– Hey, this is David Villa in
Tampa, Florida. I’m the CEO of IPD and hey Gary,
I got a question for you. How do you deal with the sacred
cow with a top performer in your business that generates
a ton of business but is toxic to your
company culture? – Fired! Fired. Fired, David. Fired, David! Does he have anything else? – [India] Eliot and I thought
you were gonna say that. Tox, fired.
– Yep. – Even before he
finished, right? Good guess. Fired. Fired. Fired.
– Yeah. – Fired. – It’s fired.
– It’s fired. – Life is short,– – It’s not even about like
living your best life and life is short.
It’s you lose. Like, you lose. Like you’re just gonna cap out. It’s like math-based marketing. Eventually, you run out of time. And you can only
extract so much. – You know what? It’s like, you
know you have someone like JR Smith on your team and he’s
eventually going to implode and cost you a championship. (crosstalk) – No, no, JR Smith, JR Smith
as the number one on that team. – Yeah. – When the top performer
is toxic, you are finished. – It’s game over, yeah. – The other thing, by the way is you have to be the most, you have to be
the top performer. To me, that is the number one
thing that I’ve always loved about my businesses
which is, I don’t know, I just don’t rely
on anybody. I could never imagine running a
business that I would sit there and say if DRock quit. – He’s scared of that
guy quitting because he’s the top salesperson.
– 100%. – That’s what, I can
see the fear in his eyes. – 100%. – If he wasn’t he’d be like
well, I’ll just do the sales. – He wouldn’t even
ask that question. By the way, in a
car salesman world, there’s a billion
great car salesmen. By the way, in the comments
section if you’re a tremendous car salesman and up for
moving, leave a comment. – Absolutely. – Alright, Jase, you get to
ask the question of the day.

My name is Bryan AKA MindofBun,
I’m on the app Musical.ly and I have a following of
over 600,000 people. Not only that but I’m one of
four Musical.ly reps that live in New York City. So my question is
I don’t know what to do next. I feel like I’m
stuck in a plateau. I don’t know what to do next. I love making these videos,
not only on Musical.ly but I’m also pushing
everybody to YouTube, too. I ask this question because
I have friends who have less followers than me who have
managers and people who I know that have millions of fans who
don’t even have managers or they don’t even know what to do. So, what should I do
next with this following? Do I go out there and look
for companies or brand deals or should I link up with the
manager or what should I do? I put my business email out
there and I’m not always getting emails every day or something. I am patient, I do wait but
lately I just trying to figure out a way to get a source of
income from this because, again, I do love doing this, I love
doing this but at the end of the day I still have my mom
harassing me saying A, are you gonna get
a job or this and that? And yeah, so Gary
what should I do? – Jason, it’s fun to have
you here with this question. Good job by you guys curating
because again we lived through early bloggers getting famous–
– Sure. – then Twitter was really
the first preview to this– – Sure. – where both of us were lucky
enough to be one of those 100, 150 people that
everybody was following. – Sure. – What kind of advice do you
give to, I’m paying a lot of attention to the
Musical.ly stars. – Sure.
– This is the youngest generation of stars
we’ve ever seen. You’re making a joke of
VaynerMedia being young,– – I know. – We’re talking about 9,
10, 11, 12-year-old stars. – Yeah. – Like it’s, it’s Nickelodeon
up in Musical.ly right out. What’s your advice for this? – Well, I mean what
is the goal here? Does the person want to be, do they actually
have any raw talent? Are they actually a musician? Are they actually a singer or
are they just kind of becoming popular for doing– – Do you think that’s possibly
becoming just talent in itself? – That’s a good question. – Like you said that and
I’m debating it myself. – Right. Do you
actually have a skill? So what I think is adding skills to your repertoire like
that can only help you. So if learn an instrument,
if you actually learn to sing then you can kind of
take it to the next level. So when you saw Justin Bieber
on YouTube it was like, “Yeah, he’s a YouTube star but
he actually had core talent.” – No, he was a real talent.
– He was a real talent. Then you look at
somebody like King Bach. – Yes.
– On Vine,– – Yes. – he was the number
one guy for a while. Probably still is.
He actually is funny. – He’s a real comedian.
– He’s a real comedian. – Actor.
– Actor. – Yes.
– He’s a comedic actor. – Yes. – So I think adding skills when
you’re a young person is one thing that this
generation got backwards. – That’s a good point. – They go get the
fame and it’s great. You can hit that lightning in
a bottle but get that skill you can, it can never be
taken away from you. – Yeah, I think networking. I think just even asking this question like, for example,
I’m interested. I’m spending more time in
Musical.ly so let’s get this kid into my office, I want to
meet him for 20 minutes. And you just need to do
that over and over, right? – Yeah. – How many people have been able
to get to you and met for 15 or 30 minutes just by pounding you on social and email
through the last decade? Give me a rough estimate of
numbers because I know– – Over a thousand.
– That’s it. – Over a thousand,
it takes time. – You, right and some people
they email you one time and you gave them 15 minutes and some
people have emailed you 37,000 times and you’ve
never talked to them. – Exactly.
– That’s the punchline. – I look at the quality like I look for people with
skill but that’s me. – But you know this, it’s a
subjective moment in time. – Sure. – Like at that moment
it felt like, right? – Yeah.
– I mean it’s a crap shoot. – Yeah but you know what? It’s a numbers game, if you,
one of the things is I had, I have a portfolio company that
raised money from seven people and they’re like we can’t raise any more money,
it’s not working. I’m like well, how’d
you get the first seven? They’re like well, we
met with a ton of people. I said how many
people did you meet? They said 15. I was like so you can raise
money from 50% of the people you meet with and now you met with
another five, you didn’t get an investor so you’re quitting?
– Soft. – So soft.
– Soft! – You got to do at least 50
meetings and what you do is you take notes after every meeting
and you ask people candidly why did you pass on investing? The way you can help me,
I understand you’re passing, can you just tell me the truth? – Interesting. – Be candid with me
and tell me why I suck. – I love that.
– Or tell me what I need to work on.
You know what? People will do it if you give
them permission to speak freely. – Love it. India,
let’s move it forward. By the way, I’m serious,
I want to meet the kid. Make it happen. – [Jason] Hey-o!
– Manu.

I have a question for you
today is how important were your selling skills as an
entrepreneur and what are the different things that make
you improved as a salesman? Thank you very
much for answering. Love your show.
See ya. – Shu, thank you so
much for loving the show. I love you back. I think my salesmanship
was the first raw talent that I understood in my life. It has been the
bedrock of my existence. The unbelievable reason that
VaynerMedia is what it is today has a lot to do
with salesmanship. It is massively important when
you actually, it’s really funny when you actually sell something having sales skills is
extremely important. So many of you are going to fail
in your business because you underestimate salesmanship as a core tenet when you’re
trying to sell something. Many of you make the nicest
thing, the coolest thing, it’s why artists starve
’cause they can’t sell. Like selling is real. I think it’s been an enormous
part and I think the thing that’s made me better
through my career is experience. You know, like experience is a
real thing like us youngsters we want to think it’s not.
(laughter) You know what’s funny,
I put us youngsters because I think of you
as a great youngster. At 22, 23 I thought
I was it, right? I guess I look at it as like
basketball players, ’cause Dunk I know you love it, they become
better shooters as they like as they, they become craftier, they
become more experienced and the guys that are all-time you’ll
notice their game evolves, you know, through their careers
because they can’t rely just on their athletics anymore. They’ve gotta become crafty. They gotta be able to shoot. I mean I would say LeBron,
LeBron to me could have easily been the best all-time player,
he never got his jump shot developed the way that
Jordan and Kobe did. He’s a different type of
player but if his jump shot was unstoppable right
now, forget it. And his three point range has
gone down in his career instead of up and by the way I’m the
biggest LeBron guy of them all but to me imagine if LeBron,
Andy I saw you react to this. I don’t know if you, you got
something to say about this? – I mean his jump shot
is definitely improved, he does hit the jump shot. – [Gary] It hasn’t improved, his three point percentage
was down last year. It improved from early on. Yeah, it was down last year. And I think it’s
gonna continue to go. It hasn’t improved, it improved from like the
beginning but like– – [Andy] He was only taking ones
he only thought he could hit. – [Gary] And he’s
such a complete, you know what’s
tough to analyze? To that point, it’s tough to
analyze LeBron because he’s such a all-around player. He doesn’t need to score but
anyway nonetheless, the bottom line is the 22-year-old me would
be disappointed right now if he saw the 40-year-old me in
salesmanship because he would realized, huh, he’s picked up
some shit along the way that I did have just from
my natural skills. So the answer is unbelievably
and if you’re watching right now and you were building a business
and you are not a natural born salesperson or are great at it
and you are self-aware enough to know that you need to either get
a family member AKA these guys like really in your inner
circle that are gonna be there long-term and allow them to
or even bring in a partner, it is that important and if
you’re a good salesperson never allow yourself to not
continue to learn. Try different tactics,
do different things. Experience has made me better. – [Eliot] I like where
this show’s going.

– What’s up GaryVee? Coach Kozak here and I just
like to get your thoughts on friendships of a fellow hustler,
grinder out here in the shed 24/7 working.
– I like the shed. – And I want to know at this
point in time in your life and your career do
even make time– – I want a shed. – just to have those couple of
friends that are always nagging me throughout the day. Asking me if I’ve seen
this TV show or that TV show. I’m mean at what point are just
being rude or do you have to just tell these guys to, “Hey I don’t have
time for friends today.” – Look I love my friends and
I actually wish I spent more time with my friends. I mean the fact of the matter is
during the day outside of Jets friends during Jets season
I don’t communicate with anybody about anything until that day’s
wrapped up and I’ll catch up. You know, I think way too many
people are trying to be cool. What the name? Jonathan?
– [Dunk] Joshua. – Joshua, I think too many
people are trying to be cool and being like, “Yo, I don’t got
time for fucking ‘House of Cards’,” or like
following the life. I don’t think there’s any, ever a time to like
rag on your friends. I think in my mind I rag on my
friends because but to actually I want to be polite
and I want to give them love. I think it’s super important
to be empathetic to a million different lifestyles and if
anything I’m trying to work hard as a matter of fact I think
I emailed Tyler the other day and I think I’m seeing a bunch
of my high school friends in the city next Thursday
or this Thursday. You know, I don’t know. I mean like they’re your
friends for a reason, right? I think a lot of people are
struggling with the definition between friends
and acquaintances. I think acquaintances that want
you to watch “Game of Thrones” and play fucking Madden I think
if you really want something bad are probably an interesting thing to cut out or
navigate around. I think friends you need to be
there for all the time and try to fight for those relationships
because that brings as much value as building the
biggest business in the world.

DRock or whoever is editing
this please hook me up with my Twitter handle,
I appreciate that. My question to you Gary is I’ve
just headhunted for position at Facebook but I’m currently
running a small but growing digital marketing agency in the
UK called KPS Digital Marketing do I stop what I’m doing with my
agency and get some one else to manage it and then go and
work at Facebook to get the experience or do I ignore the
position at Facebook and carry on hustling and doing what
I’m doing with my growing digital marketing agency? – [Gary] Daniel,
that’s a personal question. – I appreciate your answer. – That’s a personal question. I can’t answer that for you. You need to know who you
are and what you’re about. My intuition is anybody that
even questions to leave their own business to
go work at a company should go work at that company. Cory Gregory here just
pulled up to the gym,

– GaryVee, thank you for
taking this question, man. Your friend Gus Fernandez
from Orlando, Florida. I appreciate it, big fan. Here’s my question. The entrepreneurship Hall of
Fame just called, you’re getting inducted man in 2025 but they need to know what
the plaque is going to read. Let us know and which
hat are you gonna wear? Are you gonna have the hat
that says CEO, NFL owner, what? Let us know man. You’re the man.
Thanks. – Gus it would be a
picture with a B on it. My hat would have a B on it
and it would say Honey Emperor. – [Garrett] For what? – I want to build
a honey empire. I want to be known as an
entrepreneur 20, 30, 40 years from now that this was the guy
that came along and he built $1 trillion empire on the way
he interacted with his people. He created a true insular,
you know it’s funny, once in while when
people first kinda meet me they’re like
and for real in a good way they’re like,
“Are you building a cult?” They’re like razzing me a
little but there actually really weirdly like I just
really love leadership. I really love people winning. I love winning and I just
generally believe that I can win and you can win. We all different ambitions and
different wants and if one wants to go and then go do their
thing Mozel Tov, go do it. Go win. Shit, do you know how
interesting it would be for me if somebody left here, if
Garrett left here and created G-Squared Media it started
beating VaynerMedia. I’d be like my God, kudos fuck
I want to kill him but like you know like kudos. Have nothing but
respect for the game. Honey Empire. I’m going to like this is what
I’ve always had difficulty with how much Steve Jobs has
been put on a pedestal. Cool, you invented awesome
shit but extracting value out of people by making them cry and
pushing them to that place it’s just Star Wars shit. You know the Force is slightly
better than the Dark Side. Just slightly and
that I’m fascinated by. And I want to build something,
what do you think this is about? What do you think this is about? It’s about the woman I just met
in the lobby who works in this new building that stopped
me and said, “I work here. “I’m sorry to grab you. “I found out about you. “Everybody that’s working here “has been talking
about your videos. “I watched it. “I’m inspired,
I’m gonna do my own thing.” I can make money. I can get fame and a lot,
I coulda did a TV show like, I could have been on
Top Chef back in the wine day. It was the number one
fuckin’ show on TV. I could have been famous then. Way more famous than I am
right now eight years later. Legacy, changing the game like
creating the framework for so many of you out there to look up
to and aspire to to build your honey empire so that good
can win ’cause that’s good. That’s just good for all of us.

– Like a shop, like a shop.
The shop has no shot. – [India] I knew you were gonna say that so
I put in this question. Just kidding. So why is
VaynerSports different? – Because AJ’s starting the
foundation and I trust AJ. What happens is you evolve
is, and this is very much why VaynerMedia is important. The level of understanding that
I have about the four people in this room, DRock, India, Garrett
and Dunk varies given how long they’ve been around but boy is that the reason
I’m gonna be successful. Where as in the past I tried to
do business with other people and they’ve been amazing and by
the way for Kyle and Lindsay and for all the other characters I’ve jammed with
it’s been my fault. I’ve overpromised
and under-delivered. Not happy for me, not excited
but what I learned was I don’t have the bandwidth. I thought I could do everything. I can’t do everything and so
what you need to do is have people that can do everything or
a lot and allow me to do magic on top of it and look
Vaynermedia in two years did 3 million. I sold those clients but
AJ knew how to farm it. I can do the hunting and then
when I decided to do everything, 3 to 100 happens in
a heartbeat, right? So I think that that’s what
I’m looking for and I’m trying understand there’s a lot of
people now I trust in here. I can open a lot of businesses
but I want to know be smart about this and things of that nature and
so that’s the difference. – [India] Cool. Think his name is Randy. – That’s down to self-awareness
and delegation but realizing that you can’t, when you’re an
entrepreneur you’re the most optimistic person on Earth. You can’t deploy that optimism
against somebody else that’s driving and so what you need
is context and to be able to delegate to a known
entity within your ecosystem. Investing allows me to bet on
things that I don’t control. I don’t need to do that with
my own businesses anymore.