Stay in the Dirt
Keep leaders close to customers while scaling execution through a team.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Staying in the dirt means preserving direct contact with customers and core craft even as a business adds people and systems. The leader selects a few high-information activities—such as writing copy, reading comments, answering messages, or reviewing creative openings—and continues doing them personally. A team handles filming, editing, production, distribution, and other scalable execution, but it does not become a wall between the leader and the market. Customer reactions flow back into strategy, allowing the organization to adjust language, creative, and offers quickly. The framework balances leverage with proximity: delegation increases capacity, while recurring participation maintains judgment, humility, and an accurate pulse of the consumer.
Origin
Extracted from The Jasmine Star Show, where Gary Vaynerchuk described continuing to write social copy, read comments, and direct creative strategy despite having a large personal-brand team.
Core principles
- 01Scale execution without abandoning direct customer contact.
- 02Delegation and hands-on participation can coexist.
- 03Comments and messages are sources of market intelligence.
- 04Humility keeps leaders connected to the work that created success.
- 05Teams should expand a leader's reach rather than replace their judgment.
How to run it
- 1
Select high-information work
Choose the customer-facing tasks that reveal the most about audience language, needs, and reactions. Keep personal ownership of a manageable subset.
Pro tip Favor activities that produce immediate customer feedback.
Watch out Do not retain tasks merely because you struggle to trust other people.
- 2
Delegate scalable execution
Assign production, editing, scheduling, and other repeatable work to capable team members. Document responsibilities so the leader's involvement does not create confusion.
Pro tip Delegate the mechanics while preserving access to the resulting customer signals.
Watch out Delegation without clear ownership can turn participation into micromanagement.
- 3
Work beside the team
Participate in selected tasks with employees rather than withdrawing entirely into oversight. Use the work to demonstrate standards and understand operational reality.
Pro tip Treat involvement as collaboration, not as an inspection designed to catch mistakes.
Watch out Do not redo every delegated task personally.
- 4
Read the response
Review comments, messages, objections, and performance after publishing or delivering work. Look for repeated language and unexpected reactions.
Pro tip Capture recurring observations in a shared place where the team can use them.
Watch out Metrics without qualitative feedback can hide why something succeeded or failed.
- 5
Feed insight into strategy
Use customer signals to adjust creative openings, copy, offers, and priorities. Explain the evidence behind changes so the team develops stronger judgment.
Pro tip Connect each strategic adjustment to a specific audience signal.
Watch out Do not collect feedback indefinitely without changing decisions.
In the wild
A founder's team films, edits, and distributes content, but the founder still writes selected captions, reviews opening seconds, and reads audience comments. Patterns in those comments shape the next round of posts.
→ The team gains production leverage while the founder retains direct market awareness.
After hiring staff, a shop owner continues one customer-service shift each week and reviews common questions with the team. The owner notices repeated confusion about a product and rewrites its signage and online description.
→ Direct exposure produces a practical improvement without requiring the owner to run every shift.
Common mistakes
Outsourcing all customer contact
A leader who receives only filtered reports can lose the language, urgency, and nuance of actual customer reactions.
Using the dirt to justify micromanagement
Hands-on leadership should preserve insight and standards, not remove team autonomy or require approval for every detail.
Staying busy but learning nothing
Doing low-information tasks may feel grounded while contributing little customer insight or strategic value.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for founders, creators, and marketing leaders whose judgment depends on understanding changing customer reactions.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for leaders who use hands-on involvement to micromanage every task or override qualified specialists.
From the transcript
“I'm the copywriter for my social media post I'm giving. I'm also reading the comments. I'm DMing people.”
“you're also allowed to be in the dirt with your team.”
“having the humility to keep doing the core principles that allow you to have the pulse of the consumer.”
From the episode
Get Attention and “Embrace the Dirt” for Success with Gary Vee