Tag Archives: gary vaynerchuk

Crush It! A book review

Crush It

Crush It

Well, I ‘crushed it‘ in one sitting on the plane on the way to Lisbon for the EWBC.

Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It! is a book intended for an audience of entrepreneurs ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by social media. These opportunities are easier to capitalise on in an age of ready-made blog platforms, template fan pages on facebook and free plug-ins to carry out necessary tasks, so I use the term entrepreneur to mean all those interested in starting their own money-making business, even those with minimal investment or risk.

That’s all of us!

The style of the book is very readable, and very “Gary”. You can hear him dictating the book, pacing back and forth in the room, stopping to make a friendly quip, probably about American Football, then launching back into his well-honed routine as if he had not left off. In fact, it is so much in the “Gary Vay-Ner-Chuck” voice that I had to read it at the speed he speaks, so I got through the book in an hour and a half!

As someone who has been following Gary, on and off, from fairly early on in his Wine Library career, including some of his keynote videos and his business site, much of this book is already familiar @garyvee stuff. It is interesting to have the presentation in one place for reference and in a form I can lend to others (even if video is more entertaining, it is harder to use to research and/or prove a specific point of your own).

The point of this book is not to give his existing followers something new, but to bring his message to those that have not yet committed themselves to social media but who think they want to know more. It is for Gary’s “posse” to give to others to explain their addiction, and for some of us, a useful basic checklist to refer back to.

One thing it is not, for the record, is a wine book, but the messages are still relevant to wine businesses.

If you want a highly readable, passionate and credible book on how to approach building your personal brand in, and through, social media, it is worthwhile reading. However, the world is moving apace and even some of this book is already outdated, so read it quick to get you up to speed on yesterday so you can get on with building your own brand today.

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Posting in Vayne

OK, my turn to add to Gary Vaynerchuk‘s celebrity.

If you are reading this post I am guessing you will have come across this name on numerous other wine and internet sites (as well as TV and magazines), particularly in the last few weeks.

If you haven’t, read this then watch one of the episodes of winelibrary.tv.

I watched episode 303 on Sherry yesterday as suggested by Ryan at catavino.net and I don’t think it was one of his best. However, it did demonstrate something quite interesting. There was a definite disparity between how he described and reacted to the sherries (and, as it happens, some Montilla-Moriles) and what his ratings were.

What was funny was that my wife walked into the room as I was watching the episode and after hearing some of his desciptions, her reaction was: “he sounds like an American Jilly Goolden“.

Ha!

THAT is a “celebrity deathmatch” I’d like to see: “Gary Vaynerchuck vs. Jilly Goolden”. MTV, if you are listening, PLEASE make this.

(for European readers, there is some sort of block on the videos on the official MTV site but you can see a sample episode here instead [Warning – there are not for the faint-hearted])