First off, I want to start by thanking you for putting
out all that content. I’ve been an entrepreneur for
over five years now and I feel like that I am becoming
a better businessman, a better entrepreneur
thanks to your content and insight so thank you for that. This is my question. I’ve been working to get with a
few interns for couple years now and they’re always around
21-years-old and I feel that they’re lacking two
important skills. The first skill is critical
thinking or self-criticism. They should think about what
should I do first and what next. Why am I advising this? Is what I produced
really good enough? The second skill is
taking ownership. When all given tasks are
finished do they start thinking about what the next
best step could be? Do you have any idea how I,
as a boss, as a guides, can help them
develop their skills? Thanks. – Jelle, listen, I think that the answer to your question is the critique that you
are putting on them. You are critiquing them for
this kind of thoughtfulness, critical thinking and then
action and taking the initiative in being on the offense. My answer to you is you need to
do the same with you as a boss and you need to audit
yourself to do that. Meaning there is no reason
that you should be in a scenario where you’re struggling with
21-year-old interns for long period of time because the
truth is if you put the time and effort to really audit them and
really spend time with them and then decide for you whether
you’re right or wrong as the judge and jury, as the boss,
that they’re good or they’re not good you could speed up
this process very quickly. So my answer to you is go deep
and spend more time with them whether that’s virtually
or in reality or in real life where these interns are. Figure out if they’re good. Give them very detailed
feedback at scale. Suffocate all the excuses and
then make a decision whether that person should be in
your organization or not. For me, if I wanted to know if
anybody here should be in my organization or not it would
literally take me two days. Just make it the
thing you do today. Today you should decide
if these interns are capable, have the talent and
the capacity to deliver on your
expectations or not. Have you been clear in them
and move forward so I think the answer to your question is in
the same way that your upset with them that when
their task is done, they’re not doing
the next thing. I’m upset with you which is
if you slept last night you could’ve allocated some of those
hours to auditing your interns and giving them clear feedback
and making the decision if you wanted them here or not. Now I know what you did at
age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting

“for VaynerMedia on
GlassDoor so bad?” – So this one’s tough for me. There’s a lot of reasons why our reviews on
GlassDoor for VaynerMedia are not as good
as they should be or the reality of our culture. I think, first of all,
I think it has a lot to do with many different things. First of all,
anonymous websites, right? So you look at Secret and
Whisper and Anonymous, you’re gonna get people that
are willing to go to extremes when nobody can figure
out who that person is. So anonymous leads to it. Two, we’ve gone from 30 to
650 people in four years. There’s a lot of pain in that, and a lot of people that
are employees struggle with the constant change and
the different decision making. I move very quickly
and a lot of times I don’t do the greatest job explaining my
actions to everybody, and I think that creates,
you know, I think that a lot of movement, and a lot of structural
changes creates a lot of angst for people
that are more comfortable and it’s easy for
the entrepreneur, it’s harder for the employees. Three, I think cynicism is
unfortunately quite powerful, so I think that that’s the case. I think some of the
early ones back in 2011 are just, I think I did a bad job. I wasn’t really the
active CEO of Vayner, and I don’t think we
micromanaged our youngest talent. So I feel good, I mean I feel
bad, but good about the ones that are in 11, I think
the last 15 of them, and I read them all
50 times a month are coming from employees
that I don’t think we saw the world the same way. I mean, I don’t know
what people expect from former employees,
but if they’re fired or if they quit, they
obviously don’t feel great about the business,
and that’s okay. I mean, I think you
go look at any, the is why I think
Yelp and GlassDoor, and all these
anonymous sites struggle, because what you don’t have is, I’m not gonna do
what most companies do, which try to incentivize
their employees to leave positive reviews to
offset the negative reviews. That’s not gonna happen. I use them as feedback loops. Even though we try here. But these are people
that are not happy with the way we’re doing things. But I think the problem
is the silent majority. It’s kind of like the Britain Exit. I have so many
friends who are like, I wish I voted. I mean, you had a
chance but you didn’t. I think its politics, right? There’s a lot of people
that don’t talk about their views on, you hear it, you look on the internet,
you see the loud minorities dictate a narrative. And then the
punchline is mainly, I think everything
starts from the top, which is I actually like having
a bad review on GlassDoor, I think that any individual
that takes an anonymous website of former employees,
and people say they’re current employees
that are former, I had somebody who
I did a nice thing for, call me and say look, I just
wanted you to know something, when I left a bad review, this
is somebody I did something nice for a year after
they are fired. They called me
because they felt guilty, and said I left a
really nasty review because I felt that was unfair. I was super immature,
and I also left it as a current employee
because I thought that would hurt you more. So like, you know,
I think that anybody who would stay
out of a company, any company looking at,
Vayner what have you because of GlassDoor or
any other anonymous site as the proxy to what’s
actually happening there, is exactly the kind of
people that I wanna keep out. It’s the people playing
checkers versus chess, they’re so, I don’t
wanna say basic minded, because I don’t
wanna razz, but like, I don’t understand how
somebody wouldn’t understand that this is an
anonymous site of people that are the least
happy about something. So I think there’s
a lot of reasons we have a tough review there. They don’t make me happy. I’m really upset when people
are unhappy with things, but I’ll be honest with
you, when you’re the CEO of a company that has gone
through 1000’s of employees over the last four years, I’ve
has a lot more conversations one on one with somebody
saying that they’re mad at me, or they don’t like things and
they’re saying it to my face, that hurts even kind of more
because I respect them so much for going that route. And I wanna fix it for them. You know, I’m in the
firefighting business. Everything is always hard. There’s always problems. But I’m pretty confident about what’s actually
happening here. I think that shows
in it’s results. I think when you look at the
macro turnover rates here, voluntary turnover
is what I look at, we’re crushing the market. People aren’t leaving
because they want, you know, ’cause they don’t like it here. And so, there’s always gonna
be a percentage of people that don’t like certain things, and I don’t think I’m perfect
or this company is perfect. Especially because we’re always
making different changes. But I know that no CEO
organization has more intent to have people
talk to us about it. Some people,
I look at my own father, some people keep things inside
and will never share it, and so I can’t fix
what I don’t know, and then when it
doesn’t work out, whether on their
choice or our choice because they kept
that poison in, a lot of those same
people can’t communicate in real life but love
to go on anonymous site and get that poison out. And to be frank with you, I actually love GlassDoor,
for A helping me not allow people to come in
that have low EQ and are looking at
a basic level, and B, I’m happy that
those people are able to get their poison of
what they feel about me or VaynerMedia out of their body and move on just like I
talked about in the beginning. I hope it helps,
and I hope with that out, they can take a step back,
look at the big picture and maybe reach out to me and
continue our relationship. I’m very proud of my relationship with a lot of former employees
that left on bad terms. And I will continue
to do that forever because I care about my legacy. Because I’m more selfish
about that than the money. Than things that nature. And by the way, you know,
as somebody who’s very close to their business,
I would say I’m 70% sure of the exact person
that leaves that review and there’s a lot of,
I’m never confused. You know, it just makes sense, like sometimes
things don’t go well. Inter-people relationships
and things of that nature and so it is what it is. It’s a challenge
because I care so much, but if you’re watching
this and you’re currently at Vayner, or you used
to be at Vayner and you still have
negativity in you, I’m super available. I’m Gary at VaynerMedia,
I’ve always been available. I’ll always be available. And I think that to me
is much more interesting. You know, I’m not worried
about the perception. GlassDoor’s 2.6 rating
on VaynerMedia isn’t stopping the 1000
applications a week we’re getting or the growth of my company. I care way more about the 20
people that are upset with me or this, I’m here to fix it. Forever, if there’s
actually something to fix, and even if there’s not. – [Britt] Do you
have time for one more?

people who don’t
keep their word?” – Wealth, I’ll be very honest
with you I think one of the great secrets of my business
success and life in general is zero expectation of others. I know that a lot of people get
mad at me when I say that in my life, in my business life,
when I say it in public but it’s my truth. I’m just not that devastated.
It’s a data point. People don’t keep their
word all the time, India. As a matter of fact,
it’s probably a thing I struggle with the most in being
the CEO of this company. A lot of people have worked in
other places where the person hasn’t kept their word and
they’re cynical to my word. And listen, by the way,
I haven’t kept my word my whole life. Even now because something
may fall through the inbox. Like, you see
what’s going on now. Right? I know that I promised to give a
shoutout or a birthday wish and I miss it. There’s human error in not
keeping your word and then there’s just not keeping
your word which happens often. It’s a reality,
humans are flawed. And I would tell you that the
biggest differentiation between myself and many others if I’m
self-evaluating that has been a big deal for me is
I just don’t cry. There’s no crying in business. How do I deal with it? I move on.
I collect data. I’m like, “Oh, Staphon doesn’t
keep his word very often “so his word is not as valuable
to me so I’m going “to take it with a grain of salt “that he’s going to
actually link this up.” Whatever it may be, I think
it’s something that you know, I don’t like entitlement. And I do think believe it or
not, I do think that people get upset with others from a
level of entitlement more than anything else. Like sorry, Rick. Sorry, Wealth Wellness,
Wealth Life sorry that entrepreneur life
let you down and didn’t post that thing. It is what it is what it is. I just let stuff
roll off my back. It is what it is. I’m just prepared
for the negative and so I’m completely unfazed by it. I’m like,
“Oh, that was intriguing.” Not like, “Oh, screwed me.
I’ve been sabotaged. “I failed because India didn’t
come through with her word.” “Ogilvy screwed me.” It’s business.
Put on your pants. Your big boy, big girl
pants and get to work. I contextualize it. I use it as a data set for my
next business behavior with that individual or organization
and I just move on. And, I don’t dwell
and I go forward. People slow themselves down. – [India] Ready?
It’s good. Really good. – Thanks, it’s true.
It’s true. It’s the game, I’m sorry. People are going
to let you down. People are not
going to come through. Almost nothing turns
out the way I want it to. It’s the ability to adjust to
that that separates winners and losers in the business world. – [India] From Justin.
– Justin. Timberlake?

translating to listens what can I do to
help conversion mean there’s a lot of things you could be doing the J one you
need to be thinking about how you get them in there into need to think about
what happens when they get there a la let’s go let’s go let’s pretend that
you’re pods are a restaurant ok you open restaurant and your house and the people
coming to restaurant but they’re not ordering food they’re just sitting there
and they’re not bring you any value there’s a couple things to debate one
did you bring the right people there if their marketing was come to this
restaurant something anything is gonna happen that you’ve never seen before we
can tell you the big surprise you might win $1,000,000 they will start showing
up they weren’t there to eat your burger they weren’t there to eat your fries
they weren’t there to eat your salad they weren’t there to drink a cup of
coffee they were there because you made a promise that when you got into the
restaurant I’m treating your place is a diet by the way in my brain you know you
didn’t deliver that cool pickles and coleslaw but I came because I thought
that we were gonna get $1,000,000 there’s that or there’s another thing
they came and when they got there they walked into the restaurant and there is
no shock there is nobody in the front to guide them to their seat there’s no
major dehors welcome person they walk in it and it’s like an empty warehouse with
signs and they’re just confused where to go sit and where to go eat I’m painting
a picture because there are two fundamental things that happen when you
have this problem this is for all of you either make the right promised to get
them there and when they got there they were disappointed we’re not interested
or was the wrong reason the only thing you were trying to make happen was get
everybody they are you think about the part that matters which was get them to
order food or when they got there because they wanted to be there didn’t understand how to execute on the
transaction so that means your marketing thinks you’re not playing the proper
sort of getting them in or your UI and UX or promise for landing page
optimization for directions to do once they’re there or there is an issue that
makes me think about how was it optimized for mobile maybe maybe mobile
but it also makes me think it’s more of the kind of problem that the marketing
that you’re doing or the PR or whatever you’re doing to get people there it’s
predicated on getting them they’re not to do the action that you want or number
three they’re getting a very quick simple and
their steering or seen you somewhere else and they just don’t like you like
there’s always number three which is you go to the restaurant you sat down you
know who’s going to burn joined you got there there are some of that site you
down you ordered a burger burger India just fine or more likely for so many
people are watching here like good writer but I’m not going to go fifteen
block so I got a burger over here next to me and so you know one block away you
know what you’re not a bother you know you know you know there’s burger here
and I don’t want to go there and so that’s another thing that the friction
communion to such King right they may have somebody else’s already downloaded
where they already have two other podcasts downloaded an extra one down
they don’t want to go second the download another one day as a person back to contradiction of
the first question not contradiction to look at it is they don’t want more
supply of content so again James I’m sure I’ve got their driver got in school
but I don’t need another one that’s the same so you’re not differentiating a
real business lesson that was a really good question the answer really good
people watch that price is right

– [Voiceover] Austin asks: “Hey GaryVee, “I’m a sales consultant for
Best Buy selling computers. “What advice can you give me to be “a better salesman?” – Austin, I think you
need to reverse engineer who you’re selling to. So, if I were you, Austin, I would spend all of January taking people
out to lunch and dinner or a drink, or getting them on the phone, but literally spending the
entire month of January not selling to people, and
just listen to the people that you sell to to find out
what their pain points are. I would walk in and be like, hey DRock. You know I sell you computer stuff and things of that nature. What are your pain points? What’s your problem? What’s your struggles in your business? Like, let’s cut the crap. Yes, I want to sell to you,
but let’s take a step back. I want to sell to you by providing you some sort of value. Maybe I have a friend. Maybe I will recommend that
you watch the #AskGaryVee show to make your business better. Maybe I will do a lot of
things, but what I’m doing is I’m providing you
value, and our conversation and our relationship is not just predicated on me selling. You know, I was talking
to one of my friends, and he was like I want to
have better relationships with girls, I’m like cool, why don’t you make it about
something other than sex? Like if your whole relationship is I want to hang out with you
every time to just hook up, there’s probably a good chance that person doesn’t think that you’re
providing them much value outside of that execution,
which is a fine execution. Everybody needs it, I
get it, blah blah blah. Same way I think about sales. If you’re just selling every single time, that is what your foundational
relationship is based on, and you become spam
and sales all the time. Why don’t you spend all of
January not selling ever, once, and opening your ears and
listening, and trying to help, even outside of the context of you. Even out of the context of you, meaning, how can you help them
besides just their business? Maybe you’ll get to know
DRock and find out that his aunt is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, and you just get a Dallas Cowboys hat. Say, hey, you go to eBay and buy a Tony Doresett opened starting line up for $0.49, $3 shipping,
but you send and say hey give this to your aunt. It’s not what you spent. It was the thought. That stuff matters. That’s it?

“a higher demand than production capacity? “How do you manage
expectations when you have “two to three months of latency?” – You hire freelancers,
and you work on lower, what? (laughter) – [India] I’m sorry, I’m just nervous. – Ok, got it. You hire freelancers, and
you work on less margin. You go to your best people that
are there for the long laul, and you ask them to work more hours. So if they work seven hours, and they work 14 hours,
you can get more shit done. You adjust. You know, the end. You can’t be late for clients. If they want it, and
you’re late, you lose. Project manager, shaking his head, right? I mean– – PM’s dream. – Yeah, I mean look, here’s
something that’s subjective. The creative. Ooh, I like this video. Ooh, I like this sweater. Ooh I hate this sweater. Ooh I like your yellow shirt. Those things are subjective. What’s not subjective is,
it’s due on Wednesday. Oh we’ll give it to you a week later. They don’t feel good. So you either outsource with freelancers, and you make a lot less
margin ’cause it costs more per hour, or bites into your margin, or maybe you lose money
but you want to deliver for the client, and you keep
them longer and you play lifetime value, not the
ROI on every single thing. Or, you ask your team to step up, or you step up if you
have that capability. I’m not scared to make a video. I know Jason and DRock
can make it better, but I’ll do it.

was one of the winners of
the Crew for a Day challenge. Thank you so much for choosing me. As you can see, I’m
resting up for the big day. But before that, Gary, I have a question. Put yourself in my shoes. You just won a trip to
meet Gary Vaynerchuk. You’re pumped, you’ve been
following this dude for awhile. This is a once in a lifetime
opportunity for you. How would you go about preparing yourself for that type of trip? Would you set expectations and goals or just kind of go with the flow? What would you do if you were meeting you? You keep throwing contests,
I’ll keep winning them. – That’s pretty, listen, I like, by the way, that last part is probably why this question’s on this show. I like the bravado. (breathes deeply) Respectful bravado is very attractive. Bravado insanity is not. That is a little forewarning
to some of the people’s actions in the last couple weeks. I think that what I would
do is I would probably bring him some English peas, because I would know that
Gary loves English peas. And not like the bullshit
kind, like the big ones. You know, like English peas, not like Long Island English peas which are a little smaller. Definitely not snow peas, like sugar peas. Got so many different names. – [India] You walk on
the show with your dad. – Exactly, 118, watch those the big ones so I would bring him that. I’d probably bring him
like a rare Jets jersey of maybe the second or third round pick in the draft this year. What else do I want? I would probably bring some cool Nikes. Something that was like fly like these. I would bribe him to thank him. No. The answer to the question is very simple. I think you’ve already lost. I predict that your Friday
experience is not gonna be as good as you think because you’re already overthinking it. You need to roll in, be you,
the end, the end, the end. It works for me so much. Yesterday Brandon Marshall was here, football player, Jets wide receiver, umps. I don’t even know how to not be myself. First of all, I think I’m
better than everybody, so I don’t get star struck. It’s a flaw and a strength. And I think you roll in with that thing. I think you walk in
and you just need to be basically, it’s so hard, and I get it. Really, around Jets
players is probably where I struggle with it the most
but yesterday I crushed it. Just you have to be yourself,
there’s nothing else. Because then, if it doesn’t, and by the way this is why I fundamentally believe in being yourself. This is the secret
reason to being yourself. If you’re not yourself, and
then it doesn’t go well, you have to think about that
for the rest of your life. You went out of your way to not
let the natural thing happen and it didn’t go well, that sucks. I’d much rather be like, welp? When I get a comment
that like, “you suck.” Right now, the USC video and
the Monday motivation video are both going viral on Facebook, right? A lot of people have never seen me before. When somebody says you
suck, I’m like well, that was me, that’s just
where the chips fell. But if that was my schtick or
that was a fake version of me or that, well then that would hurt. Be like whoa, what if
I just was me, right? And so, that my friends
is why it’s always best, because then you don’t
have to second guess.

“that giving away some
of my best work for free “might mean others perceiving
it as less valuable. “Is this a true risk, “or is this where the right
hook balances it all out?” – Carlo, this is a solid question. You know, I think at some level, there is a risk about giving
away your best work for free. For me, that’s been the
gateway drug at some level, because I think best
work needs to be defined. It depends on what your work is. For example, I’m blown away by people who don’t realize that their best advice is exactly what you
should give away for free, because if you’re in the
selling-advice business, you really need to give contextual advice. So I can theoretically talk
about Snapchat being important, but then when I meet the tire company, we have to formulate it to
work within that context, and so that advice is
then gonna be specific. If you’re a painter, and your best work is the
greatest painting you ever made, and then you gave it away for free, that’s maybe a little
bit of a different game. But if you strategically gave it away, like to a very important museum, or to a very important billionaire, that puts it in the
prime spot in their home, could that then become the gateway? The problem is, with this question and this debate, is that when you are
doing something for free, it needs to be strategic, because what you’re looking to do by giving something for
free, is to create leverage, to then do something that is not for free. And so, you know, DRock
could’ve made a video for a bunch of different characters, and maybe it wouldn’t have
panned out to have the ROI that he received by doing
a video for me for free. And so, I think that often times, people look at this as
a blanket statement. To me, all the good stuff
I give away for free has strategic purpose. I understand why I’m doing it, and that’s why it becomes
so much easier to do, even though I don’t always expect the outcome of that action. And I think that becomes the big part. Way too many people do things for free, give away their best work for free, and then expect this windfall behind it, and when it’s not delivered,
they become disappointed, and within that disappointment, they don’t follow up, and do it again, and make it a replicable action, which has more upside in
three out of five times, where it brings value. You focused on the two out of five, and that kinda squashed you, so that’s my answer. – [Voiceover] Darth Bill asks,
“Should a new small business

– [Voiceover] John asks, “you
give with zero expectation “of return so you’re never disappointed. “That’s really tough, how do you do it?” – John, I do it because
that was the talent that I was gifted with. It is the essential
backbone of my success. And I’ve said that about other
things, so it’s always a mix, right? Like it’s hard to
say this but, like, boy, boy am I thankful that I have it. I look for it in others. It is
a huge competitive advantage. It’s like being born beautiful, right? It’s a competitive advantage. Luckily for me I’ve got
both (laughs) just kidding. For me it is really really
really really something that I’m so thankful for. How do I do it? Really the same way
everybody does everything, it was just there. I didn’t cultivate my lack of expectation. There’s no, like, lack
of expectation exercises that you can get into,
but boy has it been a– Look, the truth is,
people like people, right? And people do business with people, and people sense people through a camera, through an audio podcast.
They sense people. I have enormous selfishness in the things that I wanna achieve. But the fact that I have
this lack of expecation and I’m willing to give, and give chances, and give opportunities,
and just flat out give, without ever thinking, what
am I gonna get in return, knowing that eight out
of ten times I won’t get something in return, and it’s pure, it’s just the purest version of it, pshh, I won. And so, like, you know, I have no clue how to instill that, but I can do this, why I
answered this question. I can tell you that if it’s
in you, triple down on it. Don’t suppress it. Don’t let the cynics
outside of you tell you, “no, you’re being too nice,
you’re not getting anything in return.” It is enormous human leverage
and I highly, highly, highly recommend it. For today’s question of the
day, I want to make a statement

Thank You Economy will
self destruct in 2015? Are brands living up to your
predictions slash Thank You Economy expectations?” – Tyler, once again, and I
talk about it all the time, I think things are gonna
happen sooner than they become. My prediction in Thank You
Economy was that people would understand this and
then everybody would do it. And by 2015, it would get ruined. I am so off on that prediction
it’s borderline embarrassing. You know, DRock, I don’t know,
can you like, take my face right now and give me like, rosy cheeks? Like, can you like make
my face red right now? Because I’m so embarrassed
by how off I am. Because, two part. One, people just haven’t
adopted the Thank You Economy. And thus, if they haven’t
adopted it and scaled and ruined it, how can it be over, right? And so, it might take a lot longer. It may take forever. More importantly, the people
that do attack the world in a TYE world are getting dividends. I’m getting those emails. But it has not been the
landslide that I had hoped for the consumer. So, my prediction was obnoxiously off. One, it may not happen,
at scale because companies are just heartless and
just don’t understand the financial benefit. And listen, I’m heartless. I mean it’s all about the wallet with TYE. I mean to me, it’s, this
is how you do business. And two, it’s not enough at
enough scale or ruined yet. People are still flabbergasted
and excited when a business acknowledges
them or does something half-assed caring. – Hey Gary, this is
Kyle @JockNerd and Ruby.