I had the good pleasure of attending both The Art of Leadership (Toronto) and The Art of Marketing (Vancouver) last week. There was some terrific content at both events, shared by some of the most insightful people in their respective fields. While I plan on sharing a good chunk of the findings over the next few days, I wanted to kick things off with a list of quotes from the infamous Gary Vaynerchuk. (Check out last year’s interview with Gary) I don’t know if he plans it this way, or it’s natural, but the guy literally speaks in tweets. Check out some of his gems:
**WARNING: In classic Gary fashion, a good number of these include language some may find inappropriate. Read on at your own risk, and please accept these in the theme in which Gary shared them: great content, blended with shock and awe.
“There are things that are happening around us that indicate big change on the horizon. You just need to look for them.” (on GPS-enabled services)
“content is king. But marketing is queen. And that bitch runs the household.” (even more valuable when marketing = context)
“Context is the war, my friends. Context is the battle.” (content is important but people want to know how it relates to their lives)
“what is the ROI of a piano for Elton John? A fuckload.” (on the value of the right tools being in the right people’s hands)
“what is that? Like, a shirt?” (he didn’t mean it the way it sounded)
“it doesn’t matter how many Facebook fans you have. It matters what the engagement levels are on your posts.” (on where to focus your success metrics)
“if you think Facebook ads don’t work, you suck at your job.” (on the value of targeted advertising)
“the battle will become about retention. About lifetime value. It’s not about getting everybody, it’s about keeping everybody.” (on delivering after you attract customers)
“people aren’t looking at billboards. People aren’t even looking at the fucking road.” (on the power of digital vs traditional advertising)
“tropicana orange juice is yummers”. (on the level of personal brand engagement we can gain from Twitter, Facebook status updates and the like)
“what happens when word of mouth scales?” (a follow up to the Tropicana mention)
“everything I wrote about in the Thank You Economy will self destruct in 4 years” (on how mass adoption – particularly from marketers – kills the value of interaction.)
“we push what converts, and we dilute it, and we kill it.” (also on Marketers)
“all of us awesome people have been fucked by the nerds.” (on data out-valuing gut instinct)
“the next time someone says ‘oh shit, that guy stole my idea’, punch him in the mouth. Ideas are crap. Execution is everything” (on making things happen)
“everyone’s in sales. In 2011, you need to go from a merchant to a service.” (on the value of engaging with your customers)
“1 on 1 marketing is here. It’s harder, but it’s here.” (on the importance of embracing the Thank You Economy)
“can we please stop filtering people based on how many twitter followers they have?” (on the value of lists vs followers)
“the questions you get the most? Put that out for free.” (on how to build a community effectively)
As always, @Garyvee delivers some brilliant gems amidst a dozen f-bombs. I love how this guy can get a crowd going.
