I picked up a copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s book “Crush It” because my boyfriend ordered it off Amazon, and I promptly claimed it for myself. Gary has been a driving form of inspiration for me in 2017.
2017 was a difficult year for me because I knew I was passionate about my work but I also knew that I had some other emerging passions. I wanted to pursue interests such as training, creating partnerships, and recruiting. Really, it boiled down to program development. In my position, I was doing some of that, but I wanted to invest more time in it. Outside of work, I was pursuing those passions with an amazing, well organized young professional group.
My boyfriend knew about that goal that I was trying to achieve and encouraged me to watch Gary Vaynerchuck YouTube videos. Sometimes I would come home from work just beat up from the struggle of pursuing my dreams and he would cheer me up with the Gary Vee videos on his social media accounts. My dream was (and still is) to get paid to do program development. The Vaynerchuk videos would pop up on my Whats app messaging and my Facebook messages. I was so overwhelmed, sometimes I would watch it and sometimes I wouldn’t. Often, I would watch it right before I went to into work.
I was hesitant to watch the videos at first because I wasn’t in the mood to hear the uplifting material. I thought that Gary’s message was purely a sales pitch. I was wrong, his message was more about pursuing your passion. He also makes a point to share high-quality content on his social media for free without pushing his audience to buy anything. He is a poster boy for a small business that wove passion, hustling, and social media to grow his business. He also encourages you to grow yourself by recovering from rejection and building an authentic community through good content.
I have never been to a speaking engagement for Gary; however, I can say his books and YouTube videos helped me immensely as I leaned more into my passion for program development while working full time. This book is about 140 pages and it’s very much about his journey of leaping into unknown waters to start his business. He had a base of knowledge about wine and used some simple tools to build his community. In reality, his winelibary tv was a tool to build his brand while educating people about wines his business sometimes didn’t even carry.
Here are 5 valuable insights that I got from reading Crush It!
“Passion is everything.”
Gary didn’t come from a wealthy background; however, he did have access to family skills that he grew up watching and eventually adopting. He shared that his family immigrated from Belarus to the U.S.A. His father started working in a liquor shop when Gary was young. While his father worked at the liquor store, Gary discusses his hustle to explore his passions while he didn’t do well in school. He developed skills while he managed lemonade stands, to making money selling baseball cards, to building his father’s liquor store business from $4 million to $50 million. He did so well building his father’s liquor store business that he started his Vayner Media business to help people brand their products.
“Success is in your DNA.”
Gary shares when he first started to become popular, people would comment on how annoying he came off in the videos. He took the time to create relationships with those people by responding to the messages. This is a great lesson essentially saying the best way to respond to negativity by engaging with the feedback, creating a relationship, and learning how to improve.
The path to your success “literally lies in the twists and turns of your own double helix.” I think this means that while you may not have the financial capital to start a business, we all possess the skills needed to succeed. Furthermore, with the right support network, those skills can flourish. Your definition of success will be different as time progresses. You may have been born with great DNA, but are miserable in your professional life. It happens, you just need to focus on what made you feel the happiest and why.
“Storytelling is by far the most underrated skill in business”.
Along with advice on pursuing your passion, building on your content, maximizing all social media avenues, he encourages everyone to take advantage of access to information, suggestions, and opportunity. He shares that he was doing well with his wine show discussing wine because he had experience in his family’s liquor store as well as reading magazines about wine. When he learned about vlogs (blog in video form), he knew he wanted to use his skills by creating vlogs to share his message and his personality. He launched Wine Library TV in February 2006. On the surface, it seems like he started the blog to sell wine on the internet; rather, it was to build brand equity. He discussed wine that sometimes his business didn’t carry, but people appreciated the content and came to his store to meet him.
“Opportunity lies in transparency.”
The best suggestion for anyone in business is to focus on transparency and honesty. In fact, honesty has to be at your core to develop a respectful business relationship.
I also liked how he encouraged his audience to look at their process to apply for jobs. When you look at your resume, do you think it’s awesome? Do you have a PDF of a tidy list of where you have worked, for how long, and highlights from your time there? Even if this is true, there are probably a handful of other people who have the exact same resume currently hunting for the same jobs. He goes on to explain how your latest post on Facebook, your last tweet, and your most recent blog post is now your resume. What you are doing outside of work matters. You can’t afford to be one dimensional when pursuing your goals.
All that said, take advantage of your multiple interests and be open to stepping into a business or field that is intimidating. When you are ready to present your content, keep in mind “Quality is a Tremendous Filter.”
Authenticity and Patience Has to be Woven into Your Hustle
When you first start to share your content, be consistent with who you are when sharing content. You may get tired and frustrated, but if you stay true to your personality and the passion for your product, success will come your way. I like how he adds that the process of building your brand is more like a marathon than a sprint. It’s so true! To create this blog post, I had to write a rough draft, read his book two times, and write notes about what I felt was the most important.
Your Task:
- Think about what makes you excited. How do you know? Think about how you spend your free time.
- Write about some ways you could share information about that topic. You have a plethora of options and media for sharing your passions.
- Go online and start reading about what other people share for that topic.
- Post your information somewhere. If even one person reads it, celebrate. Get on that couch and do your special dance. Or don’t.
Ali*G*5280 