“would you contribute of where
you are today your degree?” – Absolutely zero. Zero. I didn’t get the
PhD for success. I got a PhD for the patience. I got the PhD for the process. – When did you get a PhD?
– Last year, May. – Did you think you,
you know what this is a real good opportunity. On a real serious kick, I think
what makes this show good is I’m super not scared.
Talk me through the PhD. Did you feel like that that
was a smart strategic thing to create a little more air cover
so that you had more room to do your thing. For real, for real? – For me Gary, I was trying to
and when I first walked in you talked about business.
– Yep. – And I told you
I build people– – Yes. – but building people
doesn’t always pay well. – I understand. – So I had to put myself
in a different market,– – I understand. – then what I originally wanted
to be when I started, right? – Yeah, yeah. – But what happens when you’re
from Detroit, like I am, one of the most segregated cities
United States of America, I did not have the code, the language
or the rules to get in the game that I wanted to play in.
– That’s right. – So for me Michigan State gave
me that opportunity to go to class and hear that language. To get in an environment
for six years and be a part of the rules. So, you can’t play the game
if you don’t know the game. So, the degree to me was about, it doesn’t make
Detroit bad. It doesn’t make my community
bad, but there’s some things I need to operate on this level. – It’s interesting
you even went there. I’m so fascinated
that you said that. I’m fascinated that in your
mind, it processed that this thing could be a counter move
to making that thing look bad. It’s actually a massive insight that people
grossly underestimate. It’s a thing that I grew up with
in a different way, you know, I came to this country because Jews were persecuted
the Soviet Union. My parents and grandparents grew
up in an environment where they were blamed for the world war. My grandparents, both
my grandfathers went to jail for being Jewish. And I think that people don’t
understand that being a minority somewhere, Jewish in Europe,
African-American in America, there’s a psyche that people
don’t understand which is you hear, you hear us white guys
here hear selling out, you know, Uncle Tom getting away from, it’s so much deeper
than you think. – So much deeper. – Let me tell you where I’m
going with it, I’m actually going a very left turn on this, most of you are so molded by your parents you can’t even
wrap your head around it. And there’re certain things your
parents put in you, that you were scared to break against
because you don’t want to let them down even though you might hate your parent or
what have you. It’s unbelievable to
me that you went there. That the success of PhD had to be hedged in
your mind through your word that that’s
not bad on Detroit. – Nuh-uh. – That to me is such an
insight that we need to have a conversation in general about
people understanding that having something good happen,
doesn’t trigger a negative event somewhere else and that is
something we’re all dealing with in our own versions. – And so for me it was like, E,
if you can’t, if there’s certain arenas you can’t operate
on if you don’t know it. Can’t play football if you
don’t, here’s the thing I hate; okay, so what I do for a living
I hate Gary that a guy thinks he’s gonna do what I’ve done for
20-something years, he’s gonna watch my videos, he’s just
gonna do it for five months, five years and boom
he’s the next ET. – Wait a minute, ET, you mean
you can’t register Seven Figure Mastermind Instagram
account and become that? Yeah. – I mean it’s real.
– The realist. – I realized that, ET, you have
what you think is success but you get that PhD
you’re gonna understand it. It’s like another language, Gary, it’s like
another language. Like another world. – You like being a student?
– I love, I love it. Not reading but
I love being a student. – Yeah, it’s interesting,
I don’t like reading. – I don’t want people thinking
we’re contradicting ourselves. – Yeah, yeah, no. It’s interesting,
it’s interesting. Huh. I like that, okay.
What was a question? – [Andy] As a PhD
what percentage– – Got it.
– Oh, ok, zero. – Zero, okay good. Zero. – [Andy] Video question. It’s your boy Zain coming from
Sydney, Australia and

“engage to become the number
one knowledge leader?” – Ah, T this is such a good question. India you’re getting very
strategic about your book ending of questions, I’m very
proud of you actually today. You’ve really grown in your
DJing of question skills. – [India] Thank you.
– Great year for you. – [India] It was a good year. – The reason I said that is India knows that I’m gonna go off on this one mainly because it’s such a simple answer T. Yes there’s so much noise and there’s so much bad crap and the
way to break through, this is crazy now, stick
with me, is to actually be the best and actually have the skills that allow you to break through. Being a thought leader
is no different than being the best football player in America. How does one become, with all the people that want to be a
professional football player, you know, 80% of dudes that are 15, 60, whatever I don’t know. Of all those people how do
you become Aaron Rogers? Crazy thing, you have to
have the natural ability and then you have to put
so much work into that ability that you rise
above all the other people that equally had around the
same level of that ability. How do you become the thought leader or the one in your space? You need to be the best. The reason I was the one in the wine space is for 15 years, since I
was 15, before I started Wine Library TV, I had learned an insane amount about wine, I had
executed for eight years running the fastest
growing and then ultimately one of the biggest wine
businesses in America. I amassed my knowledge,
I went all in, I worked 15 hours a day and then
I started content on what would then become
one of the most important communication tools of
our time called Youtube on top of the internet and
then after I showed everybody the way, every other wine
personality decided to get a camera like this and do it too. That was 2006, 7, 8,
and 9 was in wine world. They’re like wait, if that
idiot can do it, I can do it. And then I had to be the
best and that’s what this business show’s about,
there’s a lot of other business shows, either
I’m gonna be the most valuable for you or the
second most valuable or the third most valuable or
you’re not going to watch me. It’s the quality. You break through, not by your tactics. You break through by your
ability and your skills. It’s the truth, that’s whats
so great about a market. The customer gets to decide,
not you, not me, not you. And so, you go out there and you execute and then you let the chips fall. Do you know how many people are running around on Youtube and
Instagram and Twitter right now trying to do my tactics? A lot. See it everyday. Do they have the same business acume? Do they have the same business skills? Do they have the same 20 years of experience of running businesses? Do they have the same
history of being right where the consumer behavior
is going in the country? Not as much and there are others that are. And there’s plenty of
you watching right now, there’s a 16 year old
watching this right now whose got more chops than me whose gonna put in just as much work as me and he’s gonna go out and win. There’s a girl right now in Alabama who has more natual DNA to understand what the consumers are gonna do in 2020 and 2030 and if she puts in the work, cause she’s gonna,
she’s gonna go and she’s gonna be bigger and more successful and more dominant than me. That’s what’s awesome about the game. That’s how you break through the clutter. You break through all that crap that you decided is crap by being
better than that crap. Now let’s just see if
you’re not that crap too.

“big meeting or anything where you’re “required to have a strong performance?” – Carter, I prepare for a big
meeting by living my life. Meaning, I am always
prepared for a big meeting thus I never prepare for a big meeting. Meaning, when you’re great at something or very good at something you don’t need any prep time because you’re always prepping. Right, and so that’s the
punch line of me in a professional meeting standpoint. The years of experience,
the bravado, the results, the cadence, the natural skills,
the two things that matter, practice and natural
talent have been there so I don’t prepare for a big meeting. It’s not like I get pumped
up, I don’t put in like Lil Wayne and be like alright,
we’re gonna go get it. There’s none of that, there’s
no looking in the mirror and being like okay, we’re
gonna win this pitch. There’s none of that bullshit. I put in the work everyday,
365 to be ready for that and I think anybody
that’s very good at something is always doing that. You know, you don’t just wake up and decide you’re gonna be good at something. You’re always preparing. If you’re preparing in a
tactic way you’re unprepared. Yeah. – Wow. – You like that right, that
was some deep ass shit, right? – That was really good, yeah. – Yeah, I mean like, how
am I gonna prepare to cook a great meal for these homies right now? The answer is, I’m not. There’s no reading a blog
post or watching Youtube video or calling a chef friend,
like I’m gonna f** it up. I haven’t done anything
for 40 years that preps me to cook a good meal to you. That was some high level shit.

“for agency leaders to be active on social? “Do you weight that when
hiring a leader at Vayner?” – Um, look, I do think that somebody has to be a practitioner
or skilled in your craft, so yes, I do weigh that, but I do think we have a machine here that if somebody’s a great executive and good at building up people’s talent, knows how to do client services, understands the theory of marketing, but hasn’t used Snapchat,
Instagram, Facebook enough to be a great practitioner, that we know that’s commoditized and that after a hundred days at Vayner, we can get them to that place, so if they have enough
of the other things, you don’t have to be
crushing it on Instagram to be a leader at Vayner. You have to understand why
Instagram’s crushing it, and then put in the
work once you start here if you’re good at leading a team, great with client services,
great at other strategies, great at understanding how things, we have a lot of people that are great at Facebook,
Snapchat, Instagram, but don’t understand how beer is sold, or how soap is sold, and
we have to teach them that. If you’re coming as a
42-year-old executive and done it your whole
career and you know that, so just teaching the white space. So that’s the real answer. You have to have the
attitude, the appetite, and the theoretical rationale to why these things are
working to get in the door. – [India] Nice.

“What’s the best way to start a business “in a space that you’re unfamiliar with, “but see massive opportunity in?” – Become educated. You know this is a great question. I’m glad you asked that. It was a question that was asked a lot of me in 2006, 7, 8, 9 that I haven’t heard while. Maybe because India is doing the picking. And so you know. I think that if you see a huge opportunity if you think eSports is
going to be a huge space like I believe. Well then maybe go intern for an eSports company, maybe get a job at an eSports company. Maybe you read absolutely everything about it. That was one of my few chapters in life. This whole Web 2.0 thing back to Flickr. I read everything on Tech Crunch. I read people’s tweets. It was one time when I actually consumed because I needed to get educated. And then once I found I had the base, then I rolled back to where I normally go. You put in the work. You know if you see a space. You become massively educated. You network in it tremendously. I believe in online video in 2006, I went to three Meetups. In the video 2.0 or the video. What was it called? Yeah Web 2.0 Video Meetup Group. DRock you have been so proud
I went to these damn things. People talking about bullshit cameras and lighting (beep) that it’s
the content (beep). It was really. You like that? It was an interesting time for me where I was soaking up information. If you see an opportunity, go soak up the information. Go become a practitioner. Go work in a company in it. Go to all the events around it. Read about it go to conferences and listen about it. Listen to the podcast like learn. – Learn mother (bleep). – Learn about it. I like that you getting feisty here. Learn about it and then you can do. But you know, if you believe in something you have to become educated in it. And then become a practitioner in it. And then execute in it. And then adjust to the realities of it.

“at closing and sales. What’s
your structure for your pitches?” – For my pitches. So, my
structure for my pitches is complete and utter no structure. I don’t really structure
my pitches a whole lot. My team may, in certain
scenarios, have a deck. But there’s, I’m sure, an
inside joke in this company that when we go into that
meeting, I’m gonna completely side-rail and drive over that
deck, which I do consistently. I’m much more interested
in reading the room and deploying what that client
wants at that exact moment, versus what we thought they wanted. In the same way I sold
at baseball card shows, I would just always react.
I really think my pitches are structured for counter-punching. Which means no preparation
from presentation form, but complete and utter presentation
for knowing the content. See what I mean? This is
the thing that most people don’t understand. They
think that you wing it. No, you’re winging the way
you’re gonna present it. You’re not winging what
you actually know about it. So the way I prepare,
is holistically prepare. A.K.A. know my shit. I
know what I’m talking about in the things that I’m selling. And then basically I’m
reverse engineering deploying your needs against that
expertise at that moment, versus what order the deck
needs to be in the presentation. My friends, the deck doesn’t sell it. The presentation doesn’t
sell it. The skills sell it. – [Voiceover] Jeremy asks,
“Gary, why do you feel the need

“about Facebook dark post. “Yeah, I know I’m a little
late but there is tons of info “about dark post on YouTube. “There are also people
selling dark post courses. “Would you pay for a course “or use all the free info on YouTube?” – Anthony, I would not pay for a course. I would use all the information
on YouTube and other places. I’m sure there’s a ton of
white papers and SlideShares and if you use that thing called Google, you can find more stuff. Dark posts are not that complicated because you just need (laughs) The usage of dark post
is not that complicated. Is dribbling and shooting
a basketball complicated? No. Is using a screwdriver complicated? No. You can learn those things. Being great at them is
a whole different thing. The way to be successful
in dark post on Facebook is to understand the
psychology and salesmanship it takes to create a
narrative to the end consumer that you target that
predicates an action for them to purchase something
that you want to happen. That’s hard. That’s hard. That’s analyzing data. Interpreting it. Then deploying it with creative call to
actions that are the variable of the success to it against the right demo, at the right time, in the right vehicle, around the right psychology. That’s hard. Understanding how to make
an ad happen on Facebook is not hard, everybody can do that. That should take you 20 minutes, two hours or four hours, depending on how you
learn to figure that out. It’s, are you good enough
to then make it happen. So, no do not pay for a course because you’ll get that
information for free. What you should do is get educated on being at the bigger picture at hand. Which is the craft of
the usage of the tool, not the tool itself. – [Voiceover] Dr. Laurie asks, ?Do you ever have dreams at
night about your business?”

“letting a business run
their new social media plan “by themselves?” – Esben, we were debating
this question a little bit. I want to make sure I’ve got it right. You know what? Show Steve real quick. Let Steve go deeper into, and show Trouty. Trouty’s never been on the show. (chuckles) – Oh, you want to go deeper in it? – [Gary] Well, yeah, I mean, like, just tell, like, I want to go a little bit behind the scenes here
because I want to make sure, I don’t want Esben tweeting, like, “Gary Vee got my question wrong.” I want to make sure you take the blame. – Okay, fine. So here’s what I thought. You’re asking if you are
a client services company and you’re teaching your clients how to be better with social
and developing a strategey for them, how do you prevent them from just taking the IP
that you’ve given them and running off and doing
their own thing with it? Yeah? – I think it makes sense. On the sniffy sniff, I get a little black raspberry. Clearly some pepper. There’s a lot of huge fruit,
there’s almost like sugar exploding up with the raspberries. Obviously a lot of you who’ve
watched Wine Library TV in the past know these
kind of wines scare me because there’s a little
oak, it might be over blown 92 points Tanzer, 92 points Robert Parker, average price 16 bones. I’m gonna use average price on #AskGaryVee since this isn’t Wine Library TV, I don’t want to give Wine Library’s price. But average price across
the country is 16 bucks. But an interesting nose fruity would be very popular with the kids. You guys like fruit? – Yes! – Cool. See? Fruit. People like the fruit. Anyway, back to the question. There’s a very simple, easy way. My friend, when I started VaynerMedia, everybody kept asking me this. How does your IP, they take it, they run? (rapid “no” sounds) This is a continuous game. I know everything about
Snapchat stories right now. I know deeply that Vine’s
thinking about different things. I know what’s evolving in Facebook. The best way to keep clients
from not running away from you after they get something out of you is to still have something to give. – Yo Gary Vee, it’s Lee Malone here

“to use Facebook dark posts?” – Jason, what’s up man?
This is a great question to start Episode 6 with
because it’s a general question that I want everybody to pay attention to. Jason’s asking about Facebook dark posts, you might be thinking about
how to make Instagram work, or the up-and-coming amazing
Pinterest CPC ad platform, or anything, native ads on Outbrain and Taboola and Hexagram. The real answer to this, Jason,
is to become a practitioner. The right price for your ads
is always a moving variable based on supply and demand,
competition, all that jazz. The way to become good at it is to do it. You can go, step one, go
to YouTube and Google, and look up all the information, and figure out how to become
better at Facebook dark posts, read 30 articles on AllFacebook.com about how to be better at Facebook dark posts. You can do all the homework,
but until you apply it, it’s just knowledge, isn’t it? And I love students, but only so much. And so, the answer to
your question, my friend, is very simple: become
educated and execute. That’s how everything works,
for every single answer, on all these issues. To find out the right price,
there is no right price, Jason, the right price is the right
price right this second, because of the supply and demand curve of what you’re trying to apply. If you’re trying to sell furniture, and you’re one of two people buying ads on Facebook dark posts for furniture, your cost is gonna be a better
deal than in three weeks, when five people are there
trying to bid that up. Supply and demand, supply and demand. – [Voiceover] Dawn asks, “Do
you feel it’s still a necessary