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Today's video is from the Web Creators 2021 virtual conference hosted by Elementor. It's all about leaders learning to be consumer-centric, fighting for the customer in board room meetings, being open-minded to fit your client's needs, and much more. There is a ton of awesome Q&A in here that I am super pumped for you all to hear! I hope you find it useful and I hope you enjoy it!
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
17:22 What content should I be creating?
21:47 How do I navigate the divide between client and consumer behavior?
25:10 What's the one thing that web creators do not get?
30:39 What is the best way to get leads when you have a low budget?
31:26 How did you get your first client?
33:28 Where do you see the role of websites in the world of social media?
34:33 How do you recruit team members?
37:14 Any tips for getting through hardships in business?
40:29 How do you see the future of the web?
42:00 How do you compete with bigger agencies?
42:52 Most common mistakes people make in start-ups?
43:30 How do you discover new consumer trends?
44:11 Outro

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Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the world’s leading marketing experts, a New York Times bestselling author, and the chairman of VaynerX, a modern-day communications company and the active CEO of VaynerMedia, a contemporary global creative and media agency built to drive business outcomes for their partners. He is a highly popular public speaker, and a prolific investor with investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Coinbase, Slack, and Uber. Gary is a board/advisory member of Bojangles’ Restaurants, MikMak, Pencils of Promise, and is a longtime Well Member of Charity:Water. He’s also an avid sports card investor and collector. He lives in New York City.

The the biggest passion i had coming into this talk was the ability to make sure as many people as possible, even if it was just one or two kind of left, with the notion of how do i become more blindly consumer-centric. You got your perspective. I just want to be happy, don't you want to be happy? How are you doing today, i'm incredibly? Well, how are you i'm good thanks, absolutely amazing, to have you with us. I'm super excited i'll.

Let you get started awesome. Well, everybody first and foremost um. I really want to do as much q as possible because i think the details matter so i'll pontificate here a little bit create some observations that i'm seeing in the universe. But what i really want to focus on is the q a so please submit them um.

You know really, at the end of the day we what i've been spending a lot of time on is self-awareness, observations, um, leaning into things that are obvious to you around you. What i mean by that is, as i understood, the profile of the individuals on the other side of this, when you're in a kind of b to b to c environment, there's a lot that goes into that you know. I i live in that world actually actively myself with vaynermedia for all the garyvee content out there. I i operate a daily business um that has 1500 people globally around the world, that is servicing clients and for a lot of you, you're building applications on you know and front-facing web realities.

For us, a lot of it is content and media and creative all for everyone involved to create a result, whether that is a donation or more likely a sale. Um b2b2c is a very intriguing game, because you've got to find the balance between delivering what you believe. Uh, while having a human on the other side, that is making decisions for their business as you being a provider and then finally there's the consumer at the end, i was giving a lot of thought to this talk and also knowing that he had some pretty big Icons chatting here like seth uh, i said what do i want to narrow in on that might provide value that might be a compliment to everybody else, who's speaking and so one thing that i've observed over the last several years and and me and the organization here - Talked a lot about you know, positioning this as adapt or die, and really what that really just stands for, in my perspective, when they brought to the forefront, is the reality of adjusting to the reality of the consumer, which is really at the end of the day. Over the last 20 plus years, something that i spend the majority of my time, thinking about you know i i think i think about why it comes so natural to me to deploy really at the end of the day, humility, the humility of like, regardless of what I would like it to be regardless of what has happened yesterday, the the concept of you're, only as good as your last at-bat is very real to me, the consumer behavior shifts are very real on a daily basis on a yearly basis on a decade basis.

You start adding elements like what we've just all gone through it changes patterns, it changes consumptions, it changes perspectives and so a couple things that i really wanted to focus on number one in the very micro of what i know. Most of this audience does for a living. I believe the single biggest thing that one can be is religious about the current behavior of the consumer. Let me explain what i mean by that your capacity to understand how people are navigating from a ui ux standpoint on a website on a mobile device.

What is the actual consumer behavior at this moment, both in the easy part math, you know the quant. The data is so supportive in in a meeting that you would have with the client, but then also the qual, just understanding behaviors on the consumer side of like shifts or leaning into things like your intuition or your pattern. Recognition of things that the project you just did and seeing that the site is not converting as well as you and your uh client anticipated, and the question becomes why, even if the traffic is eliminated as the excuse, because what's happening on the site is not acting. The way that you'd like it to, obviously i don't have to explain to this group, the ios 14 update, is going to impact a lot of our clients in the retargeting and things that nature.

So you know the reality is, is that things are always moving and i think a obsession from this group, an obsession around the actual consumer behavior will always be the greatest leverage. You know for me um and yes, i'm glad this banner's up. Please get into the specific questions because that's my mindset and mood these days, but i want to get into those details. But to me the thing that has been very fascinating over the last 15 13 years running vayner is how many people dig in to their religion.

Uh to how it was what they're most comfortable with uh over recommending tactics that they're comfortable because they understand it, even though the consumer has moved on from those tactics. So, for me, the the biggest passion i had coming into this talk was the ability to make sure as many people as possible, even if it was just one or two kind of left, with the notion of how do i become more blindly consumer-centric. And how do i fight for the customer in my b2b conference meeting in those rooms in those rooms? How do i fight for the reality of consumer behavior over my selfish wants of what i know how to do over and over blindly, in my sleep and it's easier, the client pushing me in a direction that might be against our beliefs. So one of one of the things that i helped one of my devshop friends do several years ago that has been much, maybe even more fruitful for him than i thought he hired this incredible um consumer insights, uh executive - that i was very fond of.

She worked for me for a little while moved on, wanted to go to something smaller, and it's been remarkable to me and it's probably the inspiration for why. I start my opening rant with this subject matter, how much that has factored into the growth of their business. The end of the day, the consumer is so important. You have to clearly have passions.

You have to clearly understand what you stand for. You have to have a sense of what you believe, but please have the humility for the consumer um, the other. The other thing that i think one really needs to think about is so many people here have won on jumping on the wave of a technology shift right. You were first to move on websites.

You were the first to move on sms. You were the first to move on, you know whatever it might be um. I spoke about it very briefly in the context of what's a consumer doing so that you can provide that service for your customer, but then for your own business uh. One of the things that i've been also observing quite a bit is the stagnant nature of many providers.

Many b2b2c uh executives on their hesitation to adopt new capabilities, adding things to their repertoire, offering more services um this whole innovation doesn't have feelings for any of us thing really really matters to me, and i'm a very big believer of that and what whether that is, What is in the air a little bit right now we're in extremely early stages and there's a lot of mockery, a lot of bad executions, but you know very clearly from a development standpoint. Web 3 is brewing and whether it's 1995 or 1999, in the scheme of the internet revolution for web3 the way websites interact with decentralized servers, is something that should be on many people's minds in here. Even if you're not looking to provide that service or or expand or hire into web 3 development, just getting what i call the appetizer or where there's smoke, there's fire. I play a lot in smoke.

Land have my have my hands and different things, just to get a little sense, just to get a little sense, um and and then, when it feels like it's ready for prime time, you start to productize it. You know. For me, you start to talk about it. Whatever it might be - and so i think a word that has emerged for me quite a bit in self-reflection and as i mature and go through my process, i'm surprised how much curiosity has been a factor in my overall human success, let alone some of my business Uh, you know successes and excitements, and so i always go into a a talk like this with this consumer profile by the way that that deer is exciting me, that's popping up on the screen, i'm not sure what that is, but i'm very excited about that.

Uh. Uh curiosity is incredibly practical is how i see it in my mind these days. It's that appetizer and smoke thing that i just referenced is something i'd like to challenge or inspire or create the seed of debate for every individual. On the other side of the screen of.

Are you genuinely pushing yourself to learn or to at least taste or most of all, what has been probably got me there was. I was surprised how many people were dismissive over the last 12 13 months. It's been a very incredible time. You know in a weird way, zooms - and things like this - have allowed me to scale human interaction right, the inefficiencies of travel or things that nature i've been able to have a lot of interactions during this um this period of covid and something that struck me both From fortune 500 land, startup land, vc, land, nft land, just an incredible passion for no we're dismissing, which i understand grabbing a lot of insecurities a lot of other variables that lead to that.

But this audience, i think, actually has an incredible vulnerability when i think about b2b2c um to not stay curious, because another service provider has the ability to out, innovate and then commoditize what you bring to the table, i'm a very, very big fan of putting myself out Of business before somebody else does it for me, and so you know i i would say we're in a moment of transition of consumer behavior in how they consume the internet. That will continue to flow, whether it's things a decade out or somewhere within a decade like vr and oculus, whether it's, whether it's just the way people behave in mobile this industry again building sites. All of you, all of you can have incredible context to what i'm speaking about when the world really went more mobile native. There were so many dev shops that just didn't move quickly enough to understanding how to design or ui in a mobile environment and many fell by the wayside.

So you know just a level of curiosity. You know if you're in the e-commerce element, if you look at the advancements of what's going on, you know within social shopping. Are you in a place where you can develop social profiles that are more likely to convert than let's say on top of a wordpress infrastructure? So these are all things that i think need real real debate with oneself, but i think the overall arching thing for me is, i love, i love these last two decades and they continue to play out the same way with different nuances. These are substantial shifts in human behavior, the internet.

It was substantial, you're you're, about to hear at some point from one of the great thinkers and ogs of early internet behavior. I think i think i'm right about this. Seth sold one of his companies early on to yahoo, like there was so much going on there and it was so early, and there was so much that had was assumed. Much of it did play out in different timing than a lot of us thought.

Much didn't play out and i think everything is now compounded, there's so much more infrastructure, the the railroad tracks, the roads, they're built and so now we're on to that next phase and i think for a lot of this group, this next five years is going to Be defined on how consumer-centric how curious they were to evolve their products and services? How much were they able to adjust quote unquote with the times i'll spend a few more minutes on one other subject matter and then we'll get into the q a to make everything that i just said: roll from like a strategy and leadership capability. There's another incredible nuance, which is another uh word, i'm incredibly passionate about is continuity. You know, i think, for a lot of you if you're picking up on what i'm putting down an incredible thing to to really reflect on is how you're leading so much i've come to realize as well. Another fun observation during this incredible opportunity to think um continuity.

You know some of you may know, i'm a very big new york jets fan and i love that team and and in football there's something called an offensive line because i know this is international. Crowd in the nfl is not necessarily an international sport, but there's these five gentlemen who protect the quarterback and uh. The data is remarkably powerful on teams that are able to keep those same five offensive linemen uh year after year for a period of time, and i think about that quite a bit when i think about organizations how structured are you as a leader on being obsessed Around retention and leaning into the emotional intelligence that is required to manage people individually and reverse engineer their ambitions, whether that is financial or credibility and and fame or awareness, uh challenges. You know, i think, that's something that people really need to reflect on because to be able to have the time and the mental capacity as a business to innovate.

Uh, you must be in a position where you're you're, i i call innovating and jumping into this hunting. You know finding right you're going out and hunting if you're farming isn't strong back home you're going to be in trouble, and so i i think one little nuance on this framework of really leaning in to the truth of consumer behavior today and then allowing yourself to Innovate your products and services and then uphold that in the rooms with your clients, it's going to require great farming, and so i ask all the leaders to have a good sense of what their relationships are with the number one. Two three: four people in their organization: uh: how deep does that number go down? Do you have an understanding of what motivates them and do you believe in the continuity that then will allow you to go hunt while they all farm and so a couple, thoughts uh? This morning this evening, depending on where you're uh we're watching this from, but i'm incredibly humbled uh to be a part of this, i uh i. I really do think that there is a very interesting turn uh brewing, and i want to make sure that everyone here is popping their head out of their day-to-day minutia and really understanding what products they should be building on top of this.

How should they be thinking about it um and how do they put themselves in a position to succeed? Thank you. Okay, thanks gary. That was an incredibly interesting opening for us and i think all web creators know exactly what you're talking about right. This ever changing environment things are moving really quickly in the web and we we have to do our best to keep up, but in the same time, stay innovative, stay curious and let's move to questions please, okay, so um.

Our first question is: what content should i be creating on social media as a web designer to stay relevant and set myself apart from the competition currently in the day-to-day place? There's a couple places that there's two places: i'm incredibly passionate about: uh, linkedin and tick-tock, and here's why, over the last 15 years, just playing in these spaces, these platforms go through very similar trajectories, where you have this early group on them. If it's destined to become a bigger platform, and it's just good old-fashioned supply and demand a very simple principle, there's more demand on them. There's more people consuming content on them than people are creating from a content, standpoint right, and so what happens is early movers, especially if they're able to provide value, whether that is information escapism. You know, entertainment is obviously major on these platforms, but there's i always tell people there's always a place for expertise, uh, understanding of a topic domain, knowledge, and so the reason i like tick-tock and linkedin for this crew.

Is it's a biz dev portal right on tick-tock? You have an incredible environment of independent creators who are making a real living at this point through brand deals for selling merchandise and as they mature their website, their web presence really matters, and especially when you get into uh accessories and merchandising and so putting out content That is contextually native, which doesn't mean you have to dance and create the web developer. Jiggle, it's more about putting out content that you actually feel brings value and then maybe doing some subtle editing within the app and then obviously on linkedin. You know linkedin has been an incredibly interesting one. For me, it was for almost a decade a utility right.

It was a place where people really used it for getting jobs, resumes all that kind of reality. We all know recruiting over the last half decade. Maybe a little bit more, it has emerged as a meaningful. You know content hub and there's an incredible amount of consumption on it and enormous amounts of b to b decision making happens in it and again, content creation is about.

Um is about self-awareness. As a matter of fact, this is great to have seth here today, seth is one of my favorite people to read. He has an incredible skill set to be able to write and make you consume it and enjoy it. That is, that was not my destiny.

You know i i don't have that skill. My my comfort zone was one video you know, and, and that was a comfort zone for me. What's amazing about linkedin is whether it's the written word, whether it's video or an emerging thing that i'm seeing from people is they have the gift of gab they like to do the talking, but for some unfortunate reason they have a level of insecurity of being on Video, which you know comes in many shapes and sizes and um. I think that uh, the recording of an audio clip and then posting it in a linkedin environment is an opportunity for many.

Even when you get a random great thought or an observation of things that people should be thinking about so linkedin and tick tock have the organic reach to allow everybody who's watching here, who doesn't have any audience that a meaningful piece of content that was destined to Get a little awareness becomes a biz dev portal. Those are two places i would focus the most on the supply and demand of attention. Okay thanks gary, i mean i do like the idea of a web creator jig, but i hear what you're saying that we don't need to go. We don't need to go that route.

I'm sorry! That's a very important point. I i think people are intimidated by tick. Tock in a lot of ways, which is why i say that on the flip side, god willing the web creator jig could ridiculously for that's. What's so ridiculous about tick-tock.

That makes no sense that wouldn't be my betting horse. And yet, if somebody said to me that was destined to hit i'd, be like yeah, that's just the way that platform works, and so i think not being in no culture is very important for content creation and i think that's something everyone here should think about. Okay, that's definitely a good one, good piece of advice there and i i really love this question, because i think it's something that we talk a lot about a lot at elementor. Okay, so i'm going to read out client, behavior and consumer behavior can be very different.

How do you navigate the divide between the two brilliant question? It's a great question and it completely affirms what i tried to start. This talk with right. This is why i think you know the that whole. I genuinely believe this statement.

Whoever is closest to the consumer, wins it's just so darn obvious in many ways and and in our b2b to see realities for all of us. It's also true, it has been. You know i came into advertising, especially madison. Envy with such blind eyes genuinely knew nothing and what what guided us and gave us an incredible start was we were just blindly consumer-centric.

This is what's happening with the customer. This is what's happening with the customer. We also had an appetite and a willingness to not win the client, and so a lot of you know obviously, as vayner's gone to where it's gone, i've had a lot of people who've reached out. I love jamming with people in my own industry trying to help, and i i speak to that and i and the thing that i'm worried about that question.

Is we love to blame the client? We love it, but the reality is that bad behavior or that behavior is completely predicated based on the line in the sand that we're all willing to draw right, and so i highly recommend dying on your own sword. I love when we don't win a pitch when we said the truth, because it comes around three years later, five years later, so this was why i spent a lot of time. You know, i don't know. If you can see this.

I got a little bit of goosebumps. I'm really happy right now, because i really wanted to think. Like you know, you don't have a lot of time. You want to bring value, i'm obsessed with that more and more every day.

I genuinely believe that every hour this audience spends on trying to truly understand what customers are doing, pays unbelievable dividends throughout their organization and, ultimately, in this exact question, which i think is the elephant in a room for so many uh. It will give you the conviction and the confidence to draw that line. You'll start to get intoxicated when you you're going to lose. Let me give you a news alert because i live it: you're going to lose 8 out of 10 because of it, because a lot of people on the other side want to go with the easy and the historical.

When you win the two, you win them on your terms. You do better work, it feels better and it builds momentum and that's that's what i dream for a lot of people in this call awesome thanks for that, and we actually have a live question coming in. So i'm going to activate the video. If i can um it's it's, it's it's live, so we're going to carry on with some more questions, no worries i'm going to i'm gon na keep reading um all right.

So our next question is um. Oh i'm ha. I hear that we do have the live questions i'm excited for this one, so, ah, what an honor seth? How are you it's good to see you, man and i've just been i've, just been sponging up everything you've been putting down. Thank you.

This is one of the great moments of web history right here on the screen, and here we are back again um. So you just answered my last question, but the next one i have for you is this: you are really clearly continually living on the frontier and dancing with the future, but you've been at this ever since the wine store in new jersey and the question i'm going To ask on behalf of web creators is, what's the one thing, not the next big thing, but the old and still raining big thing that they don't get yet. Just let us know that's a great question. Thank you.

So, first of all, it's just really good to see you, i hope, you're well, i would like to go for a walk yeah, let's i'll i'll text you out there. Thank you so much! It's so nice to see you um that that the mix of math and intuition is a very important relationship. I think the thing that is allowed - you know you don't know what that feels like and i think i've i i hope i've made it clear every time. We've interacted my incredible admiration for you, for you to say continue.

It means the world to me, because i admire you and i think what what the old thing, which is the new thing, it's always the same game, which is there's a level of intuition, there's so much pattern recognition i had, even by the time i got into Liquor store, you know, you say since the wine store so much of my lemonade sports card shoveling snow. As i get older a little more wiser, you start realizing oh wow. Even that was the pattern, recognition that helped me. You know with the wine stuff so quickly, which then i built on it's it's having the humility and the conviction in balance the gray and the black and white the math, because because if it was one or the other it it just, you know that's what, where We see failure, you see too many people using data as a look back, which is why they don't see the next thing, which is why enormous companies fail right, uh and then you have other people that are a little bit too off the reservation on it's all.

Like they completely don't have you know they have these incredible, intuitive feelings, but they're not willing to look at truth in their face and take a a back step, and so especially for these web creators. You know i i was very taken aback by so many. I met so many smart friends who had web shops who just genuinely dismissed this set. You know these were my first rodeos, so i hadn't been around smart people who were blindly blindly pushing against something that was so obvious because they either were tired and didn't want to.

I have a lot of empathy for it. They were tired and they want to learn a new craft. They there was a million, they were making too much money and they didn't want the thing to change. You know i always tell people, i don't want tick tock to happen.

I've got instagram figured out. I don't want instagram to happen. I had twitter figured out like you know, i don't have this great want for these new things to happen. They become work every time, but but i, but i know that, there's no shot for me to be successful in what i do without it.

So i would say the relationship between intuition and math and not over indexing, one or the other, and and if it doesn't come natural one or the other surrounding yourself with teammates. That is just a tried and true old thing. Thank you, sir. Keep leaving.

Thank you. Thank you, my friend we'll talk to you, okay. That was a huge treat for us gary. I hope if you okay, you're down with the surprise and says, thank you so much and we'll see you a bit later: um, okay, so i'll move on to the next question.

For you, gary another great one done or perfect is, is always done better than perfect and is always perfect done. The people out there are curious about what you think perfect is an insecurity now in web development. It has to work right, but i find that people that are in love with perfection are using it as an excuse to not be judged uh to procrastinate to to create leverage that they're perfectionists around the others to give them control. So i'm a big fan of dunn big fan.

Okay, i really really really love that answer. I feel, like you were speaking directly to me, so i'm sure it's resonating with other people as well. Um next question: what's the most important post-covered trend, apps social media? What do you think? What's what's the most important trend, the macro trend is eliminating friction right. You have a lot of people in their 40s to 80s that got accustomed to less friction right.

They they know what people, let's say under 40, have natively been comfortable with, and those are arbitrary numbers, i'm 45 and i'm very in this, but like um. So i think the trend is eliminating friction so, whether that's last mile delivery, whether it's a million other things. I couldn't push people enough to in their web development, create experiences that eliminate friction like nobody wants a big banner pop-up to sign up for the email, even though it converts well. But how can you do it better because it eliminates a little friction? People that can advance things uh to eliminate friction will be the big winner.

So lack of friction is a huge consumer want, it's always been, and it's been accelerated with covet, because people got into convenience, uh realities in their day-to-day okay, love it and next question: what is the best way to get leads when you have a low budget for Marketing we're really all all over today loads of different directions. For you, linkedin linkedin, organic content. It's you will i'm telling you everyone, you will be blown away, you could have no followers, you cannot even have a linkedin account and you can create one post. Your first post of three uh uh, let me give you a good one, you're in the mood you're, a good you're, a good writer 21 things to think about in 2021.

When designing your website. That's where you title it. You write it you'd, be shocked. How many leads come from things like that, but you got to stay with it.

It's like working out. The first exercise is not going to get it done, keep chipping away at it. Okay, i think this is a great follow-up kind of because it's this next question says when you first started vaynermedia. How did you go about signing up your first clients without a portfolio from what i understand? They were quite big accounts too.

They were. I had a little bit of an advantage because i did what i'm telling everybody here to do. I was creating twitter content, a lot of it and had built up a little bit of a notoriety for being right or being ahead of things and that led to you, know, campbell's and and pepsi to to consider us to give us a shot and so um. The nhl, so it was, it was my content that led to relationships that led to business, and i believe everybody here can do it too, and linkedin and tick.

Tock are incredibly organic places right now and one needs to be figuring that out. Okay, great and next question three recommendations to better understand the consumer. Uh listen, listen, listen and let me let me explain by that discords reddit, twitter, instagram, explore uh. Those four places are incredible: join discords, join reddit, join use, hashtags and look at trending topics use the explore page, spend your time in communities to extract consumer insights, read, read and contribute join facebook groups.

I think facebook groups are very sneaky and good local ones. Subject matter ones: aka if you're a web developer in mexico city join the mexico city entrepreneur, facebook group subject matters you know, join small business group. Small business is always need your work, so that kind of stuff - okay, great - and this is a good one - also because you - you have talked a lot about linkedin twitter, social media. So where do you see the role of websites in the world of social media? Well, they're still incredibly important.

I think social media's job a lot of times is to get people to websites um and i think websites carry incredible amount of weight. I do think with social media a lot of people use web social media sites to do what their website used to do for them. So there has been some fragmentation, but i could never imagine not having websites for anything i'm doing as of right now and when that becomes a day, then i'll adjust. But i think websites matter tremendously.

I don't i don't. I see a lot of influencers who have 20 30 40 million followers and have a very shitty website or don't even have one and it baffles me. It's a huge missed opportunity to collect opportunity and um, and that's why i like tick tock for a lot of people here. I think they could go viral as a web developer on tick tock, which would then lead to people dming them and asking them to build their websites for them.

Okay, cool, i think, coming from someone like you, we're all feeling a bit calmer now that websites are here today, um. So next question: how do you recruit team members we're at scale now we're almost 1500 people? So there's a lot of word of mouth. We've also built a big reputation um, but in the beginning - and this was why i keep pushing everybody here - to create content. It's about creating content, because when you do a nice post on linkedin, that's smart people are going to go to your linkedin profile, they're, going to click your website, you're, going to have a hiring link on your website and people are going to fill out that form Content is the it's the hunter.

Your website is the farmer. We need to bring them there so put out good content on linkedin by the way jab jab jab right hook. One of my most successful you know hooks put out content put out content, put out content for them, 21 things to think about five good rules: how to navigate ios 14, just good thinking the things all of you know, but then maybe the tenth post on linkedin Is i'm hiring somebody hi everybody, i'm hiring somebody and boom. It just sends it that way.

So you know, i think, think about that stuff cool. So this is a great question. We have a 16 year old watching and they want some tips for how they start a business. You just did you know, what's amazing about it, is you don't have to overthink it? You have to decide what you're selling are you good at selling it meaning? Are you good at excuse me? Are you good at delivering it? Are you proud of what you're selling if it's web development, that's amazing um? If it's nft art, that's amazing and then you've got to go out and build awareness through content content? Is commercials commercials built coca-cola and mcdonald's and they'll build you too uh.

You just have to be self-aware and put out more content than you think, because those are your at-bats and that's how i see it: okay, cool so we're in a we're in a content space. So the next question is: can you talk about the right blend of entertainment versus educational content? I think that's very much uh person-to-person thing. I think you need to be who you are so if you're inherently, you know, i think for me. I blend my personality into my information content, which i think is why it works.

I think that um for a lot of people, they think there's a right answer and there's not it could be 88 12. It could be 50 50. It could be 12 88 lean into what you are, because all of it works awesome so next question any tips for getting through the hardest part of your business. The grind for me: it's hard to answer this question because i enjoy the grind, because i, like i like it like i for me running.

A business is like playing golf or sailing or rock climbing for a lot of people. Those are their favorite hobbies and they like the hard part just as much as the accomplishment. That's how i see business, i see it as a as a hobby and so for me. I love my process for everybody who's.

Thinking about this. You got to ask yourself: how much do you love it? Are you doing it for the money or are you doing it because you can't help it you just like it so much, and i think that's where you start figuring out the grind part. I also think just putting things in perspective. I think that people value money too much value, um business.

Success too much. I think, if you put business in its place and realize that it's important, but not the most important thing in the world, that the health of who you love, is, if you can put it into an actual perspective, i think that really helps yep. I have to agree with you that perspective is everything, and so i guess maybe this one - you don't have an answer for, but what was the moment that almost had you quit and how did you get over that hump i've never had that moment. You know i don't want to make up stories.

I just haven't um, it's just uh, which i'm very fortunate i've. I've had challenges in the micro. What i would maybe micro quitting right, um and i've handled them two ways. Sometimes i've got.

I have stopped. Sometimes i've shut down companies, divisions and - and i don't judge myself - i'm i'm trying the best i can, and sometimes i fail and i'm okay with that other times. I just liked it so much that i persevered through those challenging days and found myself on the other side of it feeling very accomplished that i got thrilled great and how can a freelance designer close high tickets, i'm having problems closing deals. The first calls go incredibly well, but once the price goes out, i'm having trouble closing the deals to me.

I'm a big fan of more at bats right create focus more on getting more of the meetings like have. You had eight first amazing meetings and then went. Oh for eight well, then get 52 opening meetings, uh humility! I think some people i like to ebb and flow with my fees, whether that's speaking vaynermedia. You know if you're a little cold and you're not having success.

You lower the price. If you start building back up, you raise the price um more more first meetings and having humility to lower the price for a period of time when you're in a cold streak. Okay, great um, all right! The next question gary. How do you see the future of web is no coding gon na take down the coding? I'm not sure you know, i don't i don't like answering things.

I don't fully know. I think that um, i have a tough time, believe that no coding is so omni and and and so at scale, that it affects the majority of people that are on here right now. So i i do think coding on top of decentralized servers, is something a lot of people should be thinking about. I am bullish on web3, so that's that's what i'm seeing great? How can i keep my social media content, hot and interesting, there's just so much out there by not worrying about that.

You know you can't worry about competition. In that scenario, the the most simple way to win that game is to continue to challenge yourself to be authentically you and show all parts of you. You know i show that i'm a jets fan. I talk about liking, bone broth.

I i talk about wine. I talk about many things, and so i think too many people are too limited. Yes, you're a web developer, but you're a million other things, and maybe it is your deep passion of fishing and your knowledge about fishing and your fishing content that actually leads to more web contracts than even your web. Uh developer content, and i think too many people.

Don't show enough sides of themselves. Okay, i think this is probably going to feed into the next question, which is for a new web design and digital agency. How would you suggest to compete and stand out against companies that have 15 plus years experience and always seem to be one step ahead? Content on linkedin about things you're, seeing put out your best information for free, like i do, which attracts intrigue and then have as many first meetings as possible and, like the freelancer, have the humility to price accordingly to the reality of your situation, i was a very Accomplished businessman when i started vaynermedia and i was selling my services for nothing, i was getting paid more to give a speech for an hour than i was getting paid to work on an account per month, and i was okay with that, because i had the humility And patience to build the company awesome, those are definitely themes that we hear coming from you a lot, which is great consistency. You said it earlier um.

What are the most common mistakes? One could make in a startup what are ways to avoid them spending more money than you have. I find people very funny with their monies uh early on and again back to consistency being fancy when you're in the beginning as a startup. You need to just get to the next day and a little more humility, around pricing and servicing is required, while not compromising what you're about and what you believe in. Okay, all right! Well, we're coming up to time.

So i think we have time for one more question which i'm going to ask now and how do you discover new consumers trends? How do you avoid a sunk cost fallacy um? I just listen. We said it earlier. I spend all my time looking at what the consumers are actually doing on these social platforms. Reading reading reading, i'm in the i do you know such a loud mouth, but the reality is i'm listening so much more than i'm talking.

You just see the videos where i'm talking, after all, the listening so just spending a lot more time in these communities and and observing people's beliefs. Awesome i'm kind of blown away thanks so much gary for being with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody.

I hope you enjoy seth, as, as i know, you will and we'll talk soon bye. Everyone bye gary thanks, so much youtube. What's up it's garyvee! First of all, thank you so much. I hope, you're doing super well during these times.

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