EntreLeadership - #144: Gary Vaynerchuk—Secrets of Growth

Episode Date: April 25, 2016

Social media expert, digital advertising agency CEO and best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk returns for a fun conversation on business, leadership, social media and his tried-and-true methods for success. entreleadership.com/podcast Dave's High-Performance mp3 Download Infusionsoft's Field Guide to CRM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. This episode features part two, not really part two, but the second conversation I've had with Gary Vaynerchuk recently. It's got a new book out called Hashtag Ask. Gary Vee, one entrepreneur's take on leadership, social media, and self-awareness.

Always fun to talk with Gary Vee. Great energy. The conversation before we start to record and the conversation after we stop recording is almost as good as what we give you. It's just always great fun. We love Gary Vee. Fun stuff, as usual, high pace, a lot of content. I think it'll help you.

And then we shine the light on success stories from our Entree leadership tribe. Those of who listen regularly, you will appreciate you. Raffi. Raffi was recently at his second Entree Master Series. Decided to come back for a second time. And we decided to get him in the studio and talk to him about what had changed. What did he take away? How did he implement it? And how is it working from the first Entree Master Series.

This is really great stuff. What a great guy. I'm not going to give away too much. But what just a phenomenal individual this guy is, what he does beyond running his business. So that's what's coming to you as far as our conversations. And then remember, we'd have free tools. from Ontario leadership, our high-performance achievement MP3, the Infusion Soft field guide to CRM. I'll give you all the details on that coming up.

Well, when you get to interview as many people as I do, you interview people multiple times, and you develop a rapport with them, you know, after you've interviewed them a few times, and you really connect, and I certainly really throw myself into all the conversations that I record. I really do. I love the process, the art of interviewing. And I prefer to call it a conversation because it's how I want it to come across to you, folks. But I say all that to say this, that Gary V is one of the few people that I do very little prep for. I mean, very few.

In fact, I prep for him, but it is a whole different prep process. I come in and I just have a general idea where I want to go and I fire from the hip because that's what Gary does. And I share that with you maybe to help you in some form of communication that you have to learn how to adapt to people. There's a reason why we do personality tests. and we talk about communicating well and different people communicate different ways. And so this is a guy that I just love to talk to because I don't necessarily know where I'm going and where I'm going to lead him because we certainly don't know what he's going to give us. I love Gary Vee unapologetically.

This is a fun conversation. It always is. And because it is focused on personal growth, that is our theme this month. We wanted to give you Gary Vee when it comes to personal growth because this guy is passionate about growing. as an individual, he wants you to grow, and he wants your team and your organization to grow as well. So, without any further ado, have at it. This is me and Gary V. Gary Vee, you are in the throes of it, buddy boy, pitching the book like crazy.

So before we get into the book, what's going on in your world right now in this book pitch zone you're in? You know, just keeping it nice and chill. Everything's quite relaxing, not much going on. You know, same old 18 hour days, working really hard, hacking my work-life balance because I'm going at it so hard. Right. And super excited, building one of the fastest growing digital agencies ever, which is humbling and exciting and has me very busy.

And the book is quite important and pumping out, you know, my new Daily V show, which is almost like a reality TV show of entrepreneurship, has been a lot of fun. paying attention to a lot of new emerging apps like musically and after school and really paying attention to Snapchat. And so keeping myself very busy. All right. So I'm going to ask you a question. And I know that you're so hyper-focused. In our last conversation in this podcast, our listeners will remember that you're just kind of like blinders on. And I love that about you. But I'm going to take a shot here at a question and maybe

out of left field for you. But I know Gary V always has an answer. So here we go. if you look at the current political environment and Trump specifically, this is a phenomenon, it's definitely kind of a shift in American political culture. Yes. But with what's powering Trump politically, is there something that we as entrepreneurs, business people can take from that? I think there's an unrest. There's an anger, a frustration, and I'm just wondering, do you see anything that translates

maybe a sign, maybe something we should be. paying attention to that business leaders can capitalize on. I do actually and it's a really good question because I'm paying attention to it. Not for what he, I'm not paying attention to it in my political mind. As a matter of fact, the South Carolina, Nevada last weekend was kind of the first time I allowed myself to say, okay, I've got to vote for a president. Let me start getting educated. And I'm somebody who's voted on both party lines. So I actually do my actual homework to who do I one of the two people that are left. That's kind of how I play.

But there's nothing that's going on with Donald Trump that's confusing to me. And I'm laughing at everybody's confusion. Right. Because it's going on in the marketing world as well, which is the old playbook is in big trouble because people are not tired about the same old people in Washington. They're not tuning out television.

And those are right, but it's just that our attention is going to different things. The game has changed forever. Look what you and I are doing right now, right? Podcasts, Snapchat, Facebook. These are all different things. There's another thing that I think a lot of people are not paying attention to, which is likeability.

Whether you agree with him or not, there's a lot of people that have watched him as a TV star and as a personality. He's playing the loud and likable enough to a certain demo that it's resonating and he doesn't look the part and everybody's marketing behavior and business behavior should learn from this

because doing the same thing that everybody's been doing forever is just not a good blueprint anymore in 2016. You know, I think you're a Donald Trump 2.0. You're loud and likable. You know, there are certain people who don't like you, but by and large, you have a lot more people who like you than dislike you.

Now, I'm not trying to offend you, but I really believe... No, no, you're not offending me. Do you agree with that? Yeah, listen, I understand the comparison. The one thing I would tell you is I truly think he's right now and I'm, you know, let me say this about Donald and I'm dying to see how it plays out.

I'm surprised how much he's willing to use hate as a calling card and that makes me uncomfortable, right? Like, I would tell you that part bothers me but I weirdly think after he gets the nomination he's going to say, got you, I don't actually hate all these people. It's just I wanted to get to this point and now let me center myself.

a little bit. But look, there's a lot of people that resonate with what he's saying, and that's because this is another thing that I think it maps to entrepreneurship. I truly think most people are in a losing mentality right now and think that Donald Trump as president will change their life.

Let me just make it very clear to everybody's listening. If you're a business person, not a question, a corporate executive, not a doctor, definitely not a political employee or work for the state or the government or a teacher. But if you are an entrepreneur or in business, not Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not George W. Bush,

none of these human beings are going to help or hurt you. That's a fact. That is a straight fact. Plus one president is this. why the founders of our country came up with the separation of powers. He can't, Trump can't go in and just wave a wand. And it's absolutely, it's exactly right. It's a good perspective. It is. I mean, look, the biggest things they do is put people on the Supreme Court. That's big news. That actually has a crazy impact on our society. Sure. And listen, there are government officials, there's schools,

there's police, there's, you know, contractors, there's fringe borderline okay, entrepreneurs, things of that nature. There's people that can be somewhat affected by these scenarios. But if you're a true, I mean, I've grown under, I've been really running businesses now for 20 years and there has been absolutely not even a second, let alone a day in my life,

that I thought, oh God, great. Thank God Bill Clinton was president when I started this company. Oh, man, shoo, thank God. There's never been a day where I've said, oh, man, Obama has stopped me from being successful. That is loser talk with a triple capital L. Yeah. You know, this is, I want to say this to our audience. This is awkward for me, but this is like the third time I've interviewed Gary. And I just wish

you would give me more passion when I ask you a question. Listen, man, this is something I'm quite, you know, I appreciate you saying that. Like, like, it's a big deal. Like, do you really, like, here's what I'm trying to say to everybody. And I think, you, you know, I think you kind of made that comment because you kind of know me by now at this point between our interactions and what I do outwardly, I feel bad. I feel bad for the person that says that, well, if Trump wins or if Hillary wins, or if Barack wins, or if George wins, like, I'll be better. I feel bad for them to know what the 1% winners think of them when they say that. Well, it's true. You know, Thomas Jefferson pinned the phrase, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. I played around with that

phrase on this podcast, open it up for several months saying of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. I think you're making the point there that, yes, be involved. Voting matters. It certainly matters. But to think that your future rests in the hands of the government, boy, that is a recipe for disaster and you will turn into a pawn. I am not interested in letting anybody dictate my future. And I'm talking about my wife, my parents, like my best friends, my siblings, my business associates. You think I'm going to let the president of the United States impact me? Are you nuts? Like, what does it matter with you? Yeah, it's so good. All right, so good. We could wrap up right here. That would be good enough for you folks just to kind of

stay fired up. Good show. Yeah, it's really good. You mentioned, and this is something I've never actually talked to you much about. You mentioned at the top of our conversation, you know, oh, Ken, the typical 18-hour day. And I know you're going really hard right now, and there are seasons where you go harder, obviously, than others. But I think a lot of people... Be careful, Ken. Be careful. I know.

Because you're alluding to, and maybe you're setting up the question because you're smart and you know, I'm not going harder because my book's on right now. I might be spending more time on my book right now because that just happens to be what's happening. But the day after the book checks the box for me, which is, I don't know, number one in New York Times battle seller list or it picked up momentum and I feel like I've got to see it through or whatever that day is, whether that's April 7th or August

15th, somewhere in between those days, whenever I'm done, right? Yeah. The only thing that's going to happen is VaynerMedia Time or my fan base or a new project we're working on is going to fill those four, three, two hours. That's right. But here's my, I think people see you and they hear you and they get exhausted and they go, how in the world does this guy manage everything that he's doing? And I think time management is really boring, but I think it's important to hear from

Gary Vaynerchek who's got a really high motor. How do you manage your time? I manage my time with human beings. I use human infrastructure. I'm not as smart as my buddy Tim Ferriss or others who are really good at creating systems. I'm just throwing female and male human power against it. Why am I able to put out a lot of contact?

Because right now, as I'm doing this interview, DRock is sitting right across from me with a camera filming this entire thing. And I may say something that becomes the nugget to a headline on a medium post. Or we're going to use 17 seconds of this for the DailyVee that we're making right now. So I've got him.

Matt, my assistant. I'm about to go to two full-time assistants. So I'm managing at this point because I've built up some wealth, I've built up a business, I'm actually doing it with other human beings doing their part in the entire machine. The way I used to do it was I didn't really do it.

I just willed myself, worked hard, and was smart enough to build up a base that got me to a more scalable place. on the flip side, there's a lot of people that when they couldn't afford a full-time assistant or content people like I was just five, seven, ten years ago, there's a lot of them that are using apps

and Evernote and hacks and ifft and all these great technologies to make them more efficient and they're right and they should do that. That is not what I'm doing because that's not what I'm great at. I'm not great at hacking those things. What I'm great at is motivating people,

finding the right people, building a real team, a real family, that allows us all to work hardest and smartest around our objectives and do it in a fun, happy way that makes everybody want to be a part of it for the long term instead of dreading being on my team or staying on for a couple more weeks. All right. Gary V. saying yes. Gary V. saying no. Okay. So how do you say yes? I know you're not a systems guy, but I'd like to know your process. When do you say yes? What's a yes for you and what's an automatic? No. No's usually come in somebody trying to take my time that has their best interest in mind. Here's my automatic no.

Hey Gary, let me buy you lunch. Really? Like, you mean the five minutes that are so valuable in my life, five minutes. In a world where my biggest fear in the world is that I'm not spending enough time with my kids, that I'm gonna give up an hour, for a burger?

Like, you know, it's crazy. And by the way, not that I'm so cool. Like, please make sure, I want to make sure that everybody understands. I don't think I'm so cool that, hey, you can't have my time. It's just that with no context, with no relationship,

you've thrown a right hook of taking the number one thing that I've got in my world, which is my time, and what you want to do with it is have me give you advice or money around something that's 100% in your vested interest.

Another automatic no. E-mailing me that says, Gary, this email's going to help you buy the New York Jets. You really get those emails? Not only do I really get that email, I get that email 15 times a day. Because everybody knows that's my business goal. And they think it's a clever way to get to me

and it's become so overused that it's unbelievable. I basically am in a place where that won't even be read. So that's a no. A yes is somebody who is patient. D. Rock emailed me. Sorry, D. Rock. He just shook his head. It's funny. But I got to use it as an example because right now it's the best current example. The guy emailed me. And by the way, the real answer to your question is intuition, yes, intuition no. That's the real answer. I'm trying to, that is the real answer. Now I'm trying to give answers here that will bring value to your listeners because they're not here to just hear me pontificate. Got it? Yep. So the real answer is intuition. But

The yes comes from DRock emailing me and saying, hey, I want to make a video for you because I like your work and I just like to make, I'm a video guy and I like to make a video for you. Now, people have done that before. People have offered spec work, but there was something in the way that it hit me at that moment that made me reply and say, let's do it.

It was the timing. I wasn't in the game with my personal brand for a while because I've been head down building Vayner, so that was interesting to me. I knew that I didn't have any new YouTube content that was worthwhile in a long time. You know, we did the video. It was really well done.

Clouds and Dirt, D-Rock? Clouds and Dirt, which is on my YouTube channel, you should check it out. He crushed it. It's just kind of a day-in-a-life thing. And then out of the blue a month later, because it must have been on my mind, I email him and say, hey, you want a job?

And then several months later, we started the Ask Gary V Show, and away we've gone with content at a scale that I've never produced before and quality that I've never produced before, and it's been very impactful on my career. Incidentally, the Clouds and Dirt video that you just talked about,

it's chapter one of the new book, so I am the king of Segway so here we go. Notice how cocky I get when I talk to Gary? I get a little cock here. I get a little cocky. I like that. You know what's funny, Ken?

I'm going to tell you something. Somebody grabbed me yesterday at VaynerMedia, walked in, employee, and said, I have become more confident because I work here because you're rubbing off on me. We talked about it yesterday during my eight-hour stream

and hearing you say that, I'm very proud of this issue, this thing. I'm so happy, Listen, I'm cocky. Cocky's the cynical version of it. It has absolutely been exciting for me in a world where I know so many parents

don't instill self-esteem into their kids or things have happened in our lives that didn't allow us to be as confident that we're out of our control that my human energy has had that impact consistently and I love it. It's one of the things I'm most proud of

and I feel it's how I take care of my tribe. I take on all the cynicism and all the kind of pot shots because I put myself so out there, underneath that shield, I educate all of them with the best thoughts that I have for free. And then quietly,

I'm in parallel instilling a confidence that is practical, that is not, you know, hey, everybody gets eighth place trophies. It's confidence in a proper way. You're confident because that was a great segue. You did the homework to know that Clouds and Dirt is the first chapter of the Ask Gary V book.

I mention it ad hoc out of nowhere right now. Your brain put you in a position to allow you to use that as a transition. The reason you said that was cocky is because that's actually good work what you did. Yeah, I know. And I was tongue in cheek, of course, because I love talking about. So this is great. Because chapter one of the book is clouds and dirt. I do want to just let you, because it's so great.

You just mentioned this whole story about how the video comes to be. But I do want you to play out this analogy and then we'll start going through some of my favorite chapters of the book. We'll talk more about what the book is and why you need to get it. But clouds and dirt, I love this. First sentence of the book. Of course, there's an introduction. But the very first sentence of the book, Chapter 1 says, I spend all my time in the clouds and the dirt. I freaking love that. What does that mean? It means that I don't play in the middle. So let's talk about what I'm doing now. As an agency CEO, right, a 625 person firm that is a 625 person firm that is a

now doing $100 million in revenue, run rate. I've built one of the fastest growing digital advertising shops for everybody at home that's listening that doesn't know what I'm referring to. Think of it as the modern day version of Mad Men, right? It's an agency. We work with the biggest brands in the world and help them sell things, but we do that on Facebook

and Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter and not on television and print, right? And so how do I do that? I do it through clouds and dirt. I have a vision seven years ago that these things are gonna matter, right? I have a vision to, where we're going in the future.

I come up with stuff every day that very few people are thinking about and then in parallel and it's one of the biggest reasons I still have a personal brand I use Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook and Twitter every

single day. I'm a practitioner I get my hands dirty. I'm the architect and the Mason literally the architect, the general contractor and the Mason. I like that. I take the pictures of me on Instagram. I write the copy, I post it, right?

I do my Snapchats. Every tweet, 138,000 tweets that I've put out in my life, every single letter was typed by me. Do you know how many people that have, I have a million, too. Do you know how many people that have 50,000 followers use their assistance, assistants cousin to do their twittering?

Yes, a good bit. a good bit, just so everybody knows at home that's listening right now, the time you got really excited that a celebrity said, hey, 97% chance it wasn't them actually typing it, right? I'm proud that I'm the actual practitioner against my own work.

DailyVee has been a big win for me because now people actually can see in real life that I do work 15, 16 hours a day. But what do I spend that time on? I spend it on five-minute meetings with all my employees, 15-minute meetings, I'm doing HR with them. I'm doing strategy with them.

I'm working. You know, this Gary V. character that lives on social media that, you know, does motivational quotes and rah-rah rants and does the show. That's me, but I'm equally spending 11, 12, 13 hours of my day being an executive.

I'm an actual, actual mechanic. I'm inventing the next version of the screwdriver and then I'm using it to be better at, I don't know, screwing in the screw on the bicycle. Do you know what? I'm like literally inventing and then doing and then paying attention to all the other mechanics

and it's a whole to do. So I'm very zen, I'm very philosophical, right? I'm very like, as long as everybody's healthy, nothing else matters. I'm a very big picture. Like, nothing bothers me. I'm stunningly calm and complacent for my energy that I deploy in interviews like this.

This is Showtime, right? There's something that happens when the light goes on and when the radio starts and when that click goes on and goes, we're live here with Gary Vee. That's a different version of me, which I'm very proud of and I like it and it's important and I enjoy it

and my mom coddled me and complimented me and so I need the admiration that I don't have from her every second anymore from all of you. Yes, I need that. But at the same token, I am disproportionately passionate and wrap my own personal self-esteem

around the fact that I've built two tangible, 160, one, 100 million dollar businesses in five years that neither one of them had anything to do with me being me and selling me and selling books or products or services. They were actual businesses outside of myself that I owned and operated. I was going to ask you to summarize the book. We'll get to that.

But as always, you give me stuff and I go where you take me. And I have long thought that passion, Yes. Is the single greatest ingredient when you're trying to make anything happen? I don't care what it is, who you are, what your personality is, and maybe people that have quiet passion. There's people like Ken Coleman and Gary Vaynerchuk that have kind of loud passion. But I think passion, if there was one thing I could give to everybody, it would be a

overdose of passion. I think it is almost unequaled, but I'm okay with you disagreeing. I don't want you to weigh in on that. How important is passion? Listen, my first book was called Crush It, Why Now is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, right? So I would say that I'm a believer of passion, but I believe that passion is very similar

and a cousin to happiness, and you need to have it to actually be the trigger to the tactics that are the massive rationale to why one is successful. So when you say that passion is the ingredient that most matters in saying, success, I agree, but here's how I think about it. Without passion, nobody.

If Tony Hawk wasn't passionate about skateboarding, if I wasn't passionate about becoming one of the great entrepreneurs of a generation, if LeBron wasn't passionate about basketball, they wouldn't have put in, I wouldn't have put in, the hours, the work, when it all makes no sense, when it's 10.30 at night tonight, and I've got to go to one more meeting, but I got to wake up at 5.30, and, you know, if I didn't have the passion for the game, I wouldn't do it, I would cancel it.

I wouldn't have booked it in the first place. And so it becomes the gateway drug religion that allows you to do the tactical things. If you believe in faith, if it's that religion, that's why you go to church on Sunday. That's why you live that lifestyle because you believe in something bigger and then your behavior is mapped to your intent, right?

Yeah, it's the why. It's simply put it's the why. That's right. And so for me, I want legacy, right? I want legacy. And so if you pay attention closely to a lot of my business behavior, the reason a lot of people end up liking me

is because I actually am not interested in the short-term monies. I'm interested in the leverage of providing more value to them than they've provided to me. Which speaks to legacy. That's right, because that gives me the opportunity for legacy.

Your grandmother doesn't tell you stories about people that suck, you know? Or they tell you the stories of things where people are extraordinary. And the number one extraordinary thing that anybody can do is have enough empathy and humility to provide more value to every relationship than they ask for in return. And what is striking with my life is that my outward personality speaks to a lot of shortcomings. in most people. Vanity, ego,

short-term results, hyper-energy, quick, fast now. But I think what's allowed me to sustain the level of success that I have is the fact

that those are my costumes. I always say that I'm a tortoise in a Harris costume. And so my public persona takes on that tact because I get excited. My adrenaline's going

right now. I'm talking to you. there's a camera on me. I can't help it. It puts me into overdrive. But that's what's happening in real time when none of this stuff is happening, but it's being deployed to bring value to clients, employees, friends, and relatives. All right. So this is fun because we've been asking Gary Vee questions. Then title of the new book is hashtag Ask Gary Vee. What I love about the book is obviously it is a great collection. I want you, Gary, to kind of describe the book in your own words. But what I really love, when you describe the book, I want you to also,

than go into how this actually came about as the next book. Because you've been doing this Gary V stuff and ask questions on Twitter and all the social media platforms. Of course, your podcast and it's on YouTube and all that. But when did you decide that, you know what, this is the next book. I'm just going to kind of put it out in a different platform. It's a great question. So what happened was when I asked DRock to work with me, I knew I wanted more content.

And then look, in the middle of the day, on a day like this, I just walked over and I said, let's do the show. Let's do a show. We're going to do a Q&A show. What was happening was, I was doing a lot of public speaking in the last couple years, and I really loved the Q&A part

because it was where I was, this whole process is quite selfish. That's just the honest truth. I realized where I was really gaining respect from the audience was not what I was very good at, which was delivering a speech. It was what I was exceptional at,

which was the Q&A part. When you are an actual practitioner, you know so much that you can actually do a Q&A where you don't force the questions, where you're not using decks and slides, where you're not forcing the narrative, you're just responding. And there would be a collective, stunning kind of moment

where people started realizing, oh, wait a minute, this guy really knows what he's talking about and not just on Facebook and Twitter, but in operations and in leadership, and in HR, and in macroeconomic climates, and in consumer behavior anthropology, and this, and that, and this, geez, and then the occasional answer of, I don't know,

I like to talk about things that I know, which is like, wait a minute, this guy even has humility, he just gave us an hour of ego, wow, and so I started realizing, man, I need to put myself in a position where I'm doing a lot more Q&A because this is clearly the best light on who I am, and I want everybody to know how good I am, I do,

I mean, what else can I say? So I created the show, and about four episodes in, I'm like, okay, this is good. I have a lot of content here. The audience is forcing me to talk about new things that I've never talked about before, and this is me now describing the book.

This is a 360 look into a successful leader, human, business person, executive. This book can be my life advice in the package of entrepreneurship and business and social media. And I don't know how much can you've read of this already, the book, but... I am a world-class speed reader.

When you do as many interviews as me, I've learned how to read in cliff note fashion. That's a confession, but I'm good at it. So this book was written for you because it's broken down in Q&A form, right? So you don't have to miss anything in a speed reading form. I don't know how many of the other three business books

you've read of mine. All of them. I would actually like, and I think your audience values your opinion way more than mine, so let's flip this for 40 seconds. And I think you know me well enough to know if you're like, hey, you know, I think it's the third best one that's only going to motivate me. I have no interest in anything than other your true feedback because I'm actually curious to learn of somebody who understands me, knows me, he's interviewed me three times, and's read the books.

You know, what did you think? When you went through it, you're like, okay, how did you position it compared to my path and my taking a step forward, backwards, parallel reminds you of this, cousin of that? What was your kind of take? I like this one better for two reasons. Number one, the style that it's... Better than all of them? Yes. I've already had more people say that.

More people write that email that either it's the best or that they completely change their perspective. And now to hear you say this, I'm so excited for this book to get into people's hands you can't imagine. Yeah. Well, I want to tell you, there's two reasons here.

Because number one, it is written in a format of your answer. literally Q&A. So what happens is you get this new Snickers bar every other page, essentially. And people can learn so much more. It's just broader. So the first reason is the way it's written, I'm getting so much more, and I think it's written for the 2016 attention span, and that these are real questions from people. And the second thing is you cover more topics, I think, in this book than in others. So from that standpoint, it's kind of like an encyclopedia on all things, Gary V. And that's the way I,

I viewed it. So it's really easy to learn. So the stuff on self-awareness, gratitude, empathy, work-life parents, parenting, public speaking, these were all new insights that people haven't gotten, right? Right. And here's what's interesting. I've got to have a follow-up on this. I have found that when I've taught a class in church or taught FPU, Dave's, you know, signature financial course, that I always learn more when I'm teaching than when I'm actually in the student seat. And I wonder with your style where you'll just show up and go, all right, DRock, turn the camera. camera on, let's go, let's go to Twitter, see what questions that are. I'm going to answer them. I wonder if you don't learn so much sometimes from the very questions you're being asked,

and you form an opinion, you obviously have some context, you have a lot of knowledge, you have a lot of confidence. But I'm just curious, do you find yourself learning, innovating, picking up things by virtue of having to answer questions that maybe you never thought of that particular way? That was a single best question asked of me in a very long time because the answer is yes and it speaks to the number one thing I do for myself and it is the absolute most synthesized answer

to why I'm successful. I live outside of my own body and almost dictate my own self. I almost think that I'm the child of myself and what I do for a living is I put me, myself Gary, in the best position to be, to succeed.

And so when I realized that I was learning from questions more than any other way, I created the Ask Gary V Show. I've created the Ask Gary Vee book. And if this book does as well as I think it will, the amount of times that I'm gonna be able to now go get paid a lot of money to give a keynote where the entire keynote is people asking me questions is going to be remarkable.

And so the answer in a very simple way is, It's actually the only way I learned. I thought so. I thought so. I'm not surprised. You pegged it. I really, I really, because I really pay attention to what you're doing there. Have you ever thought about just doing real live interventions with people right on the stage?

I mean, just absolutely intervene. Yes. I, uh, you know, I was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish. I was born in the Soviet Union. Uh, for a lot of people listening, you may not know this, but under communism, religion was outlawed. So I have three generations of family. that we're not allowed to practice religion.

But I am stunningly spiritual. So I don't have religion deeply rooted, but I'm stunningly spiritual in that kind of stuff. I think I do interventions all the time. I do it with my employees, I do it with my family, I do it with people on stage sometimes. Sometimes I'll give a 60-minute keynote and I'll have 30 minutes for Q&A

and one question will last 17 minutes and sometimes people get frustrated because I couldn't answer a bunch of other questions, but I needed to intervene with that person because I saw the opening. My personal favorite would do an episode called Gary V. goes to Washington, and we put you in the room with leaders

from both sides of the political aisle and have them explain to you why they can't get legislation done that actually helps the American people, why they can't pay off the debt. You would destroy those guys. I could tell you right now, and any American that wants any rationale,

you have everything, Everything, everything in life is very simple. You have to reverse engineer what the person wants, right? Do you know how many people go into politics because they want to make money as speakers or consultants or authors after? A lot of these people are the same. They understand that they've gotten enough notoriety and press coverage

that they can go make $100,000 to give a speech. And in four months, they can make back all the money they poured in. And so you've got to understand what you've got to understand what drives them. Some people really want to change the world. They're philosophical and they're zen, and that's amazing, but they're not practical. So you've got to know that they're not going to be good at that.

You just have to know what drives them. Most people in Washington want to get reelected so that they can make more money or have more fame or have more whatever they want, right? It's power, right? It's self-preservationism. That's right. It's self-preservation, just like in corporate America.

This is why I love entrepreneurship. There is none of that. You have to win and pay your bills or you lose. It's pure. It's why I'm mad at all these fake capitalists who want to pay politicians because they're old white dudes and made a lot of money

and they want the president to protect their money because they're finished. They're finished innovating and creating victories they've collected and now they want to hold on. What got them there is not what they want to happen anymore. They don't want to be disrupted anymore.

They were once the young buck who stole money from the old buck because they were better, but now that they're the old buck they don't want that to happen to them so they disguise it under capitalism and America and they're absolutely the polar opposite. But you know what?

I know you know this Keni and I know that we know our audience that's listening right now. This is an important conversation. Yes it is. It's an important conversation because we have a lot of people parading around that's saying that they're hardcore Americans and they believe in capitalism and our freedoms and all they want to do is use their money to hold on to using capitalism to get there.

They don't want the losses, but they wanted all the victories. You can't have capitalism both ways. You know why I know I love capitalism so much? Because I'd rather lose than to do something that screws with the purity of the game. Do you understand? Yeah, absolutely. I know what you mean. Absolutely, because you want the rules to be the same rules for everybody.

Let's get out on the field, blow the will. and let's go. Because I know I'm great. Because I love meritocracy. That's right. Got it? Because I didn't inherit my money. Do you know what I mean?

Oh, dude, you don't know how excited I am that we just uttered the word meritocracy on the Entry Leadership podcast. Gets me very excited. It's very fun. All right, so listen. Before I let you go, though, I want you to speak to our listeners. What do you want them to get out of this book? First and foremost, I want them to close it and say, holy crap, I spent 19 bucks on this.

That was really worth it. That is very important to me. The reason I wrote it this way and in this format and why I think Q&A works and I loved you saying that every page is another nugget is I watched and I listened to what happened with Crush It, with Thank You Economy, with Jabber Jabr-Jabray Hook. And what I realized was, hmm, crush it motivated people, right?

Their pants were on fire when they were done and a lot of them went out and did it. Thank You Economy was very philosophical. It was the smartest book I wrote, right? It's so heady and a lot of the intellects and professors and philosophers liked me for that. And good, I got to check that box. Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Ray Hook was literally a textbook.

It's like should be in schools to teach people how to make social media content that gets them results. I wanted to take a little bit from everything, but most of all, I wanted to have seven to nine. That was always running through my mind. Can I get seven to nine moments that makes the person stop?

Can I make seven to nine of my answers, in the hundreds of answers in the book, make somebody close their book, not highlight, because that means you're doing your thing, because you do that with a lot of books. And crush it, I don't know if you remember this,

Chapter 9 was titled The Greatest Marketing Strategy Ever, right? And a lot of people would look at the table of contents and they were so, wow, that's a big statement, they would go to it. And it was a one-word chapter. It said care, right?

And that made people stop. I mean, I've had people literally, listen to this. I've had people literally buy crush it, hack it by looking at that title of the chapter, go there, look at that, close it, and never read it, and have their business changed. Yeah, it's so simple, but profound. So what I wanted to do was have seven to nine of those without doing the same thing. I don't have one word answers, you know, like I wanted to do whatever my 2016 version of myself was to give that moment. whether it was around parenting and work-life balance. And look, I think, again, I know you kind of read it your way.

There's some stuff that I talk about in this book that is not the politically correct or common answers to these questions. They're my truths, and I wanted to be very real about it. So I want seven to nine moments that make somebody stop and call their business partner, stop and not even finish the book and go and work and finish off that project.

There's seven to nine moments, seven to nine moments that are worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, or unlocks an emotional aspect of their lives that creates more happiness and less stress. And I know that everybody's different. So by creating seven to nine of them, that would then mean maybe everybody gets just one of those when they read it and that changes their life.

I love it. Folks, the book is entitled, hashtag, Ask Gary Vee, want entrepreneurs take on leadership, social media, self-awareness, and did about 37 other great things.

That's not the title. That's me saying that. It really is a great book. He is Gary Vaynerchuk. You know him well. If you've been listening to this podcast, good friend to Dave Ramsey's, good friend of mine as well.

It's always fun. I literally get a little bit excited when I look on the calendar and see Gary Vee on it for a conversation because it's always great fun. We appreciate your brother for being with us. Thank you, my friend.

Take care of yourself. All right, folks. The book is hashtag, Ask Gary Vee, one entrepreneur's take on leadership, social media, and self-awareness. It's everywhere books are sold if you'd love to check it out. It really is a fun read. Very fun and easy to read because of the way it's laid out. Take advantage of that opportunity to go get that book.

And as always, check out everything Gary's doing at Gary Vaynerchuk.com. Hey, we want to remind you our free resource from Ontario Leadership this month is our high performance achievement MP3. This is Dave Ramsey teaching at our staff meeting at about 30 minutes. And this has been received very well. This is normally a product that we sell. We're giving it away free this month. Dave, teaching on high performance achievement.

You can text the word perform to 33444. Perform to 33444. Or you can go to entreleadership.com slash podcast. This is episode 144. You'll find a link to the MP3 to download on that page. Well, this is fun. We get to meet so many Entree Leadership tribe members at the events we do,

out on the road, around the country. And then, of course, we have several events that we do here. The Crown Jewel of which is really Entree Leadership Master Series. Rafi was here recently for an Entree Leadership Master Series. He was back for a second time. And Eric the producer was out there talking to him and just really loved everything this guy's about. We started talking with Rafi.

He said, Rafi, let's get you into the studio, slap the headphones on you, and have a conversation. He was very excited about it. We were very excited. This guy is leading an organization. full-time, family business. And, oh, by the way, working as a full-time police officer. Now, if that doesn't earn your admiration, nothing will. But what you will really grow to admire Rafi for is this desire to learn, desire to grow, desire to change. So he told us his story,

a little bit of what he took away from the first Entree Master series and how it's working in his business. We think you'll enjoy this. So here's Rafi on the Entree Leadership podcast. Well, Rafi, it's great to have you in studio here. How many times have you been to one of our entree events? This is my second. Second Entree Master Series? Okay, this is fun. So I want to give folks a snapshot of your background.

You're a police officer first before we get into the business, which is a family business. It is. That was. That was. How long have you been a police officer? I've been a police officer for 12 years. 12 years, and you're in Santa Clarita, California. We are.

It's about roughly 45 minutes north of Los Angeles. All right. So then let's talk about heroes. Inc., which is your father's business, he started at when? He started in August of 1988. All right, what do you guys do? We repair overhaul and manufacture civil aviation helicopter parts for the model of Rose Royce 250 series engines.

Wow. It's actually the most popular engine out there for the helicopter. That's cool. I love it. So you are full-time police officer. This is fascinating to me, which is hero stuff, and we thank you for how you serve your community. Thank you. But you're also the chief financial officer of your father's company.

You're in the family business. How long have you been in the CFO role? Three years now. Talk about your schedule. Give me a normal week for you. My normal week, well, we'll start off Monday morning at the family business, go all the way down to Thursday, work till five, six o'clock, depending just whenever my days' duties are done. And then come Friday night, work as a police officer. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then come back and do it all over again.

Unbelievable. Well, as you know, you listen to the podcast. We've asked for folks to send us stories, and you were one who responded because we want to hear how you're winning. because it really is. We're not accomplishing anything if we're not helping you win. And so I just want to focus on one key area that you shared with us, and I want you to share with our audience, and that's morale. Coming out of, you know, the first master series and you're back for another dose, you made some real changes, and it really changed the morale. Before we talk about some of the changes, talk about the environment with morale. What was the problem?

Well, the problem was is we grew too quick. You know, we went from 11 team members to 25 in a matter of of less than 12 months. Wow. And we really forgot some of the key things we did for our employees. When we were such a smaller company, we would do, once a month, we'll go to a ball game or a hockey game. We will have birthday lunches for the employees.

And, you know, we lost that. We became so focused on trying to keep up with business. The huge growth that we had, we lost the main reason why we were getting that business. is because our employees, our team members, were working so hard to earn all this business. You could see that morale started to decrease. We weren't doing the monthly birthdays, and that started talk. We weren't doing recognition, and that started the talk.

So it came to a point of we need to do something because these team members of ours truly are working really hard for not only their fellow team member success, but for our success as owners. That's where morale was before I came to EMS in November. So what clicked for you? You know, it only took the first lesson, and it was, as Dave said,

once I found out I was the problem, I quickly learned that I was the solution. We were so focused again on just the business growth coming in. We forgot the real key values that my father sat and created when he made the business. and that's taking care of people. One of the big reasons we become business owners isn't because of the greater potential

in regards to income, it's to help people. And we forgot that. So being able to sit here and see how Dave passionately expressed that message, it just, the light bulb clicked in. So you went back, give us a couple examples of things that you instituted. So one of the first things I wanted to do,

we brought back the employee of the month. This is the only time we actually use the word employee now. We no longer call people employees. Call them team members. What I learned here as well, you know, words matter. And I didn't want people thinking they were employees. I want them knowing they were team members.

So we even made even the change. Instead of having the email address of all employees, we changed it to team. So small things like that really improved people's just their feelings about coming to the workplace. But we introduced a Employee of the Month program. And rather than just saying, hey, congratulations, you won employee of the month, it was more of an individual who goes above and beyond their daily tasks. And at first, people didn't think we were going to do it.

Because again, morale was low. They just thought, hey, you know what, it's just one of those things they're going to do and just give up on it. Matter of fact, I even had an employee come up and said, I've been a part of this with different other companies and it's just failed. And that to me was motivation. So we brought employee of the month And we decided, hey, when you win employee of the month, it's just not, hey, here's your name on a plaque. We're going to give you some fun little perks.

So the first thing we said, you get the preferred parking spot right next to the door. Yeah, you got to love that. So they don't have to worry about parking. They couldn't just pull in. It's the first parking spot and off to go to work. We give them $100 gift card of their choice. So they wanted at a local department store, hardware store. Hey, come in my office.

here's a list of over 75 gift cards he can get, pick it, and it's yours. And they get their name on the plaque. Now, ownership picks the employee of the month, and at the end of the year, my team members will go ahead and select the team member of the year out of the employee of the month. So it became a very competitive nature with them. This month, I went ahead and introduced, and again, this is a great thing I learned from Chris Hogan, was the boxing championship belt.

And it's amazing how that one small little thing has increased people's competition, friendly competition to become employee of the month, because I allow them to wear it wherever they want inside the building, put it in their office, and whoever wins it gets to sign it. That's great. So just this simple thing that we implemented, I could say over 100% changed. Moral.

We started doing team monthly meetings. And inside each one of the meetings, we spoke about different things going on. And every month we're starting to give them a little bit more information. Last month, we started talking about our sales. Let them be much more involved. And I have to say, within ever since my return from EMS to today, our morale at our company is where it needed to be many, many months ago. That's fantastic. Well, Rafi, you are an entree leader.

It's so fun to have this conversation with you. We literally pulled him out of the sessions. So we've got to get you back in there. And you paid big bucks for this, and I know it's had a great return. And we're so proud to be just a very small part of your story. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. And thanks for hanging out with us and sharing with our podcast audience.

Thank you very much. You heard Rafi mention our online community, all access. You can learn everything about that at entreleadership.com. That's how you go to the next level. And so we want you to know about that. All access at entreleadership.com. Well, Infusionsoft has been helping you big time. The response has been great because customer relationship management is about as vital as a thing that you will do in business.

If you want to stay in business, sustain it over a long season. Well, your customer relationship management is a big part of it. Infusionsoft has got a CRM field guide. It's absolutely free. You can download it by going to infusionsoft.com slash field. That's infusionsoft.com slash field to get the CRM field guide. You can also get it with the link. Infusionsoft's link is in the show notes.

Episode 144, click on the link, get it, and start winning with your customer relationship management. Hey, you podcast listeners out there that are coming to the Entry Leadership Summit, May 22 through 25. I will be there. I get to host this great event. What a privilege that will be. And you know what else is a great privilege is when we meet you on the road? I ask us at all the Entree Leadership One Day events from the stage. How many of your podcast listeners?

People yell, scream, raise their hands, and I love to meet you folks in the lobby. deal and so here's what I want you to do if you've got a great story to tell that you'd love for us to share because we do this for you your stories your wins are inspiring others that are in the same community I would love to connect with you while there even if it's two minutes in the hallway hey and I'd love to hear your stories so email podcast at entreleadership.com Eric will help maybe connect us if there's a moment there at the event but I'd love to shake your hand say hi say thank you and get your story so we can line it up to share with the greater good speaking of which

Dave Ramsey has invited Seth Godin Jim Collins Dr. Henry Cloud Pat Mlinsoniancioni Chris Hogan, Chrissy Wright, and the 43rd president of the United States, George Lerby Bush. They all said yes, but that's exciting. You can learn more at entreleadership.com slash summit, and again, I'd love to see you there. So on behalf of our producer, Eric Anthony and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Thank you.