#AskGaryVee Episode 5: Asses in Seats!

- On this episode, I talk about speaking fees, am I an expert or are you an expert, and why I left Daily Grape. (slow tempo hip hop music) Hey everybody, welcome to the #AskGaryVee Show, I am Gary Vaynerchuk, and this, my friends, is episode five. A little fun fact about five, five is my all time favorite number. - [Voiceover] Kelsey asks: "What are your thoughts on

"starting to share content before you're an expert? "Do you wait, or do you share your journey? " - Kelsey, that's an interesting question. First of all, I think this whole expert thing is a ridiculous notion. Am I an expert? Are you an expert? You know, I mean when does one get to claim they're an expert? I mean, I thought I was an expert when I was 22. I'm pissed that I wasn't able to make these videos when I came out the gate in '98 and brought serious thunder to the wine world. You would have saw a young, raw, hungry, angry Gary Vee, and that would have been really interesting to look back on. So I say map that journey, baby because the truth is, expert is subjective. I've seen people tweet that I'm a bigger expert than people I think are way more accomplished than me, and then other people put me in tweets with other people that I clown every day of the week. More value in this pinky than them. So expert is clearly subjective and, more importantly, here's the real punchline, put that content out because you're gonna be able to look back at that content, your grandkids are content. Plus you will see things, and how they evolve. My 1998 video would have been: "In 2002, every single "person's gonna go into a store with a cell phone "'cause they're blowing up in London right now, "and they're gonna come in and be able to tell the price "of every single product, so sell your products at cost. " And that would have been a big no, wrong. That would have been fun to look at. So, there are no experts except if the audience deems you an expert, if somebody deems you an expert as young talent out the gate, then kudos on you. Start filming now. - [Voiceover] Mark asks: "When you left the Daily Grape

"was it for Misha or VaynerMedia? " - Mark, I left it for VaynerMedia. Misha was already two years old at that point. This is August '11, that I think I shut down Daily Grape. You know it was five and a half years of every day doing a video show, and it just ran its course. I mean, the thoughts of doing a video show every day would like freak me out right now. (comical clicking) - [Voiceover] Andrew asks: "How do you change the culture

"to one of genuinely caring about the customer "when the current ethos is so established? " - Andrew, Andrew. There's only one way to change the culture when it's broken to something genuine. Kill leadership. Leadership is in charge of the culture. Everything, my friend, stems from the top when it gets into the DNA. So do not let the leader, the CEO, the board, whoever it may be, do not let her, him, make an excuse that something is happening below in middle management, or some other things, because she's in charge, he's in charge of that middle management. Every problem at VaynerMedia, is my fault. Right here, you're looking right at this face. It's my fault because I empower everybody else to create that culture, and so how do you change it? You change the top, and if the top owns it 'cause it's the family business, or just became the new CEO, and it's not going to change, then you need to get the hell out of there because the only people that can change culture are the people from the top. It's true you can hack from the bottom, you can maybe then inspire the top, but that top still has to make the decision. That is the judge of culture.

- [Voiceover] Saura asks: "How do you book speaking "engagements when you aren't well known yet? " - Saura, they way I booked speaking engagements when I wasn't well known yet was, I did them for free. The entitlement that you are not known, you do not deserve to get paid. Do you know why you get paid to speak? Because you put asses in the seats. Because people want to come and see you. The reason I get astronomical speaking fees is, knock on wood, zoom in here, lemme knock on wood, I am very fortunate to have an audience that wants to travel and go to these events, and that's why you get justified those fees. You don't get paid if you're not bringing any value, so either your content is phenomenal, but even then if you're not putting asses in the seat you are not getting paid, so the best way to do it is to do what I did, in my opinion, which is I spoke for free in the beginning, quite a bit, to establish my name, to show everybody how good I was at it, and then the demand side came to it.

- [Voiceover] David asks: "Since you published Crush It!, "what big changes have you seen in online content creation, "and how can people maximize them? " - David, what's up brother, hope you're doing well. Enjoyed our filming years ago, glad to get you on the show. Biggest thing that's changed really is, you know everything has just become so much bigger since 2009. Facebook is such a bigger powerhouse than it was back then. New things like Snapchat, and Vine, and all these things so it's really, everything I saw coming, at least in that way, has come true. These things have grabbed more attention. YouTube and Vine celebrities are bigger than real celebrities to the 13 to 18 year old demo, that's going to continue and go full scale, and so the opportunities are to find the medium you're best at. Some people rock Vine, some people rock Snapchat. If you're good at taking pictures and drawing on top of yourself, Snapchat might be your place. If you might be great at Pinterest, to the female demo, making info-graphics, beautiful pictures. Instagram, we've seen a whole emergence of stars, curators, people of talent and so just more new avenues are coming out and so, just more of the same, more of the same tactics. Crush It! 's tactical advice to the platform might be outdated, but the thesis has never rung more true. Thanks everybody for watching episode five, fever as they call it in the streets. I appreciate it. Please, subscribe up we talked about this. DRock, don't screw me up, I want a lot of these, I hope this is, did that just happen? It better be there, do it. I am very thankful for this show. We got to five episodes, a big accomplishment. Go look into the details, 80% of shows online don't make it to episode five, so we're in the 20% Stunwin. You, with a little bit of me, we are changing the Q and A world, whether they like it or not. Hey everybody, this is the #AskGaryVee show. On this episode, I'm gonna talk about Lizzie's impact on my career, my health, and talent. Do you have it?