I was in Salt Lake City. I was walking in the back halls trying to get to the room and I'm sitting by this top and this phrase crept in my head that I'm not sure crept in before and it's like, you start with that and it really speaks to where I think we are in the market.
You know, I like to pay attention to all markets at all times. And what came in my mind was so much opportunity and not enough tenacity, right?
And I'd see that not, you know, because I'm sure there was people leaning on their eyeballs going hard in this room, but when I did it, you can't.
All right. Well, I'm not doing anything. I'm trying. Oh, there's my... I'm going to fix it, though. Yep. My cam here.
Now, this is better. I love people. Now, let AdSense go away. Yo, there we go. What about now? Is it better over there? It feels like that's a dead zone. Dead zone, are you okay? [laughter]
I want to wait until I'm sure. I can't get a collective. Are you over there good or bad? You can't. Okay, team. What should I do? Where's Pew?
I'm gonna keep going. Relax. I will. I promise. I'm clocking the two minutes and 9 seconds this will take to fix and then I will go hard for everyone. I just want to make sure. Is there anything going on with the builder that we send a hero up there?
What's that? The speaker doesn't work. God, that's going to be a tricky one. [laughter] We're about to take all of them here and like who's interested in a human sitting on your lap. Please listen. [laughter] My man first, bro. This is you talk only.
I'm going to try to get a couple of seconds to pause and see if we fix that. Otherwise, I'm going to need some guidance from the back of what we're doing. You still can't hear over there. Oh, that's better. We're... This is a tricky one. I'm going to do my best here. I assume Zap. What are they doing? Are they trying to fix it?
I'm a solo man here. You guys, can you guys help a man out? Can you give me some indication? All right. I wish I could juggle or something. Like I'm trying to pick what I can do. Wait, I might just repeat it. Should we watch the video again?
Let me know when it triggers. I'm going to do small talk that is not important to the keynote, but I want to keep talking to make sure when it clicks in. There we go. Here we go. [cheering] Nice. Good teamwork. All right, here we go.
So much opportunity, so little tenacity.
And why I say that to all of you is when I ponder what I love so much, you know, as an entrepreneur and as a human, I love market dynamics. It's always been, you know, I started collecting trading cards and flipping them when I was seven years old. So even at a young age, markets going up and down, left and right, always fascinated me.
A big part of my career was ironic. One of the largest premium wine businesses in America where trading wine and buying wine and watching the market move was it. My sister Liz Neello is an active real estate agent in New Jersey. So what, you know, it's funny, I always think about this, every bump in my career in a good way has really tied to a slowdown in the market.
All of them, my greatest bumps. I mean, I started VaynerMedia, my biggest business, in 2009 when everything fell apart in '08. I couldn't get clients, but I could get a bunch of employees, employees that were willing to work for nothing.
You like that one? It's funny, right? [laughter] But what ended up happening was I was better at getting clients than the average BNC player. And that supply and demand vertical allowed me to build one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. And that's kind of how I think the moment is in here.
Listen, none of you are my children or relatives. I can only give so much effort on this stage to get you to do the thing. But the thing is very clear. What I have committed so much of my public life to is trying to overcommunicate ways to grow your business in places that people don't understand that thing is happening.
The book that was referenced, Crush It, I wrote in 2008. The book basically said, 'You can make a living if you make content on the internet.' The first dozen reviews on Amazon when that book came out called me a snake oil salesman because no one is ever going to make $100,000 a year on YouTube.
Yeah. But at the time, everyone thought going on YouTube and making videos about cooking and walking around their town or reviewing sneakers has... Things change. Attention changes. Marketing behaviors change.
Most people in the next 5 to 10 years, when they think about considering who to go with in buying the home, unless they get a human-based recommendation from someone in their family, are going to find that through an AI agent when they search, 'Who should I use to buy a solid home in Maplewood, New Jersey?' Enter, and results will come.
That is going to be the majority of human behavior. The question is, what are all of you going to do about that? How many people here obsess with thinking how to show up as an agent in an AEO, GEO, Claude, Grok, ChatGPT search? My guess is not a lot.
I make no assumptions, but I do my homework before I speak. And the number one way that all of these wonderful faces I'm looking at can show up and literally be the name that pops up when someone types that in is completely predicated on how much social media content you put out every day.
And this group does not put out anywhere close to enough, by this one man's humble opinion, of how much opportunity is out there and how much execution is being deployed against that opportunity.
I have incredible empathy that not everybody wants to make content. I have incredible understanding that it is a skill set and it takes a lot of time. I get that some people are inherently incredibly introverted, but you're trying to sell homes to humans. You got to stop it.
Like, there's a lot of events I go to, like B2B SaaS companies, and I'm like, I get it, but you're not trying to sell homes. Like, you being like, 'I don't like it.' I'm like, well, you basically only interact with people. What are we doing here?
So, for me, I'm going to make a statement. How many people here are familiar with my content and follow me a little bit? Just raise your hand. You should be. Thank you. So for you, this will be less surprising.
How many people here know very little about me, aren't even sure what the hell I am? Raise your hands. Perfect. Just for the people that just raised their hands. The second group, this number is going to stagger you.
Ask me how many pieces of social media content I put out today as Gary Vee for my universe. How many pieces? How many? 93. Thank you for having me. See you.
I cut out 93 pieces of content today. That's the plan. That's what will happen by the end of the night. 93.
I have a full-fledged production team of employees that I pay from my pocket, my money. The salary of that team this year is going to be $6.4 million.
I don't know. I'm not asking for it. They're clapping. I have an open Claude harness that has a brain that my 30-person team interacts with all day and ingests, trains. It is sitting right now filming me.
This film will go into the AI infrastructure that 30 humans work with to clip out the pieces of content across a hundred different handles. Uncut Gary, Funny Wine Gary, Business Gary, Gary Vee the official team, Gary Vaynerchuk across a hundred different handles. Damn.
On 10 different platforms ranging from Substack to TikTok to LinkedIn to Facebook, the one we grew up with 20 years ago, to Instagram to Twitter/X to all of that, because I am a big figure on executing on the words that come out of my mouth around my ambition.
One of my favorite things about one of my favorite groups of people on earth, real estate agents, is people talk big game about how they're going to crush it this year and sell 47 billion houses and then golf four days a week.
Who here is actually going to put focus on killing it in '27? Raise your hands.
How... that's what I think about all the time. This industry, like many other industries, is a tricky one.
I remember when I got first affected by... I don't really remember, like I started being a professional. I was always a business kid, but I probably started understanding things in 1998. And I don't remember, you guys probably remember the years. I'm trying to think, maybe it was 2000. I don't remember, but somewhere between '98 and 2007, probably four, five, six, I don't remember, but boy do I remember what I felt, and I'm going to share it with you.
I would remember somewhere in that decade, my C-list friends, my buddies that sucked at everything, starting to talk about how much money they were making selling homes.
And I remember how much that affected me. I'm like, 'Huh, Rick is an idiot. He's some lazy [__] and he's making a lot of money. That game is interesting.'
This is a tricky game, my friends. How many people have been in this game for more than 20 years? Raise your hand. Let's clap it up for these OGs. [applause]
20 years. You've been fortunate. You've been through a couple. You know how many people have been in this game for less than five? Raise your hands. Let's clap for them. [applause] The people who are now going to clap for your spots.
The youngsters. And luckily, you know, the last five years, you know, again, I'm just surface level aware. I don't claim to know every little detail. First of all, real estate's such a complex framework because every market acts different. I'm super aware of Zillow attacks, of all the [__]. But this game is tricky because when it's going good, it will confuse you into tricking you that you were good.
[__] man. You guys been all right. You feel that? And that's cool. I just get really hyped when it gets hard. Like I'm hoping for like 74% [__] because that's when only three of you are going to succeed.
But I'm curious, like which one of the three of you are the best. You know, I'm a sports fan. Like this whole 'everyone's winning' is weird to me.
Let's go. Chance is right. But they're [__] grief. You know why? I can handle adversity. I'm a diehard Jets fan.
And I think... How did you blow the Jets? They beat Noah. Shut the [__] up. Back to that Jets fade them. I'm going to roll off of that, my man.
Off of that, you know, it's easy. No tribes were crazy. Nobody was a Golden State Warriors fan. Not any people that lived in San Francisco. Then they win and you got kids in New York and Connecticut and Philly wearing Golden State Warrior jerseys.
Every turf I see a kid who does not live in the town that the team is winning wear those jerseys. I walk by that kid, a nine-year-old, and I just walk by and I'm like, 'Loser.' He needs to get his self-esteem from somewhere else. Can't be loyal to the town he's from. Full disrespect.
I drove in the '90s to Jersey. Tons of Bulls fans. Don't see those [__] jerseys anymore.
So, this is kind of the theme that I'm trying to talk about right now. You know this, especially people that started or been in the game for a long time. People come and go from this industry. People love being in this industry when it's yay, but you're going into an era that it's going to be a little harder. It's already a little harder. We know it. And like, I don't like, we don't really know.
And by the way, you know this where America is right now. The fragmentation, it's trends. Like we're in a trend where there are certain places that it's easier. There are places that it's impossible. The places that it was easier the last few years are starting to get harder because of supply and demand. You guys all know this. All of this is not profound.
What is profound as an opportunity, tech-wise, is even if it's atrocious and we're at 11%, I know for a fact that you can win, you just have to be remarkably better than everyone else. And that can only come from the framework that I want to talk about with all of you because I think it will bring you a ton of value, which is the barbell theory.
I believe we're going into society into an extreme barbell framework. The barbell, with weight on opposite sides, is we are going into, and let there be no confusion, an extreme digital revolution grounded in what AI is about to do.
On the other side, though, in all of this AI craziness and social media craziness, the digital craziness is, and I'm sure you can struggle with, sense it because you live in life, the rise of analog and OG behavior.
The reason sports and music festivals... like I'm literally getting goosebumps. I don't know if you guys can see this. I'm pumped about this because one of the reasons I continue to even speak is I just love people, right? And I love that humans are feeling so isolated and lonely that you're already seeing the trends of things growing: clubs, festivals, sporting events are completely out of control.
Like, we're right. Like I'm flying back right after this to New York. I'll be in Javits Center in New York City for Comic-Con and like 250,000 nerds are going to nerd the [__] out. And so this is a hugely good thing for all of you because when there's trends that pull from opposite sides, no one here can make an excuse.
What I mean by that is, is you're the person that's just obsessed with like, 'I hate technology and I don't like it and back in my day we, you know, rode a bike,' all that stuff. Well, good mittens, you are allowed, whether you're, if you're like so anti-technology and you don't want to be on social media, you want to send direct mail like it's 1984, knock yourself out.
But your ability for that direct mail, not to have your face on it, be like, 'I sell homes.' No, that direct mail can say, 'Here's my email. I get 12 to 25 people together for wine night every Wednesday at this restaurant. Email me and get on the list.' Like the fact that if you're old school and you want to network and you want to PTA it out and you want to little league it out and you just want to like knock on doors, like, you know, and all that good news, you have an audience.
People are more inclined to get to know you and just shoot the [__] and then that becomes the gateway to why you were able to successfully run and sell homes.
And then on the complete other side, you've got me who literally has 30 full-time employees to make social media content and runs a massive AI infrastructure to post, one more time, 931 pieces of content today.
I ironically like both. I like to use my 931 pieces of content to have one-on-one drinks and dinner because I like them both. I'm a bridge. I pay really part for both sides.
I could care less how your DNA is structured, but I'm not interested in you being passive in this next 36 months. You are going to have to choose. You are going to have to become psycho and outflank everyone in one of the two buckets.
Everyone here who is not tinkering with AI because you're like, 'I hate it and it's bad for society' and you're using some sort of subjective political stance, because in reality what you're doing is you don't want to put in the work to learn, is going to [__].
No, it's been wild to watch. Now I'm 50, which is crazy. I got friends that I've watched outflank the world by winning with internet and social media in the late '90s into the 2000s who are now 50, 45, 65 and they're wrapping up and they're talking all sorts of [__] about AI.
Not because that's what they believe. It's because they're tired. It's because they're finished. And I look at them and I'm like, 'Yo, John, you used to make fun... like all of you, all of you in this audience, you used to make fun of the relatives who didn't know how to use AOL Instant Messenger or how to text. You made fun of your grandma, but she couldn't do it. And now you've all become their [__] grip.'
Literally searching things on Google search is like me now going to the yellow pages and looking somebody up.
Everybody real quick, everyone here is in business and wants to sell a home. You do understand that if you're in business, you can't allow your subjective opinion on macro technology trends that you can never stuff be your point of view of how you run your business. Right?
So I am just fascinated by how many people are here that post on social media once a week on one platform.
Who here has the confidence? And be careful if you raise your hand. I might jump off stage and pick you, look at your phone and see if you're really a social media G or if you're full of [__]. So be careful.
How many people here feel they are really crushing their content game and are posting 30 to 40 pieces of content a week? And before you go there, not a [__]... Not before you go there. Thank you, ma'am. Not before you go there. Not your [__] Instagram stories that are throwaway we count as content. I'm talking in [__] feed with purpose. 30 pieces of content a day. Stand up.
Stand up. Stand up. Okay. Hold on. First of all, honesty. I see it. I see it. Don't worry. I have a secret. Keep standing. Don't sit down. [__] Get back up. Guys, hold on. Thank you. Please see 30 pieces of content.
Okay, real quick. This is real talk. This is a [__] disaster. There's a... Thank you. Thank you. 11 people that are trying to live in 2026. You can sit down.
Can we put the lights back on? Can you put the lights back on? Actually, that was very nice. Let's clap it up for those 11 people. [applause]
My friends, real talk. Lights back on, please. I need to look at the faces right now. This is like the moment of the whole talk, my friends.
I really don't care what subjective opinion of what the algorithms have done to society. Quick side note, the algorithms changed no one and exposed everyone.
I could go to heavy phone in this audience, one by one, on a screen, show your algorithm. That is who you are. That is what you're into.
The demonization of technology because people are so entitled and don't want to be accountable in 2026 is the silliest and most interesting human behavior I'm watching. Fine. I can live with that.
But friends, if you're here for a business conference and you're trying to sell homes, if you are not actively participating in these channels and producing opportunities for you to sell, I really have no... how the hell is that going to work?
And I'm out. Oh, you're the queen bee that you've been for 13 years. You have a great relationship. You get a lot of word of mouth. The passiveness because of the success of the past is stopping the behavior that you need to be now to be successful.
It's like working out. Like I get it that you were in great shape in your 20s or 30s, but I look at the [__] here. [laughter] And good news, you can fix it, but it takes discipline in what you eat and how you go to the gym.
Again, there's a million ways to go about doing it. But friends, the biggest and easiest opportunity is, I'm going to say this nice and slow: it is free to post on social media. This makes no sense to me.
How many people have been doing the game for over 20 years? Raise your hands one time. Actually, can you scale it up? I really... I like he's scared up. And I think some of you really need to get some blood. I love this.
You see the people who are standing, if you give me two more seconds, that you're getting a little tired, but you got this. Stop.
The people understanding, people told them 20 years ago or more when they started that they didn't have to spend on newspaper ads. They didn't have to spend on direct mail. They didn't have to spend on a park bench with their fake sign. They didn't have to spend and they could post and reach way more people for free. They would have lost their mind.
I was a marketer 20 years ago. The reason I was so psycho about social media 20 years ago is I still, as I stand here on this stage, cannot believe it's free to post on these platforms. One piece of content can change your entire life. You could sit. Thank you.
And here's what's crazy. When I was building my world, it was all about followers. I will tell all of you that we don't even live in social media anymore. We now live in interest media. Here's what that means.
Social media, the game I grew up with, I understood it because I grew up in email marketing in the '90s. And I got it because I couldn't believe it. When email marketing came out, I was like, 'This is free.'
This is not a joke. I sent so many emails for my wine store in 1999 and 2000 because I would have bet my life that it wasn't going to be free forever and you were going to have to charge to send an email. That's because, again, direct mail was the only other comp, but it was a dollar to send a catalog and $4 to make it. And this was free and more effective.
So when social came along, I'm like, 'Oh, this is kind of like email. I'm going to get people to follow me like an email and I'm going to post stuff.' But this one's crazy because you can share it and then maybe he'll let some ass down my mind and the word of mouth was incredible. Back then you had to work years.
How many people here are completely inactive or you would say either be disappointed with what you post on social media? Raise that hand. Okay. Here's what's cool. Thank you.
Here's what's cool. Five years ago, if I was here, it would be tough because I would have to say things like, 'You need to spend an entire year posting every day just to get to a base.' Back to working out. Like, if you're really not doing it, it's not like you go to the gym one time and do a push-up and it's all great.
But now, social media as interest media is like that. It is crazy to watch what's going on. Let me be very clear. I pick the cloud. I have 12 million followers on Instagram.
You have 73. I post something today and can get 200,000 views on that. You with 73, during the walkthrough through a home we're talking about the town you sell in, your video would literally get 500,000 if it was good to people. That is insane.
That was not how it was for 15 years. The fact that I can stand here and say, 'Look, you're about to compete in this market with everybody, it's going to get tighter. There's going to be less deals in your town. Even though this already happened, it's not predictable. It's not 18 months where we're in the dip. It's not going to get better at all.'
Like the CNBC, like 3.8 versus like it's going to get worse. Separation is worse. Inflation is locked in. Nothing's going to happen on November 4th if it goes red. [__] it. Or less if orange. Nothing's changing.
The market's word, market is, I don't know if you know this, humans don't know how to save money anymore. So like no one's like it's not changing. Here's the only thing that can change.
You could go from being the ninth best agent in your general area to the second. That's, this is a very simple thing. The market is not going to make it better for you. You are the only person that can make it better for you.
And this messes with my mind and intoxicates me to come out here and do this is that literally there is a black and white way to go about it and that is to create content. And you know what's cool about...
How many people here associate with what I'm about to say? You're not comfortable being on camera because you don't like the judgment, you know, visually. You're just, that's where you're at as a human. But you are also a very good writer. Raise it. If you're one of those people, raise it high. There's nothing. Raise it higher, please. I want to see.
So those people, those people, you must, must find out what Substack is. How many people here are familiar with what Substack is? Raise your hand. How many people have never heard it? That, that's the opportunity.
Substack is a written platform has tendencies of a newsletter and tendencies of Twitter. It is a huge opportunity, a very glowing community.
Now, what's tough about real estate is it's not like selling sneakers where you can sell to anyone through your obviously favorite barriers. But when you write an article that is titled 'Why You Should Move to Columbus, Ohio' because that's your stuff.
Okay, I hear you. When you write that article, you're talking about the school system, what values with ball, whatever the hell we decide. When that does well on Substack, you can then take that gleam and you can run $150 worth of ads on Facebook in a five-mile radius of Columbus, Ohio. And now you are cooking with gas.
Everyone here must contemplate this debate that if you put in the 10 to 20 hours to get better at making content and running micro... Did everyone figure out how much money I said? $150 in advertising because you're only hitting a very small area of your town.
Everybody here must debate putting in the 20 to 30 hours of homework to actually get good at this game that I don't know because I know you know is literally dictating everything that's happening over.
At what point do we not understand that this is the most important device in society and that seven hours a day people are spending consuming content on one of the 10 platforms?
This device and the 10 social networks is changing the landscape of geopolitics and society. You don't think it can sell your home?
I believe you will. I don't think you're willing to go to work. Not a rest, but I don't think people understand how much more can be put into it. How big the upside can be. And I think people lack patience.
I think a lot of you have tried. How many people here, by show of hands, have tried social media over the last decade and it hasn't really worked for you? Sonic, raise your hands. Actually, stand up again. I apologize, stand up if you feel like you tried over the last decade but it hasn't really worked for you. Let's be honest. This is a fine... super... you get. I appreciate it. Now sit down. Thank you so much.
Now one more time. How many people feel that they have sold multiple homes in the last 24 months because of social media? [applause] If there's that many people standing up and they feel they can attribute multiple home sales to it, this is the part that I'm really trying to get across here. And we're going to go into some Q&A. Your CEO dressed down today and wore a t-shirt and jeans, like, man, I'm very impressed. So, we're going to sit here and do some Q&A, but I want to finish on this point.
For the people that stood up first and haven't been able to figure it out, that's just very like that. That's like anything, right? But some people are better at basketball than others, right? The ROI of the basketball for me has been about negative $25,000. There's a torrent, both of my meniscuses. The ROI of the basketball for Victor Wembanyama is going to be over a billion dollars. Right? So if you see that many people, it's not that it doesn't work. A lot of people here are like, 'This doesn't work.' It's not that it doesn't work, it hasn't worked for you yet. Right?
And for the people that stood up, based on where people are on how much they post, if the math was right and he kept it real with me when I asked for 30 pieces a week, which is nothing, and I saw so many people stand up and say they sold two homes that they contribute to social, that is the point of my talk that you must understand how much opportunity there is to sell homes. But unless you build your personal brand so that people reach out to you, you're going to get flyer and flyer.
Your reputation for selling in the neighborhood over the last 15 years is declining every day, and they're getting fought by kids who know less about real estate than you, but they just happen to be people people know because they're seeing them on social, and it's frustrating you. And I don't understand why you're not adapting. And these excuses of like, 'Oh, I don't like social media,' or 'I don't like Mark Zuckerberg,' or China. This is a... Yeah, I feel better. Thank you so much. I think... [applause]
Real quick on this. I want to be able to do a Q&A, but I'm telling you, for me, the biggest opportunity for a lot of you, because I know when you're at this... watching Nick's... What the... do I coast? I want to tie in the barbell. I think a lot of you would crush if you made a video and said, 'Hey, I'm Paul. Hey, I'm Sarah. I've been selling homes in this general area for the last 12, 15 years.'
I'm just going to keep it very real with you. I want to know as many people as possible because if you ever consider selling your home, I want to be considered. The best way I know how to do that is to make this video. And if you send an email that I'm putting in this video to me, every two weeks I'm getting six to eight people together for dinner and I pay for dinner and I just want to know you. I think that will work for a lot of you.
For the people here that have built your business in the leaning way, and by the way, it could be, for example, if it was me and I was in this business, it would be a wine dinner because I know it, I'm passionate about it. It would make the experience. For some of you, it might be to play golf. For some of you, it might be to... on your run club. For others, it might be to like, 'Hey, come play pickleball with me.' Yeah.
But do you know what? For others, it might be like, 'Hey, I'm a huge Raiders fan. I go to this bar for our football games. Come and like, you can use digital to go analog.' And notice the video I made. It was very honest. The other thing with you real estate folks, you like to be so interesting sometimes, man.
Like if everyone knows what the... you're doing, trying to get me to give you my... a list. Like we know. So notice my video was just like keeping it real as... I'm Sarah. I... want to sell homes in here. The best way I know how to do it is to get to know all of you. So come to my... brunch every Sunday at... on Main Street. [applause]
