YOU Are The Media Company
In today's digital world, people play two roles: 1) A media company and 2) ...themselves. Back in the day, you had to pay for almost every type of distribution. Billboard? Gotta pay. Commercial? Gotta pay. Newspaper ad? Gotta pay. In today's world, distribution is FREE! This video is my keynote from the Success Unleashed event in Dallas, Texas. We discuss the importance of having a backup strategy in business, the evolving landscape of social media algorithms, and the concept that every individual or business is essentially a media company. We also talk about understanding one's strengths in content creation, the significance of a positive workplace culture, and the value of embracing losses and failures. I hope you enjoy!
In today's digital world, people play two roles: 1) A media company and 2) ...themselves. Back in the day, you had to pay for almost every type of distribution. Billboard? Gotta pay. Commercial? Gotta pay. Newspaper ad? Gotta pay. In today's world, distribution is FREE! This video is my keynote from the Success Unleashed event in Dallas, Texas. We discuss the importance of having a backup strategy in business, the evolving landscape of social media algorithms, and the concept that every individual or business is essentially a media company. We also talk about understanding one's strengths in content creation, the significance of a positive workplace culture, and the value of embracing losses and failures. I hope you enjoy!
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FunTranscript
00:00 that there's a lot of people here who see
00:02 or hear what I'm saying,
00:04 but don't want to make video content.
00:06 They're insecure how they look,
00:08 they're not comfortable in it.
00:09 And I want you to hear something
00:10 from somebody who probably benefited
00:12 from the growth of internet video
00:14 as much as anyone has over the last 15 years.
00:16 It is not a requirement to be a media company.
00:18 Let me give you a very detailed insight
00:21 that nobody's taking advantage of.
00:22 If someone's in the mood to go test for the next 30 days.
00:25 At this point in my career,
00:26 there's enough stuff that I put out on the internet
00:28 and I'm quite consistent that I think
00:31 the biggest value I can bring is actually
00:32 let you go into the details of your questions
00:34 under the macro and get into the micro.
00:37 But to just set it up for the individuals here
00:39 who may be a little less familiar.
00:41 Let me start with this.
00:44 I'm writing a new book.
00:45 I'm about to finish it.
00:47 It's a follow, thank you.
00:49 It's a follow up from a book that I wrote 10 years ago
00:52 that is outside of crush it, my first book,
00:55 the book that I most get emails and DMs
00:57 about saying thank you or this impacted me
00:59 and that was a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
01:02 And that book mattered for a lot of people
01:04 because I wrote it at a time when people
01:07 weren't realizing that content in social media
01:10 more so than anything else
01:12 was about to become the battleground.
01:14 The battleground of growth, popularity, opportunity.
01:18 And that book was really fun to write at the time
01:21 and I think we're in that same moment again now.
01:25 So originally I was gonna call it Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook.
01:28 But I've decided to call it Day Trading Attention.
01:33 And I really wanna talk about day trading attention.
01:35 I'm thrilled to get into a lot of things
01:37 that run through my mind, both culturally and content wise
01:40 here with all of you today.
01:41 Started my career of making content, first it was wine
01:45 and then it was very tactical internet marketing
01:48 and like what was going on.
01:49 And as some of you may know, it's really evolved now
01:53 to a much higher plane of perspective
01:55 because I went four or five years
01:57 telling people exactly what to do on Twitter or Facebook
02:01 or Tumblr at the time or YouTube.
02:03 And I just would watch event and event and event like this
02:08 consistently, all the content I was putting out.
02:11 I would just see so many people not do it.
02:13 And that's what got me to the next plane
02:15 of what I think about and spend time on now
02:17 which is why are people not doing that?
02:20 And it got me into the concepts of insecurity and confidence
02:24 and patience and all the stuff that I really
02:26 am quite passionate about.
02:28 How do you balance, here's a big one for this crew,
02:31 probably across the board.
02:32 How do you balance hunger and tenacity
02:35 and ambition with patience?
02:38 How many people here consume some of my content?
02:41 I have a sense of you, just raise your hands.
02:43 Thank you.
02:44 The thing that I most, the reason I wanted to see that
02:46 was to go where I'm about to go.
02:47 As a lot of you know, I push patience heavy.
02:50 And most people struggle with it 'cause they hear,
02:56 I say patience and you all hear complacency.
02:59 Ambition and patience balanced perfectly
03:04 is sustainable happiness and success.
03:08 Ambition grounded in the need to happen quickly
03:12 'cause you're insecure and you want to show everybody
03:14 you made it is a fucking death trap.
03:18 And so that's why I got into patience.
03:21 But before I get into the mindset stuff
03:23 and some of the stuff that I'm really thinking about
03:26 to give you any chance of success sustained and long term,
03:30 I am gonna go a little bit tactical and in the weeds.
03:33 The one thing that 100% connects every single person
03:37 in this room is regardless of what you do,
03:39 real estate, mortgages, any other entrepreneurial venture,
03:43 thinking about starting a side hustle,
03:46 doing videography, being an agency, whatever it might be,
03:49 the only thing that I can guarantee you
03:50 we talk about right now that will hit every person,
03:53 which is why I want to talk about it,
03:55 is that every one of you is a media company first
03:59 and then you are who you are.
04:01 Everybody in this room, if you do houseware,
04:06 if you sell sneakers, if you're a lawyer,
04:09 if you're a tax accountant, everybody here,
04:12 the second they understand how serious I am
04:14 about what I'm saying here,
04:15 everyone here is a media company,
04:19 comma, what you do for a living.
04:21 And that is a big change from the history of business.
04:27 And so what I'm concerned about
04:30 is that there's a lot of people here
04:33 who see or hear what I'm saying
04:36 but don't want to make video content.
04:39 They're insecure how they look,
04:41 they're not comfortable in it,
04:42 and I want you to hear something
04:43 from somebody who probably benefited
04:45 from the growth of internet video
04:47 as much as anyone has over the last 15 years.
04:51 It is not a requirement to be a media company.
04:54 Let me explain.
04:55 Let me give you a very detailed insight
04:57 that nobody's taking advantage of,
04:59 just if someone's in the mood to go test
05:01 for the next 30 days.
05:03 Instagram, super visual.
05:05 If you're a remarkable writer here,
05:08 actually, you know what, let me do this real quick
05:10 before I even say this.
05:11 I'm gonna ask all of you the gift of talking,
05:15 the ability to do video, and the ability to write.
05:19 I'm gonna ask all of you to think right now
05:21 if I asked you what you're best at.
05:23 Talking, so you can do audio, like a podcast.
05:26 Video, which obviously has a component of talking
05:29 but also is a video and it's a different dynamic.
05:31 Or writing.
05:32 Out of those three, to communicate,
05:34 to make the thing that you want to happen in your world.
05:37 I'm gonna ask everybody right now
05:39 to raise your hand for what they do best.
05:40 If you are best at writing, of those three,
05:45 please raise your hands high.
05:46 Raise them high.
05:47 Thank you.
05:50 Audio.
05:51 No video involved but just talking.
05:53 Raise them high, I see some bullshit hands.
05:54 Sir, in the back there, that's a little low.
05:55 A little higher.
05:57 There you go, my man.
05:59 Big number.
06:00 Video.
06:01 Perfect, if you looked, a little less unwritten, right?
06:07 And the other two, audio and video,
06:09 kind of a 50/50, 60/40.
06:11 I need everybody to hear this.
06:13 The only thing I've done well in my professional career
06:17 is I had self-awareness
06:20 and I executed against my self-awareness.
06:22 The only thing I was good at always
06:25 was not trying to be anybody that I wasn't.
06:27 Not trying to appease anyone.
06:29 It showed up bad early on 'cause I was such a bad student
06:32 and I got D's and F's
06:33 and it seemingly looked like a weakness
06:35 but even at 10, 11, 12 years old,
06:37 I had such conviction of who I was gonna be
06:40 that I genuinely understood
06:41 that that framework of learning wasn't working for me
06:44 and I needed to do it a different way.
06:46 So I need everybody to hear this.
06:47 There is a direct correlation
06:50 of how much you're gonna grow
06:51 if you're in the interest of growing
06:52 and I'm gonna assume if you're here on a Friday afternoon,
06:55 like there's nobody who should be here
06:57 if they're not interested in growing
06:58 so I'm just gonna make a blank assumption
06:59 that everyone here is looking to do something
07:01 with themselves.
07:03 There's a direct correlation
07:05 on how successful you will be
07:07 based on how good you are
07:09 at making content for the internet, period.
07:12 And by the way, I want everyone to hear this.
07:15 Millions of people will build successful businesses
07:17 without producing content for the internet.
07:21 You can build a great reputation behind the,
07:23 you can do it
07:24 but there's a direct correlation
07:26 of how big your upside can be
07:28 based on how good you are
07:30 at producing content for the internet.
07:31 The thing that no one's telling you is
07:33 it doesn't have to be video.
07:34 It doesn't have to be video.
07:37 You don't have to be over the top and ridiculous.
07:40 I'm so sad that I'm so high energy.
07:43 I wish a lot of times that I wasn't
07:46 'cause it still would've happened for me.
07:48 I didn't get here because I'm a hyper Jersey boy.
07:52 I got here because I understood distribution
07:55 and I only talk about shit I know.
07:58 The reason I started a wine show first when I saw this
08:01 was 'cause it was the thing I most knew.
08:04 I almost did a New York Jets show too
08:06 but that was the only other thing
08:07 that I debated besides the wine show.
08:09 If the people in this room can understand
08:14 that the people that went on the internet making content
08:16 do not have to be experts.
08:19 Think about all of you in your business,
08:21 in your craft right now
08:22 where you know people are growing online
08:26 but don't actually have as much depth of knowledge
08:28 in the craft that you have.
08:30 You don't have to position yourself as an expert.
08:32 It's the biggest mistake that people make.
08:34 The two biggest mistakes that people make is one,
08:37 they think it's only video without realizing
08:39 that the people that raise their hand for written word
08:41 or audio can win just as much.
08:44 Malcolm Gladwell does not have a daily TikTok.
08:48 He wins 'cause he writes.
08:51 There's plenty of podcasters,
08:52 less now 'cause everybody's filming themselves
08:54 do the podcast, they figured it out
08:56 but there's plenty of podcasters
08:57 who still don't crush a daily Instagram, TikTok,
09:00 Twitter, YouTube shorts framework.
09:03 The two biggest mistakes people make is
09:06 they think there's only one way to do content online
09:08 when written word right now is the fastest emerging.
09:11 What's going on on LinkedIn
09:12 or back to the way I got to this point earlier,
09:15 here's the hack on Instagram.
09:17 You can literally take a picture of anything.
09:19 It would be nice that it makes sense
09:20 to what you're talking about
09:21 but if you then write three meaningful paragraphs
09:24 with that photo, you would be stunned
09:26 how much you can grow and win on Instagram.
09:29 It is far less a visual only platform
09:32 and on the flip side,
09:33 'cause there's some good looking fucking people
09:34 in this room right now,
09:35 so I'm making some assumption
09:36 that you're hitting the 'gram pretty hard.
09:38 The other mistake is the reverse.
09:41 Too many people are just relying on the video and the photo
09:44 and they're mailing in the copy
09:47 and the copy is an enormous variable
09:49 of the success on Instagram.
09:52 The two biggest mistakes that people make are
09:54 they don't realize that any one of the three mediums
09:58 that I made you raise your hands about are all viable
10:01 and two, they don't focus on talking about shit
10:05 they actually know.
10:07 They posture and front to be an expert in something
10:10 before they are without realizing
10:13 that if they were just authentic and said,
10:15 this is my journey to becoming knowledgeable in real estate,
10:19 this is my journey in becoming knowledgeable in DTC,
10:23 this is my journey into being knowledgeable into fashion
10:27 or even better, if you wanna be foolproof,
10:29 don't say you're an expert,
10:31 say you're an enthusiast.
10:32 People's insecurity of trying to position themselves
10:37 as an expert when they know they're not fully there
10:41 is hurting them tremendously with growth opportunity.
10:44 So day trading attention is a very basic game
10:47 of how do you not waste money
10:51 and how do you take any money you actually spend
10:55 on building your business and extract the most value?
10:59 Let me explain.
10:59 How many people here have done influencer marketing?
11:01 You've paid an influencer to do something for your business.
11:04 Raise your hands high, I just wanna get a sense.
11:06 All right, enough for me to go with it.
11:08 Let's talk about influencer marketing.
11:10 Today, as we sit here today, October 2023,
11:14 influencer marketing is one of the places
11:16 where you most can get a remarkable deal
11:18 for your thousand or 5,000 or $50,000
11:21 or could get completely ripped off
11:23 for your thousand, 5,000, $50,000.
11:26 The swings of it working are extreme.
11:30 It means you actually have to know the craft.
11:33 It means you have to be not tricked
11:34 by just following count.
11:36 It means that you have to know what engagement really means.
11:40 Is engagement, they're just gonna consume it
11:42 or is engagement mean they're gonna convert?
11:44 Most people are using influencer marketing the wrong way
11:47 'cause they're only looking for it
11:49 to sell the thing right away instead of building the brand.
11:52 Most of us bought the clothes we're wearing right now
11:55 not because they cookied us
11:56 and followed us around the internet and made us buy it
11:59 or they knocked on our door and sold it.
12:01 It's because you wanted it because it was built on brand.
12:04 Too many people in a room like this
12:07 think so short-term transactional in every single aspect
12:11 of how they're building their thing
12:13 that it leaves them to not be able to grow
12:16 into the full brand because they're constantly in sales mode
12:19 instead of marketing and branding mode.
12:21 There's a direct conflict between selling and marketing
12:25 and all that selling is is someone who can't market.
12:30 Let me say that again nice and slow
12:33 and by the way, I'm a salesman, I love selling shit
12:36 but for everyone in this room,
12:39 if you wanna go to that next place,
12:41 understanding how to be in branding and marketing
12:43 which actually is, you know, back to like my journey
12:47 is quite enjoyable when you're like,
12:49 you don't have the stress of every interaction
12:51 being something that you need to create an outcome.
12:55 So there's a lot of people here
12:57 who could be bringing a lot more value to their audience
13:00 by actually educating, you know,
13:02 let me just use real estate agents.
13:04 How many people are real estate agents?
13:07 So real estate agents, I'm telling you much more content
13:11 about the towns that you sell in, much more.
13:15 Like go interview the principal of the high school
13:18 and put that on your social media
13:19 for all the people that are considering to move
13:21 and really care about the school system.
13:23 Go interview the entrepreneur
13:25 who's had a 50 years family restaurant business in town.
13:30 Like be the mayor or the newspaper of your town
13:33 with your social because if every single post
13:37 coming out of your mouth is this open house and buy this,
13:40 you're gonna lose the audience.
13:42 You can't close on every breath.
13:44 And the fact that social media is free, it's free.
13:50 I don't know if anybody here has done other marketing
13:51 besides organic posting on social media,
13:53 but you can't go buy a full page ad in a newspaper for free.
13:57 You can't run a commercial on TV for free.
14:00 For the real estate agents,
14:01 like the billboards and the bench ads at the bus stop,
14:04 not free.
14:06 Everything else costs money.
14:08 And social media is the one place,
14:09 of course you can run ads on social,
14:11 but social media is the one place
14:12 that every person in this room,
14:14 especially the way it's going now
14:16 with the TikTokification of social media,
14:18 the fact that every single person now
14:20 can post one post on TikTok
14:22 and get hundreds of thousands of people to see it
14:24 based on the merit of the content, that is bananas.
14:27 And let me go back to that
14:28 because I think a lot of people
14:29 don't know what's happening right now,
14:30 hence why I've decided to write the book again.
14:32 The social media that I got into,
14:35 and for a history lesson, it worked out real well for me.
14:38 I was an early investor in Facebook and Twitter in 2006.
14:42 That social media I grew up with
14:45 was more like email marketing.
14:47 How many people here have done email marketing
14:49 in their career, raise your hands.
14:50 Social was email marketing.
14:54 You would try to get followers, you would post,
14:57 and a percentage of those followers would see it, right?
15:01 That's why I understood it.
15:02 I crushed email marketing in the mid 90s, late 90s.
15:05 Social made sense to me.
15:06 Get a thousand followers, 30 or 40% of them will see it.
15:10 Good, let me keep building.
15:12 The social media we all find ourselves in right this second
15:16 is not based on the social graph,
15:18 not based on us following each other
15:19 and you get a chance of seeing.
15:21 It's now based on the interest graph.
15:22 It's based on what are we into.
15:25 And so this is what's happening with the algorithms.
15:31 What does this mean to everyone here?
15:32 There are people in this room who've not spent one day
15:36 trying to be good at social
15:37 when it's the most important thing to their business,
15:39 and tomorrow, unlike the last 15 years
15:42 I've been on stages like this,
15:43 where I'd be like, shit, you know,
15:44 if we get into Q&A and you're like, Gary,
15:47 you know, honestly, you inspired me.
15:49 I'm gonna get serious about social now.
15:51 Like, what should I do?
15:52 My brain would be like, fuck,
15:53 you got like six years before this gets good.
15:57 The fact that if somebody raises their hand in this room
15:59 and asks that same question to me right now,
16:02 and I know if they happen to be talented
16:04 or if they listen to me carefully
16:06 and get educated on how to be good at it,
16:08 and all that information's free on the internet,
16:10 you don't even have to buy a cockamamie and $16 book,
16:14 that their second or third post could get a million views
16:18 and start the process of changing their business,
16:20 that is like insane to me.
16:22 And I continue to stand on my own two feet every single day,
16:25 and I'm baffled by the collective inaction
16:29 by entrepreneurs and individuals on this opportunity.
16:34 This is arguably the greatest opportunity
16:37 for the individual since the birth
16:40 of the United States of America.
16:42 It is literally free distribution,
16:44 and people aren't doing anything about it.
16:48 And so I highly compel you to stop thinking about social,
16:53 actually, let me put it this way.
16:55 I have a personal brand, I'm a media company,
16:57 and I have to do stuff.
16:58 I have 29 full-time employees on my content.
17:03 Gonna say it again, I went for big impact
17:07 with the silence there.
17:08 (audience laughing)
17:10 I just really need everyone to hear this
17:12 because there's a lot of people growing here,
17:15 there's a lot of people winning here,
17:17 there's a lot of people starting their journey here.
17:19 I don't really know, I'm just really trying
17:21 to ground you in real shit.
17:22 I'm gonna say it nice and slow one more time.
17:24 I have 29 full-time employees on just my content
17:29 in my 2,000 person VaynerMedia agency
17:35 because that's how important this is.
17:38 And by the way, more and more of them
17:40 are now all over the world because with AI,
17:43 you're gonna see me speaking every language in the world,
17:46 converting all my content
17:48 because I'm trying to win everywhere.
17:50 I'm trying to win with eight billion people.
17:52 I wanna be as big in Johannesburg as I wanna be in Dallas.
17:56 I wanna be as big in Saudi Arabia
17:59 as I wanna be in Cincinnati.
18:00 And so I just can't comprehend being in this room
18:07 on a Friday afternoon, which means you're ambitious
18:10 and going for it, in October 2023,
18:14 and all of you continue to fucking not put in the work
18:18 in the one place that has the disproportionate impact
18:21 on your business.
18:22 And good news, I didn't invent these platforms.
18:26 I have no emotion in platform.
18:27 I'm gonna leave in an hour and could give a shit
18:30 if you actually do it.
18:32 But I need you to hear me.
18:33 I need you to hear me.
18:35 This is the best opportunity to get,
18:38 you think you're too late.
18:40 I know what you're thinking.
18:41 I get 100,000 DMs a day.
18:43 I know what you're thinking.
18:46 I read that shit.
18:47 I read an hour's worth on the flight
18:48 from New York to here right now.
18:50 Gary, it's too late.
18:51 I'm 30, my life's over.
18:52 I didn't listen to you five years ago on TikTok.
18:57 I missed it.
18:58 You didn't miss anything.
18:59 All that is is you using excuses to not put in the work.
19:05 There's a lot of people,
19:06 how many people here would consider themselves
19:09 in good physical shape?
19:10 Raise your hands.
19:11 For the people that just raised their hands,
19:14 have you been in a position within the last 10 years,
19:17 not you're nitpicking 'cause you're a beast,
19:19 but I mean like, no, you were like me,
19:21 like 10 years ago, I was a piece of crap.
19:22 Now I'm decent-ish, as you know,
19:25 'cause he filmed the guy that worked me out
19:27 every single day at 6 a.m.
19:28 How many people here who just raised their hand
19:31 and said that they're in good, solid physical health
19:34 were at some point in the last 10 years
19:36 completely not there?
19:37 Raise your hands.
19:39 All right, actually, can you all stand up?
19:40 Can you stand up?
19:41 Don't bullshit me, stand up.
19:42 I want everybody to visualize this.
19:44 Please don't get lazy.
19:45 I saw some of you raise your hand and you're not standing.
19:47 Get up if you feel this.
19:49 I just want everybody to look at this
19:52 'cause this is gonna land it.
19:53 Look around.
19:55 There was, thank you, you can all sit.
19:57 There was no shortcut.
20:00 I mean, unless you got real bank
20:01 and you fucking did the whole plastic surgery thing.
20:04 It was work.
20:05 There was no shortcut.
20:07 I have unlimited people in the fitness space
20:10 that ask me for business advice
20:12 and the only thing they're asking me for is the shortcut.
20:15 In physical health land,
20:17 they realize all that bullshit apple
20:20 and fucking apple vinegar pills and all the horny,
20:22 they know that's all bullshit.
20:24 The work is eat properly,
20:27 fucking do your exercise routine properly,
20:29 especially if you want muscle,
20:30 like do the exercise properly, put the protein.
20:32 It's fucking basic.
20:34 I can sit here and tell every person
20:36 that doesn't feel good about their health
20:38 exactly what to do on a 101 education of it.
20:41 The problem is it's hard.
20:43 I'm not saying anything profound.
20:46 I'm telling you that you need to post three, four, seven,
20:48 12, 19 times a day on social media
20:50 and that you will double, triple, quadruple your business.
20:55 I just think most of you don't wanna take money
20:57 out of your pocket and hire someone to help you do it.
21:00 You'd rather take that money and buy some dumb shit.
21:03 And so that's how I see the world
21:05 and I think it's an enormous opportunity right now,
21:09 especially because I would be on stages like this
21:12 for the last decade and there was a little bit of,
21:15 you're a little behind 'cause it was email marketing.
21:18 You hadn't started yet.
21:20 I have seven million followers.
21:21 I am ahead.
21:23 The fact that I'm not ahead of anybody in this room
21:25 right now besides brand and being known,
21:28 we are all now in an incredible era of social media
21:30 where the content itself, the single post every time
21:34 is your variable, not how many followers you have.
21:38 That's crazy.
21:39 So I'm gonna say it one more time just to put a bow on it
21:42 because if I'm anyone in this room
21:44 and I haven't been thinking about this right,
21:46 this should be the single biggest encourager.
21:49 The fact that everyone on every day at some level,
21:52 which is not fully true because fame
21:53 and awareness does matter,
21:56 but the fact that every day people that have never
22:00 ever gone viral, ever been consistent,
22:04 have 12 followers every day on TikTok right now,
22:07 specifically more though Instagram and Facebook
22:11 and YouTube shorts are starting to act this way
22:14 more and more every day,
22:15 that people are posting their first video about real estate
22:18 or have you thought about this mortgage thing
22:21 or have you thought about soup or clean eating
22:24 or whatever the hell you're into,
22:26 are having a single video pop them off
22:30 and start the process, it's incredibly exciting.
22:32 And I will say something else, it will not last forever.
22:36 These things have been flow.
22:38 And so I highly encourage you to understand
22:41 how big the opportunity of day trading attention is,
22:43 how serious it is to figure out yourself
22:48 and say, okay, look, I'm insecure,
22:49 I don't wanna be on camera.
22:51 I don't want people to talk about how I look, I got you.
22:53 That's a whole different game and a different work stream.
22:57 But that shouldn't stop you tomorrow
22:59 from taking your iPhone, hitting the record button on audio
23:03 and spitting your knowledge for six minutes
23:05 and then just posting the audio on LinkedIn
23:07 or Facebook or Instagram.
23:09 Do we have that understood?
23:11 Cool, thank you.
23:12 Let's clap that up 'cause I need some energy.
23:14 (audience applauding)
23:17 Before I go into Q&A and then please,
23:23 when we go into Q&A, for the people that raised your hands,
23:26 you wanna ask me about anything like TikTok stuff,
23:29 running your agency, running a team, the New York Jets,
23:33 what they're gonna do against the Broncos this weekend,
23:34 whatever you need, I'm here for it.
23:35 So think about where you wanna go.
23:37 The other thing I wanna talk about
23:40 is very near and dear to my heart.
23:42 How many people here have more than five employees?
23:46 Raise your hand.
23:47 Raise it high just to get a sense.
23:48 Okay, I'll go there then, thank you.
23:50 For the people in here that raised their hand
23:52 have five or more employees,
23:54 there's a couple things I'd like to talk about
23:56 which is predominantly under the bucket of culture.
24:00 I'm surprised by how many people think it's interesting
24:07 or cool or different when I talk about
24:11 the stuff I talk about around kindness or empathy
24:14 or things of that nature.
24:15 But I'm not surprised 'cause I'm 47
24:17 and I grew up in Jersey and I know that everyone thinks
24:20 like nice guys finish last
24:22 and like you've gotta be a gangster to win
24:25 and it's a ruthless world and sharp elbows
24:27 and all that stuff.
24:28 I would just highly encourage the people
24:32 that just raised their hands to really realize
24:35 how ridiculous of a concept nice guys finishing last is
24:39 and that in real life of business,
24:41 especially where we are now where employees
24:43 have more and more options,
24:45 including just doing their own side hustle,
24:48 culture really matters.
24:50 And I highly recommend people look themselves
24:53 in the mirror tonight and ask themselves,
24:56 are they like the 80% or even 90%
25:00 and do they run their teams with fear?
25:02 Like if you threaten to fire someone
25:07 with an aggressive voice, you're losing.
25:11 And let me explain why.
25:12 And just I know a lot of people in this room
25:13 don't fully know me.
25:15 I'm not foofy foofy kumbaya guy.
25:19 I'm not your grandma.
25:20 The stuff I'm talking about
25:22 is actually how you make more money.
25:24 I'm not looking to over coddle Gen Z.
25:30 It's not where I'm going with this.
25:32 I think one of the biggest issues literally in America
25:36 is eighth place trophies.
25:38 The reason everyone's so insecure
25:41 is we tell these kids when they're little, losing is bad.
25:45 I promise you the only reason I'm on this stage
25:48 is 'cause of my relationship with losing.
25:51 I love losing.
25:52 It's so sick.
25:53 I like it more than winning.
25:56 We have to get people prepared for losing.
25:57 You give eighth place trophies, you're demonizing losing
26:00 and then these kids go into the wild and life is different.
26:04 Mommy and daddy aren't there to yell at the teachers.
26:06 So how many people have parents in here, raise your hands.
26:10 I think we can all understand the coddling
26:13 is what leads to the issues, right?
26:16 And so I highly recommend taking a step back
26:18 and understanding that and that's how I think about work.
26:21 At work, I'm not talking about creating entitlement
26:25 but I am talking about that in America
26:27 and most of the rest of the world,
26:30 the rules at work are all fucked up.
26:33 When I got into the agency game,
26:34 like our dude was saying earlier for the last 15 years,
26:37 I didn't realize how many people cried at work.
26:39 If you have employees crying at your job, you are losing.
26:44 You've got the wrong game.
26:47 I'm telling you, you have the wrong game.
26:49 And what's happening that I don't think people see
26:53 is as the internet and as AI
26:55 and all these things start to pop up,
26:57 people have more options.
26:58 When everyone's like Gen Z's so fucking soft and entitled
27:03 or they're smart, would you rather go work for $11 an hour
27:08 doing something you fucking hate
27:10 or would you rather make 50,000 a year in social media ads
27:14 making videos doing the shit you love?
27:18 We need to be careful about our judgment.
27:21 This is not about entitlement, this is about options.
27:26 And there's a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders
27:28 with employees who are not understanding
27:31 the enormous hidden value of building a nice culture.
27:35 And what most leaders struggle with,
27:39 because most people are actually not all that bad,
27:42 it's when there's pressure,
27:44 they're the worst version of themselves.
27:46 When I really analyze, and I just said that
27:48 I watched a lot of people body language to me,
27:50 like yeah, this is the one, leaders, this is the one.
27:53 One more time, five or more employees.
27:56 My friends, please, I'm telling you this is the one.
28:00 When something is fucked up,
28:02 when an employee is directly attributable
28:06 to you losing revenue,
28:08 that's when you need to be nicer to them, not the reverse.
28:12 And that's not how we were taught
28:13 and that's not how the game was built.
28:15 And that is absolutely one of the other biggest opportunities
28:18 the two biggest opportunities for growth in this full room,
28:21 regardless of where you're at, is content and culture.
28:25 Content is hard because it's hard work, it's like the gym.
28:31 And culture is hard 'cause it doesn't land natural.
28:34 People just don't think it's right.
28:37 Like they hear me, they want to be, but it feels delusional.
28:42 It feels ideological, but it's remarkably achievable.
28:47 And I just think that you're taking employees for granted.
28:51 I mean it.
28:52 And I think you think they don't have another option.
28:56 And because the last 13 times you said you're sorry
28:58 and it was okay, that the 14th time it will be too.
29:01 But I promise you, especially, and I know how busy,
29:05 how many of the people with five employees or less,
29:08 excuse me, or more also don't have 100 employees?
29:11 You're between five and 99, raise your hands.
29:14 Especially for this crew.
29:15 At that level, a lot of times, you're way more vulnerable
29:23 based on one or two of your employees
29:24 than you want to think.
29:25 Actually, let's all, that crew, just sit for a second
29:30 with me 'cause I feel that, I appreciate the energy
29:32 back on that.
29:32 In your mind, like really just think for a second.
29:37 If your top two people that really, right?
29:40 If they're gone tomorrow, what?
29:43 So please live that life.
29:48 A, run a good business and always have a backup.
29:51 I literally have a backup for a backup of a backup
29:52 of every important person in my company.
29:54 Not because I'm gonna run a bad culture,
29:56 but people grow and they wanna do something else.
29:58 Or God forbid, like you get older,
30:01 sad shit happens, right?
30:02 People get sick, people have something horrible happen.
30:06 I mean, this is devastating for me.
30:09 A super top employee of mine, actually, ironically,
30:13 I think, yeah, I think this story's grounded in Dallas.
30:16 A major employee of mine for last six years,
30:20 cruising, perfect.
30:22 Her single best friend in the world,
30:25 they're both in their 40s, just passed away from cancer
30:29 and she's super shook, she doesn't have a family of her own
30:33 and she's taking time off to take care of that woman's baby.
30:38 I just come in on Monday morning, that person's gone.
30:41 Thank God for me and thank God for her
30:44 'cause I'm treating her incredibly well.
30:45 I've got the backup of the backup of the backup
30:47 so we can absorb it.
30:49 But a lot of you don't even have a backup
30:50 for one employee right now that you can put in your mind.
30:53 And more importantly, I get that
30:56 because you don't have unlimited money to hire everybody,
30:58 but I don't understand
30:59 why you don't treat everyone like family.
31:01 That I will never understand.
31:04 You are not better than 'cause it's your business.
31:07 If you're a leader, you work for them.
31:08 They don't work for you.
31:10 It's true, brother, thank you.
31:13 And honestly, if you're acting the reverse
31:15 of what I'm talking about,
31:17 I'm just gonna give you an inside secret
31:18 that you may not know.
31:19 All that means is you're deeply insecure.
31:23 And all that means is you're tricking the 95% of losers,
31:28 but the 5% of winners see you.
31:30 So I highly recommend you have that talk with yourself.
31:34 (upbeat music)
31:37 (upbeat music)
31:39 (upbeat music)