We're babies in the business industry. We're babies in content just starting to try. We got like 250 followers on Instagram but we better than zero. Better than zero Exactly.

So we're starting to throw it. I Would just ask maybe what would be some advice that you have For someone who's just starting off, you need to start googling and youtubing and podcasting and educate yourself on something I Call sock Strategic organic content not just posting happy Wednesday and hoping it works like why are you posting I need you to understand the thumbnail the first 3 seconds, what time you po post how many words which platform what's going on in LinkedIn carousels that's different than Facebook carousels Facebook reals What are broadcast channels. My social media strategy is not the following: Attention is the number one asset. Super excited to be here.

um look anytime I'm in Jersey uh it always feels like home I uh I was born in the Soviet Union uh but came to America when I was three and and uh and first lived in Queens but a couple years in we moved to do I lived there for a year and then uh and then I moved to Edison New Jersey in 1982 and that's really where my life began my entrepreneurial career. My football fandom. uh I really wish Eric Godfrey who was the kid I met outside throwing a football said to me that he was a Giants fan cuz I'd have four Super Bowls Unfortunately, he said he was a Jets fan I have none. um but uh um look it's really exciting to be here.

I mean I think it. you know when I do something like this I think about how do I bring the most value and so I'd love to do a ton of Q&A um because I think that's how I can bring the most value to this audience I think that before I get into that just to do some kickoff remarks and things of that nature. I Really do think the world of business and really life at some level because I Ironically, what I'm about to talk about I think really bleeds into P parenting and other things I Think the world is very very much in a place where the two C's have my attention which is culture uh and content You know. So how many people here are business owners raise your hands? Um I know some of you I recognize some faces.

um, you know. I I Don't think most business owners really actually walk the walk on company culture and I'm empathetic like if you go out of business, there is no company. So I get the concept of having to make tough decisions and firing people or you know, being stressed. but I I Really believe that for the far majority of the people that just rais their hand who own businesses, if you over index both on giving a about your employees like actually you know which also means like telling something I struggled with most of my career telling them the truth when they're not performing instead of just firing them randomly at a left field.

Um, if you really focus on culture and understand that retention of your employees always grows your business, there's a lot of costs involved in retraining someone I Know you know that as a matter of fact, a lot of you know it so well that you're actually holding on to some people that do need to go cuz you know how hard it is to retrain what that person knows for seven years, so it's a fine balance. But then the thing that clearly led to me being able to sit in front of all of you here today? content, you know? obvious I built a very large liquor store in Springfield New Jersey for my dad with Wine Library that hopefully some of you have driven by or even stopped into. and at first it was because I was just good at retail in the same way that I was good at selling OJ's rookie cards at a baseball card show Once I learned cuz I knew Sports once I learned wine I was good at selling all of you wine and I thought I was a Salesman as I got older and I started working my dad's store when I was 14 years old stocking shelves every vacation, every weekend, every summer day and so by the time I was 22 and running the store full-time I was an OG I had eight years of real work not like the way kids work today and so I thought as myself as a Salesman but in hindsight as I get to sit here today and I'm like what can I say that will make them do something that will make it good for them. The two things I bet on in my career and everything I've built is innovation and content.

So innovation is me launching a website in 1997 for my dad's one store liquor store in Springfield Mberg people literally told my dad that like I was going to ruin his business, not because they were mad at me because they loved my dad. they they saw him go from a stock boy who couldn't speak English to owning this store and they've known him for 20 years and here I was coming along and spending $10,000 which was a lot of money for a small business. In 1997 to build a website everybody told me kid, you don't get it, this is the liquor business. Nobody's going to buy wine on the internet For the youngsters in here, there's plenty of Ogs and Grays hairs in here so you'll get it.

But for the youngsters in here, a lot of people thought the internet was a fat, a lot of people and so people were like open a second liquor store not this internet thing. and then instead of doing cataloges or running full page ads in the Star Ledger which I did. but instead of that I started to send emails in 1997 with wine offering. it wasn't I wasn't a rocket scientist cataloges and the Star Ledger were expensive.

Email was free but in 1997 9899, 2000 and all of you will remember this if you live through that era. we were reading like every email we weren't getting spammed like we are. Now how many people here have done email marketing close enough to like know it a little bit in your careers? Raise your hand perfect. In 1998 I had 100,000 people on an email newsletter with 87% open rates.

Now if you're at 30% you're a genius. but that was because it was new. but it wasn't too new that it wasn't real. The Metaverse is coming.

It's real that's going to impact your business. Events are going to be in a Metaverse. That will happen but 18 years from today and so you get to decide like how much that matters to you. What are your ambitions retired? So you're like that? I Don't care.

but but for a lot of youngsters in here, like if you know that's going to change the game people back to work from home. Trust me. I have 2,000 Global employees I don't think anyone's working uh you know, um but like man, work from home like Jesus like the advancements of the Metaverse we are going to like. Think about what Zoom meetings feel like now all of us know that you can.

you can be productive. We taught us ourselves that during Co when we go into the Metaverse and you're getting the things that you lose in Zoom Like really, when it's there in 15 years and it actually feels like you're in the room you know, not like a video game, but like actually like that will change the way we work. So I've always believed in Innovation The thing is I don't want to get too far ahead of it. So for instance I recently helped my dad's uh, liquor store I innovated a luckily six months before Covid and I created something called Winetext.com for him.

You get a text every day like old group on some crazy deal like yesterday was a $130 Napa Valley Cab for 40 bucks because we look at 10,000 wines a year to find 365 good ones. We're getting crazy deals but it's better. It's like old email when you get a text and all you have to do is reply with how many bottles you want and it's sent to your home. That's good shopping, eliminating friction, making it more convenient.

Every single business in here if they make it more convenient for someone to buy, will grow their business. We spend money on time all the time. There are people here who've ordered a $5 Burger on Postmates but it cost you $29 to get it delivered. but the time was worth it for you at this point in your life.

Time is always a value play. So Innovation especially when it gives back the cons. Consumer time when everybody was making fun of me in ' 9798 99 that nobody would buy I Remember one guy very successful guy was pushing me hard trying to prove his point and he ended with like Gary how many people do you really think in 10 years are going to buy wine on the internet and my answer was everyone and not that I believed everyone but I believed a lot and I think many people here know that if you really take yourself back to what you thought you would do versus what you're actually doing, technology always wins. There's plenty of people here who did not want to get an iPhone because they love their Blackberry cuz they could touch the buttons.

Nobody here is rocking a blackberry and so one thing to always think about is innovation, but not so far out that it's not practical. This is not the time to go all in and bet your company on the metaverse. but keep a little eye on it because could be wrong. About 12 years Apple or Facebook or Netflix or BMW or Google could launch something tomorrow and everything speeds up this phone.

the iPhone was invented and everything changed the next day, right? If you think about the biggest companies in the world the Facebooks and the Ubers and right, they don't exist if there wasn't a platform called the mobile device that has the internet on it, so that's Innovation Content is probably the thing that I most want to leave here. Inspiring people here to do. Whether you're a lawyer, an accountant in the service business, if you're a VP of sales, if you don't even have your own business, I know as I look at all these faces that everybody including myself, someone who puts out 50 pieces of content a day across YouTube Facebook Instagram Snapchat Tik Tok LinkedIn Every person in this room right now, including me, does not post enough on social media if they want to grow their business and I know most of you don't post at all. And so there is this shocking reality right now in the world where people continue to disrespect social media as a driver to what they want.

Whether that is growing your business, whether that is running for local office, whether that is raising money for your local charity or something you care about, the attention of the world is my currency. It's the only thing I care about. You can't get anything done unless you have somebody's attention since I was seven on tingly Lane in Edison New Jersey and would walk that street to figure out where I should put my lemonade sign to get more people to buy my lemonade to sitting today and looking at everything that's happening on streaming services and social networks for the last 40 years all I've paid attention to is where's the attention? Whether that's Direct Mail Star Ledger New York Times Google Facebook Tik Tok Influencers, athletes, Sport. Where's the attention? Everybody here needs to make a much bigger commitment to understanding where the attention is not where your attention is.

If I hear one more business owner or executive say, well, Gary I don't use Tik Tok I Go No. Don But your customer does. Making decisions for your business based on your personal opinion of what people should be doing with their time is one of the stupidest business strategies of all time. You should be 100% agnostic on where you spend your time and money.

You should care where your customers are not where you think they should be. That is a massive mistake. I See every day. so look I think I Think the world continues to evolved I Don't have to tell everybody in this room there's a lot going on.

Yesterday was the election. It means the 20 24 election season has begun, right? So it's going to be plenty of feelings and all sorts of stuff going on and it is all playing out on your phone. The phone has become the television and the television has become the radio. Got it? Joe That's what's happened.

If you want a history lesson, go look what happened in the 50s and 60s in America How all the biggest businesses in the world lost market share and how all the current businesses that are the biggest businesses in the world right now started to grow and and the one variable was the following: Some people held on to running ads on radio and others jumped into television. Do you know that Amazon was the biggest spender on Google AdWords the first 5 years of Google AdWords by a 10x multiplier. There's a direct reason why Amazon's one of the biggest companies in the world. They understood where to spend the money on the underpriced attention.

So that's kind of where I want to lead the Q&A to like really help you one by one. Are you guys gonna run mics for Q&A yeah I think we have. we do. look I I'll jump on culture while I get the team set up for mics but thank you, it's not going to work, it's always crasp me.

um what? I What? I The other thing I want to talk about is culture real quick I Just want to make this point because I think a lot of people in this room might be struggling with this I I Genuinely do not believe Gen Z is lazy I I I Really don't I think that a lot lot of us are spending too much time demonizing the upand cominging generation about being lazy and entitled I Just need you to hear this for me of look I Know unlimited people that are lazy in the Boomer and Gen X and Millennial set too and entitled. It's not that they're lazy and entitled, it's that they have options. They don't want to work for you for $18 an hour doing dumb when they can just post silly videos on Tik Tok and make $38 an hour. So I'm saying this because I want to leave here with y'all winning after I leave Some of you might be I need to actually be nicer to my employees.

Real talk Some of you it might be. yeah, it's 2024 and everything that's happening in the world is based on social media content. It might be a good idea for me to finally take this serious for business. For some of you, it might be.

You stop complaining about these kids don't want to work and realize why. It's because they have options. The average 18-year-old kid knows that they can make $50,000 a year on the internet for them pretty easily and so we have to understand that we have to adjust. and once you understand that truth and don't just spend your time dwelling or shooting the with your other person that's mad about it and you start attacking of what you're going to do about it.

to grow your business, you become accountable to truth instead of trading on ideology. So those are the themes. That's what I'd love to talk about. I'm really appreciative of everybody being here, so thank you for having me now.

I Know there's a lot of people here that I've you know interacted with in the past or know my stuff or have just met me like I I'm here to I'm here to bring value so be selfish on this. Q&A ask me whatever you want, make it very narrow. it doesn't have to touch on anything I Just talked about I'm here for overall business Q&A So who wants should I wait for a mic? Yeah, let's wait for the mics so everybody can hear the questions. what's your name brother? Uh, my name is Kevin Kevin um I work for a Pharma company? Um and we kind of developed a unique uh concept of merging Pharma with franchising.

Yep, Um, it's one of a kind. Nobody's doing that in the US Um, However, there is still the opportunity. As you just mentioned about attention, where is being attention? It's the Internet It's the digital world. So in your sense you are the franchise or and you have a and you're looking for franchises.

Okay, keep going. So the idea is that we still have a lot of people, lot of business owners, and CEO who have that old scho mentality where they don't want to spend too much time and money on the internet and digital scen. Uh, how do you still like? try to convince them or I guess Coe and Cote scare them into thinking that hey, if you don't spend the money there, you're not going to get the customers. And even without doing that, we've been able to do it because I had a marketing and business development for it.

Uh, However, I I do feel like just you said like attention is right there. the customers right there. but we are not spending too much time and money in your model. you're getting a certain percentage from them for marketing.

Do they have to kick you three like most franchise Or do the franchisees have to give you 3 to 5% for your marketing budget? So we we try to keep it simple where anything you sell you get 40% of business. Uh, just again because the fact that whole business of look I got it. look I and listen I run a agency and I'm going to give you my best piece of advice on this and it's a challenging piece of advice in the seat that you're sitting. But I think when we talk it through for a minute here, you'll understand why cuz you cuz you're going to know it's true my friends.

The number one issue in the world Politics, religion, uh business is everyone's in the business of convincing. Everyone's spending all their time trying to convince everyone else to see it the way they see it. whatever it is. So to your point you're trying to convince these franch es to do the right thing to grow their business.

The problem is it is very hard to convince so in our organization and everything I Do for a living as a businessman I say don't convince have conviction So instead of spending even one minute trying to convince someone that you already know the second you start talking to them you know you're like this isn't happening. Spend all your time on you marketing what you control to create the case studies for them. I've I've innovated my whole career when I sell new stuff I do that all the time I don't even spend a s another minute with 98% of the people I talk to or Market to because I know there is no convincing I just look for the 2% that understand what the hell I'm talking about build and then let the C Everybody made fun of me about the internet until they didn't Everybody made fun of me for doing a wine show on YouTube in 20 06 here in Jersey until they did it. Everybody made fun of me for taking my life savings and investing in a company called the Facebook Twitter and Tumblr until they didn't They laugh at you and then your competitors cry and so I think you have to be in the conviction business I Don't think you will convince them I Think you have to do good marketing, Show them the Raz the ROI the CAC the LTB of the marketing you do and then just keep feeding them the information of like you're leaving money on the table and the case studies will always do the work better than you just talking it.

Thanks man! Big of thank you brother yeah let's clap it up for him. Solid question. who's got the mic? yeah let's double up the mics. good idea.

oh hi s what's your name? Hi everyone um my name is Ly and I um actually I just completed seven years of business on Saturday I have a production company events agency where we specialize in food and music festivals and we just started a friend over here from Atlanta we just started going into Atlanta Love it um I saw you at the event expoo the 92nd 2019 Oh in 19 I did it the other day on the 92nd 92nd Street Why yeah iing no right respect and uh so at that talk you were spending time you got a lot of conviction about Tik Tok yes and 2019 everyone it was. it just you know wasn't musically anymore and it was still. you know the dances and the lip sinking and no one took it seriously and you had said something that really stuck out which was be where the young kids are, where the twin are because then eventually their older siblings get on. That parents get on.

Facebook was for college kids. now it's for grandmas. These things age up. it's how they work.

Go ahead. So I took that and that day I downloaded Tik Tok and I started messing around with it and it's very adding as many of us probably know now and I kind of just understood the language of it which is another thing we talk about. the language of the platform. slang matters yep and just or even just the way to communicate authenticity of it.

And then the pandemic H and I had already been established on Tik Tok at that point with my business and we do food festivals, you make fun content. I'm promoting local restaurants so that when I'm doing something with food, you already trust me. Yep and now my business has really grown. We have I mean 65,000 compared people is a lot but for a festival lot for a Bea be event business 65,000 is INS Tik and then Tik Tok ads came out yes and I found that it wasn't wasn't killing it on Tik Tok ads and I don't know if I don't necessarily understand the ads or the algorith was weird and then this year Instagram actually started being like Instagram reals started being more lucrative for me and also you need put $10 a day and it's just going crazy.

So now my Instagram is doing really well. we have 35,000 I have one specifically for our Atlanta events that went is even higher than my jersey and I've been doing Jersey for seven years and so I'm wondering my question G With all that being said is, where do you think the next platform is and do you think Tik Tok advertising is up? They figured it out. Couple things there. so every one of these platforms so I Love when people like Gary like inevitably one of you may email me or send me a message after this talk and be like hey, heard you but like I did Tik Tok for 6 months and it didn't work and I'm like cool I played football in my backyard.

It didn't work out the same way it did for OJ Like the ROI of a basketball for LeBron James is going to end up being billion ions of dollars for me, like negative 20,000 I have two torn meniscuses so to your point, you figured out organic Tik Tok and you were good at it. To your credit, Tik Tok ads are not as strong converters as Instagram and Facebook Cuz Meta has been around for 15 years and has refined it. Do I believe that Tik Tok ads work? Yes. Do I believe that's reserved currently for the best 1% of operators on it? Yes, Even us who are the crew like it es and flows as we refine our capability on it.

And the platform does. Instagram ads work. Remarkable because Meta's data on their consumer is bananas. Tik Tok's algorithm is addicting because it gives you what you want to look at, but it doesn't understand you as well.

It understands what you like, but Facebook like really knows what you buy. like got it So like you could like some. You could love the Jets or the Giants but you might not be someone who buys football jerseys whereas someone else might like it half as much but buys 10 a year. Facebook's better at understanding that than Tik Tok Hence why converting is different, right? But that abs and flows and Tik Tok will get there.

Um, as far as the next one, the reason I have a good reputation is I Don't guess when I told you at that event in 2019 that Tik Tok was next is because it was Tik Tok was already a it I'm good at knowing what is it when the world has hasn't figured it out yet. I'm just a little faster. It's like sports people would not. people that don't really understand Sports even like a good fan doesn't understand.

Just a little more speed can change everything. That's why they run in Indianapolis at the combine those point to might actually matter, especially when it's later on the game or this that and the other thing. So same with what I do for a living I Don't need to predict anything. I'm just spending every day watching everything and when it's time when I know it crossed over over, it's not a fat, it's not be real or peach or you know Vine was on its way.

Vine was the app that really was the precursor to everything we're seeing now, but it got bought by Twitter so it never got to go like I'm watching everything but the second I know I get I'm I'm very intellectually generous the second I know it's there I tell the world because nobody's going to. It's not like some weird secret that you're going to take. for me, there's so much for all of us. Even today, the people that are sitting here which is I know the majority that have not gone all in on content on social networks.

They may be sitting here feeling like it's too late. What's cool about social media marketing is it's a game of better. not a game of first I need a lot of you to hear that because I feel a lot of you are not jumping in because like I missed that train. it's a game of better.

It's a game of better like I was on I was doing Tik Tok and musically four years before you heard me say that you know and you jumped in and did just fine. So I don't know what's next but I spend 24 hours a day paying attention to make sure I do know what's next. What's your take on? what's your name my friend? uh Samuel Samuel Nice to meet you, Nice to meet you. what's your take on AI and how that could tie into uh, Nfts.

and if Nfts is really still something after, uh, the crypto? Yeah, so there's a lot there. So couple things. let's jump on the second part. First, Nfts, the way all of you know them, if you know them now, is highly speculative digital.

Collectibles Similar to the way internet stocks Back to why I Won the Internet A good thing happened to me. A I believed in it and then in 2000 April of 2000 all the internet stocks crashed and all the mainstream media said the internet's a fat. What they didn't understand was greed kicked in. People valued Pets.com and all these internet companies like a billion dollars on Wall Street before they were mature so they got lost in the micro, not the macro.

Beanie Babies are not worth a fortune, but do you know me, Squish Mellow sold last year. Stuffed animals are good. Got it, People Don't get it. it's Macro Micro Nfts.

First of all, Nfts are much broader than just digital Collectibles and art. Everybody's contracts in the next decade will be an Nft, a non-f fungible token sitting on the blockchain cuz it will be verified and non- manipulatable. And it's better to have your house deed there or your car insurance or your license like everything will be on the blockchain. It's actually going to become a profoundly big conversation: How many people here by show of hands don't raise your hand if you don't know I actually want to get a sense How many people in this room know what a deep fake video is? Raise your hand great.

So about 30% so I'll go into that in a minute. but to give you the previous you, it's some crazy. The blockchain is going to be the solve for one of the biggest issues in the world which is deep fake videos. So anyway, where do I think Nfts are I think they're exactly where internet was in April of 2000.

Everyone here is like ah, that was a fad. It was a scam. It was garbage. It's one of the biggest Technologies in the world.

Two years ago everyone got too caught up in the collectible part. and just like sneakers and just like trading cards and just like art, the best 1% of digital Collectibles will be something worth collecting and 99% won't but people don't understand that. They just look at the macro right. Stif bears from Germany from the 30s and 40s are very expensive.

Stuffed animals beanie babies aren't so Nfts are macro. what vs VF series 1 Nfts If I do the right thing over the next 40 years and we build a Marvel Pokemon Sesame Street Just like like people want to buy the first comic book of Batman or the rookie card of Michael Jordan people will want it cuz the world's going digital, we're not going back. Ai Ai is one of the biggest technology that have ever been invented in the history of mankind. It's not taking your job and AI robots are not killing your children yet and so we're good.

But people are demonizing AI because we always demonize new technology ology. When the tractor trailer was invented, most of the Articles written in newspapers about it were negative cuz it was going to take people out of jobs cuz almost everybody worked on farms. What it did was it gave us more time to do bigger jobs. AI is going to advance everyone's life here let alone business.

Just like a search engine is better than going to the dictionary or the Yellow Pages like there's a how many people here in their life went to the Yellow Pages to look up something. Raise your hand. Everybody who just raised their hand do we agree. it's better to look it up on our phone.

That's AI Right now we're emotional about it job cuz fear, we don't know it. What does it mean to me? But AI is going to advance and do things for us. You know how nice it's going to be to walk into your home, say hey Alexa I Have four buddies coming over one's lactose intolerant. two really like spicy food, my one friend really loves like sour beer.

One of one of us is really about seafood. Can you just order the best combo of meal at the lowest cost and send it to my home? That's how you're going to order food in two years. That's a lot better than opening up. Seamless Looking at like and Seamless is a lot better than finding a menu in your drawer and calling the restaurant like think AI is going to make It is going to eliminate mundane things and make them faster so you have more time to spend with your family.

Think innovate. So I'm very excited about AI Do I believe there's some dangers of course I do like Of course there's things that will happen, but that's everything. When the knife was invented, danger came along with that. No, really.

like I I Don't think people use history to understand the future so that that's kind of how I see that I'm going to just jump on deep fake because I want all of you who didn't raise your hand which is the majority of this room I would like you to Google it when you get home. Deep fake videos are videos where the AI makes the person say things that they didn't say as a public figure. I Believe within the next 5 years there will be more videos of me on the internet where I'm saying derogatory things using slurs that are inappropriate, making opinions of future apps that I don't believe and that within 10 years and remember this is very powerful. Over the last 100 years the judge and the jury of our World has been video proof video.

not the Supreme Court not presidents, not religious leaders. video is the judge and Jury of our society. We have lived that way for 100 plus years. We are about to go into an era where it will be the opposite.

Every person in here in 10 years will not believe a single video they see on the Internet. Now what does that mean? It means that most people don't know what an Nft actually is. Most people don't know what blockchain is. Most people don't understand cryptocurrency.

The Internet is on servers I Think we all know that, but those servers are controlled by companies, people organizations. The blockchain is decentralized computers talking to each other. meaning nobody controls it. Nobody can touch it.

So when you put something on there and mint it like an Nft, I Can sell you a fake Michael Jordan Rookie card I Can sell you a fake pair of Jordans I Can sell you a fake piece of art. Nobody will ever sell a Nft that is fake cuz you can't manipulate it. I Believe that my content and every company in the world and every person in 10 years will first upload their video to the blockchain and then to the internet and that there will be a system that allows us to know if I actually uploaded it and at what time and when and that will become the checks and balances. I Believe the blockchain is about to become one of the most important Technologies in the world Today everyone's just griev and cryptocurrency and Clinton it's it's my just like by the way.

a lot of Jesus room. When the internet first came out, we were all taught that it was just information. The information Super Highway Instead of going to library, we'd go there. It's obviously evolved into a lot more and that's how we see that playing out blue blue hey Master nice to meet you brother likewise.

Hey so you've been talk talking a lot about digital. You know the the new Age. Why did you feel it was so important to uh to exhibit at a live of that cuz it's real life cuz it's real life. Yeah! because I think people want to go like or and I'm about and right people are like oh you got to be all digital I'm like we live in real life right? Um books when you in he's a five time New York man the amount of I have a new book coming out next year every time I promote it I'll Pro my birthday's next week.

think yeah next week I'll start promoting on my birthday saying it's coming out next year I will get 500 comments in Social being like yo digital boy why are you writing a book and and sometimes if I'm on in a mood long flight I'll jump in and reply to all of them and reply cuz people read them I'm not I'm not emotional about digital I Actually would be fine if there was no digital I Lived my whole life and grew up and went through high school without ever owning a the computer being on the internet I know what it tastes like I was cool I liked it. So the reason I believe in events is when I'm at ComicCon with this booth or when I'm at the national People are affected by it. People get to experience my characters. They get to take a selfie with all of them in the background because the real world exists.

My problem is most people in business are over emotional about either the old world or the digital world. I Don't give a I Just want to grow I Don't think I get to decide what most people don't realize is all of their opinions are based on their pocket. They don't want the digital world to keep growing because they're not comfortable with it and they're in the analog world. Most digital people don't understand the value of the real world cuz they're 100% digital and don't understand the real world.

I Think you need to understand both. Thank you Plus by the way brother I think they work together. Now the reason I Believe in event marketing. Crazy.

but I think if you're going to do an event, you need to film the whole thing and chop up all the content and post it in Social I'm doing events for the content for social my speaking career Dustin Where you at there he is like of course I want to build this relationship we're bis debing. but part of the factor of me saying yes to this cuz it's a lot more valuable for me to have just paid and not like right? Like my time is valuable I can make it work because he's filming this whole thing and one of my answers in the Q&A might be the clip that gets me 2 million views on LinkedIn and now it's worth it I speak publicly though I get a good handsome fee to speak I still predominantly speak publicly at this point in my life where my time has become very valuable for the content I I do podcasts predominantly to put on upand cominging podcasters cuz I know if I do it that will set them off and I want to give back to upand comers but also cuz I need the content. Bless you. so I think people should be doing more event marketing not because I'm trying to be nice to you guys because I actually believe it and I think but I think when they're building out their exhibits or their activation, they should be thinking about the post- production of the filming for their social.

So you're almost executing the entire concept and strategy of your experiential for the visual effects of what will work on these platforms. Your reverse engineering the content distribution not what you think will work as a sampling Booth You're like okay, wait a minute, why don't I put a big penguin here because or like you know, we've all seen it, These restaurants that make the restaurants built to look beautiful with all the rose pedals in the background so all the influencers take selfies in the back for exposure. You're actually making the real world built to entice people to create content to them, distribute to the world to build awareness. They're thinking about building an exhibit they should call Metro you said Metro You should definitely call Metro and if you you and when you call Metro if you use the code Gary ve it's 90% off Michael yes hi Gary how are you very well First and foremost, thank you for shaking my hand before before you.

I've been following me since my high college professor showed me here I Haven't turned back Thank you brother So I'm in the business man I had the business education I started my own DJing business uh so I do that as a passion project but on my normal 9 to5 I Just recently within the past 3 weeks went from a Salesman to inside sales manager company selling liquid level Gates and slight flow indicators. um for liquid application, seeing things through pipes or levels on a boiler right? The cool? Yeah, cool stuff. Um so my question is we just got bought out by a bigger company. We went from a small Mom Pop company to a company with 300 plus employees.

We went from a company with 20 employees to 320 employ different ball game. Yep, different ball game. People are used to how things run and operate, not only because of the fact that they've been working there for some of them their entire career given the owners of the company and that was bought, but then they. We have the sales team myself included who was used to doing things a certain way and now it's not only being done, but now I have the authority to make changes.

to be to help grow and increase the business business and make that positive change for everybody. Okay and to also help create a better work environment and a better culture that might have lacked prior interesting. Okay, so when it comes to making all these changes in time of course of course during this transitional period, how do you encourage people to embrace the positiv growth strategies that I want to impl and make people have confidence in what you're doing and then not be so distraught about doing things the way they were because you're not the owner of the 300 person company. You have to approach this from a very specific angle.

The quickest way to lose trust is not delivering on your word. So if you start telling all of us, if we're your intire team and you're like guys, it's going to be great and it's not going to be as challenging or toxic and everything's rainbows and shunshine. And our Tech stack is remarkable compared to this. And if any of those don't deliver which you have no control over, you're dead.

So the mistake a youngster like you makes in this world in this kind of example is: you're optimistic. You're hungry, you're hopeful, but you have to be incredibly thoughtful of how you talk to your team. You have to talk to them in what we call in vainer World Eyes Wide Open What that means is you need to talk to them in truth. You need to say Hey Listen, we know what was wrong in the last thing we were in.

We don't know if it's going to get any better here in this world world, but at least we know what that was. I'm excited over the next 6 months to figure out what this new leadership is going to do. I'm not going to you Joey Chris Heather I'm going to speak my truth to anyone who's willing to listen above me. but I'm going to keep it real with y'all like they're going to feed me.

and I'm going to try to dissect what's real and what's not real. I may be wrong at times, but I promise you my intent for you is good to the best of my ability. The mistake that people play is they play herob ball. When they don't have control, you have no control, You have some control.

but the only person that has control in a business is the CEO or owner and even in bigger companies, the CEO's really scared of the board so they don't even have full control. So I I think you need to tread lightly on your promises, speak to your intent, and massively overc communicate. The biggest thing in my Chris Joe Heather talk would be like you have my number or here's my number if you go home at 7:30 Next: Thursday I'm pissed because someone from the new company pissed you off. Text me.

Talk to me. You need to build an actual relationship with them but do not overpromise. That is the killer that everybody walks into in this scenario. So historically I've been always taught to one focus on the macro, not the micro something you already touched on, but also I've been taught historically from various mentors to resort to action.

How would that play a role like this? I Think what I just described is the ultimate action. The action is the real conversation. Got it? Got pleasure? Joe How are you Joe good? Um, you know, one of the more fulfilling things that I've experienced through the years is when we make a mistake by trying and Learn and Grow from it. It's the best and one of the most frustrating things I've experienced in business in life is failing the same way multiple times in a row.

Yep, until you finally get it. Yep. I'm just curious for you in in your career what was a moment where you taught yourself in that situation? Great to your point brother. I think a real entrepreneur fails 98% of the time I mean I mean I can't even I I could spend the rest of my life sitting in front of y'all telling you everything that hasn't worked out the way I thought it is because it happens every day.

To your point, the real is which one are you doing. That's consistently a problem. the glaring most obvious one. because early on I figured out I got very lucky that I that the internet came along at the time it that it did and I was where I was at I would have been a person that would have guessed about the next big thing in my early 20s because I hadn't calibrated yet how long it takes for Innovation to happen.

Notice how I said the Metaverse is 14 years away at 22 when when I launched Wine Library.com in 97 I Remember vividly saying to my friends in college cuz I wasn't out of college yet I'm like by the year 2000, everybody's going to buy wine on the internet I didn't realize cuz I'm such a yes person I didn't realize all of you are no people so I knew that that was that I needed to learn timing but I learned that one pretty quick I made that timing mistake wrong a couple times I remember I bought an ad on Luxury.com I'll try to get louder I Bought an ad on Luxury.com in 1998 for like 10,000 bucks. A lot of money and I was like this is going to be huge like I couldn't wait I mean I barely Christmas morning stuff I barely slept the night before cuz I knew it was going live 9:00 a.m. Pacific time because they were a cal Silicon Valley company so noon Jersey time have my morning and I sat in front of the computer at 12:05 to see the orders coming in and nothing happened I'm like okay you know 9:00 a.m. and about an hour in I'm like nothing.

another hour nothing I called them I'm like hey do you have like cuz I could see they had the right link I'm like am I you know it was really early internet like we were all figuring it out and I realized I bought an ad on what seemed to be a big site but it didn't have it like I I had to learn so I learned being too early but the one that I'm still working on and it's funny. based on the advice I just Gap to Michael cuz it's really grounded in something real to me. the mistake I made consistently for 20 plus years was not delivering negative news to people in my company when they were underperforming cuz I didn't want to I I viewed it as scaring them The lowest point of my professional career was the day I had the AHA when I was 42 43 years years old that I had spent 20 years trying to make everyone feel safe but that I had built enough of a reputation that people knew they didn't fully know where they stood with me because I could see OJ on Friday be like O.J have the best weekend brother love you keep up the good work and on Monday call him in be like we're going to have to let you go and he's like yo what the what happened on Friday have the best weekend and I was and what I did from 22 to 44 was I would blame OJ in that scenario I'm like bro he should have known like he knows he's been and because I would sit on it forever I he's been underperforming for 2 years I would I would put the blame on him and the reality is my number one favorite tradeit about myself normally is full accountability I Believe how many people own their business? Raise their hand. Let me give you one that is just remarkable.

Every single problem in your company is 100% your fault. You hired the person you're blaming and you can fire them. And so brother. I'm so happy that I can talk in public that I've gone from a 1 out of 10 on this issue to a 5.2 and boy has my company and my life changed because of it.

and I'm excited to hopefully get to a seven or eight. I don't think I'll ever get to 10 cuz DNA is a powerful but but I could not deliver negative feedback and I branded it in a book and to my company. Now we call it kind cander and I don't care enough about money. so I would carry people even though I was losing profit but I didn't realize I was actually creating fear and that killed me like it made me feel like my whole life's work was broken.

So I've changed that and it's been huge kind cander and I know a lot of you who raised your hand struggle with this especially because some people are like your friend from high school, your cousin, somebody that was with you from day one. but I'm telling you you have to find kind cander. It also is a very good relationship advice like it's real, it's real and it doesn't come natural to me. but it's real and that's the thing I constantly made the same mistake on thank thank you brother you're good.

they going to turn you on now Got you? What's up? D Nice to meet you what's name Marco Marco yeah nice to meet you so I like your jacket bro. Thanks bro. just got it. Actually it's good.

So I own a company my armn with my business partner Mike over there uh we do canvis design branding and packaging. uh we've been doing for 2 years. this is our actually second year almost I think tomorrow is our her second year anniversary which is awesome. It's awesome employees.

you work with some of the biggest brands in the country. good for you. It's amazing U But the hardest thing I've ever done with the most rewarded makes sense right? U My question is not actually about my company I'm very interested in artificial intelligence in general and you actually described artificial intelligence in an interesting way before you described it as a tool. But the way I see it is.

There's never been a tool in the history of mankind time that was able to operate itself and with open Open AI You know, talking about autonomous agents coming out next year? Yes, you know, potentially in the next couple years 50% of maybe white color jobs technically could be done by AI You know and if that happens, what happens to our Workforce What happens on a global a global standpoint though. what does it mean to what do you think happened when the railroad was invented? 100% But my point is intelligence has never been commoditized thing the question will be I think it's a you're you're barking up the right tree. You're right. We've NE We've attacked hard labor.

Yes, right. we're now attacking intelligence. look I am not putting like my entire life is based on my perspectives and my ability. Look what? I look what we've been talking about.

my whatever Knack I picked up with pattern recognition DNA luck of the draw work I've put in. it's led me to be faster at observing. If I keep uploading questions and thoughts into AI it will commoditize me then you have to find a new non-c commoditize thing. This is the thing that I'm optimistic about people.

I Think you're absolutely right. We are about to go into an era where things are about to be commoditized that have historically been the money maker, right? I Mean one could arue that. beauty is going through that Now you know, like sure, between filters between plastic surgery between OIC Like you know, like real talk like a attractiveness is an advantage that continues to get more and more commoditized as the world has become infatuated with everyone wanting to look good. So this happens all the time.

I Agree the size, the scale, the uniqueness of something that has been trillions of years in the making as value, and the speed in which we could see this. We could all wake up in six years and we're there. Be there next year. I I Don't think so and I think you'll learn that based on what I just said about the Metaverse like it laws will come into like don't underes estimate government corporations humans fear.

That's what will catch you on the one year the tech is there. The tech is there for us to all live 24/7 in the Metaverse. So I don't think real life will have it a year from today. But to your point, yes, can machines start to think better than us? We know that to be true.

Does that scare the out of people? Yes. But I promise you if we were lucky enough to all be able to go dig up our great great grandmother and revive her through new technology. And she opened up her eyes and calibrated the world we live in for a day, she'd be like what the is going on. You know the TV is a new invention.

the TV the airplane is a fairly new invention. I'm fascinated by people's inability to understand that. Innovation and Technology will always Advance Like literally, there are 90-year-olds walking around on Earth that remember life, forget about pre- internet, pre- telep. but like real like, you know what I mean and so I What do I think I Think the human race has proven for a very long time that will we.

We will adjust and do I believe that many people can be affected in the workforce of course. I Do. That's what always happens. the Internet changed everything and AI will do the same.

Awesome! Thank you so much. Cheers! Appreciate it. Let me let me say something real quick I Want to get to the next question real quick just to interlude everything we've been talking about since this is where the combo went. The big takeaway for all of you here is stop being a no person and become a Maybe person.

The fact that most people here have not spent 10 hours 10 hours which is a lot but a little in the scheme of your life. The fact that most people here have not spent 10 hours researching artificial intelligence is a mistake. It's a mistake. like forget about like you're going to retire in 3 years like this is going to impact your life.

If you plan on living this is real and like I don't understand just saying no cuz one of your friends said something or you read one headline that like and you're you become all of a sudden ideological about the workforce. but what really it is is you're hanging on to that cuz you're scared because you don't get it. You're not good with technology. You need to spend the 10 hours to understand this because now what will happen is you'll go from Full defense to potential offense.

Promise your time when new things pop off, a couple of hours on Googling you you know I have bad reading comprehension, go to YouTube It's a second biggest search engine so you can listen to it or watch it. I Didn't know what the Nfts was, you know 10 years ago. but I learned like and I I really, especially if you own it one more time. I apologize Who owns a business? I Don't understand, especially if you're looking to not get completely taken out of business in the next 5 years like something could happen I I Spoke at the National this is insane 6 months after I or maybe a year after I invested in Uber I was the keynote speaker to the National Black Car and Texi Industry in Washington DC I was in a room of like 5,000 taxi and black cab owners and you can imagine the profile of this crowd and I said Uber and they laughed So like we always think we have a moat.

when we don't, the only moat is leverage with the customer. Whoever is the closest and provides the most value to a customer wins. So if some Manan Half ass Canvas or production facility builds a very simple front-facing website that uses AI correctly to allow me to type in two sentences and automatically render me at the lowest cost a booth even though you're in the physical business, I Promise you that is going to be a problem for you. You understand that's how this world works.

So I Want to make sure everyone's locked into this morning? Back to you know what is it a Wednesday Morning 11 You came here for a reason I'm humbled by that I want you to leave with action and real different strategy and perspective and so please pay attention to this stuff. My man right here uh Gary my name is Shane Nice to meet you all, Thank you to yourself and Phil Andro for you guys hosting today! Uh so I'm in the gym business I Took over a small gym from a mentor of mine a couple years ago. my first year out of college. First year or two was all like personal training and like kind of working with athletes but recently partnered with some good people.

We're looking to make it like a 24/7 model self access Key Club And but we're babies in the business industry. We're babies in content just starting to try. We got like 250 followers on Instagram but zero better than zero exactly. So we're starting to grow it.

I would just ask maybe what would be some advice you have for someone who's just starting off? what are some things maybe you've seen specific to the fitness industry that have helped scale and then maybe just in general Eventually I'd like to kind of grow my own kind of personal brand. be able to down the road step away from the gym of throw online. Amazing everything I Just heard and as you can imagine the the there may not be a more cliche stereotype than the fitness dude who built a Fitness business on social and then decided to teach everybody how to build business and build a personal brand. you're like in my pocket.

The answer to the question is you need to post 30 times a day on social media but you have to be good at it. So what you need to do is what I just said about AI You need to start googling and youtubing and podcasting and educate yourself on something I Call sock Strategic organic content not just posting happy Wednesday and hoping it works like why are you posting let me just pull it up right now. Watch this it like this I'm going into my phone I'm going into my cont Content team WhatsApp and apologize I need to run to a meeting so I'm going to run out pretty quickly here so I apologize I'm going to scroll up here. it is here We go this morning at 7:21 a.m.

McKenzie on my team said good morning I need you to post at 5:04 p.m. and 7:07 p.m. on Instagram One needs to be a carousel. One needs to be a real this is called the science but behind the art I'm not out here posting randomly for ha haa and my social media strategy is not the following.

All of yours is I need you to understand the thumbnail the first 3 seconds, what time you post how many words, which platform what's going on in LinkedIn carousels that's different than Facebook carousels Facebook What are broadcast channels? Do you know what the is going on? This is now the television and until you understand that you are leaving money on the table, back to scaring them. This is how it works brother. Right now, everyone most likely is just leaving double growth on the table and then it becomes the thing that puts them out of business. And so, please take this serious.

What you need to do: How many times a day do you post I Know it's nothing. How many? Probably once a probably once one post a day and some days not even right. Yeah, some days not even even better about one a day and flooding stories and stuff just Instagram Think about where I am in my career and where I want to go and where you are. You want to grow.

You're your day one. I shouldn't be the one in this relationship posting 55 times a day. You understand Yeah, you will get customers on LinkedIn You will get customers on YouTube shorts you will get customers on Snap Discovery You will get customers on Pinterest And you're in the best business. You're in the visual business.

Take your shirt off and let's go I Got to go Love you!.