Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk - Hardcover

Now that I've read the mystifying rave reviews of this book--and seen in one day how 12 people have already marked my review as "not helpful", I wish I could rank this book even lower. I was being kind with 2 stars. (The extra one was a nod for explaining to people who may not have thought of it before, some of the "branding" potential of social media. Oh, and for using a book as a PR piece--even though that is also a major NEGATIVE factor to me).I looked forward to this book. I share Gary's idea that the internet + its social media has created amazing new opportunities for entrepreneurs with the know-how to fully utilize it. I agree with his vision of relentless and disciplined branding in every way that this new media offers.The problems? First, as others have mentioned, Vaynerchuk started out in his father's already-successful wine merchant business. Vaynerchuk expanded his father's business innovatively via social media branding (taking it from $4 million to, he says, $50 million), but that does not make his experience easily replicable for the people he's exhorting to "crush it" like he did. Nor does it seem wise for him to urge others, including many who don't have his financial family "safety net", to quit their jobs and "follow your passion". He hasn't "been there" (struggling, like most people do, without a lucrative family business to fall back on). His advice to give it all up to work 24/7 and follow your passion could be very irresponsible, especially in this unforgiving economy.Sadly, "Crush It" falls into the category of "book written because someone has gotten rich at doing something". It seems based on the premise that real world financial success (especially with a technological flair) = valuable insights and practical knowledge and skills to teach others.Unfortunately, that isn't always true. Great salesmen (and Gary -does- seem to be a great salesman) do not necessarily make great writers...thinkers...teachers. Mid-way through this small book, the focus is still basically on one subject: Gary Vaynerchuk, and how he got to be the business success that he is today, primarily using social media to its fullest to promote himself and his business--that all-encompassing "brand".Of course, personal success stories--told briefly--can be very inspirational and motivational. Told at length, accompanied by lots of personal hype....well, it just seems that "writing a book" is being seen as one more extension of "sharing my brand with the world".I hoped this book would be a focused "how to", not a personal sales pitch. Definitely disappointing. I really don't understand all the raves, unless its a new form of "applied networking".UPDATE: A week after I reviewed this book, I wanted to make one more observation. Most reviews, including those written before mine (all overwhelmingly positive) have 1 or 2...maybe as many as 7 in a few cases..."helpful/not helpful" comments. My lone "2 star" review, by contrast, has 50 comments. The "1 star" review has 60. It's the kind of spread you get when reviewing a hot-topic political book. With "Crush It", there's something very odd about this pattern of commenting, and imo very wrong...1.27.10. This thread is so odd that, as someone who writes a fair amount of Amazon reviews, I keep an eye on it. It's pretty weird. First, disclosure: I don't know -any- of the people who have commented on whether my review was helpful to them or not. But for the last week or so responses have kept this 2 star review listed as "most helpful" which must be annoying to the author who also watches this thread--responding to EVERYTHING (although his book remains at 1, 1 and 2 in his Amazon categories).Today, in one day, a barrage of negatives (70 or so 'not helpful' votes--an unheard of number in one day!) dropped this 2 star review off to oblivion, now replaced by 5 star reviews with 1 or 2 people agreeing they are "helpful". And, too, today alone there are 8 new comments in this thread (posted last October), including 3 today alone from Gary, the author.Weird, weird pattern here. And, more than ever, I think this is some kind of "promoted" response to a negative review. So, just to add in conclusion....I wouldn't buy a book from anyone who encouraged (directly or indirectly encouraged) his fans to distort an honest response to his book. 70 "not helpful" responses to a 4 month old review? In one day???? Never, ever happen "naturally" at Amazon. Then again, maybe "Crush It!" has different meaning than I originally thought....

Crush It!Reviewed by Brian WingCrush It, Why now is the time to cash in on your passion, a book by Gary Vaynerchuk, written in 2009, is a book that discusses the use of social media and the internet to develop and market your own personal brand. The book is written in a very conversational mode, where Gary tells a story of his own brand development and the tools and methods he used to make himself the man and brand he is today. Along the way he imparts many of the core values of brand marketing and promotion.Gary Vaynerchuk, an immigrant from Babruysk Russia, born in 1975, comes to America with his family. His father opens a liquor store in northern New Jersey. Along the way Gary educates himself in wine, a growing market, and proceeds to grow that business from a single store to a wine empire.Gary delves into his "DNA" and talks about how he sees value in collectible items, such as baseball cards. His focus evolves into entrepreneurship and he takes over the wine business and grows winelibrary.tv into a wine empire. He has become one of the most prominent figures in the wine reviewing business, and commands a ransom to present on social media and the use of the Internet to promote branding and new business development.The book "Crush It!" focuses on utilizing new, free tools on the Internet to capitalize on branding and developing a business. Some of the major themes include: Becoming the foremost expert in your "passion"; Use of social media and the Internet to promote yourself/brand; Differentiation; Hard work; and Caring.In "Crush It!," Gary's first pearl of marketing wisdom is take whatever it is you love the most and develop that into a business. Educate yourself in every aspect of your passion. Read every bit of material about your subject, find others who are considered experts in that subject and learn from them. Insert yourself into the conversations on the topic and make your opinion known. Once you become an expert in your field, develop content to "sell" your ideas to others. The key to developing this rapport is building trust. Gary states over and over be authentic and original with the content and the "eyeballs" will come.A great deal of the book is dedicated to developing and using new age media an social networks to promote your newly developed brand. As we have discussed (at great length) social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a multitude of others, have gained great traction with many "old school of thought" marketers. More and more Facebook and Twitter "badges" can be seen on old media promotions. For example, television advertisements will have the Facebook and/or Twitter logos at the end of the ad, and suggest that you "find us on X." This is the new value marketing play. Brand loyalty is perpetuated by "fans and followers" of these social media networks. New networks are arising daily if not hourly. One such example is "WOMMA " a website devoted to the development and support of word of mouth marketing. Large, household names like Best Buy, McDonalds, Kraft, and Pepsi-Co are all contributors.A whole new network of social media marketing gurus has been developed. Each has a focus and specializes in certain market segments. Another, more local, company two-five media, specializes in wine and hospitality in Sonoma County. Companies now have the ability to use these social media networks to conduct targeted research as well as have "personal" communications directly with their consumers. This is the most powerful tool to come to marketing in a generation.Differentiation is another core marketing value discussed in "Crush It!" With the Internet age upon us it is exceptionally easy to blend in with the noise and chaff. One must truly be exceptional to stand out in a crowd. A favorite quote of mine from the book is "So how are you going to differentiate yourself from all the other clowns? ("Clowns" is, of course, used in the best possible way.)" It's this, in-your-face method that Gary delivers the message that you need to be the best you that you can be. It's a challenge, no doubt. Just Googling "differentiate using social media" gives the following: Results 1 - 10 of about 59,500 for how to differentiate yourself in social media. The social media landscape is moving at light speed and a marketer needs to "hustle" just to keep up with it, which leads me to the next pearl.Hustle! Gary Vaynerchuk makes no bones about the fact that 99% of the people who embark on a journey to "Crush It!" will not have the "chops" to get the job done. Hard work and patience are the two keys to making it happen. Another gem Gary provides is about patience, he says "If you contact me within a year of starting your business to complain that you haven't made the money you thought you would, you're not listening. I said that you could make a ton of money being happy; I didn't say you could do it overnight." Patience and hard work, seems reasonable, right?Gary devotes an entire chapter to the next pearl of wisdom. Chapter nine is called the best marketing strategy ever. The entirety of this chapter consists of only five characters, C-A-R-E-. It may be just that, the best marketing strategy ever, many companies have lost touch with their consumers. This harkens back to the use of ethnography and psychographic segmentation. Both of these market research strategies hinge on understanding the emotional connection with brands and products as well as the behaviors that motivate a consumer to make the choices that he or she does. By "Caring" a marketer should be able to glean this information.In summary there are some great anecdotal stories in "Crush It!" that expose Gary's brash and cavalier personality. Behind these stories lay some basic marketing strategies that can and should be applied to any marketing situation. Understand your business and be the most knowledgeable about your market and products. Use technology to your advantage. Your competition is! Differentiate yourself and stand out in that online crowd. Work your ass off but don't expect instant results, hard work takes time and patience. Finally and most importantly, take the time to care about your consumer. They are after all the sponsor of your business and their recommendations are worth more than anything you could pay for.

I have rarely felt the need to review a book or even comment on it after a read. I don't believe I've ever left a review here, which will likely be obvious.In short, I loved the book. I bought a copy locally the week it came out, then ordered another through Amazon to pass along to someone else. It is a very brief read. It could be read anytime a spare hour or two is found.If you aren't familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, this book does cover his background pretty well. I had heard of Gary about a year ago through a blog or online mention (Tim Ferriss, I believe). I saw a few minutes of his show but wasn't very interested because I don't drink wine, so I didn't care about the topic of wine (like he VERY obviously did). He seemed kind of funny, but I was too busy to watch a show about wine, and didn't think much more about it.A month or so prior to this book being released, I began to hear this "wine guy" pop up among people I associated with online and in meatspace. I watched a short keynote speech he gave at an event about Web 2.0. In the video, he gave a passionate, cussword-laden speech about the nature of business and changing times. Everything he said was very spot-on."Crush It!" is an expansion of his business keynotes, filling in a bit more detail about the how and why of the changing business world.Being in business used to be a lot more difficult when the gatekeepers of the big media outlets were the only game in town (radio, tv and print). The little guy could perhaps compete on a very local level, but it took huge dollars to get seen by the masses in years past. With the largely free tools available to anyone with access to the internet, you can get your brand seen by more and more people every day.This is in no way a "Get-Rich-Quick" book. The 3 major tenets in the first chapter of the "Crush It" methodology are:"Love your family.Work superhard.Live your passion."Hardly a get-rich-quick strategy unless you skip all the parts where he talks about working until your eyeballs bleed instead of playing video games or watching tv.Several times throughout the book, he talks about the realities of how hard you will have to work to make even a decent living like you may make at your current job. As he says, if you are even 1% unhappy with your job, you should work to change it. He does NOT suggest quitting your job to become a blogger. But if you want to change and do something you love, work your ass off after work until you can get to that place.Hard work and hustle is the theme of the book that he never lets the reader forget. He goes into more detail about starting out for the person who may be completely new to the "social media" scene. It is not a detailed "one size fits all" approach to what specifically every person should do for a living. There are several examples of possibilities people could follow that can open eyes, and more than enough to get them started. It's not about selling chachkies and passing that off as a living. It's about working hard, becoming known as an expert in your field and doing something your grandkids will be proud of.Everyone has something they are passionate about. Something we would be doing if we didn't have to be working (that job that makes you unhappy. If you're 100% happy this doesn't apply). There are ways to do what you are passionate about, and make a decent living doing so. You may not get filthy rich doing it, but there are so many ways to make a living, it only makes sense to use the tools we have nowadays. They have made it far simpler to get started than in the past.I've been involved with the tech world since well before there were computers in every household and mobile phones existed only in the movies. The tools that now exist and the eyeballs that are on these platforms Gary discusses are changing the way business is done.It's still a big deal for Gary to get on the Today Show and do a little sniffy-sniff with Matt Lauer, but advertisers are spending more and more money on internet platforms. The numbers of people watching each is changing daily. The little guys without the big dollars the mainstream media channels have available are able to be competitive in this rapidly-changing world. Money follows the attention. More attention is on these internet tools every day.Work your face off, and you can build a business that thrives, doing something you love to do. This book is a good starting place to start getting the ideas flowing.I don't work for Gary, have never met him, and am not being paid to say any of this. I still don't drink wine, but when it comes to business, I agree with him. As busy as he is, he answers emails and twitter comments. If there is anything you find unclear about the book, he tries to answer any questions.

I am not sure what more I can say about this book but I'm going to try and say a few things anyways.This book changed my life. PERIOD. Now I know that sounds maybe a little corny or cheesy but it hit me HARD.I've been following Gary for about a year and a half now only through WIneLibrary.tv - around mid 2008 I started to follow his business words. When "Crush It" came out, I still wasn't sure but I decided to buy a copy anyways.I sat down to read the book and finished it in about 3 hours. It changed my life. I emailed Gary and let him know right away.Here's the thing. I've been making very good money for many years. VERY good. I've done very very well. But something about Gary's words hit me hard to the point I was willing to give it up and start over.Gary's message is simple:1) Love Your Family2) Work Super hard3) Live your passionSo here's the thing. I love my family. I work super hard but was I really living my passion?Tough one to answer. Yes and No.Living my passion in a sense that I'm self employed and could work from where I want and when I want.I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I've been starting businesses since I was seven and pulling a little red wagon filled with soda around the local marina, to crushing it in stamps and baseball cards, becoming an eBay powerseller, to building highly profitable websites...But I realized I'm wasnt living my passion to the extent where I was building and leaving the legacy I wanted to leave for my kids.Legacy.Hit me the hardest. Not in terms of monetary legacy but the things my kids and grandkids are going to see that I did in my life. Everything we do in our lifetime is permanent.I emailed Gary that night and let him know I was willing to give up all the money I make to live more closely aligned with his 3 simple suggestions. Gary responded right away. Class act.That week I drove to Toronto to meet Gary. I had two opportunities to talk with him.First, we chatted in an elevator and Gary said a few things that solidified my thoughts moving forward. Then I spoke to Gary again where he said a few kind words and gave me a few tidbits of advice.But Gary is relentless.........When I got home I decided I wanted to purchase 35 copies to give out to friends, family and donate to local HIgh Schools. (if this book was around when I was in High School I would have saved about 15 years of grief)Gary goes on to thank me two more times.First, he thanks me live on UStream and then emails me again thanking me a second time. To which I replied, "Gary, you already thanked me..." Gary wrote back "I know, I wanted to do it again."I've never met someone live by the words they've written more than this guy. There isn't an ounce of B.S. in the book. It's raw, real and the author lives it every single day.It would be hard to find someone else living this true and honest to their words.The book's concept is really simple and the author is living it.Since reading the book I've begun to crush it on all levels. This book will no doubt allow you to cash in on your passion.I know I will.IN two weeks I've made bigger moves and strides than I have in the past few years. (even though I made a lot of money in those years)While not meant to be a motivational book, this book will kick your ass off the couch and get you into gear.And if it doesn't, let Gary know... He'll probably come to your house and return your money personally.Some people look at the book strictly as a way to make more money and utilize the social media tools...But there is a deeper message to this book. Find it and you'll win every time. Guaranteed.35 copies cost me $401.45 - a true bargain for what you'll learn in the short 150 pages or so.Crush it folks. Seriously.

Just get the book, you WILL NOT regret it....Stop waiting for your life to come to you - GO OUT AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!