Quality vs. Quantity: Creating a Content Strategy in 2019 | Melbourne Australia, 2018 Keynote

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- Let me break it down very simple for you:
The world plays in the middle and all the action
is in the edges.
(upbeat music)
You've got your perspective.
(crowd cheering)
I just want to be happy.
Don't you want to be happy?
Melbourne, what is up.
(cheering)
What is up?
Fuck, I've been flying for two days.
(laughing)
But I'm here and I'm excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for the warm welcome.
So there's a lot of places I want to go
with today's talk.
And so, let's just get right into it.
I think, for me, what I really want to accomplish
in this talk today is set up a framework of strategy
of how much abundance and opportunity there is
right now and why.
And then, number two, really get into the tactics
that I think a lot of people here can take
and take whatever they're trying to achieve
to the next place.
I think the thing that,
as I was getting ready for this trip
and I was really looking at a lot of the things
on Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter
and other things of that nature
that have become such an important part
of the way I think about the world.
But, more importantly, before we go into that;
what I was doing over the last month
as this kind of conference was coming together was I,
are you really wearing a Patriots fucking shirt?
(crowd laughing)
Jesus.
Just completely took my energy to a different place.
Just wanna punch that dude in the face.
(laughing)
As I was getting ready for this talk,
what I was really looking at were people
that were making references to it
and then kind of going down the rabbit hole,
especially, on the flight our here after I caught up
with all my work and still had 20 hours of flying.
As people were referencing this conference,
I was able to kind of go into their accounts
and take a look at what they were doing,
how they were doing it.
And what's become really remarkably interesting
to me over the last half-decade and, especially,
over the last couple of years
is how many people hear me, understand or consume
a lot of the content, but are unable because
of patience, I guess, or many other reasons;
how many people's actions don't map.
I mean, literally, the amount of people
that I'll post something about something,
they'll jump in and be like, yeah, Gary V., you're right.
And then, I click their account and they're
literally doing the complete opposite.
In that hypocrisy, in that misunderstanding,
in the white space, is really the thing
that matters to me.
I think the first thing that everybody needs
to really wrap their head around and understand
about this era is how much attention
is really being put here and how much,
if you're not winning on this devices,
how much vulnerability you have.
Number two, really understanding that
we talk a lot about content but nobody here,
including me, with a humongous team,
and this is super-important.
This is really what I wanted to start this talk with
because I think it will help people.
Me, with a team of 20, putting out between
80 and 100 pieces of original content a day.
I'm grossly underperforming in the amount of content
I put out every day.
To really set the tone for everybody,
the volume, the sheer volume of content needed
for every individual or business in this room
to be successful in a 2019 environment
is staggering, and nobody's really making
the financial, or mental, or emotional investment
into that level of content.
The amount of people that are super-fine
with putting one or two pieces,
or three pieces a day on one platform
are just leaving an enormous amount of opportunity
on the table.
And so, for me, if there's anything that I can get
through today, and there'll be plenty of things
I'll try to get through.
But the sheer amount of content needed
to take full advantage of this land grab is staggering.
And so, that comes in a lot of forms.
For me, the reason I'm so obsessed with people focusing
on video is because the reality is that video
creates a scenario that allows you to do images
and written words and audio on the back of filming.
For me, the reason I do a vlog daily
is because we're able to use that as a top of the funnel
piece of content and then I'm able to produce a podcast.
I'm able to produce the, quote, pictures you see
on Instagram, the written articles on my .com
and LinkedIn.
It is the top of the funnel that creates everything else
instead of bottom-up.
It's unbelievably important.
If you're fortunate enough to be here
and you feel okay to be in front of the camera,
you need to lean in.
You need to absolutely lean in.
I think there's a lot of people,
and by the way, I'm a big believer that you have
to bet on your strengths and be self-aware.
I think there's a lot of people here
who wish they were something and the reality
is forcing that is their vulnerability.
If you're not comfortable being in front
of the camera for whatever millions of reasons,
or whatever insecurity, that's super-fine
and you should lean in to audio on your phone or,
if you're a great writer.
You need to figure out how you communicate.
But let there be no confusion here today.
If you are not producing content for the internet,
you are basically nonexistent in our society.
If you have, regardless of how good your B2B business
is doing, or how great you're real estate firm is,
or financial service.
Sears was winning, too, at one point.
Regardless of how well you're doing,
you are vulnerable right this minute
because all of the attention, on a daily basis,
continues to funnel here.
And whatever excuse you come up with,
which is my audience is not on there,
or my industry isn't affected;
all those things become your great vulnerability.
I recently, just a couple of weeks ago,
completely changed the strategic and creative foundation
of where VaynerMedia, my company, is going.
And a lot of people in my inner circle
pushed against it because they're like,
we're doing well.
And I reminded them.
I'm like, look, I'm desperate to put us out of business
before somebody else does it for us.
How many people here are having their best financial year
personally or in their business?
Raise your hands.
Let's clap it up for them.
(audience applauding)
One more time, raise them high.
No reason to be embarrassed about that.
Keep them up.
To me, the people with their hands up in that scenario
are the one that I'm more worried about
because, when it's going well,
is oftentimes when people become complacent
or they don't think the thing matters for them.
And so, for me, those are the things
that really, really stand out.
I think the other thing to really pay attention to
is attention itself.
For me, attention has been the thing that,
bless you, that I've chased my whole career.
When I was selling lemonade, I would look at poles...
Did you just get naked, bro?
Shit's getting crazy here in Melbourne.
(laughing)
This row's fucked up.
The Patriots fan, the naked dude.
I hope they paid extra.
(laughing)
I just looked over.
Dude's like fucking naked.
(laughing)
Attention has been something that I've been chasing
my whole career.
Selling lemonade against, you know.
Really, what's interesting to me,
it took me about four or five years ago
when I finally realized it.
I wasn't setting up the tables or making the lemonade.
I was really spending all my time looking
at the cars and trying to figure out where
to put the posters and the signs to get people's attention.
I did that in baseball cards and I did it in wine.
And I've done it, pretty much, my entire career.
And I think the thing that a lot of people
need to focus on is where is the attention?
So, for example, 24 months ago,
I would not stand up here and push LinkedIn very heavily.
You know, the platform was pretty much for anybody
that understands LinkedIn and has been around it.
It was really something where people put up their resumes.
It was something that people really spammed each other on.
LinkedIn became a shitty place for all of us
because all it was was people emailing in bulk
with no context.
And then, about three years ago, four years ago,
they made it more of a content plane.
You started seeing a little bit more.
And they had some influence on it.
And I was on it and it was fine.
But over the last 18 to 24 months,
it's been remarkable how much opportunity
there is on LinkedIn.
And if you're in this audience and you're doing
B2B marketing, and you do not have a LinkedIn
content strategy, you're making a humongous mistake.
Because when you layer on top of it ads that allow
you to target the titles of the occupations
that you're trying to reach.
How many people here are in B2B.
Raise your hands.
I mean, it's an enormous percentage of this audience
and I continue to watch B2B companies
not create original content for LinkedIn.
And when they do, they're much more in a commercial
or sales-oriented way, not in a branding
and create content way.
I always tell people if you make content
on the internet as if you're the TV show,
not the commercial in between the TV show,
you will get disproportionate return on your investment.
The problem is most people are looking
for instant gratification and return on their investment.
The amount of people here who've run a thousand dollars
in ads on something, it didn't work
and they deemed it as it doesn't work
is staggering to me.
I have spent millions of dollars on Facebook,
and Twitter, and Instagram, and Google
that haven't worked.
I've also spent millions of dollar on those platforms
that have worked.
The execution of the creative is the variable
in that environment.
Just because you ran $1000 or $10,000 in Facebook ads
and it didn't work, it might be the picture or video
that you put in front of people sucked
and didn't compel them to buy anything.
The attentions under-priced.
There is no doubt.
The attention's massively under-priced.
I built my family's wine business
on under-priced attention, on email and Google AdWords.
Those were the early 2000s.
I know what it looks like.
It's exactly what's happening right now
with Facebook and Instagram and influencers.
They're just under-priced.
Pre-Rolled podcasts, under-priced.
There is no debate that the attention is under-priced.
There's a reason that Wish, the shopping app,
does 6 billion dollars in revenue on the back
of 98% Facebook ads.
It's under-priced.
But are you capable to create contextual creative
at scale, that's the question.
Can you produce 97 pieces of content
for 97 different demographics and psychographics
and then run ads against them to compel them
to buy you're things.
If I'm selling sneakers, which I do,
there's going to be a fundamental difference
of the video or picture I'm going to put in front
of somebody who's 18, white male, in New York City,
versus a 47 year old Latina woman with two kids in Texas.
The problem is, when auditing the 30 accounts
that I looked at, and the hundreds of thousands
I do a year, 99% of people make one to five pieces
of content and run their ads and expect something to happen.
It is fundamentally not contextual to the audience
that they're trying to reach.
Very simply put, everybody,
everybody's running creative ads, media, marketing right now
as if it was 1997 and the only options you had
was the newspaper, the billboard, the radio,
and the television.
Meanwhile, we have Facebook, and Instagram,
and influencers that allow us to go way more long-tail.
The problem is people haven't put in the time
and the effort to create the content that's contextual
to the psychographics and demographics.
So, and I'm going very fucking nerdy
because I'm fucking fired up right now on this.
I think that every person in here,
regardless of what they're trying to do,
whether they're trying to run for mayor,
raise money for a charity, or sell their services,
needs to have at least 13 to 30 core audiences
that they produce content for every time.
So, literally, every time you have something new going on,
you have to create 30 variations where the copy...
I mean, you could target people who are divorced.
You can target people who have two kids.
You could target fuckers who like the Patriots.
(laughing) You could do so much.
You can do so much with this medium.
Yet, people are mailing it in.
Meanwhile, they're also having ludicrous,
there are ludicrous conversations going on
like people having ego around how well they do organically
on these platforms when the ads a massively under-priced.
Do you know how many people emailed me
crying that Facebook's organic reach declined
three years ago as if Facebook screwed them,
while Facebook is, literally, free to use?
Do you know how many people here are starting
to get concerned that they're not getting
as many likes and views on their Instagram account
because they can feel something's happening?
Yet, it's free.
I really need to drill this home.
People are mad at the algorithm on Instagram.
They run ads everywhere else.
They buy a booth at a conference.
They run print.
Direct mail, costs money.
You start an Instagram account,
if you don't run ads, you can organically build an audience
and you post.
Now, you're mad that you're not reaching as many people
and you've got this big conspiracy anger
at the algorithm, yet you haven't paid a fucking dime
for the platform.
(audience laughs)
That guy drank that beer quick.
(laughing)
It's a very intriguing thing for me
that people have emotional opinions about something
they haven't paid for.
And so, here's the game and it will always be the game.
Things come along, they're under-priced.
Real estate, stocks, attention.
When they're under-priced,
you need to strike and squeeze as much as you can
out of them.
I will come back to Melbourne in six years
and spend my entire talk trying to get people
to stop running ads on Facebook and Instagram.
That will happen.
It's always happened to me.
It's the same old game.
You take advantage when it's under-priced
and you squeeze it as long as you can.
You ride it all the way through.
And, eventually, the long tail catches up
and it becomes overpriced because companies come in,
and it becomes overpriced because of the bidding,
and normal people stop paying attention as much.
Everybody here who's been on Facebook
for five-plus years pays attention to every piece
of content on Facebook a little less than they did
five years ago.
Or maybe a lot less.
That is just the natural cadence of what we do.
How many people here had email in the late 90s?
Raise your hands, old fuckers.
(audience laughs)
So all the people that just raised their hands,
what they can tell everybody here under 30
is what we used to do with email in the 90s,
which was we read every single email.
Wine Library's email service in 1999
was almost 90% open rates.
How many people here have done email marketing
in their career?
Raise your hands.
90% open rates.
It's ridiculous.
It's like 32% now and I think we feel
like we're heroes.
So that will happen with these platforms.
So, look, before I get into the mindset
and the strategy and some of the social things
I'm seeing going on, I'll go back into the details.
But the details are very simple,
and I said it when I was here last year
and I'm going to say it again.
If you are not a practitioner yet
of making content and running ads on Facebook and Instagram,
you will massively regret it.
And the reason, and you've seen me say it
in every video, I am putting it down on film
to recall it in a decade.
I will never stop saying it.
I don't care how much you're tired of hearing it
and hoping for something new.
I'm not going to make up something
that isn't true.
They are grossly under-priced.
The one little add-on that I've been saying
a lot more over the last month or so
than in the past is how much content you need to produce.
And the reason one of the breakthrough videos I've ever made
called, Document, Don't Create, worked is it's hard
to create a new video that's creative.
That's hard.
But if you actually film your day-to-day,
your meetings, your mundane,
there's absolute action in that.
And so, I'd highly recommend really understanding
what that means.
Let's take a step back and let's talk about
something I've been spending a lot of time on,
which is, in a world where I'm asking you
to create so much content, the fact that so many of you
do not create content because you're so bent
out of shape by the feedback in the comments section.
This has become a remarkable fascination of mine,
that people literally aren't living their lives
to their happiness or their fullest
because SallyPants36 said that you're ugly or fat.
(audience laughs)
People absolutely crippled by the judgment of others
without really understanding what it is.
Let me say it here right now so there's no confusion.
If a human being takes the time out of their day
to consume your piece of content, consume it,
and then spend time to leave a negative comment to you
after consuming your content,
think about how shitty that person's life is.
(audience murmurs in agreement)
Somebody literally has the time to consume
your content and try to drag your down.
My friends, misery loves company is one
of the most interesting sayings that has been
in culture for a long time.
It most manifest in a very poor way
when I watch parents drag their kids
into shit because they're upset.
But it's one thing, and I have empathy,
a lot of it when it's your mom and dad
dragging you through shit, because that's deep.
But when an anonymous person with a fucking icon
of a rugby player is dragging you through shit,
you have to get into a place where that
does not bother you.
It makes zero sense.
I mean, literally, and I get shit on all the time.
You get that many comments, you get shit on.
When I see it, I don't feel bad for me.
I genuinely feel bad for them.
I'm fascinated.
I've never in my life taken the time
to consume somebody's content and then shit on them.
It makes absolutely no sense.
So, please, if you're one of these individuals,
and there are a lot of you in this audience
that are no producing content because you're worried
about the judgment.
You know how many people email me,
Gary, but I have to put on makeup.
Why?
Because your grandma told you when you were seven?
But, Gary, the lighting?
Why?
You don't like the bags under your eyes?
Good news.
Everybody has bags under their eyes.
Like, there is an enormous amount of insecurity
in the system that is stopping people
from creating the thing that they want
and it needs to be talked about in a much bigger way.
The judgment of others is a fascinating thing.
How many people, by show of hands,
work in a job and are desperate for their side hustle
to become their career?
Just raise your hands.
Raise them high.
Can you stand up, actually?
I need to see this because I've got to get a sense.
Stand up if this is your MO.
Your side hustle, you're desperate for that
to become your career.
Good amount.
Okay, thank you for doing that.
So I'll go into this.
So this has become a new thing that I've been spending
a ton of time on;
something I've realized that really kind of caught me
off guard is how many people spend more money
on shit than they can afford.
And I know that's like a funny thing to say.
But it's actually very basic.
I'm actually talking about the amount of people
that have emailed me in the last six months,
because I've been on this rant lately
of trying to get people to move back in with their parents
at 30 and 40.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, I'm hot on this.
It's because there's this incredible thing.
How many people here own their home?
Raise your hands.
The people that just raised their hands,
90% of people that own their homes
don't use more than 50% of their home.
They have three extra bedrooms that they don't need.
They have a living room, and dining room,
and a fucking den, and all sorts of shit.
The amount of people who live in homes
that they've extended themselves financially to afford
that don't even use half of that home is fascinating.
The amount of people who are in debt so they can drive
a car that has a logo on it that makes them feel better
because that's keeping up with the Joneses
or other people's judgment is fascinating to me.
What I didn't realize was that fact
that 35-fucking-percent of this audience wants
their side hustle to be their careers,
but the reason they can't is because they can't
quit their job because they need their job
to pay for dumb shit to impress people they fucking hate.
(laughing)
(audience applauding and cheering)
And so, especially, while the economy, globally,
is frothy, I am aggressively throwing up
for debate for the third of this audience
that is trying to get their side hustle to be their job,
for them to give a real thought to what it would look like
if they were to downsize their home, and their car,
and their vacations, and their watch,
to put themselves in a position to be happy.
I think, over the next decade,
as we continue to start really discovering,
as a human race, mental health and happiness,
that we are on the predawn of people changing
what success looks like.
When I really look at the world,
and I grew up super-humbly.
I've spent my 10-years-ago career in the explosion
of Silicon Valley.
I've really been lucky to see all sorts of different things
going on.
It is super-cliche but absolutely true
that the money/happiness things is just a funny thing.
People that don't have it think it does bring happiness.
People that have it know it's not true.
And when you really look at suicide data
and depression data, it's fascinating who struggles
with it.
I really do believe, as we become dramatically
more thoughtful about happiness versus money,
that a lot of people are going to really start looking at
the things they amass and how much that
is a choker to their happiness.
And so, what really excites me right now
is how frothy the economy is globally.
And I know so many of you can take advantage
of selling high, positioning yourself to be happy.
I think it's a very rogue point of view.
It's completely against the propaganda
that you see in your Instagram and Facebook feed 24/7;
everybody's pushing all sorts of fancy stuff,
and fancy trips, and fancy things.
I genuinely believe that the majority of people here
can dramatically, dramatically put themselves
in a happier place if they, honestly,
considered downsizing things that they don't use.
So just a random thought that I'm super-passionate about.
Let me talk to you guys about influencer marketing.
For me, I talked earlier about under-priced attention
and overpriced attention.
The way you get those things is when the market
doesn't understand itself.
When people don't understand how under-priced Facebook is,
they don't put money into it,
thus, the prices stay down.
The most inefficient and misunderstood marketplace,
in my opinion, is influencer marketing.
Humans don't know how to price themselves.
There are pretty people that have 400,000 followers
on Instagram that want $30,000 a post.
And they're are other people with 5,000 followers
who want $40.
They are 400,000-follower people that want $100.
They are people with $500 followers that want $5,000.
The inefficiency in influencer marketing is staggering.
How many people here, by show of hands,
and you guys have been pretty bullshit-y with your hands.
I don't know what's scaring you.
But go high.
How many people here sell an actual product, physical?
Raise your hands.
A lot.
Every single person, one more time, hands in the air.
All of you, all of you that have your hands in the air
should have a significant influencer, thank you,
influencer marketing strategy.
Literally, DMing people on Instagram and asking them
how much they would charge you to take a picture
holding your physical product and tagging your page.
It is massively inefficient.
I love when people, Gary, how do you scale it?
By DMing more people, fuck-face.
(audience laughs)
It just, there's no machine or algorithm.
Just get nice and cozy and DM people
and ask them one by one if they're willing
to do it.
I often find that the biggest upsides often
is scaling things that are not scalable.
Scaling things that are not scalable
comes from sheer effort and time.
And so, one more time, I just want to get the physical.
Selling a product physically.
If I was your partner, buddy with the hat,
selling physical, I would spend 30% to 50%
of my overall marketing budget on influencer marketing.
It's so inefficient.
And if you're lucky enough that your product you sell
directly on your Shopify or Amazon,
like, you can see it,
you don't even have to guess.
You literally, one, either codes,
or just isolated time slots for certain influencers
and you can see what the return on the investment is.
There's been many influencers that we bought
that we weren't sure, and then we bought 50 times over
because their audience was converting
because they had an authentic audience.
I couldn't be more passionate about it
and it is wildly under-priced in this market down here.
It's under-priced everywhere but we've even debated
opening a VaynerMedia office in Australia
just on the back...
(audience applauding)
Just on the back of, really, influencer marketing
because it's so underserved in the marketplace
and I highly recommend you take a deep look at it.
Another thing that is unbelievably under-priced
in this market and globally is keyword
and AdWord Google searches,
and then retargeted on YouTube Pre-Roll video.
So imagine a scenario where people search on Google
for curtains, or a financial advisor.
How many people here have done Google advertising
in their careers.
Raise your hands.
Perfect.
So a lot of you know it was an incredibly powerful platform
because it was intent-based.
If they were searching for it,
that means they were interested in it
and they would convert.
And a lot of you did extremely well with it
because it converted highly.
Much easier to be good at Google at first
than Facebook at first.
Facebook is branding.
Google is selling.
Very different game.
Selling is a hell of a lot easier in the short term
which is why people like it.
Branding and marketing takes time,
which is why people bail on it.
The problem is Nike, and Adidas, and Coca-cola,
that's branding.
Our bullshit business, this is selling.
Do you understand?
But there is a combination of selling and branding
that is super-powerful and it plays out on Facebook,
but it also plays out on YouTube.
YouTube, for everybody that doesn't know,
is the second-biggest search engine in the world.
For people like me that can't read for shit,
when you want to go on YouTube and hear it
or watch it visually, you understand it,
it's incredibly powerful.
But besides that, what's unbelievable is there
is a way for you to actually target people
that search on Google for something...
Let's use my old world.
They search for Margaret River Cabernet
on Google to buy.
Three days later, they go on YouTube to watch a video
of how to hang a picture on their wall
and the Pre-Roll YouTube video goes,
hey, are you in the market for Margaret River Cabernet?
And then, you're like, holy fuck, they're spying on me.
(audience laughs)
Because you fuckers forget that you searched for it
three days ago on Google.
For me, when I thought about this talk
and coming here today,
I said to myself, look, there's three or four things
that are just black and white tactics,
that if I get people to actually do,
they will feel benefit.
It's funny how I think about marketing
no different than fitness.
People are always, always far more interested
in finding some rare fucking fruit deep in the Amazon
that they can eat that makes them lose fat
than actually fucking working out and eating healthy, dick.
(audience murmuring in agreement)
Like, you're far more excited to buy some fucking pill
that was found in Saturn and brought back
than you are to do the very basics.
It's super-stunning.
Eat healthy and work out every day.
It's super-basic but nobody wants to actually
put in the work.
I've literally spent the last 30 minutes
giving you three to four basic things
that are real as fuck.
99% of you, even though all of you wrote little notes,
are not going to do shit about it.
You're going to write it down.
You're going to say, yeah, you know what?
I've heard him say it a bunch.
This is the time.
I'm definitely going to go back and do that.
And then, next Thursday happens
and something good or bad happens in your business
and you completely put this talk on the shelf.
Let me be very clear with you.
In October of 2018, in Australia,
if you run Facebook and Instagram ads
against 30 to 50 different pictures and videos,
against whatever you're trying to accomplish
in your business, it will work.
Let me make it perfectly clear for you.
In October 2018, if you spend five hours a day
going to direct messaging influencers that could possibly
sell your product and getting a third of them,
8% of them to agree to post a picture holding up
your product and tagging your product, it will work.
Let me make it perfectly clear for you.
In October 2018, if you run Pre-Roll YouTube video
against search queries on Google of whatever
you're trying to do in this room, it will work.
Now, I just need to ask you why you're not doing it.
Because if you've come to this conference
to see me speak, you've heard
this shit 40-fucking-thousand times.
(audience laughs)
I can't wrap my head around it.
I can because I watch it every day.
It's human behavior.
I see it.
But the reason I get passionate to keep doing this
is I've learned sometimes it just takes that 19th time
and you actually sitting in the audience to do it.
Bless you.
What really, really shocks me, though,
and what really excites me as being in,
like, this is my spiel in America,
the most advanced, competitive market
for all of my concepts.
The fact that everything I just told you
is disproportionately even more exciting here...
The reason we opened up a London for Vayner.
The reason we're opening up Singapore next February.
The reason I keep going global is it's like going
into a fucking time machine.
It's working better here.
It's cheaper here because the bigger companies here
are even slower than the big companies in America.
So the big money's not in.
You need to take advantage of this.
You are going to regret it.
You're gonna regret it.
And let me tell you this.
This is a good segway.
An incredible random fucking thing that I can tell you
to do is to go volunteer at a retirement home
one day this year.
A very random thing that can fundamentally change
your life business-wise.
Let me just not even go human.
In your business, is go and volunteer at a retirement home
once for five hours.
Let me give you the preview for the 99.9% of you
that won't do that.
You will see human beings with regret in their eye.
And I promise you, for whatever scary shit you've seen,
abuse, murder, the scariest shit you've ever seen,
there's nothing scarier than to stare a human being
in the face who understands she or he fucked up
and there's no going back.
Regret.
There's macro- and micro-regret.
Macro-regrets of who you married,
what you didn't do, dah-dah-dah-dah.
And there's micro-regrets.
And, in the context of this talk,
the micro-regret in a business world is you're sitting
on a golden goose.
It will take you five to seven hours to Google it
to figure out how to run a Facebook ad.
And, please, Melbourne, please do me a huge favor.
Do not hire your 22 year old niece and think
she's going to know how to do it
just because she grew up with this shit and you didn't.
I love what you, Gary, but you know,
I didn't grow up with this shit.
Neither did I, dick.
(audience laughs)
I'm 42.
I didn't grow up with this.
And let me tell you something else.
You didn't grow up driving and you figured that out.
This is something you have to learn.
You want to have a business?
You want your side hustle?
I love when people, do people understand how hard
it is to live your live for yourself on your terms
and make money?
Have we had the right conversation yet about this?
To live as your own boss and make enough money
to have a good life, that's a 1% thing
in our society, and everybody has this level of entitlement.
And, especially, now.
Trust me, I'm feeling it.
I'm the beneficiary of it.
But now that we've made entrepreneurs cool,
the whole thing's totally fucked.
Everybody thinks entrepreneurship is so easy.
This shit is super-hard.
It's super-hard to be good enough to make
that kind of money,
Because, even though the internet is here
and everybody in this room has the chance to do it,
the problem is the internet's here and everybody here
has a chance to do it,
and supply and demand takes over.
I love people who are like, Gary, but my content,
it's not doing well but it's because people don't get it.
I'm too ahead of the curve.
No you're not, Ron.
You just suck.
(audience laughs)
You're not ahead of shit.
The market is the market, is the market, is the market.
You have 39 views on your YouTube,
it means you suck.
It means it's not interesting.
Or, it means that you're early.
So many people are like, Gary, I'm lost.
You're not lost.
You're 27.
You've just started.
This is a long game and the opportunity is substantial.
But there are two very important things.
The world, my friends, let me break it down
very simply for you.
The world plays in the middle and all the action
is in the edges.
The world plays in the middle.
It's what school does to us.
It makes you in the middle.
All the opportunities in the extreme of micro and a macro.
I always talk about macro-slow/micro-fast, right?
Micro-speed.
I work 17 hours a day.
I'm booked every minute.
Micro-speed.
Yet, I'm in year nine of building VaynerMedia,
in the prime of my career, not making that much money,
as much as I could, to build a machine
for me for the next 30 years in the macro-slow.
All of the action is in the edges.
Having ridiculous blind confidence,
equally having the humility to know that you
don't mean shit.
Going all in and having the ability to completely pivot
if you know it's wrong.
There's such a fine line between perseverance and delusion.
It's such a fascinating thing for me to watch.
And so, my friends, I promise you,
there's so much abundance.
I hate watching people get upset when other people win
without realizing how much abundance is in the system.
Nobody on earth's success is coming at your expense.
Everybody thinks this is a binary game.
It's just not.
There's so much abundance.
And so, we, in general, in the macro,
have to desperately get our mindsets right.
We are collectively, stunningly, not patient enough.
Everybody wants it tomorrow.
We are unbelievably lacking in perspective.
The dumb shit that I hear people complaining about every day
is stunning.
Everybody here needs to start joining more nonprofits
and getting in the field.
You go join a nonprofit like Charity: water,
and you go to Africa, and you watch people walk
seven and a half miles every day for fresh water,
you start struggling to complain to the barista
because he or she put the wrong milk in your fucking coffee.
We need perspective, we need passion,
we need patience, we need a lot of things,
and then, you have to let it play out.
Everything I've ever done, two core things
have always been the theme.
And for anybody who's dreaming or thinking differently,
I really need you to hear this.
Everything I've ever done professionally,
two things have happened.
One, it's taken forever to manifest because I was early.
Number two, nobody agreed with me and people snickered
and made fun of me every time I did them.
If you're looking to innovate and do something special,
you have to recognize exactly what's going to happen,
which is the voices, the voices are going to be the game
that you have to play out.
The one that's become most fascinating to me
over the last year because I get so much interaction on this
is the people, and I'm just going to say this.
This is completely just random.
But I'm hopeful it might help just one person
in this audience.
If the voice in your own head says to you
that you suck, I desperately need you to know
that somebody put that voice in your head.
If the voice in your head tells you to yourself
that you suck, somebody put it in there,
and you have to understand that.
Usually, your fucked up mom,
(audience laughs)
but you have to wrap your head around that.
Because it's really difficult for me to watch
so many people not act based on that own voice.
The biggest thing that people aren't acting on
is they're not taking risk because they're scared
to lose and they're scared to then have people judge them
on that loss.
It is remarkable to me how easy it is for me
to see a true-bred entrepreneur versus one that's not.
A true-bred entrepreneur loves to lose.
It is scary to me how much I love losing.
Publicly.
Love my investment.
I love talking on passing on Uber twice.
Love it.
I love when people literally leave comments like,
don't listen to this guy.
He passed on Uber twice.
And then, I look at their account.
They have nine followers and they fucking suck shit.
(audience laughs)
And I'm like, yo, bro, but I didn't pass on Facebook,
and Venmo, and Twitter.
What are you doing?
You're fucking playing Fortnite and jerking off 24/7.
(audience laughs)
Anyway, I'm obsessed with losing because,
something that I really want people to wrap
their head around this, when you lose,
it's your loss.
We have so much judgment out there and we lack context
and laugh when people tell people how
to raise their children.
You're not in that person's home.
I laugh when people talk about other people's relationships.
You're not behind that closed door.
I laugh when people give advice on how to run a business.
You're not in it.
If you notice, the biggest reason I stay very macro
and just give details on what you can do,
is there's so much judgment being thrown out there
to everybody and nobody knows shit.
Everybody's running around with judgment and nobody
knows shit about what's actually happening.
Judgment is poison, my friends,
and this world right now, because of social media,
specifically, because you can see all the judgment...
I love when people think social media changes us.
My friends, social media exposed us.
Nobody's changed.
You used to be a dick, too.
(audience laughs)
You just said it to yourself and three other people
in your neighborhood.
Now, you can say it to everybody publicly online.
It's like money and fame.
It doesn't change you.
It exposes who you actually are.
And so, we're living in a very transcendent world.
And so, you're either going to look at the negatives
or the shortcomings or you're going to look
at the positives.
For me, I see all positives.
I love that we're going through all this shit globally
with ourselves because we needed to be exposed
of our weaknesses.
One step backward, two steps forward.
That same machine, do you know how many people say to me,
Gary, I don't think Facebook and Instagram,
that stuff doesn't work.
Yet, in the mouth, during that same dinner,
all they talk about it how social media's
fucking up the government, or countries,
or the world.
Literally, you're telling me that Facebook's powerful enough
to change the global world and governments,
but it's not powerful enough to sell some
of your T-shirts, or your landscaping business services?
My friends, take it for what it is.
We are all obnoxiously fortunate to be living through
this era right now.
What this era is, just to quantify it,
is we are now at the maturity of the internet.
The internet now is at scale.
We all live there.
It is real.
It's not what I grew up, which it was coming.
It is here.
It is at scale.
And the reality of the situation is,
how many people, one more time, with side hustles?
Raise your hands.
Stand up again.
Side hustle to turn into your business?
I need this because this is the point.
Side hustle to turn into your business?
I just need every single person that's standing
to understand one thing:
Your grandparents couldn't even dream
to turn a side hustle into their business
because the internet didn't fucking exist.
They just had to eat shit and live their life
and put food on the table and a roof over their head,
and then fucking die.
I'm being serious.
We are so outlandishly fortunate to have this era
and what everybody's doing is spending all their time
deploying cynicism and looking at the things
that are negative about it without realizing
it is the full empowerment to whatever you want
if you're willing to be a practitioner
and actually learn this shit and execute it.
This era will go away.
Many of you follow me, know I'm all focused on voice,
and Alexa and all this.
It's all going to happen.
Shit changes.
Whether it's blockchain, or AR, or VR, or voice,
this internet era, this golden era,
as we stand here today, will go away.
And then, for the same reason that I didn't make
any fucking videos for five years
because I had nothing to say,
there won't be a great deal like influencers,
and Instagram and Facebook,
and you will deploy regret because you've heard me
pound it down your throat and you did nothing about it.
So, please, Melbourne, do me a fucking favor
on my 37-fucking-hour flight to get here.
Please make this event, this talk,
the time that you actually go home and start
fucking executing.
Because I'll be very honest with you.
I'm fucking tired of the thousand,
1000 emails every week that I get
that are the same exact thing,
titled, I don't know why it took me four and a half years
of listening to the same shit to finally do it,
but I'm really glad I did,
because in the last seven months,
I've made $80,000 and before I used to be $40,000 in debt.
Please make tonight the beginning of the next chapter
of your life.
Because when it goes away, I'm going to get quiet
and execute, and you're gonna wish,
you're gonna wish you did something about it tonight.
Thank you.
(audience cheering and applauding)
Let's do Q&A.
- [Man] We're not done yet.
We're not done yet.
Did you guys learn something?
Very good.
Turn to the person next to you and give them
a high-five and say, I'm glad he came.
(cheering)
- Stop giving high-fives and go fucking run some ads.
(laughing)
Let me tell you something.
They didn't learn shit.
If they follow me, they know this is not about learning.
I pounded this for fucking two years.
This is about doing.
This is fucking exercise.
You know what to do.
You still eat cupcakes, fatass.
(laughing)
- [Man] Got it?
- That's what's going on here.
Fuck.
(laughing)
Seriously, though.
By the way, just to give you a preview,
I'm a nice guy now, or if you think cursing is mean.
But I'm a nice guy if you look under it.
I'm going to be very mean in four years.
When everyone's crying about this,
I'm going to be jumping in a be like,
you fucking ass, I told you.
I'm going to be razzing the fuck out of people.
(laughing)
Sorry.
(laughing)
Go ahead.
- [Man] Question number one,
this came from people that are in the audience here today.
So these questions are from you all.
First question is from Henry Vela,
a question about gratitude.
What do you do when someone gives you an opportunity
and you know you'll never be able to pay it back?
- You know, Henry, you've got to take that
as a gift, right?
And the reality is you don't know that you'll never
be able to give it back.
This is what I always talk about,
how dangerous envy is and not having context.
I always tell people, the amount of people
that throw lucky or other things at me,
I'm like, look, sure, but what about tomorrow
if my daughter gets hit by a bus and dies?
Am I then lucky?
And I know, I know, but that's how I think?
For Henry, you don't think you can give that person
anything back today.
That's just not how life works.
You might be able to.
So, A, accept the gift and be grateful.
Try to help other people in ways you can.
But if you're so fixated on helping the person
that put you on, recognize that life ebbs and flows.
Who's winning today loses tomorrow and vice versa.
It's a fucking marathon and everybody's just judging today
without understanding tomorrow.
I spend all my time anticipating tomorrow.
That's the rant that I just gave for 45 minutes.
So that's how I think about it.
- [Man] Yeah, very good.
Next question: What is you number one tip
for growing a wealth and investment advisory firm
in the digital age where access to information
is so easy?
How do you get to be number one?
- Number one comes in all shapes and sizes.
I mean, to me, it's just a process of aspiring
to be great.
I think it's about, for me, where the information's free,
it becomes, especially, in wealth investment
and things of that nature,
it becomes a personal brand world.
People buy from people.
That's just the way it's always been.
And so, the more, and by the way.
The biggest reason so many people lose in legal
or wealth or things of that nature is they front, right?
They play a character on social media
not who they actually are, right?
And so, as you can imagine, in 2008-2009,
I missed out on 90% of my speaking engagements
because I cursed.
It was less acceptable than it is today.
I still do but I didn't know how not to be me
and that was just the way it was going to be.
I think a lot of people try to be the person
in their LinkedIn profile even though they hate
wearing a fucking tie.
And I think the more you can be yourself
and just talk about the things you're actually into;
there's more people that would get business in this country
talking about footie than talking about the actual skillset
they have in managing someone's money.
It's a personal game.
- [Man] Inside of there, if I can just ask you a question.
You said something.
You said the process of aspiring to be great.
But I think that's so powerful.
Where does that come from for you,
the process of aspiring to be great?
- I just love my game.
I love my game.
I don't want to win because I want to keep playing.
I never want it to end, right?
Once you find what you love to do, you've won.
And so, for me, I'm trying to get better at it
all the time but I'm not fixated on being number one,
or having the most money or revenue.
I'm just in my own little insular circle
just enjoying it and trying to get better at it
and letting the chips fall.
I mean, it's incredible how little I know about
anybody else that does anything that I do.
I've never watched anybody give a talk in my life.
I've never read a business book in my life.
I've never listened to a complete podcast
of anybody's podcast.
I'm sure they're great.
I'm sure you enjoy it.
I love that.
I watch sports.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't.
It's just not my process because it doesn't matter.
The only thing I care about is the audience.
The only thing I care about is the audience.
And so, that's why I read all my comments.
That's why I have insights on this,
why I got into places like empathy or judgment.
Once you understand that somebody knows everything
that they should be doing,
you have to ask why they're not doing it.
You start getting into mommy and daddy issues.
You start getting into insecurities.
You start getting into a lot of people here
not building personal brands because they have skeletons
in their closet and, once they get public,
they don't want to deal with the ramifications.
There's real shit out here.
(audience laughs)
I always enjoy the skeletons in the closet.
People get really weirded the fuck out.
People's faces get funny.
(laughing)
- [Man] Next question comes from Veronica.
How do you get in with the right people?
For example, if you want to get in with the people
who choose the light bulbs
for the next multi-billion dollar hotels.
- Yep, Veronica, you have to reverse-engineer people.
It's really easy.
You know who the decision-makers are by title.
Follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
and see what they care about and if they're into things
that I've talked about already.
Footie, or Margaret River Cabernet.
That is your gateway.
There's a reason people play golf or have steak dinners.
They get to know people.
They get to know their spouses.
They get to know things that make them tick.
And then they exploit them,
if you want to go cynical with it,
or they just use them to do business.
But Sarah who makes that decision is the person
that you need to reverse-engineer.
And so, one of my favorite things about social media today
in a B2B environment is following the people
that you want to do business with and figuring out
what they love.
And then, if, to me, I think manipulation's scary.
So, for me, I'll never, when I know something
about somebody, make pretend I like it too.
I'll look for the things that I have a common interest in
and I'll lean in there, or I'll have a teammate
that has a common interest,
or I'll just reference that interest,
just showing respect that I understand what's going on.
I think too many people fake.
People try to do that to me all the time.
They're like, Gary V, yo, the Jets, right.
I'm a big Jets fan.
I'm like, name the offensive line.
They're like, oh, fuck.
I'm like, fuck you.
(laughing)
So I think you have to be careful to fake it
for the sake of business which is why I always
bet on authenticity.
And so, but you can reverse-engineer that person.
- [Man] Yeah, very good.
Next question comes from Shermaine.
What's the best way to support teenage kids
who have an entrepreneurial mind and limited assets?
- Well, limited assets is the best fucking thing
for any entrepreneur.
I mean, I don't know how people haven't realized it.
Here's the secret: Adversity is the foundation of success.
This would scare me a lot more if they had
an entrepreneurial mind and had tons of assets.
Entitlement and too much abundance
creates zoo animals.
And so, to me, take more away from them.
(laughing)
I mean it.
And definitely don't dwell on things.
To me, I think the thing that my mom did really well
was she saw that I was entrepreneurial
and she doubled-down on it.
And she punished me for bad grades but she didn't make me
feel like that was the most important things in the world.
And so, I think finding a balance of raising
a child with entrepreneurial aspirations,
finding a cadence between them respecting things,
but also leaning in on their strengths.
But it's interesting that the person
put limited means.
It means that they're feeling some insecurity
that they can't give their kid a $10,000 boost.
That's the best thing that happens.
Put a kid out there that has to learn how
to eat for themselves.
The best thing that ever happened to me
was when I rolled up on my mom in fifth grade
and I was like, mom, everyone's getting Nintendo.
I was Nintendo.
She looked me dead in the face and, with her Russian accent,
she said go buy it.
So then, I fucking shoveled snow and fucking raked leaves
and washed cars and sold lemonade.
And from a very young age, I learned how to make money
for myself.
I genuinely think entitlement is poison.
Abundance is poison for entrepreneurs.
I genuinely think restrictions, limits,
and lack of resources are the foundations
of the best entrepreneurs.
- [Man] Yeah, very good.
Next question comes from Chris.
He says how can I take my indie comic book
from being a small-scale project into a large brand
that more readers will care about and enjoy
just as much as I enjoy creating it.
- Chris, I think there's a couple of things.
One, first of all, you have to understand,
the market is the market.
And so, for me, two things that I would do.
One, if it's good, I'm blown away by how many people
get mad at doing free work.
All these creators get mad at free.
It's so laughable.
I always do shit for free and will continue
to do things for free because it creates leverage
and context.
So what I would do, Chris, if you can afford it,
and if you couldn't afford it, have a side hustle
that lets you afford giving away 3,000, a thousand,
2,000 of the comics.
Go to a Comic-Con.
Use online hashtags of people that are interested.
Just give it away.
The attention's worth more than anything else.
And I always say, watch what I do,
not what I say.
There's a reason I don't sell products.
There's a reason I don't have masterminds,
or e-books, or things of that nature.
I give away all my content for free
because your attention's more valuable
than extracting money from you.
So I would give away the comic book at scale.
- [Man] Very good.
Next question, the last question,
number six comes from Pam.
She says what's the number one piece of crap thinking
or behavior that gets up your nose?
She wants to know what this room needs
to hear to start doing better in business and life.
- Man, I like you, Pam.
(laughing)
Pam, there's a lot, I mean, look,
there's so much...
I mean, look, the thing that really drives me crazy,
and I just spoke to it, is entitlement.
Anybody here that thinks anybody owes them anything
is already in deep shit.
Entitlement's stunning.
Number two, the thing, lack of patience.
It's why I push it so hard.
You want to make a million dollars a year
and you think that's supposed to happen in the first
two three, four, five, seven years of you doing something.
It's laughable.
People have gotten so crazy about the one
or two things like Uber and Instagram
without realizing that it's, you're more likely
to win the lotto than start a company that looks like that.
You're more likely to get struck by lightening
seven times than starting anything that looks like Uber
or Instagram.
So just people's perspective is completely fucked.
I don't understand what people are doing out here.
I don't know what it is in Australia, look this up.
The median income levels compared to what people
are aspiring to.
I America, if you make $440,000 a year,
you're in the 1% earners in one of the richest countries
in the world.
If you make $440,000 a year in America,
you're in the 1%.
That's the bottom of the 1%,
but you're in the 1%.
Yet, everybody's walking around like,
if they don't make a million bucks,
they haven't even started doing anything.
And so, perspective, entitlement,
complete lack of patience.
This stuff is hard and takes a lot of work.
Clearly, what gets in my nose,
which I like the way you put it,
is when we transition to this Q&A,
that I had a rant for two more minutes.
I can't wrap my head around how many people
have consumed the same shit from me 67 times,
in written form, in audio form, in video form,
and in 88-page deck form, in LinkedIn form.
I spend millions of dollars saying the same fucking shit
in 400,000 ways, hoping today's going to be the fucking day.
That fucking pisses me off, Pam.
(laughing)
(audience applauding)
- [Man] That was the last question.
So any last words?
You flew 36 hours.
You're here.
Any last words you want to give?
- That's a big sign.
Can I ask a question?
Yes, that's just, I have to reward that ridiculous sign.
Go ahead.
(laughing)
I'll repeat it.
(speaking faintly off mic)
I'm here.
Come up here.
Let clap it up for Amir.
Yo, Amir's buddy, hold up the sign that you guys made.
Stand up and hold it up.
It's such a piece of shit,
(audience laughs)
but it worked.
Come up here, Amir.
Bring your fucking sign.
This is perfect.
This is attention arbitrage.
I mean, how much did this piece of shit cost?
Like, a dollar?
Look at this.
But it worked.
Good job.
What's your question?
(cheering)
Do you have a mic for him?
Or you can speak into my mic.
- [Man] Here, I'll give him mine.
- There we go.
- I'm currently 15 years old.
- 15?
- Yeah.
(cheering)
I skipped a day of school for this.
- That's a great decision.
- Yeah.
- Talk into this so they can hear you.
- My question is is there any chance
you can be my mentor?
- So, Jesus.
(audience laughs)
Definitely not.
Mainly on the back of I don't even know how people,
I don't even talk to DRock.
I barely talk to my mom and my brother.
I don't want to stand up here in front of,
I don't care how much they aww and hum.
I've no interest in bullshitting you.
I think mentorship is an interesting thing.
Here's what I would say for you.
One, especially, with me, nobody is spending more time
and energy and resources trying to show people
what to do.
It's literally like I'm putting it out every day.
So mentorship, super-easy.
Number two, what I will do is I'm more than happy
to give you a summer internship on my team.
(audience cheering)
So if you can figure out how to get to America,
I'm sure you will.
You made a fucking sign.
And so--
- [Man] Wouldn't use that as a boat.
- You can just get on that.
Happy to do that for you.
- Thanks.
- You're welcome, buddy.
Just send me an email.
It's gary@vaynermedia.com.
Good job.
Take care.
Come on.
DRock needs still shots these days.
I can sign it.
Hold this up.
DRock's been fucking bugging me.
(audience laughs)
Awesome, you got a pen?
- [Man] Here you go.
- Markers, nice.
Now, here's the most important part of this.
You have to sell this on eBay.
(laughing)
Melbourne, I love you.
- [Man] Give him a hand.
(audience cheering and applauding)
Gary V!
- Do something!
So something, please!
Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you.
Even you.
Thank you.