- You're asking for me or anybody else
to stay stable in a world that constantly moves.
The end.
You've got your perspective.
(audience cheers)
Don't you wanna be happy? Don't you wanna be happy?
(piano music)
What you'll notice, where I go here,
is there's not many things I believe in,
there's just a couple of things
that are unbelievably true with the way
that humans interact and the internet
and specifically this device right now
have a very big say in the way
that all of us in this room can achieve our ambitions,
whether that's financial or emotional.
Whether that's for a business or a start-up,
whether that's to grow within an organization
or start your own business.
So the thing that I've been chasing
since I was a very little boy is attention.
To me, the only thing that 100%
connects every person in this room
is that we need somebody's attention
before we can tell them what they want,
whether we're running for Governor,
whether we're selling sneakers,
whether we want somebody to give us money for our app,
or become the mayor of our town.
No matter what you do in this room
besides all being human beings,
the one thing no matter where you are
on your business journey right now or your life journey
is that attention is the fundamental asset.
The amount of attention the end consumers in Poland
give to Instagram and Facebook are extraordinary.
The amount of you and the rest
of the business world here big and small
that are pouring money into it is very low.
The delta is extraordinary and if you ask me
what the number one thing would excite me tactically
out of this talk is to get so many more of you
to spend in those two platforms
for whatever business ambition you have
and so many unfortunately think
that it's not for them or
the platform doesn't have their customers on it
or that it doesn't work because they've run some ads
and it didn't work and in that misinformation
is all of the opportunity.
There's attention, people still see commercials.
But the amount of people in 2018
when a commercial comes on that go
and look at this in between TV versus
how many people did that in 1998,
in 1998 this didn't exist.
You're watching the mean cooking lady
when it goes into commercial,
you're watching that fucking commercial.
Maybe you'll talk to your parents,
but maybe you'll cook a microwave, but you're watching.
In 2018, everybody in here the second
it goes to commercial grabs this.
And now this gets the attention.
I did a little homework, that commercial in Polish TV
has gone up in price, not down,
it's more expensive, not less.
Yet, all of you and everybody in
this beautiful country's attention goes here.
It's now overpriced attention.
I have never been to Poland before
and I'm so happy to be here.
I looked at my phone the entire time.
I've never been in this country,
I wanted to come to this country
'cause it's so close to where I was born.
I got into a car, it's the first time I'm here,
and outside the fact that
they wanted to show me one building, your main building
which is beautiful by the way,
besides looking at that building for 13 seconds,
I looked at my phone the whole time.
20 years ago, I would have watched outside very carefully
and looked at the beautiful differences and similarities,
but what I also would have seen was the billboards
that you have on your highways and routes.
That billboard used to have more value.
Today, it's gone up in price from 15 years ago,
yet everybody here when they're not driving as a passenger
is looking at their fucking phone.
My friends, understanding this is very, very important.
The amount of people in here who are wasting money
in marketing every day because it used to work
is the opportunity and the danger,
depending on how you're navigating
your business and your life.
What used to work is always the thing
that is going to put you out of business.
Looking backwards allows somebody to pass you.
I am astonished by how many people
when they produce content for the internet
produce it for their self-interest, not for their audiences.
I am astonished by how many of you,
and I can think about 12 to 15 of you
and I'm trying to see if I can see any of your faces,
I was astonished by how many of you produce content
just in your best interests, not in your audience's.
It's about you and what you're trying to sell,
and for you, and every post, and every post,
and every post, I know it makes me cry
(laughter)
She's right, the baby is fucking right,
just like attention, supply and demand is everything.
And if you're gonna be a personal brand
or a coach or influencer or have an app or sell something,
you have to understand in 2018 in a world of Amazon
and Facebook and Instagram, everybody's gonna do that.
There's nothing anybody here is gonna start
that can't be started by hundreds of thousands,
millions and tens of millions of people
for the same zero cost.
The great thing about the internet is that we all can play.
The terrible thing about the internet
is that we can all play.
It means you have to actually be good.
Yesterday I was in London, a girl came up to me
she stood on stage, I was about to leave
but she was very emotional,
I wanted to a nice so I came up to her
she said to me, "I've been trying so hard for a year
to build influence, you know."
And I'm like how old are you?
And she's like, "20."
I'm like well what do you want to talk about.
"Well I just wanna talk."
I'm like why would anybody fucking listen to you?
And I wasn't trying to razz her,
I was trying to get her to answer a question.
I've always felt comfortable producing content
because I didn't produce content
for the first 15 years of my career,
I first built an actual company
I then actually was right about where the internet was going
I then actually invested in Facebook and Twitter
and was right and then I had the audacity
to think I was worth listening to.
Today, everybody just wants to be listened to
cause they wanna get attention to then sell something.
Do you know how fucking crazy that is?
You need to first put yourself
in a place to get the attention.
I do not want you to hire a 24-year-old
from the Ukraine to run ads for you.
I want you to figure it out for yourself.
Entrepreneurs raise your hand?
Raise it high and keep it up for a second.
Every single person in this room who's got their hand up
has to go home, search Google, and type in
"How do I run Instagram ads for a lawyer in Poland?"
"How do I run," thank you,
"How do I run Facebook ads for a banker in Poland?"
This thing Google is fucking crazy.
I don't know if you've ever used it,
it's got the fucking answers.
You have to read it, look I'm terrible
at reading and learning, terrible.
But I'm good at listening.
So whether you have to read 10 articles,
whether you have to listen to 10 podcasts,
whether you have to watch 55 videos on YouTube,
you have to, everybody who raised their hands,
have to, in my opinion, have to,
I'm 25 years of business success,
has to learn how to do it themselves.
You go into your laptop or phone and you place the ad.
You have somebody record or you write the picture.
You have to see it, you have to taste it.
Because if you do not, you will be leaving
the biggest opportunity for a businessperson,
human or entrepreneur on the table
since 2001 to 2003 Google.
And let me remind everybody here,
the biggest advertiser in the first
five years of Google was Amazon.
The number one person that put the most money
into Google during the best era was a company,
small company out of Seattle called Amazon.
Everybody here knows Amazon
right this second for many reasons,
Jeff Bezos is an incredible entrepreneur.
But do not get it confused.
Google advertising was a substantial reason why.
The amount of business I'm doing for Vayner Media
and for me by putting out content on LinkedIn is remarkable.
It's really what we dreamed it could be
five years ago of could you imagine
if LinkedIn became a business Facebook. It has.
If you were in the B2B space here
and you are not attacking LinkedIn
by putting out articles, videos and pictures every day,
you are leaving money and opportunity on the table.
Content is the gateway drug to success in our society.
Content is what makes people do something.
You now have the ability to make it
and have happen for you what you want.
It's sitting right in front of you
and 99% of you are not making enough of it.
I'm making 80 to 100 pieces a day
and I'm not making enough of it.
There's nothing else to say.
I promise you, over the next half decade,
Coca-Cola and IBM and Kentucky Fried Chicken
and Hard Rock, the cafe I did see when we were driving here
and everybody else is gonna wake up
and they're gonna start running ads
on Facebook and Instagram,
and you're not gonna get in front of
a thousand people in Poland for $5 anymore.
It's gonna cost $80, and the other thing is everybody here
is not gonna be looking at their screen very carefully
as they were today in five years,
just like they don't look at their email
as carefully today as they did ten years ago.
Attention is the asset, executing against it is how you win.
I really, really, really appreciate your attention
and thank you for having me.
You basically ask me, hey in the fitness industry,
a lot of people are being sold
that they can get into shape by not doing anything.
I wanna get them to get into shape
by actually doing push-ups.
Teach people how to do push-ups.
There's plenty of people winning
on Facebook that are not pushy.
The problem is 98% of people are pushy.
That's why you see so much of it.
- [Female Voice] Yeah like there's nothing really,
there's nothing really coming out of it.
We feel that they are too pushy
and we reject it in the beginning.
- No shit.
- So we have to be pushy anyway.
- No, you don't be pushy. - Don't be pushy.
Don't be pushy.
- Don't be pushy.
- But how to do it, practically?
- By giving people information, I think,
I'll give you the answer because I'm playing around here
a little bit and I think this will make sense to you.
If everybody in here thought
that they were a media publisher, not an advertiser,
they would make different content.
Instead of thinking you're making a television commercial,
think that you're making a television show.
Got it? You're making commercials on Facebook,
that's when you're pushy.
When you start thinking about making a show,
now you're bringing value, entertainment,
information, utility, that's how you do it.
- [Male Voice] So basically my business
based on eBay platform, and I know eBay platform super well,
I know that platform better than.
- Which platform? - eBay.
- eBay. - Yeah.
I know this platform better than my girlfriend,
but at the same time eBay is living the cycle, man.
You never know what's going to happen.
- You never know what's gonna happen in life.
- Yeah, especially when eBay, anyway.
- No, no, it's what you know well,
which is why you know how instable and how much it moves.
The only reason you're saying that
is that you have expertise in eBay.
I promise you, you never know what's gonna happen in social,
you never know what's gonna happen in crypto,
you never know what's gonna happen in Madison Avenue
and Wall Street and Warsaw and Silicon Valley.
You could hit by a bus tonight and die.
You never know anything.
- Okay, so I'm gonna go to question.
So there are two statements in business.
One statement is that we need to go all-in 100% into it,
and another statement is that
we need to create some different
- Both. - Sources of income.
- Both.
Go on, you're 20 fucking years old, 16, 19, 23, right?
- 26, but.
- Alright, you look great, anyway.
- Thank you.
- Both. Keep crushing eBay,
and establish other revenue streams too.
- So you mean like keep doing on eBay,
and also establish Amazon and (unintelligible).
- 100%.
- Thank you.
- And you know why right? Because you have the time
to work ten hours more a day.
- Also do you see a drop shipping like long-term thing,
long-term business? - Yes.
Selling shit will always be around.
Sometimes markets are better.
Sometimes Shopify is better than Amazon,
sometimes eBay is better than, you know, Craigslist,
sometimes Facebook Marketplace.
Shit will always change,
eBay didn't fucking exist 20 years ago.
You're asking for me or anybody else to stay stable
in a world that constantly moves. The end.
(dramatic music)