“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.

– So. – Actually I’m scared. – Ready? – Yeah. – So VaynerMedia has always been in like, turbo growth mode.
– [Gary] Aw, crap. – [Gary] Yes. – Right, like always. It’s always bring on more clients, hire more people, run out of space, rinse and repeat, right? – Yes. – Do you think there will ever be a time where VaynerMedia prioritizes depth over width in terms of charging more, you know, bigger, fatter — – Scopes? – scopes, and — – Subjective call on the
quality of the output? – Right, or, but then that
laddering up to sort of… – A plateauing of people? – Turning into like big,
huge, lavish benefit packages and things like some agencies get really, really, really
crazy with that, right? Where we’re scrappier, right? – Yup. – And I’m not saying that’s the point — – No, no, no, you’re not. – But do you think Vayner will ever slow down —
– [Gary] You mean like, paying people 200 thousand dollar bonues to be the best creative director
in the world kinda thing? – Well, yeah sure, I guess. – I mean, I’m just, I wanna
quantify that part of it. – Right, exactly. So it’s like depth over
width in terms of like, sheer dollar amounts as
they relate to clients, employees, benefits, all that stuff. And I’m not saying it’s bad right now, by any stretch, right? – Yeah, no. I’m not worried about that. So I think, for me, the way I run my business, which is why I think I’m running a much better business than all these other
agencies that do that, is because I think you can
achieve both in parallel. So I think what I uniquely
as an entrepreneur am good at, is running both trains. So I think you could easily, as, in the context of your question, speak to a very different level of quality in the building from 18 months ago. – Right. – So, if you just project out, if you think about the fact that we didn’t have a single SVP
or real creative director like of any, real’s not fair. A creative director of 10
years or more experience just 18 months ago. – Mmhmm. – That you can see that
happening in parallel. I think that, I think
where it gets disguised is we have people that come
from Gray and Ogilvy and things of that nature. We also have, what’s
been very happy to me, to see Aton and Harry and Pensoot and all these people
leveling up in parallel. What it gets disguised by is the thing that’s much more obvious. What’s much more obvious is
hyper growth of people, right? – Yeah. – It’s just, getting
crammed when we grow, right? What’s less obvious is,
you know, anyone’s ability to really truly dissect 550
people’s depth of skill. – Yeah. – And there’s pockets of clients. You’re always gonna have
variable depending on the people. Plus, hiring the right people. So, to me, the answer is,
it’s happening in parallel. I think the only thing that makes people think that it’s happening,
is stop the hiring process and then they’re like, “Oh! “We’re not going hyper,
we’re going deeper.” – Yeah. – I think we’ve gone stunningly deep in 18 months by two variables. One, bringing the outside
talent in their 30s and 40s, right, depth, which is gray hairs. in a lot of people’s
subjective point of view. And number two, the actual growth of the people that have been at Vayner that are totally different animals. And I think that, for every
individual it’s different. And I also think that for the people that have been here longer, it’s a different context point
than it is for other people. You know, and so, no I mean, I think as long as I’m running the business, I’m never comfortable in thinking one has to be done without the other. I truly feel that you’re
capable to do both. And I think if you project
out what’s happened in the last 18 months on the depth chart, that it’s actually tremendously scalable and gets way deeper
because as you get bigger, you deploy those dollars to those things. – Mmhmm. – And as far as like, benefits
and packages, you know. I’m very weird when it comes to bonuses. I think bonuses, so we’ve
hired two people recently that left their agencies
because of bonuses. Because they felt they deserved more. I think when you have a graying zone of, I get to be the judge
and jury on the bonus, I think what is safer
is to just try to get to a number together. And I think that those
things ebb and flow. I also think that when you’re
in a fast-growing company, what a lot of employees don’t calibrate, ’cause they shouldn’t,
’cause it’s very hard for anybody to care about anything besides what they care
about for themselves, is the notion of what happens in a 36-month window
versus a 12-month window. So I’ve been happy to be honest with you, of getting three to four
emails in the last six months from former employees
who left because of money who now make less money than some of their counterparts here
because VaynerMedia is growing, and we’ve been able to rise all ships, and in their other places they haven’t. And so, those are my answers. – Bonus question. – Please. – How fast do you think
we max out the space at Hudson Yards? – I think we might of already. – Nice. I think, you know, I do think that every company has to bear the negatives that come along with the positives for their individual
self around the person that runs the company. I love insanity. (laughter) I like it. I like when we’re like this. I like when we’re sitting
this close to each other. I like it. And if you are not that, if you’re somebody that really like that, and your space, and this
is where I put this, and this is where I put this, then, you know, Vayner
can be tricky at times. Though, no question, I
think it’s a leader’s job to adjust to his reality,
and I’ve definitely deployed more empathy towards the way we plan on scaling Hudson Yards, and if we need secondary offices to try to come back a little bit
on my own selfish love of that kinetic energy. Mainly predicated on, because
the floors are so big. So I think I’m gonna be
able to scratch my itch, ’cause they’re just big floor plates and there’ll be three, four
hundred people comfortably on one floor. And so I’m hoping that
solves that problem. So, thanks Steve.

“would you say the “T” in
timing is way more important “than the “T” in talent?” – Not even close for me. – Uh, what? – No, Isham. – Isham. – Isham. – Do not disrespect this show. – The show. Timing is a talent in itself. – In 2006 after carefully
watching YouTube for five months, I just got lucky I decided to go on it. Luck timing for me. Oh weird. No, no, no. There was talent and understanding That this platform was
going to be meaningful. You got so lucky with
your timing with YouTube. Bullshit motherfucker. I fucking paid attention. It’s going there. There was talent in understanding that this was going to be important and I put time and effort to learn it. Weird here I am. Weird here’s YouTube. Timing is a talent in itself. One of the most important talents, Chase. – For sure. It’s Isham? – Yes. – Isham talent, cultivate it. What are you good at? What do you love? That’s what matters. Timing I guess it matters in the sake of getting hit by a bus. But that’s about it. – Too many people think
you were at the right place at the right time. Let me tell you something Isham and everybody else, if the internet didn’t come along, I would have 17,000
liquor stores right now. Would’ve been a great timing
for bricks and mortar. Talent trumps all. It is the absolute variable. Period end of story. – Hardwork’s in there. I love the hustle, I love the hustle. – Talent without hard work is pretty much. – I do think talent is a variable. – Timing it’s not even close. – Timing, but I will say this. If I work 16 hours a day
on my basketball game I am not going to be an NBA player. – For sure. – Talent is the variable. What hard work does is
it maximizes that talent of whatever you’re deploy
that hard work against. – Isham I’m sorry about that, real.

– Joe.
– [India] “In a tactic-obsessed world, “how do you hammer home the
truth that WineLibraryTV “succeeded because of you,
not the daily videos?” – Interesting. So Joe’s saying that
the daily consistency, which seems like a proxy to success, isn’t the reason it was successful. It was more of me and my talents. Joe, I think the answer
is they’re both correct. I mean, I would totally disagree with you that, I mean, I lived it. If I had quit after the nine-month mark, it was me, I did it. A lot of things would be different today. That just wouldn’t have
been a foundational piece of my narrative. I wouldn’t have broken out into Web 2.0 culture, which would then not have allowed me to be a top-25-follows
person during that era. Would have not allowed me to network in South by Southwest and meet all the founders of the future
most important companies. There’d surely be no opportunity in 2008 to have dinner with Zucks at South by, wouldn’t have been asked. So, you know, I think that yes, and I’ve said it a bunch of times, no marketing and no tactics will help you if your product is shit. If I wasn’t good enough, I could still be doing the episodes. There’s plenty of people that do. I mean, you can go watch
on YouTube right now someone who’s been putting out videos everyday for the last seven years and still has 8,000
subscribers and isn’t getting any traction cause they’re
just not good enough. And being good enough is
the variable, number one. But to downplay the
consistency of the work ethic. And look, I’m feeling it now
with the #AskGaryVee Show. You know, in London, seven selfies. Right? Seven people, I’m
literally walking the streets, “Gary, Gary,” I’m feeling
much more brand equity because of the content
that I’m putting out. And, honestly, I’m feeling it a lot more over the last 60 and 90 days than I did over the first year of this show. Like, momentum is a real thing. Even the Jets game. We were up 27 to 7 and then it started getting a little hairy cause for the last 18, 20 minutes Miami basically had the momentum. We held on. Momentum is real. In sports and in life and in business. And the only way you gain momentum is by putting down the foundation of work that gives you the chance for momentum. So momentum just doesn’t
come out of thin air. It’s a play, it’s a
moment, it’s consistency. It’s putting in the work and so Joe, I don’t pound that home because I think both matter quite a bit. But yes, you know, no marketing solves a bad product. – [India] From Samantha.
– [Gary] Samantha.

“college dropouts at VaynerMedia?” – Do you, and have you, yes! Where’s the, Stephan, Lee Jeneau, like, we’ve got ’em, we’ve got ’em. (laughter) This is not something that
even registers in my mind, as a matter of fact, you guys
know how I feel about school, pretty hard core. I’ve gotten hit up on
Twitter a bunch of times, that says VaynerMedia has this need for, two years of, I don’t know,
college, like, whatever. Whatever our requirements are, and I didn’t even know. I assume that we did
that as a standard thing, that HR at one point did it. A.J. or Kelly when she
was Managing Director, or somebody in HR. And literally I reached
out and we’ve changed it. I think we’ve added, like, or have, I didn’t even know Staphon was or wasn’t. Like, that doesn’t even register for me. If you’ve got the skills,
you’ve got the skills. I have no idea, once you get in here. Whether you go to Harvard, or you’re from Schmarvard,
it doesn’t matter. The game starts and then
that’s what ends up mattering. – [Voiceover] Schmarvard College shirt? – Schmarvard College shirt is a good idea.

“today, without anyone
knowing who you were, ” “how would you find talent?” – Kyle, first of all I’m
gonna answer the real answer, and then the question I
think you’re actually asking. The real answer is, I would never, and this is going to give a
lot of people a lot of insight, I’m always trying to provide
value, Sid, as you go through your career, you wanna
provide value, so I’m going to answer twice. The answer is I would not
start VaynerMedia, I actually will never in my career
start a business, or be in a business that I don’t have
disproportional leverage from the beginning to
affect the outcome of the business, so the thought
of starting a social media agency, where I am not a
known entity, and I don’t have leverage with brands
already, VaynerMedia started much like the
networking video that Sid, was taught by DRock,
actually link that up DRock, let’s give Sid, this
is like a Sid episode. It’s a Sid explosion guys. Let’s have a little ding,
ding, ding right here, if you haven’t seen it
check out the video. I talked about networking,
and somewhere in that thing I said, let it come
to you, have the leverage. When I started Vayner, I had the leverage. I was already a known entity,
in this space, at that point probably for about 3 or 4
years, 2 or 3 years, brands were coming to me. I scratched the itch,
I reverse engineered. I had a business because it came to me. A talent came to me, because
I was known as a thought leader already in the space. To start a business without
leverage, either having the pure talent, I’m great at
cooking, you know, baking, and thus I have a chance. Maybe I don’t need to
be known for my baking skills, but I have the skill,
or I have the disproportional known factor. Now to answer your question,
you need to go out and network, ironically. If you are somebody who’s
inspired by me, listen, I see a ton of you 23 year
olds starting your social media agency because it feels easy, right. Like, I’m a kid, I know what Vine is. You know, remember these
businesses, need business results, so just because you
use SnapChat to hook up, or whatever you’re doing, right,
just cause you know how to swipe to the right, doesn’t mean you know
how to sell cups of coffee. So, I think what’s really important is do you have the skills first, second, you gotta
go out and network. If you’re starting an agency,
if you’re asking that question selfishly for yourself,
to what should you do, I think you need to go to
meetup.com, go to every social media meet up in your
general area, go to 5-15 conferences, big ones,
around social media, you know Social Media Examiner does
a big one in San Diego, like scrounge up the dollars
and go, network, network, network, learn, learn, learn,
follow people, multiple people, because they’re all
bringing different values. Learn, learn, learn, engage
on Twitter, it’s the open cocktail party of the internet. Engage with people that
are engaging on comments within my Facebook posts. Become parts of communities, leverage, remember jab, jab, jab,
right hook, don’t go in there and be like, “Hey, do
you wanna work for me?” Like, become part of a
community, then leverage the aspects of being part of that community. – [India] Nice. – But it starts, India, with
becoming part of the community. Like I don’t wanna glaze over that. I appreciate your nice,
but I want to make sure we really get it here,
like you’ve got to become part of the community, and
then you can leverage it. Don’t tactically be, don’t fake the, don’t go into the reddit
and your first post is spam, right Steve?
– That’s — – Because you get fleem to
death, and I think a lot of people try to do that,
and they think they’re clever because they’re patient for a
month and acting like they’re part of the, People can sense shit. If your intent was to
become part of the community just to extract value
out of the community, people can sense it. – [Voiceover] Tyler asks, “In
a Snapchat/Instagram world, is

that many others have tried
to do before me & failed. Am I stupid to think
that I’ll be the anomaly? – Daniel, that’s a tough question, because the truth is,
there are some mountains that are very difficult to climb and thesis’s that people
love to think are real, and they’re never able to
really fully get there. I think the anonymous social network space is gonna end up being one of them, I think that brings
out the worst in people and ultimately kills
itself from within itself. That’s one preview to a space
that I’m not bullish on, that I think a lot of people are gonna try to climb that mountain, that said, it just takes one tweak, one turn. You know, there was a lot of industries where people couldn’t
figure out how to win, and then eventually somebody
came along and won that game, and so I think that very
similar to the first answer in this episode, it
comes down to your chops, your skills, your patience,
your infrastructure, and really really really does
come down to your skill set. I really do believe that, you know, anybody can do anything
if they’re good enough, if they’re the first of that thing. I just think that people
have to be very realistic to also understand how special
and rare that actually is.

– I have a ton of strengths,
what’s the best way to drill down on the best one so I can move forward at a faster pace? – I have a ton of strengths? – I have a ton of strengths. – OK, good, I like Adam already ’cause he’s a brother on the ego train, and I love the ego train. I equally like the humility train, that’s the balance that I try to live and comes natural to me. Adam, I think that you
need to shut the fuck up and just pick one and go do it. If you have so many goddamn strengths one of them is clearly
not moving fast enough. If you’re even debating this, your strength on moving
and creating action is clearly not that strong. So, I would say that’s a great thing, that fires me up, and I believe that people
have multiple talents. I mean, I feel like a lot of people do. I’m flabbergasted by
somebody not just picking one and moving forward. I’ll give you better advice, cool, you’ve got a lot of strengths? Lay them down, look at them, say I like that one the best, do that. – [India] That’s good. – Right? I mean if you have so
many goddamn strengths, just pick one and frickin’ win. Start winning! You can get to all of them eventually. Ya know, I mean, God. No? Yes! – No, I’m just laughing, Dear Gary, I’m just too good
at too many things, help. – Yeah, I mean, right, pick one, dick! Jesus. And by the way I’m pumped, I like actually think he’s gonna win, like I know I’m being a little zingy, you’re being a little zingy, like, Adam, I’m pumped, just pick one man, just pick one and start winning. It tastes good. It’s delicious. (laughter) I mean– – All right. – [India] All right.
– [Voiceover] All right.