Youtube Shorts acts in a lot of ways like Tik Tok has elements of Instagram But unlike Tik Tok and Instagram YouTube is a search engine, the number two search engine in the world is YouTube. Number one is Google for people that can read and number two is for people like me. Attention is the number one asset. God I I Love New York Boy love you thank you! Um, tons to talk, talk about uh, a lot of opportunity and like.

What's most fun for me when I speak is my speaking style is really based on of the moment. It's extremely contextual. There's two core things. Maybe three core things I want to touch on here one.

Marketing In general, especially in a B2B world. I'm incredibly empathetic that the far majority of people in this room underestimate how much opportunity there is for them to grow, grow, what they're up to if they got incredibly serious about LinkedIn marketing I Know that to be true, cuz this is what I do for a living. I Watch it every day and especially the biggest companies in the world are completely missing. The Mark With social media midsize, smaller, or even the largest players in this room by comparison to a Pepsi or BMW or small and this genre, my company included, um, are really really missing how big of a deal it is.

On the flip side, why I Love to talk about business and life is it's contextual. Obviously, right now I'm feeling in my world as well with my clients in my business. Events are on fire. We were all like you know I don't know if you remember but there was this thing called coid and uh, we were locked up and it's just the way the world Works Supply and demand and we're really ready to go out there.

and so I know a lot of people in this room might not even be thinking that much about marketing because right now they're just trying to figure out how to handle the inbound that they actually have that gets into. Probably my favorite thing which is scaling, you know I think about about maybe I'll even start here. Um for the people that don't know anything about my story I I uh grew up in in Edison New Jersey and my dad let's go Edison and uh my dad had a store in Springfield New Jersey y okay good two for that this one we'll have less and then in high school my parents moved to Hun and County New Jersey oh I was wrong. So anyway I grew up in Jersey and uh my dad had a liquor store.

uh he built his American dream. We immigrated from the USSR and he went from being a stock boy in a liquor store to having a small liquor store but a nice business and we had our American dream. I Started working there at 14 and really learned the business and became very knowledgeable about wine and at 22 when I was done with school came and took over the business from from 1998 to 2003. I took my dad's business from a $4 million a year business to a $60 million a year business and from six employees to like 150 and I did that in five years and I did that with no VC funding or investment and my dad is Russian which means we didn't even have a credit line cuz his whole thesis was if you didn't have the money, you shouldn't buy it.

We didn't even take credit cards until 1994. Not only did he think that he thought you shouldn't do that either anyway, why am I bringing that up? Not because that's cool and yayi, it's actually the biggest thing I'm thinking about when I thought about this. talk it you know a thing that fascinates me as I was talking to one of my friends the other day and he was. He's a complainer which is literally my single least favorite thing about humans on Earth Um, that is definitely one of the best things that my parents taught me.

which is like the complete utter nonv value about complaining because it really doesn't do anything except gets you deeper into the problem you have. Anyway, he was complaining. so after listening to him complain for the last 3 4 years about business being slow, he was complaining to me about business being busy and he's too busy and I think about that because I think about this industry a lot having that Paradigm Not that everyone's doing that, but I know a lot of you are and it's because when you're in a business of production or being a vendor of production or doing what you all do for a living, a lot of people struggle delegating. The reason most companies don't grow is because they're scared to let somebody else make a mistake which hurts their reputation or they think will make them lose business and what they don't realize often and this was a huge issue for my father.

He was more worried that people were going to steal money from the register. so basically everybody had to work the register that was family or manager and which meant the store wasn't really being run. But for a lot of you I would say that ideology is usually the biggest reason people. people don't grow as much as they can for most of you in this room.

If you're in this industry right now and you've decided to allocate time to come to something like this, you're giving me indications in the macro of where the industry is and in the micro that you decided to come to something like this that you have ambition for something to grow. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here, right? Or for a small group of people, you might actually be sensing that you're in a stuck spot and you are using this as an opportunity maybe to see something that you aren't seeing or maybe can re ignite. Listen: I'm incredibly bullish uh events I throw something called Vcon which is from my be friends thank you. You know that's a $10 million production.

so I went from not knowing any of this stuff to like Jesus the you do is intense and I have a lot of respect. I Really want to talk about this for two more minutes and I'm going to move on. I Couldn't be more fascinated by people in growth moments which is 100% what's happening in the macro in this industry right now without knowing everybody's individual business in the two crucial mistakes that the majority of this room is going to do which won't allow them to double their business in the next three years, which should be on the table for most of you. Actually, this is a better question: how many people by show of hands would be open to doubling their business in the next three years? Let me just look, who doesn't want to raise your hand cuz that's real.

Okay, good. All right. So seems like most of you want to. There's literally only two things that are stopping you.

One, your ideology which is actually believe it or not, stick with me here. It's wrapped up in your ego. You enjoy the thought that you do it better than anyone else, which is why you're actually not delegating. You literally don't even see it.

It's in your subconscious that there's this insecurity. Because By the way, that's what ego is. Ego is just insecurity with some makeup on your insecurity that somebody might actually do what you love doing and you feel that you're good at better than you do it or your pride in your craft which is absolutely blended with your deep love of your clients and wanting to deliver for them. These are things that are intermixed.

You can absolutely want to deliver an incredible product, build a great reputation. Most of you build something on the fact of doing it yourself. It went well. They recommended.

I I Don't know if you guys can see this. I Get the Goosebumps on this one because I come from this I Watched what my father was doing every day and I understood. but I understood how much that didn't allow us to grow. If you were stock in the shelves and bringing up the person at the register and buying the stuff, you weren't growing too many of you, if not all of you, that how many people here own their business, Raise your hands.

Everybody who just raised their hand right now is doing two things. one doing too much dumb that they should hire for and two, their meetings are twice as long as they're supposed to be. Everybody here has hour meetings that are actually 30 minute meetings. Two-hour meetings that are actually an hour.

And so if literally you know I Come To this and I'm like this is business. We can be talking about a lot of things, but we're talking about business today. It is incredibly obvious to me in service production event businesses that this is the poison. The other poison is you want as much profit as possible to buy and not reinvested in your business.

Most of you are crying about too much business, too much business. and the answer is to hire people. But you don't want to hire people because you want the profit to buy a watch. So I kind of weirdly feel like I should leave now because it scares me and excites me at the same time.

How how much just those two things if I could literally just get one more time? How many people own their business, and how many people feel like they're in a spot right now where they have too much business, Even that they can't take everything. Just raise your hands. Too much business. Oh this is good one more time because I made some assumptions and now I'm getting excited because it gets me to talk about something else.

How many people here feel like they have too much right now and so they can't take on more. Raise your hands high. Don't be this why you embarrassed. This is the best.

Great So that small group literally the only thing you need to do is actually leave. Do Not listen to the rest of my Kino and go hire someone Real talk. It is the number one mistake of small business. Small businesses do not hire enough in moments of growth.

So I I challenge you to marinate with that find your version of what I'm saying. But I promise you you will be flabbergasted because remember I understand what people worry about. You may overhire ahead of bit business slows down. You can fire people.

You know it's not fun, you don't want to. It's not like we're hiring with the intent to fire. We're not trying to hurt anybody, but the hesitation to hire is fascinating. And by the way let me give you a really good Insight I Am standing on this stage predominantly because of emotional intelligence and the luck of the draw of good intuition and things that were given to me the night my parents decided to have sex.

But even with all of that, the amount of times I hired poorly is staggering. It's just real. and I just want to remind people hiring is guessing firing is knowing and the one in between is probably going to be the most important hire Fast. A lot of you are trying to be perfect with the hire because you're scared and I get it, you make a mistake.

She or he makes a mistake the project gets I Get it I I Hope everyone understands I'm coming here I'm not an author I'm not a motivational speaker I Run a 2,000 person Global agency that I started 14 years ago that does $350 million in revenue and I started it 14 years ago coming from the wine business in on Madison Avenue I'm an operator. These first 15 minutes have not been about marketing. It's not been about like psychology. I'm talking to you about operating a business I'm telling you right now, please do Not let this era that clearly has a lot of demand in it.

I'm looking at Macro Trends There is an extraordinary amount of man for events and it will continue. And please don't you Got to go. Please please please don't go and miss this moment because a lot of you. how many people have been doing this for more than 15 years, raise your hands.

Perfect. You all know it goes it. it's waves and if you don't catch the waves when they're right, you're leaving A lot of upside. You were all in the in the beginning.

We've been in now for 6 to 12 months, but we're here these next 3 to 5 years are very fruitful. You can expand seem like a lot of you wanted to. You don't have enough employees I'm telling you you don't and here's a big one. This is very important and will really help a lot of you.

How many people here feel that if they decided to go to sleep for 3 months that they have a number two and will be okay. Raise your hand. Let's clap it up for these 11 people And who and who does not feel that way? Raise your hands my friends. Let me tell you something that I'm very passionate about.

If I can get all of you to leave here and remember this part of the talk and make a commitment to start building up a real number two that comes in all shapes and sizes. Giving minority: Equity somebody that's been with you for a long time so they feel like an owner. you don't have to give them 50% Sometimes it's 5 or 10% recruiting somebody. the one of the worst.

There's a lot of bad sayings in life. The worst one is nice guys finish last. It's taught people in the world that you can't be a good person while building a big business. but another really bad one right is I forgot.

But I'll get back to it in a second. I'm so passionate about the nice guys finish last that it bothers me 10% I'm going to go with it I'll get back to it in a minute. but what? I Really, really, really? Oh I got it. They tell you not to work with friends and family.

I Stand here today as someone who lives it, but more importantly has invested in over a thousand businesses. His life analyze business the way people analyze movies and sports. It's my hobby. I Couldn't be more bullish.

Hiring friends and family. It's hard. you as the person that's doing the hiring have to make a commitment to the relationship more than the money in your pocket. which I know does not come natural to most.

But for all the people that just raised their hand and don't have a number two, you are uncomfortably vulnerable and so I beg you to walk out of here and start the strategy of how you're going to do that. Do you have a friend or best friend or family member who might not love what they do? and should you have a talk with them and maybe joining? Do you have someone that's been with you for a while and do you take the next step Maybe before you give the equity? Maybe you don't have to give the equity, but you need to change your Dynamic with that. A lot of you take your number two for granted. Business owners are very good thinking that the number two is just going to work for them forever just because they pay them.

So please please leave here a lot with number two. Now what really just excited me a few minutes ago was how many people didn't say what I thought was may be happening which is too much business which then allows me to segue into something I'm incredibly passionate about which is is how you all get your business. My belief is that every single company in this room should be posting on LinkedIn three times a day. Just LinkedIn three times a day.

There is a good chance that more than half this room has never posted on LinkedIn and it's probably higher than 50% So let me tell you what I'm referring to I believe that this is the most important. The advice on Earth for business I Also know that the majority of our attention which to remind everybody how you sell you need someone's attention. You tell them and then they decide if they want to buy it or not. That for every person in this room, the only currency that they need to be chasing on a Da today basis is the attention of potential decision makers for their business attention is the thing I've been chasing my whole life even when I started in.

Edison New Jersey My first business was a eliminate stand I had this Epiphany on stage similar to that weird thing I just did there with trying to remember I actually in the middle of my speech. stopped 10 12 years ago early in my speaking career and realized that I was very weird with my lemonade stand because I was telling a story about my lemonade and I realized I don't even remember selling any lemonade and I used to think it was just because it was 100 years ago but it wasn't It's because when I sold lemonade I spent my entire day walking up and down the streets of Oak Tree Road in Tingley Lane in Edison New Jersey and literally would sit there and watch Cars drive by to try to figure out what tree or what post to put my lemonade Sandson I later did that the way I built out my baseball card tables I would analyze and then I really changed my dad's business long before I did internet and marketing just by REM merchandising the store just watching every person that walked into the store where they would go. why would they go there and I changed the traffic flow and made people walk into the things I wanted to sell them I was doing this as a teenager. This was not something I learned in college.

This was intuitive to me today. I do it professionally. What I do for a living is I day trade attention every day I wake up and I think about what on social media organically can reach people. What can reach people on social media with paid media for my biggest clients I convince them and push them to understand why the Super Bowl is the only television ad that's good cuz all of you want to watch that commercial.

Why banner ads on websites are complete garbage. none of you have clicked one in a 100 years. and more importantly, what videos, pictures, and all the science behind the art is required to compete I Can tell you as we sit here today that LinkedIn for anybody here who's never posted once and never created a business account for your business on LinkedIn that your first post if the post is good and we'll get into that in a minute, can reach tens of thousands of people. It's the business version of Tik Tok Many of you at this point have probably been affected by somebody in your life probably someone quite young, cousin, niece, nephew, someone like that who literally posted one Tik Tok and got a million views LinkedIn doesn't have that extreme.

It's highly unlikely that anybody here on their first 10 posts just get a million view excuse me, a million views, but it is staggering how many people here within their first 10 posts on LinkedIn can have business development and get inbound for working together or working for an event for me. I Love selling I Love being a Salesman but selling and being a Salesman is always the thing I most try not to do. The most interesting thing is to be a marketer and a brander and let the selling come to you. And so when people when I talk about LinkedIn and started two four years ago because I started seeing that it started to act more more like Facebook than the LinkedIn that we all grew up with.

When I was like you need to mark it on LinkedIn people were like got it and what they thought I was saying was go Spam People and message them what I was saying was make content and let it show up in the feed. If you were to start making content and not every piece of content needs to be a commercial for what you do though, some of it can be. But if you started making content, for example, five mistakes people make on their first event. Do you know how much colle the wisdom of events there is in this room or in your own head from all your years.

You know the cliche mistakes. You know how people Miss Budget: You know where the mistake is. You know what's valuable. Are the flowers a good idea versus not? Could you get away with it or not? You know I Stand here before you with the largest advertising independent agency in the world because I gave away all my secrets for free on the internet for the last 15 years I Give away my best information.

The reason I have followers and people like me is I'm only trying to give it to you for free at scale daily period I Think a lot of you could be doing the same thing for your businesses I Actually think one of the biggest mistakes in this industry overall is how many of you in this room think you're competing with other people in this room. I Think people are incredibly built into scarce mindset. A lot of you leave money on the table by not referring someone as a referral fee because you're scared to that person thinking who you referred to will keep that relationship forever. so you would rather take money out of your pocket and not even engage in that and bring value because of your fear of it going away.

There's a lot of interesting cliche things going on in this industry. Bless you that if by the way and you know this, there's a really fun Russian Superstition that if somebody sneezes after you say something, it means it's true. So I'm just going to remind you there's a lot of crazy going on in this this industry that makes no sense. It's really true.

Can I just say the Pr Pravda Exactly exactly. Yeah. So listen. I really, really, really think there's some fun stuff to talk about.

which is why I chose to do this talk I Feel like I had something to say? Here's what I have to say: you're going into a half a decade of growth and you need to be on more offense. Do not? You know, Don't put yourself in a bad position. But remember hiring employees though you don't want to. It's not like you have a sunk cost, right? you can you? You can get out of it if you got caught.

Make sure you realize how much of your non-growing is. Not that you're a perfectionist and want it awesome for your client, it's that you are insecure and egotistical and don't want other people doing. Of course, people are going to do it different than you. There's not one person that Banner media of my 2,000 employees that does anything every day the way I would have done it.

It's called being a company. It's called being a company. Now by the way. this is why I ask the questions.

Who: If you don't want to grow, you're more than welcome to have a project. You're more than welcome to have your thing. But if we're talking business in this room, you need to start hiring and you need to start delegating. You need to start trusting cuz culture.

How many people here have more than 10 employees? Raise your hands. So for this group Culture more than 10 culture is so interesting to me. when I when I see the hands that just went up with more than 10? All that I think about is like where is their relationship graph with those 10 you know when I think about how I took Vayer, how I took my dad's store from six to 150 in 5 minutes or how I took Vayer literally from zero to 2000 Globally, it's because the hour I just spent prior to walking in here I had four one-on-one meetings with employees I've never met for 15 minutes just to get to know who they are and let them have some sense that they can reach out to me if they have a problem. I have 2,000 employees I have so many friends who have 10 to 15 employees who really have no connection with their employees I Could not recommend more getting deeper into your business.

If you have employees and really knowing these people, your retention of those employees is how I can get you from 10 to 40. 10 to 40 happens because of your relationship with 0o to 10. These are really important themes back to marketing content on the internet and I'm sure we have plenty of feelings about that I Know how people feel about it, especially in times of conflict like we're in. Now how many people here have kids under 18? You've got all sorts of opinions and feelings about it, right? But in the context of your business, the attention that you need to start providing to this platform is very high.

There's a direct correlation of how real it is for you to double your business directly correlated to how much output you put out on social media. This organization itself changed the way they marketed after I Spoke here four years ago. It's been good. I Think we should learn from that you could.

What really gets me fascinating about this is you can have opinions about it and how many and a lot of people here have opinions about doing social media marketing but have never done it. You've said no before you started. I Promise you that if you focus on two specific Platforms in the short term in my opinion for this industry: LinkedIn Number One YouTube Shorts number two. Okay, let me tell you why I said YouTube shorts and I saw some faces YouTube Shorts acts in a lot of ways like Tik Tok has elements of Instagram But unlike Tik Tok and Instagram YouTube is a search engine, the number two search engine in the world is YouTube.

Number one is Google for people that can read and number two is for people like me. When I'm really researching it will. If I'm going deeper now, I'm using chat GPT I mean AI makes search look like the Yellow Pages but we'll get to that another time. But YouTube is the visual and the audio and that's how I learn.

If you were to put out content on LinkedIn and YouTube that was to help people that hire you without the expectation of them hiring you in the content you make, you will be flabbergast at how much your business can grow now. Nobody got here by accident so you put in work to be here. The problem is with social medias. Most people don't realize how much work it is and when when they've gone they stop cuz it's real work.

My point of view is that you waste four hours a day on dumb stuff anyway, and so if you reallocated two of those four hours to actually getting good at this, you could have the things you want. but that's just going to be up to what you decide to do. It's kind of like getting into better physical health. It's not super complicated, you've got to get your protein ratios better than your sugar and carbs.

Don't eat crap. Go to the gym like everybody here knows how to be in better physical shape. but it's hard. Same with this.

but it is a remarkable time to be in the B2B industry to have you know when Facebook and Twitter were happening. back when I was really going at it. It was tough to come to B2B conferences and know that they couldn't take advantage of it the way I could do with B Toc right? Nobody was crushing events doing hardcore Twitter and Facebook in 2012 13 14 LinkedIn is a monster. The consumption is huge and people are discovering businesses to do business with heavy.

Not to mention if how many people here have specific targets. Meaning there are specific companies or specific events that you would like to start servicing. Raise your hands! Epic! So LinkedIn Do you know that I run ads against employees of companies I want to do business with and have a stunning hit rate on it. The fact that you can run ads meaning you make a piece of content, it goes organic and you see that it does well and then you could take it and add money to it and spend $500 $200 $300 to run against targeting employees of the hands that you just raised.

That is staggering And before you ask me how let me tell you how you do everything. There's a website I'll spell it out for you g O O gee So as you're sitting here and be like okay, what the did he just said I want to try You literally go to Google It's this site you've heard of it. You type in how do I write, how do I run LinkedIn ads enter and then it shows up. This is not a game of you don't know how to do it, this is a game of you chose not to do it and I I'm I'm It is definitely even in this moment as we're jamming.

It is definitely the thing that baffles me the most that I firmly know that if you post on LinkedIn three times a day and now you're going to say what do I say, what do I do and we'll get into that for a few minutes. But if you do and you do it every day for 24 months, your business will grow staggering. Now let's talk about how you make that many com pieces of content because I'm sure a lot of people are like I've got one idea that's all I got. You need to put yourself in a position to create content.

Let me give you an example: I Do not think it's crazy that you hire somebody to film you working jobs I Know look I I Know that some of the ideas are progressive, but I just want you to hear what I'm about to say. I Believe that if you hired somebody to follow you around while you're actually working a job, make pretend you got lucky and you're now part of a reality show on. Bravo Film it Right. There's always going to be it.

I've been filming for a long time. There's tons of stuff you can't show. There's people that may not want you to do it. There's a ton to it, but if you take it, you film it.

You don't even need to use the actual footage. You could film it and then do a voice over of something that was going on where you can talk about it. You could be like fixing something film and then you can make a video about why you can't go with fake flowers and always have to go with real ones because of the financial if you keep showing people the world. LinkedIn YouTube Shorts that you know your you will get business.

If you get good at running ads against specific clients, you'll really get business. I Don't know I Well, I do know, but it is stunning to me that 99% of this room just listen to all of this and will 100% do nothing about it. I've been doing this a long time I know and it gets into the things that really upset me the most. It's because people don't want to be on film and deal with people's comments about how they look or what they said.

The insecurities back to why you're not scaling drive me crazy. Let me just say something that I know has been working on a lot of people and I hope it helps a couple people here if they're hesitating to post your hesitation to post because you're concerned about feedback of how you look or what you said or all that that we all know I just want to to remind you you're not doing something to grow your business and make yourself happier because someone on the other side has the worst life on. Earth Because if you go around the internet finding people who are trying to build and who have joy and your response to that is to try to find a way to hurt them because misery loves company. We should not be mad at the people that are leaving these negative comments.

We should have compassion for them. I'm a very public figure I get plenty of I Never feel bad for me. not because I'm egotistical or confident or anything else. It's because it makes no sense human beings spending their time trying to tear down other human beings are in a bad place.

So please don't stop building your dream or your happiness or your joy because there are people out there that are unhappy and will see that light in you and try to bring you down for a Nanc when you're faced with it. Deploy compassion to their hurt. Don't don't deploy it to you. Be happy that you're not spending time doing that.

I Think we should do Q&A I Don't Really, you know I've have. So I mean I've have so much but the the pillars are there I think most of this is business strategy and content. The content thing is a humongous hole. All of you are grossly under producing content for the internet.

LinkedIn YouTube shorts and then just back to the people stuff, the psychology, the human stuff. Let me let me just. I'll leave it with this. and then you can jump out.

What a lot of you are doing is. you're lying to yourself. but you can't A lot of you are lying to yourself. You need to really leave this talk and understand some of the things we talked about that's stopping your growth.

Here's a good one who owns their business. Raise your hand. 100% of the problems you have in your business is your fault. Well, Gary Sarah's really up you hired Sarah My favorite one over the last decade.

People blame their business not growing on the President. Just on the record: I Made money with Bush I Made money with Obama I Made money with I Mean this is insanity People You going to blame the Mayor you're going to. People have become obsessed with blaming 100% of the problems in your business are your fault 100 Yep, you made every decision. It's not your mommy's fault, it's not your Dad It's definitely not your competition.

What do you want them to do? Lose to you? 100% is your fault And once you understand what that actually means, life gets good the second you understand that you can. you can do anything. You can close up shop and start a new business. you can move to Sweden You can do anything but you can't if you think somebody else is in control.

Love you. Thank you. He doesn't drink water I Don't need water I'm 100% in control. All right.

All right. Would you need water? Yes I Get it I Get it I Get it I Drink water up and down the AIS We need some water. Okay so we're going to do some Q&A because scary One syst continue giving you value and you brought up many many different topics that have been disc discussed all day today and one is AI Okay people say what is AI Do I trust it? Is it like stealing content for somebody? Are people going to know that I use AI Can you talk to them about how to use it effectively? Yeah. I mean look here's a couple things.

a lot of you are demonizing Ai and you have no idea what you're talking about. The opinions about AI in this room. Whether it's good or bad, with you never actually using the application in AI is the hypocrisy and silliness of headline reading. That is the world.

So first stop saying no. Actually, you want a really good one that's not just for AI but will service you quite well in every part of life. Not just your business Fall in love with maybe everyone's no good news: the robots aren't here yet to put up the shelves and the lighting so everyone's like I'm going to be out of a job if I use AI Good News: If you're destined to lose your job out of AI it's going to happen anyway whether you use it or not. right? So how do you effectively use AI There's this website called Google You type in AI Tools.

That's right, you type in AI Tools Chat GPT Mid journey is another one that can help you make stuff. You should start tasting it. You may decide, No, that's fine. But here's a couple things.

One: AI is not going backwards. It was like the internet. I Did this talk as a kid about the internet in 1999, not this exact one. It was a much smaller event with a couple people, but everybody in that business room at the Chamber of Commerce in Union New Jersey on Route 22 wanted the internet to go back and I was explaining to them it's only going to get worse and it worse meant more technology my friends in the same way.

Today we look at this device and we laugh at the I the original the Blackberry remember that thing. Remember you were never going to give up your blackberry and get an iPhone cuz you needed the buttons. Guess what? Nobody has a Blackberry technology is undefeated, technology is undefeated. We don't ride horses down Broadway We we don't go back.

So AI is here and from this day on from this second to the day you die, it will grow and become more important. My belief is that technology is like a humongous wave. Most people see it, especially when they're further along in their career and they don't want anything to do with it. So they put their head in the sand, the hungry or the often more often Young and Hungry will grab a surfboard and ride it.

98% of this room is going to put their head in the sand on AI and the wave is going to crush them because your competitors that are coming up the game or the ones in here whether they're TW cuz it's not a youth thing, it's a mindset thing. There's a 79-year-old in here like I'm I'm down with AI Whoever uses it and grabs a surf ball will win and whoever puts their head in a sand will lose. And here's what I mean by that. It's not like you're going out of business, you know I Think the thing people think too.

absolute. It's not that I Think anyone here is going to go out of business because a lot of you have built something already. You have reputation, it's leaving opportunity on the table, it's leaving growth on the table. And more importantly and this one I Do care as I look around the room, it isn't going to set you up for it to be valuable when you're done with it.

There's a lot of people here who aren't going to innovate who when they stop doing what they're doing, the business will just go to zero. The others that do innovate and build their culture and their team will have an asset to sell. I Want that for all of you? Amazing Amazing! I Want to answer that a little bit because you mentioned posting on LinkedIn times a day. Yes, you told us in 2019 to post more on Instagram Yes, some people listened, some people didn't I did and it really changed my business.

What do you say to the people? Oh I'm posting too much and people are going to get annoyed at me is three too much. Nobody's going to see it anyway. I post 67 times a day and reach less than 1% of the people that follow me. Problem solved.

Let's move on right? But also you mentioned like don't be afraid, stop saying I don't want to try it I can't do it, just do it Yeah but I get that because like that's how we are in. like all things like I didn't want to get healthier 10 years ago and then finally I got over to hump. but I was thinking about it for 10 years I Don't judge anyone here, no judgment I'm just telling you what will happen. it'll be good.

you're not my sister I don't give a if you do it if I come back here in 3 years and you're all like we're out of business. We didn't listen I'm like sorry so you know I I this is why I this is how not why this is how from 2009 to 2023 or I'm sorry 2006 to 2023 over the last 17 years of me talking on the internet, why I got more into mindset because after about six or seven years of just telling the world what to do and realizing nobody did it, it became more clear to me that this wasn't about you not knowing what to do. That's where the Google Joke comes from. This is about what's stopping you.

What's the insecurity? PE A lot of people don't actually want to face that they're finished right. A lot of you don't want to face the fact that your fire's gone. What's stopping you is you're tired and you're not passionate and you don't have the fuel you know, like So like I'm very empathetic to the millions of different reasons why someone here would not want to do it right. Um, but I can't stop talking about it when it's 100% true, right? And if they don't do it or don't make any change and they keep complaining about it, well don't even get me into that part.

No. I know I know we'll extend it for another. No, really like what I was talking about my friend Like true, You know, like it's It's like the only people that listen to you complaining is other people that complain or someone who's required to like your mom like it's not. You complain like that drives me crazy like G it's so hard out here then I'm like but you're not doing right like it's very nice that this worked for you in 2017.

it's not 2017 like that's my that that in small businesses and this is like what I grew up with. Well this is what got us here. I'm like that's nice. What do you want? A cookie? I'm glad that this is what you did in 2002.

To get here it's 2024, we need to do something different. The endly: um I want to extend on that a little bit about personal branding. Okay, you do a lot of personal branding. Some people say well I have a brand but I don't know how to get people to relate to it.

What are some suggestions that you can give the audience on how to create an effective brand that people keep coming back to as a human. As a human or as or as a brand. Well I Love Sneaker. Okay, but I'm just telling you they had longevity for a reason.

Yes, so that's what I want. And by the way, most people in here have had longevity for reason. It's the quality of their work. MH You know people are always like so Apple sucks at marketing.

It's just their products so much better, right? So a lot of people here are winning on the quality of their product. It's the it's why I'm so passionate about marketing. It's the one place that can accelerate it, you know. I Think relatability that you just use is right.

It's called relevance. I'll give you an example. Do you know that you can? Let's say you know how I said earlier. You're sitting here and you're hearing me say three times a day and you're like I only got one idea for one video.

Do you know that you could say that video and just repackage two words in it and do it 8,000 times like you just changed the word X come you changed the word Verizon to Mercedes Like you literally are making videos saying do you throw a 500 person event and the next video is do you throw a 40050 person event and the next video is like do you like I'm serious. Like how many how many people here have been following me for more than 5 years? Raise your hands, thank you for the ones that raised your hands look I'm pretty consistent of the things I believe in I will say them differently luckily for me I Social commentate on Modern marketing principles and they're always changing so it gives me new material but my principles are pretty much in place I find new ways to say them I may change the word for cool to LIT cuz that's what people say. but but I'm like in pocket for a lot of you you can make 80 videos that are pretty much the same. You just change the industry that you're speaking to literally if you made a video that you have a thesis on something about events and you say are you in the car industry and then run $50 against car dealerships in your 100 mile radius and then literally basically do the same video but not like with AI and change it your words like actually just the next day, Wake up and talk to the you know, the fast food industry.

You could go on forever. So this goes back to strategy and principles. but yeah, I mean I I Just think it's imperative. yeah and it also goes into storytelling.

It's also free Exactly like can can we just talk about this for a second I Hate when people are like yo the algorithm me it didn't you. Nobody wants to see your and then even crazier. you're complaining about something that's free I've been doing marketing my whole life. You know how I build my daddy's business not on social media Direct Mail The Star Ledger in New York Times Billboards on the Jersey Turnpike like I spent money Comcast Commercial I Had to spend money to get a chance to get in front of you posting on Instagram and telling you how good the wine is for and it goes out to people for free and now the way it works I Don't know if anybody's p attention to what's going on in social media.

The first decade of social media was more like email marketing. You had to build an audience, then you would post and a small percentage of them would see it. Just like email, right? You get a 100,000 you get 10,000 people on an email. You get 25% open rates D D D D D Same with social.

That's not what social is Now we're now living in the ticktock ification of all social media. which means your individual post the people in this room who've never posted once post tomorrow with zero followers and it may get 5,000 views because it clicked on the algorithm because the first 10 people that it randomly showed it to three of them thought it was good and Away you went. This is the greatest opportunity. It's free.

It's free. It's free. I mean it's free I mean like I was like backstage getting ready I got pumped cuz you were doing 50% off for next year I'm like oh maybe I should do that. that was only 50% off.

This shit's free. still get your ticket. um I don't know I'm sure if you follow G you know he just produced two major events. Why don't you talk about that? Because I'm sure you've learned a lot.

So what you're seeing up there is: I When I started Bner Media, my marketing company was with real purpose that I was going to buy businesses in the future and run them through my marketing machine if you think about private Equity If you know anything about private Equity you would buy companies and you run it more efficiently and then you flip it. My observation was those companies were not buying companies and growing the out of it. I just did that for my father and I just felt like that's what I'm about. that's the whole by the way.

I touched on the marketing and the culture and infrastructure of your companies today. like I basically talked about how I would grow your business in the two main areas that you can grow a business. So I'm good at that I like that I'm still on that mission. but along the way I started some other companies.

We started resi inside of Vayner Media a long time ago. I Know a lot of you have used that we sold that to AMX I started a wine brand called Empathy Wines Direct a consumer. We sold that to Consolation. This is my big one.

So this is my Sesame Street meets Pokemon like my Marvel I've created this whole universe of 250 characters to talk about the things I care about like that's gratitude Gorilla right? Like one of back to why I Don't complain. There are 736 million people on Earth that do do not have access to clean water. I'm on the board of Charity Water. There are 736 million 10% of our Earth in places like Africa and parts of Asia and India do not have access cannot get to clean water in 24 hours.

And you're complaining about your Wi-Fi speed. We do not have gratitude at all. I'm sure the life and world events that are going on right now reset people a little bit into their grat. we we just do not have gratitude.

So anyway, all the I care about I realize that I'm just one man and I've done a good job and I've built a big platform but I'm not going to reach all 8 billion people on Earth but Disney has but Marvel has so I'm building this so I launched this in Nft land. Obviously a lot of you know if you're paying attention to business and the world. the Nft thing went crazy. I In the hype of the Nft thing going crazy, started making videos that 99% of these Nfts were going to go to zero cuz it reminded me of other Cycles like Beanie Babies or the stock market in 1999 or trading cards in the 90s.

You could just see that it was about greed and short-term stuff. But I still massively. That's another talk for another day. Believe in the blockchain and I believe in Nfts.

It's just that Nft collectibles are going to be the 1% 99% of sports cards are worth nothing Michael Jordan's rookie card is 99% of art is worth nothing Andy Warhols is so that's where people got caught up if you want a quick lesson of what happened in Nft land. But for me, I knew that Vriends I could launch on Nft form, but I was scared to just make it a collectible because what I saw. So what's cool about Nft is is it sits on a blockchain. Which means it's a server that nobody owns.

Which means you can't manipulate it. Which means it's true, which means it could be tickets. It could be truth. It's going to be a big deal.

Once you all learn what deep fake videos are and you get affected by them, you'll realize why the blockchain is one of the most important inventions. because we'll be able to prove there'll be thousands of videos of me on the internet in a couple of years saying things I've never said that's what a deep fake video is you should Google Google it It's a very big deal. It's going to make you not believe a single video that you ever see. and as we all know, we just grew up with 100 Years of believing the only thing that was proof was video.

so it's this huge flip. anyway I know I'm going on a rant when I sold these I also sold people a ticket to a super business conference I've always dreamed about doing my own South by Southwest meets Coachella like a cool business conference. so that's what Beon is. We did it in Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium Like you'll really appreciate my belief on going big, especially in this environment.

The first event I ever threw was in a football stadium. you know? So we did Lucas Oil Stadium We did uh US Bank Stadium In Minnesota last year we just announced Von 2024 because when you bought a Vriends Nft, you got a ticket to three years of this conference. Snoop Dog Jess Galba Drew Barrymore Neil Patrick Harris like really cool stuff. really good event.

Um, next year we're doing it at LA Live in Los Angeles and uh I've learned a lot about your world vendor relations. All that like it's really cool. it's you know. I come from retail, everything's high pressure.

If the register doesn't work, you're dead. right? If it snows the day before your biggest day of the year, you're dead, So like I think I was trained well to be good at events because I'm always scared that something's going to go wrong. Um, but uh, but it gives me a lot of compassion and empathy and and real respect for this room. And I really genuinely hope that people heard me on some of the psychology stuff of the way you're operating people or how to strategize your business and and equally to F I mean you've heard about the social media thing for long enough.

Please let this be the evening that you decided to finally be committed and do it for a year because even the 10% in this room that will do it will quit in the first 30 days. in 3 weeks you'll post 24 times or whatever. Nothing will happen on the 24th time you'll like I Don't know what that guy Gary was talking about. You know you're going to get to that place, but but it's like anything else put in the work over a sustained period of time.

I Think you'll be surprised. Yeah I go with this saying. just one more, just one more, push yourself just one more time and that be the time and change. And if you really are educated and you like really like, listen to me and start really Googling and trying to get good at it like you start running a couple.

I'm talking a couple hundred dollars $300 against employees of two different companies. With your content, you'll be surprised how much will come right now. Uh, I'll I'll use a real estate comp. The reason I'm pushing all of you on LinkedIn is I'm basically telling you, hey, there's this place called Malibo.

This is like 100 years ago. Hey, there's this place called Malibu I Think you should buy a house on the water, right? Somebody bought those houses and they're worth a lot more money now. a hundred years later, attention is bought like real estate. There's underpriced deals at all times right now LinkedIn is very underpriced just like Tik Tok was four years ago when I was yelling about it And for you, this is a blessing because you've been left out B2B has been left out.

so LinkedIn Acting like Facebook right now at the same time that there's more demand for events than ever and will be for the next 36 months. This, you know I I'd like to think all of you understand there's moments when you need to hit. This is a moment that you need to hit and I hope you go hard the next three years. Amazing, Amazing! So we're going to end with this, um last thing I'd like you to look under your chairs because the amount of golden nuggets that this guy just dropped is unbelievable.

Let's give it up for J Thank you you so much! Thank you everybody and.