Borders Interview: Gary Vaynerchuk - How To Crush It on Social | 2011

all right we're sitting here on the set of our Book Expo America borders uh world with Gary vaynerchuck who's the author of a brand new book it's called crush it Gary tell me the subtitle of your book crush it uh why now is the time to cash in on your passion right and uh I believe that very much I think uh what we've seen in last 24 to 36 months in the business World in society with the way the internet has transformed with these social products like Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and Ustream uh we have a very different world and there's a lot of opportunity and I want to uh expose that opportunity yeah you started and you still are in wine you got really interested in wine in your New Jersey business and somehow or another decided to take your interest in wine to the web and create Wine Library TV how did that happened pulse you know a lot of what I talk about in the book is about not what's going on today but what's going on 3 years from now six years from now the more you have the ability to figure that out the more opportunity there is in ' 05 it became obvious to me that video online was going to have a place you know mainstream America started talking about YouTube not just the internet nerds you know things like that I said okay there's something here I've got this huge passion for wine is mispositioned people are not treating it the way I want them to which is trust your own Palace don't listen to anybody else the wine spectator Robert Parker or me let me start the show talk about it and Empower build self-esteem to the viewer um and so February of 06 sat down camera in my office and uh haven't stopped since yeah it's become huge right how many people are watching this almost 100,000 a day you know and it's led to Conan O'Brien into Today's Show and Nightline and a lot of exposure um you know half of million Twitter followers a lot of craziness has come from it and then in late 07 I started transitioning my brand into the other thing I'm passionate about which is building brand building businesses and that's what the book uh is going to be really about yeah you took all these tools that were available to anyone available to anybody out there and you turned them into something really powerful for yourself it looks like you now want to share that with a whole bunch of people the idea though of using the web to your advantage anybody can go grab it anybody can do it but it's not just getting on it and doing it you do got to work it you know the web and its tools again all these fancy things like Facebook and Twitter they're tools it's like going out and buying a hammer and a drill okay now you got to go use it and okay there's Carpenters that are better than other carpenters and so it's about understanding how to use it being transparent being authentic not trying to bull crap your viewers Um passion you know to me what is that one thing that you would do for free what do you want to do for the rest of your life I go through the overview of why it's possible why what I do today probably would cost a million dollars a year in expenses just a couple years ago and that would have put me out of business and why that's not true any longer and more importantly finding that thing that really gets you excited really puts you in a place where even making $45,000 a year on it would be the greatest thing that ever could happen to you that opportunity is out there and I want to uh expose it well you have a ton of passion obviously not just for the wine and all the things it's now moved up to sharing what you know with other people but how do you find that if you don't know what it is there's a ton of people who aren't sure what that is you know and that's something that you got to look within yourself I think people do know I think people are scared you know somebody out there is most passionate about Care Bears the cartoon from the 80s and I'm like there's no way I can make money on that but there is the scary part is there's tens if not hundreds if not millions of people out there that have that same passion and the ability for anybody whether by the way it's a book retailer an author a collector a coffee shop owner a gardener the ability to put out content around your passion and what you do is out there for everybody zero cost huge reward total game Cher and uh it's time for people to realize that opportunity you said authentic though earlier um there's a lot of bad content out there books written right well of course it's just a game but so where does I mean the authentic thing is so important I agree with you totally you have to go out there and it has to feel real if it ever feels like you're selling or you're Hawking you're dead yeah so how do you make sure I mean what have you done to make sure that the stuff you're doing fear real fear of knowing that if I start trying to go too far in One Direction or the other that uh that there's a danger listen this book right I mean I'm so passionate about this book I want everybody in the world to read it so you know I'm a natural salesman I had a lemonade stand I was a baseball card kid I want to bring it up everywhere but I don't because I don't want to be too

pitchy with it and so it's a balance it's having feel but if you're coming from a place of Truth and care you're going to win it's like Twitter very hot topic Gary you have so many followers you did it wow wow how do you use it it's not what do I say it's not about what you say it's about how you listen to the people talking to you and so it's those kind of basic human principles uh treat Twitter and Facebook like a cocktail party and you'll win you're not going to pitch your stuff at a cocktail party you may drop a line to your neighbors but you're not going to pitch a lot of people do with Twitter just uh a lot of businesses especially will just drop their they'll just keep posting poting a press release for them so how do you know for you it sounds like you're it's all about the followers and all about following others as well yeah I mean it's a balance I mean Twitter's funny for me I probably use it more as a hey check this out I'm speaking at ba you know see me on TV I do use it as a communication tool but there's a lot of me watching every single day I'm searching my name 40 times a day what are people saying do they need me somebody says hey Gary ve what wine goes with porkloin I'm getting in there I'm sending a direct message saying you got to look at petite Vero it's an amazing upand cominging grape that means I mean to people that's like are you kidding me and these massive mainstream Brands I mean do you know what it would be like if I said to my favorite Jets player hey you know Thomas Jones hey kry rhods what do you think about the game and they sent me a direct message saying we're going to win that's so much deeper than anything that was ever out there before that's the power of it yeah but it's hard to do that when you're getting busier and busier how many you're answering emails you're on Twitter Facebook every time they invents a new Social Network tool how can you do it on it's your job you know the more you put in the more you get I mean you're not going to buy a yacht or buy the New York Jets like I want to if you don't work hard it's about effort and if you put in 30 minutes you get 30 minute results so a lot of people ask me that I do a lot of Consulting for Fortune 500 companies and they're always like okay wait a minute when are we supposed to do our real job and I'm like well your real job consists of 45 minutes of you watching bull crap videos on the internet 25 minutes of you instant messaging with your friends an hour of you dozing off I mean this is real this is connecting this is touching this is the pulse of our society and these platforms are free we're talking about Sweat Equity in return for real money that's crazy yeah so you're a big fan of TW uh Facebook and Twitter I am you see other elements out there that are com Love Tumblr I think Tumblr is going to be a big play uh very big on Ustream and even by the time October comes out and this book comes out there'll probably be one or two more I mean there's so much going on out there it's happening every day but those two have really settled in they're definitely the buzzwords um but WordPress you know and Tumblr they're your platforms to build your blog is the blogging tool correct WordPress is a block I think Twitter and Facebook are great but I still think people need their destination where's your home you know m is Wine Library TV and Gary veno. com these tools are you know in place to maybe bring eyeballs to your home right and uh I think that's important for people that understand well clearly Facebook has struck a chord with a lot of people now and that I mean it started with a lot of younger kids yes uh college students col and then now a lot of people in the 35 and over set moving into Facebook in huge numbers reconnecting with old classmates it is their home to S right now and if grandma wants to see the grandkids the pictures are on Facebook it's funny 3 four years ago I was screaming about how and every was like oh nobody over 30 this is a young man's young woman's game this is society the internet itself is the biggest platform of media ever people need to wrap their head around it and it's 14 years old yeah I mean it's just it's fascinating to me so who is the biggest audience for crushit is it individuals is it companies is it teachers is it who I would say it starts with individuals anybody who does not want to not go to sleep at night because they're so happy with what they do should buy this book then corporate because I think corporate needs to understand the environment they need to build within their Industries to allow freedom for their employees or they're going to start losing their a players because their a players ability to go out there and reproduce What I've done is easy uh so I would say in that order okay so what's going to happen with your wine passion now you're getting to be Gary you know vaynerchuck now this new guy that's like this sort of you know business Guru person you know so what's going to happen to the Gary vayu the biacs the wine fans my DNA is uh is always with me I didn't stop liking the Jets cuz I got into wine and uh listen I'm still pumping out Wine Library TV every single day how many episodes a day we're almost at 700 five episodes a week every single day 30 minute wine shows in that camera so I uh I don't see it stopping unless you know having a baby there's Dynamics in my life um but it's such a part of me I

mean I'm I wine is not where I want it to be so I still have a lot of work to do how do you whine down at the end of the day I don't you're like rolling I don't it just it goes to straight you know switch off and that's it like all right and then you know I'm out yeah so how's your baby going to keep up with that man I don't know I mean how am I going to keep up with the baby I think is the bigger concern I maybe you're right well listen I wish you the best of luck thank you for having good luck to the Jets too appreciate it and uh thanks so much for coming to borders I know the book is going to rock thank you so much for having me good luck thank you