You know what kind of leverage that is. You know how nice that feels. I want that for you and i know how to get there and i've seen it 100 times, and i know exactly what it doesn't look like and it doesn't look like when you don't know how to scale marketing sales is just bad marketing. You got your perspective.

I just want to be happy, don't you want to be happy from that? Second, to me, being right here with my natural dna and how i watched my dad's business for those, especially those four high school years, where i didn't have a lot of say, so i had to listen and watch more than talk or get things done. I purely watched what defense, negativity and not trusting in building a family looks like the amount of money my dad left on the table, because, unfortunately he was raised in an environment where he didn't know how to trust was devastating. He would created a framework where everything was based on fear when i think about the size of the businesses in this room, and i think about the human dynamics and the consumer dynamics that really drive where your range is from your business. There's only two versions of where you're going to go with your business you're, either going to play, prevent defense or try to be the 85 bears if you're a football fan and play defense or you're going to go pure offense right.

There was a very famous college basketball team in the late 80s early 90s called loyola mariemont. Maybe for some of you fans, remember, there's a tragic death of hank gathers a very famous player on the court, but the reason i bring it up is not to remember that tough memory. The reason i bring it up is that college basketball team used to win games 142 to 126.. They had a run and gun system and i think about it, a lot because it's how i run my business when i tell you the amount of mistakes that i make it's stunning and staggering, i'm a human being, i'm making 100 decisions a day.

When i tell you that the amount of time i dwell or even give it, a second thought is almost non-existent when i think about small businesses and that's what we all are including vaynermedia for me, there really isn't anything but people when i think about this room And what you do for a living, you're selling people when i sold wine, i had to taste those wines which was a pretty good gig for a while, but i was selling wine. I had people, but i was selling wine vayner x. My holding company of agency right now is 1500 people globally, right, singapore, mexico city, la new york, london, all we're doing is we're selling people right, and ours is a little bit different in that your business model is really fascinating and i've always liked it because the Reality is, if you can figure it out right and create the right flexes, it can be quite profitable right because you're carrying a certain amount of people, i mean i always think about. If i did this business i'd be like you're really in the business of like just holding your breath, every second hoping that if you've got 200 or 100 clients that six don't have an issue at the same exact time, and it's just right.

It's not super hard to understand what you're dealing with, but what that speaks to, and i think about allah and i've had a couple friends through the years be in this business, and i i've always been fascinated because i think the business inherently is spending way too Much time on defense, what if this happens? What, if what? If and i think, a lot about what happens to a business like this, that goes on pure offense and what triggers can be created with staff and partnerships and other variables that can scale so that you feel comfortable in selling in front of the inevitable opportunities or The vulnerabilities that come along with having that many clients with the potential of needing servicing and things of that nature, i think, there's several things that run through my mind here today. First of all, probably the thing i want to spend the most amount of time on, which is this concept of carrying people on your team, because they've just been around for a long time, and this one is emotional, because some of this started as your actual friend Or family became your actual friend, because you've been working together for six seven nine twelve years. I think a lot about this issue um at this level, which is the notion of how much value comes with actually cutting or limiting the bottom 20 of people in your organization right so notice. What i said there in a sentence cutting or limiting.

I have worked with family and friends. My whole life. I have started every business with family and friends. I love it.

I think it's a good idea. It's a bad idea for most people, because they care about money more than happiness and their friends, starting a business with friends or family is a bad idea. If you care about money, because it will always get to a place eventually, where there's friction, starting a business with family and friends, if you're a little more chill about money - and you love business because you love the game, not the money is a tremendous idea. So that's that starts the first question that you're really going through right.

Second, is if you're, in a position where you've got long-term employees and actually let me phrase it a little bit different if you're sitting right now and thinking as we're talking about your situation. If your number one value prop of the people you're thinking about right now, is that they're, loyal and reliable, but you've got a big problem. If your number one value prop of the people you're thinking about on your team, is that they're, loyal and reliable, but you've got a problem, because if the butt is that there's a lot of other things that they don't do well, if the butt is that they Make a lot of other people within the organization not feel good. You've got a major problem.

What you're really in is in the people management business right we're going to get into just because it's what i do for a living of how i think you can dramatically increase your potential clients through digital, because it's there you know, i've got a lot of like I've said i've had several friends and and acquaintances in this business if you're not running significant linkedin ads right now for your business you're, making a massive mistake, i don't know how you plan on acquiring new potential clients, but i can promise you where linkedin is right. Now, with ads and creative is the most reminiscent thing to what i saw with facebook in 2013 and it's a huge arbitrage, and if you leave this conference with anything tangible for new business generation, i promise you it sits inside of linkedin right now. You play in a b2b environment, as many of you know how many people here consume content on linkedin occasionally raise your hands high hi. I want everybody, look around look around and notice what i said.

I said how many people here consume content on linkedin, as all of you know, just looking at the crowd linkedin just five minutes ago, aka six years ago, was just for recruiting. It has transformed into a content play and that's why so many of you have raised your hands. The ad targeting is bafflingly good, but it's expensive because it's high value. So a lot of people hit me up they're, like you're pushing linkedin.

What are they kicking? You? A bag in the back end, i'm like are you out of your mind. Gon na ruin, my reputation for linkedin give a about linkedin. Sorry. I know i'm supposed to not curse, but i get ridiculous about this one.

I don't give a about any platform. I care about being historically correct, so my reputation is whole. What i know is that linkedin works because go figure when you can target the head of hr or a cfo or a direct job description, and you know exactly who you sell to every one of you fully knows the title of the human that has decided to Give you money now a lot of times, that's just the ceo. I get it right, which is great, then target ceos on linkedin and then tell them why you have a value prop and what's great is when you tell them, you have a value prop.

That could be in written form that can be in video form that could be in picture form. My biggest preference is you don't make an infomercial eighty percent of people? Do they go directly into the right hook? It's all just trying to sell. Nobody here wants to be sold. You're gon na give somebody thirteen hundredths of a second on their video.

You know that it's going in for the sale. Meanwhile, you're technically strong. You know the common headaches. You literally can step back and look at the data, let alone you know it off the top of your head sitting here of the consistent issues that people have so, instead of making it a sales pitch, you can make it an information center.

That looks like what, if or what do you do when this happens, you then actually get consumption of the video which actually then leads to business, because if you give good content, it's not very hard for them to click your face and send you a message. So there there's there's two core worlds that i see for this group, which is how well do people understand the human variable of business and how well do people understand the current state of how to get customers? That's it. There is nothing else and i've rinsed and repeated that for 25 years, and that's why all my businesses do super well. I started a client service business in 2009.

Right vaynermedia. I you know some of you how many people here have grown up in a family business raise your hands. I just want to say so, the so the great thank you so much so the 20 or 30 of you that just raised your hands if you're. The second generation in a family business - you know exactly what i'm about to say.

I built my dad's wine store for him right. I worked for 12 years made very little money because that's what you do in a family business and at 34 i had to leave. Even though i took my dad's business from 3 to 60 million dollars, i had to leave and i started vaynermedia in another company's conference room at 34 years old. So when i put out all that content to the kids on social about patience, i lived it.

I was 34 got grossly underpaid. I wish i didn't have a family business. I wish i was just an executive somewhere else. I would have got a bag right left had to start over started my company, when my brother graduated college in buddy media's um conference room in columbus circle by this above the starbucks there and had to start a client service business.

Even though i never had a client service business, i was a wine retailer and in the first two years i really didn't want to do it. I was still too busy with wine library and i wrote my first book crush it and the garyvee thing started to happen. But then i saw the opportunity so i went all in so i really started the company in 2011 and so in a 10-year window. Vaynermedia and now vaynerx, because there's eight companies under it has gone from zero to 286 million dollars in revenue right based on just the two simple things i'm talking about, which is it's only about the human beings that work for me, like my entire framework on the Way i look at my business.

Is the people that work for me, the customers of my customers and then my customer? The number one mistake that a lot of my friends make in this business model that you're in is they value the customer over their employee. It's a fundamental destroyer of your upside when you default every time to being on the customer's side, regardless of the information when you've gathered on what the situation is at hand. You've immediately limited the upside of your business, incredibly foreign for a lot of people, but so essential in the way that i see this world. Why? I'm so hot on getting you good at linkedin, or anything else we talk about later is: if you have a strong funnel of constant new business, it's going to give you the leverage to have your employees back over your customers back hand in hand, hand in hand.

I think that i have a new book coming out in november and because it was covid - and it was just like a really good. I was really in my feelings when i wrote it and i'm really excited about it and it's called 12 and a half, and it's really about 13 human characteristics that i think really lead to actual business success, because i think people are very confused on who wins. In business, i think business is completely misbranded. I think people think you have to have sharp elbows and who's the most aggressive and who's the most alpha, and i actually genuinely believe that soft skills, like empathy and kindness and accountability and things of that nature, are actually the alpha skills that build very large businesses.

But i called the book 12 and a half, because i want to go vulnerable on you, because it's probably one of the more common things i've seen as a shortcoming - and it was my greatest shortcoming because my father was very candarous. You always knew where you stood with him, that was his favorite, i'm like yeah, you stand hating you because you're mean my dad was really great at candor. I, on the other hand, because my mom's not, and i was very bad at it. I demonized it even more because the way my dad delivered the candor was so aggressive and negative.

I wasn't able to separate the vehicle from what it was so what's really interesting about that was it really was only about two or three or four years ago, where i started really going into this place with me with all my success. What was very obvious to me that my number one job as a business owner is to eliminate fear for my employees number one and the reason there was some fear in the ecosystem was because people didn't know where they stood, because i would sit with who i Thought sucked and i would try to coach up, i would try to rah-rah. I would try to team them up with somebody who was awesome and hope for some osmosis. I was i was trying.

I was trying everything and then i'm sure - and i can see by the reaction of all of you - you get to that point where you just wake up and you're like yeah, i'm firing sally today and i would and and thursday this monday and thursday i'd walk Back and be like sally have the best weekend ever and monday. I'm like sally, can you come in, i'm like sally, you got to go and then i was the bad guy, because i wasn't able to deliver candor and then sally go back to her desk and i was like i saw gary say what's up to sally super Nice and give her a hug on thursday, i'm next yeah, and - and so i thought about this - a lot - and this is really hard to admit - and it's like that's why i'm so excited about this book, like i think for especially for the people that follow me. I'm old school eastern european immigrant, like my garbage stays in my house. Nobody knows anything about me.

I'm the most public person you've never seen a picture of my kids they're 12 and 9., like i'm in my own private life right and that's the way i run my business too. My headaches are mine. I'm what i share to the world is the optimism is the good thing: it's not delusion, there's nothing but headaches being an entrepreneur. All of you know.

Everybody thinks this stuff is cool. This is exhausting right. This is 24 7 pressure. I wish that when i come back next time around, i'm a number two being a number two is epic, being in number two, you get a solid amount of the financial upside and you get none of this feeling of there is nobody.

Besides me, from the day, i walked in my dad's store full time when i was 22 to right now. I've been the single person responsible to make payroll have never raised money, didn't even have a credit line in my dad's store, it's constant on you, 24, 7. and so but being vulnerable and talking about how weak i was at candor has been really liberating for me And i really hope helps some of you because it really matters and the way i brand it in the book. Some of you've probably heard radical candor, be as that's gotten some momentum.

I actually think that that's an excuse and not radical kid. I just think candor in general has historically been an excuse for people to be mean to people i'm just being candarous. You suck. You know like that kind of stuff, and so i frame it up as kind candor.

If you walk into the situation and know that you're delivering bad news, are you capable of finding the right balance of tone and in that candor? Can you make and i've been practicing this hard for the last 24 months? It's been game changing for my business and can that person leave and say wait a minute gary's actually trying to give me a chance to write this course. Not i'm going to now walk in fear. 24. 7..

That was a huge shift for me perspective wise, and i hope that helps even one of you consider maybe having one kind candor talk when you get back to the office it matters. This is only about people. Everything in the world is getting commoditized. The only thing.

That's going to be left is emotional intelligence. We are mapping everything else. This is a tech crew. You guys know, i don't have to explain to you what's going on in the world.

What do you think is going on? Where do you think ai's going? Where do you think all of this is going? This is all going in one direction, which is, unless you start really tapping into as an owner as a leader where you sit on the emotional graph of running a business. That is where all your financial upside sits and leaving here with the mentality of understanding you've got to focus on your people, not your customer, of course your customer, but that's default. I know you're thinking about that. I know that you're trying to have retention.

I know you've got all your tricks and ideas and strategies and ideas and hopes of like how you keep that customer. What i want you to do is realize you're playing defense. That's amazing! By the way you have to play defense, there's a reason you play defense. You do want to do that.

That is good. I just wanted to be 30 of your energy, not 86.. Once you start getting that framework down, you have a very different opportunity to grow your business when you're spending 35 percent of your energy trying to get new customers in the most progressive way for the money you spend on it. Something interesting happens when you spend 40 percent of your time, actually giving a crap about every person that works for you for real, not kind of not saying it, because it sounds good but living it.

A funny thing starts happening and so getting that balance down in a monthly retainer service based business with a lot of customers, average 3000 bucks a month life and hoping to do seven 10, 15 million dollars a year. I promise you, it starts with your employees. It's next progressive marketing in a 2022 way and then third, you can worry about what you've actually spent most of your time. Thinking about that is the framework.

So i think that's that's the framework. I want to start because i really want to go into q. A in detail of that framework, but i want to talk for a little bit more and then i'll open up q a on the second part which is getting customers. I believe - and this makes sense you know uh.

I had a new cfo come in uh four years ago and he's like this is a mess and i'm like break it down and so he's breaking down. He came from a big holding company agency life right where he's accustomed to you know having small top-line growth and tons of profit. It's all defense and he sits and we break it down for three hours and i and then i said yeah, but we also grew 30 million dollars in revenue, which was whatever percentage at the time and we kind of got into this joust very good joust. Just because it was like intellectual, like business debate, all great vibes and finally, i kind of like you know, there's nothing more fun than knowing what you're talking about and playing mental chess with somebody.

It's the best feeling on earth right. I can see by the reaction like your expertise right, it's the best feeling when you know the game inside and out and you're playing it and you, like the other person, it's nice. So i was in one of those moments and finally, like i kind of got him into that, you know there's that moment where the person knows they walked into the wrong spot and he's there, and he looks at me and he's like. Let me see this is what he said.

He goes fine, yes, new revenues does solve everything, and - and that's really why i want to spend time on marketing. You know i don't when i look around and look at everybody's face um. Actually, let me ask this question: how many people here plan on retiring within 10 years, real, quick, not because you're gon na crush it and you're the messiah, but because you're old and you're finished raise your hands, raise it high, raise it high own it own it? I see half hands, go high right, so for the six of you for the six of you for the six of you, you know a 10-year window. You know the world changes fast and slow right.

The world changes fast and slow, but for the 98 of people in this room, when i think about how business people make their business decisions in a b2b environment, the evolution of the tactics needed in marketing and sales over the next 10 years are staggering. You know, let's call a spade a spade. The majority of people in here are sales organizations, not marketing organizations you're in the sales business call call when the reality is is if you actually spent 25 hours on my very subtle, quick mention on linkedin and when i say 25 hours, it's the same 25 hours. I spent in december and january learning about nfts right if, if you've seen what's happened in that space in 90 days, i've made i've done 91 million dollars in revenue on my v friends nft launch the first 51 million i kept, which was in one week the The next 40 i've gotten a 10 royalty on every transaction.

Last night, while i was sleeping, i made 246 thousand dollars on the royalties of people selling my nfts to each other. I didn't know what an nft was nine months ago, but what i did when i understood something was brewing is in the height of my business, when i have a trillion things going on, while i'm trying to navigate nine billion other businesses, i just spent 50 hours Learning what nfts were so when i talk about the thing i'm about to talk about, i never understand why i know 98 of you are not going to spend 25 hours trying to master linkedin ads. I never understand it now. I do understand it.

It might be predicated on lack of revenue needs, you just might be content and complacent. I don't even judge that i think people have me very confused as a character on the internet. I don't think you need to go, crush it and go harder and never sleep do you. I don't give a i just don't like when people say something and don't back it up.

It drives me crazy when someone's like, i'm gon na, be a billionaire i'm like you're playing xbox like like, like i'm so confused right. So, like here's my point and now now i know i'm feeling something because i'm standing up, if you knew how much admiration i have for all of you right now, it would touch your heart. Let me tell you why it's is today wednesday. Thank you.

It is the wednesday thank you, it is the wednesday it is the wednesday of labor day weekend. It is september 1st today this is the most checked out week in the world in the world this week from america to shanghai. Definitely europe those don't work this week as we stand, we're in the middle of it the wednesday. This is the most checked out business week besides christmas week in the world, and you are in this room listening that tells me you're pop committed to what you do.

I i don't have a i mean, i don't know if you guys can see the goosebumps. Please confirm this, you can't be here. If you don't care, you cannot be sitting here. If you're, not hungry, you can't.

Why would you be here? This is checked out week. This jersey, shore life - this is upstate like this is checked out week. So i'm sitting here saying these people are here early on this wednesday. So when i sit here and say i know, i can fundamentally fundamentally transform every person's business here if they just spent 25 hours studying how to do linkedin ads properly.

Anybody can post an ad i'm talking good. I can dribble a basketball, i'm not lebron. Please hear me on this: please do 25 hours of linkedin homework and start the way i did you know what my first search was. What is an nft enter? Please figure this out because i'm telling you once you do and you get good at it everything i actually want you to do with people and the human stuff will become a lot easier when you have a flow of inbound customers.

I have empathy of why you can't always be as sweet as i want it's, because if you fire that client, because they're mean to your people, you might have a problem, i understand what it means to have to pay the bills. I get it, but i also know why companies stay in the same spot. Their whole lives, this business that you have owns you and you know it and there's a way for it to not, because mine doesn't on the drive here, one of our biggest clients, 12 million dollar a year. Client did something with our scope for next year and handle a certain way and on the ride here i said to nick who runs that account.

I said: resign, the business. You know what kind of leverage that is. You know how nice that feels. I want that for you and i know how to get there and i've seen it 100 times, and i know exactly what it doesn't look like and it doesn't look like when you don't know how to scale marketing sales is just bad marketing.

Thank you youtube watcher. What's up it's garyvee, first of all, thank you so much. I hope, you're doing super well during these times. I also want to ask you please subscribe, because my commitment and exploration of youtube is about to explode stories, polls, more content, more engagement, more surprise and delight.

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