The #AskGaryVee Show

#QOTD: Watch this on video and guess how many almonds are in the jar next to me. Whoever guesses it right will be flown out to NYC to join me on a taping of the #AskGaryVee show!! It's funny to hear that people are referring to cellphones and other mobile devices as the "second screen." As far as I'm concerned, in this DVR'd world we live in,  most of us are on our phones, scrolling through our feeds as commercials, and sometimes the actual TV shows, are being ignored. I'm pretty certain we're at a moment in time where our mobile devices are indeed our 'first' screen of choice.  When it comes to retail though, it makes sense that we refer to our phones as the "second screen" because it certainly holds true that our eyeballs serve as the 'first screen' when we're walking around. What's really resonated with me recently with retail  is how people are behaving when they're out and about and shopping around. People are literally IGNORING the promotional end-caps that brands spend tons of money on, simply because

#QOTD: What's the last app you downloaded? The humanization of business. Manners of Marketing. Thank You Economy. They're all same. Now that the Internet has allowed consumers to have more control, businesses are expected to behave differently and interact with their communities in a way that humanizes their messaging. Unfortunately however, brands haven't fully embraced the mindset that I thought would have been exhausted by now.  My prediction with the Thank You Economy was that by 2015 everybody would be on board. Unfortunately, that is not the case. People just haven't adopted it at scale and therefore how can it really be over? Nobody's ruined it. This might actually take forever or never happen at all although I know that those practicing it are getting real results. I see those emails every day.  And so, my prediction was incredibly off. It just may never happen at scale because companies can be heartless. Heck, even I'm heartless when it comes to money. I know that business is all about the wallet and

#QOTD: Just show me some love!! Everything trickles from the top. For a long time I used to talk about the "rich-kid syndrome" and how they didn't have it in them to hustle their way to building a sustainable business. What I've learned, however, is that this doesn't apply to everybody.  When it comes to business, like anything else in life, it all stems from the top. Just like a business' culture stems from its leaders, the way a child sees the world and their approach to life all comes from how they were brought up. When I meet with these "rich kids" I spend almost all my time trying to figure out what their past was like. How did their parents raise them? Did they spoil them or did they make them work for what they wanted? And so, this really has nothing to do with the kids themselves but more so about who their parents were and how they decided to pass on the family legacy.  I know that my kids are going to be "rich kids" but that doesn't mean I'm going to spoil them. I'm not going to let them become soft

As a teacher and any professional looking to expand their personal brand, my advice remains the same -- Cut out the crap, stop wasting time on non-important things, and hustle to build your brand.  If you want to build a more scalable brand you need to put out content. Utilize the technology around you like SlideShare, Spreecast, and Google Hangouts which allow you to further establish your credibility, and where you can also charge people for participating if they're willing to do so.  Use your content as a gateway to drug to allow you to further establish yourself and your brand. What I really see here is that people are just loaded with excuses. Do you really want to build your brand or do you want to watch 'Homeland?' Do you really need to take that hour long lunch? LUNCH? C'mon!! There's better ways to use our time. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat, but do you really need that much time for lunch?!? As with anything in life, you just need to figure out your cadence. What do you really want? Are you wasti

#QOTD: How long have you been following my work?Wanting to be an entrepreneur and being an entrepreneur are two very different things. If I were a young and aspiring entrepreneur I would go out an hustle my face off in any which way possible. The best way to become something is to first act like something. Sell, sell, sell. Understand what it takes to provide value to somebody. Learn how to communicate your value proposition enough so that it registers with your 'customer' allowing for you to accomplish what you've set out to do. Go out and find mentors. Go work for free and under people that can show you the ropes and serve as that point of contact when you need it. Learn the hustle and taste the game. Put yourself in the position to win. You can read as many books as you'd like, but they're not going to make you an entrepreneur. The only way to become something is through doing. And so, start hustling. Start doing whatever it takes. Even if that means selling the very shirt off your back.

#QOTD: Want to win a dinner with me? I need you to predict how many episodes of the #AGV show we'll wind up producing once this is all said and done. Those that guess right will be selected to have dinner with me. Deal?   They way I prioritize my time is by making the best judgment call possible in that particular moment in time. I frame my process by selecting two sides of the spectrum: What's the most on fire and needs to be tended to immediately, and what are the more high-level ideas that I can work on and flesh out? I'll take care of things like employee issues or client concerns (the biggest and most time-sensitive problems) and balance it by going on the offense on the things with the biggest upside, like company culture, visions for the future, buying the Jets ;), etc.  I never focus on anything in the middle. VaynerNation, I warn you, the MIDDLE is DANGEROUS. Stay away. 

#QOTD: How bad you want to work at VaynerMedia?The transition from being a "doer" to becoming a leader can be very difficult. Quite frankly, it scares the crap out of me. It's hard to go from "execution-mode" to then becoming a manager of a team. These are two very different things that can cause some issues if not handled properly. When you're a leader, you have to be the bigger man/woman in any given situation. You can't simply impose your will because you're now the "boss." A leader listens. They swallow their pride and work to make sure the team is executing as needed. A leader needs to empower those around them to do their jobs but they also need to be able to take the hit, and eat crap, because things won't always be easy, and at the end of the day, they're the ones leading the charge.I firmly believe that the transition from doer to leader is the same as the transition from leveraging your EQ rather than your IQ. Leaders need to listen and empower their team to become leaders themselves and take owners

#QOTD: Let me know what the next 3-5 years look like for your business. What do you have planned? What are you looking to accomplish?   Micro-Content is the idea of making content specific to the context of a platform. It's the idea of utilizing videos and pictures, quotes, and written words that work specifically for the multitude of platforms that exist (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc) -- which if I might add, was the context behind my latest book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook ;) So, how do you make good micro-content? First of all, content is subjective. It depends on the viewer and why they're in particular place at a particular point in time. I understand that a 40 year old woman will have a different mindset when she's on Pinterest vs. Facebook. Does she have intent to shop (Pinterest) or is she just catching up with her world (Facebook)? That's how you need to focus on your story-telling strategy. You need to be mindful of the psychology behind the user's intent and the nuanc

#QOTD: No question for this one! I need more banter!! I'm looking at you, VaynerNation ;) I absolutely hate when people send auto-messages after they've gained a new follower. I have actively un-followed most of you when you do this because it speaks to your intent on the platform. You're looking to scale social media on a platform like Twitter that's simply not scalable.  Twitter is the only true social network because it functions like a town square. A place where you can jump into conversations without sounding/looking creepy. The other networks are pushing content where Twitter is still the place for actual conversation.  When you go and auto-reply in a "town square," you're the same as the guy walking around just dishing out their business card at a conference or networking event. YOU'RE THE GUY THAT PEOPLE HATE. It's the wrong move. You're not putting any effort into engaging with people. You're auto-replying in the town square and providing no depth, no value. What do you honestly think is going to hap

#QOTD - Are you a chugger, or did you have a turning-point moment, and if so, what was it? If I were a realtor, the thing I would do more than anything else would be to review the establishments in my area. If I'm selling homes in Millburn, NJ, I'm putting out a daily piece of content featuring the the school, then I'm interviewing the individual teachers. I'm reviewing every single local shop: The wine store, the sandwich shop. I'm interviewing people who have lived in the neighborhood for 50 years. I'm putting out content to make you romantic about the area.  People pick where they want to buy a home for a lot of reasons. Some of them are practical: Public transportation, distance to schools. But how about making it a little warmer and interviewing Mrs. Robinson the 3rd grade teacher? I remember a realtor telling me that someone moved to Short Hills because of Wine Library (That was such a cool feeling, by the way). So I'm doing daily content about the 20-mile radius around the area where you're selling hom

#QOTD: What do you think of GaryVaynerchuk.com? Questions, comments, concerns? What’s your $.02? Email is definitely not dead. As most you may know by now, I’m a big fan of marketing in the year that we live in. And so, email remains to be a very killer opportunity.  Email is a channel that you can control without being at the mercy of all these other platforms that are out there. But, we also can’t be naive to the changes have been made, such as the promotions tabs that GMail implemented recently. Sure, email is falling off and these changes have caused us to lose touch with some email lists that we may have been paying attention to prior, but it’s still very much in play so long as we leverage it wisely. Are open rates at 90% like I had in 1997? Absolutely not. But, I still believe email is very much something to be considered. There’s no question that email will certainly be less valuable in 3-5 years. Heard me say marketers ruin everything? That’s where this fits in perfectly. That’s what this is all abou

#QOTD: Are you a Vayniac or part of the VaynerNation? What's the difference? If I were to go back in time and start all over again, I would change NOTHING. From 22 to 32, for the first ten years of my hustle, I remained quiet and I put in the work. I did the work that allowed me to have the audacity to go out and build the Gary Vaynerchuk brand.  The notion that there's people out there that are growth hacking, and getting exposure through other people's podcasts, and leveraging the brands of others to build themselves as "experts," is LUDICROUS. What are these people actually experts in? What have they accomplished to be deemed an expert? Here's what I did and why I think you should listen to me when it comes to business. I am in the midst of building my second $50M plus business in a 5 year window. Is it $50 Billion? No - but it's a very substantial business. I was ahead of the market and I executed. I put in the work, I built up the business at a speed many can't comprehend, and I did the things that allow

#QOTD: What is your favorite candy? First of all, if you want to increase engagement with your content, you need to make sure you're putting out quality product. Once you know that you're hitting the right notes with the material you'e putting out, you need to put your efforts into business development.  When an opportunity presents itself, pounce on it. Hustle. Be mindful of the environments and conversations you want to get involved in and be sure that you're offering them value in exchange for what you want from them -- exposure.  When I didn't have the base that I have now, I was out on the streets hustling for Wine Library, formerly named Shopper's Discount Liquors. I was walking into any business that might be relevant to my community and passing out flyers and coupons one-by-one to gain more exposure. Nobody gave a crap or knew who we were but I knocked on doors and made sure we got the exposure we needed.  So, can you biz dev? Are you willing to hustle to make it happen? Are you willing to work 15+ ho

#LINKS iTunes! - https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id928159684?mt=2 I am one of those people who used to think that tons of companies were overvalued. However, I was eventually proven EXTREMELY wrong. As I learned throughout the early Internet days, inflation happens, the world changes, adapts, and now I'm starting to wrap my head around the notion that things aren't actually as over-valued as they may seem at first sight.  But, this notion of over-under-valuation is definitely a doubled-edged sword. There will be plenty of businesses overvalued due to early-stage hype, but if something has proven to have won and you think is the future of infrastructure, such as an Uber, then we need to start paying close attention.   And of course, there's plenty of people that have lost money buying into "over-valued" companies, but then again, many have won. When we need to start looking close is when things hit scale. In the early Internet days, many people thought Amazon and EBay were over-valued, until of course, the wo

#QOTD: Are you going to subscribe to my podcast? YES or NO? #QOTD2: What can I do to make my podcast a TREMENDOUS experience for you? An interesting question was raised here about taking a course/class in order to become a social media marketer. The truth is, I'm self-taught. I didn't take any courses in social media, but in general I was never a real good student and never took any substantial classes in business or marketing -- But, that's seemed to work out for me just fine :) I think all this really just boils down to being self-aware and knowing yourself.  I honestly think that 99% are you are clowns, and are just reading headlines, rather than being actual practitioners and going deep within each platform. I'm even scared of you taking a course because most of the courses I've been exposed to during speaking engagements were jokes -- either the course itself or the teachers involved came off as clowns.  My honest opinion is that Social Media right now is in a very awkward and early stage. If you look ba

#QOTD: What's your favorite thing about San Francisco? To me, a name is made. I have some friends that sit around and spend wayyyyy too much time trying to figure out the name for their startup. What did "Google" or "Facebook" mean to anybody outside of their inner communities when they weren't the household names we know today? None of these words mean ANYTHING until they're SOMETHING.  Some people email me saying they don't like their own last name. My response? You're emailing Gary VAYNERCHUK. Let's call it what it is, Vaynerchuk SUCKS. And yea, they'll be those that tell me it's unique and kinda cool, and I get that - BUT, it's only good because I made something out of it.  And so, what does a name actually mean? To me? NOTHING.  I actually think a new trend in this short-form world we live in will be that most business names will start getting abbreviated. People used to call me "V-Chuk" because they didn't want to call me by "Vaynerchuk," and that became my slang last name. We will evolve our name to ou

#QOTD: What do you think of the 3-question episode vs. the 5-question? Let me know! General statements like "you should move your budget to digital video" scare me. Typically when people think about online video they think about spending 5/10% on the overall production and then 90/95% on the distribution. Of that 95% of allocated budget, they just end up pounding the users with right hooks and wind up pissing them off. So what does online video mean to most people? It's the pre-rolls on YouTube where people end up tabbing out and don't end up consuming the content. OR, they're going to sites like ESPN.com and getting pounded by 30 second videos that waste OUR time, which I'm sure pisses most of us off.  What I'm most worried about when I hear about these allocations is that I actually like live TV commercials better than the online videos that end up blocking the users from what they actually want to do or see. As I've stressed a million times before, this comes down to providing VALUE.  So when I hear these

#QOTD: Who is the biggest influence in your life right now? As an entrepreneur, I default into assuming it's always going to be competitive. It doesn't matter if "nobody is in your space" because if you're any good, and you've figured something new out, EVERYBODY is going to be in your space eventually.  To me, competition between startups is the same old game: Better product, better service, better execution. Those are the things that will drive your business.  When you're David, you shouldn't play Goliath's game. When you're Goliath, you should CRUSH David. Here's an example: Did anybody think it was weird that, for three years, I NEVER mentioned VaynerMedia. The truth there was that my size (or my lack thereof) was my advantage, and I couldn't let these other big guys know how huge we were getting! I was learning the landscape. Now that we've got the money and the scale to compete, you'll see that I'm talking about it more.  The important thing is to NEVER PLAY THE OTHER PERSON'S GAME.

 #QOTD: Would you pay $10 a month for Ello? Look the bottom line is that Ello raised venture capital. The investors are looking for a return on their investment, so they're going to have to figure out a business model. So the question becomes, if they're not going to sell your info to advertisers, are they going to charge a fee to use the service? Now look they may come up with something totally new and innovative, and God bless Ello if they do. I'm rooting for everybody all the time. My big thing is that **people don't care if you're selling their data**. We actually want targeted ads. When I'm in the market for another pair of Nikes, I WANT to see ads for them. Now there are those of you who disagree, but the data shows it. We'll take them when they go from ads to content.  So here's the thing: 1. I think the way Ello is financially structured has vulnerabilities. 2. This has happened before with things like Diaspora. It didn't work. 3. I'm not in love with the actual product, but I'm glad they're moving an

 #QOTD: Who is the person that you are SO afraid of letting down, it's keeping you from starting something big? It was so incredible to participate in Dave Ramsey's event. Thanks to everybody who came out, and a HUGE special thanks to the lovely people who stayed after to help me make this episode. To me there is no such thing as "an entrepreneur with a JOB." If you're a true entrepreneur, you can't breathe when you have a JOB. If you're not out there making it happen and running a business, you're not an entrepreneur, you're a person with entrepreneurial tendencies. Now that's fine. As long as you're HAPPY that's what matters.