GaryVee Brussels Meetup | Belgium 2017

can you yep hold I promise I will get to every single person you'll send me an email do you rock no all right good I'm just going to put this here nobody break my wine it's a nice gift all right um just you'll take this picture and then you'll email Gary at Vayner media and you'll put French subtitles in the tit subject and I'll get it organized all right no problem how's everybody good all right let's do it g how's the food was [ __ ] ridiculously good and I'm a snobby the was really good too I'm a snobby New Yorker and that was really good yeah really good has anybody ever eaten here yeah [ __ ] it's fancy though right have I here I live here just kid you have to it's four mons before you can heat all right here's my concept for this so I can like get through this let's just first do like selfies and sign books and then we can do questions because otherwise people have to wait like four or five hours and I've done this before so let's just let's first do the photos and things of that nature and then I'll try to answer questions if I can yeah real pleasure who for you is best NBA player ever who's the yeah Patrick Ying right you're not recording best NBA player is Patrick Ying cuz I'm a Nicks fan and that's who I say real pleasure thanks for coming something to tell to the bus of people reverse engineer yourself don't try to be somebody else not for your parents not for me not for him for yourself thanks Gary you got it where were you before c Island the Caribbean okay my dad lives there but I want to sell stuff and you know make money okay but my market lives in the US how can I do that the best well what do you want to sell t-shirts and it's going to be fishing t-shirts okay and so it needs to be high performance and they're not going to find them here the US so why can't you set I don't have a friend or cousin or brother in the US that can you know hold a thousand t-shirts in his for me you shouldn't do that you should sell them on spec you're the one who made me shift to towards gratitude in my business how you choose which funny thing happens when you make that move true right it's you know all these things are switches everybody wants these little things they're binary you're either on or you're off y there's no half pregnant the process so my question is actually this I have an ID and I'm really into it I really want to work for it but my question is the only thing that I'm missing is actually a good Financial base I know how to get it but how can I work it in that way that I still have something to say in my own idea the best possible way well if you don't have the money and you if you raise the money you don't have the say then you have to wait until you have the money to have the say that's the best and only way you think it's the only way if you want to have say unless you decide that this idea is worth you learning from the biggest problem everybody here is going to make is they think their current idea is the end all Beall a lot of your businesses and ideas are Stepping Stones so maybe it's better for you to not have say learn what's good learn what's bad you're a young man yeah1 you know what's great about being a businessman is you don't retire at 31 like an athlete you play forever so instead of waiting until you make the money to have control maybe it's better to not have control you learn it sucks cuz you don't have control but you learn maybe you'll make some money and then you can take the money and go do your next thing you're always going to have ideas isn't your first idea that's true that's it don't fall in love with an idea okay exactly thank you man you're welcome I want to say to you that if today I stand there it's because of one guy who is behind you who got Twisted what you said that you have to cut friends from your inner circle to succeed and today I know that I'll achieve greatness because I will show him that you have not to cut friends to make it I love it man well good like too many people try to make a narrative the only narrative that works as your true narrative yeah so many people here fronting as experts or as coaches and making stuff happen you're aspiring you're through the process document your best story that will get more people to buy more je jewelry than anything is that you guys come out and say we're just starting we don't know [ __ ] we just know that we want to put this out in the world people will relate to that more than you saying we're this we're that got it the truth always wins it might not be winning this moment this month this year but it always wins at the end I'm a radio host at one of the national radio Studio Brussels okay and I'm a high school dropout vlog I quit high school when I was 17 yep now I'm just chasing my career trying to do some [ __ ] you know but I see a lot of kids right now I'm listening to you what you see right now is like maybe 0. 001% of people that chased their dreams what I want to do is I want to start a like a sort of YouTube show okay to with interviewing like celebrities okay about following their dreams inspire a lot of people here okay youngsters like me but how do I brand something like this I know through YouTube but how do I use Twitter

Instagram Facebook up to its full potential to just grow it as as you know what I mean like of course I know so it's the quality of your content is it only the content of and it's the tactics so the tactics are free you can buy jab jab right hook for 12 bucks and [ __ ] I told you the tactics the number one thing everybody should do here is not listen to what I'm saying they should watch what I do you want to be big on all these platforms just look at my behavior the problem is everybody wants it to happen too fast the question isn't how do you do it the question that people really mean is how do I do it faster the answer is you don't yeah your upside is going to be pre predicated on how good you actually are okay the end okay like what do you put it out use hashtags you do everybody does the same [ __ ] yo with these these small things like hashtags and stuff that I don't know anything about that I'm trying to it's called Google I'm being serious with it AIA right now you know it's called Google man just go to GOOG Google and be like how do I use hashtags to grow my Instagram there's 4,000 articles yeah but the thing hashtag is just an example for no that's one of the examples yeah exactly one of the ex the real question everybody asks is how to do it faster and the answer is there's no faster you'll get there based on your talent if you're ridiculously [ __ ] hot all these [ __ ] dudes will follow you think sure hot chicks win on Instagram if you're ridiculously smart and you're great and motivational and understand what the [ __ ] you're saying all these dudes will watch it that's what happens with me okay like you got to have it the thing is like the only thing that I have the only doubt is the states I know the mindset of the states is really different as the mindset here people here are afraid to take risks to go YouTube isn't Belgium only true but what I want to try to uh tackle people from Belgium first great well then you can't be mad at Belgium's mindset if you want to sell to Belgium do you believe that I can change your mindset I believe you over a course of a lifetime but not in 2 years and not in years I have patience I have so sure of course but European DNA is structured Europe's where it's at if you're the greatest of all time if you're Muhammad Ali or Martin Luther King I think you can change it if not well then do it okay Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali didn't come and ask me to do it what are the three most important basics for you to start a business I mean I want you to take a you have to have skill you have to be patient you have to have a product that people want you have to be good at marketing people my man 99% of everybody's businesses here will fail we're living in fake entrepreneur land everybody thinks it's so easy it's hard everybody can be an entrepreneur you can have a business can you live on it for the rest of your life that's a whole different game so I mean the thought of even asking what like even the question speaks to like raw young you know like there's a million ways to win you're the smartest you're the hardest working you saw white space that nobody else saw there's no right answer there's just a million ways to do it you need to figure out what works for you I'm basically being bullshitting the last two years and I just want to have some pep talk some great motivational things to just get me started tomorrow because I just have been uh not doing anything that I should have been doing because I just have so so many doubts and I just think too much of what other people will do of my will think of my thing because I know the thing I want to do I already started my YouTube channel and I already know what I have to do I know your ethos of uh documenting that do not create so I know what I have to do but I just you're not yeah I'm not there I just need that last push you know you're here because you know I'm right yeah of course yeah I can say like maybe tonight's the night where I'm like just do it [ __ ] them but the truth is even if you feel the high for me on like so if I miraculously came up with an amazing thing to say to you right now the truth is next Thursday happens and I'm not here so what I would say is the fact that you even know I'm right so you have to understand the reason people leave negative coms comments on me or they don't like me some people here didn't like me at first is because I'm not letting you get away with your [ __ ] I'm getting to the point of it and the people that don't like me are the ones that want to pay other people or want other people that show them Lamborghinis or watches they want to trick them into feeling good there's only work there's only not caring about everybody else you know what to do you grew up in a way environment parents DNA that hasn't let you there yet but the fact that you're even here and you basically said what you have to do to me I didn't say anything no I know yeah it's just a matter of time now what you need to do is keep pressure on it the reason I never change my tune is the reason I'm getting so many people to do things is cuz I don't waiver it's constant offense I'm going to pound you every day multiple times a day with the same [ __ ] thing it never changes it's the same thing luckily for me there's new platforms so it feels like I'm saying something new cuz shit's changed

but it's the same thing and you'll just eventually get there what you need to do is you need to keep paying attention to people like me or others that sound like me so that it becomes your Norm it becomes your oxygen there is no other voices and eventually just like when you jumped off a a diving board to a pool just like when you kiss somebody for the first time just like anything else you ever did in life eventually you get there and you do it and you never look back you understand so the key is to suffocate yourself into pressuring yourself to have no other options the reason I'm worth listening to is cuz I'll do that for you and then you don't need me anymore okay thank you very much I don't need to sell you anything can you I don't want you to stay around I just want I just uh just want one favor for you can you just scream in my face just [ __ ] do it I don't even want to do that cuz do it I'll tell you why I don't want to cuz I don't feel it's right you know why cuz it's tactical but it's just a mental thing I think just want to you want me to fix the sink I want you to fix your well damn you understand you just want me to fix your sink right now I don't want to do that you already know the answer my screaming your face will be a fun moment it'll be cool to think back to it's not what you need right now what you need is constant pressure on any voice that's penetrating you that isn't allowing you to make that jump whether that's your mom or older brother or your aunt or your best friend or your girlfriend or your boyfriend I don't know who the [ __ ] that is but you need to eliminate it you don't have to cut them out like that other like you don't have to cut when I say cut friendship out I mean I have friends that I don't listen to a [ __ ] word they say they're my friends but I don't take their words as my gospel you know what to do I heard you that's why I'm not going to give it to you I heard you I know you're ready yeah it's just you know what you are just a matter of time how do you meet investors investor yes you go to angellist. com you get a list of all the people and you message them all right and 99% of them will say no and four yes and you'll learn from those experiences thank you just keep asking we have a platform um it's like the mini Google of online shopping um so Google makes money when you buy something they get a commission but they don't share it you understand it but in Belgium people don't get it in Europe no one gets it so when you log on us you register you just buy a [ __ ] then you get a commission but we share the commission with the users but Google brings them value otherwise Google does other things besides just sell them things of course but our problem is that people don't understand that they can get percentage back of their um their earnings on so how do we promote how do we Market um the platform you get in front of them so how do you do that right so now we starts with influencers and they we make a personal uh landing page they put it in their Instagram bio good we make a picture I like that that's a good start and then um the followers of uh the influencers they get uh 10 it's all great but how should we do it how do we tell our story because no one gets it that's the problem should make a video and explain it but we already tried it and it's like in Belgium like if I ask here maybe the half of the people know that Google earn by commission well Google earns commission through what are you talking about through Google shopping um also yeah but what we do is so you log in you go to your Amazon you buy and then you get percentage I know what he's doing okay but here in Belgium and in Europe it's who in the US is doing it successfully the platform that we buil no one so you have that cashs you have think about that for a minute it's from New York give that thought you know what I mean to me incentivize back I I'm the markets are so we are the agency I get it they're the cine he drove me with a cap on his cost just to ask you this question the problem is when you to incentivize commission-based affiliate cash back buying it's never worked cuz it's not enough of a value prop to them they can get that from the American Express it's just not a valuable enough product the reason I asked you who in the US does it you're blaming it on Belgium how about the US the most Progressive Market in the world where's it happening China the next most Progressive the model doesn't work your advice you're 21y old self is make more chicks have more fun how do you balance it with hustle I um I didn't balance it I worked every minute how would you balance it though in hindsight yes how would you do it maybe one week maybe two weekends a year like I wouldn't it wouldn't be that much I'm pretty happy with the way it is look people's mouths are way ahead and Ambitions are way ahead of their actions everybody's talking [ __ ] but people aren't putting in the work so you just need but by the way if that's your goal exactly like do you know how great it is to make $100,000 a year and be happy and go on vacation and love your life it's great everybody now thinks

they have to build Facebook it's stupid exact just need to know yourself you don't need and can you start at 28 you could start at 58 and building businesses of course Kentucky Fried Chicken the guy was 75 years old when he started do whatever the [ __ ] you want I don't know what do you want to do like you're not sure like you want to be like me then you need to start putting in work and start selling stuff you know like you should how do you do that well the way I did it at your age was I didn't give a [ __ ] about school I got bad grades and I spent all my time I'm building a business I didn't go out with my friends I didn't play video games I didn't hook up with girls I [ __ ] worked what do you mean by uh building a business my plan back then was everybody was collecting baseball cards and comic books so I was buying and selling it back to them sh'll be fine now you know you exactly like oh [ __ ] guys if you think I did well now if I grew up in the era that you're growing up in this [ __ ] would have been over a long time ago if I had eBay and Shopify and Google and [ __ ] internet I didn't have [ __ ] there was no computers [ __ ] went to the store bought [ __ ] love it bought [ __ ] went to the flea market on Saturday and sold it like [ __ ] like you guys have it so good so easy you have that it tricks you that it's easy that's the problem it's so good and so easy that you're getting tricked that it's easy it's not easy what do your wife do to make you possible to do what you do she supports me unconditionally at her own expense yeah because my husband is the better entrepreneur of the two of us and I want to support him all the way but what do I have to do to make you have to become independent and selfless okay but that's very hard that's easy for me to say to you it's hard to actually do it m you know my wife is a special person you know it's she's a special person yeah you know what I mean to be in a place where she supports the insanity that I execute that takes enormous confidence it takes enormous humility selfishness uh and it takes a lot of um Independence she doesn't need me at all for her happiness that's hard when you're sharing a life with somebody so and what that does is it guilts me into spending more time you know it's you give you get right I'm almost graduating as an electronical engineer this year and I realized I actually hate it yes very common yes so I actually want to get into the Cosmetic industry awesome and developing products and makeup but it's more in the chemical engineering industry so now I'm wondering what should I do to emerge that industry I would email every single head of R& D of every uh uh cosmetic business in the world and tell them your story all right and see what they answer in if you email 1,700 people on LinkedIn and tell them your story all you need is one to say you know what I like the way you emailed me okay understand yes I do it's practical it's you know what's the problem everybody's debating people don't understand there's value in doing you can change two years later yeah indeed there's no losing every yeah not the only form of losing is sitting and debating yeah means you're not doing anything sure yeah just working what do you like I do like repairing elect for example okay thank you so much you're welome how do you choose if you have different passions you always say one only one focusing on one not 10 you could focus on 10 it's hard okay you might be talented enough I don't know okay FOC on it's only doing is the I got it doing is doing is the only thing's theover the cover cover thing it's the only thing that matters it's the only like everybody's pondering by the way guys you've been living under very good Economic Times economy's been good over the last seven to 10 years like six seven eight years what do you think's going to happen to all your businesses when the economy goes bad and there's no funding and there's no customers go ask all the retailers what happened to their business here after the bombing at your airport like what do you think what like you guys have had it good you're young you haven't had it bad everybody's pondering and creating CEO in their Instagram title like like wait to [ __ ] is hard wait this [ __ ] is hard and there's no money you're going to go get a job so while it's good right now it's a really bad strategy to just debate Because by the time you figure it out the Market's gonna suck and there's gonna be no customers to be had and doesn't matter that you figured it out so currently I'm um I'm discussing with a startup to help them with their growth okay um we set some really good growth goals um so we they really want some leads some conversions it's really clear to them but I'm really scared that I can't experiment because I would like to do content marketing uh experiment with things like music because it's really AG

grp between 12 and 16 um but the growth goals are too tight so don't do it but I have to earn some money so go find somebody else to do something with okay and would you tell them the would you discuss yeah would you discuss with them the one thing I would never do in life is do something that is already a losing proposition before you started yeah that's what you're coming to be I told them you have the brand and you have like leads and the sales marketing story I understand saying and they were like okay you want to do branding and they want to do conversion you want to do a mix of branding conversion picture yeah video picture yep but what if you do only the lead the leads and the conversions you don't have a brand that's right so you either tell them yeah I told them and they were like yeah we can build a brand while doing the leads and the conversions and I them sounds like you need to find somebody else to do business with okay what are these the only [ __ ] people in the world you can do business with most go five [ __ ] people to do business with all right okay you either compromise or you don't I've won on not compromising cuz I'm good enough my man you're walking into dog [ __ ] okay you're walking into a straight loss okay get the [ __ ] out of there get another uh another start of to help yeah I just need three words for being a good CEO okay and I want it on tap you got it give me three words you work for them y it's leadership everybody wants to be a COO and they think that people work for them a CO works for the people yeah I know that's where people are confused really yes all the pressure is on you it's your fault it's on you do you believe in what you do the most like 100% okay I really want like 100 nice man I really appreciate it awesome should I launch my business on the side or take a gap here and try to launch it both work both work which one is best I don't know you well enough you know what I mean they both work which one do you want to do uh I would like to try to take a gap here but scared well that's why you're not asking yes which one will you do I wouldn't take either what will you do then I can't answer that for you fear's holding you back you know what you want to do the only reason you're not doing is cuz you're scared of doing what you actually want to do right are you scared to do it cuz your parents won't like it um no my parents actually support me okay so what you scared of failing um not failing but um still being at the same place when my friends are at the next level huge mistake you don't want the same thing your friends want so why the [ __ ] do you care what they have number one mistake so many people make is they care about what other people have I don't give a [ __ ] what anybody has if I have more if I have less doesn't matter I worry about myself the fact that you're worrying about other people's accomplishments is already a losing formula you need to get rid of that first then you can focus on yourself thank you understand yes I do you just have to talk these things through and then when you get to the right answer you answered it which I love so the fact that you care that one year later you do your thing which you loved and you decided that you want to do but you weren't successful and your friend got a job and now he's got a little bit more money that bothers you I built a $45 million business in 4 years and was still paying myself $40,000 no fancy car no [ __ ] watch no [ __ ] bling because I knew what I was doing it for I believed fully she's still here in what I was doing right you're worried about way too many short-term goals when you have when your mouth says that you want big time goals I launched uh my company last summer in a beta FAS we have now 1,000 paying customers and uh shipping 3,000 devices next month and I have or we have two options to choose from option one is that we grow to pictur 10,000 customers in two years and be Dr even with the funding we have we start up another funding round and we know there's interest from investment funds I would take the money of course I'll tell you why thank you my friend cuz I think the money is going to dry up yeah and so I think yeah so I think if you feel like you're getting money at the value that you feel good about I would take it yeah the photo theot and you know and you and I know that you hear me say a lot like don't take the money like if you can do it the only thing I would say is if you got funding interest and it's at I don't know how to do and how to and you're getting money at the terms that you want right well take yeah so you would say better grow faster and I start a business my like 6 months ago in Persian rugs but it's difficult for us to really find the right consum we think they are like 40 plus their age about 40 plus but um we have social media but it's very hard for us to Target them which kind of uh content do you prefer us to use in

social media what kind of which kind of content should we use on social media pictures and videos of your products yeah but in what way we make pictures I don't know your business well enough to know exactly but the creative is the variable of success you know so like so the bottom line is that I don't really have a read on exactly how you know what you're doing with your Biz but I can't BL I can't I a lot of people I can give advice to cuz it's a general yours is very specific so I don't know what I know is clearly what you're doing isn't working yeah with social media ads uh would you prefer Facebook cuz you can Target 40 years on older and $100,000 income in higher are you targeting like that yes and so it's not converting um not really but I really have to use uh to work on my content so how much are you spending um about like 20 a day2 day yes well so it's a very small number you're not sure if it's working or not you know how much how many days have you done it uh like a month yeah you're you haven't even started so I'm under working on her and I'm building a business but I'm finding a hard time uh keeping my attitude up when I'm controlling people because I lose my attitude when I lose control over the situation okay how do I handle that I mean I'm not sure are you um I don't know you well enough but composure is if you're managing people composure is the only thing that matters being the bigger woman in every situation is the only thing that matters so what when I lose control how do I well why are you losing control what's bothering you so much because I lose control over their situation something I cannot have control over you shouldn't be a manager until you figure out how to fix that inside of you so whether that's therapy or reading or meditation or rethinking the situation if you're too emotional when you lose control you'll never manage then how do I keep my attitude up real like by re by reframing your brain into valuing what matters okay 99% of things don't matter right and if you're getting upset that means you think everything matters I'm never upset how do I keep my head cooling I don't know there might be something deeper inside of you that like in the way that you were raised or the way you're wired you need to figure that out for now I would tell you that if you can't if that's where you're coming with your question that's your thing you need to like take a big step backwards and not want to manage okay like the only people I let manage are the coolest calmest most grounded so I just have to be either yes but that's yeah great that's not so easy I've said that to a million people you're not going to be calmed you need to take a big step backwards and figure out why you're not calm well Luka first of all good news you're in Italy which is an amazing country um you know you've got to take a step back and be honest with yourself if you're struggling in your business it means you're lying to yourself okay and so either your product isn't as good as you think you're overpriced it's not it is you got to go and ask customers that said yes and no and ask them what they think same advice I just gave to that young man the customers right not a marketing genius not the people that created it ask the customers the ones that said yes and no and take your emotion out of the equation and then see what the truth is watch what I do so listen do [ __ ] like when I thought of 60c glub I did an hour later and I a big audience I have a lot to lose mhm right and then again I just said it it's been [ __ ] 3 months I switched back I'm not scared to change just do [ __ ] I knew that I was a businessman and when I you guys did most of you didn't see this that big man I hugged out he saw it I was the wine guy yeah so I started making business videos and everybody's comments were stick to Wine do what you do what the [ __ ] do you know about business I built the business people didn't even know me for that just do [ __ ] I decided I'm going to start a beanie company I may or may not but I'm trying to do it right remember the honey where's the honey company remember for some of you that watch ask SC there is no honey company Vayner toys failed like there's no honey company I didn't get to it I tried to I got a lot of samples data I'm just doing all the time we're ideating every day making up [ __ ] on the spot playing doing doing doing if one out of 30 things succeeds it's better than all of the things that you guys haven't started one the biggest value you can just share with my viewers with what kind of viewers are they youngsters like me people want to start do business people who need personal development patience it's [ __ ] patience it's patience like all of you want it too fast I'm 41 years old and I feel like I'm seven like when I was 20 when I was 15 or 17 or 22 I thought 41 year olds were so [ __ ] old they felt so

old I wish all of you 13 16 19 and 24 year olds could feel how young I am in my soul right now it would change everything you do you would become dramatically more patient which would mean that you would make a lot more of the successes that you want to happen most of you will lose because you're trying to take shortcuts the problem is right now everybody's building apps and they're not building businesses mhm yeah it's true I know you could like you know what I mean that is what you need to think about thank you it's the business of apps not apps that are businesses everybody's thinking about apps your app might be right you have a sustainable business the economics of the scale of what you're building is very difficult one thing you would have done different in Vader media zero no regrets so much can't you know like how let me give you the best piece this a great I appreciate you asking that what value in the world does it have to look backwards in a world where you're going to make a ton more mistakes do you know what I mean like reconcile stying mistakes you've made in the past in a world where you're going to be making a bunch more seems like a waste of energy to me you know that's what you learn from your mistakes but like who knows if I didn't do that if some there's everything's wired together if I didn't make that mistake but would have that led me to that meeting which became my ultimate upside you can't unwind them everybody wants to unwind [ __ ] to tactics that's why I stay so Mac got it together we can help working together we can make a change help better things