There are people in this room who literally didn’t wanna get a cellphone because they thought their pager was good enough or had no interest in an iPhone ’cause their BlackBerry was so much better. My friends, technology matters. It always wins.
It’s interesting, I was sitting backstage and thinking about this talk and I’ve had the fortune of having a lotta friends and I’ve spoken at other events within the mortgage brokering community. And, really, what’s fascinating about it is it’s a sector of business that I feel very close to because I have a lot of understanding of entrepreneurship, salesmanship, reputation, being a distributor of multiple products.
So there’s just a lot of kinship that I feel for this room. And it’s interesting, as I was walking, the word that was coming through my mind was actually, instead of what I often do in these talks which is really try to paint a picture, and through sheer will and motivation and just energy, have deep hope that I can get one to five people to actually start executing on the incredible arbitrage that is available to this collective room to make what they want to happen which is no matter who you are in this room, you need to tell a story to compel somebody to do something with you. But what’s interesting is the word that really resonated to me in the back was compassion and empathy, which is to say I’ve been thinking a lot over the last three months. Actually, how many people here, by a show of hands, follow my content somewhat? (audience cheering) Thank you. So some of you may know that over the last hundred days or so, I’ve been speaking a little bit more subtly, I don’t know how hardcore you go, about delivery style versus what is being said.
And I think all of us, as we evolve, and I’m sure for the people here as you’ve evolved through your business, you ebb and flow and you get more thoughtful. Experience matters. It’s crazy to me how much of a business gangster I thought I was at 22 years old. And look, I walked into my dad’s single store liquor store and took it from a three to a $60 million business as a 22-year-old to 28 years old.
So I had it but to stand here this morning in front of you, it’s crazy to me how much experience matters. I thought I was great and I’m still that same person, I have those raw talents, but I have the great fortune of 20 years of experience, and the great fortune of listening to the community and the comments and the feedback, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what the style in which I communicate, is it clouding what I’m actually saying because I sit every day, I wake up every morning, and I think about this room and I say how do they not understand? How do they not understand that if they post five to 30 things today on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and YouTube and get Anker and start a podcast while they walk down here with a coffee and post it, now they have a podcast.
What is happening that the 98% that follow me closely, daily consume the podcast, I mean, for the people that just raised their hand, one of the biggest reasons I’m trying to do so much Q&A now is I’m saying the same shit. (audience laughing) I’m not gonna change this message. The reality is thank God for me, because I enjoy this so much, thank God for me that TikTok comes along. Thank God for me that LinkedIn, after a decade of being a recruiting tool, evolves into a content tool. Had the world not been in a place where constantly the place where we spend our attention moves, I would have been irrelevant five years ago because what I believe after you have the ability to recognize if it’s podcast or Facebook or not Facebook anymore or MySpace or YouTube or direct mail or email or billboards, my ability to day trade attention, I say it down here, maybe it was up before, my ability to actually know right this second, this second, Saturday, October, now, not this year, not this era, today, this second, where the under priced attention is, whether organic, which means every single person here, even if they don’t have a LinkedIn account can go home after this talk, create one, and post something about their local town, what it’s been like for her to be an entrepreneur, a product or service which I don’t recommend because too many people try to sell upfront instead of bring value, the fact that you can do that with no followers, no context, post today on LinkedIn and get a thousand people to read that is remarkable.
It’s just remarkable! The fact that you can buy Instagram swipe up ads in Stories within a five-mile radius of your office in the region that you sell at $2 and $3 for every thousand people that see you is ludicrous! So this morning, instead of my normal I’m gonna Tasmanian devil this room until somebody just starts to fucking do this, I’m kind of going with a different point of view of what do we need to do here today? It’s what has led me to places like insecurity and keeping up with the Joneses and judgment and parenting, ’cause all these things have come to me in the last three years because I can’t put the pieces together, that if you’ve consumed what I’ve had to say on the ridiculous, thank God, success that it’s brought me and any other company that does it, my friends, the number one advertiser on Google AdWords from 2001 to 2008 was Amazon.
Amazon became the biggest company in our country because it understood under priced attention and it didn’t buy billboard, I mean, it bought a lot of things ’cause it was a big company, but they spent crazy money on Google AdWords when Google AdWords was the best arbitrage. I took a liquor store that was doing $3 million a year on $300,000 gross profit before our expenses, with no credit line and no VC, and in six, seven years, built it to a $60 million business ’cause email and Google AdWords were the right move. If you spent 30 hours, which I think you should if this is your business, on deeply becoming educated how to properly run Facebook Ads, not what so many in here have done which is they’ve done one little thing with Facebook ads, their niece did it, or some outsource social media expert did it, or they tried to do it and it didn’t work and they decided Facebook Ads don’t work, you know what else doesn’t work? A basketball, if you suck at basketball.
(audience laughing) (audience applauds) Let me make this very simple. This is not unfair or audacious, this is the truth. If you run Facebook ads and they didn’t work, you suck, not Facebook. (audience member cheers) This is happening! This is happening. And so here’s where I’m at. In a world where you wanna convince me that I’m better off to go with you than to go to a .com that is doing a way better job than you marketing, we’ve got some work to do. Let’s get to the elephant in the room. If you’re gonna get out-marketed by rocket and zebra and schmibra and bibra, you’re gonna lose! I don’t give a shit if you make a shirt that says brokers are better.
I’m being serious. That’s not a razz, that’s compassion to we need to be consumer-centric. Humans don’t care! That’s not what customers do. Customers didn’t care that the local bookstore had been there for 44 years. They wanted to pay eight bucks less and have the book delivered to their home. Customer doesn’t care. You have to understand that. I don’t care that you’ve been doing this for 18 years and have a great relationship. If you get out-communicated, over time, you will lose. This is a very simple game. The internet will suffocate everything but the persons and organizations that communicate best and have the best product, right? But the best product is subjective. You don’t know that it’s the best product until after the fact. Of the communication part, you know that Karen showed up in my LinkedIn and I’m in the market for a mortgage and I happen to like what she said in that video.
My friends, there’s nothing more important right now, period, in our society, than to be a unbelievable communicator in a contemporary manner. It is reshaping our societal norms, our politics, our retail, everything. How? How can you sit at home and talk to your closest friends and relatives about how this and social media has changed politics, has ruined our children, has done all this stuff and not feel that it can impact your business? That is the compassion I walk in with this morning. What is the lack of the bridge that has clicked in your mind to make you understand the following, which is this is my fundamental truth: this entire room should be making 30 to 50 pieces of content on the internet every single day. 99% of this room hasn’t made 30 to 50 pieces of content this year. That delta scares the crap outta me and I wanna continue to articulate in this keynote why and how. Let’s go into the how. I think one of the biggest things that’s running through my mind is how do I convince this room that yesterday, yesterday, not tomorrow, they need to either start a video show or a podcast that they can then record and then after it’s done for an hour, do what I do which is post-produce it and chop it up into little pieces which then gets them into a place of being able to make 17 or 20 pieces of content out of a one-hour day.
Now, what do you make your podcast? As you guys can imagine, no normal human being thinks mortgage life is rad. (audience laughing) We can agree with that. It’s not the littiest thing in society. But what I do believe is the following: I do believe that every one of you has the ability to start a podcast that is a small business or a community show based on where you live. The St. Louis Business Podcast Business Podcast is a real podcast that anybody here could start, and let me break this down to you why I want to encourage so many of you to start a podcast. I call it the high school party rule. I wanna take you back to high school. Now, think about sophomore, junior, senior year, and think very carefully about that one kid who wasn’t the most popular kid in school but had the great fortune that his parents weren’t around on weekends.
(audience laughing) That kid, as a mid-level popular kid, had the great idea of being the person that threw the party so the popular kids could come and hook up and drink. That kid’s popularity exploded over the next year or two. The person that hosts the party has the leverage. If you start the St. Louis Business Podcast show, and then you spend five hours DMing, emailing, and reaching out to all the other business owners in St. Louis and inviting them to be on your podcast named the St. Louis Business Podcast, you, by just taking the initiative have flipped the leverage and now will have much bigger business owners than you interested on being on your podcast. Through that, you will build general awareness in your region and you will build reputation as a top-of-the-funnel lead gen to what you actually do. The show is about the entrepreneurial or local dynamics. The awareness you get from it will allow them to figure out what you do for a living which will lead to biz dev. I believe what I just said is as important as knowing how to balance your checkbook.
I believe that in 2020, the ability to be a media company or a content creator for your business is as required as paying your taxes and knowing how to manage your cash flow. I also know that the far majority of this room and this world does not agree with me yet, and that’s fine, ’cause that’s a story of my life.
The first talk I ever gave in 1997 was not really a talk, it was a panel with a table about this size in a New Jersey Chamber of Commerce event in Springfield, New Jersey with 40 people, and I sat with another guy, who, this is crazy, who was selling Yellow Pages ads, and we were debating, in theory, the value between the Yellow Pages versus the internet. (audience laughing) This is important! How many people here are under 35? Just raise your hands. Kids, listen to me. (audience laughing) This is not that long ago. This is 1997. Listen to me. This is me on a panel only 22 years ago when you were 13 or younger, and I’m sitting, debating which is more powerful: the Yellow Pages or the entire internet? And by a wide margin, I lost the debate to the 40 people listening. (audience laughing) There was even a point where the guy made a joke and said, “And guys, let’s call it what it is.
“This kid thinks we’re gonna buy wine on the internet.” Which made the 30 of them laugh, and then one nice man in his 50s was like, hey, real quick, so how does this work? This is literally what he asked me, I just really wanna understand, what I’m doing right now is contextualizing everybody how far we’ve come to let you understand where this is about to go and why it’s so important for you to really get serious about this. This gentleman asked me if the way I shipped wine through the internet was taking a bottle from the liquor store and in the basement, there was some weird pipe I put it into and it went to people.
(audience laughing) The first year I collected emails in my store when you would come in and buy wine and I would ask people for their email ’cause I wanted to build my email list, routinely, people would say to me, oh, my email is AOL@yahoo.com. There are people in this room who literally didn’t wanna get a cellphone because they thought their pager was good enough, or had no interest in an iPhone ’cause their BlackBerry was so much better. My friends, technology matters. It always wins. It doesn’t care that you’ve been crushing it for 20 years. It doesn’t care that you don’t like it. It doesn’t care that you’re sad that kids don’t go outside and play and look at an iPad. It didn’t care when it invented the telephone or the fax machine or the radio. There is a collective naivete in this room about what’s gonna happen over the next decade, let me paint you a very clear picture. Unless you start really listening to what I’m saying and executing on it, you will not build a brand.
Brand is going to be the only thing left, because let me show you exactly how I’m gonna buy my mortgage in 13 years. I’m gonna be sitting in a kitchen in 13 years, I’m gonna be talking to somebody, we’re gonna decide to buy a mortgage for business or at home, whatever it may be, advice I’m giving to my niece, whatever it may be, and then we’re gonna say, Alexa, get me a mortgage. Let’s talk about that, friends. You think it’s tough competing against people now that are doing a good job about Google search and Google AdWords? They’re not even gonna exist in 15 years because everything is going to be done through voice or quite a bit of tedious decision making tasks. The fact that Alexa and Google Home and Apple will 100% be the tollbooth to buying decisions means you better be in a game where you’re producing so much content that when I decide I say Apple, get me Karen Thompson for my mortgage.
Because if I say Google, I need a mortgage, everybody in here is in deep shit. It’s true. And so– (audience applauds) For the 93% that did not just clap, (audience laughing) I’m not Doomsday Donnie, I’m Get Your Shit Together Tommy. (audience cheers) (audience laughing) – [Woman] Yeah! (audience claps) What I just told you is not happening tomorrow. There’s nobody that needs to cry for us. I’m explaining that I have a lot of concern for you ’cause I care, ’cause I come with compassion, not audacity. I come with compassion this morning because of the timing of the transition of consumer behavior to going towards voice matches a downturn in the housing market. That double-sided front is gonna be a challenge to navigate through. How many people here are retiring within the next 10 years? Before you raise your hands, and I don’t mean you’re gonna crush it and buy a yacht. I mean you’re fucking old and finished? (audience laughing) Hands, raise it! Yeah, all of a sudden, it became two.
(audience laughing) I got you. On some serious stuff, on some very serious stuff, the fact that so few hands just went up, I wanna remind you to think about all the advancements that have happened in technology in the last 10 years. And if you allow me to go back 15, now I could talk to you about a world with no Facebook, no YouTube, no smartphone, no Alexa, no Netflix. And guys, are you paying attention? And what, ’cause you don’t wanna post on social media? Because you’ve made a subjective decision that you don’t like it? Your customer doesn’t care if you like it or not.
News alert: I don’t like it. There’s a reason I don’t post anything about my family. Had I not been in this business, I probably wouldn’t even have a social media account. I’m pretty private! I mean it! I have no love for it. I didn’t give a shit if Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all disappear tomorrow! I mean it! I have no interest in social media. I have interest in consumer attention. I was very, very into sending direct mail in 1997 because the money I put into it did very well for me in return from my dad’s liquor store.
I adored buying full-page ads in the National New York Times on Wednesday’s food section and acquiring customers all over the world for that $40,000 vague once we got bigger. I’m thrilled with email. I’m thrilled with Google. The only reason I like social media is ’cause it matters right now. I can’t wait to be at a keynote in 10 years and talk about social media the way I talk about the yellow pages. I have no romance, my friends. I’m just trying to win. And when you try to win, you eliminate your opinion. When you’re trying to win, you eliminate what comes comfortable to you. When you try to win, you don’t rest on the laurels of what’s tried-and-true and got you here because you know those are the same things that are gonna make you leave here.
It doesn’t matter what I did yesterday. And I can’t express how much passion I have for this room to hear me this morning. I mean, you’re here. What I think about stuff like this, especially on a weekend conference, you took your time. I know Vegas is a fun place to come to but you’re here, so if you’re here, I’d like to think you’re gonna do something about it when you leave.
And listen, I’ve been doing this long enough at this point that I genuinely know that right now, I’m really only talking to eight people in this room. (audience laughing) I mean that. Here’s what I mean. I’m gonna get you fired up. Wait ’til we get to Q&A, which I’d like to get to pretty soon here, so I assume that’s the mic, right, for the lineup? So if you have a question, you should probably start lining up now. I know I’m gonna get you motivated and excited over the rest of this next 40 minutes. I feel good about that. That’s what I do well. I just know that next Thursday’s gonna come around and you’re gonna lose something that you thought you had or somebody’s gonna quit, and you’re gonna go to defense.
I get it. I’ve been around too long at this point. I get it. But I implore you and I hope, especially for the hands that went up this morning that do know what I’ve been saying, what are you waiting for? I’m not putting that content out for my follows and likes, I’m putting that content out so you do something about it. You watching me doing it doesn’t mean you’re doing it. It’s time for you to act. And for the people in here who didn’t know who I am or haven’t heard this spiel, please understand that the opportunity is enormous. I am watching people who follow me go into your sector and many others with no experience, no history, no reputation, and grow dramatically because they’re just winning attention upfront, their funnel is just so much greater, and they’re figuring out the backend.
Customers don’t know how good it is until they try it. The upfront matters so much. The opportunity is so enormous. I have been marketing successfully now for 20 plus years, I promise you, there’s never been a better time than right now. This LinkedIn thing for this audience is uncomfortably big. How many people here marketed on Facebook in 2011 to ’14 and created Facebook pages, and that was a leader to some good business for them? Just raise your hands. I just wanna get a sense. So for this very small group, and it was a small execution but obviously, for the hands that went up, we remember how good it was exactly, and a lot of you in this room know that it happened and it was good and you regret or are disappointed that you didn’t take advantage of it.
I’m standing right here in this room right now telling you that exact phenomenon is happening right now on LinkedIn. Right now, organic reach at scale, at numbers I haven’t seen since Facebook 2013. And if you have no presence, your first video or written word or audio will work. Please call my bluff. Please just try. It will really work. And once you start understanding how that works, what’s really fascinating is what happens next because you know what I love about you guys, and I know this about you deeply, is once you see it, then you really get going.
It’s seeing it. You need a proof point. You need that first closed deal you get from a LinkedIn post, and once you get that blood in the water, there’s a lot of sharks in this room. And so I’m just trying to give you a boost, a push, a well-articulated debate to why. And at the end of the day, let me be very clear here. I could care less if any of you do anything about what I just said. Ironically, it’s in my best of interest you don’t. These are just one screen. For every post you put, it’s more unlikely that I get through to somebody. There’s only one stream. If I’m trying to sell wine and you’re trying to sell a mortgage and somebody else is trying to sell butter, it’s just one stream.
Ironically, everything I just talked about, I would be way better off personally selfishly for none of you to post. The reason Facebook and Twitter and all these things ebb and flow is eventually, the world figures out how much under priced attention there is, and the ads and content go in, and then it plateaus. It’s no different than real estate. When you’re the first person to see a shitty area on the verge of turning and you buy up the land, you make more money than the people that come four years later.
It’s not super complicated. I’m in the real estate business. I just trade attention, not land. My friends, this is the moment, and let me leave with this, ’cause I see there’s a lot of questions and I think this will be better for you because a lot of this, you can see free online. My friends, the last thing I’ll leave you with, as you’re thinking, for a lot of you in this room, this is one big game of self-awareness.
You have to figure out how you like to communicate. Not all of you are outrageously handsome and charismatic on film. I get it. (audience laughing) Some of you are great writers and that’s amazing. In a world where we’re so focused on video and audio, writing is crushing. You can crush by writing great paragraphs and articles on LinkedIn or Facebook or things of that nature. Some of you love the gift of gab but you’re genuinely insecure of how you look. I understand, you don’t like to be judged. I respect that. A, I’d like to talk about that, but B, then just record it and put out audio files of your thoughts. This is a game of A, do you believe what I just said is true, B, how self-aware of you of what kinda communicator are you? The communication of a human being has been established for hundreds of years: written, audio, video, and then C, are you willing to put in the work ethic to learn a new skill that is required for you to be successful? The amount of people that are not doing this ’cause they actually don’t wanna put in the work for 50 hours to learn it is fascinating to me and unacceptable at some level in the face of the technology changes that I know are coming to your industry.
I appreciate your time, thank you. (audience cheers and claps) Thank you! Thank you, thank you. I left a lot of time for Q&A because what I’d like to do with Q&A is get very specific too, and I can get very narrow, so I’d like to, so thank you for being here. Go ahead. – [Marc] It’s on? Oh, it’s on? – Go to that mic. – I’m sorry. So Gary, thanks. – What’s your name? – [Marc] My name is Marc Summers, I’m with AIM. – How are you? – Thank you for being here. Very good. – Good, yeah. – [Marc] My first question is from Jason. – Okay. – [Jason] Hey, Gary! Question is about company culture. – Culture. – [Jason] One, what would you say the most important thing is when building a company culture.
– Firing dickheads. (audience laughing) – (laughs) Easy enough! – [Woman] Yeah! (audience claps) – I mean it. And the reason it got such a big reaction is ’cause everybody here knows exactly what I’m talking about. The number one unacceptable thing to me when you have control as an owner is to choose a salesperson that’s driving revenue but is cancerous to the vibe of everybody else. It is a mistake. You do not understand how much hidden money you’re losing. You’re looking at a two upfront and you don’t understand that his or her 300,000 is actually casting you 500,000 on the backend. – [Jason] Second half was as a company scales, how do you keep that integrity of that culture? – Firing dickheads. – (laughs) Easy enough! – I mean it! I’m at a thousand people now and I literally fired one of our number one employees two weeks ago and that’s that. Either you care about your culture because you understand that’s what you’re actually doing and that’s the net of your business, or you just say it ’cause it looks good currently in a political correctness world and you actually don’t care, you just care about your short term money.
I make all my decisions on my bank account 44 years from now, not 44 seconds from now. – [Jason] Awesome. Well, thank you. – You got it. (audience applauds) – [Marc] All right, second question is from Christine. – [Christine] Hey, Gary! Christine Beckwith, president of 20/20 Vision. You had me at your Agent 2021, I did a real estate influence. – Thank you. – Thank you for having me. – Of course.
– [Christine] I’m using myself as an example because I began to follow you, and when I launched the coaching company, I had 500 Facebook friends and I had no other social media, and I had a leader that was telling me it was overblown and egotistical and not to get in the game, and I began to watch your videos on LinkedIn, I’m a 50-year-old professional, and I thought, how am I gonna launch and grab market share and I just watched and I listened. And I did what you told me. I got authentic and I became liberated and I said things that were uncomfortable. And now, I two years later, have maxed out on LinkedIn, have all these things, have you calling me to come do your Agent 2021, and I’m here to say all these people wanna get authentic but it’s very hard to do, so.
– Because people are worried about judgment and people are worried about short term economics. People don’t say things because they’re worried about their short-term economics. I don’t know what to say. They’re scared to say something that may cost them money now and they just don’t understand life is chess, not checkers, and everybody’s doing things that are so literal. It’s so much more fun just to talk about what you believe in. When I first hit the scene wearing what I wore. Literally every person told me not a soul is gonna take you serious, and I was like, cool, I’ll see you later. Let’s see how this plays out. I’m stunned by people’s inability to understand how things play out. Whoever’s bringing the most value always wins. – [Christine] Yeah, I wanna thank you and I wanna say, to tell these guys to take that crucial first step and be the example for you, so it’s more of a testimony. – Awesome. – [Christine] But when I took those first steps, I had people in very loud saying, she’s gonna fail, egotistical, blah, blah, blah, and now we’re going to seven figures doing that so.
– Let me tell you something about winners versus losers. Winners don’t have time to judge others. (audience applauds and cheers) – [Christine] Thank you. Anyways, thank you. – I have never in my life taken the two minutes to go consume somebody else’s content and leave a negative review. Every negative review I get or hate or troll, I feel bad for. I don’t feel bad for me. You literally took the time to watch me and spit venom? I feel bad for you! So thank you. – But thank you very much.
– You’re welcome. – [Marc] Our next question is from Andy. – [Andy] Thank you for taking questions. As you mentioned, a lot of people come in here and ask for advice and they don’t follow the advice, we call ’em ask-holes, but what would you say for such a digitally-evolving industry, and where, at a service industry like we are that’s somewhat saturated, if we did one thing, one thing of advice after this, what would you say that would– – Put out 50 pieces of content a day. – [Andy] Okay. – My friend, everything is a commodity. You’ve got it right. Why do you think I’m trying to get everybody here to build a brand? The only thing on Earth that’s not commoditized is brand.
Do you understand what this little fucking swoosh is? – [Andy] Yeah. – This fucking sneaker is a commodity! You and I can make this right now in China, but this fucking swoosh is worth a trillion. People are fucking confused out here. Every one of you is wearing clothes right now that’s a commodity but you chose it for a reason. Do you understand? It’s only brand. What, you’re gonna try so much harder for me than the person sitting to the table next to you? Get outta here! What, you’ve been doing it for so long? Get outta here! This is a commodity. You’re all in the commodity business. You’re a fuckin’ commodity. What’s not a commodity is your ability to make people know who you are. – [Andy] Thank you. – And. And this is why it’s so interesting, now as I’m getting older, it’s interesting to see how my books came out.
My first book was “Crush It!” in 2009, pretty much what I’m saying right now. Thank you. My second book was called “The Thank You Economy” which is really interesting because the other thing that’s not a commodity is how many people here, after they did a deal with somebody on a mortgage, came back a year later and called that person and said, hey, how are things going? Or sent the fruit basket and said, hey, a year ago, we did business, I just wanted to say thank you, that meant a lot to me, here’s some bananas and oranges, have a good day. That is not a commodity. People aren’t doing that here because you’re moving on to the next attack.
You’re in the acquisition business, you’re not in a lifetime value business. That fruit basket that you sent that just says thank you is such an unusual move that that person also has a niece or an aunt that’s in the market and you get reminded we don’t do that. So the commodity is what you do. The whole game for everybody is room for hyper growth or massive decline is what they do upfront and what they do at the end. All the value is always here. The middle’s the commodity. And with the internet, the middle becomes way more commoditized real, real fast. And we can sit and dream what we want the customers to think or we could start paying attention to how they’re actually acting. Thank you. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Thanks again. Our next question is from Chris. – [Chris] Hey, Gary, thank you for taking questions. Christopher Griffith, vetted VA. One piece of your content about a month ago changed my opinion of you.
It’s called “A Tribute To My Friend Nipsey Hussle”. One thing that I realized from my time in the Marine Corps as a leader is if nothing else, he’s a protector, and one thing I think that excites people about you is even though you’re vulgar and you have your mannerisms, ultimately, you fight for those who are disenfranchised. – I do. – Of that one podcast, led me down a rabbit hole of many more. Right now, in my opinion, the biggest disenfranchised consumer that it’s identifiable by class in The U.S. housing market is the veteran. Veterans are targeted, they’re overcharged, (audience cheers and claps) they’re discriminated against by ignorance, and all of us in here, if there’s one alone that we can place our finger on to say brokers are better, it’s a VA loan.
So my question for you, veterans don’t go to The VFW, The American Legion anymore. They’re on Facebook in groves. How do you captivate and convey such vitally important information when it is essential? – By coming in upfront with things that disproportionately bring them value and are sexy build actual relationships, and then by month nine, maybe start slipping in valuable and important information. The biggest problem for a room like this, including myself, is when you have sales DNA, the number one thing that we need is way more romance and patience but people try to go in too hard. To your point about Nipsey and hip-hop culture, and I spend a ton of time interacting, the kinda stuff I get, as you can imagine, especially ironically vulgar and alpha massively over indexes with military individuals, and I get a lot of stuff, it’s about actually bringing value up front, joining 73 different Facebook groups, and becoming part of the community.
Not your opening post is you’re being discriminated against, let me sell you some shit. You know what I mean? – Perfect. – You understand? – Yeah. – So this is why I always get mad at the ladies in the business world who go in for the clothes. I’m like, you’re a lady! You know this is what we do to you in real life, we try to close too soon. Slow it down! (audience laughing) Do you know the insanity that’s gonna go on tonight in Vegas? People try to close too quick! So it’s by bringing enormous value upfront that most likely doesn’t have as much to do with what you actually do for a living. It might be mindset, it might be sharing content from other things you like, become part of the community and then you start. Here’s what’s amazing. Digitally, and notice this is similar to the St. Louis Business Podcast concept that I threw out, because our profiles have the links to our business, you can go a long time, if not forever without even mentioning what you do.
There’s people still to this day, when they like to razz me, they’re like, but what does he do? ‘Cause I don’t even mention VaynerMedia all that often, and so bringing value to the community upfront, building that relationship, playing it out. – [Chris] Is it being a provocateur important in your mind? – No, I don’t think so. Believe it or not. And it’s a great question. I appreciate your question. I think being historically correct is important in my mind. I genuinely believe what I’m about to say.
I believe the communication style I was given makes me underestimated and smaller, not bigger. And I always try to tell people like, it’s so funny, it’s how I started my talk today, be careful. I’m up here not because I’m vulgar or because I’m a provocateur, it’s because I’ve been right for 25 years. – Thank you. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Thanks again, Gary. Our next question is from Grant. – Thank you, brother. Hey, man! – Sup? How you doing? Good. – Good. – [Grant] Yeah, so most of the people in this room really aren’t competitors with each other. Our main competition is the larger giant retail operation. – Makes sense. – The Chase, the equipment, and all that. And on a recent AskGaryVee show, you and Seth talked about how the time is now and that’s basically what you’re telling us right now, right? And a lot of us in this room haven’t necessarily started, but with all the platforms, all the different ways to get messaging out there, like you said, 30 to 50 a day, where can somebody in your start– – LinkedIn.
– [Grant] Where the big boys are playing. – LinkedIn. – Where quickly– – Listen, I work with Chase. Dan Gilbert’s one of my buddies. I’m watching all this. Goliath losses to David every day of the week when David acts like David. You’re not gonna outspend those players on Google AdWords and on TV and outdoor media and direct mail. David’s gotta act like David. The place where they can’t win is you being a human being that’s contextual in your general industry or demo and producing an enormous amount of content. I spend my 90% of my life trying to get the biggest companies in the world away from making one video for a million bucks and then spending 10 million of it trying to pound into your heads. Watch this. By a show of hands, how many people here now predominantly watch Netflix or Hulu or DVR outside of live sports? Raise your hands.
Look at this. The biggest brands in the world are spending billions on TV commercials. Not a human in here watches a television commercial. (audience laughing) If a commercial is lucky enough ’cause somehow, because you’ve dropped the remote, get to you, (audience laughing) if it’s lucky enough, somehow, miracle, a commercial’s actually getting in front of you, the first thing you do when you know that’s happening is you grab your phone and you look down. They’re easy to compete with. Take it from somebody who works with them. You just have to do the other part. – [Grant] Yeah, so that’s the where, but here’s the next question: how. How do you differentiate? How does a local mortgage broker differentiate from those bigger players? – By talking about basketball, by talking about the pothole on Main Street, by talking about their aunt, by talking about them tripping today, by talking about what they learned today, by admitting that they used to be too salesy and what they learned this week, by talking about their mentor, by talking about their PTA, by talking.
– [Grant] Got it. (audience applauds) – And to your point, brother, and I so, I really appreciate the question, you think they don’t care. People are like, nobody’s gonna care. Guys, the reason we sit in traffic is ’cause we’re so nosy and we wanna look at the accident. (audience laughing) We care about everything! That’s the point! We think nobody cares about me going to Kmart or me talking. We think nobody cares. Ironically, it’s the only thing we care about. Everything else is so vanilla, the most interesting stuff is the nuanced part of you. I do so much business because I’m a Jets fan, I like root beer and wine, and all the nuances and hip-hop. It’s the nuances! Everything I’ve done, best practices of social media experts was said to not do. Stay on brand, stay in your lane, don’t mix (mumbles). Yeah. (audience laughing) – [Marc] Time for a couple more? – Yeah, I’m looking to do a lot more! – [Marc] Oh, well, let’s do it! – If you weren’t invited to be in line and you have a question, get in line now.
– Here we go! – Let’s go! (Marc laughs) – [Marc] Next question is from Neil. – [Neil] Hey, Gary! I started following your content about 12 months ago. – Thank you. – And I took your advice and started putting out content. Over the first six months, I got literally nothing. – Good. – [Neil] I felt like I was eating shit. – Good. – [Neil] Putting out content everyday, no sales, just information or entertainment, one or the other. – You’ve saved my whole morning. Thank you for saying that. First 2 1/2 years, I did “Wine Library TV”, nobody watched. I did it five days a week every day. Keep going. – [Neil] So I almost quit doing it because I felt like I’m not getting any traction. – Right, you’re like screw that Gary guy, he’s full of shit! – [Neil] Everybody in the industry’s asking me, why are you doing this? You’re wasting your time.
– Right, you’re getting one like. You look like a bozo. – [Neil] So I felt like shit but then in the last, the second half, the second six-month grade, the last six months, my business literally quadrupled and my income quadrupled. – What? Wow! – So. – How? That’s so crazy! – [Neil] People are like, this doesn’t work, whatever.
I’m like, here’s my W-2. (Gary laughs) It’s proof, it’s irrefutable. But what I’ve noticed as I put out more and more content is that the consumers have a negative feeling about our industry for I don’t know if that’s from the last recession or what, so how do we as an industry change that narrative because– – You can’t boil the ocean. You can change the narrative by what you do. Be a good dude. – [Neil] Okay. So just on a local community level? – What are you worried about? Your W-2 looks good, clearly this terrible perception isn’t affecting you now.
– [Neil] Yeah, that’s true. (audience laughing) – People get theoretical. You want it? It’s the same way I think about stuff. I wanna make a positive impact on the world. It’s very important to me. I am driven by gratitude of the circumstances and the parenting that I was given. My way of doing that is not how everybody tells me to do it which is go fight on Twitter. My way is to instill, especially into young men, because I think they don’t hear it from other places, things like gratitude and empathy and kindness and patience. I give them imagery of work ethic and truth, not bottles and models, right? And so that’s how I plan on doing it. I’m not worried about boiling the ocean.
One day at a time, one day at a time, one day at a time, and then you wake up 40 years later and you’ve created a legacy. – Thank you. – You’re welcome. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Our next question is from Larry. – By the way, bro, your job is amazing! – [Man] You’re awesome. – This next question is from Susan. – Right. (audience laughing) – [Larry] Hey, Gary! So I understand the concept of jab, jab, jab, right hook. – Thank you, yup. – [Larry] And building relationships as opposed to just going blows and so forth, but when you talk about, say, doing one video and/or podcast every day, and then cutting it up into 17 pieces, posting it out, and you’re posting that every single day something different, different pieces, where do you post your podcasts and your videos versus where do you do just your social interaction, just your Facebook, building relationships, being in different groups– – Well, it’s funny. – Where’s the community? – You post everywhere.
The right hook is not necessarily the post and the jabs are community management. I post content to communicate. You post the content to start the conversation, then you communicate. The right hook concept versus jabbing is when do you actually ask them for the sale. After you put out all these things, then you put out 30 pieces of content and just start, you go home, you put out 30 good pieces of content up to St. Louis and about (mumbles). When is the 31st one that says, hey, by the way, community, real quick, I’m in the mortgage business and if any of you happen to be in the market, please email me, have a great day. If you start with that and you created no romance, you’re not gonna convert as well as if you put out three or four months. That gentleman prior to you, the back six months worked because of what happened the first six months.
And so that’s the concept of it. So it’s not that you just do community management on Twitter or Facebook. The content starts the conversation ’cause that’s what you wanna talk about. But what you may wanna talk about is the little league team going three games away from going to the Little League World Series and the whole town’s enamored with it, maybe you go down to that game, film it, post it, say something about it, and now the conversation’s happening, host a party.
Got it? – Got it, uh-huh. – And now you’re just making relationships. Everything that a lot of old-school characters in this room that have been in the business for 20, 30, 40 years, all the great things they did, going to the local stuff, being part of the community, all that stuff, that was exactly right. That was hard work! That was your physical work. You can now do that virtually.
I’m building community at two o’clock in the morning in my underpants. I don’t have to go to everything. So that’s how I see it. – [Larry] Okay, and just one quick followup. – Please. – As far as the nuts and bolts of where to post specific types, so for example, if I have– – I got a great website for you that will answer this. – [Larry] Perfect. – G-O-O. (audience laughing) It’s true though. The reason I spend less time on tactical, is Google and YouTube will show you everything. Literally you can type what kind of content in the mortgage industry works on LinkedIn.
Enter and there’ll be stuff. – [Larry] Perfect, okay. – You got it. – Thank you so much. – You got it. – Thank you. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Next question is from Michelle. (Gary laughs) – Ah! – Hi, Michelle. – [Michelle] I’m your biggest fan ever. But anyway. – Thank you. – [Michelle] Can you post too much? – No. – Ha, okay! So y’all hearing what he say? He said no! – Let me tell you why you can’t post too much on social. Unlike email where you could have emailed too much and open rates went from 90 to 30%, this is the brilliance of social networks.
I laugh when people are like, these social networks are. These social networks only make money if you stay on the social network. The social networks didn’t make you post racist comments. The social network didn’t make you spew hate. The social media didn’t show you something. Social media is not showing me anything other than what I wanna be seeing ’cause they want me to stay. The reason you can’t post too much is if your stuff sucks, they’ll stop showing it. If it sees that nobody’s stopping and watching and nobody’s engaging, you’re not gonna show up. It’s completely merit-based, our interests with the social networks are actually aligned. So no, you cannot. – [Michelle] So if I show up a lot, Gary said it’s okay. – And more importantly, if you show up a lot, it means that you deserved it.
– [Michelle] Everybody says I’m everywhere and all– – That’s the only thing you want to happen. – [Michelle] He said it’s okay. (audience laughs and claps) – [Marc] Next question is from Ramon. – The important part is when you show up everywhere, is what you want to be happening happening? That’s the other key. Because you can show up everywhere if you just post babies and kittens. That’s the other part of that equation. – [Michelle] I produce much. – Well, good, go! – [Ramon] She’s always in my newsfeed. (everyone laughs) So I wanna talk about Facebook. First off, I love the fact that you’re encouraging us to go out, just learning ourselves, instead of finding this company. There’s so much noise out there.
– So much. – I think what happens is we sort of shut down, and we– – Got ripped off by this expert or– – [Ramon] Right, you spend a little money– – And I apologize for cutting you off but notice how I talked a lot about, or I snuck in there today, it’s as important as balancing your checkbook. This is not I’m leaving Vegas and gonna hire my 24-year-old niece to do this.
This is if you want to be in business, you have to know how to do this. So put in the 50 hours and know how to do it because then, you’ll know how to hire somebody when you wanna scale. ‘Cause right now, you don’t even know how to judge it ’cause you don’t know it. – [Ramon] Exactly, exactly. So help us get out of the gate. Who are the individuals in the marketplace that you like as far as maybe an author? I know we could google it but– – No, no, no, it’s not that, it’s I don’t know.
I spend 0.00% of my time looking at what other people are doing. I read the comments of humans. – Got it, got it. – That’s it. All I do is anthropology consumer behavior research through the intel that they’re putting out on scale. And so I’m not watching what other people are doing, I’m watching you and what you’re reacting to. That’s why I’m always so early on things like TikTok or LinkedIn because I see it happening ’cause I spend four to six hours a day reading what people are saying about my content or anything that’s trending on Twitter, or things that populate in my explore feed. Got it? – Got it, awesome. – And that’s what you should do. – Makes sense. – Because it’s less about me telling you somebody, it’s go to your explore page on your Instagram, click the links and see what people are saying. Don’t look at the content, look at the comments. – Awesome, thanks. – You got it. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Next question is from Daniel. – [Daniel] Hey! Hey, Gary.
Thanks for coming today. – Hey, Daniel. – [Daniel] Anyway, I just wanna touch on your comment on producing 30 to 50 pieces of content a day. – Please. – [Daniel] So we have a platform that essentially, we deliver very, very high-end content to mortgage advices on a daily basis. Part of the reason how we created this platform was because we were content creators and we would have mortgage advisors screaming, hey, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the resources, I actually cannot do this. – Sure. – [Daniel] And I’m sure when you said that, there was many people that were like, well, how am I gonna have the time to go out and do that? – I can answer that real quick. Everybody in here spends three hours a day on dumb shit. (audience laughing) You know it. Do you know how many meetings are an hour that should be 13 minutes? – Yeah. – Yes! – Let me save you time, all of them. (audience laughing) So that’s the answer to that. – [Daniel] Thank you.
But let’s touch on the resources and the expertise to go and do that, and only because so many of our clients come back and they say, man, I’m spending so much time on doing this that it has taken me away from actually prospecting or closing loans. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that. – I think branding always beats selling. Yeah! You’ll spend six months like that gentleman on not doing as much prospecting and selling ’cause that’s selling, and what you’ll start investing into is branding, and over time, branding always beats selling.
You know what’s really fun about selling? ‘Cause this is where my life’s at, when it all comes to you. You know what’s really fun about prospecting is when you don’t do it anymore. (audience laughing and clapping) – Thanks, Gary. – You’re welcome. – [Marc] Next question’s from Brandon. – [Brandon] Hey. First, I know you’re a die-hard football fan so. – I am. – I don’t know if you guys know but the game of the week is LSU.
– LSU! (audience cheering) – Versus Aggies, so little LSU game colors there for you. – Thank you. VaynerSports is recruiting LSU very heavily this year so, go ahead. – There you go. All right, so first statement I wanna make is two years ago, I spoke at some real estate conferences about the big juggernauts that were coming to eradicate and put realtors out of business. I told ’em Zillow’s your enemy, all the places you’re buying all of your leads and feeding millions of dollars to, they’re actually gonna cause you to go extinct.
And it wasn’t well-received. The message was kind of rejected. They’re making three-to-four-to-one on what they’re spending on their leads but like you said, they’re looking 40 seconds, not 40 years because Amazon just partnered with the largest real estate company in the country, and of course, it’s click-click-close. They don’t need a realtor and they’re even giving you $5,000 in Amazon bucks to move into your house – That’s it. Wait ’til that’s 20,000. – [Brandon] And Amazon’s getting into mortgage next, so the second part– – Sure.
– [Brandon] The podcast, it works. I started a small one, and I quit doing it for a few months ’cause I got busy. And the amount of phone calls I got from people asking where you at, when can I come on the show, and the amount of feedback, man, we love your show, we love your stuff, it was huge and so now, we’re getting back to redoing it on a consistent weekly basis. So my question is what’s the cost to hire you to be my guest on my podcast? (Gary laughs) (audience laughing) – Right now, I don’t wanna bullshit you, I used to bullshit people and be like yeah, and then.
There’s only one hack to me right now. So my wine brand Empathy Wines is off to a ridiculous start. The problem is sometimes, your ego gets the best of you, and I made 30,000 cases when I should have probably made 15,000, which would have already put us at record levels so if you hit up John and Nate at Empathy Wines, that’s the one hack to get me right now.
– [Brandon] Okay. – Everybody has kryptonite, mine’s Empathy Wines. That’s it, that’s what I got for you. See ya. (audience laughing) – [Marc] Hey, Gary, I think we have to make this the last question. – You sure? I still see 5:26. – [Man] Three more! – [Marc] We’ll keep going. – Yeah, keep going. – Okay. Next one’s from Kevin. – I got a couple minutes. – [Kevin] Hey, Kevin Peranio, PRMG, and homeowner now. Proud 4Ds alum. – Thank you. – [Kevin] Good to see you again, brother. – Good to see you again. I saw you in the front. – Yeah, man. – What’s good? – [Kevin] So thank you for coming and fighting for this group right here.
You really give it to ’em, just plain and simple. The consumer is gonna do what the consumer’s gonna do. – We do this all the time, Kevin. I wish that everybody drank wine 39 times a day. (audience laughing) – [Kevin] I just ordered five bottles from your wine tech so I ain’t talking. – Thank you. Thank you. You know what I mean? I understand that you want this for you, that’s just not how it works. Go ahead. And by the way, I apologize. You have no idea what Amazon’s coming to do.
And not just Amazon, Google. It’s like people are naive. Go ahead. – [Kevin] So help this group right here who’s so deeply rooted in their local community and who we all do feel we are better and not a commodity compared to the online lenders. Help us get tactical. Talk about your 4Ds, talk about the three people on staff they should have to actually brand and market. I don’t know if they’ve seen that piece of content but help them. – If you google Gary Vee content model, if you google Gary Vee content model, you’ll find what you’re talking about. It’s just too detailed for me to like. – Yeah, yeah. – You know this. That’s why that the thing we do is a full day. But it’s real, it’s tactical, and it matters. It’s gonna be brand. I’m telling you right now, the voice thing is really gonna fuck you up. I mean it. I don’t know what else to tell you. We’re all gonna order our food through it, our services.
It’s gonna be a big deal. I’m telling you, I’m screaming from the bottom of my heart in this room, if you don’t build your name as a reputation and have it come out of my lips, you’re gonna be stunned how much carnage is gonna. Toys “R” Us, Borders bookstores, I mean, it’s gonna be long-tail. It’s gonna be local! It’s gonna be local, guys. It’s coming. – [Kevin] Thank you for fighting for us. Thank you. – No, thank you. Thank you for seeing that I am. (audience applauds) – [Marc] Next question’s from Richard. – Hey, for the people in the back, I’ve got a little extra time because of my schedule so if I’m not screwing up your programming, just add how many minutes to the clock, if any, we have. Thanks. ‘Cause I wanna answer as many as I can. Go ahead. – Hey, Gary! How are you? Richard Wang. I’m with Veridian Mortgage and C2 Financial. So you talked a little bit about the next biggest thing being on LinkedIn and TikTok.
– Not next, current. – Current. – But it’s important. You keep going. – [Richard] I have a 14-year-old daughter and I told her I’m gonna start putting content on TikTok and she said, “Please, don’t.” – Yeah, but who? – [Richard] Specifically would be coming from the mortgage industry, can you elaborate a little bit about the TikTok opportunity? – The kids that were in college when Facebook came out and the parents said they were gonna go on Facebook, they said, please don’t. And the parents didn’t ’cause they thought it was college kids, and then they woke up three years later and it mattered. If TikTok becomes the next Instagram, it’d be a really good idea for you to be on it. And if it does not and it becomes the next Vine, the things you would learn by producing content for it will help you with the next thing that is gonna become the next Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
(audience applauds) – [Richard] Great. Real quick, what is your– – And by the way, one of the most exciting things about being a parent is to embarrass your kids. (audience laughing) – [Richard] I do it on a daily basis. Real quick, what is your most cherished baseball card that you still own right? (Gary sighs) – So cherished is ’90 Lee Frank Thomas because that reminds me of my golden era as a kid dealer from a business standpoint. Besides posting on LinkedIn and starting a podcast, the number one piece of advice financially I have in this room is to buy vintage basketball cards.
They are so grossly under priced. And in the next decade, people are gonna make real money. – Thank you. – You’re welcome. I know that was a super left-field comment but. (audience laughing) But I’m selfish too. D-Roc, where are you? There you go. I’m gonna clip that in nine years when an article from the journal comes out that basketball cards have gone up 4,000% in the last decade so gotta do some shit for myself. Go ahead. (audience laughing) – [Marc] Thanks for your time. We really do appreciate it. Next question is from Dave. – Dave. – [Dave] Hi, Gary. My name is Dave Coyle. Coming to this conference has been pretty eye-opening for me kinda seeing myself in perspective to a lot of other many, many other way bigger fish. I’ve been forced to kind of be honest with myself.
– Good. – [Dave] And if I’m honest, my biggest limitations have been really staying hungry and doubting myself, and I wonder, what advice do you have for staying motivated and positive and for maintaining a useful mindset? – That’s a great question. I think it’s practice. I think it’s perspective. I think you have to practice not valuing other people’s opinions. Insecurity comes from over-valuing other people’s opinions.
It’s a framework that was instilled in you through parenting and environment. That’s just the truth and DNA. So I think it’s practice. For example, the reason I’m so happy all the time, this is gonna be a little left-field, is ’cause almost on a daily basis, I imagine my parents dying, my children dying. I’m being serious with you. I know this is, again, a little left-field, but it helps me put things in perspective. How can I be upset about a bad speech or a business deal going awry or something stumbling if I actually felt this morning, and I don’t think it’s meditation but I think it’s closer to it than I even realized, even as I talk about it now, I just genuinely practice. Brother, you have to practice every day saying, whose opinion do you care about if you fail? One of the reasons I love losing is ’cause I don’t care about anybody’s opinion in here about my loss.
It’s my loss. You worry about what you’re doing. And most people don’t have that framework which leads to insecurity. If I came here, for example, and I was in your position and I was auditing all the bigger fish, what goes through my mind is I’m gonna kill these fucking fish, (audience laughing) not, oh, they’re better. It’s just a perspective. It’s kinda like life. Right now, if you choose to, and you only wanna find negativity and bad, it’s very easy. If you choose to and you only wanna find positivity and optimism, it’s there. It’s getting into a framework of changing the way you look at stuff. It really is. It’s not naivete.
It’s not delusion. It’s real life. So you need to practice. You can practice. Bro, it’s hard to be here. Just ’cause there’s some people that are doing it better, there’s also billions of people that are doing it worse. The hell are you worried about the fucking thousand people here that are doing it better? What about the fucking 10 million that do it worse? (audience applauds) – [Marc] Next question is from Fredo. – Hey, Gary. – Hey, Fredo. – [Fredo] Thanks for being here – Happy to be here. – [Fredo] I totally buy into what you’re saying about the content putting everything out. I’m a private person that I love to put out things that help people, to help them grow, the journey, but there’s a part of me that I wanna keep private– – Brother, I’ve never posted a piece of content of my family.
Everybody posts everything about their family ’cause it gets likes. You’re 100% in control! Good, don’t post it. – [Fredo] Totally get that. But when I see influencers or I see people just have a camera crew following them, and they, hold on– – That works for them! The fuck does that have to do with you? – [Fredo] Well, that’s what I’m asking! (audience laughing) – It’s no different than the last question.
What I do or somebody else does or an influencer does or what works for her or him has nothing to do with that, with you. If it doesn’t work for you, it’s gonna break anyway. There’s no right way to do it, there’s the right way for you to do it. Talk about bananas all day, I don’t give a shit. You don’t need to talk about your private life. I don’t. I don’t talk about my private life at all.
I meant it when I said earlier had I not been in this business, it’s the story of my life, I didn’t drink any alcohol ’cause my mom, Nancy Reagan got to my mom so alcohol and drugs, I was clean as a whistle. If my dad wasn’t in the liquor business, I know for a fact I would have never drank alcohol in my life. And I know for a fact had I not been in the communications business, I’d be sitting in the audience today with not a single social media profile ’cause I have nothing to share with you.
I’m deeply private in my personal life. I have a lot of business thoughts. I have a lot of observations. I’m deeply interested in sharing what I got because I know the world is abundant and I like the feeling of impact and admiration and legacy ’cause I’m gonna eat and it’s not gonna come out of yours or mine so you’re in control! – [Fredo] Okay, cool. – Good? (audience applauds) And brother, as soon as your sentence turned to but I see, you see, that’s it! As soon as you look at anybody else’s, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.
– [Fredo] Totally get it. – Cool. – Thanks, man. – [Marc] Next question is from Mason. – [Mason] Hey, Gary. Good day. A little shaky but I’ve been a big follower of you and I hear that you’re a byproduct of your parents and that they instilled how you have the empathy and the positivity, and we fill the pipes and you talk about an exuberant amount of content that we have to fill so I wanted to ask you, as someone who feels that they have it all going on and knows that they’re very successful, besides selling all your Giannis rookie cards and besides buying the Jets, what would provide you value, just like we see the people that are providing culture in the retail environment and they’re very wealthy, how can I reverse engineer that on social media to show them what we have to offer? And I wanna ask that by how can I provide you value? – You provide me value if you go and execute on what I just talked about.
I’m gonna be good on my thing. Empathy Wines, I need to sell. – Yeah. (audience laughing) – But other than that, in real life, just go execute. Listen, I live for admiration, brother. I figured out myself in the last half decade, I’m like, why am I leaving so much money on the table? Why am I leaving so much money on the table? I’m like, oh, right. When somebody grabs me at the airport and says they were homeless and they were watching my videos and now this good thing is happening. I mean, the shit that I get. The sentence, I used to beat my girl and then you got in my head and made me see life, that feels better to me than extra zeros in my bank account.
That’s me! But wait, and I’m gonna say something crazy right now, this is important. And if that’s not you, that’s awesome. That means you didn’t get those chemicals and if you want zeros, do you. But this is one big game of self-awareness. How do you bring me value? Go execute and send me the email in seven years of how it worked. – [Mason] Definitely. And you’ve totally changed my mindset to be way more positive. I’d fill the ears of positivity. So a second, can I get up on stage and take a picture with you? – Yes. – Oh, yeah! (audience cheers and claps) – Yes, he can. (audience applauds) No, no, question. – Okay. – Yes. – You’re on video. – I know. I wanna take a video, man. – What’s up, video. – Oh, right on, Gary Vee. Thank you! – Next question’s from Daion. (man laughs) – [Daion] Hey, what’s up, Gary? Thank you, man, for everything you’re going in– – Bro, you’re looking super sharp. – Thank you, you as well. – Super sharp! – [Daion] I love your kicks.
I would rock those, but they won’t match them– – You are looking sharper. Go ahead. – [Daion] So what advice would you give the younger version of yourself knowing what you know now when it comes to– – I would look that kid in the face and said, you’re gonna do it, just go, go, go. I had it figured it out. I had it figured out. And by the way, I stand here as someone who’s driven by gratitude, that me having it figured out is the luxury of my parents having sex at the right moment, (audience laughing) and then me being fortunate to be born in the Soviet Union and coming to this country with nothing, and having a mom that was cheap for a poor person which meant nothing was ever given to me, and then the compassion to wanna give back to my parents so then I built a huge business for them, and at 34 years old, after never paying myself more than $100,000 a year on a business I took from three to 65 million, I left with nothing and started over, so you can imagine when I tell the kids to be patient how easy that is for me.
What would I tell that kid? You fuckin’ figured it out, bro! Honestly! Honestly, the one thing is ’cause I really went a little rogue. I think everything is best in balance. I definitely probably should have had a little leisure in my 20s ’cause I worked seven days a week, 6 1/2 days a week. I took no vacations, I didn’t hang out with my friends. So I probably took it a little too extreme. I probably would like to have a little bit more memories and fun of my 20s but honestly, I’m incapable of having that regret given how it’s going and so that’s where I’m at. – [Daion] Last question. Big ask. My youngest sister, her name is Donessa Johnson, she loves you, she recently got diagnosed with cancer, would you mind doing a quick little shout-out for her? – 100%. – [Daion] I really appreciate that. – Yeah. – Yeah? – That’s it? (audience applauds) Look how sharp he is! – Oh, yeah! – Was I right? Donessa? – Her name is Donessa.
– Donessa, I see it. Donessa, I’m here with your ridiculously good-looking brother. I just wanna send you my love. I’m sorry that you’re going through this challenge. I appreciate you consuming the content. And DM me, let’s chat a little bit. I got nothing but love for you. It’s mindset. Play your mindset on this one. Mindset is stunningly underrated. – Love you, sis. – Love you, sis. (audience claps and cheers) – Thank you, man! (audience claps and cheers) – Thank you, everyone! (audience claps and cheers) Thank you for having me! Thank you, thank you! Thank you so, so much. Have a great conference!
