#INFLUENCE13SF Q&A Session

I spend most of my days in boardrooms you have been in a number of those boardrooms what's the biggest challenge you think are in those boardrooms that everybody's full of [ __ ] that people don't make that PE no but it's true right like let's really like well especially this is man I [ __ ] love it when it's like this so let's let's talk about it for real right the problem with boardrooms are people I was so naive to Corporate America I was an entrepreneur my whole life I grew my family's business then I was into startups Corporate America somebody makes a decision in a boardroom or some of your businesses that is completely predicated on their bonus not what's best for the product or completely predicated on how they can politically grow within the organization or how to make their boss look good bad or indifferent so what ends up happening is you sit in a boardroom where people aren't aligned on what's right me and my dad fought every single day for nine years building Wine Library every day I fought with my Dad I'm proud to sit here and say that I cried a hundred times cried but there's one thing I think back to now that blows my mind which is that my dad and I only ever gave a [ __ ] about the logo it was never about what my dad wanted I who made more money it was nothing other than the [ __ ] logo Wine Library right that's not happening in Border Rings Corporate America people don't give a [ __ ] about selling more cereal or soda or [ __ ] they're thinking about other things and there's seven agendas I mean I have a very tough time with what's going on between agents and Brands I don't think their agendas are aligned like you know I think agencies do a terrible job I mean back to my naive to you guys like I didn't run an agency I think the reason we built a really big company really fast is I didn't know the rules I didn't know that like you should charge for every hour that you sneeze right like I didn't know this [ __ ] I just wanted to do the best work what was right I just wanted to sell [ __ ] go figure fair enough um through that uh but you know at the same time that's real yeah no I look dude I sit there with you the challenge that I face more than anything is what I see is so there's one set of people in the boardroom no I want you to say that there's one set of people in the boardroom which is senior leaders there is another set of people in the boardroom which are more Junior marketers that enter into a system that is actually built on not necessarily making sure that they live up to their potential so what makes me nervous and you see this [ __ ] let's talk about school then yeah fair enough I think business scho you want to talk about the real conspiracy yeah but I think business school too I think you know look 1% how many people have student loans raise your hand yeah [ __ ] blows some horeshit or you know so we did a we did a survey out of the top 100 Business Schools uh all of the descriptions of classes only 1% of those descriptions use the word digital in it any yeah so let me tell you something about business schools in America you're looking at somebody right now who failed I always have to preface this I tell all my friends I was a bad student and I'm hanging out with all these [ __ ] Millionaires and Geniuses I think they think that I got B's right I'm like no [ __ ] I got [ __ ] FS right so you're talking to somebody up here right now who failed all his classes who went to Mount Ida college right because I got a postcard in the mail second semester of my senior year and brought in my guidance counselor and she's like [ __ ] It Go and so all right so meanwhile now I go and speak at all these places right I go to Harvard and University of Chicago and Michigan and all these places and I always go and sit and listen to the curriculum before I speak because what I snipped out was like holy [ __ ] yeah it's abysmal they're talking about [ __ ] that isn't relevant three years ago let alone now it's crazy and I actually think we're failing most of the people who are entering in as a result of that but the other thing I think so the challenge I think you face is which I see you face sometimes directly is that so many brand marketers are afraid to actually take your guidance and pull the trigger on the things that you're suggesting of course because nobody gets fired for doing television or ban no but the bigger problem with that is not that they don't get fired they become uh obsolete in 25 years and they sit and stay stagnant in the exact same place in their career so what I get frustrated about is that they're not told that the way to actually grow is to do things different by the way there's a ton of people who look the same there's very few people who look different I think the other thing is we have to realize it's not an All or Nothing Game the thing that has blown me away about corporate or these organizations is that they don't have a Navy Seals unit right like the US government is the biggest thing and we have the biggest military and I always use this equation right like we have a big army television print you know scale right but to get certain jobs done there's like 40 dudes 40 chicks right that make [ __ ] happen the fact that these organizations have not created allocation of dollars for Ninja units to go out and actually make [ __ ] happen seems crazy to me because it's a very small allocation of dollars in the scheme of what they spend each year and

meanwhile I mean listen you know this and if we're gonna get into this like you have very Junior brand managers controlling the money not senior leadership which is fascinating to me right I mean I think that's a good thing I just think that we haven't encourage them they're scared to spend they're scared they're you know like and then I sit in all these senior meetings and they're like well the brand managers aren't doing their job I'm like [ __ ] you're [ __ ] not giving them the permission and the funny thing is in the end of the day when they're actually Jud [ __ ] when he does say that by the way when they're and you're like uh what he really means is uh the appropriate terminology is [ __ ] sir so um anyway I you know we're running out of time I just thought that it was interesting and I also think so you talked about the big data I walked by a panel and said big data needs to be small data and I was like really that's kind of the but I thought it was interesting about the repackaging so one last uh question so um what do you think is and I'm again I'm talking from a brand marketer standpoint what do you think is the one if you could tell them to go do one thing that would help open up their perspective what would it be [ __ ] man there's so many um One Thing One Focus one thing that could open up their persp the problem for me with that answer is to answer that question and I'm as many of you know I'm never sure to give a quick answer is that I only care about execution so when I try to reverse engineer what a brand marketer needs to do to actually then go and execute it could be going to a conference and being inspired it could be going and working with a startup for a month to see how it actually is but the reality is it's almost like you know if I told them to do one thing it'd be to go tell their bosses what they actually feel because the horeshit is what's really the problem the fact that that's the communic it's like relationships it's you know people don't communicate enough right like we just don't communicate enough like that there's just too much horseshit there's too much [ __ ] and then people are crippled to go and execute and that's the real thing that you see and the reason I think that my company can execute is that I have not been able to convince my team that I'm not joking that I want to give them 15 minutes at a time and that they can say anything it's been surprising to me that they haven't taken me up on that it's been surprising that they're still scared of me and that makes me realize holy [ __ ] infrastruct I mean could you imagine like me right like you see what I am right there's still that intimidation based on layers how do we create something that gets actual authentic real dialogue going on because everybody is crippled by [ __ ] rules and tons of tradition that doesn't actually matter in a 2014 World and that's why Barnes and Noble and borders go out of business that's why in the consumer package Goods brand you guys are always to buy chibon and Red Bull and vitamin water and you're unable to do it yourselves cuz there's just too much horseshit which makes you slow and everything is predicated on speed is the game and if you can't execute fast you can't win because by the time you execute on your promise the world [ __ ] moved on you all right ladies and Gentlemen let's give a big round of applause to Gary