Gary Vaynerchuk demonstrates how to get advertisers by cold calling
garyvaynerchuk.com
garyvaynerchuk.com
Going after companies that are already advertising is also an obvious win as their marketing teams probably have a budget that they need to fill.
Overall, hands down, the one thing I would take away from this incredible clip is the fact that pure, unadulterated tenacity is severely underrated.
And as someone else pointed out - time to get a new iMac Gary :) (But only because we told you to!)
It's funny, I was watching this in bed and my wife said "hey, Gary V has the same iMac as me"
The video is a couple years old.
Edit: Now I notice there's a whole thread below pointing this out. Carry on.
He is also a very practical man.
Great guy!
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3BNS1SYRL9X80/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...
Some poor lady reviewed his book and gave it 2-stars, the review laid dormant for months and one day, out of nowhere, 70 people gave it an "unhelpful" mark. That defies all logic and statistics and hints at massive coordination. When she edited her review to acknowledge the astroturfing, they came out in droves and started calling her names. Gary himself was civil, but the guy has a knack for getting all critics to talk to him on the phone so he can "fix" any misunderstandings.
Read it for yourself. It left a bad taste in my mouth anyway.
But I suspect Gary just has the mentality not to spend money unnecessarily - not a bad way to help get and stay wealthy and reasonably common. See Bill Gates' wardrobe and Warren Buffett's house and car for further examples ;-)
This is why "unfair" wealth distribution is actually good (please note that context for this statement is "developed world" not missmatch in wealth between regions). Since poor people (or poor families) are obviously lousy at managing their resources. Thus the acumulated wealth is actually protected by hoarders - since everybody else would have just spent it anyway.
Also, unless these hoarders are stuffing their money under the mattress it is getting spent somewhere by somebody. The transfer of wealth by spending is the entire basis of an economy, certainly not something to be avoided. The only argument you could make it favor of giving more money to rich people is that they tend to spend it on development which furthers the economy as a whole. This is called trickle-down economics, and it doesn't work.
I know it's a circular argument - but because if they (or their parents) could manage resources better they wouldn't be poor - don't look at what signle person does - look at their bloodline.
My parents (mother mostly) managed to save enough money to buy her first property by age 18 (she started working age 15). She managed to save incredible amounts of money - while mostly working minimum wage type jobs - for her entire life and we always had cash when necessary.
It did take a lot of sacrifices. I mostly wore second hand clothing until I could afford to buy my own. I was never to McDonalds until age 15. We never went to theatres. We spent most of our vacations working, She did a lot of stuff that is nowadays considered ecological/organic/fancy - but 30 years ago made you look like a lunatic in eyes of general community (recycling/reusing everything - like taking zippers off clothing and using it on other clothing). I was raised entirely on organic food - thinking that I'm deprived because of it. But I was always encouraged to study - hell I was probably second kid in class to get access to a computer and certainly first kid in class to have their OWN computer.
Hell I might go and write a "How to survive on 100 dollars a month." guides only on stuff I learned from her.
I was certain that we are piss poor until I realized that we are actually pretty wealthy - just poor on liquid assets.
Bootstrapping yourself from poverty is certainly possible - but most people are just too ignorant (yes it might be cruel but thats the way I see it) to pull it off.
Have you ever noticed how many poor people smoke/drink - have you ever considered what a % of their income goes towards these habbits?
"Poverty and wealth, by this logic, don't just fall along a continuum the way hot and cold or short and tall do. They are instead fundamentally different experiences, each working on the human psyche in its own way."
I'd rather like to hear about this, since my upkeep costs are about four times that (though I'm not sure I'd trust housing that rents for less than $100 per tenant per month).
It's a long list with some old-school wisdom. Here's a few...
1. Don't buy anything until you absolutely need it. Wear second hand clothing - nowadays you can get insane amounts of perfect if a little outdated clothing that will work fine with a bit of care (patching and sewing - people have totally forgotten how to sew nowadays). 2. Get a patch of land and start producing something - anything really. It will either help your bottom line or decrease your living costs. Also getting a patch of woods will provide you with "free" energy. Expand! 3. Barter - there's always something somebody needs that you don't need and vice versa. 4. Learn how to do stuff - my mother had sewn her own clothes or knitted it all. Don't worry about fashion - fashion is about self confidence and making your own clothes will make you plenty self confident - it's how you wear stuff not what you wear. I have also never been to a barber - before my mother or sister cut my hair, now I motivated my GF to learn (by trial and error) and she's getting pretty good now :) 5. Do stuff for people - being kind to people will make them do stuff for you. Also avoid doing stuff for people who won't return favors. 6. Buy food in bulk. Buy beans, potatoes, flour,... in larger quantities (half a year's worth) and prepare your own meals - you can learn to do a lot of stuff in advance. 7. Observe masters at work - when doing stuff at home we always first got a craftsman to do it - observed it and if it wasn't really high skill work, you can imitate and learn a trade, by the way.
and there's more. Might make a fine e-book (see, business opportunity!).
In short - my mum is quite a hacker (she used to be a truck driver back in the day when women were rarely driving cars (in 60's)).
And she had taught me basics of masonry, farming, household works, marketing,...
And that is why I firmly believe that, yes, while only 1% will get out of poverty its not due to some sort "sheer luck" scenario, but due to some serious willpower and dedication required to pull it off.
So basically we could get away without spending any money - beyond stuff you cant pay for without money (utilities, gas,...).
I know you might say - a lot of stuff you mentioned is not really worth it. But see - that's the flaw. Basically its compounding all over again - Small Stuff Adds Up! My mother says: "To some people nothing is ever worth doing. But to me everything is."
And to address your question regarding living expenses. My mother used to spend her first three years (15-18) working 8-10 hours a day in a factory AND after that working 4-6 hours on a farm for shelter and food. This enabled her to buy her first said property and from there on she has always been on her own land. It is true that land was way cheaper then, but she had to start very small anyways.
You want to see an extreme case of hoarding look no further than Japan. Where the people were so good at saving they never bought a thing which only caused the economy to stall further, ie., "the lost decade".
The accumulation of wealth is never a good thing and we have a long history of booms and busts to prove it.
Would it be so much better if they just spent everything?
Why is more production, consumption and pollution considered good?
Can't you see that taking wealth of Warren Buffet and distributing it amongst the poorest would cause mostly problems. These people wouldn't use the resources to empower themseves or improve their position - they would mostly blow it for hedonistic pleasures.
I'm not an economist so maybe I'm missing the bigger picture, but by putting the money in a savings account, aren't they increasing the amount of capital available and thus helping to lower interest rates? If nobody hoarded, there would be nobody to borrow from.
The reason for that is a bit mathematical, so bear with me:
When Savings = Investment (assuming for simplicity, no foreign trade)
S=I (1)
now S=sY (2), I=ΔK, ΔK=k.ΔY so I=k.ΔY (3). sY=k.ΔY ΔY/Y = s/kSo in a sense, you're right, but there's more to it than that.
The problems occur when there's too much hoarding going on. Think of these two theoretical extremes:
1) Everyone saves, no-one spends. (Leaving aside starvation and human needs for the moment)
- Obviously, since no-one spends anything, no-one ever gets paid. No transactions happen at all, and interest rates drop (no-one's borrowing anything!) so people suffer, and experience poorer standards of living as a result. There's a lot of money, but no-one's doing anything with it.
2) No-one saves at all, and everyone spends what they earn relatively quickly
- In comparison to 1), this would mean that you're likely to be being paid a lot, and quicker. You immediately spend this money on goods, so your quality of life (in theory) increases immediately. It doesn't matter that you don't have the money any more, as the next person along that you spent your money on also immediately spends their money. Money travels around fast (the speed of which it does this is known as the velocity of money), and so you're soon being paid more money again, which again improves your quality of life. No saving takes place - but no-one minds as there's so much money going around that bootstrapping a business suddenly becomes a lot easier.
Obviously, 2) is unfortunately rather impossible to achieve - due to various factors such as confidence and the difficulty in getting everyone to spend lots. One noted problem is that rich people spend more money than poor people - but they spend a smaller proportion of their income. Imagine someone with £100,000 pa (after tax). They spend say, 20% of their income at £20,000 a year. Now imagine someone earning a paltry £10,000 pa (after tax). They're likely to spend a higher proportion of their income, say 80% at £8000 a year. 10 of these poorer people will spend £80,000 a year. So the theory goes, it's better to have more people all spending and increasing the velocity of money, than a few very rich people all hoarding.
In the real world, savings matter, because you can't get everyone to spend lots of money all the time. However, these savings accounts can't be high enough to jeopardise spending. It's a bit of a tightrope.