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Podcast Episode Summary: Old-School Thinking is Killing Your Business – Here’s How to Fix It | GaryVee Q&A
Podcast Overview
- Podcast Title: The GaryVee Audio Experience
- Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
- Episode Title: Old-School Thinking is Killing Your Business – Here’s How to Fix It
- Episode Description: Gary discusses the imperative for businesses, particularly in the contracting and roofing industries, to embrace technology. He provides insights on overcoming resistance to change, leveraging social media for growth, and building a strong brand.
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Key Themes and Concepts
The Necessity of Embracing Technology
- Resistance to Technology: Gary emphasizes that avoiding technology in business is detrimental. He argues that those who cling to outdated methods will lose their competitive edge.
- Personal Experience: Gary shares his journey from being reluctant to embrace technology to recognizing its importance in modern business.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
- Accountability: He discusses the importance of accountability in leadership and team dynamics. If a business is underperforming, it's often the leader's responsibility.
- Empathy and Communication: Gary suggests starting conversations with the leadership team and ensuring alignment on the importance of technology and change.
Social Media as a Tool for Growth
- Real Use of Social Media: Gary advocates for using social media effectively, stating that it should not be an afterthought. He encourages local businesses to create content that resonates with their community.
- Advice for Roofers: He stresses that every roofer should create a video titled "How to Not Hire Us" to build trust and establish themselves as experts.
Building a Strong Brand
- Brand vs. Sales: Gary emphasizes that a strong brand can allow businesses to command higher prices and attract customers without needing to rely solely on sales tactics.
- Consumer Connection: Establishing a personal brand helps create a connection with potential customers, leading to loyalty and repeat business.
Practical Strategies
- Organic Social Media: Gary suggests consistently posting organic content across multiple platforms to gauge what resonates with the audience.
- Ad Targeting: Once effective content is identified, businesses should run targeted ads to maximize local reach.
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Key Takeaways
- Adapt or Die: Avoiding technology is a surefire way to diminish your business's competitiveness.
- Communication is Key: Having open conversations with your team about the need for change can help foster a culture of adaptability.
- Harness Social Media: Creating engaging, authentic content can provide significant benefits for local businesses, especially in traditionally conservative industries like roofing.
- Emphasize Branding: Building a strong personal and business brand can provide leverage in pricing and customer acquisition.
- Leverage Community Knowledge: Videos that educate customers on avoiding common pitfalls not only build trust but also position your business as an authority.
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Actionable Steps
- Make the "How to Not Hire Us" Video: Every contractor should create a video that educates potential customers about what to look for when hiring a roofing contractor.
- Utilize Social Platforms: Begin by posting regularly on social media, using various formats and content types to find out what engages your audience.
- Invest in Learning Technology: Take the time to understand the tools and platforms that can help streamline your business processes and improve customer engagement.
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Conclusion In this episode, Gary Vaynerchuk delivers a powerful message about the necessity of embracing technology and modern marketing methods in the business landscape. He provides actionable insights for contractors and small business owners, highlighting the importance of accountability, effective communication, and leveraging social media to grow and maintain a competitive edge.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.
0:2925. He lays out exactly how to adapt, get your team on board, and shares the consequences of what not changing with the times are. What you're about to hear right now is what Gary's response would be to someone who just doesn't like technology and isn't interested in using it in their day-to-day work. I get you. I was the same way. I grew up a business kid. I liked selling lemonade and sports cards and then wanted to build a big business for my dad's liquor store. And when I was 18 and dreamed about doing that, I thought I was going to open up first 10 liquor stores in New Jersey and then 10 liquor stores in New York and then Florida.
1:06And then I was in a dorm room and I heard, and I saw this internet thing. I'm like, fuck, like, I'm going to have to learn this. Like, I got an F, F in typing class in my sophomore year of high school because I'm like, I'm never going to type on a fucking computer. So what do I say? I say, I understand you. But I hope that everybody in this room also understands that you chose to be in business. You didn't choose to be a teacher. You didn't choose to be in politics. You didn't choose to be in something else that doesn't have merit. You're in business. And business doesn't give a shit about your feelings or mine.
1:49and if you are thinking about bringing a sword to a gunfight you are going to lose and so I begrudgingly learned tech I it comes much more natural to me to do what I've done this week I've actually not been talking a lot publicly this year because I'm busy but this week ironically I've been on three stages in Dubai Miami and now here and I love it and it's easy what I rolled that you saw the seconds before you took the stage, I'm working. And then they're like, Gary Vee. I'm like, oh fuck, I gotta go on stage, right? And same thing in Dubai, I had 14 ,000 people in an arena and I had no idea what I was gonna talk about, but it comes so natural.
2:32And for a lot of you in this business, there are things that come incredibly natural. Maybe you grew up in the game and your hands are on hammer, right? You grew up in that way. For others like you, the marketing and the leadership came natural. The problem is your ability to get comfortable with the stuff that is uncomfortable, that is required for success, is the indicator to where you're going to end up. And so what do I say? Tough shit. And. Like. No, but we can break it down. Tough shit means you could hire someone that's good at it. Right? You've got to know it a little bit, though, because you might hire someone and you're not sure if they're doing a good job with the CRM or the SEO or the social creative.
3:20But like, you know, I get, you know, this is, you know, people love to talk in business. People love to talk about like capitalism and entrepreneurship and USA and all this stuff. And then they cry about merit. Like technology's here. And if you're going to let other companies use it, you're going to lose market share. And by the way, you're allowed to lose market share. You're allowed to have a business that's more vulnerable and softer and not in a position to sell. you're allowed but to put your head in the sand in technology is always a bad move technology is undefeated you could cry about ai or you can put in the work for 30 hours and read and learn and realize how you're going to weaponize it for you you could cry about social media or you could take the 20 hours put in the work and learn how to use it for you tech is oxygen one of the things that you talk about a lot is people.
4:18You don't talk a lot that much about technology. You talk about people and how to manage people and how to get people to embrace new things. How do you do that? How do you get your people to embrace these new things that seem radical to most people? I do it by having a lot of conversations. I normally start with the leadership team, you know and I've had a career where my businesses have started at one or two or three people and then have become thousands and so without knowing how many employees you have I've lived every version of it and it's the same game whether you have six employees in that scenario the way to get this across is really making sure your right hand or woman is on board with you if there's a disconnect between you the leader and your number one on whatever the issue is you're already vulnerable so whether that's you know at this point though for example at VaynerMedia we're now 2 ,500 people globally and I just use a lot of zoom meetings with everybody and it's great just you know for me I get very excited and I'm very passionate about the things I believe in you know I think a lot about like what what can be valuable like why am I here and what what's the one thing I can say I know it's it'll be one thing for one person it'll be another thing we'll get three people but i promise you how many people here are owner operators you're the owner raise your hands for the people that just raised your hands 100 of everything that's not going well is 100 your fault 100 i know it hurts but it's true if patty is fucking up fire her i love when people are like oh it's all fucked up i'm like because you suck like you're in control like right like you know and i think but what's interesting is for me and especially as you go to scale there's like 900 things that are fucked up right this minute and i that doesn't cripple me it actually gets me excited because i feel like i can fix it that that's accountability if i can leave with anything if i could get everyone here into full accountability include how many people here are not the boss raise your hand not the boss it's not your company.
6:31Raise it. I have good news for you too. If you're like, my boss blows, quit.
6:41Accountability is the gateway drug to happiness. And so how do you get people on board? You fucking first motivate them. First, you're empathetic. First, you're trying different maneuvers. And then there's a moment where you give them no choice. And I don't care if Don's been in the company for 17 years if don is the reason we're not implementing something that is imperative to make the business go forward then don is going to have to have a very tough conversation from you that's like hey don this is it if you keep fucking up what i'm trying to achieve by undermining it because you're the og in the building you're going to be out i'm going to help like and by the way if you're a nice person like i'm a nice guy in those scenarios i'm like god i'll help you get another job but we're not this ship is not sinking because you don't like ai i don't even understand how any human could think technology doesn't make like i don't i don't know what the fuck we're talking about here is there anyone here that thinks like a pencil and paper are better than technology like what the fuck is this argument and by the way by the way like implementing tech is hard.
7:52I mean, I had to fight my fucking dad for like three years to upgrade our register. I'm being dead serious. I'm like, dad, we need like this fucking register blows. Like it's like the text from 1984. He's like, I'm comfortable with it. Every time something new pops, went TikTok, right? Cause I know a lot of you saw me back then cause I had a big enough audience and I was yelling about it in 17 and 18. And so a lot of people talk to me about it now because because it's become so big. If you think I was pumped, I was sad. Every time there's a new technology, I'm like, fuck, again? Like, you know, like, because for me, it's like, like, I'm winning at whatever is currently happening.
8:32I built on direct mail. People are like, Gary Vee built his dad's business, social media. I'm like, look at the timing. There was no social media. I built my dad's business on direct mail and print. And then email. And then Google AdWords. By the time the social media thing happened, And yes, I'm aware that that's when people discovered me. So that's the starting point. I've been doing all sorts of different shit that's OG for a decade at that point. You know, I wish we were still in just direct mail. I had that shit fully figured out. I'm being serious. Like I don't get pumped. I mean, at this point, I realize I'm good at it.
9:08So now I'd be lying to you if I didn't say, okay, well, this fits me. So, and by the way, when you move first in your competitive set, you get most. first move for advantage is real shit. But I'm sorry to interrupt, the concept of sitting up here and doing this banter on tech, no shit. Listen, this is the thing about the roofing space. These people are great people here. And I'm not a technology, I'm more of a technology guy than I'm a speaker. I told you I don't like doing this. I'm like, this isn't my thing. You love it, right? I said, this is not my thing. But I'm more of technology. I like the business and technology side.
9:46and I think you said about that. But I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think we're over coddling. I'd rather them just go out of business. I'm being serious. Like in a world of like wanting to help someone, it's like parenting, right? Parenting got fucked up. We're over coddling these little fuckers.
10:10Now, now, now pay attention to the hypocrisy. The clapping that just happened when we were making fun of our kids, hi. But us sitting up here making fun of you for not doing tech, you're quiet as fuck. You're all fired. That. Like, again, I don't think this is, I don't know we're going to motivate, for example, because I don't have the full context. Anyone here who's way behind on whether it's marketing, on social and things of that nature, or tech by bringing in SaaS or CRM, I don't think at this point the three of us in the next 42 minutes and 24 seconds are going to motivate them to jump. I think we have to tell them the truth, which is you're vulnerable.
10:57And you don't think so because you've been big in the area for the last 15 years. People say that shit all the time in every sector. and then something happens. And that something is always tech enabled competitors or companies come and take your shit. And so like, what are we doing here? Like, please do not be like, do not make ideological choices when it comes to business. Do not make selfish choices of what you like or don't like. Focus on the business, the consumer. Like that. Gary, let me ask this question. as you just said. You wrote a great book, bestseller, about social media, right? I believe in social media.
11:42We talked about it heavily. Can you just, if you were starting a roofing business today, right, I'm going to put it in that context. I'm not going to ask you to sell them on why they should do social media because you're going to tell them to fire. But if you were starting a roofing company today or HVAC, Electro, whatever it may be, how would you and what social media platforms would you focus on to get your message out and what would you do on? The reason I would successfully come into any person's market here and be a problem, not saying put you out of business or even be better than you, but be a problem, is that even if I didn't understand the business as well as you did because you grew up in the game, A, I'm smart enough to realize that and I would hire people.
12:19I'd come and take your number three from you or your number two. Now I've taken a lot of information quickly. And then what I would do next is your problem. I so would know how to get customers better than you by doing organic social at scale. Anything that over indexed with views because the algorithm now tells you if creative is good. I would then take that ad even though it might hit. I might be doing business in Iowa. When I put out organic social, I might be hitting somebody in Buffalo. I might be hitting someone in Cincinnati. I know a lot of you have thought about that, which is like, well, how's this valuable?
12:55I post it, but I'm in fucking Denver. I don't give a shit if someone sees this in Afghanistan, right? The problem is what I'm looking for is to see if it resonates with people. Then I take that ad, I tweak it a little bit, I change the copy, and then I run that same video in a five-mile radius of my office. If you didn't write that down and report that, I'll just tell you that was pretty damn good. Right? So that's the new social media game. The social media for the last 15 years, some of you, I see a bunch of faces here, I've known for a long time, that was email marketing. Get as many followers as possible, then a percentage of them would see it.
13:33That was hard. The new social media is there's people in this room who've never posted a thing for their company in their life, and tomorrow, open account, post one video, and it could work. Because now the content, as a matter of fact, I said this the other day on my social, or maybe I should say a little different with what I'm about to say, I'm actually arguing that social media isn't here anymore. We're now in interest media. A lot of you know this. if you consume social. Content comes to you now. The algo, the for you, right? That's the era we're in now. That's huge for all of us. Brother, it's fucking free.
14:11It's free. You can post for free. Yeah, man. You know, like, why do you think, I'm glad I told you my prior story. Everything I'd prior done in marketing until 2007 cost money. Direct mail, money. Billboards, money. Radio, money. Local TV, money. Right? Hiring salespeople to knock on the door and make calls, money. Social media, free. You post, free distribution. Yeah, obviously there's some costs associated with time or whatever, but you know this, we don't even have to make big production. People like flip the camera and just fucking talk. Y 'all come and fix your fucking roof. You know what's funny about what I just said?
14:53I think a lot of you are smart enough to realize that. That ad would work on a bunch of people. Certain people, certain people will be like, I'll never do business with that cursing mouth guy. Other people like, yo, I'd fuck with that shit. Right? So, you know, I think that the social media part is I'm very passionate about because it's such underpriced behavior. Again, literally flipping your camera around and just saying, hey, I'm Jane. I've been in this business for 21 years locally. I know a lot of you know me because I'm going to post this in Facebook. And I know a lot of you know me. I know a lot of you don't.
15:30And if you need my HVAC or roofing or plumbing or fucking anything, I don't understand how people are not betting the farm on this. Because for me, I know it's going to go away. I know that social as we have it today will not be forever. It's going to evolve. I'm actually very concerned that, actually I'm very excited but concerned. I think the meta glasses thing is real. I do predict that in 10 years we're pretty advanced in our glassware where the phone gets potentially not fully replaced but I think a lot of you are going to be very surprised by how many of you might not have a phone on you in 10 years the way we know the phone that the glasses I would actually highly recommend for this holiday season you buy a pair of the meta Ray-Bans just so you feel it it's like that couple hundred bucks is worth you learning the thing that you'll learn you got them later when people see you stand up for a second so people see you i want them come up to this young lady and ask her the craziest part you probably agree with me when you first used them was the audio right i was like oh fuck i don't think i need ear pods anymore it's crazy
16:45yeah and if you're really you know it's it's really phenomenal where where anyway where i'm going with that if i'm right and that takes over you're all gonna cry that you missed this era of free because meta is gonna be like maybe they don't want it to be free because they're gonna control it right apple's not in social they control a different way and take a rake so you have seven different platforms if meta wins and this is the device they have the optionality to not make a post be free
17:22yep shit's always moving so anyway please take a bit like i i to think that you can't grow your business on social because you're in roofing is the dumbest fucking thing you could be possibly thinking like you're selling to human beings the fuck's the difference if somebody's seeing a video about your business in their instagram versus them picking up the phone when you're fucking or knocking on their fucking door. It's the same shit. Get out of your fucking feelings. This is business.
18:01Get out of your fucking feelings. This is business. Gary, as you said, went on the phone. Gary, so... You know why I said that? Yeah, yeah. A lot of people don't do social on some dumb ideology shit. Oh, it's an afterthought. It's bad for the kids. I don't like it. That's my favorite. Gary, I'm not gonna do I don't like it. I'm like, okay, John. But like, what does that even mean? You don't like using Instagram so you don't want to use it to build your business? Like, you like search? Like, I don't get it, you know? And then people go even more extreme. Well, Gary, I'm not gonna do TikTok. It's, you know, China.
18:39I'm like, okay. It's all excuses. The point I'm trying to make to all of you, everything you're going to say to me about all this stuff it's just excuses because you're complacent or maybe even scarier checked out and a little lazy like that's real talk like how are you not putting in effort on this and that's listen it's okay to be the old lion by the way i've worked every day since i was 14 i get the concept of fuck man cool gary this is all inspiring but i'm fucking tired i've been at this for a long time i don't want to i'm like that's fine but there's a reason that the young lion eventually comes around and kills the old lion and becomes the new king of the jungle and that's what we're all in and you just gotta understand that.
19:22That's a good reason to sell. A good reason to sell is if you've been listening for the last 20 minutes and you're like, fuck you, Gary, I'm not doing this shit. If you're sitting here and you're like, fuck you, Gary, I'm not doing this shit, you should sell tomorrow. And you're going to sell. So Gary, one of the things that you've been really great at and you talk about it right now is finding arbitrage. Like what's the new channel? What's the new technology that's going to find the arbitrage so that I can actually get the next wave of growth and everybody else is going to stay behind? And one of the biggest arbitrages that I've seen in business is brand.
19:55The power of brand. It's nothing. Yeah, so. Because brand, I'm sorry. Brand means customers are going to come to you.
20:07You know, like I love sales. I'm a salesman. but sales is what you do when you're not good at brand we don't even answer rfps anymore at vayner which is like the only way you can get business in agency land we just don't do it we're like we've built brand you want to work with me and us then give us your business i'm not fucking making a deck so brand is the ultimate arbitrage what do you think religion is what do you think nike is what do you think nike's knocking on your door and be like hey man you want some speakers brand is there is nothing else there's nothing else and and i want to i want to focus in on one thing that that happens with brand which is it allows you to have pricing power yes you talk about nike you know it's a steve jobs video where he talks about nike's a commodity product but you know nike prices out everybody else apple with the iphone they get 80 of the profits in smartphones it's why i want everybody here to build personal brand yeah because when they call you and they want to work with you in roofing because they've seen you in the video and they're like but you know but but and you give them the price and they're like but the other guy down the street's a little less you're like cool work with the other guy but they don't want to they called you when they call you you have pricing power when you ask them you don't
21:33it's real it's real can i say one other thing because i'll forget it and this is just how my brain works the number one video everybody here can make is called titled how to not hire us to fix your roof i want everybody to write this down if you're trying to like i know i know that some people, I know a handful of people here are going to be actually motivated to like attack social a little bit. But then the next problem happens, which is like, what the fuck do I say? Like, what is the ad, right? That shit. Let me give you the first ad you should all make in your local area. The title of the video should be how to not hire us to fix your roof.
22:14And the video is a video you make that tells people common things that people make mistakes on to not fix a little thing that can become a big thing, you are now building trust and reputation. Right? Like think about how that works. Like if you're out here making a video for your local area of like, hey, I don't want to come and charge you a big nut to replace your whole roof. Let me tell you a couple of things you could be doing to maintenance your roof better so you can call me four years down the line, not four months from now. Now you're starting to build community. Now you're starting to build trust.
22:47Now you're starting to, it's not just transactional. It's a very big deal. Literally what you just said right quick, One of our customers, he sells windows in Texas. If you guys Google his YouTube channel, Window Experts in Houston, Houston Window Experts, he literally did that. He literally did a video just like that. He like, hey, common mistakes of buying windows. And he built a brand online, a YouTube channel. His salespeople each on average, on average he has a team of like five salespeople. They each on average make like$4 million a year in any revenue each for the business. And all of it inbound.
23:20he's not struggling with leads going down he's not struggling with like you know seo it's like he literally you go to his youtube seo is paying tax like you're a toll booth in seo google's taking your money for your own leads sometimes
23:40seo is transactional it's not marketing it's sales no shit it works somebody typed in how to fucking fix my roof enter yes that's sales like you don't want to be in that game because seo is about to change over the next 10 years seo's intro how many people here this is actually i'm glad we got to this how many people here i'm one of them so i'm going to raise my name how many people here do well with seo it's a part of their mix it's something they raise your hands hi i want to see hi please everybody including me who just raised your hands we need to understand that ai is about to eat the shit out of SEO.
24:18Chat CPT, perplexity, and then like Alexa at home. And the problem is, SEO was good for us. Need to fix my roof. Enter. Lots of results. Hey, Chat CPT, I need to fix my roof. They're going to tell you who to use. There's no 50 results. There's no right side of the rail. They're going to tell you who to use and they're going to take a percentage of that. My friends, things are moving. How many people here are retiring in the next five years? And I don't mean you're going to crush it for the next couple of years and sell the company and buy a boat. I mean, you're old and you're finished. Raise your hands.
24:57One, two, two, right? So those two gentlemen that I just saw, you can take some of this with some percentage of a grain of salt, right? You're like, you're holding on to like, you're playing pre-bent defense, right? Like holding on to just not lose. You like that football reference? for the rest of you, please pay attention. If you plan on being business in six years from today, there's a lot of shit we need to look at. Yeah, because I want everyone in the crowd, last question from us, and I want to turn it over to everyone here. Okay, is that cool? Please. Everyone here is a roofing contractor.
25:33There's about 90 % of them. There's another 10 % of home services. If you were starting a business today, average company here is probably somewhere between$2 and$8 million, knowledge somewhere between the revenue. I want to give you a ton of stuff so you understand the question fully. What are the top three things you say to them to increase their leads? Who here does the whole list? Please stand up. I'm going to make a lead. I'm going to make a lead. So I need one small lead here. What would you do to get leads and build your brand and trust in your community as fast as possible? What's the top three things?
26:04I know there's a ton of things you can talk about. I'm just curious to you. I actually only have one. One, two, and three. is organic social media. Literally, literally make as much content as you humanly can every day. Saying the same shit over and over in different ways. It is, you have to understand, I gave you the actual answer. I'm gonna break it down one more time because it's that simple. Three years ago, social media changed. It used to be a mass followers, then post, they would see it. Three years ago, TikTok changed the game. Now every platform works this way. post and the content will find its audience.
26:44As a matter of fact, the AI is getting so strong. I believe I'll sit on a stage like this in three years. And now I said, oh, you don't care if it goes to Afghanistan. You don't care if it goes to Ohio. And then I told you the real move. You're doing it to see if it's good content. And then if it is, then you do run ads in a five or 10 mile radius. That's how you convert. I believe the AI algorithms are going to get so good in the next three to five years that when you do post organically, it will, and you're in Denver, it will literally find people that are in market looking to change the roof in fucking Denver.
27:17This shit is real. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think social creative. Now, I'm gonna break down why it's one, two, and three. How do you do that? Right? Like the ideas are important, right? But notice I said a nuance. I hope people are listening. You can say the same thing every day. Literally, you could say the same thing every day. I'm Bob. I've been fixing roofs in this area for the last 20 years. Have a nice day. Post. And literally the next day, hey guys, I'm Bob. I've been doing this for 20 years. I want your roofing. Literally, you could literally say, because not everyone's seeing it. It's just how this shit works.
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27:56But when you understand that organic social, for example, for the people that raise their hands. If you do organic social and you see what works, you'll start to learn, oh, if this video works, shouldn't I change my Google AdWords to use the words I'm using in this video? And then your AdWords start doing better. It's the starting point. It's the insights that come from it. The comments, how well it does. Why did this one do well? Right? And then you start to evolve. Now you're Bob in Denver and your video, you make a reference to what the Nuggets did last night. Like the fucking Nuggets lost to the Cavs.
28:32I'm pissed, you know? And all of a sudden, a Nuggets fan's like, I like Bob, I'm a Nuggets fan too. I'm gonna use him instead of like the billboard. I start like, you start to evolve. But it's kind of like working. Has anybody here, I'm one of those people. Has anybody here not worked out for a majority of their life and then in their 20s, 30s or 40s picked it up and it's become a part of their lives? Raise your hands. Just curious. So for the seven or eight, 10 people that have done it, what I'm saying now was similar to that, which is the first day is going to suck. Like right now, 10 or 12 of you, because I've also learned only 10 or 12 of you are going to do what I'm saying right now.
29:0710 or 12 of you are pumped. You're like, yeah, fuck it. This is what I fucking needed. Gary V did it. Yeah, I'm going to do it. And then tomorrow comes and you're like, fuck. You start to lose off the high of the moment. But if you stick with it, just like working out, you will be flabbergasted where you are in a year. and so it's posting it's looking but the very simple tactic I ask you deeply to say this make the first video beside I gave you one here's another video I would love for you to make hit record at your desk maybe with your team maybe by yourself one minute about you and the business that should be easy I'm Paul I'm Sarah I've been doing this I inherited this from my dad we've been here for 17 years we're proud of it we did the we did the roof on fucking main street for the the, you know, the museum that they renovated, whatever the shit you've got to say, post that and that video.
30:04And again, I'm going to say run ads on Facebook. I'm very hot on Facebook for this crew because Facebook skews 35, 45, 55, 65, you know, people that actually own homes that need the fucking roof changed. And run ads on Facebook on a 10 to 20, 30 mile radius of your shop. And again, if you're sitting here and being like, well, how do I run ads? Good news, I'll give you a website, write it down to do it. It's G-O-O-G-L-E.com. What you do on there is you say, how do I run Facebook ads in a 30 mile radius of my store? Enter. miraculously for free. It will show you a YouTube video or an article. If you're good at reading, which I am not, you'll read the article.
30:57If you're good at audio and visual, you'll watch the video and then you will like watch it and open up your other laptop and you will run the ads. Not somebody else, not your 24 year old niece. Can you do this for me? No, you. So you understand it because what's going to happen is it's going to work. And when it starts working, you're going to start pouring more money into it over time because you like what's happening. And then eventually somebody's going to do it, not you. And I need you to know it just enough to know if they're doing a good job or not. The amount of money people in this room have lost by hiring someone else who's a kid to do the thing, but they didn't know how to judge if the kid was good at it.
31:31You need to know it. Just enough. Just like balancing your checkbook. Maybe you're not a CFO or an accountant, but if you have a business and you raise your hand and you own it, you know it enough to not go out of business. Same with this. That's how important. So that's one, two, and three, my man. I appreciate that. We're gonna open it up. There's a microphone right there. I'm right there. I'm gonna ask Matt, where you at, buddy? In case anyone wants to. I'm gonna ask everybody to ask one question. Yo, what the fuck is going on on this side? There's like tons of people lining up here. There's nobody who's lined up here.
32:03I'm gonna ask you one question. Just so there's a lot of people. There's about 21 minutes, 22 minutes. I don't want to pull Gary up. Don't want to smash, you know. So, by the way, I need you to be first. I'm surprised. So, Mark. So, Gary, you are a very busy man. Yes. Been working for 10 years. Do you have any regrets, personal or business, maybe working too much, maybe, like, any regrets? No. Woo! Yeah!
32:37Because I think regret is an interesting, I try to, first of all, because you've been watching me, you know how much I talk about regret. so because I scared I'm scared shitless of having regret I think I live my life that way so that's been helpful I've had unlimited step backs professionally and personally challenges tough moments I'm also in a place where I I have my life very simple I'm busy and I'm chaotic and I'm high energy and I'm who I am but I grew up you know similar to you in a in a you know in a Soviet kind of Eastern European immigrant family where both my great grandmother and my grandma would never have one drink or a cup of tea where they wouldn't say something to the tune that would translate to good health right that's the right like to me my whole life was it doesn't matter how much money you make fame this and that like every day including this morning I woke up I looked at my phone there was no 57 missed calls means nothing horrible happened overnight and I'm just grateful to be able to play.
33:44I'm not, I'm very much detached from the Gary Vee of it all, from the money of it all. I just want to do what I'm doing. There's plenty of, I would call them micro regrets, right? But I did my best to spend, you know, I'm a 15 and 12 year old. I spent as much time as I could, way more than my dad did. You always want more time with the people you love, right? But I also have been the emotional and financial foundation for my entire family. And that comes, you know, you can't do that if you're not putting in the time and the work. And so I don't know if, look, I anticipate to have regrets. I'm still a young man at 49.
34:20I've got another 50 years to live. So I'm sure it's going to be there. But as I sit here with you today, no. And that's because all the dumb shit we just talked about for 30 minutes, which I love, is dumb shit. You know, what you need to focus on is like real love and health and just simple, like basic shit. and when you live in that world, you've won. Thank you. Yeah.
34:47Thank you.
34:57Thank you. You know, it's funny you say that. My brother called me yesterday to set up a meeting for me with a company next week that is doing early AI SEO. so the answer is I don't know brother but it's but I've been looking for it and I'm actually ironically on the pre-dawn of starting my process of probably knowing but what I will say is the you know I have so many friends screen shooting me like different AI queries like who are the best entrepreneurs in the world and you know my name is showing up and I laugh because I really don't think I am actually one of the best entrepreneurs in the world but I know that I've produced a lot more content than every other entrepreneur and that's why the AI is picking that up and then it becomes brand and then wait a minute does that actually put me in a position you know and so I would say that tactically the SEO of AI hasn't been cracked yet which is why I'm trying to figure it out but macro if you know if everything stays in your head a young woman I don't know if she's here she said she wanted to start something there you are you knew where I was about to go I'm impressed she said hey I'm really passionate about this bucket list thing that I want to do.
36:07And I was like, then you have to do. I said, it can't be in your head. Action. And so I promise you pondering and just sitting on the sidelines on technology isn't going to do it. I think one of the best things that can do to help you show up in the AI is starting to make content and starting to put you and your brand out there. Thank you. You're welcome.
36:36I'm the director of marketing technology for our company. I was on board about a month ago. I noticed a workflow issue within our organization. We're currently one of the homeowner calls into our company. We take all their information, pass that information along to the salesperson. My question to you is, would we do a live transfer or would we just put it on there? Look, I think live transfers are epic because you're still on the hook. It's emotionally better. Like you have a better chance of closing if you're still in that motion in that moment. So I'm a big believer that live transfer is a better arbitrage and has historically shown much better results.
37:18And now it becomes a journey. If you don't have that infrastructure, you start investing it, you know, step by step. But for me, like if you can close when they're fucking ready to close. Thank you. Thank you. I think Eric is from the camera. Tom. So you were up on stage earlier talking about how you learned how to redirect mail, and then learn Gmail, and then learn content creation, social media. You're someone that's been able to adapt to the changes in the technology. I'm someone that I grew up in this industry as a laborer. I just wanted to make a crap ton of money after this. I was really amazed by, like, going to work for business, is completely different for running an action business.
38:04Very. My question to you is, how do you even learn and adapt to the purpose of learning new things? What are some practical ways that you can learn things fast? Man, this is such a powerful question, brother. First of all, you just asked the question of why my content evolved from 2006 to 2024. I used to tell all of you what to do and then nobody was doing it. And I was like, fuck, man, I'm telling you. Like, do Google AdWords, here's Facebook. but like, and I was like, why? And then I started reading the comments. I was like, fuck, people are insecure. You know, the first way to be adaptable is to not be scared to fail.
38:39The way to not be scared to fail is to not value other people's opinions, right? So, you know, I think this fear of failing is stopping people from adaptability because for some reason, players, which you all are on the field, have decided to value the crowds, boos, and cheers. So I think the number one unlock to adaptability is the ability to not give a shit about what people think about you.
39:10That's one. Once you get over that hurdle, which is, I say that some people never get over that hurdle. Unfortunately, just not knowing everybody here, but I just know how it works, 90 % of people here are still mentally stuck in high school. They literally do care what people think. Once you get over that hurdle, it becomes practice. How the fuck did you get good as a laborer? You were better the thousandth time you did a fucking shingle than the first. Practice. But again, if you're not scared, like the failure thing fucks everyone up. The ego thing. I'm good at email. I spent seven years doing email.
39:49Oh, this new thing, fuck that. I wasted my time on email. No, you didn't. You dominated email when it mattered. And unfortunately, it's now shifted. So it's all perspective and mentality and then practice. You're welcome. Love it. We heard so much of this yesterday from the presenter. Raise your hand if you've never failed at anything before. You all know how failing it feels. You're here because you want to get better and learn from the failure and apply it to better yourself, right? Brother, can I build on that? Yes, sir. I'll take it even a step further. I prefer failing. Let me say this nice and slow.
40:27Why do you think I'm still a fucking Jets fan?
40:32I'm being serious. I grew up a huge Yankees fan. Huge. But then they won in 96 and it stopped being interesting. I'm, this is why I'm so into the Jets. I fucking love, you guys are like, oh, sorry, Gary, you guys suck, Aaron Rodgers. I'm like, fuck you, I love it. Do you know how bad I feel for 35 and under Boston sports fans? They've won everything already. It's over, it's boring. The Red Sox were super fucking epic. Now they're just whatever. Like losing's the fucking game. Micro losing. Right? Going completely out of business is bad. But I promise you, you can't really see it because of the way I communicate.
41:19But if you ask me, if we hang out in heaven in 300 years, be like, yo, I saw you in fucking Marco Island. I was like, yo, cool, what's up? And we're chilling in heaven. And you're like, yo, but really, why did that work for you? Like, why did you have a good life and why were you successful? Humility. Again, not obvious. You don't know me like that. But my inner circle knows it's not the bravado you see here. It's the humility. I like the losing. I don't think I'm special. I just think I'm going to persevere. Yeah.
41:59I'm just putting another question. Best name in the conference, Mr. Joe Moose. Good to see you, brother. Hey, we feel so kind of organic social media only. I know. I know. A lot of what I learned from you. I saw it, bro. And by the way, that's why I do it. I saw it. I know. Like, there's no greater gift. Look, I, the, I, this, it's funny because this just happened. and this is why I'm going. What do I mean, December? Three months ago, we landed a humongous$25 million fee deal. Like, we got it. Yeah, Gary, we won it. We got it. Three hours later, I was flying and reading email and I got like four emails in a row like yours, brother.
42:40Hey, Gary, I own a flower shop. I read day trading attention. Like, we were on deep shit. We were gonna get evicted. Like, done. One fucking TikTok tripled our business. Next one. hey man built like the next one hey i'm an accountant i heard you on linkedin i've been pounding it my business is double and i just it was so insane to me how those four random emails felt seven trillion times more interesting to me than the big deal we made i promise you some of you are empaths some of you were built this way you get a high from like feeling good like when you're like that right there like i know that at least one person was sitting here today is going and do something different because of this talk.
43:22I know at least one. I wasn't joking earlier. It's probably only going to be 10. But it's the fucking best. I'm proud of you, bro. It's because it's fucking free. So my question, based on social media content, the issue I'm having is I'm in solar and a lot of us in the roofing. You get to a plateau where the audience is not interested in roofing or solar. How do you build your audience to still have that riches and niches? You're not even close to penetrating it. That. You might not be mixing up your content enough. You might not be using enough platforms. You might not be posting enough on each platform.
44:03Until you're posting on all seven. YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Until you're posting on all seven and you're posting three original pieces of content a day on all seven and you do that for 15 years like I have and you still don't have 50 % of the market knowing who the fuck you are, you can't say what you just said. Got me? Got it? That. You haven't even started penetrating. Once you understand that, you're off to the races. Let's go to Ian. What do we got? All right, so I'm 21 years old, freshman in the industry. I work for a solar man. It's called Detach. It's called B2B sales.
44:48My question is, I want to set myself up to the future, build a financial stability, but at the same time enjoy my youth now. How do I balance the work hard and enjoy it at the same time? Where's the balance? By realizing you're 21?
45:09Bro, first of all, I already know you're, even the way you're asking the question and the way I feel you, you're going to be fine. I'm not even bullshitting you. You're going to be fine. The fact that you're even thinking about it and the way you articulated it, you're going to be fine. You want a really good piece of advice? You're fucking 21. You can do both. You can work 12 hours a day. There's 53-year-olds sitting here that are like, man, this motherfucker. You could work. I'll tell you why. Because what they, right? That's how I see them. And I'm going to tell you why. They grew up in the generation where they literally worked from fucking 7 a.m.
45:41to 8 p.m., went home, took a shit in the shower, went out, drank for four fucking hours and had fun. came home, woke up, and did it again for seven straight fucking years.
45:59You know? Yeah, by the way, to your point, I'm not saying I'm promoting it. The answer to your question was the way I answered it. By you realizing you're 21, when I tell you, and I'm not bullshitting you, you may think I'm doing this for hyperbole, I'm telling you the truth, what I'm about to say. besides the family dynamics the kids and all that professionally I would give up absolutely everything I have right now to trade with you and that's why that's why the question comes up is I know time is the most expensive commodity and so it's how do I you have a hundred years to live more you're gonna be a hundred bro you know how pissed I am at you you're in the generation that's gonna live a hundred you're gonna be a hundred twenty one years old when you die well so good bro like I don't know like fucking enjoy it at work.
46:45I don't know. It's so easy. I'll tell you what's happening and you'll appreciate it. We're now in the thinking generation. We're overanalyzing. If you didn't think about it, you would accomplish it easy. Work and have fun. Like it all comes down to not beating yourself up. If you go hard for the next seven months because you're building your fucking future. I mean 15 hours a day, no hanging out with friends, work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. And then you wake up after seven months you're like fuck this bullshit and go to fucking abiza for two weeks and not work it's all gonna be fine there is no fucking don't listen to anybody nobody's there is no right way and there's so much serendipity who you fall in love with what happens how the macro market micro bro you can't control this shit all you can do is realize you have unlimited time you can literally do everything wrong you could literally fuck around for the next 10 years and do nothing financially smart or work, wake up.
47:42Literally do nothing good except have fun for 10 straight years. Wake up and be so fucking young at 31 that you could then focus on having a good financial.
47:58And bro, I was the reverse. I gave up my entire 20s. I was obsessed to build a business for my parents. I don't know why. I really, like, it's a little bit, I think I went too far. Like, but from 21 to 28, I worked a hundred fucking hours a week. I went out zero days. I built something for my family. And then I woke up at 28 and I was like, okay, wait a minute. Maybe I should start thinking. And then at 34, I was like, had no money, but built a huge business for my dad. I was like, fuck, I'm 34. Maybe I should start worrying about myself and had plenty of time to do what I'm doing. You have unlimited fucking time.
48:31You got you.
48:44Gary, thanks for your time. It's been all right hooks and no gaps. I love it. You kind of answered my question before, but I stopped using Google search. I'm just on perplexity now. It's amazing. I'm ranking on there, thankfully. I love it. I just want if you can touch on that a little bit more about ranking on there. I know you don't have the information on it or do you see any predictions in that space of AI regeneration? It's going to fucking eat up everything. It's better. How many people here use chat GPT for flex? They use it. Raise your hand. Raise it high. Actually, stand up. This is important.
49:22This is an important moment. Stand up if you use it. Yeah, stand up if you use it. I just want everybody to look around. This crew is not like Silicon Valley elite. You see where I'm going, right? This crew is OG. That's all we've been talking about. I need everybody who's not standing to look around. I want you to look around. 70 % of this room has now begun the process of shifting away from going to Google to using AI chat bots. This shit's over. It's not fully over, but this is only going in one direction. And if you are overly reliant on Google for your business, you better fucking wake up.
50:12Cool.
50:19My name is David, I'm with DCAD ResetSolar as well. My brain kind of like yours, I had to write down my question and I forgot. So it's, what are your most important lessons you've learned from your failures and how can I apply those lessons to implement into my journey and my journey with entrepreneurship. That nobody gives a fuck about your failures. You want me to break that down for you? What I've learned about my failures is, do you remember like having a zit in high school? And remember like in the morning, you're like, fuck. Like all bent out of shape and you think like, fuck. and like, you're just like, you're fucked up.
51:00And then you go to high school and what you didn't realize is everybody else has fucking zits too. And they're worried about their fucking zits, not yours. And if they're really insecure, they'll make fun of your zip because deep down they're really fucked up about their zip.
51:17So what do I think, brother? The second you realize that your failures are yours, you're battle scars. They're yours. You start liking them. versus fearing them. But 99 % of this room is still fearing them, which is why I pound the fuck out of the content that I pound. So what have I learned? That that doesn't mean anything except to yourself. And if you learn to like them versus fear them of how that makes you look in front of others, you will be a fucking dominant player. Yeah.
51:55All right, that's the last one. Everyone else sitting there and I'm like, please, though, you can't even do it, but I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry. By the way, by the way, it was all their fault. The mics were there the whole time. You could have gotten up early. I love that they fucking didn't get their question asked. It's merit. I'm serious. I love merit, my man. I don't know when I'm going to be able to ask him this question. Right now. You got 45 seconds. I think that you said so as well from four years old, from fresh, right into the company. Yep. Right? I'm at a really big crossroads right now.
52:34My whole life, I've had this idea, my parents are still listening, my teachers, that if I don't go to college, I'm not gonna be successful. They're fucking stupid.
52:46Right now, I mean, my parents don't even know that I'm here right now. You're wrong! Right now! You're gonna go to college,
53:00That's so good. Bro, you're going to win. And then you're going to look at them and tell them that you told them so. And if not, and you fucking suck in life, then they'll make fun of you and say if you would have went to college, you wouldn't have sucked. Bro, I apologize. I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Bro.
53:21I'm going to say something that's going to help a lot of people here. Do you love your parents? Yes, I do. Like a lot? Like you're in a good place with them? Of course. Well, not everybody is. Some of us aren't, like I got lucky. It sounds like you got lucky. Some of us, you know, our parents were in a bad place and they couldn't deliver for us in the right way. But what a lot of kids in your spot do is what your dilemma is right now. And this is why I said, give me a minute. I'm okay to, I'll run to the airport and make sure I make it. A lot of kids end up doing what they want, what their parents want them to do because they love them.
53:53They're like, they put a roof on them, like took care of me. They bought me all the shit I wanted. And so you're doing it for them. What they don't realize is when you live your life for your parents, you start to build resentment towards your parents. And so what they choose is instead of right now in the short term, your parents being disappointed and it being like a little bit of a thing, there's a lot of people later in their life that have no relationship with their parents because they blame their parents for everything that happened in their life because they follow their, I mean, there's people that marry people based on their parents.
54:27definitely go to college. And so why I'm taking a moment is it might hurt a little right now and they may be disappointed. But I promise you, you're actually putting yourself in a position to have a better relationship with your parents, not the other way around. And that's what well-intended kids don't see at this age. Make sense? Thank you. Now, of course, I will be for our power. Let's do it!
From the publisher
If you're in business and avoiding technology, you're in trouble. In this episode, I dive into why contractors—especially roofers—need to stop resisting tech and embrace the tools that will keep them competitive.
I break down:✅ The brutal truth about technology in business
✅ How to overcome resistance to change and get your team on board
✅ The real way to use social media for local business growth
✅ Why brand beats sales (and how to build yours)
✅ The one video every roofer should make today
If you're still thinking old-school marketing is enough, this one's for you. Let’s get to work! 🚀