50 Minutes of Marketing Strategy You Can Start to Use Today | Digital Agency Expo Keynote

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Wcg15FaUnU
- The reason I win, often, is because I’m not worried about the person in the middle. Got it? — Yeah. — I didn’t change for them. They changed for me. Why? Because I focused on you. (bass music) — Yeah. — You got your perspective. I just wanna be happy. Don’t you wanna be happy? I’m super excited to be here. Obviously, it’s funny, this is so literal to my world and it’s fun because yesterday I was in Boston and I spoke to 600 jewelry store owners and it felt really warm to me because they’re merchants.They own a single store and they sell stuff. And that, obviously, is very much where I come from. And then I get to get behind it to have this event where so many of the people in this room, the far majority, are doing what I’m currently doing. And yesterday was a lot of fun to reminisce and challenge myself to think about what did I do when I had no money? Which is really basically the framework of the talk, which is a lotta people in this room that are familiar with my work, I talk about a lotta progressive things, a lot of things.
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But the reality is I always remember when I kept trying to change the narrative in 2014, ’15, ’16, which is I didn’t build Wine Library through just social media. I did direct mail. It was search. It was email marketing. And I took it way back because I knew that a lotta people in the room had no marketing budget. And it made me remember something that is super fun for me, which is literally week one, out of college, no marketing budget, I printed a bunch of 20% off by the case of wine things on a picture I made in some sort of version of old school, not even Photoshop yet. I was so computer illiterate. I couldn’t even know what I was doing. I remember it had a crab, literally a crab. There was a default picture of a crab in a beach. And I was like, “That’s fine.” And I put that there (laughing) and then made dotted lines and it said 20% off on a case of wine, non sale items.
I printed 100 of them, came to the store the next day, parked my car, ran in, opened the store, told one of the kids to keep an eye on the shop, and drove to the short hills mall, and literally put those flyers on windshields for an hour and a half. What’s fun about that for me here now is day one Vayner was super funny. And the reality is I knew nothing about the advertising industry and I had to learn it. And I had to build. And so it’s fun for me to be challenged to remember what I did, knowing there’s a wide range of people here who are a one-woman shop, to people that are trying to go from seven to eight figures. Very honestly, I wanna really move this into a very aggressive Q&A session because I think just based on how many people hit me up on LinkedIn and on Twitter over the last 24 hours about this, the far majority of this room at least has some level of context of what I’m gonna talk about or what I believe.
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And I don’t think that brings you the most value. I think what brings you the most value is probably ironically, and it’s fun to see Maribel here who I’ve worked very closely with for quite a long time, I’m extremely proud of my operational capability for all those incredible things that I heard in the intro just now, which are super fancy and really surreal for me to think about. What I promise every one of you, when I think about business, that I’m most proud of is 21 years ago, I walked into my dad’s store and he decided, ’cause he was passionate about it, to renovate the house. This is like family business shit and I was in charge. Now, I’d been in the business since I was 14. Every weekend, every summer vacation, my dad knew that I wasn’t a schlemiel and that I was capable.
And even the last two years of college, I was coming home almost every weekend, putting in work. But I walked in and from that day to this second, I have not raised capital. I have had a payroll to make. What blows my mind, this is not true with Vayner, because of the scale, but I didn’t even have a credit line for Wine Library and our invoices were due on 30 days or the distributor would put you on COD, cash on delivery, which would stop you from being able to buy from any of the distributors. The discipline that I was raised in to pay with what you had. Right? And so I’ve scrapped. I’m most proud that for 21 straight years, I’ve had to make payroll and I have.
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Operations. Building an actual business. So a lot of fancy other things have come along the way, but the connection point I feel for this room is quite high. I have a lotta thoughts about offense and defense, which is playing out in all of your minds. And so I’d like to bring as much value as possible. So there’s two mics that are lined up, so I think it’s a good idea to line up. Good. And I think just to create a little more framework for the Q&A, I know you wanna come out and frame the Q&A. I just love having you here. That was such a good intro. — Oh, really? Thank you. — Yeah, it’s really good. (laughing) — Can I say one thing? — Yeah, say three things.
- So you said this, there was a disclaimer where somebody’s like, “Hey, you’re gonna have to go out here and tell people that Gary likes to say the F word a lot, but then I was like, “Man, swearing is an intelligence thing, “marks intelligence.” So I was like, “You bet your butt we are.” Right? You know? — I appreciate it.
- That’s like a dumb thing.
(laughing) — And listen, Ryan told me back stage watch my mouth, so I’ve thrown one shit out and I’ve kept it fairly clean. I’m pretty pumped, but I know somebody’s gonna ask a fuckin’ stupid question. (laughing and clapping) And I’m joking, ’cause there is no stupid question. On a very serious note, and what I wanna set the tone on, and this is where I wanna inspire a couple of people that are still sitting ’cause they’re either more introverted, or lazy, or who the hell knows why you didn’t get up. I am really passionate about operations and how to build an actual business. And it’s very hard to produce content for that, that can bring enough value and that’s why I don’t go there. Listen, I think a lot of you have a sense of me. There was a very long time where I went nowhere close to anything motivational ’cause I have zero point zero interest in being a motivational speaker even though I know many, many people view me that way.
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I’m motivated. I’m optimistic. I’m deeply grateful and happy. And I genuinely do believe that perspective really, really matters. Because if you think you’ve lost before you’ve started, you actually already lost and that’s real. ’Cause that happens to me in things. So I have that in me, but I promise you, please feel free to go very detailed. I don’t have a COO. I have a thousand people. I don’t have a COO ’cause I’m operating it. I’m making tangible operational decisions in the back room right now. I’ve just been very, very thoughtful of how to create content at scale and post produced it, contextual to the platforms that matter. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m spending 11–14 hours a day being the CEO and COO of a thousand-person global agency. So I have some thoughts. Started from scratch, so I can remember, and I understand, and I know what has worked for me and others that look like me and what has kept a lot of people at the $700,000 a year in revenue business. So I really think I can help.
So please fire away.
I’m honestly grateful to be here and I appreciate it. Thank you. (applauding) — Hi, thank you, Gary. My name is. .. Is this on? My name is Robin Wilson and I sat there all day long because I knew that this 55-year-old woman would only have a chance of getting here if I was closest to the mic and in the front row. o strategy pays (laughing) (cheering and applauding) — Hacking always works. — Woo, love it. So I have a specific question. So I only do social media marketing at our agency. We only do social and email, but social mainly on that forefront. But we serve a very particular vertical. We serve automotive. So we’re a woman-owned business, do social media marketing. Their leader’s 55 years old, like any of that gives a shit about anything, right? And we not only just serve the automotive industry, but we really kind of niche with subprime dealerships. That’s kinda where our forte is, is that non-intender market. And so my question has been because people ask me all the time, “Do you guys do digital also?” Which means search.
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And we don’t because my brain is only so big. And so I don’t know whether I need to partner with somebody or just continue to let them find their outsourcing for that because all digital isn’t right. — I understand and do you do paid and creative? Or just paid and just creative? — Paid and creative. — Understood. So I think the answer is extremely personal. I think you and everybody else here is not unaware that when you don’t provide a service, it creates a vulnerability that can lead to you losing your service, right? — Right. — Not super complicated. We’ve all been there. I think it comes down to, and this is actually.. . Thank you, Robin. This is a great way to start. I’d literally backstage, just made a video and for the people that follow me the most, I’m in such post production, film-my-life mode that the days of five or six years ago when I’d go straight to camera with a thought video is rare.
Original programming just for the video is rare for me these days, but I’m so compelled right now around this thought that people are not self-aware of what makes them happy when they run a business. And everybody just thinks about growth without realizing the next employee or the next hundred dollars is the beginning of the process of you not liking your business anymore. And that’s your answer. Your answer is predicated on you know it’s a vulnerability. In one way, it’s also a strength in another way. You just have to ask yourself are you happy with the level of business that you’re at and if you’re not, are you in a place where you think you can get more deep narrow, or do you think you need to go wide, right?
Partnering is no.
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Right? All partnerships are vulnerable from the get. It’s inconceivable that another business or human has the same exact interest as you do and something’s gonna happen eventually. Again, this is what makes this fun. The heads are nodding ’cause ya lived it. You already thought about the shit you did that didn’t work. Right? So that’s why we never partnered with anybody. As a matter of fact, I never took a single meeting to partner with anybody because I knew I was gonna do everything ’cause I’m building it for myself. And I had no interest claiming that they’re the one that told me to do… I didn’t even wanna make myself vulnerable to somebody claiming that in a meeting they were trying to get me to partner with them that when I then did what they did, I was a dick. So I wouldn’t even take the meetings ’cause I didn’t want the reputational vulnerability ’cause I knew there was never gonna be a scenario where I was gonna partner with anybody. I was gonna do everything. — Perfect answer.
Thank you. — You know, it’s a self awareness answer. Let me say one other thing ’cause in know this will bring more value to everybody. I’m also a very big fan when you wanna do something else, to not do yesterday’s thing, to do tomorrow’s. I would much rather a lot of people here who are in social only, not go and do search and banner, and programmatic, but start the process of affording the ability to do voice in four years. ’Cause their business will grow much more. — Love it. Thank you — — But real quick. And I apologize. (laughing) — I’m coming back. — But the reason I say voice is think voice is dangerously close, whereas if you come up to me and say… The next guy was like, “Gary, that’s exactly right.” I’m gonna be doing blockchain advertising to guarantee consumption. I’m like that’s further along than you think. Or I’m building a VR shop. Not one person you know goes home and does VR, which means we’re far away.
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(laughing) My strength is timing, not just seeing it. Right? I’m not talking about TikTok a whole bunch now ’cause I just fuckin’ discovered it. I was one of the first users of Musical.ly. I’m talking about it now ’cause it’s on the cusp of getting older and that’s why I’ve talked about Snapchat even though I invested four years earlier. I wait ’til things hit a different level of scale that encompanies more consumers. Timing. The reason Vayner got so big was I invested in the things that I thought would be soon and I stayed alive with my salesmanship to get there. — Yes. Thanks. — Thank you. (applauding) — Eric] Hi, Gary. — How are you? — I’m great, man, how are you doing? — Very good, what’s your name? — My name is Eric Yang. — Eric. I’m from Paris. — Very nice. — And actually built a online conference agency. And we actually operate in Los Angeles. And I’ve actually been following your advice, which is creating content and documenting entire journey and process of our work. — I love it. — And it actually has been working really, really well for us. — Go figure. (laughing) — What’s been interesting it the type of people that follow us now are mostly entrepreneurs that are Asian, under 30 — — Makes sense. — which is exactly who I am.
And I actually moved to Asia to be closer with that demography. — Interesting. — And my question to you is, besides podcasting, what advice would you give entrepreneurs in Asia to build a personal brand? — Well, I think podcasting’s gonna have a huge growth in that area. I also think that KOLs are disproportionately advanced in Asia, especially in mainland China and other places. So the ability to tap into the influencer ecosystem in that world is quite advanced. I also think that there’s enormous arbitrage on all the social networks out in South-East.
So we opened up Singapore because we think the media costs on Instagram, and Facebook, and the platforms that play, even Line when we go full-time to Japan and South Korea, are even more under-priced than they are in America. Our global expansion has been completely predicated on the under-priced nature of the media that we most believe in.
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So the answer is it doesn’t change. My answer is always the same. What are humans doing?
And then bring them the most value in that channel. I mean, again, I know a lot of you are following at home. The fact that Crushing It only came out 18 months ago as a book, and spoke nothing of LinkedIn and LinkedIn is that top thing I’m talking about is wild. Here’s why it’s wild. It’s not a new thing, it just became under-priced. There’s a very dark-horse chance that I’m gonna talk a lot about print and direct mail, radio, and television one day because the market’s so collapses that the price becomes actually a deal. I want to buy outdoor billboards when they’re remnant and I can buy ’em for two months for $2000 instead of $34,000. I’m unemotional. I can’t wait to be at a conference in seven years and completely shit on social media. (laughing) Because you have to understand. I wasn’t making content and you weren’t following along when I built my entire companies on…
Guys, I ran ads on Google the day it came out. I bought Google AdWords for five cents a click the day it came out for wine terms. That was one of the biggest reasons my library grew. I did email marketing in 1997, heavy. It was my religion. I had 90 fuckin’ percent open rates. It was unheard of. But it was new. The same rate right now, I’m getting a million, I’m 100s and if not, 1000s of emails a day or DMs from people that are thanking me for telling them to go on TikTok.
It’s just arbitrage. But people dig in on the thing they know and aren’t willing to kill the thing that got ’em there. That’s what’s happening in this room. You’re not willing to kill the thing that got you to the dance when it no longer is the thing. And so you start justifying and you start shitting on the new thing, which gets you deeper in the hole. Then you feel even further behind. That’s the game.
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- Preach. — That’s the game. — Thank you. — You got it. — (mumbles) just to take a shot at this. I am about to launch a podcast. I have six guests lined up already. Will you be open to be my seventh guest for 15 minutes? (laughing) — Two minutes? — 15. — No. (laughing) — What about two? Just two minute, one question. — You made a critical mistake and I’ll explain it. If you had booked four guests, I would have definitely done it. — Six people are lined up already. They’re prerecorded. — Yeah, I get it. But if I could have been the fifth guest, I would be in. Now I’m gonna wait to be the hundredth guest. (laughing) — So when I have 100. — When you get 99 in the bag, you send me this clip and I’ll do it. — Done. Thank you. (cheering and applauding) — Gary, it is always good to see you, my friend.
- It’s always good to see you, Smitty. — I wanna thank you again. I always do. I send you emails regularly — — I’m aware. — to thank you. (laughing) — Something that’s — — I’m aware, I read ’em. — I know. And I appreciate you. You answered one at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday and I love you for that. (laughing) Following your advice has helped me, as you know, grow my company in two and a half years from zero to a multimillion-dollar business. — You didn’t fully say it. — Huh? — Go ahead. Go ahead. — And I gotta tell you. I’m not nervous speaking to Gary, I’m just so moved because this guy is so real and so genuine and actually cares. Really fucking cares. — Because it doesn’t come out of mine. The second you understand how much abundance is in the world, you will change your behavior. — Absolutely. — I’m giving away all my best advice for free at scale. (laughing)