How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence – And How You Can, Too

By Gary Vaynerchuk

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Today there are millions of people just like me who have used the Internet to build personal brands, thriving businesses, and a life on their own terms. Those who are truly crushing it have grasped the brass ring of grown-up-hood—building a lucrative business around something they love that enables them to do what they want every day. But while in 2009 that “something” might have been homemade preserves or custom tree houses, today it could also include being a mom, being stylish, or having an unorthodox world view. In other words, you can use your personal brand—who you are—to market your business, or your personal brand can actually be the business. Socialites, celebrity progeny, and reality-TV stars have been doing it for years. Now it’s everyone else’s turn to learn how to get paid to do something they were going to do for free anyway.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Introduction)

It’s in everyone’s best interest to build a personal brand, even if they have little interest in becoming rich or famous. You’re not computer savvy? Get the computer or tech skills you need to do this. It is not hard, and many of the people we talked to for this book had as little experience with computers as you do. In case you haven’t noticed, no job is particularly stable anymore. Imagine the security you would feel if you had something going on the side that you could blow up big if you unexpectedly had nothing but time. Desperation can be a great motivator, but it’s a lot less stressful if you plan ahead so that you never know the feeling.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Introduction)

Parents are trying to get their children off Pokémon Go when augmented-reality gaming is going to be huge for generations. They think their daughters should make less slime and do more algebra. Slime may be a fad; slime could also become the conduit through which a girl learns the dynamic of supply and demand on Instagram and builds a million-dollar personal brand and company. The crazy thing is that she wouldn’t be the first . Karina Garcia did it. She used to be a waitress; now she’s a successful YouTube star famous for making, you guessed it, slime. How successful? With six-figure earnings every month, she was able to retire her parents. In August 2017 she took a seven-week, fourteen-city tour to meet her fans. People paid $40.00 to $99.99 for VIP passes. 2 Stories like that are no longer uncommon, and they illustrate why we need to give our children as much freedom as possible to gravitate toward what they love doing. Because in their world, nothing will be off-limits when it comes to how you can make a good living and build a stellar career. When I was a kid making straight Ds and I got caught reading baseball card catalogs in class so I’d know how much to charge for trades, everyone said, “You’re going to be a loser.” Today they’d say, “You’re going to be the next Zuckerberg.” When it comes to professional opportunities, this is the best time to be alive in the history of humankind. I don’t want anyone to waste it.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Introduction)

You need to constantly be in do mode. I see you out there overthinking your content and agonizing over your decisions, taking forever to make up your mind. Your confidence is low, and you’re worried people will call you a loser if you make the wrong call. Get over that quick. I love losing because I learn so much from it. The reason I don’t talk about my failures much is not because I’m hiding anything, but because once I’ve seen I’ve made a mistake, in my mind, it’s over. I’ll admit it: I was wrong in 2010; location-based chat app Yobongo was not the next great startup. But what good does it do me to dwell on what didn’t work out? I’d rather look ahead to the next thing that I’m sure will. My track record speaks for itself. Being unafraid of making mistakes makes everything easy for me. Not worrying about what people think frees you to do things, and doing things allows you to win or learn from your loss—which means you win either way. Hear me now: you are better off being wrong ten times and being right three than you are if you try only three times and always get it right.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 2: What Still Matters; Speed)

Crushing it is about living on your own terms, equally satisfied with your income and your life. You will get no judgment from me if your goals are modest. I have obnoxious ambition, but I don’t think everyone else should, and I don’t want anyone to think I’ve got a mold and expect everyone who reads this to force themselves to fit into it. But please, if you’re not willing to do the grind, for God’s sake do not complain when your business doesn’t grow as fast or as big as you want it to. Maybe you decide to spend two hours a week volunteering at the animal shelter or the food bank, or maybe you decide to join a cycling club. You go to the movies. You play mobile games during your flights. That’s fine! It probably makes you a better person. But then accept that your ambitions are humbler than you originally thought and be good with it. Not everyone should try to build a business as big as it can get. The truth is that you can’t do it all, so you’re going to have to make choices. Be practical. Raising your self-awareness and suffocating any self-delusion is a crucial piece of keeping you on the path to success, however you define it.

Crushing it follows the laws of thermodynamics: whatever energy you put into something will manifest itself in equal amounts when it comes out. Sometimes that resulting energy gets harnessed to move muscles or machines; sometimes it dissipates, unused, into the ether. A successful entrepreneur is one who puts in enough energy to move the gears and executes well enough so the work isn’t wasted.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 2: What Still Matters; Work)

It’s still true that the right product and content will be key to building a vibrant personal brand. That part never changes. But how you develop your content and increase its reach definitely has. In Crush It! I recommended simultaneously pumping out content onto all the different channels using a social-media Web service (anyone remember Ping.fm?). It was only later, however, that I realized there had been another misunderstanding. I should have specified that I didn’t mean you should pump out the same content across multiple platforms. Rather, I wanted you to develop high-quality native microcontent. For those of you new to this, that means content that is specifically and perfectly designed to suit the platform you’re using to disseminate it. The audience on Twitter isn’t looking for the same kind of content as Instagram followers. A Facebook post will have greater impact if it’s not just a cut-and-paste job from your blog or a ten-minute video that should actually be living on YouTube. Even if your audience overlaps among the platforms, people are in a completely different mind-set when they’re visiting one platform than when visiting another. If they’re on Twitter, they’re likely trying to keep up with current news. If they’re on Facebook, they’re probably catching up with friends and family. They may go to Snapchat to consume a blip of entertainment on their lunch break, but they’ll go to YouTube when they’re in the mood to settle in for the evening with some long-form video, the same way previous generations watched TV. You should be plotting how to adapt your content to appeal to every platform your audience might visit in a given day.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 3: The Eighth Essential – Content)

I also established that great content is a result of passion plus expertise. While the opportunities for people to become stars on various social-media platforms have multiplied, to have a prayer of becoming even the eighty-eighth best whiskey Instagrammer, you’re going to have to make sure that you are constantly updating your knowledge and providing

information and insight that people can’t find easily anywhere else. Moreover, you’ll have to do it in a unique and memorable signature style. There’s no way around it—your content must be amazing. For some that reality can be as paralyzing as a snakebite. Here’s the antivenin: you don’t have to wait until you’re an expert or you’ve designed a perfect website or written ten perfect blog posts before launching a business. Quite the contrary.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 3: The Eighth Essential – Content)

In 2009, I devoted only three lines to the idea that “you can even make the learning process part of your content.” It was an aside, a possible solution if you were young or still building cred. Since then I’ve come to realize that, actually, the learning process should be your content. That means it’s not a problem if you’ve got more passion than expertise. Our best-loved icons aren’t the ones born to the manor who stayed in the manor. They’re the ones who started out tinkering in their basements, who sold product out of the backs of their cars, who rose and fell and rose again. The only ones we can’t forgive are people who won’t admit to their imperfections or own their mistakes.

It’s true that great content hinges on great storytelling and that every story in the universe has already been told. But not by you. You are unique, and you provide nuance, perspective, and details that no one else can. That means you don’t just have the ability to generate unique pieces of creative —you are the unique piece of creative. Don’t worry about getting people’s attention by plotting a poetic YouTube video or writing four drafts of a snappy Facebook status post. Instead, use every platform available to document your actual life and speak your truth. Let people learn who you are, then let them watch you develop into who you want to become.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 3: The Eighth Essential – Content; Document, Don’t Create)

Documenting to build a personal brand is an especially good tactic if you’re already working a job that you want to leave someday. Build your brand and gain traction in your niche before you ever need to make any money, so that when you are ready to step out of your current job, your brand is there to hold you up and carry you to your next opportunity.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 3: The Eighth Essential – Content; Document, Don’t Create)

There’s another reason not to fake it. The only people who fall for your act when you pretend to be something you’re not are the exact same customers you’re not going to want in ten years or even ten months. Simultaneously, you lose credibility with the top tier of customers you’re going to need to grow and sustain your business. You’re sacrificing long- term growth for short-term gains, and I think that puts entrepreneurs in a vulnerable position in the long run. Who’s going to trust you when they know you’re willing to snow the ignorant?

It is not OK to be manipulative; it is OK to be a novice. I hope you understand the difference. It’s exciting to watch someone thoughtfully, strategically, and intelligently come into their professional own. Embrace your newness; in many ways it could give you an advantage. You will likely have a fresh energy and enthusiasm that many more-seasoned professionals have lost. That’s attractive. And admitting that you’re still learning will give people a reason to check in on your progress. It will also make it that much more exciting when you can finally say, “I told you so.” Have you ever been watching a movie or TV show when the kid who used to star in all the school plays and talk about making it in Hollywood suddenly appears on-screen, or seen the face of someone you used to know on the cover of a national magazine? It’s almost impossible not to get worked up about it. “Holy shit, I know him! He did it!” From then on, whenever the conversation makes it possible, you will probably slip in the fact that you knew that person back when nobody else did. Now, as excited as you are, imagine how excited your old acquaintance is knowing that hundreds of his old classmates are having the same reaction, especially if he was mocked or put down for daring to think he had enough talent or smarts to be a star. Believe me, it feels good. It will feel even better if you’ve documented your journey up to that point, so that people can see how hard you worked to make it happen. If enough of us start to document, we could completely destroy the myth of the overnight success.

Put your stuff out in public so you have to live up to it. As long as it’s valuable and you know it’s true, don’t judge it. Let the market show you whether you’re good or not. There’s always something new, and the only way to win is if it’s your truth. Just produce. Become that personality, and own it.

Your natural gifts can take you only so far. If you want to be the best, you’ll have to work at it, but avoid being a perfectionist. Perfection doesn’t exist; it’s totally subjective. We earn people’s respect and loyalty when we let them see us up close and dirty. Knowing that should ease any misperception that you have to start this process fully formed. Remember, there was a time when Kobe and Beyoncé still had to use their last names.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 3: The Eighth Essential – Content; Document, Don’t Create)

The only thing you risk by taking leaps into the social-media unknown is time. You want to break out and live the life? You say you’re going to die if you have to spend one more day in your accounting job, but you’re not willing to risk your time in case a platform turns out to be a MySpace or a Vine instead of a Facebook or an Instagram? Who are you to be so fancy?

When you’re nothing but a beggar, you don’t get to be choosy. Download every new social platform, taste it, and understand it. Drop it if it doesn’t work for you or you can’t get comfortable, but never reject anything without educating yourself about it first (which is good advice for like, life).

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 8: Musical.ly)

Work those hashtags. I can’t believe we didn’t talk about hashtags in Crush It! In fact, I didn’t mention them in print until my third book! Riding hashtags is one of the bedrocks of social media and a key to discoverability. One of the quickest ways to build traction on Musical.ly, for example, would be to open the app, examine the trending tags on the Discover page, and work on producing great content around those trending tags so that you can be spotted by kids who would otherwise have no way to know you’re worth checking out. That includes the curators at Musical.ly itself, who are apt to reward good content by selecting it to be automatically featured when people open the app. That hand curation creates more random opportunities for you to be seen than you might find on other platforms. Don’t count on winning this virtual lottery ticket as your shortcut to stardom, though. The amount of hard work and creativity you apply to your content will be a much better predictor of your success. You can also create amazing content coupled with your own clever, original hashtags. Knowing your way around hashtag culture is an excellent way to give your quality content longevity and legs.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 8: Musical.ly; Musical.ly 101)

We accept people in their natural habitats, and we understand that every word people utter is not going to be movie script–worthy. Snapchat is simply a channel that captures that unvarnished reality. The only reason some people think what gets shared there is dumb is because it’s on a screen, and we’ve been conditioned to think that anything on a screen has to be perfectly produced and performed. On Twitter we’re expected to be clever or politically astute and insightful. Facebook is where we show off our families and vacations. On Instagram we build relationships through images and short videos. Snapchat, though, is where we put our throwaway content. It’s a relief to many because it demands little of either its content creators or users. It eliminated the great barrier to many social networks, which is the anxiety of wondering what you’re going to post next, whether it will be well received, and whether it could come back to haunt you one day. With the freedom to post anything, people could experiment and get comfortable building their personal brands without fear of repercussions. That opened the floodgates for many to unleash their creativity and discover and develop new skills. More than one person has left a corporate job or fledgling startup because playing around on Snapchat led them to create a new art medium or become an influencer, which attracted brands eager to pay them tens of thousands of dollars to promote their products in Snapchat Stories.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 9: Snapchat)

You are not going to be successful unless you put the work in. If anybody tells you otherwise, they’re full of shit. It’s all of the perseverance and all of the hard work you put in in the decades leading up to it that make you ready. Are you passionate about what you’re doing? Are you good at what you’re doing? Then fucking do it. It’s one thing to read the book; it’s another thing to take action.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 10: Twitter; How I’m Crushing It – Jared Polin, FroKnowsPhoto)

Podcasts are a godsend for two reasons.

1. Most people aren’t comfortable on camera. They think they look stupid. They worry about their hair, their glasses, or their makeup. They fuss over the lighting. None of it matters, but it’s enough to distract them from concentrating on providing the best experience they can for their viewers. Podcasts are far less intimidating.

2. Podcasts sell time, which is why everyone, including people who rock on camera, should try to create one. In this hyperspeed world, multitasking is everything, and it’s a lot easier to listen to a podcast while you check your e-mails and pay your bills than to watch a video . In addition, as of 2014, the 139 million total commuters in the United States spent 29.6 billion hours traveling to and from their workplaces. 1 A lot of that commute time is spent in cars where drivers can’t watch videos (for now). They can, however, easily listen to podcasts. In the information age, podcasts allow us to efficiently and effectively maximize our knowledge.

(Vaynerchuk 2018, Chapter 14: Podcasts)

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References

Vaynerchuk, Gary. 2018. Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too. N.p.: HarperCollins.

ISBN  9780062674678