Top 240 Quotes & Sayings by Gary Vaynerchuk - Page 4

I think of customer service as an offense and not a defense

More contact means more sharing of information, gossiping, exchanging, engaging - in short, more word of mouth.

What's the ROI of your Mom?

I've always had a knack for branding, so even with the lemonade stands, it was "Gary's Lemonade Stand." I worked on the signs all day, more so than on the lemonade itself. Then I learned you had to make good lemonade to build an actual business, so that taught me about lifetime value and quality.

First of all, when building a brand you have to know who you are, what you are, and what you stand for. That's clichéd marketing-bullshit jargon, but it does matter. It helps. You have to know who you're targeting. I think too many people fight the market. There are certain people who are never going to want your stuff no matter what you do. There are certain people are never going to love me because I curse and I have bravado and I'm a Jersey boy and I'm brash and they won't take the time to see the humility and the patience and the truth. They shouldn't.

I have never listened to authority. It is not in my DNA.

You can't put out projects that you don't use yourself.

It's a very painful, eye-opening experience to realize, "Wait a minute, my dad actually doesn't want me to be successful because he's not happy." Whether you call it misery loves company, it's not like parents are bad people. It's a human trait. It's just a thing.

An amazing piece of advice for a lot of kids, 50-year-olds, whoever is listening right now: Saving money is a good strategy. I didn't have stuff, but it was because my parents were saving. They were saving. We didn't get toys. They told us to go outside and paint a rock. It was very, very smart because after seven or eight years, he was able to buy a liquor store of his own in Springfield, New Jersey - Shoppers Discount Liquors. He built up a great business.

Publicly, they claim to be thrilled to have the opportunity to engage directly with their customers; privately, they suspect, maybe even fervently hope, that Facebook and its spawn are fads.

Passion is contagioius.

We're sharing things in our lives everyday that we wouldn't have picked up the phone to talk about ten years ago.

Social media is like crack-immediately gratifying and hugely addictive.

I think the opposite version of me is the one we don't see, which is there are tens of thousands of outrageously successful businesses of very quiet, very calculated, calm executors who are confident. You can't be successful without being confident. They believe in themselves. They have their own version of assertiveness ... I think confidence matters and I think other things matter, like I would tell you empathy is probably why I'm more successful than confidence. I'm empathic to the customer, to my business partners, to my employees.

While companies were getting comfy cozy with the idea of being on social media platforms, social media transcended those platforms, and few businesses have followed.

The reason I became successful is because I touched. I touched my community.

It's lonely at the top - if you don't like that, then you don't start a company.

The problem is, we’re all using social networks as distribution instead of native platforms to actually tell stories.

Today, getting people to hear your story on social media, and then act on it, requires using a platform’s native language, paying attention to context, understanding the nuances and subtle differences that make each platform unique, and adapting your content to match.

Pinterest is like window shopping 3.0.

Business is a marathon, and most of society thinks it's a sprint.

Now, if you truly understand how marketing works today, you know there is no individual six-month campaign; there's only the 365-day campaign, during which you produce new content daily.

It scares the living crap out of me how good wine is at ten dollars.

One out of every five page views in the United States is on Facebook!

Care Immensely or Die: This is a bigger culture shift than you realize.

I think being born in Belarus, coming here with nothing, my parents working every minute - that instilled a huge competitive advantage, a chip on my shoulder, a work ethic. Immigrants win a lot and they win a lot because of a couple core things.

Part of why you love your parents is because they loved you first. Brands need to do that.

Innovation doesn't care about anyone.

A lot of people can play the piano, but not everyone can be Billy Joel.

Keep saying hello to people. They will be the differentiator for you for the rest of your life.

When people are using their devices, it's probable that almost half are networking on social media.

Marketing just got hard.

I spent all my time in the clouds or the dirt and that is why I think I’m successful

Ignoring platforms that have gained critical mass is a great way to look slow and out-of-touch. Do not cling to nostalgia. Do not put your principles above the reality of the market. Do not be a snob.

When I was 17 or 18 I wanted to become a wine expert, and my parents wouldn't let me drink. So I was devastated. All I could do was read, and I read and I read. And I'd read something like, you know, 'Subtle hints of cassis.

Jets are probably $2.7 or $2.8 billion. I'm nowhere close to that. The good news is I don't want to buy the Jets tomorrow. I love the journey of being an entrepreneur more than I like of the idea of buying the Jets.

We have brands spending ungodly amounts of money on print, television, outdoor radio, programmatic banner ads, website takeovers. Garbage. When I say garbage, they work-ish. They're just so overpriced. I don't know what else to say. I do not believe that it is worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars in distribution and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost to make one 30-second video to tell a 29-year-old woman that your soap is great, in a world where she is not going to consume that commercial.

I am aware of the talent I was gifted and had to execute against it. It is just being very self aware and betting on your best strength.

I look at two things while angel investing. Are you solving an important problem? Do you care about the end users.

I have as big of an ego as it gets, but I have, stunningly, a lot of humility considering some of the accomplishments I've had.

What makes a good client, to me, is one that signed on for the strategy as well as the execution, not just the end product.

You can market your ass off, but if your product sucks, you're dead.

We're not really good at knowing what we want, and we are quick to say 'this sucks'. That's where the opportunity lies.

Google gives preference to its own products, so having a Google+ account influences your search rankings.

Through EdgeRank, Facebook weighs likes, comments, and shares, but it currently does not give greater weight to click-throughs or any other action that leads to sales.

Patience is grossly underestimated.

Adding a social layer to any platform immediately increases its effectiveness.

I measure my success by how happy I am, not how big the business is or how much money I've made.

I've done really well on one core principle which is, I think I have an intuitive ability to understand consumer behavior more than the average bear, and I'm not scared to bet the farm on that gut feeling.

I'm just always looking forwards. I spend very little time, looking backwards.

In 2006, the Blockbuster board got together and said, ‘Do you know anyone using Netflix.’ …Look how that worked out. That is what happens when you put ten 80-year-old guys in a room…Be on record. Be on the right side of history. You don’t want to be the person that supported the Blockbuster decision.

It took thirty-eight years before 50 million people gained access to radios. It took television thirteen years to earn an audience that size. It took Instagram a year and a half.

We are living at the beginning of the humanization of business.

I never thought I'd be a person who would want to write books...I promise you not a single English teacher I've ever had would have thought that this would be going on right now.

I didn't start with a lot. I have friends who started with a lot who have now built on top of it, and I'm impressed because I used to think that was a disadvantage. I think there are a million ways to do it.

Remember the guy in the 80s walking around with a boombox on his shoulder? Why'd he do that? Because it told a story about who he was. Expressing yourself is big business.

We are in control of the one asset that we all give the most f#%ks about, and that is time.

You can't just repurpose old material created for one platform, throw it up on another one, and then be surprised when everyone yawns in your face. No one would ever think it was a good idea to use a print ad for a television commercial, or confuse a banner ad for a radio spot. Like their traditional media platform cousins, every social media platform has its own language.

When it call comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.

Give, give, give, give… Ask.