Today's video is my keynote at the Lockton Growth Forum, I dive deep into the 13 emotional ingredients from my book Twelve and a Half and why they are necessary for business success. I also touch on the importance of making content on LinkedIn for business development opportunities and growth. Hope you enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 - 0:30 Intro
0:30 - 6:00 Chasing underpriced attention
6:00 - 20:00 The emotional ingredients for business success
20:00 - 27:08 The power of LinkedIn for business development
27:08 - 35:37 The ROI of kindness in business
35:37 - 37:33 The importance of balancing the emotional ingredients
Thanks for watching!
Join My Discord!: https://www.garyvee.com/discord
Check out another series on my channel:
Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote Speeches: https://www.garyvee.com/keynotespeeches
Gary Vaynerchuk's thoughts on NFTs, Web3, cryptocurrencies and more: https://www.garyvee.com/web3nfts
Life, Business, and Career Advice l Gary Vaynerchuk Original Films: https://www.garyvee.com/gvoriginals
How to Make Money at Garage Sales l TrashTalk: https://www.garyvee.com/trashtalks
Inside the Life of a $300M+ Company's CEO l DailyVee: https://www.garyvee.com/dailyvees
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia, and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance, and the internet. Known as “GaryVee,” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business – he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior. Whether it’s emerging artists, esports, NFT investing, or digital communications, Gary understands how to bring brand relevance to the forefront. He is a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase and Uber.
Gary is an entrepreneur at heart – he builds businesses. Today, he helps Fortune 1000 brands leverage consumer attention through his full-service advertising agency, VaynerMedia, which has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, and Singapore. VaynerMedia is part of the VaynerX holding company, including Eva Nosidam Productions, Vayner3, Gallery Media Group, The Sasha Group, VaynerSpeakers, and VaynerCommerce. Gary is also the Co-Founder of VaynerSports, Resy, and Empathy Wines. Gary guided both Resy and Empathy to successful exits – which were sold respectively to American Express and Constellation Brands. He’s also a Board Member at Candy Digital, Co-Founder of VCR Group, Co-Founder of ArtOfficial, Co-Founder of VaynerWATT, and Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. In addition, Gary was recently named to the Fortune list of the Top 50 Influential people in the NFT industry.
In addition to running multiple businesses, Gary documents his life daily as a CEO through his social media channels, which have more than 44 million followers and garnish over 173 million monthly impressions/views across all platforms. His podcast, “The GaryVee Audio Experience,” ranks among the top podcasts globally. He is a five-time New York Times Bestselling Author and one of the most highly sought-after public speakers.
Gary serves on the board of MikMak, Bojangles Restaurants, and Pencils of Promise. He is also a longtime Well Member of Charity:Water.
Timestamps:
0:00 - 0:30 Intro
0:30 - 6:00 Chasing underpriced attention
6:00 - 20:00 The emotional ingredients for business success
20:00 - 27:08 The power of LinkedIn for business development
27:08 - 35:37 The ROI of kindness in business
35:37 - 37:33 The importance of balancing the emotional ingredients
Thanks for watching!
Join My Discord!: https://www.garyvee.com/discord
Check out another series on my channel:
Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote Speeches: https://www.garyvee.com/keynotespeeches
Gary Vaynerchuk's thoughts on NFTs, Web3, cryptocurrencies and more: https://www.garyvee.com/web3nfts
Life, Business, and Career Advice l Gary Vaynerchuk Original Films: https://www.garyvee.com/gvoriginals
How to Make Money at Garage Sales l TrashTalk: https://www.garyvee.com/trashtalks
Inside the Life of a $300M+ Company's CEO l DailyVee: https://www.garyvee.com/dailyvees
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia, and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance, and the internet. Known as “GaryVee,” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business – he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior. Whether it’s emerging artists, esports, NFT investing, or digital communications, Gary understands how to bring brand relevance to the forefront. He is a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase and Uber.
Gary is an entrepreneur at heart – he builds businesses. Today, he helps Fortune 1000 brands leverage consumer attention through his full-service advertising agency, VaynerMedia, which has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, and Singapore. VaynerMedia is part of the VaynerX holding company, including Eva Nosidam Productions, Vayner3, Gallery Media Group, The Sasha Group, VaynerSpeakers, and VaynerCommerce. Gary is also the Co-Founder of VaynerSports, Resy, and Empathy Wines. Gary guided both Resy and Empathy to successful exits – which were sold respectively to American Express and Constellation Brands. He’s also a Board Member at Candy Digital, Co-Founder of VCR Group, Co-Founder of ArtOfficial, Co-Founder of VaynerWATT, and Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. In addition, Gary was recently named to the Fortune list of the Top 50 Influential people in the NFT industry.
In addition to running multiple businesses, Gary documents his life daily as a CEO through his social media channels, which have more than 44 million followers and garnish over 173 million monthly impressions/views across all platforms. His podcast, “The GaryVee Audio Experience,” ranks among the top podcasts globally. He is a five-time New York Times Bestselling Author and one of the most highly sought-after public speakers.
Gary serves on the board of MikMak, Bojangles Restaurants, and Pencils of Promise. He is also a longtime Well Member of Charity:Water.
I get more consumption on my LinkedIn than CNBC gets viewers. That's absurd. That makes no sense. You cannot comprehend what one thoughtful two-minute video can do for business development.
We're the fastest growing independent agency in advertising in the world. Our entire business model is my content of LinkedIn We spend nothing on sponsorships, no conference events, no booths, nothing LinkedIn free attention is the number one asset. Thank you for having me. uh, there's a couple different ways I can go with this.
so let start with this and then I'll decide uh, based on that in this room, how many people are familiar with me and consume my content. Please raise your hand. Okay, that hurts so I guess I'll be going left. Um, all right, let me actually.
then with that I thought that might be the case. and so what I'm going to do is give you four or five minutes of context that will set up what I want to talk about here which is these 12 and 1/2 attributes But First you know, know, prepping for this back to the Clapping it up instead of clapping for people up here if I just may louder than we just did for him I am just incredibly impressed of the Journey of this. I I Live in and have only run two family businesses. most of my clients are private Equity or public companies.
There's probably not many things I enjoy more than a properly at scale run private company. and so if I just may I'd like you to clap it up for each other. and so if we can just do that, that would be very nice and no I genuinely meet it I Get to do this a lot I Analyze a lot of businesses I run a 2000 person Global Advertising agency right now we look at it I started my agency to go to be an infrastructure for all the private Equity Behavior I plan on doing as I'm on my path to buy the New York Jets and so I'm uh thank you brother It's Hard Out Here For Us Jet fans I needed that Um so I'm really excited about this talk because I do this a lot for a living. but like the mix in this room and the format of this business is interesting.
Even if you look at the like, it's really hard to balance number six and seven right. like balancing kindness and tenacity for the makeup of this room and your framework's super interesting. You're all one big family, but some of you are like weirdly willing to cut each other's throat for more business in here. And so I think there's plenty to talk about I think I'm going to focus on two core things which is culture uh, and content but because most of you don't have context I will spend three minutes if I may on telling you why I believe in these two things and I think the backstory will help I was born in the Soviet Union I came to the US in 1978 when I was three.
so I don't really remember uh, that part of my life, but we grew up extremely poor. as you can imagine for some of the Ogs, In This Crowd You may actually even remember the Carter years. The economy wasn't super great and so I lived in a studio apartment roughly the size of this stage with eight family members for the first two years that I lived in. America My dad got a job as a stock boy in a liquor store in New Jersey and that's how our American Dream started. We moved to Edison New Jersey That's where I kind of started my entrepreneurial career when I was six seven and uh, you know I started with like six or seven lemonade stands I somehow manipulated or tricked or inspired my friends to man and woman. The lemonade stands and at the end of the day I Don't know if some of you remember this. Remember Big Wheels? Before you get a real bike, you get a big wheels. I used to literally at like 6:00 at night in the summer, ride my big wheels to my six locations and pick up my cash like I was Tony Soprano But what I was doing and this is what I want to talk to you about when we get to the content side which is why I'm I mean I Was already pretty thrilled about this talk with the makeup, but when I understood that there's a real commitment to the LinkedIn thing that I see and I'll get into underpriced detention the next book I'm writing in a minute I've been chasing underpriced attention my whole life.
The reason I wasn't Manning my lemonade stands when I was seven was cuz I was actually sitting on the corner of streets in New Jersey As a 7-year-old this is like how sick I am and how much this was in my DNA and I would literally watch Cars drive by and try to figure out which tree or which pole to put the sign on. That gave me a better chance to sell lemonade when I was 14 after spending several years selling baseball cards which by the way when you're you know when I was 11 and 12 doing baseball card shows I would also set up my table that way with attention and you know I was making ,000 $2,000 a weekend at like 12 and 13 selling baseball cards and I don't know about you. but back to entrepreneurship which I know a lot of you will associate with. When you have like $5,000 in cash under your bed and you're 13 and you're not selling weed, you're doing a pretty good job.
So it was always in me and then I was killing it and living like you know, 5,000 bucks a 13e like trillionaire especially in the 80s. But then my dad dragged me into the liquor store that he now owned cuz he lived his journey and at 14 I started stocking the shelves of my dad's store in Springfield New Jersey and um, that was the worst because he paid me two bucks an hour. but somewhere around 16 I realized that people collected wine and that's when my infatuation with building the biggest wine company in the world started. And then it all fast forwarded into me launching one of the first e-commerce websites in America in 1996 called Wine Library.com and in a 5-year window on the back of email on the back of Google AdWords and on the back of blogging before social media became the primary opportunity I built that business from a three to a $75 million business in a 5year period with no Capital not even a credit line cuz my dad didn't believe in it. That became the foundation of what I want to talk to you about growing stuff I just saw some of the Ambitions 500 million 2027 all the stuff getting a sense of the DNA in this room I Do think it comes down to in 2023, 2024 and Beyond in these two hard core Seas which is content and culture culture I think is incredibly unique because especially as I started digging into the founders story and especially when I think about the makeup of the room, of the ambition and the growth and the sales DNA I I'll use American political terms to set up where I want to talk about which is the world increasingly both in clearly in politics, but even in the business world and our realities really fall into the category of red or blue and the reality is all the magic is in purple, you know. And when I when I look at these things, when I think about gratitude. Let's start there. you are not in this room.
If you're not winning back to clapping it all up I think people have completely lost context of gratitude Living in a first world country like America like just to remind everybody to level set where I'm going with this. The top 1% earners in this country. you know, the one of the two dominant empires in the world right now at a very rich company, the top 1% earners in this country start at about $440,000 a year. If you make $440,000 a year, you're in the 1% in the richest country in the world.
Even different than that. from a business standpoint, looking around this audience, we are all of the age where some bad stuff has happened. We've lost a relative, we have lost things. when I think about why people don't build good cultures.
especially when I think about this which is you're the hunters and back home on your team are the farmers and that framework ex excites me. and I think about it a lot. Just the complete and utter not like lack of ability to understand how much gratitude if it actually is in you. How much that shows up with how you manage a team is huge.
We lost Ford as a major client my head person that runs all of the New York office which is the biggest office and the Ford account runs in and when I tell you white as a ghost I'm talking like Casper the Friendly Ghost white like whiter than that like dead walks in. he's like we lost Ford and we're talking about eight figures Hefty I'm on my computer I look up at him I'm like okay I'm like let's deal with it later. he had come from all these agencies where like what would have happened is complete chaos. 100 people would have been laid off blah blah blah blah blah blah.
That doesn't come because my P&l is healthy though it is enough to absorb it. It comes because I'm incapable of letting business dictate my emotional behavior I'm completely detached from my suc. When I say 5.3 million fans back the story he just told you I'm not proud of that I mean I'm proud of it I know I put in the work but it's not like it's definitely not my identity and I think when I think about winners at this level I always think about like man if people were just really grateful because what I always think about and what I said earlier I know there was some Chuckles since I was 10 I've been on a mission to buy the New York Jets I think about it I strategize against it I own an Esports team and a pickle ball team and uh, you know, like with other owners in the league Steve Ross The owner of the Dolphins owns a piece of my agency like I'm I'm in it and I'm trying. But when I think about balancing real obnoxious ambition, compromising it, and changing your culture because you're so so driven by a number, a goal success is actually stopping you from getting to the thing you want. For me, it's the same old game that I always play back to gratitude and I'll move on if everything was going awesome If today was the day that I bought them and then I get a phone call and the most important people in my life are hurt or truly terminally ill or the worst of worst have just passed in the last seconds or minutes. where am I and I really think we struggle with that I think when you're winning and you're succeeding and you're driven, which is what every single person clearly has to be doing here in this room. I think we're completely detached from gratitude and if I could challenge you to be grateful for what you have versus obsessed with what you don't have yet, forget about even business and how I think it affects your team, just think it's going to make your life better. Something worth debating I think you know I think about self-awareness a lot.
The other unlock that I've SE seen in this scenario that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about with the CEOs that I sit on the board of I was uh, this is why I have some audacity of buying the Jets um in 2006 as I was going through building my dad's business, I decided social media was the next big thing and I became a very early investor in 2006 in Facebook Twitter Tumblr Uber. Back then literally Facebook Twitter and Tumblr were the first three companies I ever invested in. They were remarkable. If you don't know, Tumblr it was an early.
it's basically The Social Network that I think Tik Tok is now representing the interest graph versus the social graph it sold for a billion dollars to Yahoo 10 years ago. Um, but in self-awareness I've had funds since I've done well but I haven't annihilated it and it's because I'm not really a remarkable investor I'm a good investor but now I'm becoming a better investor because I've asked myself why did I invest in those companies I invested in them because I wasn't thinking of myself as an investor I was thinking of myself as this is a good company the CEO is good I'm going to make money I simplified it I think for a lot of people in this room as you think about doubling, tripling, quadrupling what you want I think we struggle in lying to ourselves at some point I'll get to my half which is kind cander if you ask me. Why have I left enormous amounts of money on the table in my 25 years and all this success, it is completely and utterly attributable to my inability to be canderous to my team because I don't really love negative conflict I like to find different ways to get to the goal without telling people it directly to their face. It's something I've struggled with for 20 plus years only in the last three or four years when I've been able to assess personal and professional hardships. that I've been able to really go to a self-awareness accountable, honest place with myself and it's completely transformed our business. In the last four years, my agency has doubled in size of people and tons of growth. single based on me finally addressing my cander issue and not surprising PE The only thing that was up my culture and my culture is off the charts was that I am so proud and I challenge all of you to understand how important as a leader it is to singly be focused on eliminating fear. Period.
If you want to melt this all down to the opportunity for growth, how good are you? Steve First of all, great shirt Steve Steve How good are you at eliminating fear is a direct correlation to what's going to happen to your business with people. The problem is, there's a lot of parents here. How many people are parents in here? Raise your hands so a lot of you know this. The problem is when you focus on eliminating fear and you go too far, you create entitlement.
and so my vulnerability was I'm so obsessed with eliminating fear that I created an culture of entitlement and so people thought they were better than they were because I wasn't able to tell them. And so finding the purple instead of the red and blue is a humongous passion of mine. and so I Highly recommend for anybody in this room who genuinely is hungry for the growth to start thinking about self-awareness Even some of the stuff I talked about earlier. This whole one team thing you're on in a world where you're all kind of independently playing, like you have to be self-aware of like who you are as a partner to this ecosystem.
More importantly, and I mean more importantly, even though I'm sure that's incredibly important, more importantly, you have to be self-aware of the leader you are for your team. your retention and happiness on the people that work for you has the craziest direct correlation to your growth capacity. And so I think in the business world, all these foofy foofy feelings especially in and I'm a Salesman especially when we think about sales and hunting I think we've grossly underestimated that the soft skills are actually the hard skills. and I know what a lot of people think when I talk about this stuff. I Am not talking about wild entitlement for Genen Z Who wants to work at home five days a week and not work and wants you to take care of everything? but I do want to remind all the people that raised your hands we're the parents of those kids. My favorite thing that's happening in culture is having dinners and meetings with people where they're on their 23-year-old kid and then when they're done I look at them. I'm like you created them. You don't want your kids to be entitled.
Don't give them eighth place trophies when they suck in soccer. I mean for people over over 40, raise your hand. This where you go to school and argue with a teacher for a better grade. That's some crazy ass like we've broken way too many rules of.
Merit That's why you want to talk about why everyone's scared and sad. It's because we've scared them. We've shown all our children that the reason like here's a good one: If you have a child that's over 22 years old in your life right now and you give them money in any capacity, you pay for their apartment their Uber their Equinox you just give them money I will show you a direct correlation to them being unhappy, but yet it feels counter. and this is the same thing with management.
just like parenting. I Don't think what's up here is so easy. Balancing being empathetic to your team and kind while you're tenaciously trying to hit numbers is a tight RPP But I promise you, there is a direct correlation to it. and I don't know you well enough I Don't know who is not tenacious enough even in this room of winners I Know some of you have hit your cap.
You're good, You're you're not hungry anymore, You're you're You hit a thing and you're like now you're in neutral. You're like this is a good number. This is where I'm at and for many times for good reasons. You feel like you didn't have the right work life balance.
You do have 15 and 16y old kids and you're like wait a minute, they're about to go to college in 2 minutes I haven't like, maybe you're higher I There's a million reasons, but I think that's why number two means so much to me. Lying to yourself is the quickest way to lose and I'm stunned how good we are at it. And when I think about talks like this like in this exact Nano second I'm like man, if one person is listening right now in this room and decides to go to their hotel room tonight, look them in the face and stop lying about something they're not good at in this or even their personal life. That's how you actually that's what therapy does.
That's what real stuff does. And I'm telling you I challenge you to understand. especially in the framework of this business. especially by the way.
Complete side note: Putting up the rankings of everybody's numbers in front of you. that's some gangster the the concept of let's Be a family but look John's better than Sally kill each other This is what I mean by purple. This is why this was so exciting for me. I'm like this company's kind of like me, like this is weird. it's like let's be like I created this Pokemon meet Sesame Street intellectual property that I'm building another one of my Avenues to get to my goals. It's going really well and one of the star characters in that world is kind Warrior that's a really brain twist right? Like how can you be like a gangster but be deep in business and be deeply kind and I know what's happening in the world right now we're really in this generational Warfare of like Boomers and Gen X versus gen Z and like it's all very blurry. but it's amazing to me when I look at this how easy this is to win it. It's there.
If you're willing to go there, it's there. If you care like it's it's just there. Meaning for example: I have 2,000 employees I have 2,000 emplo I spend I don't know 2 three hours a day on on average with one-on-one meetings for 15 minutes at a time with employees at any and every level. This company, when I looked at its growth curve, did anybody else notice like how much revenue it was doing after 10 years and 15 years and then what happens? the commitment, the DNA of this company, the founder, the way this was built.
the biggest opportunity is for you to actually double down on that DNA in a contemporary way using the technology of the day, just literally texting somebody while you're here, back in the team that's done a good job and be like you're doing a good job. I Don't think people understand these micro deposits how much impact they have? It's a big deal and I know like a lot of the stuff I talk about sounds like Grandma talk but it is 100% the game we're playing because I want to remind people people are starting to get more and more options to not work for you. Everyone's like Gen Z is the Genen Z has options when everyone's like Jen Z So Soft I'm like all right, take yourself back to being 23. Would you rather have a job pay you $20 an hour and make 38,000 a year? Or would you rather make 8 $80,000 a year being an influencer talking about the things you want? There are more and more options every day, your retention, and the way you're building Your teams is a massive variable.
And more importantly, as I did my homework. The thing I'm most fascinated by is how this crew interacts with each other is such a big variable, but the framework that is set up you have to be purple cuz if you're looking one way or the other, it's not going to work so it's It's a huge theme and then I'm going to bounce to Number Eight. I'm really interested about this. People ask me a lot of like why did I invest in all these companies before everyone else did or why do I And it's completely based on number Eight, which is curiosity.
For example, as I started digging in and getting more educated this concept of the one brand Under LinkedIn and they're going to make content and then what are you going to do about it? I'm pretty sure that the far majority of the people in this room are not going to commit the level of hours in time into reposting the content that this logo posts on LinkedIn and add their two cents and DJing capabilities because you're not going to see the direct quick r a y on it, right? Love it! Beautiful! Meanwhile, because I've been following Social since 2005 LinkedIn today from an organic reach and from an ads. Roi standpoint is the most fertile ground that I've seen since Facebook 2012. Especially from a B2B standpoint, you you cannot comprehend what one thoughtful two-minute video can do for business development. Instead of you hunting, it starts to come to you. if you're committed to content, the reality is is playing a marathon in a sprinter's world is always challenging. But to me I'm very curious about what percentage of this group and when I leave I'm going to. There was something I Wanted to tell the guys backstage I'm like whomever in this room actually goes on the attack needs to This year needs to be the focal point of next year's conference because how much content y'all make on LinkedIn in 2024 and they're putting you on third base. This is more like a franchisee franchisor framework than being a pure entrepreneur or being a pure Corporation The fact that they're going to put you on third base and you just get to be a DJ instead of being an original songwriter is like huge.
But it's not easy. Like a lot of you are insecure of how you look on camera and you don't want to deal with negative feedback. Say the wrong thing, blah blah blah blah. But if I can leave you with anything besides self-awareness um I I Couldn't push you harder to before and this is a big thing on curiosity.
The biggest thing I'm fascinated by is why people say no before they say maybe I think about this all the time. It's happening right now with AI the amount of people in this room that have real opinions about AI because they read one or two headlines or one of their friends said something and have done no homework on it actually is fascinating to me. It's what we do with technology. There's a lot of people in this actually.
Let's see how honest this room is cuz I see some gray hairs like I have in the crowd? friends that are a little bit older in here. How many people remember when they said that they would never get a cell phone because their pager and beeper was good enough? Raise your hands, raise them high, tell the truth, and I'm telling you several are holding it down. How many people here said they would never go on Facebook back in 2006 7 and 8 and now have Facebook Raise your hands mhm A lot more than that bunch of Liars I didn't I didn't know that about you Stockton But I'll take it. The bottom line is literally electricity was demonized in our society as demons in your house and people held off and kept doing candles. Technology is always demonized. Every single person here when they grasp what AI is and what it means for sales in 5 years will'll be using it every day. Just like a search engine just like an iPhone This is a big one. You won't lie about this one.
How many people said they were never getting an iPhone because their Blackberry had buttons that they needed to touch them? That's what I Think about what I'm doing right now is trying to give you examples of knowing 98% of this room is going to under poost on LinkedIn next year and knowing it has a direct correlation of getting new business. We're the fastest growing agency independent agency in the world in advertising. Our entire business model is my content on LinkedIn We have the lowest new business overhead. We spend nothing on sponsorships, no conference events, no booths nothing LinkedIn Free The World is constantly changing I I Couldn't encourage you enough to understand what this content means and what I love about this room is.
You know your craft. A lot of people struggle with content because they don't know what they're talking about and opinions are fine. Hot takes are fine, but actually going into deep work like if you and by the way, not everybody has to do audio or video. Written word is written.
word is phenomenal. if you're awkward or embarrassed or you don't want to make that jump I Get it. But you can do written word. You do three powerful IND detailed sentences paragraphs on top of content.
You will be stunned I Just encourage you greatly because the only thing that is universal in our society is that who Whoever has the attention has the leverage. You know what's going on in the world. It's called the media Infrastructure in our society has shifted. Have You ever wondered why when there's a coup in a country a coup? Data that while they go to the Palace to get the guy or the gal, they also go to the newspaper radio station and TV station.
whoever controls the message has the leverage. For the first time in history, we as human individuals have the ability to have scale I get more consumption on my link in then CNBC gets viewers real real. That's absurd. That makes no sense.
not the way we all grew up. This is a massive opportunity and so I highly encourage. You don't need to do it, but don't just be no Before you said maybe spend five. You know, if you want to grow your business I Think it's worth five hours of actually really tasting it because we are unbelievable headline readers in America we are.
we got all you have unlimited opinions about stuff that you've never even spent an hour researching. Got it cool All right? I think um I think when I look at this list and I look at this room and I really really very honestly want to go into Q&A about it? Um I'm going to touch on a couple of other things here quickly, but I do want to talk about and I noticed over there and I appreciate it when I talked about like texting someone and just saying like you're doing a good job I I Do want to talk a little bit about kindness? It's such a fluffy word in such a business environment, but I'm going to actually tell you a story and then hopefully use it to tie it back. So I'm running Wine Library for my dad in the mid 2000s at this point and it's going extremely well and we're milking. Google AdWords We're milking Direct Mail We're milking email marketing and it's like you know I could sense that we were getting stale and I was trying to think about how to really win our lifetime value. and I'm very aware that your business is incredibly good at lifetime value. Once you get them in, it's hard to unwind, which is why it's a good business which is why you guys have made some paper. But I want to talk not about your customers though I'm not against it I'll get into that in actually. I'm sorry now I realizes I'm about to tell you the story.
This may have a lot to do with your current clients and how it impacts you getting more clients. Let me just tell you the story and then we'll wind it back and then please. Anything we've talked about or anything else you know about me or anything else we will get into Q&A But here's why: I believe in kindness and why I believe in the world we live now with on the internet and things of that nature so it's like 200 I don't know 11 9 when this happened, maybe 10 So I say to the team internally I want you to Google every single person that buys something on Wine Library.com every day to try to find them on the Internet So we're talking about 4 or 500 people a day. On average some days are 2,000 some days are a little lower and like if David bought you know Gary V CH Easy very unique name obviously James Smith might be hard but we know the address everything.
So we start looking and I told the team that when you find four or five people that you really know and cuz it was an early like process and project for me I said if you name if you find a customer who's bought for the first time and they bought something significantly interesting or something like just tell me first couple days go by and there just doesn't click. So then I email the team and say hey, just send me anybody that you've able to identify. so they identify this gentleman in Chicago anybody from Chicago Jesus Christ oh there we go Three Okay, Chicago um they identified the gentleman from Chicago who bought a case of Santa Margarita Pinia which is by the way quick Sidetrack on wine Santa Margarita Pinio is literally the most overrated wine in the world. Straight garbage for 22 bucks but everybody buys it cuz it's a brand so if you're buying Santa Margarita Pinio, please stop.
You can buy better panio for like 12 bucks or buy newal and 7 block but we'll go into that later. They find this dude. it's $150 order or 200 bucks. It's tiny. We find him on the internet. We find his Twitter account. We go to his Twitter account. Every one of his posts are about Jay Cutler So clearly enough people know who that is.
but for the ones that don't know, Jake Cutler was the bearest quarterback at the time and it's like Jay Cutler you're the best I love you Jay Cutler and then obviously some would while he was watching. no Jay Cutler why'd you throw that Jay Cutler this J Cutler that anyway I tell the team to go to eBay and buy this man a $350 J Cutler sign Jersey and send it to his home and I want him to write a detailed note that says thank you for shopping for the first time because it was his first order too. first time at Wine LAB Basically I think everyone here is seeing what I'm setting up I'm trying to figure out if there was a marketing PL now that we could find people on the internet in 2010 to do surprise and Delight that I could see a correlation to lifetime value against the investment scale the unscalable something I'm obsessed with that I would like you to do for your employees and former clients, but we'll get into that in a minute. I'm pumped I'm like the dude bought like a $200 case of wine for the first time is about to get like a $400 jersey in the mail and this dude is obsessed with Jay Cutler right? So I'm like this is going to be the greatest so we send it and I'm telling you for the next three weeks I come into the office I'm like did the dude call did he buy like where is it nothing I'm boarding a plane to go to Napa Valley I get a call from the office that're I Gary you you there I'm like hey I'm about to board they're like I'm like can I call you when I land they're like no I'm like what happened I thought something bad they're like you're never going to believe this I'm like what and then it clicked I'm like the Jay color guide no they go.
let us just read this. They read me. This order was just placed by a first-time customer in Plano Texas The guy bought $8,000 of red burgundy but in the notes he left the note he said hey, first time order can you hold this it's really hot in Texas Can you ship this in the fall Number two: I Just want you guys to know you have great prices on red Burgundy. like I'd like to get more.
Here's the other stuff. Number three: I Think it's really cool what you did for my friend in Chicago He told me about the story of the Jay Cutler Jersey Number Four Ps I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen Fan two books prior to this I wrote a book called The Thank You Economy It talks about scaling unscalable Behavior in the framework of kindness to make money I Am here today talking to you about business I Am not talking about nonprofit I Am not talking about foofy poofiness or how we should feel I'm talking about understanding emotional intelligence as a platform to grow your actual business I Am convinced that business people in 2023 do not deploy enough compassion and empathy and sympathy for their teams. I Believe it and I believe that if this group leaves this talk, whomever decides to allocate an hour a day instead of let's talk about one of my biggest pet peeves: meetings. Meetings are the worst. Here's why there's not a meeting going on right now. In this country that isn't booked for an hour, that's really a 20-minute meeting. We just fill it with dumb if you just take two of your 1hour meetings a day and cut it to 30 30 and take back that hour and redeploy it to have an actual relationship with the people that work on your team or across the platform. or if you want to allocate it to the content creation.
This tripling down on culture and content is the Battleground the Battleground right now in 2024 for business is who is going to out content who and number two who is going to out retention and acquire teammates. And that is the framework of this conversation. That is why I wrote this book I Know that the in these 13 traits that I think have mapped and this is not a life story. This is obviously got a lot of what I do, but I was a massively early investor in some of the most successful companies in the world and the ones I passed on Airbnb and many others I'm close to and I watch them.
Plus I have the Pepsis and the chases I have a 360 view on a lot of businesses at this point and when I tell you that these things and balancing them the reason I used it. if you look at the bottom where I say leveraging the emotional ingredients. The key when you are managing clients or employees is understanding. It's not one thing, it's cooking a meal your top performer like.
Like do you understand that if the number one person back home that's in charge of retention or servicing is out that changes your variable, So much of us and so many of us are way more vulnerable to one or two people to completely wipe out a year and yet we don't put any effort and commitment into it. And those people need some combination of this and understanding how to balance these different things. I mean I'll give you one number nine and 12 is how I live my life. Do you know how much this confuses my audience in social media? Do you know that I put out outrageous levels of cont content around patience.
Do you know how much? I believe that if you're 59 years old, that you're just at halftime and you can completely pivot. Yet every under 30-year-old that follows me thinks that if they don't have their life figured out tomorrow, they're finished. But how you balance and this one's for you instead of spending time on your team and your partners. number nine and 12 is your life.
The people in this room that figure out how to balance, patience and ambition will win. I Think about things like this time of year, some of you are going to do something to hit certain numbers in this year that will actually hurt you for next year, but you put the pedestal of the number that you arbitrarily created for yourself for this year and you will completely up growth in 24 internally, on your team or externally just for an arbitrary hit on this P&l year. Makes no sense. Complete lack of patience happens all the time and and so look I Came here with real purpose today which is like really start to have conversations about different things that I don't think we spend enough time on and I believe that the companies that I see really accelerating in these last 2 three years and definitely what I see going forward are going to find these balances on culture and content and I hope this brought some value to somebody today. Thank you! Oh.
Y’all were the GOATs that started couple videos. Wish you guys well on whatever journey you guys are on…as long as y’all end up together. Ahahhaha jk jk
I LOVE the lemonade story. I did that shit. I'm 47 now. I need a leg up. I had two kids who are autistic. I'm a GOOD person but I need a leg up, for about three months, and then I'm there. It's all about that leg up.
Guys if you can't do video because you don't want to waste time getting ready or feel like you don't look good on camera, there are some of you in here that could KILL IT with a V Toober tailored to look like you or whatever "character" you'd like to be on camera and play off of that rather than just not doing it <3
Thank you Gary . I’m going to execute some of your advice with my paralegal business.
This guy has remained a humble person even with all his money, huge respect man and what you do for the rest of us 🙌
Gary you and me are twins! We both have ADHD and stay obsessed about our passions! LETS GO ENTREPRENEURS!!!!❤❤❤
I grew up on a ranch. My career started at 5 years old. I never dreamed of being a business owner, never in my dreams thought of owning a non-profit. It wasn’t until I read rich dad poor dad I decided I wanted a life in business.
I am enjoying your content and your helping me continue in my journey. Thanks Gary
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To me, gary is actually smart. For who ever thinks he's tricky person/lier, i think he has context in every speech.
What i conclude so far:
– attention is key. And it's right.
– social media is free. It's right.
– know your weakness, and add work way more on strength. It's definitely good thing.
– hard work? Definitely not for everybody. But high achiever always is associated with hard worker.
So idk, maybe ppl is just so entitled ppl to falsely judge him sometime haha.
You are amazing, thank you, thank you for taking the time to share
Thank you.
Hi Gary, love ya!!! Tik Tok will never replace Tumblr though 😀
I heard your kindess story towards the end of the video and I just had to like the video. That's a good story. 🫡
Creating another source of income in these difficult times is the best thing to do not only does it guarantee returns, it also helps you plan and save for future expenses I hope everyone who reads this will be successful in life
I sold pogs and lemonade at my stand on 105th and western in cleveland ohio in the 90s. ❤
Thanks Gary
this is an awesome keynote. the context added around the headline points are gold!