3B's from 'Crush It!'

About 3 months back, one of my favorite lifestyle YouTuber Saloni Srivastava shared 4 books that everyone should read, the ones that changed her life and claimed to change your life too. Always being ready to dive into life-changing experiences, I started with one of her suggestions 'Crush It!' by Gary Vaynerchuk. After reading the book, I agree with Saloni’s verdict on it to be the game-changer for anyone wanting to build successful personal and business brands.

Even though ‘Crush It!' dates to 2009, the principles and processes described in it still hold true for 2019. For me personally, the timing could not have been any better for I picked it when I am in the nascent stage of building my personal blog on LinkedIn. With each chapter in the book, I could retrospect on why I started the blog, enhance the vision of its exemplary future and decide on next steps to get there. Thus, I decided to share these amazing learning with the hope that Gary’s stories and practical advises can motivate and influence you: to build, up-skill and crush your brand. P.S. - I think it will help everyone starting from budding entrepreneur such as Awsm! The Dessert Studio, working lady cum weekend cooking vlogger to anyone who wants to leave behind their legacy by creating the world of their dreams. Because as Gary quoted “It’s easy to dream, but much harder to execute it”.   

Gary shares his secret to the successful story in three simple rules. “Love your family. Work super hard. Live your passion”. To backtrack, his immigrant family started their American journey in a studio arranged by Jewish Foundation in 1978. Within 5 years, his father had moved from working at a small liquor store to opening his own store. Come 2005, Gary had turned his Father’s four-million-dollar liquor store into fifty-million-dollar business. Today, Gary’s net worth stands at more than hundred-sixty-million-dollar and he has an online empire with millions of followers/ subscribers. So, how did he get there? How can you become the next online sensation? For the complete story and step-by-step checklist of building your online personal brand, you would have to pick up the book. True to my blog, I will be sticking to top 3 lessons from the book that resonated with me and deliver it to you using examples from Gary’s unique and special life story.

1.      Be driven by your own DNA –He gives credit of his entrepreneurial’s DNA to his father. From an early age he had seen his father running a successful business which kept inspiring him to channel his energy in to his passion of running the business.

He recalls an interesting incident from his early age, where he would work for his neighbor in every season to earn the money. In winters he would shovel her snow, in summers he would wash her car, and, in the fall, he would rake her leaves. However, he was unlike the other kids in his neighborhood, which was evident when he sold the flower bouquet to the neighbor which he had made using the flower cutting job in her yard. For him this profit margin initiative was an amazing experience and something he will always be proud of. However, after reading it, I saw it as the fact that people with great passion can make the impossible happen even barring their age factor.

By the time he was 8, he had seven lemonade stands and was earning crazy money for his age. This goes on to show that he knew very early that he is meant to build businesses and would not settle for anything but that. However, he realistically points out that business development might not be everyone’s calling. Therefore, he brings the point that no matter if you are a worm lover, salesman turned movie reviewer or a marathon trainer you can crush your business online or offline similar to Gary’s if you have figured out “what were you born to do?”. Specifically, in this day and age where six degree of separation has been reduced to one, your online content can help you build your community and capitalize on it. However, before you jump in to the ocean you must understand your DNA and follow it. Because as Gary quotes “Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do every day for the rest of my life…Do that.”

2.      Be ready to Hustle – I recently read a quote which states, “I don’t have a 9 to 5, I have a 24/7”. I reflected on it and thought it to be true for every successful person I have read about or encountered. Not in terms of working on it till you drop dead but, probably thinking constantly about its betterment because you love doing it and you are happy about it. Gary's philosophy is no different! In the past, he said that if you love doing – working, playing and relaxing are one and the same. He suggests that you should quit giving excuses, quit whining and quit crying. Also, if you have a full-time job, his advice is to work towards your passion during 7 pm to 2 am and 9 pm to 3 pm if you are a working parent. True to his advice, he has hustled consistently for every venture he has worked for or founded.

One example would be from the time, he started the Wine Library TV channel on YouTube in 2006, when YouTube was only a year old. He would daily post a video from his library store on wine reviews, advices and tastings. He kept doing this until 1000th episode which was shot in 2011. All this while, he was running his business, a radio show, blogs and handling multiple other social media platforms. He went above and beyond and would insist on replying to each comment, email, tweet or ping he received by himself. Why did he do that? Because he believed that if someone takes the time to reach out to you, its your obligation to reciprocate. It was and continues to be part of his legacy recipe and for him legacy is the mortar of successful lasting brands.

One more instance which proves the fact that hustle always outruns the talent. During his college time, Gary would travel from one state to the next every weekend. The reason being by that time the store located in his home town had become his life. Post-graduation, he joined the store full-time and convinced his father to open an online store for the wine selling. That year the company went from 4 million dollar to 10 million dollar however, it did not make even a single sale online. This fact did not deter Gary’s motivation to keep continuing his efforts to go beyond the retail path. Therefore, he was on constant look out for doing something big. As the luck would have it his motivation of buying the jets along with computer department within the store led him to believe he can shoot video blogs to create a new world for wine and for himself. This is how the Wine Library TV era begin.

3.      Build your Brand -Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once said “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”. I think the quote fits in perfectly well for people living in today’s social media age; thus, your brand holds more significance for you now than it ever did in the past. Therefore, Gary-our online branding guru suggests everyone should think of themselves as brand and use different platforms to share great ideas and their triumphs. With millions of subscribers for himself across the globe, in the book Gary transitions through multiple steps (such as choosing the right mediums, creating community, etc.) which can help you to shoot-up your brand.

To give you a peek on how those steps are structured, check out Gary’s recently shared article on “How to Use Twitter to Build Your Brand”. As mentioned in the beginning of the blog, his advices and facts in this article are still as relevant as they were when he built his brand in 2007-2011.

The most interesting part of his book though is that he has taken hypothetical personalities and have transformed their business ideas into very successful brands using online tools. One example which will remain etched in my memory forever is that of the character Sally Gardner from upstate New York. For this vlogger, Gary has given vivid description of why her content is really good. Followed by which, he suggests her ways to bring money for her content starting with ads, speaking engagements, affiliate programs, retail, seminars and much more. For each of these monetizing options, he is gone in to explaining the details to the tee. After finishing with Sally, he moves onto the process it would take for a person passionate about board games to get their call from Parker Brothers.

The learning from Gary and his book ‘Crush it’ goes much beyond these three lessons and much beyond online image. His succinct 21 steps checklist is a great starting point for people who wish to create a dent in this world. Therefore, I have decided for this blog to skip drawing out a process or an equation explaining the overview of the book. The reason being that I believe I will not do as much justice when compared to existing list available in the book. I hope you enjoyed Gary’s stories and lessons as much as I did. If you have any questions/ recommendations for me on the write-up, on which book my next blog should be on, on books to read, or on anything else leave them in the comments section below. Until the next time, ensure you enhance and outgrow your own ‘brand’ to succeed in personal and professional arenas. Wishing you good luck and great success!

Tell me about Riya

Riya is an avid reader, life-long learner and lively person. She gets a great joy in sharing her knowledge and developing others. Her interest lies in automotive safety, women empowerment and environmental issues. She lives by the quote of “Take risks in life. If you win, you will lead. If you lose, you will guide”

Tell me about Series '3 X’s from Riya’s Reads'

This series is targeted to cover 3 X* powerful lessons/ characteristics that Riya has learnt from the books she reads. *Where, X is any letter from the set of {A, B, C, D, E, ...}.Let us hear what Riya thinks about the series in her own words.Since childhood, I have loved reading books. Also, I am a strong believer of the theory that you attract the books that you need at any point of time in your life. One quick example on the same- In early-2015, I was flying from Kerala to Mumbai and in the flight noticed a person in adjacent seat reading the book titled ‘Inner Engineering’. Looking at the book, one quick thought crossed my mind- “How nice would it be if I could read this book?”. And guess what? I was gifted this same book within a month and the cherry on the top was that the person did not know that I wanted it or that I would need it near future. During the same month, I was also gifted a book called ‘The Book of Joy’. With fortunate accident, I had received two books which would prove to be my pillar of strengths in near tumultuous times. Thus, I have always appreciated the books I am gifted more than the one I purchase myself. It brings with it not only the well wishes of the giver but, more importantly hidden messages such as “You can do it!”, “This shall pass too”, “If they can, so can you” and so on. In every chapter of the blog series, I will cover three well-worthy lessons (starting with a specific letter) that I have learnt from all these books. The aim of each chapter would be to give out the hidden messages of optimism, hope, and strength through model, simple text and/or equations.