Crush It!

by Robert Giorgione

Having a large passion for and indeed a huge collection of books, I recently read the book called "Crush It!" written by Gary Vaynerchuk and published by Harper Studio. In fact, I couldn't put it down and read it from cover to cover within an entire weekend. Thank heavens for coach journeys to South Wales! Who is this American chap that everyone is talking about? Curiosity got the better of me. I'm glad it did, as the book is extremely well-written and managed to really open up my mind.

He has captured the attention with his pioneering, multifaceted approach to personal branding and business. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to build his family's local retail wine business into a national industry leader, Gary rapidly leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine. Gary has always had an early-to-market approach, launching Wine Library's retail website in 1997 and Wine Library TV in February of 2006. His lessons on social media, passion, transparency, and reactionary business are not to be missed!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book and some real pearls of wisdom:

The key to success - three rules "Love your family. Work superhard. Live your passion."

"Social media give entrepreneurs and businesses an unprecedented chance to engage with their customers and communicate their message. Those who can harness their passion to the unbelievable reach and power of these tools are in the position to crush it on a level the world has never seen."

"Everyone knows the Internet represents one of the biggest cultural shifts since the printing press, but I think society has been slow to recognize that it represents the biggest shift in history in how we do business."

"It makes total sense that if this is where the eyeballs are going, this is where business has to go. Money goes where people go - where there is an audience, advertisers are eager to follow. They used to spend their money on traditional media. Those platforms are losing eyeballs to the online world by the second."

"It's never a bad time to start a business unless you're starting a mediocre business. I think the economic downturns represent a huge opportunity for everyone to get their focus on and start to crush it."

"Everyone needs to start thinking of themselves as a brand."

"Learn to live your passion, and you'll have all the money you need plus total control over your own destiny."

"Skills are cheap, passion is priceless."

"Social Media = Business. Period."

"Once these social networking platforms caught on with the general population, however, I was all over them and knew how to make them work for me; but they only accelerated my success - they didn't create it."

"But they are only as powerful as the person who uses them."

"Success is in your DNA."

"The Internet makes it possible for anyone to be 100 per cent true to themselves and make serious cash by turning what they love most into their personal brand."

"Storytelling is by far the most underrated skill in business."

"I had been trying to figure out how to leverage this new medium to show people that there was more to drink out there than Yellowtail."

"Developing your personal brand is key to monetizing your passion online."

"Where the eyeballs go, opportunity follows."

"You'll crush it as long as you concentrate on being yourself."

"Leveraging social networking platforms into effective conduits for your personal brand is all about building word of mouth."

"Developing your personal brand is the same thing as living and breathing your CV every second that you're working. Your latest tweet and comment on Facebook and most recent blog post? That's your CV now."

"The new generation of online news is going to be more democratic."

"Money follows eyeballs."

"The massive sea change that is rocking the news industry is going to rock every industry that relies on human interaction. And can you think of any business that isn't some way dependent on human interaction?"

"There are people who belong in front of the camera, there are people who belong in print, and there are people who belong on the air. These are extraordinary people. The ordinary ones, the ones like the vast majority of businesspeople and entrepreneurs out there, don't have the showman DNA."

"Business costs should never trump personal costs."

"I use analytics very rarely and I urge you not to rely too much on them either, especially if you've got good business instincts."

"Focus the majority of your attention on the overall brand positioning."

"You have to think about building your brand in terms of a marathon, not a sprint."

"The best marketing strategy ever: CARE."

"Legacy is greater than currency."

"Legacy is the mortar of successful, lastings brands."

Overall, I found the book extremely inspirational. Now, the time has come for me to put everything into practice and to CRUSH IT!

I look forward to your comments robert@robertgiorgione.com

1 comment

Louise H. 01-05-2010

I read Crush It! over the Christmas break and loved it. I keep recommending it – along with Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (give it a go if you haven't read it already). The only beef I have with GV's suggestions is that working crazy hours is rather counter-productive to loving your family (another one of his recommendations). It's hard to love your partner, kids, folks or what have you if you hardly see them, and you're dog-tired when you do. I'm all for following your passion, but if your work/life balance is out of whack, that's… uh, whack, as Gary might say. Work hard? Sure. Work harder? No – work smarter. Which is where social media really kicks in…

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