Unleashing the Potential of Organic Social Media | Forward Las Vegas Keynote | #9 of 2024 Top Podcasts

Summary

Summary of "Unleashing the Potential of Organic Social Media | Forward Las Vegas Keynote | #9 of 2024 Top Podcasts"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The GaryVee Audio Experience
• Host/Author: Gary Vaynerchuk
• Episode: Unleashing the Potential of Organic Social Media | Forward Las Vegas Keynote | #9 of 2024 Top Podcasts
• Release Date: December 24, 2024

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1. Introduction

In this keynote speech at Forward Las Vegas, Gary Vaynerchuk dives deep into the transformative power of organic social media for business growth. He draws parallels between mastering business strategies and achieving personal fitness, emphasizing that while the frameworks are straightforward, consistent execution remains a significant challenge for many entrepreneurs.

2. The Simplicity and Difficulty of Business Growth

Gary begins by likening business growth to health and fitness, asserting, “I equate how I see business and brand and marketing and sales and career growth similar to the health and fitness space” (00:02). He underscores that the principles governing both domains are simple—attention, consistency, and value—but acknowledges the difficulty in sustained execution, confessing his personal struggle: “I’ve been working out for the last 10 years of my life, and when I tell you I hate it every fucking day” (00:05).

3. The Power of Organic Social Media

Central to Gary’s message is the unparalleled potential of organic social media in leveling the playing field for small entrepreneurs. He asserts, “The only thing that business relies on is attention” (00:20), highlighting how social media democratizes access to vast audiences without the need for exorbitant marketing budgets. Gary cites examples of businesses thriving solely on organic efforts, proving that significant success is attainable without massive financial backing: “There are many companies in different sectors that have built 5, 10, 30, 50, $100 million companies on the back of 100% free organic social media” (00:35).

4. Overcoming Excuses and Insecurities

Gary challenges the audience to confront their excuses and insecurities that hinder their social media endeavors. He points out that while many recognize the simplicity of social media strategies, execution falters due to personal barriers: “I believe over 30% of this room is not all in because they are literally stuck in high school” (22:15). Encouraging vulnerability, he emphasizes the importance of building self-esteem to withstand online critiques and negativity, stating, “It's not just video. If you're a great writer, write... there is no what I’m basically saying right now” (22:45).

5. The Evolution of Social Media and AI

A significant portion of Gary’s keynote addresses the rapid evolution of social media, particularly the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He warns of the rise of AI-driven virtual influencers, predicting their dominance in future marketing landscapes: “In the next two to three, four years, it’s just going to be everybody” (26:45). Gary emphasizes that AI will lower the barriers to high-quality content creation, making it imperative for businesses to adapt or risk obsolescence: “AI is coming and you know it’s coming” (28:10).

6. Branding vs. Sales

Gary differentiates between selling and branding, advocating for a strong personal or business brand as the cornerstone of sustainable success. He states, “Selling is what you do when you don’t know how to build a brand” (21:50), using industry giants like Nike and Lexus as examples of brands that prioritize brand-building over traditional sales tactics. This approach ensures that businesses attract clients organically rather than relying on direct sales efforts.

7. Strategies for Effective Content Creation

Gary offers actionable strategies for maximizing the impact of content:

• Consistency: He stresses the importance of regular content posting, suggesting creators aim for three to four quality pieces daily.
• Authenticity: Encouraging authenticity, Gary advises businesses to “be yourself” to foster genuine connections with their audience.
• Leveraging AI: He highlights the benefits of AI tools in enhancing content quality and distribution, predicting that future algorithms will prioritize creative merit over follower count: “If you can get half this group to just get done with excuses” (10:50).
• Local Marketing: Emphasizing local engagement, Gary recommends hosting community events and collaborating with local businesses to build strong, localized networks.

8. The Future of Business and Social Media

Gary forecasts a future where social media becomes the oxygen of business, essential for survival and growth. He warns that businesses failing to embrace and master organic social media will be outflanked by more agile, digitally-savvy competitors. He draws historical parallels, reminding the audience of the decline of traditional bookstores due to the rise of the internet, urging businesses to learn from past disruptions: “You didn’t cry for bookstore” (38:20).

9. Balancing Business and Personal Life

Addressing the work-life balance, Gary shares personal insights on managing business ambitions with family commitments. He advocates for setting boundaries—such as reserving weekends for family—and prioritizing relationships without compromising business growth: “I try very hard to choose family over everything” (48:30). This balance ensures sustained personal fulfillment alongside professional success.

10. Conclusions and Final Thoughts

In his concluding remarks, Gary reiterates the urgency for entrepreneurs to harness the power of organic social media. He encourages the audience to invest time in mastering content creation, leveraging AI, and building authentic brands: “If you’re not doing it, somebody else is going to do it” (42:10). Gary’s passionate plea serves as a call to action, urging business owners to embrace the evolving digital landscape or risk being left behind.

Notable Quotes:

• On Business and Fitness Parallel: “I equate how I see business and brand and marketing and sales and career growth similar to the health and fitness space” (00:02).
• On Overcoming Excuses: “You can’t handle someone going to your social media post named Johnny Pants 13 and saying that you’re ugly or stupid” (16:45).
• On AI and Social Media: “AI is coming and you know it’s coming” (28:10).
• On Branding vs. Sales: “Selling is what you do when you don't know how to build a brand” (21:50).
• On Content Creation Strategy: “If you’re not doing it, somebody else is going to do it” (42:10).

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Conclusion

Gary Vaynerchuk's keynote at Forward Las Vegas serves as a compelling manifesto for leveraging organic social media to drive business success. By demystifying the complexities of social media strategies, emphasizing authenticity, and highlighting the transformative role of AI, Gary equips entrepreneurs with the insights and motivation needed to navigate and thrive in the modern digital landscape. His blend of practical advice, personal anecdotes, and forward-thinking predictions makes this episode a valuable resource for business leaders aiming to harness the full potential of organic social media.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everyone. We're counting down to 2025 with our.

[B]

Top episodes of 2024. Here's episode number nine. You're not at this event if you don't have a level of ambition and hunger or want for something to happen. This is a business conference, right? And so I think the thing that most excites me is what was just said prior to here. And then watching him execute this community over the last five years from afar. What I've always known is I don't think what I talk about is so profound. I don't think it's that complex. I actually equate how I see business and brand and marketing and sales and career growth similar to the health and fitness space. I don't think anyone here is confused. The way you get healthier and more muscle is not so complicated. There's a protein situation, there's a carb situation, there's working out, there's eating and working out properly. It is a very simple system. But if you're like me, it's incredibly hard for you to do it. I've been working out for the last 10 years of my life, and when I tell you I hate it every fucking day, I hate it. On the flip side, many of you in this room love how many people here love to wake up or in the evening, like genuinely enjoy working out. They get a lot of love for it. They can't wait to do it. Raise your hands. Raise them high. All right, a lot. Now who's more like me and fucking hates this shit? 50. 50. That's what I think is happening here. I can sit here and tell you exactly what to do to grow your business. The only thing that business relies on is attention. Before you can sell someone something, you have to have their attention to sell to them. Attention changed in our society over the last decade and it made it easier for small entrepreneurs and individuals like us to compete with the biggest companies in the world. You no longer need $30 million in marketing budget to build $100 million company. There are many companies in different sectors that have built 5, 10, 30, 50, $100 million companies on the back of 100% free organic social media that exists now. Less in mortgage and real estate, more T shirts, sodas, things of that nature. But no one here is confused. There are plenty of people who've built their entire business on the back of free organic social media. Many no one's confused. When I wrote my first book in 2009, people made fun of me for this philosophy. Some of us were there in those events. I remember when I was there, when you were at those bookstores, when I had 30 people showing up in 2009, people thought it was crazy. If you go read the Amazon reviews of my first book, Crush it in 2009, literally one of the comments is like, they gave you a one star. This snake oil salesman is trying to tell you that people are gonna make $100,000 a year on YouTube. What a fucking joke. Now I personally know thousands of 14 year olds who make $100,000 a month on YouTube. The big, you know, I gave a lot of thought to, like, okay, like this crew here talks about personal brand building and content. Like, what am I going to be able to do that actually brings value? What I'm trying to really do today is really a macro and micro execution on the macro. I'm just asking all of you, like, do you truly like when I'm trying to shake someone who's half in, Like, I don't care that it hasn't worked yet. Like, that's my favorite one. Gary, you know, at the airport I always get rolled up on. Gary, I love you, you're a nice guy, but this fucking shit doesn't work. I'm like, cause you suck at it. How many people here are really pot committed and getting substantial success from organic social media for their business? Raise your hands. Cool. Now who's not? Raise your hands. Yeah. By the way, 90% of the hands that didn't get raised in the first part did not raise their hands in the second part. And I think about that stuff. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. To me, the entire part of that second group is yet. And the only thing that's required is you understanding that the first group that raised their hands are just better at it than you are. Not lucky not. This is my favorite one that you fuckers love. They're in a different market. You love that fucking excuse. Gary, you don't get it. I'm in the outskirts of Detroit. No, I fucking get it. There are human beings that consume social media in the outskirts of Detroit. So for me it's like, okay, if I can get half this group to just get done with excuses. They came here. This was my opening line. You came here, you're here. So it means you want. So if you want, why not do the thing even if you don't like the thing. I want to live longer. That's why I wake up and work out. I hate it the most. You want more money for your business, thus you have to take organic Social media extremely seriously. The end. I don't care what your politics are. If you're mad at China, let that shit play out in the macro. It doesn't fucking really actually affect you until it does. And if it does, you're dead anyway. So who gives a fuck? So don't tell me you're not on it because you're mad at China. No politics allowed for why you're being fucking lazy. Yeah, clap that up, Johnny. This is a room full of winners, of which many of you have excuses to why you're not doing this. Just like I have excuses in parts of my life, even though I'm a winner, this is excuses. So let me make this very clear to all of you. For fucking free or a little bit of money. Hiring someone in the scheme of a business, the opportunity to make videos. And this is the next most important part that's gonna unlock some of you. It's not just video. Videos, pictures, written words or audio clippings. The opportunity to do those four things to build your business at an extremely low cost by posting them on the seven platforms that matter. And we'll get into that in a minute. But obviously, you know, Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and YouTube, shorts, LinkedIn, especially if you're in B2B in here and do commercial Snap, Snapchat, Spotlight does exactly what Instagram and TikTok does, but nobody pays attention to it, so it's easier to get attention there. And Twitter, if you don't understand that those seven free platforms, you know, many people come up to me in a business context like Gary, but you know, fuck, you know, fuck Facebook, Zucks. Fuck Zucks. Like the algorithm screwing me. This is bullshit. I'm shadow banned. They're screwing me. I'm like, they're like, it's, it's. This is the worst. I'm like, it's free, my friends. Social media marketing, if you do it organically, is free. There's. You don't get a billboard put up on the highway in your town for free. You don't get a full page ad in the newspaper for free. Google doesn't give you those search results of you showing up first for free. It's free. And something changed, my friends, in the last three years. That was not the social media that I built on. The social media I built on was more like email marketing. You would post a lot to get as many followers as you can, and a percentage of them would see your content every time. So I, when I outflanked most in 2009, 10, 11, 12. So when I was giving this talk in 2016, many in the room felt defeated because like, fuck gary, you've got 7 million followers, I've got none. And I could understand why people in the room would be like, shit, two years before any payoff. That's a level of patience that most people don't have in their stomach in this room. But that world doesn't exist anymore. I hope everybody's been paying attention to what's happened the last 24 to 36 months. If you've been sitting here completely punting social for 15 years, good news. Unlike most things in life, you don't have to pay the piper. Because what happened with the TikTok ification of social media in the last three years is now every social network doesn't go based on how many followers you have. It goes on the merit of the creative itself. There are people in this room. I have 15 million followers on TikTok. There's somebody in this room that's going to get motivated Today, create a TikTok, make their first video tomorrow, and that video will get more views than the post that I will post that same day. That's fucked up and I'm pissed. But I can't be pissed because that's how the game is now. If that doesn't motivate you in this room, I have no idea what data will. The part that's most interesting to me is that I'm aware that a lot of you are self lack the self esteem and have too much insecurity of going on video and I'm empathetic to that. You're stuck in seventh grade like most adults. You are literally not building your business because you can't handle someone going to your social media post named Johnny Pants 13 and saying that you're ugly or stupid. I'm just gonna say that one again because this is really scary. I believe over 30% of this room is not all in because they are literally stuck in high school because they fear or are too affected by a stranger coming on their social network page on a post and making fun of their appearance, their weight or the words that came out of their mouth, their age, their look, their politics. I get it. I don't want that for you. Especially when you shouldn't feel bad for you. When that happens, you should feel bad for the person that's leaving that comment. Could you imagine how shitty of a life it is to go around the Internet and try to hurt other people's feelings? I would like to show you the visualization of what's going on in that person's heart. It's sad. I feel bad. The only people that do that on earth are ones that are hurting. So please get your self esteem up. Let me tell you what I also see with this crew. Some of you are actually big players in your market. You've got kids that are much smaller, you're a much bigger mortgage, you're much bigger real estate. But you've got youngsters or new people. They don't even have to be youngsters who have more followers even though their book of business is much smaller than you and you don't like the way it looks of you only having 113 followers but they have 8,000. So you keep staying off while they keep growing market share. My friends, there's a lot of reasons why you don't do it. None of them are valid. This is the greatest opportunity in the history of small business. All of you are small business. I am small business. We can compete with the biggest brands in the world with no cost by just becoming remarkable at the craft, at being great at social media. I spend, I have a team that does my content. The first 11 years of my career I did all my content myself. Today I have a team that, that team costs me between 4 and 5 million dollars a year just for my social media content team. Non ads, just the creative that isn't to discourage you because guess what, plenty of times I look at the team like fuck it, I could do this all by myself. Better. It's the reason I'm articulating it to you is I need you to understand how serious this is. I'm not doing that for my health. That wasn't fun. It's not me bragging, it is me. Operating where I know the business opportunity is, this is the most significant channel to grow your business. In branding. This room is in sales. Sales and branding are different. I need people to understand this. Knocking on doors, cold calling sales good. I'm a fan, I would. I mean I love selling but selling is what you do when you don't know how to do brand. I'm glad that one hit. Selling is what you do when you don't know how to build a brand. And what I mean by that is really at the end of the day you're gonna do both. Selling and branding are both great. But Nike doesn't do door to door sales. Lexus doesn't do door to door sales. Coca Cola doesn't do door to door sales. And by the way the characters in your world that get on Netflix and have shows, the business comes to them, because that's branding. Branding. And what I want everyone to here to do is actually be self aware that they are wasting an enormous amount of time every single day. All of you, me included, all of us in this room, spend an enormous amount of time on dumb shit every day that can be allocated to making content to grow your business. That is my favorite one of all the people who've been sitting for the first 10 minutes of this and saying, I don't have time to make the content. You sure do. Because that two hour lunch you take every day, it's straight bullshit, right? And so what I am passionate about and what I'm trying to articulate here and what I'm pushing hard on is do you understand how big of an opportunity this is? And I feel like if you did, literally nothing would stop you. Back to health and wellness. I luckily got ahead of it 10 years ago and I was like, you know what, I just know this is not going to work out. Just like I know the people that aren't working hard on their businesses always go out of business. But normally a guy like me or the hands that just went up that it doesn't come easy to. The time they get serious is when they have, you know, a heart attack and luckily survive, or they go to the doctor and they tell them that they're going to die in two years or they're diabetic or what have you, they get scared to address it. What I'm concerned about in this room, very frankly, is right now, I'm asking you to do it out of offense and I believe over the next decade that I'm going to ask you to do it out of defense. This is a very important part. How many people in this room are retiring within the next seven years? Hold on. And I don't mean you're going to fucking crush it and buy a jet. I mean you're fucking old and you're finished. Next seven years. Raise your hand. Who's wrapping up? Raise it. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9. Great. So for the full 14 of you, you might, you know, with you two, like, you might be able to hold off this wave that's coming and just see it through. But for the rest of you that didn't raise your hand. For instance, Zillow is going to create 50,000 virtual influencers who are going to be their real estate agents. How many people here are familiar with AI Virtual influencer influencers? Raise your Hands. So this is disproportionately one of the biggest vulnerabilities for this room in the next year or two, three, everybody in this room will raise their hand when I ask the question, do you know what a virtual AI influencer is? Some of you have already seen them. Usually right now, they're very attractive women on Instagram that if you look carefully, you're like, oh, that's not a real person. In the next two to three, four years, it's just going to be everybody. And you will not be able to tell the difference if the person in the video is an AI influencer or a real person. And of course they will do bikinis and all that stuff and only fans, but they will do everything. They will sell sneakers, they will sell wine, they will sell books, and they will sell real estate and they will sell mortgages and they will sell everything. My friends, I believe what technology is doing is eliminating everybody except the people that can build a brand. I really mean this, and I beg you to take this conversation serious. At the bare minimum. At the bare minimum, if you do not have brand building content on social for you, do it for your business. If you're such an introvert and it's a small office, create a fake character, create a mascot. The Geico Lizard does the work for Geico, not Johnny Geico. You've got to figure it out. And on a personal level, I skipped over and I want to come back. It's not just video. If you're a great writer, write, writing content does well, especially right now. What? But my latest book that came out a couple weeks ago is called Day Trading Attention. That's what I do for a living. I day trade today on the flight here from LA to Vegas. My team sent me that. My post from two days ago did incredibly well on Instagram. And our running thesis right now is because the copy was extremely long. Audio. Some of you have great gift of gab, but you genuinely are insecure on video, you cripple. It's okay, you're allowed. I don't want to take roller coasters. I get it. We have different things that we like and don't like. But if you're a great talker, but you're very weird on video and you don't like it, then take out your phone, hit record and talk and then post the audio clip on all these platforms, there is no what I'm basically saying right now. And a lot of you know each other. There's a lot of pairs and 2, 3ft, like if I'm, if I could ask for anything, can we just be accountable? Can we just be accountable to understand how substantial this is? I don't want to hear that you didn't grow up with it. I'm tired of 54 year olds like Gary. I didn't grow up with it. I'm like, no shit. You didn't grow up driving and you figured it out. You didn't grow up being a parent and then you had a kid and you became a fucking parent. I don't care that you didn't grow up with it. And AI is coming and you know it's coming. Like what you're. A lot of you with AI and TikTok have become your parents. I'm going to tell them again. Remember when you made fun of mom and dad for not wanting to do email or get a smartphone? Your dad was good with his fucking flip came and you had the iPhone. You're like, dad or they didn't want to do AOL instant messenger. And you shit on your parents in your teens and twenties. Now you're your fucking parents if you say no to AI and if you say no to TikTok and if you say no to all this shit, you're your fucking mom. Doe is right. And by the way, in real life, it's important in real life, you do you in real life, meaning in your personal life, how you want to parent, how you want to roll, how you want to do you do you. You can have a beeper, I don't care. But you came to a conference to grow your business and you're willing to deploy your business strategy based on your subjective opinions about shit you don't know. Let me say that one more time. You came to a business conference to grow your business and you are executing currently on social media on a subjective opinion that you have on some shit you don't know. That is the essence of my talk, that how many people here have been following me for more than 10 years? Raise your hand, raise it high. My friends, you guys know I've been on this is right. You've been, you've been with me on this one more time, I want to see how many. I just want to get a sense a lot of you, which I want you to like explain to everyone else in here. You've been with me on this for a long time. I'm telling you from the bottom of my heart. I don't know if you can see the goosebumps on my arm because I'm feeling it that much. We're kind of in the fourth quarter of this going from the nice to have that can explode you to the if you do not do this, your business is going to go out of business. And out of business is extreme because you're still going to have your relationships and your reputation but dented as fuck. It's not fun either. You are going to get outflanked. It's happening. There is like how many people here get business from Google AdWords? Raise your hands. Raise them high. Very few. Shit, a lot of you should be doing that. I thought most of you are going to do that. So by the way, real quick, for the next 24 to 36 months, a lot of you need to figure out how to fucking do Google AdWords locally. But my point was going to be what the hell Happens to Google AdWords advertising when everybody uses Chat GPT to do search changes? People used to dominate something called the Yellow pages. Who's under 30? Raise your hands. Under 30. Kids, let me tell you a crazy ass story. You're going to love this. You know how sometimes you drive and you see like a Van Gogh by and it says triple A cleaners or like AAA insect repellents or AAA stuff that is. Do you know why all those companies were called aaa? Because the yellow pages dominated how people did things. And when you would go to the services they would do it by alphabetical order. So whatever fucker got to AAA first, showed up first and got most of the business. Stuff always changes. We're in a really deep place with this social media thing where it's becoming the oxygen of business. And it's free, it's free. The only thing it requires is for you to actually get great at it, which takes a lot of time, which is not free. And then once you understand how important it is, you're gonna hire people to help you make content. But a lot of you have already done that and have got video people and things of that nature. But here comes AI and it's going to lower the cost of these people. Poor Dustin sitting there so beautifully filming me right now. AI is going to fucking fire him. You're dead, Dustin. You're fucking dead. I'll find you a better job because I love you. But good news for the people that haven't started paying for creative. You're going to be able to use things like Mid Journey and all these other advancements that are going to be built in every social network. In fact by default, Vault for Free will have AI capabilities in it before you post and you'll just have to do the raw video, upload it, and you can post produce that shit like you're Steven Spielberg. My friends, you're lollygagging. If you are not posting three to four original pieces of video, written word, audio, pictures, a day, a day, then you release, leaving money on the table. You're allowed to do whatever you want. You're not my sister. I don't give a. But I'm telling you from the bottom of my heart, if you're not doing it, somebody else is going to do it. And at this point in 2024, I know a lot of you have started to see that truth. A lot of you know there's a bunch of people selling houses in your markets that don't know about real estate because they're two years in, but they do know social media. Yes. So what the fuck? We gonna let these punk motherfucking kids get all this shit? And by the way, I knew that would get a clap. Now let me give you something that's gonna be quieter. They deserve it. Cause they're outflanking you. You're the punk. Oh, we got real quiet there. You're the punk. Thank you. Thank you.

[A]

So I didn't. I didn't tell Yuri, like, what I wanted specifically, but that was exactly what I wanted do.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because I'm frustrated that so many people. I talk to somebody on these events and it's just this fraction of people who are consistent on social. But everybody else agrees with me. They're not arguing with me. They're not saying, no, Neil, you're a liar.

[B]

Well, that's. It's similar. It's similar to the framework. Nobody's going to be like, no, doctor, you're an idiot. I should continue to gain weight and drink alcohol. And, like, nobody's going to say that. I'm being very empathetic. I got very lucky that health and wellness comes so hard to me. And I didn't do it for the first 40 years of my life, and then I've done it for the last 10. Like, I really mean this. It's really hard for me. Like, I, you know, like, meaning, like, every morning I wake up, I'm like, I don't want to do this. But, you know, it gets easier, right? Like, anything. And like, I know a lot of you are like, gary, I don't want to do this. I don't want to post a video and get two views. I don't want to spend an hour to post a video gets three views. And I Get no business from it. And I'm like, I get it, but what happens when you do that for a year and one of those videos gets you seven clients, Right? And my other point is, you're wasting other time on dumb shit. So give me that hour. Give me your worst fucking hour every day. Give it to me to give it back to you to make content for social media.

[A]

Yeah, that's it. That's the strategy. And I think when Gary says three or four, oh my God, I can barely do one.

[B]

Well, one a week. These fuckers are doing one a week.

[A]

Yeah, There's a video that just went viral for Gary and this lady says she wants to change the world. And he says, how much are you posting? How much are you posting? And she said, once a week.

[B]

She said once a month.

[A]

Once a month.

[B]

I said, you're trying to change the world. You guys are just trying to sell some more shit, A couple houses, some mortgage, like, you know, like.

[A]

But it's crazy because the one video is like an Instagram story where comes on stage or walking over here, a quick thing. Some of it's like a video that you sat down and produced, but other things are like a quick thought and I tweet it out. It's not that complicated when you think about it. So one of the things I just want to get real with Gary is I got questions that you all submitted and I put these into what I think would benefit them the most. Okay, I'm hearing these questions.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Cuz sometimes people ask a question and.

[B]

They take up like, I get it. It's a pitch, not a question. Yeah, bro, you know, no, I don't want to buy a house from you.

[A]

The pitch area. So let's be real, we're at an inflection point. I think I saw a piece of content here recently and said it's no longer just post content, you need to level up to create it. So the science around art, what do people know? What do you see seeing right now? Because all of us are getting less views, the ones who are posting, than we did last year.

[B]

That's right. And it will continue to happen because it's supply and demand of attention. Right. If everybody listens to me and everybody posts four times a day and there's only still the same amount of hours of people on the other side, everyone's going to get less views. Right? So you're right. You know, so many of you've heard, especially with all those hands for 10 years, I'm so on this three, four times. A day. But to your point, I'm starting to change the message a little bit. That's why I love Q and A, because I didn't do it on stage. And you've got to be great at it. It'd be like me telling you you have to shoot 100 basketball shots a day. I'm right for you to get better at basketball, but it doesn't mean you're going to be in the NBA. Right. And so talent matters. Some of you are just going to be more talented at this. That's just real life. But I think you can all agree with me on this, no matter what it is. Basketball, skiing, cooking, public speaking, speaking, running. All of us have different levels where we start naturally with our DNA and skill sets, but all of us can get better at it. I have a sports agency. NFL, UFC, baseball. We have 150 professional athletes in the biggest sports in the world. Do you know what the most. The number one story at dinner, when I get to know them, all of them. Not all of them, but so many of them are like, I can't believe I'm in the league. There were so many kids I grew up with that were so much more talented than me, but everyone's the same. Sentence next. I just outworked them. I had more discipline than them. So many of you in this room, I know will really resonate with what I'm just saying. Many of you sit here today because you outworked everyone. I just want you to get more upside. And so I want you to work better and hard. And I think the better move for this industry is content around your services, around your neighborhoods. Like, that's the thing that everyone's about to say, right? What do I post?

[A]

Well, yeah, you said brand. You're talking about Nike. Yes, I understand how it works for Nike. How does it work for Sally, the local real estate agent from Las Vegas right now?

[B]

The same way it's worked for you. You put out the best content you can that you think will bring value to people and it will grow. Plus, bless you. And so Sally in Vegas needs to constantly talk about the Vegas market on a daily basis. She needs to talk about, if she's a real estate agent, the school system on a constant basis. She needs to interview the principal. She needs to talk about the best locations. She needs to educate people why the price was six years ago, this much, what she thinks. But she has to hedge and follow legal rules of what she sees. Sally needs to be creative and think and talk. Sally needs to interview former people that she sold homes to, to ask them how they like the neighborhood and what they like about it. Not for that person to give an infomercial for Sally. No, just to have a conversation. So another human being whose husband or wife just got relocated to Vegas stumbles upon that video. And, like, those two people seem nice. And Sally's the agent. Let me DM her business. The same reason all you fuckers went to the fucking, like, the Little League shit and the Chamber of Commerce. And you're like, honey, we got to go to this thing because I might get a client from it. You know, the real life stuff you did for networking, that's the Internet. And good news, you don't have to put clothes on. Like, think about all the networking all of you have done. Charity events, Little League, like, all the stuff. Stuff that is social and it scales more.

[A]

What I'm noticing now is a lot of the people who are winning, who have been following, who have been following you, like myself, for many years now. And winning more on social is you said, like, being. Finding your voice. You've got the voice already. But what I found in reality was I was not comfortable. So you said, hey, you're the guy that isn't come help, so maybe you should be writing. I was terrible, bro. Like, if you saw these videos, they're cringe. But what I found was at some point I got comfortable being myself. So I think right now, a lot of people who are winning are just. They just said it like, I'm just gonna be me. And then for some reason, I think the audience can tell very quickly right now.

[B]

Of course, of course. And like, by the way, when people are always like, but, Gary, you have to be more professional. Like, in reality, professionalism, the real business is done when you loosen the tie at dinner anyway, you have the professional meeting, and then you actually do real business over the steak dinner. In professionalism, you have the meeting, but then actually, like, getting to know someone on the golf course is when you really. You're not wearing a suit and tie on the golf course. Like, and so it's funny. It's a very meta thing for me. When I started my public speaking career in 2007. 7, 8, 9. And then I started popping off in 2009. 10. CAA was my representation at the time for public speaking. And they would hound me every six months. Gary, you can't wear jeans and a hat and a T shirt. Gary, you can't curse. This is going to kill your speaking career. But the world went in my direction. We're more casual. We just are. Sorry.

[A]

And so this is what's working.

[B]

By the way, the point of the stat stories. Because I want you all to hear this, by the way. What if you're on the other side? The world's got more casual and you love to suit it up. Then suit it up. That's you. You understand like the. You will not trick the audience. You friends. Actually, this is life advice that I really believe in. Do you know who you trick? Other losers? You. You don't trick the audience. You can trick them for a few minutes. They're not who you want to win with anyway. Just be you. You know, for the youngsters that raise their hand. The under 30 crew for you don't like a lot of under 30 in this space will dress up and will get the watch and the car because they feel like they need those things because they're young. People know you're young even if you wear a fucking suit. Suit. Like there's a lot of people in this room that will outflank you because they have more experience. But you have other. And like, don't fake it like you've been in it for two years. This is what you got. But I'm sure you could tell them, like, look, I'm not going to. I cross every T and I. I'm good at detail. I'm this. And some people go with you and some won't. And news alert. You're going to be old one day too. So you're going to be able to play that card one day. So the reality is like, too many people fake it, brother, 100%.

[A]

And so this is the thing that's working right now is the like for so many people here, you look at how many followers you have or somebody who's in this room was a couple years ahead in the game and they said I can't do that. Well, you know, rewind Gary told you it's all based on the individual mar. Single piece.

[B]

It's crazy. It's crazy.

[A]

So many people get started and they go up and other people not so much. And so I'm wondering if the creative. It's just based on how good the piece of creative is. That's it. And if part of that is like what you guys spend a lot of money on your team, obviously you do that personally, but then also across all the brands that they work.

[B]

Yeah. So for an update. Yeah.

[A]

What's actually working with them?

[B]

So just for context for everybody, a lot of people, even the ones that have been following me for 10 years don't know this. I'm the active CEO of one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. So. So VaynerMedia and VaynerX, we have 2,700 employees in the U.S. mexico City, London, Amsterdam, Japan, Sydney, Australia.

[A]

And these guys come to you and they're like, hey, we don't want to let these workers eat our lunch. What do we do? How are you advising them and what's working? Because their objective is sales.

[B]

Their problem with the Fortune 500 companies that I work with, the Pepsis, the Proctor and Gambles, the Fords, they still believe in commercials over everything. So they're getting outflanked because they come to me and I tell them what to do, but they want it to look good. I'm like, do you want it to look good and nobody sees it, or do you want it to look authentic and everyone sees it? They're like, number one, for example, Zillow.

[A]

Zillow has a TV ad. But I don't really see.

[B]

Zillow won because they outflanked everybody on Google. They outspent everybody on Google and they did what OpenTable did to restaurants. They sat on top of all of you and became the tool, the toll booth to all of you. They won the Google era. If Zillow doesn't adjust to the era we're now, they will slowly decline. Especially in an AI world where. Why do you think the biggest tech companies are all in on AI once? All of you, how many people here now use an AI bot instead of Google to search stuff? Raise your hands, Stand up. I apologize. Please stand up. That. Really. Dustin, I need you to stand up and come on stage with me. I need this. Please, please come here. I apologize, everyone. Dustin, come on. No, not you, the camera. No, no. I need you to capture this. You can come up here. I want you to get this. This is remark. This is actually. This is actually. I'll do it. I got this. Shit. Thank you. Dustin, this. Please stand. I apologize. I know, but please stand back up. Everybody who does it now, Everyone who's sitting, look at this, because it might shock you. Some of you have never been on ChatGPT or Perplexity or anything. Look how many people are standing right now. Just to remind everybody, as I'm looking around, let me just make sure. Yep, these are not 20 year olds. And look how many people in this room are now using AI, Chat, GPT, Perplexity, other things to look up stuff. Not Google. That should scare the out of Zillow.

[A]

Yeah. And that's a cool thing for us.

[B]

This is. This is. This again. This is fun because having so many people that have been following me for a long time, I know you can tell my energy is a little bit. I'm always hyper and excited. There's an urgency in my voice that I hope you hear. This is this room's moment. There's many people here. And again, because I'm looking at everyone's face, especially for people that want like a 10 to 15 year window of prosperity because of where they are in their life. I want this so bad for you. Like, I'm sitting here, like, again, if I was a medical doctor, it would really devastate me because you would have patients that like, please lose this weight, please eat better, please get off alcohol, and then they die and you're devastated. That's this. I'm the business version of this. I'm looking here and I'm like, they don't understand that if they don't take this serious, the next two, four, six, ten years is going to be challenging. And that just sucks. It sucks to have a long career to do your thing, put in all those deposits and then lose half your market share because. Because you didn't advance with technology. But to remind you, you're not special, this happened to bookstore owners. You didn't cry for bookstore. Like, if you're sitting here and saying, impossible. That's what bookstore owners said when they heard about the Internet, because it was a fad. And then Jeff Bezos picked on them first. I spoke at a conference just like this three months after Uber came out in Washington D.C. called the taxi and Black Limo Association. I know some of you heard the story. I'll never forget it. And I told them, like, this Uber thing, I'm telling you. And they sat here laughing at me until they started crying. They thought they had a moat. One of the guys even Q and A said, gary, you don't get it. He goes, I have a medallion in New York City. There's nothing they can do about it. We own city hall. I'm like, do you know Silicon Valley? He goes, no. I go, do you know much money Silicon Valley has? You think you own City Hall? Call my friends. I don't care how good your reputation is, and you've been doing it for 15 years. Convenience is king.

[A]

That's it. So when you talk about making better videos, right? And the authentic ones are doing better.

[B]

You guys spend a lot of money with K. Yes.

[A]

Some of us here, we're trying to get Reach. But then there's a lot of people in this room who are not downloading with K Run.

[B]

Love that, love that.

[A]

It isn't the same thing. Like, is it the paid media? Because you talked about this. I'm primarily organic. Just now getting into paid. But you, I noticed that when you paid, it gets way cheaper if the video is better.

[B]

Yeah. So the game was always make ads run paid against it. See how it does customer acquisition cost, tweak it. Now the game is go organic. And when something does remarkable, put paid behind it. Because you've already seen that. Because the AI algorithms have gotten so good. When I used to have 7, you know, 5 million followers on Instagram four years, seven years ago, and I would post every day, they would all get 500,000 views, roughly. Remember I told you earlier, it was like email marketing. A certain percentage would see it. So I didn't really know which one of those to put paid against because it wasn't validated by the numbers of which video was hitting. More occasionally, something would go viral. Now the variable if you go to my. When you leave, if you go to my TikTok, if you go to my Instagram, you'll see the numbers are all over the place. Some are doing great, some are doing atrocious. So what's great about the algorithm now is when the video does well. The AI technology, the algorithm, the artificial intelligence is so good. It knows that people like this video. That gives you complete affirmation to spend more on the ad. So the game is flipped.

[A]

So the strategy would be organic or.

[B]

This is why I'm obsessed. Think about where I'm going. You have to become remarkable at organic because it's free and it will grow your business anyway. But when you hit pay dirt and you've got something that's remarkable and you're into advertising, well, that's what you put your money against it, which means you're saving a lot of money on the thing. That was always the hardest thing about advertising, which was the creative was the variable of the risk. You can get in front of. By the way, I'm giving a talk right now. I've got all your attention. But if I was talking nothing interesting and nothing good, and you were bored, then the ad didn't do well. Right. So I can get you in front of people with paid advertising. This is what I tell my big clients. They're like, we want to spend $10 million on this. I'm like, this video sucks. I can get $10 million worth of people to see it. But nobody's gonna buy shit because this video is a fucking commercial. Do you guys even see commercials any like who watches regular tv? What are we doing here?

[A]

Yeah, so when you think about I'm a guy here or gal here, I post 10 videos. One of the 10 videos did 8x videos. What do I do with that video?

[B]

I think there's two things. It depends what you want. If you just want to keep building brand then you just spend media on it against the demo you want. So. So if you want to grow in California or you know, you can run it just to people in California, same video. But if you want to sell something, then you take that video and you tweak it a little bit with a call to action. Maybe a banner overlay at the bottom of it that says go to. You change the copy, maybe the video, you add something to the end of the video that says 20% off or first consultation first for free or what I think a lot of you should be. I've got a big one for a lot of you. Most of you should be running social media ads or start with organic and then ads to host dinners in your town that people submit for. Let me break it fully down. If I'm you, if I did what you do for a living and I'm trying to either get real estate agents from B2B mortgage side or I'm a real estate agent and trying to sell homes, it's. It's kind of hard to go right in for the kill. Right? Those ads don't do as well. If I'm you, I go make a relationship with a restaurant in town and tell them I can bring really good people to this restaurant. I just need a little bit of a discount. Either give me the private room for free or hook me up with some, you know, biz dev, a little local biz dev. And then you're running ads to your website or to your social where you're telling people doing a free business dinner, not a real estate or mortgage, doing a free business get together business people in a 20 mile radius, please go to this form and fill out who you are. If you're interested for a free dinner and some good wine and that's it. You will get six to eight people all the time. People are always trying to network. Those people trying to sell some shit to you too, right? But then you're going to have them submit the form so you can see everybody. What's your social. And literally you're now hosting really smart six to eight person dinners. Plus you're being seen by everybody in the general area. That's a good spend of 100 bucks. Because by the way, $100 on Facebook or Instagram in a 10 mile radius will get you good shit that's local in your market. That's what these fucking people do. You know, this isn't, this isn't my Pepsi client. They're trying to sell to everybody everywhere. The best part about all of you is you're local. You don't need to run ads to everyone. That's another thing that everybody here worries about. Gary, even though I got a thousand views, they're all North Dakota and I'm fucking Jamaica. I'm like, yes, that happens. But less and less now. And by the way, back to the model, I'm telling you. But we know that people liked it. So now take that and run $50 worth of media in Oklahoma or California or this guy. It organic, gives you the creative affirmation and then you go on the offense.

[A]

Awesome. And I want to give you the example. So this, this is why I love Q and A. Because it gets you into something you didn't think about. It gets you so excited. So Gary's talking about this right now. Recently, bro, I posted this video on social on Instagram. It was about the crazy things that are happening in Las Vegas all of a sudden. I don't know why. It took off like three weeks after I posted it. And all of the people who are commenting and sharing it are people who work in Las Vegas. I didn't say whereas an app. It showed it to people.

[B]

You've, you've been in the game long enough to know. This is the phenomenon I'm trying to explain to everyone. Social media three years ago looked very different than social media today. And with the advancements of AI, do you know I'm about to blow your mind. Ready for this one? This is what I'm very excited about. The image recognition software capabilities that Facebook and TikTok and Google are working with now. You're literally, literally going to make a video. This gentleman's wearing a really rad shirt, right? Yeah, you bro. You should know that it's a crazy shirt, this Hawaii shirt, right? He's gonna make a video, that video based on what he just said about Las Vegas, which was impossible four years ago. The platforms, when it's starts going to whomever, some of his followers, random people. If it gets going, do you know that that video is going to start hitting people that actually bought that same T shirt? Because it's going to Recognize what it is. And especially this is why Amazon can build the biggest company in the world. They have all that data. Wait till you see what Amazon prime does. You think your phone and Alexa follow you around. Wait till you watch tv. In three years, you're going to be watching TV you bought. Bought some four minutes ago. And the commercial is going to be right there. And, like, they got it all stacked, bro.

[A]

What's great is I've been telling people, hey, you're the biggest Las Vegas Raiders fan. Just simply wear the jersey or hat in your videos, and all of a sudden they get more deals in Las Vegas. So is this why, like, it's actually picking up the things and it's putting that out to the people who have the same interests?

[B]

Yes, my friend. It's. It's just starting. My friends, please. The opportunity is substantial. It's free. It's free. I need all of you who've been lally gagging who did it four years ago and said it didn't work for me, or the ones that just do it a little bit. I need you to allocate 100 hours of learning before you start posting. Go learn. You have to be good at it. The first second matters. The thumbnail matters. The copy matters. What time you post matters. Are you posting a carousel or a regular post? There's a. For a lot of you, there's a lot to learn. Even the ones that have been doing it for a while, there's a lot to learn. And then it's platform by platform people. People have no clue how big Facebook is right now. Facebook is a monster. But every good young marketer thinks it's old school, so they're focused on TikTok and Instagram. That's your opportunity. Like, it's a big deal.

[A]

It is. And so as we wrap up your question, this is totally off topic.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, in the beginning of your content, what I really liked about it was the hustle. Hustle. Like the culture. How you get it is you work.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you put in the hours.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And what I found in my journey of entrepreneurship is I said I was doing this for my family.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then I started doing myself as well. But then my family's over here saying.

[B]

Well, where are you?

[A]

Where the are you?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Straight up.

[B]

Yeah. Because every. Because. Because every workaholic does it for their family, but what they're really doing is because they love the game. No, but that doesn't mean that it's still true that you're doing it for your family. You're doing it for yourself because you. You can't. I don't know. But for a lot of you, I'm sure, because this is what you do for a living. So a lot of you are very entrepreneurial and entrepreneurs. When you're a purebred entrepreneur, you don't know how to breathe if you're not doing it.

[A]

And so.

[B]

But anyway, go ahead. I'm not, of course.

[A]

And so a lot of us have this thing where actually many people, when I talk to them, one to one in our groups. Yeah, they're going through it right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so how do you.

[B]

Easy. Stop being full of shit and be accountable. If you're worried that you're missing time with little Susie or your wife or husband or Johnny, then don't skip Johnny's fucking baseball game to go close a deal. Go to the fucking baseball game. I've done it. I do. I've done it by doing both. I can only give you a focus group of one. I've done it by doing both. I'm not one of these people that put the ideology of not missing a single thing that my kids ever do on a pedestal. And I'm not someone who wants to wake up in 10 years and see my kids look at me and be like, who the fuck are you? So I do the best I can. I try very hard to choose family over everything. I have real boundaries, like weekends and families and birthdays. And I'm sure, just like every parent on earth, my kids are still gonna shit on me when they're in their 20s and 30s about it. But I'm gonna know when they're shitting on me that I really did the best that I could. I also tried to change along the way. Right. I'm dealing with back to marketing, day trading attention. I'm also day trading the truth of my family. Things change. Day tradition. Different moments need different time. But I think where we lost in the world politically, parenting ideology is we've become too extreme. You've got people like, I've got friends. Like, I don't miss a single thing. I'm like, okay. Like, they walk around like, it's a huge. It's wonderful. I'm like, but you're going out of business over here, so it's gonna be a problem, you know? And then there's other people who miss everything, and they're like, I'm doing it for my family. Like, you know, when your kids shit on you when they're older and, you know, I'm 48 now. So I've got friends who've got 15, 16, 19 year olds and they're starting to hear things. The best part about life is you have to sleep in the bed that you made. And so what would I say when you all get into circles and cry about it? Stop crying. And either you're posturing to look good in front of everybody, but you don't really mean it, because if you mean it, then fucking change.