or my man and this is where I think people struggle. To really be victorious, I
think you need to be able to do both at the same time. That’s what separates the
women from the girls right? The ability to be able to do
both things at the same time and by the way that’s
where hustle comes in. Because you know what, to
do both you’ve gotta kind of integrate the team nine to five
while kind of spending five ’till like two in the morning
to perfect the system. This is where hustle matters. This is where extra hours
in the day actually matter because you can’t get to both
actually, like physically, you can’t get to both and
so in a nine hour work day. So if you’ve gotta business
that’s growing fast, first question is are you
actually deploying 18 hours a day because remember too
many of you have missed or are gonna miss your moment in time. When it’s happening, when it’s happening if you don’t triple pedal down,
that’s pedal on the metal, like foot on the pedal, if
you don’t go all the hell in, all of it, if you don’t
do that at that moment you will regret. You have missed your moment in time and that is why I’m burning the
candle from both sides right now because everything is
hitting a proper crescendo as I’m going into my 40th
birthday in November. VaynerMedia, Vayner/RSE my fund, cruising, just cruising and the
#AskGaryVee Show cruising you know just, family life and
health, I mean, cruising and so I’ve gotta push harder
because you know what at 42 I mean it might
just be that break and that moment in time where
things aren’t cruising as much and so you’ve gotta extract,
you’ve gotta extract all the value when you’re
hitting that point. You’ve gotta live it,
you just have to live it. As a matter of fact, for all
of you that in your senior year of high school that are watching
your show, squeeze the crap out of that ’cause it’s the best. And college, you’ve gotta
squeeze everything all the time and especially this
question really hits a nerve because I want people to
understand the answer is both.

“You always say that people pay
for services that give time. “What area needs a timesaving
business like an Uber?” – Sam, I don’t know all of them. For example, I would absolutely pay for my clone to do this show right now so I could be in the meeting that I really have to be in, right? Obviously that’s a little
farfetched and a little faraway, but I think there’s a ton of things. I think I would pay a
lot of money right now to have somebody on
demand do certain things for my grandma in her
retirement home, right? Picking up my cleaners. Obviously there’s the Postmates and people that are saving
time, but I actually think, I got a good one for you. I’m gonna go deep here a little bit, even though I’m a little bit of a rush and I clearly am talking a
little faster than normal, so all of you, so for all of you that are
listening to this on 2x speed, let’s 4x this shit, here we go. When Facebook really hit and
MySpace was still leading, like kind of leader, everybody started creating
niche social networks, right? Niche social networks. I would have invested in
the baseball social network, the gardening social network, the Goth museum social network, like, I’m kidding. I really, really, the niches were happening, right? What it turned out to be, hindsight, was we only needed one social network. I actually think the
reverse is gonna happen for the timesaving economy. Meaning, there’s Postmates and there was all these kind
of, like, “We do everything.” I actually think this is gonna be a space where people win on niching out. So, like, a dry cleaner pickup thing. Shyp, S-H-Y-P, I’m obsessed with. We got a little money in in our last fund disclosure for Shyp, no, not a lot, but boy, do I love them because nobody wants to
go to the post office, so I think that’s an incredible one. You know, I think there’s, look, I’ll give you one, like,
“I don’t wanna go shopping,” like, “Come to me here at Vayner. “Let me put on some shoes
and pants real fast, “five minutes, and I’m out.
I will buy so much more.” So, personal shopping
coming here, big one. There’s Instacart, so there’s food. Literally, anything you do, any, like, Question of the Day. List two things that you
do that you hate doing. That’s in play. ‘Cause you hate doing it because you’d rather
be doing something else and that’s where the time arbitrage is and so, you know, gardening,
hanging pictures in your house, like, just everything. Just everything is gonna be arbed. Anything a human doesn’t
want to do is in play. I’m trying to think of
one more good example. Anybody got one that popped to their mind? – [Staphon] Laundry. – [Gary] No, but laundry’s-
– They’d come in and hit it. – No. No, no. Get back
to here. Staphon, no, no, There’s nothing that’s
a singular app right now that literally you press a button and you give somebody a bag, like, how about you don’t even put a bag? How about they walk into your
house and take your pile? Because we’re living
in a more open society where trust is a real play. We’re letting people stay in our home. Wait a minute. You’re telling me that somebody wouldn’t leave
their door open and let, and just put a pile of,
this is what I would do. Put a pile of clothes in the front and somebody could come
with a key and get it in a world where Airbnb, you’re letting people stay in your home? Trust is on the rise, my friends, ’cause transparency is on the rise. Getting harder to hide
and do the wrong thing. Very, very interesting times.

“In your mid-twenties, do you
wish you had done more things “or focused more on one thing?” – Great question, Yule. In my mid-twenties, I
focused on one thing. I actually was completely
all in on Wine Library. There was nothing else. I’ve said in the show before
that I wish I went out and hooked up with some more
chicks and had fun some fun. That was one thing I wish
I did because I was so, you wanna talk about being
focused on one thing, as a 20-year-old guy in my twenties, it’s actually uncomfortable
how focused I was on the hustle and building the
infrastructure of my career. You know, I think at some
level when you look back, you’re always, you know, I’m equally, this is where I’m like a paradox. I’m equally completely pumped
’cause look how happy I am and those were great
times and I’m happy now, like I would never change anything. At the same token, you’re
always looking back, and be, like, “Ah,
damn, I could have this, “I could have done that.” Yule, I’m pretty happy with
the way things have played out. I don’t like to play
Monday morning quarterback with my life, but I think it served me well. I learned real foundational
skills of how to run a company. It’s why I’m hyper focused
and why I’m capable now to run a company while
doing a couple more things ’cause I know what it takes,
which is serious focus, but once in a while,
you jump in into a show when you didn’t have to. And so that’s where I’m at with that. Thanks for the question, Yule.

“if at all, should a brand
not use social media?” – Steve.
– [Steve] Chad. – Chad.
(all laughing) Chad, great question. You know, the funny thing is, is all that social media is is another, first of all, social media is a term, a slang term for the current state of the Internet right now. The term we used only
six or seven years ago was “web 2.0 sites.” Now we call them “social media sites.” We may call them something
else in the future, “mobile native,” “virtual this,” but there’s always a term to talk about the 20 to 30 sites that matter. Social media sites
happen to mean the sites that people actually go to, the apps that people actually go to in a mobile first world, which is what we live in now, and so people are confused if there’s something, if there is a thing called social media. There isn’t. I mean, anything that’s
a content site now, anything that, like, people refer to podcasts as social media. It’s just a term of relevancy, and so it’s a communication portal, right? And there are some high,
high, high end brands that think if they’re on Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook that they cheapen their brand equity. I would say Apple, right? Apple is a brand that does very little. I still think they’re doing
basically nothing on social, or at least, definitely not on Twitter, I don’t think, right? So, you know, look, do I think that there is a place where
brands should not do it? Only if it’s a shtick. If it’s a very well-thought-out, “we are so exclusive, we’re
going against the grain,” and they make it part
of their overall thing, that they emphasize in other
channels of communication their lack of being there. It may position to a small group that is anti-establishment, that they think that’s cool, but more and more, what
people need to recognize is that social media is going through a legitimacy curve right now. Over the next five to ten years, this will be the establishment. Facebook and Twitter and Pin, well, I don’t know about
Twitter, I’m worried, but Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat, they’re gonna be the establishment. It’s like banner ads
or the Internet itself. It’s just gonna be the
establishment, my friends, and so I think eventually, that’s going to run out. If you wanna sell something,
you need to be able to communicate to the world, and if everybody’s eyes and ears are in a certain place
called the Internet, I think you need to be there, and I think you have a tough argument to justify the upside versus the downside of not communicating in the portals where people are living. Ben. Oh, I know Ben Phillips.

“integrity in the
communications industry?” – Dylan I want to too
and I think the answer is there absolutely is but I
think that there’s integrity, there’s very little integrity
in every single market, advertising, politics, sports, music. The reason integrity is so
attractive is it’s so hard. It’s far and few between and
integrity’s defined differently by everybody and I think
it’s interesting to watch. I actually think society
is giving people more room to be flawed, which is intriguing. I think the level of
integrity, the way integrity is viewed upon today I
think is in a much better place than it was by society
let’s say 50 years ago because I think we’re
now factoring in that nobody’s perfect and we’re making mistakes even by standards like
drugs and relationships and cheating, like intense
stuff, I think there’s an interesting evolution and I think that that’s allowed for a
little bit more gray and a little bit more if you’re
really on your high horse creating a scenario where
you judge integrity. But I think in a lot of ways
there’s plenty of integrity. I think there’s a ton of
integrity out there still. I’ve been saying this
a lot lately, I said on another video, are we gonna bang out that video that I did earlier today? – [Voiceover] Which one, we did four. – Yeah I know, the last one we did. – [Voiceover] The Twitter one? – Yeah, Staphon’s working on it? – [Voiceover] Yup. – In there I say, no I think
it was a different one. – [Voiceover] It was the other one. – It was in another one, I screwed up. But, I’m a big fan of this
thing that’s on my mind right now which is you find
what you’re looking for. You know, I see integrity everyday. Everyday and I think it’s
because I look for it and I look half glass full,
like this is Niagra Falls to me. Like this is a very full
glass and I think that plenty of people can see plenty
of what’s missing. I think that’s as much on you my man as it is on what’s actually
happening in the marketplace.

how do you keep your people motivated? – Tommy, thanks for the great question. Obviously, being one of the
great managers of all time this answer’s gonna come
very easy to you and very natural, I think you’ll get it. I spend a lot of time
thinking about motivation and I think the key for me is I try to motivate in a couple of ways. Number one by example,
I think my actions will always speak louder than my words so how I carry myself, how I interact
with everybody, how I live my life as a man I
think really matters as an executive, as a person, I think
everyone’s always watching. But I also think I equally
try to reverse engineer every single individual person, right. They’re just all different,
they all have different KPIs, different objectives,
they’re in different parts of their lives, some are married
some just had kids, some are trying to make more
money, some don’t want to have four roommates in
Brooklyn, so they’re grinding. So everybody’s got a
different thing and I think what’s important for me to
motivate is to do a great job listening to what makes
them tick, both when I have the few moments with them in person. Alex, get over here for a second. Let’s do a real life example
on the #AskGaryVee Show. Alex, what motivates you,
what are you excited about? – What am I excited about? In life? – Yeah, what motivates you in life? – I just like doing cool
(beep), that’s it pretty much. I want to be successful
and just do cool (beep), that’s basically why I’m here so you know. – Cool man, alright, get out of here. So, Alex is easy, he just
wants to do cool (beep). So that’s easy, we do tons of cool (beep). He’s check, he’s good, he’s motivated. And you go on and on and on and you try to figure out, was he
scared that he was on camera and is that the real
answer, like are they really gonna tell me the truth,
they never tell me the truth usually upfront, few and
far between and so it’s a constant behavioral HR driven reverse engineering what they care about. India and I had a pretty
intense conversation about her future ambitions,
remember you wanted to be the head of social
media for museums. I take that very seriously,
like I know these things about my peeps, this is
even before India was on the inner circle of this team, like I I remembered it
better than you did. – Yeah, that’s true, you did it’s true. – So I take enormous, you don’t get to be a great all time leader without being
a great all time leader. There’s a lot of work that
gets put into being good at what I do and I’m very,
very up to the challenge and so it’s predicated on an
enormous amount of listening which is why I’m such a
paradox because boy do I (beep) love to talk but the amount
of listening that I’m actually doing always surprises
people when they start going a couple of layers deeper so
the answer to your question is I motivate, Tommy, by
figuring out what every single person is ticked and wired like and what makes them roll and I also recognize that that changes every
single day and they have four to seven, twelve
milestone things that happen in their lives,
which will change the trajectory of their
ambitions, wants, hopes, and dreams and I need to be prepared for every single one of those
for all of them forever. – [Voiceover] Dylan asks “Do you
still believe that there’s

“How can you claim family first, “but work 19 hours a day? “How can you be a good dad dash hubby, “and rarely be home?” – Yeah, so this is a great question, and I like the zing of
the hashtag at the end, what’s the name? – [India] His name is Ryan. – Ryan, let me explain
something to you, partner, and everybody else who asks
me about this question. This is a very legit question, and so I’m not angry or
looking to zing back, because you’re right. This has a lot to do with decisions that my wife and I have made about the way I storytell my life versus the way I
storytell my private life. You know, I look at things
in net gain form, right? For example, let’s just ask my phone, this is actually very convenient. Didn’t even think about this, because I didn’t really
know the questions today. Let’s just, let’s just zoom it in, DRock. Let’s just zoom in where
I was this morning, because I worked out at 6, right? You tell me when. And you may not be able to pull it off. You think you’re gonna
be able to pull it off? – [Voiceover] Can you hold it closer? – I can.
– [Voiceover] A little bit more.
– Yep. – [Voiceover] Yep, and, there we are.
– Good. So look. Look at this. Ha, ha, ha. I went to the kindergarten
play today, right? I went to the kindergarten play, as a matter of fact I was
there half an hour early to be first in line at the
kindergarten play this morning. And, you know, look, oh look, look at this stuff that I never share, and this one you’re gonna
have to blur out DRock, because this is the
point of the answer, but, here we go, let’s just see
the last couple of videos that we’re taken. Oh look, look at these videos. Look at these videos of,
you know, kids, singing. You know, kids singing. Yeah, kids. My friends, here’s what
this one comes down to, and I have enormous
amounts of empathy and self awareness to why
this question is asked all the time when I
talk about 19 hour days, and when I’m,
DRock and I and Staphon put out a
day in the life video, and it shows all this, and nobody wants to envy it, I’m playing in extremes. First and foremost, when there are important events like this, you know, the kind of things
that my dad never came to, because he set the foundation to it, I’m there, I’m at the play, I’m at the recital, and I’m at this, I’m there. On weekends, I am all in. All in my friends, all
in on weekends, right? I’m not playing four hours
of golf like a lot of you. I’m not doing a lot of other things that a lot of people are doing, I’m all in on the kids, right? Then, I’m taking, oh I don’t know, seven weeks of vacation, which is probably in the ballpark of four, five weeks more than you, right? More than you, which is high quality time, all in, every second, and so, yes, maybe I’m playing Monday through Friday, you know, 40 weeks a year, at an
intensity that’s different, but, I have found
my cadence, my rhythm, my balance with my
spouse and my children, predicated on playing it that way, and I’m finding a lot of
quality time with them in these extremes, and so, you know, I think, I never judge or ask or tell anybody how to raise their family or do their thing. The other thing I’ve decided is, unlike a lot of my contemporaries, and a lot of social media experts, who, I don’t think exploit their kids on social networks, but I
would say are intriguing about being so obsessed with
getting likes and hearts that they know that when
they use their cute kids, they get more, it’s kind of, I’ve been in many conversations, sitting right here at conferences, I’m right here, but I’m listening always, you know, because that’s how I roll, and I’m doing my thing, and I’ve heard many people talk about strategies around how, oh
put your kids and stuff, you’ll get more likes. I’m like, really? So, you know, I’ve chosen, my wife has chosen, we have chosen, to, you know, as you guys know, there
are very few pictures or any kind of public pictures
of my wife or my kids, it’s just what’s comfortable to us, so I’m very self aware about the rationale to
why people may question my ability to be a good dad or do my thing, the other part of this answer is, Misha and Xander are 3 and 6, this is the system, and they were 2 and 5 five seconds ago, and, (mouth noises) You know, as things evolve, as they’re in softball and soccer, and football, and this and that, you know, I’ll adjust, and my schedules will change, and you know, a big thing in 2016 I’ve been
giving a lot of thought to is coming home every day at 5pm for 30, 40 minutes to eat or bathe, and so I’ll adjust, and I’ll try, and I’ll hustle and I’ll work, and I’ll continue to always
struggle with work-life balance, given my happiness and my ambition, my selfishness around work, however, there are a lot
more things going on here than just the things you’re
making assumptions on, rightfully so, given the
content that I’m putting out, but that’s why even that video we talked about and ended with, and big ups to Alex on
our team to push this, which really made that video whole, which was that’s me, do you, and so, I feel super cozy about the time allocation, I would also argue, my friend, about quality, because
plenty of people work 9 to 5, come home, drink a beer, watch TV, play video games, and
spend, oh I don’t know, six seconds yelling at
their kids to do homework, and so, there’s quantity, which, you know, I like to think I’m maybe playing a good game on extremities, and then there’s also quality, like you know, actually
having a relationship, like actually having a conversation, actually spending quality time, actually looking them in the eye, actually, actually, actually, so, that’s my answer to
that question, friends. – [Voiceover] Euan asked,

“to have successful business meetings in? “Conference room, restaurant, in flight?” – RD, for me, I’m looking to do these meetings anywhere possible at all times. I will sell and biz dev, and make the action happen on a flight, on a toilet, in the office, outside, at a ballgame, walking the halls, in the bathroom, I don’t give a crap, I said bathroom twice. Think about that, that is like, that is where my mindset is on this, which is I will go anywhere inappropriate. I will go, I would go anywhere. You wanna meet at, you know, you wanna meet at a funeral
parlor to close a deal? I’m interested, just
give me the directions, I’ll be there in a minute. So I think, to me, it
doesn’t matter where it is, or how it goes down, I’m comfortable in all
environments and business settings. You know, conference rooms, you know, are fine, I don’t have a problem with that either, I don’t want to be cool
and do it anywhere, like, I’m just, I’m
really up for whatever, when it comes to closing a business deal or doing some biz dev, and so, not some cool place like a coffee shop, not some sterile old school place, like a conference room, literally everything in between, just anywhere. – [India] You’re about
to get a meeting invite

Hey Gary, great show. Totally obsessed. My favorite thing now,
ahead of Game of Thrones. Anyway, here’s a question for you. If you had a business or a blog or a personal brand or a book, how would you get more people to know about you and to buy that? How would you get results? I guess at the end of the
day, Gary, I’m asking you how would you get results? Thanks, love the show. Gary, great question. Looking great, by the way. (giggles) Ya know, one of the things I haven’t talked about on the show a lot, I’ve talked about it a little bit, and I saw people get value from it in that local, small
business biz to dev thing is the gross underestimation
of distribution in a JV, joint venture environment. There are so many of you on this show with businesses that
have locked so heavily into social media, ’cause
that’s how you view me, as the way to get distribution, you have left some of the
greatest opportunities on the table including if you are not hitting up the
top 100 blogs in your space, if you’re selling cupcakes, and you literally aren’t
spending the time to figure out what the top 100 cupcake content
sites are on the internet, and then sending an e-mail and saying, “Hey, I’m India from India’s Cupcake Shop. “I love reading your site, Cupcake Daily,” This is me, typing the e-mail. “I love reading your site, Cupcake Daily. “I’m very passionate. “Here’s my site. “Here’s my Instagram. “I would love to write for you once a week “on new sprinkles concepts or
on decorations that matter. “I will give you my labor for free, “and what you’ll give me is
distribution and awareness.” If you don’t realize that, ya know, it’s like Kendrick Lamar. Did anybody pay attention
to what Kendrick Lamar did? If you don’t know who Kendrick Lamar is, he’s a rapper, an artist, and he went on to a lot of other albums as he was starting to get a little fame. He leveraged that to get on, and he came in trying to kill it on, like he basically went on everybody’s track and he tried to be so much better than the persons whose song it was that everybody was listening be like, “Oh shit, that guy’s dope. “Like, I’m gonna check him out.” That’s what India, the cupcake lady, wants to do on Cupcake Daily. Oh, crap, that was such a good thought. Let me follow that. And so, in the earliest
earliest earliest days of me building my brand,
I went on wine blogs and wrote blog posts to contribute, and because I had the chops, ya know, Kendrick spits incredible lyrics, India writes about incredible toppings, and I talked about
incredible things about wine that people hadn’t thought about, that gave me the ammo for my
work to have a positive ROI. The truth is a lot of you
don’t wanna put in the work because the output of your content in video form, in audio
form, in written form, isn’t good enough. You just aren’t good enough. What you’re selling, they’re not buying, and the quickest way to find out is to actually go on a road show, put in the 40 hours a day
to get yourself into places where you, why can’t you
e-mail all 500 people on YouTube that have
some level of audience and ask them to be
interviewed on their show? Or to be part of it? Why can’t you? Why can’t you ask? Why can’t you ask? Why can’t you ask? That, my friend Gary,
is what you need to do. If you’ve got something to sell, you need to go and knock on doors, right? Ya know, you gotta know how to build ’em and walk through them. You gotta knock on doors,
and you’ve gotta ask like, “Can I guest contribute to your world? “Can I write a blog post? “Can I just show up and like?” How do I bring value to what you need because all these people that have homes that have audiences, they need more content to feed them. Content costs money, so people
coming in and contributing, it’s the ultimate kind of leverage deal. You come and you write for
me for free ’cause I need it, ’cause I need to keep feeding
the kids I have in the room, and you need kids for
what you’re gonna do, and that is something that 99.999999999 of you are absolutely not doing enough of. Putting in the work to get in front of
audiences to be discovered. Putting out a picture on
Instagram and holding your breath and hoping somebody’s gonna see it ’cause you used a (censored)
hashtag isn’t enough. Go out and take it, and
that, my friend Gary, is what you should do if you
want something to happen. Two minutes.

So I audited myself, and I’m
taking in serious consideration that I just might be a two or a three. My question is, man, is if I am, do I need to go get my college degree? Like what, how do I put
myself in that position? Because I really don’t know how to, I only know how to make doors. I don’t know how to walk through them, if you know what I mean, and ya know I’m all EQ and no IQ, so if
I have to go get my degree, that’s gonna suck. – Charlie, great question. I’m super into this. I think if you’ve audited yourself and you feel like, ya know, you need to have, you
need to attach yourself to a leader, a CEO, a
number one, a founder, and you can be a supporting cast member because I guess making doors
not walking through them maybe you, I don’t know, but maybe you understand
the tangible execution, not the architecture. Maybe you’re the greatest
mason in the world, and you need just a really solid
architect to be successful. I would say it has nothing
to do with getting a diploma. It has everything to do with if you’ve been auditing yourself, and you started with,
“I’ve audited myself,” which I appreciate, and you know, for anybody who’s watching this who doesn’t understand auditing themselves and I’m a number two or three, these are themes that
I’ve been talking about in the first 105, 106 episodes of the show which is if you know yourself,
you have self-awareness, you have a real chance to succeed. I would tell you, Charlie,
that you don’t need to get a degree unless
you wanna go latch up to a number one that values that degree, and the truth is you’ve
already lost that game because if that number one values it, they’re gonna wanna go with
somebody who’s got a degree from clearly, in my opinion,
based on the vibe of the video, comes from a better school
than you would go to. Take it from me, I mean
Mount Ida College isn’t like rolling up any like
unbelievable excitement for anybody who’s an educator. And so I would tell you your journey, your focus should be finding a number one who shares your DNA and philosophy. You guys can be similar, and
she could just be an architect and an incredibly strong leader, where you could be that support system. So find her, find him, find the number one that is the match to you. Not find the number one
that you clearly think society has created. To me, more number ones
actually look like you on paper, so I actually think you’ll
be able to find that. I think number twos, when
they’re not the straight man or the straight woman,
when there’s still also a little bit of magic,
a little EQ over IQ, make great number twos. I still think one and two
in that play is great. I think three, four, five,
six, somewhere along the line, you need that straight,
really straight person, and so your job is to really go out and find that person. Find that number one that
matches your skill set, that matches your philosophy,
that you can really jam with. Find your number one.