Gary Vaynerchuk is ‘the man.’ He’s a 33-year-old, charismatic and slightly over-the-top video blogger who’s managed to grow a multi-million dollar business by mixing his passions for wine and social media marketing. You can join along in his video wine tasting adventures or follow him on Twitter.
What excites you the most about social media?
“Everything has changed in the last 3 years. The fact that you can use social media for your marketing, and not have to pay millions of dollars, has really, really sent this whole game in a different direction.”
Wine 2.0: Gary brings refreshing new-skool energy into the old world of wine.
This week you’re putting out a new book, “Crush It,” about living your passion. What makes it different from other business books?
“First, I’ve really lived what I talk about in my book. I have built up an enormous following and a substantial financial business with social media. I’m a real entrepreneur and business man. A lot of people out there commentate and analyze, but aren’t actually living it. It’s sort of like when athletes are analyzing sports, rather than people who are not experts. The athletes have actually lived it.
Second, I’m not a bullshit artist. It’s 160 pages, straight to the point. I attack it head on. People don’t have to go out and buy it, but for 14 bucks, it’s definitely worth it.”
How important is it compromise and adapt your passion to the marketplace and to social media??
“Not so much. I promise you, dude, that if you went back 7 years ago… and I talked about Ultimate Fighting or MMA (mixed martial arts) – you would have said that “No, that’s too small!“
Attack your passion & single-handedly make it bigger.
If something is your real, real passion… not just because you’re chasing cash.. but because you love it.. no matter how small that niche is, you have to attack it. First of all, you can single-handedly make your niche bigger. Wine isn’t small, but I’ve definitely created wine drinkers because of my passion. So I think perusing your real passion is imperative, it’s the only way do go!”
You’ve got a rockstar level of fans, groupies and requests. How do you stay productive with all the chatter and noise?
“I do the best I can. I do have an assistant, and right hand men and women that help me run different parts of my companies. The sheer volume of communications is overwhelming, but it’s not scary, because that’s exactly what I want. Sure… 1,000 e-mails a day is intimidating… but, hey, I’ve asked for it. So you just put your head down and you grind. See, I’m not scared to do the work, and I think that’s really important.”
A lot of people reach out and ask stuff from you. What kind of approaches get your attention?
“I don’t mind people hustling, I don’t mind someone coming at me in a ‘one-way-street’ kinda of way – asking for favors. Of course, if someone offers something that might also help you- it’s gonna be more exciting – because it can help my brand when I’m looking at it from business perspective. The problem is, when someone says ‘Hey, I’m trying to get started, please help me out‘ – it’s not differentiated because I get that 100 times a day. So I wonder, ‘Who do I pick?’ And sometimes you get in a situation where you pick no one, because you don’t want 3 people to get pumped and 97 to get pissed.”
When you’re a ‘nobody’ who’s just starting out, how can you self-promote and get other people to pimp your stuff?
“That’s really easy. I was there, like everybody else: you put out good content. Right? Somebody who is an ‘absolute nobody’ can beat everyone on their first day if they write the greatest article or make the greatest video – put it out there – and go into the communities around that subject matter and interact with people. I went to wine forums and wine blogs, and just became part of the community.”
What are you thoughts on the ego? How can someone be confident and successful without coming off like a narcissist or a dick?
Have good intentions. Don’t be a self-centered dick.
“I think it’s different for everybody. You have to know where you’re coming from and have good intentions. I have really good intentions, and that saves my ass, or else everyone would think I was an egotistical jerk. I’m confident, I have a lot of bravado, and I scream and yell. If you’re coming from a good place and you’re really trying to do good things, it’s going to absolutely collide and then offset your ego and self-confidence. Now if you’re a one way street, and it’s all about you and you’re all ego – it’s gonna be difficult to overcome that..”
How do you plan and make decisions about your business?
“It’s kind of played out how I thought it would go. When I make a decision, I’m in it for the process and not for the results. I’m happy with the process because I’m learning. I don’t make decisions in the beginning like ‘Well, I’m gonna be this: ____.’ I don’t make 3 and 2 and 1 year plans. I just make one big one, like : ‘I wanna buy the NY Jets‘ Everything on the way there is kind of irrelevant.”
You make a lot of money. Does money excite and motivate you much? What really drives you the most?
“Well, I wanna buy the NY Jets.. so I need money, because it’s gonna cost billions of dollars. I also live for the human interaction. When I get an e-mail that says ‘Hey man, I watched one of your keynotes and it changed my life!” – that stuff is beyond priceless. I want to spend time with my family, meet as many people as possible, and buy that football team.”
What’s the most important thing for people to remember as they build their brand on the Web?
Internet marketing is a marathon, not a quick sprint! image: JaHoVil
“The quicker people realize that this is a marathon and not a sprint, the quicker they’re gonna win. Way too many internet marketers want everything to happen in one minute. You don’t build million dollar businesses in a minute. That’s something I wish a lot more people understood.”
Click here to share this post on Twitter!
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a comment or share it with your followers on Twitter! You can also Subscribe via RSS for more interviews and articles from Social Media Rockstar!
