“within yourself, how do you determine “whether to delegate or to strengthen it?” – Cory, I love this question because I really don’t
know the full answer and I’m not sure anybody does. I think that’s a question that we all have to answer for ourselves. You know, I always talk
about betting on strengths, but there’s clearly been
weaknesses that I’ve created at least a nice baseline, a foundation. As a matter of fact, one of the weaknesses I’ve been working on
for the last 36 months, especially in building Vayner,
and I give AJ, my brother, a lot of credit for this,
is leading with a little bit more reality than
over-honeying the situation. I’m such a positive
dude that a lot of times I don’t think I was clear
enough with negative feedback or critical feedback to
an employee or a teammate because I was hedging too much, I was like, “You’re the best! “This is all great! “Don’t worry! “But maybe you should…” You know, I’ve been a
little bit more direct, and that’s a weakness
that I’ve strengthened, no question about it, because
I thought it was important, and because I felt like
it was a couple inches off and just by moving it a little bit. Does that mean that I’m, like, the scary guy in the building? I mean, I’m like the least
scary guy in the building outside of the reputation of who I am or being the CEO of a company, but once people get to
know me a little bit, like, I’m the pushover that
way because I am positive, but I think that, look. I would say this is an
80 20 rule answer to me. I truly still believe,
minimumly, that you need to spend 80% of your time on your strengths, and if you want to
allocate 20% of your time to audit, you know, I would actually just do a whole lot of listening. I would actually ask the
people you work with, the people that work for you, the people you work for, your
friends and contemporaries, the people that are closest to you, the 10 closest people to
you, friends and relatives on what they think you could work on. They’re a mirror to that. You may take a step back. It might hurt. You’ve got to roll with
humility and empathy if you want to address this, and then you can start
addressing those 20%, because a lot of times the
reason we can’t address something is because we can’t see it, and the best way to see it is
through other people’s eyes, and you know, it’s funny. The best way to see it is to
use your own ears, actually. It’s kind of interesting,
there’s something there. India, we need to go long forum on that. And that’s that. – Hey Gary, it’s Sean McCabe. I just wanted to say thanks
so much for doing your show.

– [Voiceover] Christopher
asks, “What are your thoughts “on employing friends?” – Christoper, this is a great question for a lot of people who watch my stuff. They make that connection on
the family business thing. I get enormous amounts
of, excuse me, email from people that are
the sons and daughters of business owners because
they knew my narrative now that I’m running Vayner with AJ, I’m getting some more
brother and sister stuff, and I’m getting a little older. I’m even getting some of the perspective from the dads and the moms. I have employed friends at both Wine Library and VaynerMedia. VaynerMedia was started with
five of AJ’s dear friends that I think the number
one advice I’d say is you should absolutely. I’m emphatic about this, and you guys know I’m big on, you know,
do what works for you, but I’m a huge fan of hiring friends, especially early on, to establish culture, to have those teammates in the trenches, especially if you’re willing
to practice meritocracy. So the key to friends is that,
here we are five years later, and AJ’s five to six high
school and college friends that started the company with us are in different places
within the organization and not really treated any
differently at the highest levels than anybody else, and very honestly, I hope they’re not listening
or watching the show, they may even be treated
slightly harder and worse than everybody else because
I’m so sensitive to it in the other direction. I expect the six of you not
to hit me up for a raise. I think that I’m a big fan of it. I recommend it. It is risky. I have fired my friends in the past. Brandon was my best friend growing up. He runs Wine Library. Risky. You know, it really comes
down to, here’s my belief. My belief is very simple. If you loose a friendship
from somebody working for you and not working out and
you having to fire them or them leaving, then your friendship wasn’t as strong as you thought. That’s the bottom line.

– [Voiceover] Harold asks,
“Will you force your children “to partake in the business like your dad? “Will you be disappointed
if they don’t want to?” – My dad never forced me. You know, you hear a story of my dad, I’ve said it, “My dad forced
me into the business!” He forced me into the business
as a 14 year old child. Child labor, Dad. AJ never worked at Wine Library. I think one summer, if
you’re listening or watching, AJ, I know you worked there one summer. (people laughing) But, you know, he never
worked in the business. I think that, you know, for my parents, look I was a crap-student, and I was a great salesman as a kid. There was such a natural
segue to the impact that my mom fully believed in, and she was closest to the situation. I have no, I’m weird with this issue, man. First of all, I’m a dark dude. Can we go black-and-white on this? Can we go black-and-white,
and darker on the black? Really?
– [DRock] Yeah. – Cool. I’m a dark dude. You know how they tell you not to compete with your children? That’s, like, a top-five flaw in society. That will not be something
I’m successful in. Kids, Misha, Xander, I’m sorry. I’m overdue. Xander is two-and-a-half years old, he has a basketball set
up in the living room; and I’ve blocked every
one of his shots, so far. To the point where he picks up a ball, if I’m in the room, he starts crying, he goes, “No block!” “No!” like this is what Xander does. Even if I’m, like, 10 minutes away because he knows what’s coming, which is he’s not scoring
until he can score. I am fine. I love my kids unconditional. If they’re schlemiels and
can’t sell water in desert well, then that’s just
the way it ended up being. Right, like, Lizzie and I
had sex at the wrong moment if that’s somethin’ I cared about. That’s what it is. So, I just want them to
focus on their strengths. I wanna put them in a position to succeed. I think financially and connections-wise, there’s a very good chance
that that’s gonna happen. You know, you do the best you can. Very much the way I’m gonna parent has a lot to do with the
way that I run companies. And I think that the people
who have worked for me and close to me, probably
feel really happy and feel good about my
kids’ opportunities. Because I care and I
have no disappointment if they don’t wanna work for, at the point, The New York Jets. And, so, that’s it. No, I have no hesitation. I mean, if my kids go
completely the other way, and are not commerce driven, and are anti-business, and wanna live in who-knows-where feeding who-knows-what, doing whatever. If they wanna save the
one-legged butterfly in some god-knows-place in
the corner of the world I’m gonna hope that they’re the best at saving the one-legged butterfly. I’m gonna try to help them
save the one-legged butterfly. Should would register
one-legged butterfly dot com? We should. I just will support them unconditionally as long as they’re good human beings. And treat people with respect, and treat people with the 51, 49% thing, and be the bigger man, woman. I don’t care what they do as long as they do it in a
way that 5,000 arbitrators would say, “That’s a good person!” – Hey, Bridget Willard here

– [Voiceover] Clayton wants
to know, “How do you push “your team beyond their best?” – Clayton, great question. Way to start off 2015, good questions. Oh, actually, I picked this one, right? (people laughing) Hit ’em with some Barry Harowitz’. But that was so subconscious, too. It was a great question.
I thought we should do it. I really, really, really
think that the best way to push somebody above their own means is to guilt them into it. And I know that’s a weird kind of answer. But it is my honest belief
that the thing that drive, first of all, everybody is
driven by different things. So, the real answer to your question is to use your hear, right? DRock, zoom in to my ear. Right, you know, the ear
is the key in this scenario because the truth is,
the way to push somebody above their limit is to
actually have individual conversations with them about what is their Holy Grail. What do they wanna accomplish? Like India and I, I have a
good feel of some of India’s long-term career ambitions. That gives me, first of all, her knowing that we’ve even had that
conversation, in and of itself, gives her a little bit more
confidence to work harder. Because she’s tryin’ to get
what she wants out of it, professionally, and
knowing that I’m the person that can most likely make that happen, at least in the context of this world, that just even having the conversation puts her in better spot. But some people are literally
rawly driven by straight cash. Like, truly, you wanna push somebody? You carrot, like, “Hey,
I know you love cash! “I’ll give you 10,000 more if you, like,” You know, and so, you’ve gotta find out what makes people tick. I’m so not motivated by cash, that so many people try
to get me to do things, JV with me, invest in things, do things, speak at things. And they think cash is the way to do it. And, listen, I love the cash, but it’s not my biggest driver. And I make a lot of
decisions based on legacy, long-term impact, on myself by the way. Not like long-term global impact. You know, that’s not how I think. I mean, I think there’s
a byproduct of that but that’s not the
number one thing for me. But, to answer the
question in a general-form, I truly do believe the best
way to get that is to guilt. And what I mean by guilt,
it’s a variation of listening. Which is not only listening,
but delivering in a world where so few people even begin to listen, let alone delivering on that listening. And once you start doing
that, people start realizing, let me tell you what’s
happening at Vayner; it’s not super confusing. I know exactly what’s
goin’ on in this company. It’s starting to get old enough that there’s enough things
happening for enough people that it’s really easy to
point to Phil Toronto, or to somebody else and
be like, “Wait a minute.” Or Steve Unwin, like, you
can start pointing to, “Oh, crap, that person wanted that, “that person’s getting that, “that person’s happy as crap!” I want that, and so, it’s listening and then delivering, which
then creates a scenario where people want to over-deliver because, the only way somebody
will over-deliver for you, ’cause you asked a very selfish question. “How can I get my team
to over-deliver for me?” “For my thing.” It’s very simple. The best way to get them
to over-deliver, John? – [Trouty] I’m Jack,
if that’s a substitute. – No, Jack is not a substitute. I know what you’re thinking. No, that is not a substitute. – Okay, we’re on the hunt. – The only way to get
somebody to over-deliver is to attack their own
selfishness, their’s. You’re selfish ’cause you want more out of your team to help you. Well, the best way to get that to happen is to over-deliver
against their selfishness. I do believe that guilt is a huge driver because, and there’s something that I, I believe in human beings. I mean, some people don’t
have self-awareness, or empathy, or these emotional feelings. So many people, like, it’s amazing to me now living 20 years professionally, like, how many people are not
confused eventually. They may be emotional at
the time you fire them, or not reward them, but
boy, every time I run into somebody four, seven,
nine years down the line; I’ve had a very good
track-record of them saying, “Yeah, I know why you did that.” I mean, like crazy stuff like, “I had a drug problem!” There was, like, you know, stuff! Life, right? So, I would answer your question like I have before on this show. And you haven’t heard me
say it, I’ll say it again. The single best way to win is to give 51% of the relationship. If there was a jury of 500 people, that they would all
agree that you’ve given 51% to the relationship. And you have to be good enough to know what to do with the other 49. So, I would attack their own selfishness. I would make it so good for them, that you’ve guilted them in delivering. And be very prepared in your stomach by making it awesome. And then them under-delivering, still being entitled to
think they did deliver. And then you being disappointed. “You listened to the Gary Vee Show, “and he told you, and he so great.” Yeah, at least you think
so thank you very much. “And you did it.” And then all four of
these people who you gave $10,000 raises to yesterday, a month later are doing
the same crap they did, and it didn’t motivate them at all. Or you gave them four weeks
off instead of one week off, and they’re still just as crappy. Or you, like, got them a
babysitter, and you pay for it, and they still aren’t. Gratitude and all these
wonderful human characteristics are not guaranteed. But the best way for you to have it happen is to consistently keep trying
to do it for that person. And then, look, I just had a meeting with all these characters, right? But the rest of the team, and I was like, “Look, you may not win on this team.” Like, 2015, I wanna take
it up another notch. And the consolation
prize is you get to work for one of the best
companies in the world. But, like, you just might not
be able to be on this team. You’ve gotta be upfront,
you’ve gotta be fair. You gotta know when you’re
setting up people for victory; and when not, you gotta do that. And then you get to
judge, not before hand. Way too many of you are
making a mistake yourself. You didn’t train, you didn’t
put the person in a position to succeed, you’re not
communicating properly on what you expect. You’re not shooting it straight, you’re scared to hurt feelings. You’re too much of a dick. It could be a million different reasons why it’s not happening, but
it is always going to be the greatest form meritocracy
that you can create. And that starts with your ear and it finishes, in my
opinion, on a second-step move of you actually delivering on that. Call people’s bluffs. I live life on calling people’s bluffs. “Oh, you’ll really crush it
if you have another person?” “Here.” Now, you have to be good enough, back to that 49%, to afford
to give somebody that person. You may not have that situation. But you might have to make a decision. One of the quickest
ways I grew Wine Library was by making 30,000 dollars a
year for five years in a row. Because it took all those monies. And I called people’s bluffs. And when they let me down, do
you think it hurt my feelings that I wasn’t making 45 instead of 30? It sure did, but did I have
my eye on the big prize? Sure did! Now I get paid double that
salary to speak for one hour because I bet long-term,
because I was 23 years old! Right, you gotta know where you’re at. If you’re 83 and you’re watching the show, first of all, big ups, ol’ dog. And second of all, second of all, you know, maybe you don’t
need to play the long-game and invest as much. Maybe it’s time to cash out. I have these weird feelings that in my 80s I’m gonna be rogue as crap, and just take! Because I just gave for so long. I don’t know, you’ve heard
me say that’s my concern. But I can tell you this. (sighing) Most of the reasons, let me phrase. If they work for you, all of the reasons that they’re not over-delivering
against their best, all of those reasons are your fault. – [Voiceover] Harold asks,
“Will you force your children

– So Gary Vee, this is what I wanna know. Because you have this 500 person agency, I want you to explain why people should use a digital agency? – For looks. – What’s the circumstances? When not to use it, when to use it? How do you optimize it? Well basically, give us the gist. Why use an agency? Why not cultivate all this talent inside and control it, own it,
et cetera, et cetera. Thank you, Gary. – Thank you, Guy. Guy K, one of the real
thought leaders in this space. He’s too humble to do it but I know he has a new book out and I wanna give love to people so DRock, Staphon, take
over the page here. Give him a little shout out. Let’s link it up below. One of the few authors I feel
comfortable enough in saying, check out what they’re doing so VaynerNation, check out what Guy’s doing. It’s a great question, Guy. As a matter of fact,
the answer’s even better ’cause I’m giving it. The answer is you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t hire anybody to do anything if you think you can do
it better for cheaper. My obsession with building this, DRock, get up a little bit, let’s get a little improv. My obsession with building all of this is predicated on one thing which is that I think it’s worth you to pay us to do our thing because I think I can do it better than you could do it yourself or some other agency down the street can do it for the same price or for more expensive. The arbitrage of what they cost versus us, that we’re more valuable in return and so the biggest
reasons most big companies hire agencies is the
head count on their PNL in corporate America,
in a Wall Street World is looked upon as a
negative versus outsourcing it to agencies. The big reason that a medium
sized business should do it is that they feel like
the investment is worth it and the reason a small company
or individual should do it is they’ve run out of time but the fact of the matter is, nobody should hire anybody, digital agency or, I would hire somebody to hang a picture in my house. Let me tell you why. One, I’m just not that handy. Two, my time matters to me so much and so I’d rather pay somebody
100 bucks to hang a picture than to spend those four minutes ’cause I think I know what
to do with those four minutes to make a 101 bucks, get it? That’s the game. Can somebody do it better that brings an ROI to you and that’s why agencies exist. Can we, and don’t forget this other thing, if you bring it in-house,
you become a cocoon, right? Like you’re only working on your brand, you’re only seeing it
from your perspective and you’ve lost all the other stuff. By having so many people here, I have so many different perspectives. We have so much more data across so many different brands and then we use that for execution across other brands, across myself. This team here, what we’re doing right now is giving us a North Star of
execution for other clients. I have better advice for
our clients around YouTube and podcasting because the expectations, not the expectations,
the execution, excuse me, that was funny, I rarely
say the wrong word. That was a very weird moment. And so that, my friends,
is the reason to do it. And that’s the reason
for everything, right? Like why am I, why are all these people, show Andy. He’s not feeling very well. (laughter) Why’s Andy here? Because he can do it at an ROI that’s better than I can do it. Do I have the time, this,
that, the other thing. It goes on and on and on and on and so that’s the rationale,
Guy and VaynerNation. Is it worth the investment
you put into it? Just like everything
else you do in your life. By the way, let’s link up
the movie that Staphon edited

– [Voiceover] Roommate Harmony asks, “Hey Gary, do you think
it’s necessary to have an outgoing personality to
be a successful entrepreneur?” – Roommate Harmony, this
is a tremendous question. I think there’s never been less important to be extroverted to be a
successful entrepreneur. Oh, I don’t know. Just look at every successful entrepreneur that everybody talks about. Like Zucks and Ev
Williams and Kevin Systrom and David Karp. You know, Facebook, Twitter,
Tumblr, and Instagram. I mean, Ben Silbermann, Pinterest. I mean… It’s actually the glory days
of the introvert entrepreneur. Because of technology, because
of sitting behind the screen, because it doesn’t all
happen face to face anymore, it’s never been a better time to do that. And that’s, not by the
way, always been the way. There’s way to win at, you know, it’s about betting on strengths. I do things based on my strengths. I’m an entrepreneur that is extroverted and I surround myself with people and I do that kind of stuff. I put myself out there. Introverted entrepreneurs
need to not fake the funk. Like, it’d be stupid for
me to sit behind a computer all day, every day and then that was just the way I rolled. Mistake, leaving the magic on the table. Equally, someone who is awkward and is like, yeah my
startup is, thank you. Yeah, my startup is really, like that guy or gal is
probably not the kind of person that wants to kind of
bet on their personality and they need to sit down all day and focus and so I think
it’s betting on strengths. – [Voiceover] Daniel
asks, “Numbers of monthly

Quick question for you. Greg Isenberg, founder of Five Eye here. When does a young entrepreneur cease being a young entrepreneur? Curious of your thoughts. Also, thank you again for putting some of your best #AskGaryVee
videos on Five Eye and launching them today. – Awesome man. Thanks for the question. Thrilled to be on Five Eye. Let’s link that below,
an app I’m excited about, that’s what he’s referring to. You guys can do your own homework. When does a young
entrepreneur stop being young? You know, it’s funny. I still think that I’m young, and I’m not young. I’m 39 in a world of unlimited 29, 23, 17 year old entrepreneurs. I think young is a mindset. I’m not sure where you’re going with the kind of question. Is it appropriate to act young? I don’t think I ever acted young even when I was young, but I’m young at heart. There’s a lot of places where we can really go with this answer. To me I think at some level,
to be honest with you brother, I think it doesn’t matter. I think it’s a kind of weirdly, and almost a non-impactful question. I know that sounds harsh, but what I mean by that is
there is no variable that the outside world might say, hey you’re not young anymore. Start acting your age, or they may expect you
to act a certain way because you are young,
but at the end of the day all of it is irrelevant. Whatevers happening within yourself is the variable of your
success, your life, your upside, and so that’s how I think about it. It’s scary to me how young I actually. I think I’m, I mean very honestly I feel dramatically younger than every, I mean I actually think all these characters around me are older than me. I still watch sports and think
all those players are older than me, still. These are like 23 year olds. I’m like, like I still am in that mindset, and at some level I’m
pretty convinced that a lot of the narrative that’s gonna be talked about me, I can see the headlines in my, I can see it right there. I can see the headlines when I’m 63, 67 74, 83, which is like old man acts young. It’s just who I am, and so the cliche age is but a number it’s really true. The mentality and more importantly, the execution is the variable. Question of the day, how old are you?

– [Voiceover] Jarek asks,
“Would you be able to lead any type of company? Do you think that the leaders
can switch industries easily?” – Jarek, this is a great question. You know, I’m speaking for myself that I fundamentally 100,000% believe that I can run any company. I just do. I myself, as you know,
are a reverse engineer. Show the t-shirt. And so what I would be able to do is look, I don’t know, I don’t know dick about
99% of the businesses out there, but it would only
take me about six months with my sponge like skills to figure out whats going on, look at the data, look at the numbers, look at the culture. Reverse engineer,
understand the marketplace and the consumer that’s selling, whether in a B to B or B to C place. There is no business that
me as an operator feel intimidated by. I can’t speak for
everybody, but I do think there’s clearly, I don’t
think I’m that special. I think that there’s other people that also have that
skill set where they can take a look back, really
assess the situation and then operate, and I think that balance comes with sales and HR. For me, I think that’s why I’m able to do so much, for me my strengths are within the HR universe and the sales universe which are really the
two things that you need to know in an organization. You need to be able to sell stuff, and you need to be able to build teams around you. If you’re lucky enough to have that deuce in your life like I
do, then you can do it. – [Voiceover] Ella asks, “What
do you think about Serial?

– Tanova, this is a great question. I personally selected this one. I saw it in my Twitter
stream and sent it to India. Show India, I like when we do that. – Eh. – That’s my favorite part of the show. You know, it’s really funny,
this is a funny question. I burn out once every six or seven years, I hit a real like ugh
spot, like where I wanna just check out and I go to sleep. I actually go home and go to sleep. It hasn’t actually
happened, actually I’m on a real good run right now, I
think the last time I did was when we lost Texas at Wine Library, and couldn’t ship there anymore and we lost like four million in revenue and I was just burnt out
like fighting the fight of like in that world,
and so I just literally went home at like 6 PM and went to sleep. I haven’t done it since then,
and that was like 2002 or 3, so it’s been a little, maybe it’s not even six or seven years but,
when I hit my lowest point, I do two things, I go to sleep immediately and two, I make pretend
that my mom was killed. And I know that’s an intense statement, and you should have just
the collective reaction, but when I burn out from work. (laughs) It’s intense. When I burn out, it means that I’m hurt by whatever’s going on in business and I’m focusing on business
instead of the big picture and I directly put my
brain into a place of what do I really care
about, and the second I do that extreme move,
I’m already in the process of going back upstream and so look, I’m a positive person, I
put things in perspective in a very healthy way, I think and so I don’t tend to burnout that often, but the couple times I’ve hit rock bottom, it’s been sleep and recalibration. – Alright, here’s my real question.

“for teenage bloggers to show brands “that they mean business?” – Tanner, brands don’t care
if you’re 14 or 41 or 4,000.