The Entrepreneur’s Edge on AI, Social Media and Business Q&A | RightNOW 2025 Keynote PART 2

0:00We have a ton of people in this room and I'm sure we'd like to hear more from you. and you've shared a lot, obviously. We're keen to understand individually how you can help, but I would love to open up to this group to ask some questions. Gary's willing to take anything and everything. And we have some people who will be around the room with mics, so you don't have to yell, just raising hands and we'll come over to you. And feel free to ask him anything upon him. And truly anything. Like, it could be a one-on-one question. It could be something that you've seen me talk about that we didn't touch on here.

0:36This is literally my favorite part of the whole talk. So thank you for having me. And thanks, Man. My man. What's your name? Good morning. This is Devapil. Man. You spoke about trust over task. Yes. And in the era of AI, the routine gets taken over by technology. Yes. But that being said What would ultimately be At the edge of the technology Of evolution Is it perception Which will drive commerce Or value which will drive commerce Or perception Which will drive value as well Perception is reality It will be perception It will only be perception Of course It's how we make decisions

1:31get it yeah so expertise competence and will be commoditized

1:41consideration comes from relevance the reason people consider things consider who they marry consider what they buy consider who they do business with it comes from a place of relevance right? Why do immigrants do business with immigrants right? There's a relevance right? Relevance not just trust in fact I come from Russian culture Russians don't trust Russians at all they still do business with them because of relevance so I think at the edge of this it will be relevance hence why I'm pushing all of you to build personal brand because I believe that is disproportionately your biggest moat Alright Thank you Cheers Here's questions.

2:24Hi, Gary V. My name's Haley. I'm working at Anchor. And we said something that really stood out to me. You said so many people are in me at the size yesterday and demonized tomorrow. Can you maybe talk about that in a further detail and maybe get a couple of examples of that? Haley, I think it's just how humans work. I think we're romantic about how it used to be. Like, I don't know. Like, you know, I think every example is that. I brought up the letter. Like, why writing a letter? Aren't the words the purpose there? Why are we putting the medium on a pedestal? You know, like people, it makes sense.

2:57As humans, our lives were much easier when we were children. And what we worried about was so mundane. A test or this or your crush not liking you. As you get older, you start worrying about bigger things. So, you know, I think in general, it's just a human plight. and we just continue to demon, let me give you an example, Uber. I was an early investor in Uber. It was wild watching people go through that. You know, like think about how crazy Uber is now. We, people talk about, you know, how it used to be so safe when we were kids and we would hitchhike and all this, you know, some of the OGs in here.

3:41Do you know that there are 13 year old girls all across the country going into strangers' cars every day on Uber? and parents feel safer with that. But at first they were scared about it. Now they feel more safe with it. Like, I just think that we, you know, really, really, really have this inherent human structure to say it used to be better. Good old days. The good old days. And I get it. I like my good old days too. I like going outside in the summer and playing and all that. But it's the good old days for kids right now. Like nine-year-olds are gonna think this was mundane because we're gonna all be robots in 30 years.

4:22Like, and I mean this very seriously. All of you are demonizing this right now as this is some awful device. This is gonna look like a beeper in 30 years. This is gonna be nothing. Nothing. In the next decade, we're all gonna be wearing glasses that are gonna be AI and AR and VR technologyed out. We're not even gonna have phones. And you are all in this room in 15 years gonna be like, man, it was so much better when it was just a cell phone. all of you and so you know there's a billion examples

4:53yeah you may i mean as an entrepreneur as a professional right one of the holy grades is getting the nap of digital marketing i mean in this room accepting you at this point if anyone has got the digital marketer commit to an outcome right i mean we just won the battle right in terms of finding the talent, it seems like a holy grail way we never get there. We actually pay for their exploration. That's been my experience of working with digital marketing, right? So, some insights on that. And if you could just say that if Gary was to start this fresh from today, how could you do it? If I was just, thank you.

5:36If I was starting fresh from today, the only thing I think about when I'm starting a business is creating demand. because it's oxygen. The reason I love marketing is it's offense. There's operations, there's balancing your checkbook, there's culture like I just talked about. But what I know is that more revenue solves all problems. The thing I'm trying to get everybody here is to really understand offense. Most people in here, as you know, rely on retention, not growth. Right? They're like, yeah, but I've been with my people for 12 years or 16 years. And I'm concerned because I think there's a lot of technology coming that usually looks the part of the thing that stops people with working with the person they've always worked with.

6:26When it's that convenient and that well-priced, it becomes a problem. You know, I've been an OG in technology. I had, one of my first talks ever was to a bunch of people that own bookstores telling them that Amazon was a problem. And their answer was, you don't get it, Gary. We've been a bookstore for 30 years in Stanford, Connecticut. We have a community. Our people are not gonna go on the World Wide Web and buy books. And I said to them as a kid, 18, I said, you don't get it. Convenience is king. And so if Gary was starting right now in this business, I would be making social media posts all day long, talking about what I know about tax law or balancing a checkbook or CFO for actualization or whatever anyone does in here or business consulting.

7:29I put out all my, how many people here follow me or have consumed some of my content? thank you the people that just raised their hand you know I put out my best information for free I believe that when you put out your best information for free you actually get customers and I think most people here think if they put out information for free they would lose customers that part Hi Gary Hello My name is Vivu so you just gave an advice in terms of putting out more intent So one of the things which I wanted to understand was accounting is such a highly debilitated industry. Yes. So how? By not breaking the law.

8:12But like, but real quick, I'll tell you why I'm jumping in so quickly. I'm on the board of Spin Master, which is the number three toy company. Toy marketing is more regulated than accounting. Chase is a client. Visa is a client. Diageo and Budweiser are clients. They're alcohol. They're incredibly regulated. I've run an agency for 15 years that only works with companies that are wildly regulated one post sets us into trouble don't make claims that you can't make so the question I had is how can a professional stand out on platforms like LinkedIn I think for me this room really needs to focus on Facebook and LinkedIn and needs to focus on amplifying their videos with very small media amplification in a very close radius to your business.

9:01The reason you, where do you live? Where's your business, brother? I come from India all the way and I'm exhibiting here at a couple of other consoles. Understood. Michael, what town do you market in? My friend, Michael. Austin. Austin. If you market within a 10 mile radius of Austin, right, then the way you're standing out is by saying, I do services in Austin. You're winning on relevance of being, you stand out by being local. The biggest advantage all of you have before everybody starts using all these tools is they want to work with somebody in the general area. So I think the relevance is coming from the location and then as long as you're speaking about things you're allowed to speak about and speak about how you would go about doing it, I think you'll be in a good place.

9:54I think people don't need much. You know, they don't need much. If you make, again, this is a great time of year. It's post-tax season. If you're just making a video every day of like, you know, one thing that a lot of people missed this tax season because it was a new law that passed last year was X, Y, and Z. Or a watch out. Or, hey, you might have been writing this off for the last six years. FYI, this is our last year that we're gonna be able to do it. So keep this in mind. you're just talking the stuff you know you're talking the stuff you know so i think standing out to me in this room is predominantly facebook instagram and linkedin i don't need people to go viral on tiktok here because those views may be in places where no one's going to use you anyway it's kind of where i'm at mentally on that thank you sir hi yeah привет so uh similar story for me, Belarus, Israel, America.

10:50One of the things that I found, I'm a CPA in a practice, is personality in accounting is challenging. And so what I do at my firm is encourage people to be themselves and to get out there and do it. But it's hard. And a lot of times we need to brand as a firm, not as an individual. So it's the constant combat. I think it's an and. Okay. You know, I see this a lot in real estate as well. Like I think you can brand both. You know, I think what's amazing about social is because it doesn't cost anything, you can post today and you could be about being Carol or you could tomorrow, you could be like, Hey, it's Carol from XYZ firm.

11:34I think when you fall in love with and versus or it really starts to make social make sense to people. This is a philosophical debate that actually ultimately doesn't matter to the end consumer. And I think you could just play with both. But I think you're making an important point. There is something else that I wanted to get to, and I appreciate you getting me there. The other thing you should be, so okay, you get motivated today, and you're like, I'm going to do it. And you've got six good tips on tax season. And then it's next week, and you're like, all right, what do I do now? I think one of the things that a lot of you can do is actually talk about your interests.

12:12I think this is not going to be lost on people. There are people in this room that have gotten business because they like golf, because they like fishing, because they like high school basketball, because they like the PTA, because they like baking, because they like X, Y, and Z. The other thing that I would recommend dramatically is taking your interests and integrating them into your social media content as gateways to getting business. It's not super complicated. Like, I'll just make up a video right now so it can help everybody. Hey, everybody, it's Rick. You know, I hear from the outskirts of, you know, Des Moines.

12:55Like many of you in town, I'm a huge fan of our high school basketball team. I can't believe they're going for their 18th win. I'm also an accountant in town. I know some of you, I don't know some of you, but very honestly, I'm just putting myself out there and my business out there more on social media. I'm gonna start tailgating for this big high school game at F18, two hours before the game and I'm bringing some of my best bourbon and this chicken. If anybody wants to join me, I'll see you there. When you post that, and again, you spend$25 on people that live within a 10 mile radius, you would just be surprised.

13:30You would just be surprised. And what ends up happening in that scenario is three people show up, six. But there are three or six people in town that you didn't know before who also happen to like the high school basketball team. And one of those people become a client. It's real life business. What's amazing about what I'm talking about, Monica, is so many people here built their businesses on the old school version of what I'm saying. A lot, right? A lot of when you moved into town, you started networking, you either had kids that were in Little League. I know, I can see the heads, not like this is how you built your business.

14:05All I'm saying is that social media can make it 10X the way you did it. And there's a lot of people still in town in their general areas, and you could create a bigger net. I'm giving you five and 10 mile radius. Some of you live in rural areas and you're willing to drive an hour and a half for a customer, so great. Make it a 100 mile radius.

14:29next hi Gary you mentioned fear factors yes which is that the personal philosophy of mine is disengaged with that I was thinking about how do you find that professionally and a lot of us deal with clients here so in this day and age do you have tips, tricks, frameworks to help really destigmatize educate clients because it's a negative environment that permeates business owners. So offshore, I had a team in India I brought to my clients. I do the fractionalization, CFO, you mentioned it. Nice. But technology, AI, offshoring, how do we really distill that down? Because at the end of the day, I feel like I'm fighting battles on brief fronts.

15:09Internally, with my partners, on the market, building my personal brand, network, and then ultimately with clients who we're there to deliver for, how you really break that down so that they trust you as an advisor. or you bring that to bear shit on? For me, it's been conviction over convincing. You know, what worked for me, and again, it's nice to have such a long relationship with Monica, she'll tell you that so many of the things that I brought to the marketing world 15 years ago, people didn't believe, right? Like, it was just, people didn't believe it. And I wasn't in the business of convincing.

15:44Not my brother. I remember telling my brother that, you know, we were gonna charge a lot more money for monthly social media creative. And he was like, bro, people are not gonna pay more than$5 ,000 a month for this. I didn't spend my time trying to convince my brother. I spent my time trying to build the capability and have conviction in what I believed. And then that execution would be the outcome. So I think don't get caught up in convincing your partners or your clients. Keep putting out the information, both one-on-one in meetings and publicly, and let the chips fall. You got it, brother.

16:22You can't convince the, you know, inconvincible, right? You just, you can't convince certain people. It just will never happen. It's a huge waste of time. So many of you spend so much trying, trying to sell to unsellable people. Just don't do that. Yes, sir. Hi, my name's Kyle. It's kind of a small firm. And, you know, a lot of talk today about, you know, bringing in new business and building that relationship. And I'm curious who landed you as a fish. I imagine you have, you know, quite a lot of be a good client to land. What relationship do you have with who's responsible for your tax in the county?

17:03The Smurry not. But I have a question. No, it's a great question. Yeah, it's it's a great question. I, like many people in life, you know, early on in my life, just followed who my dad was using. my dad was using somebody locally in springfield new jersey for his personal business as i started getting older i i took my family business from a three million dollar a year business to a 65 million dollar business in five years so you can imagine a lot changed our family quickly and i could tell pretty quickly that good old eddie locally was not going to be able to take us to the next level. And so we then kind of switched to J.H.

17:43Cohn, which was a player in the Jersey area. And then in the last chapter of my career, you know, I was an early investor in Facebook and Twitter and have built some very big companies. And so now I have family office dynamics and everything. They're my own internal employees. So that's my journey. Nothing too, You know, very cliche. You know, but what I think is interesting is I made those decisions not in the world we live in today. In fact, probably what motivates me so much is I would have been the exact person that would have hired from social media when I was ready to move on from Eddie Halper and my dad.

18:25This medium didn't exist then. But 28-year-old me would have found that person in that feed and been like, Dad, I want to work with this person. And that's what motivates me so much on the advice I'm giving here today. You're welcome. Yes, sir. Let's extend it as much as we can. All right. David Dimitrov, Gary, nice to meet you. Pleasure. Quick question. So our firm requires other firms. That's how we've been growing for the last three years. One of the things that's most challenging for us, you know, I'm not a marketer. I don't post twice a day. Yep. The one thing is, so we borrow about three to four firms a year.

19:04Yep. We have this issue of how long do we wait to merge the brain and how do we go about merging the brand? How would you, you know, do you have any attempts, tricks that you can share? I think, first of all, I'm excited that you're having that conversation because it is the right conversation. You will get economies of scale by creating a macro brand for all these things at some level. but to your point, some of these brands have a lot more equity locally and if you do a poor job with the macro brand, you might actually lose a little momentum, right? I think there's no tips or tricks. I think, you know, I have a lot of theses on brand.

19:44First, names are made. Nike meant nothing to no one until they executed. McDonald's sounds like an Irish pub on the corner down the street until it was made something. Google meant nothing. Facebook meant nothing. So I think people overthink brand names, right? So I think one, keep that in mind. It's execution that will get you there. But I think at some point it is appropriate if you're rolling up all this stuff to get to a macro brand. And then the execution, meaning the day-to-day content that that brand puts out. Until you're ready for your brand to put out content every day about the brand, I wouldn't be in a rush to consolidate.

20:28That's really it. It's not very complicated, my friend. Appreciate it. Thank you. You got it. Hey, Gary. Hey. Someone talked and told myself. Please, what's your name? Juan. Juan. Juan. Juan. So, you know, I think we've established that those of us in the room are not particular experts in cutting-edge marketing, let's say. So the question would be, how would you evaluate advisors to help usher us into being more forward-looking in marketing, particularly at a time when the technology is balding so rapidly? Very carefully. It's very hard to judge someone's skill in a craft you don't understand.

21:13So I will give you this one tidbit. the disproportionate most important thing that marketing is living on right now is getting views organically on social media. For the first time in marketing history, marketers like us can judge if somebody's good at creative by how many views the video or the picture got when it was posted organically. This is gonna help a lot of you. for the first time ever in the 15 years of social media, how many followers you have no longer matters as much. I've spent 15 years amassing 60 million followers and someone in this room can post a video tomorrow on TikTok and get more views than I get, which is insane.

22:01The merit is on the individual piece of content. So the way I would judge is I wouldn't pay someone to consult, I would pay someone to do. and I would have them post those videos organically and I would judge them on how many views those videos are getting. That is how you judge. Now, you have to be fair to that person. If you've never posted before, you don't have a baseline. So you gotta give them 30 days to post and see what those numbers look like. Or you could look at competitors in the market and you can see how many views they're getting because that's how social works. The judgment today is based on how many views achieved by the organic.

22:37The organic. you can hide behind spending a thousand dollars on getting views that's not doing anything how many views did the post get organically so i wish we could go all morning but unfortunately we have to wrap it up gary thank you so much for being here thank you awesome thank you everyone thank you