# My Thoughts on Entrepreneurship in 2018 | Haste & Hustle Toronto Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Gary Vaynerchuk
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q4tLuH1Iqw
- **Дата:** 01.04.2018
- **Длительность:** 43:04
- **Просмотры:** 90,335
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/18426

## Описание

Thank you for watching this video. I hope that you keep up with the daily videos I post on the channel, subscribe, and share your learnings with those that need to hear it. Your comments are my oxygen, so please take a second and say ‘Hey’ ;).
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Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company’s 4 locations. Gary is also a prolific public speaker, venture capitalist, 5-time New York Times Bestselling Author, and has been named to both Crain’s and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 lists.

Gary is the host of the #AskGaryVee Show, a business and marketing focused Q&A video show and podcast, as well as DailyVee,

## Транскрипт

### Intro []

(attendees applauding) - [Gary] Good job. - [Man] Thanks. (attendees applauding) - Yo! (attendees cheering) Toronto, thank you for having me. Thank you for the warm welcome. There's a lot of things we can cover. We decided to do a ton of Q and A so I've only got a short period of time here to kinda spit it. And so what I'm gonna really focus on in this kind of moment is gonna piggyback off the last presentation which is a lot of this is about mindset and overall strategy of how you're navigating your life and your business life and your personal life. This is just about do you see what's happening or don't you, do you understand how this plays out in the macro or are you too consumed with the things that are in front of you in the short term. It's really hard to project blockchain's impact on our society if you're just caught up in the headlines of Bitcoin, right? And so for me, as I navigate my life and think about why things have worked for me is I go under one very basic assumption which is as long as I stay alive, it's always better to think long-term than short-term. And the other thing that runs in parallel to that strategy is my inability to allow one of your opinions to matter more to me than my own opinion about myself. Not because I think I'm great or special, it's just that I think you suck at shit too. So for me, the themes of what's been happening

### Themes [1:55]

why entrepreneurship has been put on a pedestal and is popular, what's happening with the internet at its maturity, the fact that there's so many phones being held up right now. All these different things that are happening, what does it really mean? What it means is there's a group of people, a small percentage of people that navigate their life decisions from a place of confidence and emotional stability. And think in terms of legacy and impact and things in the long game. And there's a group of people that think about insecurities, needing to buy things to cover up their insecurities so they need cash in the short term because a pair of Supremes or a BMW is gonna close the gap of their insecurity and then there's the in-between. And so for me, I'm very focused on the fact

### The Macro [2:47]

that the stuff that I believe in seemed like a fairytale or bullshit just 30 years ago because the internet didn't exist. For all the youngsters that I see in the audience, they don't understand the world pre-internet. They don't understand a world pre-smartphone. I'm fucking old. I remember I was 18 before I ever spent 24 hours on a computer in my lifetime. I know what the world looked like. It wasn't practical to have debt and work you're nine to seven and then come home and make something of yourself. I struggle to complain about anything in a world that is this special. You can decide to look at something narrow and decide stuff sucks or you a shortcoming or you can understand the macro and let's call it very simply what it is because it's truth. This is the greatest moment to be alive in the history of the human race. (attendees applauding) 'Cause it is. And so for me, I take it super macro. If I wake up this morning and none of the seven or eight people that I love the most died overnight, I'm optimistic, I feel in control. There's always shit.

### Its Lonely [4:02]

How many people here are an entrepreneur or aspire to be one? (attendees applauding) Great. For all the youngsters in here, let me give you the first thing that I believe is true about entrepreneurship. It's lonely as fuck. Right? Because when you don't succeed on a team or in school or at a job, here's what you do, team. It was my player teammate's fault. School, fuck the teachers, right? Work, my boss is a fucking idiot. When you fail in entrepreneurship, all eyes on you. Your fault. You, and guess what, everybody's watching. So we're living right now through a very glamorous moment of entrepreneurship. Where it's cool, where a lot of people wanna put it in their Instagram photo and profile because it tells the world who they are.

### Its Glamorous [4:57]

To me, it's an interesting time for entrepreneurship. Anything that swings too far one way or the other becomes vulnerable. When the global economy and definitely, the US economy, different than the Canadian one, when the US economy collapses because we are loaning way too much money to kids that are carrying enormous college debt and aren't making enough to pay their debt back, let alone the house or car or thing they're buying with their loan when the US economy crashes because of college debt and the economy really suffers. Two things will fall in popular opinion. Number one, the institution of colleges in the United States. Number two, the fantasy of entrepreneurship. 98% of the hands that just went up will fail and work in a job in six years. Yet, everybody just thought I'm one of the 2% that isn't which is awesome and do it and I can't wait for you two kill it.

### Self Awareness [6:00]

But I will say that while we are talking about all these things right now, my propaganda, my push, my want for people to debate during this talk is not that I'm gonna rah you up and you're gonna go fucking crush your business but I am gonna hope to put pressure on everybody in this room to get really self-aware really fast. I think the reason I have a happy life and things have gone well and more importantly, forget about me being a focus group of one, everybody that I know that has happiness traces back to some incredible, incredible commitment to self-awareness. An incredible thing happens in your life when you stop bullshitting yourself. Look, I wish I was a lot of things too. the quarterback of the New York Jets, I wish I was a supermodel, not gonna happen. I wish a lot of things too. But when you romanticize and wish instead of actually being practical and understand, you create a vulnerability. And let me remind some

### Show Hands [7:08]

this group of people about something that's very important to me. Right, show hands. Who's under 30 years old? Raise your hands. Fuck. (attendees laughing) Actually, I want everybody to see what I, thank you for the lights. If you were under 30, I want you to stand up. That's what's up. (attendees applauding) So couple things, keep staying up because I want this. A couple things. Number one, one of my least favorite things

### Demonization of the Youth [7:38]

in society right now is the demonization of the youth and saying like millennials are lazy and entitled. That's straight fucking bullshit. (attendees applauding) It is. Because for all us sitting, 90% of our friends were fucking lazy too. However, on the flip side, here's my biggest concern for everybody who's standing. Everybody who's standing has one fatal flaw in the game of entrepreneurship, and it's not your fault by the way. Your fatal flaw is you haven't been punched in the fucking mouth yet. For everybody that's sitting, we've lived through the meltdown of the economy in 2008 and 2001 and 1996 and on and on.

### Your Fatal Flaw [8:26]

Everybody here who's rolling right now has rolled under ridiculous easy game. Ridiculous easiness of global economy. Unlimited fucking money in the system. Doesn't take a hero to raise capital and lose money every month. And so, the only thing I asked for everybody who's sitting, and your more than welcome to sit down, thank you. For everybody who is standing, the one thing I want you to understand is that truth in the same way that it's straight horseshit that people say millennials are entitled and are lazy, it's the same that you have to understand that you have not been punched in the mouth. You have not woken up in the morning and 30% of the money in the economy has been taken out and then another week later, 50% and all those brand deals

### Practicality [9:17]

because you got a lot of Instagram followers go away. And so I implore everybody in this room regardless of where you are to get real practical. The two businesses I built, my dad's liquor store for him and VaynerMedia for me and my brother, I built when I started them in really tough economies. Adversity was my strength. It wasn't easy. There was no raising capital. I've run two companies my entire life. for all my GaryVee time, from the day I left school at 22 years old to the way I'm standing right now, in those 20 years, there has not been a single day in my life that I have not operated a business and there's not been a single time in that entire 20 year period where I didn't make more money than I lost so I could pay my bills. It's called practicality. It's called building an actual business. And so it's cool that you have a T-shirt with a logo on it and you're a lifestyle fashion brand until the economy crashes and you have to work at fucking Rogers. (attendees laughing) (attendees applauding) Now look, look. Don't get it twisted. I'm not on a hike or standing up here saying I'm successful and you're not yet or anything cool like that. I'm desperate for you to win and for you to win

### Business Principles [10:39]

you have to have business principles. You have to be able to sustain your business and you have to understand that when there's an abundance that is not always gonna be the way it's going to be and so are you with your profits if you're crushing it, are you putting that back into your business or saving that or you buying dumb shit to look good on Instagram? These are things you have to think about. This is real life and real life will rear its head very soon, sooner than later. I have no idea if I did. I would play the markets that way. Nobody really understands when, how or for what reason but it's just the way it's always been. And guess what, I don't feel comfortable when the global economy is getting close to a decade of prosperity because it usually isn't able to hold on that long. Now there's been enormous amounts of manipulation of government supporting it but fundamentals are fundamentals.

### Yin and Yang [11:34]

And so I stand here today trying to get people into the right mindset of the yin and yang of what's happening, which is both things are true. A, it's unbelievable that things have been so good for so long and it's a good time to start strategizing what if. What if I can't raise any money for my business, does my business make money? What if the biggest companies in the world and startups and other businesses go out of business and they don't have money to give me? What if? At the same token, what makes this time tricky is that the internet is starting to hit such a scale and such an opportunity that there is a land grab and more opportunity than ever for the individual businesses and anything else. It's incredible to me that you can start a brand from zero, have a smart Instagram and Facebook strategy, sell it on Shopify Plus and Amazon and build a real business in a year or two. That is remarkable, that is incredible and that is what makes this era special. Let me tell you this and I referenced it earlier. My friends, humans will look back at this era, they year like you are living in one of those interesting times that will be reviewed over and over because you live during the era of the internet being established, a blockchain being established. This is big fucking shit. This is printing press, this is big. This is big, big, big and so now, what you have to do is be on the offense practically. There's people in the defense, there's people fear mongering technology, right? Right, watch the subtleties. We're shitting on technology. We're blaming Facebook because we don't like to blame ourself, right? Facebook didn't vote for you, asshole. And so and so

### The Opportunity [13:25]

we live in an incredible time where the opportunity for the entrepreneur, the educator, the stay-at-home mom, the litigator, this is for everybody. My biggest plea here today is for everybody who is sitting down. If you're 47 years old and you think you're finished, you need to rethink everything. I am so frustrated by watching all the teenagers and 20 year olds take full advantage of this opportunity because they don't know any better. And for the 40 and 50 and 60 year olds, closing their mind without realizing that they're gonna live for the next 40 years and this fucking land grab is for you too and good news, old fuckers, you have experience. (attendees applauding and cheering) I'm fucking 42. I'm not fucking young, I'm not a baby. I just understand how good the opportunity is and I struggle with my 46 and 59 and 67 year old friends

### Im imploring [14:26]

who think because that's how we grew up that they're getting to the end of the years without recognizing how much healthier we are as a race in our 70s, 80s and 90s. You compound how fast medicine is advancing, there's a farm, I mean if you're 40 to 60 in this room, your numbers are gonna look like 100, 110, a hundred like, what do people think is happening here and if you're 63 in this room and you're living another 50 years, you're only at half time but when we grew up, you were towards the end and I am imploring everybody in this room from the youngest fuckers in this room to the oldest of fuckers the in this room, I'm imploring you, I'm imploring you to understand how incredible this is which is the following. Ronald fucking Reagan ran the free world with a computer not as powerful as this only five minutes ago. Shit's happening and you need to take advantage of your thing. And the fact that most of you are not taking advantage of this opportunity because of the insecurities that your fucked up parents or your neighborhood gave to you breaks my fucking heart. And I am completely obsessed with putting out content that scale to get people to understand that not posting on things on social media because Johnny Pants 47 said you're ugly or stupid. Watching my 60 year old friends not do things because they feel weird of the judgment of their grandkids making fun of them that they don't understand how to use Snapchat, remind your 13 year old granddaughter that she doesn't know jack shit about life. (attendees laughing)

### You are missing the boat [16:12]

And so I really, really need people to understand what's actually happening here. (attendees applauding and cheering) Good job, buddy. - [Woman] What's your name? - [Ashton] My name is Ashton Arsha. (attendee speaking off mike) (attendees applauding) It takes hours. I strategize. (attendee speaking off mike) - [Attendee] Sit down! - I got you, good hustle. (attendees laughing) Couple things. If you sit in this room and you have any business ambitions, any ambitions to raise money for the disease that took your parent's life, if you have any ambitions to raise money for your school to build a new gym or any other thing in the world, please understand the following. If you do not understand how to make written words, pictures and videos on Facebook and Instagram and do not do that multiple times a day every day, you are missing the fucking boat. If you sit in this room today and do not know how to post pictures written, words and videos and then how to run ads as little as $50 up to as much as you can afford to spend on Facebook and Instagram, you are missing your fucking moment. This has only happened on the internet one other chapter at this scale to make impact this quickly. It was called the Google era. Google was grossly underpriced ads. People didn't understand in 2000 to 2004 but a couple people did. Amazon understood which is why it was the biggest advertiser on Google during those years. When we have a moment, when there is underpriced attention, you have to go all-in. How many people here play poker? Great. All right. Loves his fucking poker.

### Invest in your business [18:28]

I don't because I recognize people have better math skills than me and I don't wanna lose my money, but I know enough to know that when you have the best hand, you go all-in. Facebook and Instagram ads right this minute are the best hand. If you are not reinvesting in your business or your ambitions by putting ads into Facebook and Instagram, you will regret hearing this for me today in four years when you look back and realize it now cost you 10 times as much to get to as many people and it works half as well because we got too used to ads on those platforms. I don't care what your opinions are, I don't give a that you ready you've ran on thousand dollars and it didn't work, it means you didn't know what the fuck you were doing. I don't get any of ROI from a basketball, other people do. I don't get any ROI out of a piano, other people do. The ROI out of Facebook and Instagram ads is so gross, so remarkable that you have to go home and Google how do I run Instagram ads, enter. How do I get the most effect for Facebook ads for a real estate agent in the Toronto region, enter. You have to figure this out because it is the best piece of advice that I can give you on stage and your romantic point of view that Facebook's not cool anymore or that you ran it already or you don't get it or you don't like the people on their phones anymore, your romantic points of view or your headline reading points of view is the vulnerability for your upside. You have to be a practitioner. The amount of people here who have opinions on influencer marketing, on Facebook ads, on Snapchat filters, opinions on all these things without ever running a fucking ad is egregious. So the number one thing I implore everybody here to do is to go home and become a practitioner at two things. First, deploy self-awareness and figure out how you wanna speak to the world whether as a person or a business, is it written word, is it audio or is it video? Second, understand how to run ads if you have a money to run ads on Instagram and Facebook. Period, end of story. I literally can leave right now and have given you more value if you actually take it serious. I know for a lot of you have been following me for a long time. You've heard this before, many of times. I just know that none of you have gone all-in on it enough for the value because even I'm not going in the opportunity is so ridiculous, right? And so what happens, how many people have been doing their thing and it's going well for over five years? Raise your hand. Raise them high, be proud. Awesome. You're the ones that I'm most scared of. Because you get caught in your patterns of what was successful for you. This is what always happens, right? YouTube works for Salon Guy. You get caught, you get used to it, it feels right, you don't think about it, or you get caught up in headlines. You get lazy. You know it's lazy when Instagram creates stories and you don't think you need to do Snapchat anymore 'cause it's the same. You're a fucking idiot. You're an idiot 'cause 180 million people a day use Snapchat and get more consumption there and Snapchat can make one change that gets everybody back but you don't wanna put the extra effort for an extra minute or two to get your content there. It's so fascinating to me how many people's actions don't match their ambitions. You know how many people roll up on me whether virtually or in real life and tell me they're gonna buy the Rams or the Raptors or something other than the Jets 'cause we're cool like that and then I go look at their Twitter handle and they're watching entire seasons of the fucking Crown on Netflix?

### See the world in a competitive advantage [22:22]

Our actions are not matching our ambitions. But let me say this and this is just facts. The fact that you're in this hall this afternoon on this day means that you see the world in a very competitive advantage way. You understand that something is happening in a way that you understand that I'm promising you 97, 98% of society doesn't. That is your great strength, that you understand this thing is real. This is real. You may not be fully advanced, you may be in the nuances, you might not be great at Instagram but you're good at YouTube, you've got a sense. How many people here have been following me for longer than 18 months? Raise your hand. Thank you, and for 18 months or less? Thank you. The reason the hands are fairly even

### Attention is the asset [23:11]

is something changed 15, 16 months ago. I took the advice that I've been giving you for the last eight to 10 minutes. One of the things that I'm most proud of is I never talk about shit I don't do. When I tell you to bleed out your fucking eyes, I bled out of my eyes. When I tell you to spend more money and time figuring out these platforms, I did it. I don't guess. You know why I don't have a lot to say on crypto and Bitcoin? 'Cause I'm still tasting. You know why I don't have my official Vero point of view? It's 'cause I'm tasting. I don't like to talk about until I know what the fuck I'm talking about. - [Attendee] Yeah! - The last 10 minutes. (attendees applauding) The last 10 minutes of trying to get you there and like pushing forcefully, it's because that's what happened to me 15 months ago. Even for all my winning and I was followed by a lot of people and knew who I was, I wasn't all the way in. Right, I was busy with Vayner, I was doing other things but Vayner got big enough and my financial situation got big enough that I was able to take it from just me making my content to three and a half years later being 17 people and a complete media team that helps me put out the obnoxious amount of content I did. A lot of people have a lot more money than me. They're more than welcome to hire people and go all in on this. They choose to take those dollars and buy things or invested or do whatever they want as they should. I just want everybody to understand one thing. Attention is the asset. Before you tell me what you wanna accomplish or what you want the customer to do, whatever the customer is. Get a vote, sign up for your platform, whatever you want them to do, you need their attention. Attention in our society lives here. And more importantly, it's underpriced right now in the ad products and the opportunity. For the youngsters in this room, it feels normal so you can't realize how good it is. For the people that are older, they've seen this show before. Television commercials in the 70s, Google ads in the mid-2000s, email marketing in '94, '95. It just sometimes they don't understand the pattern recognition. I'm sitting here today telling you one simple thing. If you are not communicating to the world on these platforms, you're invisible. Fix it. Thank you. (attendees applauding and cheering) - Give it up, guys. Gary Vee, come on! (attendees applauding and cheering) Bring him on. So guys, we don't have a lot of time so we're gonna move quickly.

### fireside chat [25:57]

If you do have questions, there are mics on this side and that side. Get lined up. You know, I think this is a good time for a quick but cozy fireside chat. What do you guys think? - [Attendee] Yeah! - Yeah? Okay, so get your questions ready. I can't emphasize enough, the pace is gonna have to move quickly. Oh and look at that. Thank you. - I will. - So guys, a couple quick rules about the Q and A. (attendees cheering) - [Gary] Let's do it. - A couple quick ground rules. We don't have a lot of time so please no pitching. If you're going up to pitch a business, an idea, whatever, please do not do it. Keep in mind that there are a lot of people here. We wanna deliver value-- - Don't be a dick, let's go! - Yeah, there we go. And no selfies, guys, so. Oh nice. - [Gary] Oh, very nice. - We actually have a legit fire. - [Gary] It's cozy. - So Gary. (attendees cheering) Nice. - Is that person okay? - Somebody is checking the insurance policy as we speak. - All right, let's do this.

### social media marketing [27:35]

- Okay, Gary so as we got some people winding up there, I got a couple things to kick it off here. So after 10 plus years preaching social media marketing, what are people still getting wrong in your opinion as quickly as possible. - I think how early it is. I just think it's early. Like I don't know what else to say. Facebook is trading at $8 CPMs on average, it should be 50 based on the attention. Instagram Stories of trading at five, four, three. Grossly underpriced. It's just early. Like the land grab is real. And so I just think people are still debating while it's actually happening. - So at VaynerMedia, do you see a disconnect between what clients think they want versus what they actually need. - Of course, there's not a single client at VaynerMedia that does what I think they should. There's not which is okay. Listen, it's their money. I'm in client services. I wanna give them the right strategies but they measure things that I don't believe in like reporting and rewards and internal modeling mixes that favor television. Big companies are in trouble right now in the world because they're wrong. Like they think you watch commercials. (attendees laughing)

### value of Facebook ads [28:58]

So you have a great speech there about the value of Facebook ads, Instagram ads. I think there's a lot of people especially in the audience that may not have the investment or prepared to kind of take that leap onto the paid side and are still looking for their angle on kind of the organic. And I think there's a lot of people that are hung up on the old golden-- - That is beyond. - Yeah, there's the golden days of Facebook organic reach and people got used to-- - It was fucking free. - Yeah. - You know, it was free. Why are you mad that it reaches down? It's free. Your email reaches down too. My email open rates in 1998, in 1997 were 70, 80, 90%. It's all cops and robbers, cat and mouse. Like the only reason Facebook's doing that is if you guys all saw ads all day, you'd leave. They're protecting their product. Meanwhile, in parallel, the ads are grossly underpriced but you've made an emotional decision that you like the better when it was free and you value that versus understanding that if you spent a dollar, you can make 10. They're just not smart.

### where content creators can gain an edge [30:09]

- Do you think there is anywhere right now where content creators can gain an edge prior to making that leap to paid? Like for example when you are-- - I don't understand why that matters. Like the pain is underpriced. Now, it matters if you have no money. So money, go to Craigslist, go to the free section, right? Pick up people's free shit. Flip it on Facebook marketplace, make yourself 500 dollars by sweating a little bit and then run ads. - Nice, guys, okay let's take some questions. (attendees applauding) - Guys, you have to understand why. Guys, I used to own the word wine for five cents a click out of Google. I owned it. It was five cents a click. It's not five cents a click anymore, you know why? It's not 2001 anymore and you guys know what the fuck Google is. Like it's under priced ads right now. Take advantage of it because they won't be. I don't know what else to tell you. - Do you have a favorite placement right now?

### how to advertise [31:12]

- You mean? - In terms of like, you can advertise on Instagram Stories, you can do right side column, newsfeed. Do you have a favorite placement? - It's just feed 'cause that's where people see stuff, more importantly, I wanna make sure you also understand the difference between brand and sales. A lot of you are struggling because you just wanna sell and all you're doing is throwing the right hook and maybe somebody doesn't want your piece of shit, $400 ebook. (attendees laughing)

### biggest piece of advice [31:39]

- Okay, let's get a question from this side of the room here. - [Holly] Hey Gary, good afternoon. - [Holly] I'm Holly and I'm one of these old women in the room. - [Gary] Okay. - [Holly] Over 50. - [Gary] Respect, you look great. - [Holly] Thank you, and ring back to you. - Good. - [Holly] I'd love to launch my third app. - Good for you. - [Holly] And what would be the biggest piece of advice? 'Cause I've been here, I've done it. Had two apps, launched successfully. They're doing well, good. On to the third. Told it will be healthcare. - Okay. - [Holly] What's the biggest piece of advice you'd give? - Well, what are you trying to accomplish? Reinvent? When you say we reinvent yourself, try to get street cred and notoriety and like leverage? - [Holly] Yeah, I've always played the field of personal finance. I'm considered one of Canada's leading personal finance writers. - So here's what I would say. And I went through this when I kind of transitioned from wine to like more business content. I didn't think a lot about establishing myself. I thought a lot about doing. Investing in Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr early on, building VaynerMedia from zero to 200 million. That was my reinvented. Don't worry about what the fuck they think. Go and execute a successful launch and then you will be that. It's the same thing with names. Do you know how many people here fucking spend weeks coming up with their company name? Like months, years. - [Holly] Yeah, I spent a month. - Yeah, that's a dumb fucking move, here's why. Names are made. You think, look, Tim fucking Horton's is a great name? (attendees laughing) Names are made. Google's not a great name, Snapchat's not a great name. They become great names because of the actions, not because the name. Gary fucking Vee with two silent Es, are you fucking kidding me? So make it the execution. Don't worry about establishing yourself. The results always fucking speak. - [Holly] Thank you. - Let's take one from this side of the room. (attendees applauding) - [Sheldon] Hey, Gary, how you doing? My name is Sheldon Bruce from 2 Lined Music Hut and I've been following you about the past year. - [Gary] Thank you, Sheldon. - [Sheldon] And you definitely changed my life. - [Gary] That's great. - [Sheldon] Last week, I got my first $3,000 check because of you. - Thank you. - [Sheldon] All right. (attendees applauding)

### Hustle vs investor [33:57]

What I wanna ask actually is what is your take on hustle versus investment. - I believe in both. I don't think they're conflicting, right? I think hustle is investing when you don't have money. Like you have money or your time. Like, and so like, I think that both are essential. I love investing financially, I love investing in people, my audience which is why I put out my content for free, right? I think investing is just smart, it feels good. And more importantly, shall I started this talk with it which is unless, like, look I leave a lot of economics on the table every year. Now, if I die tomorrow, from a business standpoint, I left something on the table. But for the most part, if I don't, it will pay its dividends over the course of a 50-year career. Sheldon, you and every single person here has never met anybody who's been successful without them working hard and hustling. You may know somebody who has a lot of money, right? That they were given that money but nobody here has achieved without a lot of hard work. Hard work is a prerequisite. Like yes, the smarter and you work, the bigger the upside, talent matters. But to me, hustle is oxygen because it's the number one piece of advice I can give to every single person here and it doesn't matter how good, smart or clever or what they see is, it is a variable of success. So I'm a big believer both those. - [Sheldon] Thank you. - That was a good one. - [Sheldon] And I'm gonna ask you another time if you could be on my podcast, all right? - 100%, done, I'll do it. - [Sheldon] Thank you, Gary. (attendees applauding) - Okay, one from this side over here. - [Attendee] Gary Vee, this is crazy. Here with my birthday right now. - Happy birthday bro. - [Attendee] Thank you, man. I didn't know I think I could be here so-- - 21st? 21st birthday? - [Attendee] No, 23. It's actually on Thursday. - Damn it, I was close. - [Attendee] Thank you to all the gents who was out here too for kinda, hey, Nick, Gabriela.

### Question of the day [35:57]

But I'm just I just wanted to ask you a quick question. So I just partnered up with my buddy. We're doing a hockey apparel company called Justition Hockey. Were based out of Buffalo, New York. - Okay. - [Attendee] My question to you is so we're big on for online shopping right now. - Of course. - [Attendee] My question for you is how can we increase our conversion rates? - Well, have better product. - [Attendee] Okay. - I mean a lot of people don't think about that, right? Because they only think about conversion rate has a lot to do with what's happening once they're there, right? So either your landing page, your UI, your UX, the copy, the images are not grabbing people, right? The other way you can do it is by building brand, right? So there's sales and brand. But these get into the like finite details. I would scrutinize very heavily the shopping cart experience where the drop-off is. This is all math. Like where the buttons are, have they AB tested the color of the ad to cart button, a lot of technical stuff and then comma, are you building brand? Because people convert better when they trust or feel emotion. So if they've heard of you on Instagram or on a podcast or things of that nature, they'll feel more confident once they get to that moment of truth. So it's about black and white technical nuances of a website. You know, mobile optimization, things of that nature and number two, really, are you establishing a brand that becomes trusted or loved? - Gary, how do you balance between not getting too stuck

### Balance between emotion and data [37:22]

in the minute details of the green or red button, like where's the balance between the data and then playing off the emotion? - For me, I don't get stuff because if you become too math our, you become commoditized. There's a lot of people here and a great at math, they believe only in analytics and quant and it gets them to a certain place 'cause it's an absolute strength but it's also the same reason they tap out. 'Cause the math always plays out. If math was the variable, the game would be over by now. The art matters so incredible. And so for me, I intuitively understand the art quite well and I surround myself with the biggest nerds I can find on the math. Those are two variables you have. - [Attendee] Hey, just one more question. - Go fast. - [Attendee] Can I give you my business card? - Sure, but I will lose it. I won't look it that way. - [Attendee] What's that? - I will definitely throw your business card at the airport. - [Attendee] Okay, that's fine. - But you can tweet me and be like I'm the 23 year old birthday boy who's got the website and that gives you a 13% chance I'll look at it. - [Attendee] Absolutely. (attendees cheering and applauding) I'll go with that. Thank you, Gary. - Okay, guys. That's all we have time for today. - Time out, time out. Are you guys rushing because of my heart out? Because I'll sneak in two more. - [Woman] Oh yeah. - Okay, go ahead. - You guys wanna do two more? - Let's go. - Okay, right side. - [Attendee] Hi Gary. That was great. Thanks for the ticket. - You're welcome. - [Attendee] I came from London.

### Internship [38:49]

- Thank you. - [Attendee] And you may remember last year, someone offered you to do a backflip for an internship. - Ah, what, a backflip? - [Attendee] For an internship. - Yes. - And you said no. - [Attendee] And I'm gonna be the first to ask this question in this form and I'm also the first to get a Gary Vee question it in London. So my question is I'll pay you $15 an hour, that's the same amount that you paying an intern. - That's right. - [Attendee] And I'll intern for you. But two years ago, you said I can be an intern and you said yes. For this year, I reverse it and said I'll pay you to do this. - So let's break this down. Three years ago, I said, yes, you could be an intern but we didn't make it happen? - [Attendee] You said email Atkinson. - Cool, that's the most important part. So now, where are you, in London? - [Attendee] Yeah. - Okay, so we have to fix that. So email me at Gary of VaynerMedia. Forward the original email, right? And I'll make that happen and you can keep your 15 bucks. (attendees applauding) - [Host] Okay, next question.

### QA Session [39:49]

- [Attendee] Thank you for that. One more question. I made a documentary called Gary Vee, Building a Honey Empire and the premiere is on the 8th of March in VaynerMedia, London. Would you be interested in a 10-minute Q and A session down there whilst you're there? - First, I'm trying to debate how hard I should sue your fucking face. Send me the details about it. Let me take a look at it. - [Attendee] Thank you. - [Host] Okay, one more question guys. This is the last question. - [Attendee] I'll be really quick. Gary, I heard you're a big fan of Altoon. - [Attendee] Altoon. - My favorite all-time your all-time Europe jam. - [Attendee] Would you accept this small gift for being here today from me? - You have some sort of Altoon thing? - [Attendee] Maybe. - Well, you better answer yes. - [Attendee] Yes, yes. - Okay, come on up. All right, next one, go fast. - [Attendee] Gary, what's up, bro? - Hey bro. I'm gonna sneak a couple. Go ahead. - [Attendee] Just one. Wholeheartedly thank you and probably like 99. 9% of the people here, you've done so much not only me but for everybody in this room and because of you is why I'm here, man. 9 1/2 years ago, I discovered you. We go back and it's because of you, I'm almost at 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. It's because of you is why in crushing it. Thanks to you and just thank you bro. Just what I'm gonna say. - You're welcome. (attendees applauding) Thank you, bro. Two quick things. I'm gonna let you ask question. - [Attendee] We can do it? - Two minutes? - [Attendee] Please, I'll be one. - One minute, awesome. Go ahead. - Thanks, Gary. - One minute. - And real quick for all of you. Sheldon, salon dude. Guys, I'm just the seed, it's cause of you. I'm fucking pounding people 24/7, 365, have hundreds of millions of people at this point consume the content and 99. 9% of them aren't doing dick about it. It's 'cause of you and you, Sheldon, that you're actually making it happen. I'm just the fucking kernel. - [Aaron] Gary, thanks for taking this question. My name is Aaron Spivak, I got a quick question for you. You're actually the reason I dropped out of school four years ago but. And it's paid dividends. - And real quick, are your parents here? - [Aaron] They weren't happy at the time but they're pretty happy now so it's all good. - Go fucking figure. - [Aaron] Anyways, last four years my brothers and I, we built the franchise now seven locations actually in the city. We sell cold fresh juices but what's been happening recently is I've been spending my time on nights on some other things. - Okay. - [Aaron] And I wanna know how you feel about diversifying streams of income for me. I mean other people are like you should be putting 110% into that one thing which I am but-- - I think that you're entrepreneurial and your curious and even if what you're doing at night completely fails, you needed to scratch that itch and it's a hundred percent ROI positive. - [Aaron] The this is it's growing crazy right now. - Go figure. - [Aaron] There's only so many hours in the day. I mean I could sleep for every night but at some point. - Listen, I think it comes down to are you willing to your brothers? (attendees laughing and cheering) See you! - That's it, guys. Give it up for Gary Vee! (attendees applauding) (upbeat music)