#AskGaryVee Episode 12: The Hype Artist

- On this episode, we have a ton of guests, and we go dark, and we go high. (rhythmic hip-hop instrumental music) Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk, and you're watching episode 12 of the #AskGaryVee show. Fun fact for episode 12, the number of the hall-of-famer Joe Namath, the greatest quarterback in New York Jets history. It's good to be back, let's get to it.

- [Voiceover] Digi-talk asks, as a freelancer, should you ever work for exposure only? - Mary, congrats on being the, by the way, the first person to get two questions asked on the #AskGaryVee show, and I know, I know I'm gonna see in the comments, everybody's gonna be like, you haven't even answered mine yet, and now you've answered Mary's second question? Yes. She asks good questions. But, this question, I really wanna answer because I've been having a lot of Twitter conversations lately, and very honestly for the basic eight to 10 years that I've been in the tech game, meeting all these wonderful people, especially when you think about the tech game when I first got into it, it was a very, save the world and much more zen, it was less business-y. Characters like me probably ruined it. (thumping) This is a big debate, this is something that I sit on a very firm line on, which is, I do think that people should do things for free, for exposure. I still do things for free. And I get very compensated for my time, and my efforts, and I still do it, and somebody will say, I had an easier base, people have to pay the bills. But the fact that people don't take into account that there is strategy in doing things for exposure, that then lead to bigger money in the future. This is not about elitism, like some people jump on Twitter and say, pay the people! You gotta pay for the quality of work! I agree. But one needs to understand that money is not the only way to pay. Giving people in an at-bat, the platform, the exposure, is an absolute monetary way to compensate them in the way that I define monetary. Listen, by the way, you might fully disagree with me, and that's 'cause you've gone romantic on the issue, in my POV, and I respect that. But I just don't know a single person that is deemed, has achieved success without doing a solid percentage of things for free, as a jockeying chess move to their success. So if you're asking me, the answer's yes. If you don't do it, and you only pay to play, I get it. And, by the way, it ebb and flows. I now respond to many of you, no I cannot speak at this event unless I get my fee, because I promised my wife I will not travel without getting my fee, because I've got two young kids, this and that, and so like, it changes. You know, I will not be sold by anybody that it is inappropriate to do some spec work, because I really believe in its strategy.

- What's up Gary, it's Mitch Schneider, and I've got a question for you. The company I'm working for has a great story. We're putting up great content on all our social channels, but we're not seeing the engagement we were hoping for. Is it worth it to promote our Facebook posts, our tweets, and our LinkedIn posts, in order to gain more engagement on what we're putting out there? What do you think, are they worth it? - I think they're worth it. Now, it if you actually target it properly. So you used promote, and I would say, target. Meaning, Twitter, you can target actual words that people are using to get even more narrow into who you're trying to target. Facebook dark posts, we've ad nauseam talked over these 12 episodes, of Facebook dark posts. I do think you should target, but, and this is why I turned my face to the camera while you were asking a question my friend, you're deeming it to be great content. Maybe it just isn't. Right, and I think that that's a dangerous thing that a lot of people really need to figure out, which is, you may feel good of how it looks, but the reason I wrote Jab, Jab, Right Hook is, is it contextually proper? Does it have the right hashtags? Is it linking properly? Do you have the right amount of length? Are the pictures proper? Are you putting the logos in the right spots within it? Please triple check, you gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself, they say, and so please triple check, that you're checking all the boxes of doing all that stuff properly. Number two, I do believe that if you can afford, if you're lucky enough, and a lot of people watching aren't lucky enough, but if you're lucky enough to have the resources to target a segment, and boost up its awareness. If that content is good, that is gonna spread like fire for you, and it's gonna pay much bigger dividends long-term, so, I am a fan of it.

- [Voiceover] Erick asks, what's the last new skill you learned as a result of taking an interest in someone else's passion, hobby, or job? - Erick, this is a really interesting question. I'm tryin' to figure this out. You know, one that's emerging, a little bit, believe it or not, but I'm not gonna accept it, is golf. A. J. has fallen in love with golf, my bro. And, you know, I don't know if I'm picking up a skill, but I guess I am a little bit, I'm out there. I've been thinking, should I get into it? I just can't commit to the five hours that it takes to play, and so, I'm scared. People get addicted with golf, so, that would've been the answer, but I've been luckily able to hold off that insanity of the golf drug. I would probably say, and this is a weird answer, I'd probably say respecting data. You know, I think that I believe in targeting, and big data, and all this new digital stuff because Eric Caster and John Casmanus when they started VaynerMedia as developers, showed me the other side of marketing, which was retargeting, and CRMs, and all these things, and so, that was probably the last skill that I remember really picking up. Yeah, I would say respecting data.

- [Voiceover] John asks, when you're in a funk, what do you do to get out of it? - John, you've asked a question that I've been really excited to share with the world, because it works, it is very dark. Like, this is dark, so, I know that most people when they share my content say, beware, potty mouth McGee. This one's beware, you may be like, frightened, with a little bit of like a teardrop on your left eye. Left. (thumping) I'm gonna tell you the truth, because that was the commitment when I decided to do this, which, you know, obviously I'm able, well Steve's curating the questions but I could always kibosh them, so, when I start doing these live, or when we do live events, or we take this show on the road and it's audience participation then it'll really be the full monty but for now, I'm answering them and I'm answering them truthfully. This is a dark one, I'm stalling 'cause it's dark. When I'm in a funk, I literally close my eyes, put myself into a place where, something remarkable happens to me. You know, CNN names me the greatest man of all time. You know, just literally like silly things like, I get on a list of being the best entrepreneurs, or, Birchbox sells for four billion dollars and I make a lot of money, or, the full extreme, when I'm in my most funk, I literally try, usually I do things that are realistic, and happen within a one-year window. But in my deepest funks, I'll project, this is harder, this is a little more role play, 'cause when I think about stuff that's gonna happen, intimately, it feels real. But I'll dream about buying the Jets. And I'll think about those great things, and then I literally, I literally make pretend that Birchbox sells, that I make millions and millions of dollars, and that that's the phone call, and the next phone call is from my hysterical sister telling me that my mother died in a car accident. And I really do that. And I really go there. And it very, like, I'm very, as you guys know me, I'm an emotional character. I go there, and it really does something interesting for me. I really don't care that I made seven million dollars, if my mom died. I just really don't. And I can, even as I'm telling you this right now, I can feel it, I can truly feel how little I care about that, in comparison to what I would feel with that pain, and very honestly, it just sets me straight. It just reminds me what my priorities are, and it allows me to understand that the health of my children or my wife, I mean, the fear and the shivers I get when I think about their passing, in, you know, in real live, like them dying. And it just sets me so straight. It just makes me realize, how non-important losing that client was, or that best employee, or that deal, or that opportunity. Passing on Uber, in the first round, which would have given me 100 million dollars. In paper, so they gotta go public. But it's pretty damn in there. Is something I can deal with, because, the truth is, it's just not what makes me happy. And more importantly, I'm so happy that everybody I love has been healthy for so long, losing grandparents early has put me in that position, so a negative is a positive, and that's what I do. I go in a very strange cocoon, and make pretend that people I love the most die.

- Gary Vee, Amy S. Savvysexysocial. com, maybe you remember me, hi! - Of course. - My question is, I'm finding that the more I travel, more events I go to, it's like this major intensity constant high of meeting people, and great content, and it's like so insane. And then I come home to like, total normalness. And sometimes that is such a drastic change, that it actually feels low, when it's not actually that low, it's actually just normal. But you're just coming down from such a consistent high of being at a five-day conference, and it's like, crazy. How do you stay level, between all these events that you do, because you actually instill the intensity in people when you go speaking and all that kind of stuff. I'm just trying to find some balance in my life, Gary. Trying to find the balance, I think you've got it. I think you got it. Help me out! - Amy, you've got me pegged. I do have it. I am equally as fired up sitting by myself on a six-hour flight in an airplane, as I am speaking in front of 7000 people, being the person that is the Puff Daddy of that event, which is the hype artist. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know I'm not sure, maybe it's very similar to the question that we just did. I do have that balance because I'm thankful for what is in front of me. I very much live in the moment. One of my flaws, and/or my gifts, is that I'm so into what I'm doing, of that moment, that I do forget about my family, or my responsibilities, 'cause I'm so zoned in. Right now I'm literally could care less of what's going on with anything outside this cube, 'cause I'm zoned into the #AskGaryVee show. So I'm very all in on what I'm doing, and so when I come back from that high, first of all I'm pretty much high, although, I mean, I can create high from calm if I need it, 'cause I'm hyped. And excited. Yeah, I know, I don't, this is an answer that's very difficult. I wanted to show this answer because I appreciate the question, 'cause I think a lot of people think about it. But the truth is, this is something that comes very natural to me. It's intuitive. I would just ask all of you, and I talk a lot about this, I tweeted out quite a bit over the last two weeks about my grateful kind of post on Medium. I think gratitude, Amy. I mean, just be grateful, be grateful that you have some down time and it's just normal, and it's nice, and you get to see your core friends and family, and be very grateful that you're lucky enough to go to five-day tech raves, where you can be on that high.

- [Voiceover] Duke asks, what would you say A. J. has learned and applied from you in business, and, would he be willing to answer this question on the show? - Duke, memo alert. This is the #AskGaryVee show. This is not the Ask A. J. Vee show with no silent E's. This is my show, I answer the questions. There is no A. J. answering the questions. It's me, I do it, it's my show. Take it away, bro. - Duke, thanks so much for the question. It's a really good one, and one that I could probably spend a couple of hours talking through, but I know this show is long enough already. Tryin' to think through it, like I said, there's a lot I could go through. I think one of the biggest things is perspective. I think that, in the course of growing a business very fast, there's a lot that gets thrown at you. And there's a lot of good, bad. And it's really keeping the highs not too high, and the lows not too low. And really taking a step back, thinking about the wider impact of everything that's happening and really, just not stressing yourself out too much. I think every day goes by, a lot happens, but you can really just focus on what's important, think about the big picture. That's been massively beneficial for me as we've grown the business together at Vayner. Another huge one for me, is just the value of the team and HR. And just really focusing on personalizing the experience with your staff. I think, you know, when focusing on HR, I think there's a temptation to be a little bit too by-the-book, you know follow a process, a handbook, of how to handle reviews, and how to handle situations, and we very much take a look at every situation that comes our way, with anybody that we work with. And really personalize that, and really think about the situation and the impact of it. And don't use a cookie cutter system. I think just really focusing on HR, you know, we grew very fast at Vayner, we went through a spurt, of, roughly, from 12 employees to 25 employees, to 100 to 250 to 400. And when you're growing that fast, I think the two things that I've mentioned: really keeping perspective and big-picture thoughts, and really making sure that you're focusing on the team, and the team within, and focusing on their growth, how they work with you, each other, and those are the two biggest things I think I've taken away from working with Gary and having him as my brother, my business partner, and my mentor. And my best friend. - 'Preciate it bro, nice answer. That is episode 12 of the #AskGaryVee show, this is the first week of football. There'll be a lot of football talk the rest of the week. Get ready for it. Raider Nation, you are going down. You keep asking questions, oh, wait! I was about to close, but the question of the day. See, little rusty, from all that kind of, vacation, that was me looking at my tan, if you were wondering what the hell that was. Question of the day. Let's make it football. What is your lock of the week? What is your survival pool pick? Your pick, no spread. Survival pool pick. Who's your lock for this week one of the NFL season, my favorite week of the year, especially now that school's finished. You keep asking questions, I'll keep trying to answer them. (rhythmic hip-hop instrumental music)