Interviews Articles

Here is the part two of my interview with Gary Vaynerchuk author of “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion”. If you missed it, you can read the first part of the interview here.

Mike Dougherty: If Misha’s grown up and she’s entering the work force, like you did, what life lessons would you pass onto her?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Well first, I would instill in her so much self esteem in her along the way, that she would be more than capable from the get go, she wouldn’t need much. That being said, you know, it comes down to really understanding that it’s all about doing what you want. There’s nothing else. There really isn’t. Cash is bullcrap and its overrated.  It’s all about happiness. Nobody was ninety-five, laying on their deathbed, and said they wished they worked more or made more money. They wished they’d spent more time with their family. They wished they did things they liked.

So, one thing I’ve been very good at, and I hope she picks up DNA wise, is I do what I want. While loving everyone else and doing all the right things for my family, the second I felt any negativity, or one percent unhappiness, with Wine Library retail I started Wine Library TV.

Do what you want. I want her to realize it’s ridiculously hard work to achieve anything worth while. There’s two ways to build the biggest building in town. One is to just build the biggest building and the other is to tear all the other buildings around you down. I think ninety percent tear and I want her in that ten percent that just builds the biggest building. That’s something somebody said to me and I’m very proud of. This older business gentleman said, that I was one of the best examples of building the biggest building. Not trying to hurt anyone else around him. I thought that was nice. It was a nice compliment and it stuck with me.

Mike Dougherty: It was very nice. So is that a key factor for you, when you do business, is to try to get the biggest bang for the buck while not causing collateral damage all around you?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I think that’s imperative. You don’t want to hurt people. As an aggressive retailer you sometimes hurt wineries, brands, but it’s about communication and we speak to our wineries heavily.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve gone through the honeymoon phase several times with multiple projects. You’ve gotten the project done. The idea is on the table. What is your best advice for somebody who started a small business, or is in a small business, and the honeymoon phase has peaked and they are getting a little bit burnt out, and crispy, but they are still in love with the idea?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Reinvent it…slightly. It’s like sex. Dress up, right? You’re not changing your partner.

Mike Dougherty: You’re changing the experience.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Right. So spice it up. Change the displays in your store. Bring in a new product launch. Go into a new niche in your consulting business. Don’t fish where all the fish are. I mean, that’s what I did. I got into tech, because I started fishing in tech because wine places were the place that I didn’t necessarily feel like I wanted to fish at. I mean I did, but I wanted to find new ponds. And I found Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, and all these other new worlds that have been influential in my growth.

Mike Dougherty: Speaking of those, you’ve been in this for about three years now. How have you seen this little are we are in called social media this grow and change over the past three years?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, it got renamed from Web 2.0 [laughs]. It’s become a lot more businesslike and less kind of dreamy and zen. And that bodes well for me because I’m a business man. Actually, that bodes less well for me, because I liked when everyone was hippie about it, you know, because I’m an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, I think it’s maturing, but I still think it’s completely under appreciated and underrated. I still don’t think people really realize what’s going on.

Mike Dougherty: So when are you looking for the next book to come out?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Next year this time.

Mike Dougherty: Do you want to give away what it’s about or do you want to keep it a secret?

Gary Vaynerchuk: I’ll give you a hint that it’s focusing very heavily on contradictions.

Mike Dougherty: And to wrap it up, last question, because I like to do something weird, what’s your all time favorite wrestler from the 1980’s?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That is the easiest question I’ve been asked of all time. It’s the Macho Man Randy Savage.

Mike Dougherty: I’m a [Jimmy] Snuka guy.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Are you a Snuka guy?

Mike Dougherty: I am.

Gary Vaynerchuk: So Macho Man came along when every single person liked [Hulk] Hogan. And Hogan’s liker Federer, Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, and [Michael] Jordan to me. There’s just no fun in rooting for them. I want to work for it.  And so it was Macho Man for me.

Mike Dougherty: Nicely done, sir. Thank you for a great interview.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Thank you so much.

With that Gary went back to his daily hustle and I header back home to get the interview committed to paper…um…laptop. After spending some time with Gary in person, I can tell you that he is not just an online persona. What you see is what you get and that, dear reader, was refreshing and inspiring.

As I mentioned before, my review copy of “Crush It!” arrived the day of the interview. So you’ll have to wait till the end of the month for that review, but Gary was kind enough to offer two free copies of the book for me to give away. I’m going to give away the second book at the end of the review, but to earn this first copy you need to need to be the first person to respond, in a comment below, with the answer to the following questions:

1) What is the tagline of Cork’d?

2) What did Gary say his brother AJ is finally getting? And what does that mean?

3) Where do you send your receipts to get a personalized video from Gary as part of Crush It! – The Experience?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this interview so leave a comment here. You can reach me on Twitter by following me @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.

So there I was, no kidding, driving up to Wine Library, in Springfield, New Jersey, to meet Gary Vaynerchuk author of “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion”. My review copy arrived the day of the interview so, with the drive and only reading one chapter that was offered online, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to ask. I mean what do you ask a guy who’s probably been asked the same questions over and over to keep an interview like this fresh?

As I drove by Wine Library, trying to find a café with wireless to kill some time, I was in awe in the size of the building. Had I not been looking for it I might have thought it was just another office building, but knowing that this is a wine store taking up damn near a full block of real estate…I knew I was in for a great experience.

I entered Wine Library and was met by Matt, Gary’s right hand man, who took me up to Gary’s office, where Wine Library TV is filmed, and lets me know that Gary, true to his word, was in a day that was full of hustle. Matt let me know, Gary was wrapping up a business meeting for the store and would be right in to talk afterwards.

Gary exited his meeting displaying all the passion, and thunder, he’s been known for and was ready to go. After a few minutes to set things up, giving Gary an opportunity to take care of a few things, we got right into it.

We had a lot to talk about so this interview will be broken up into two parts. Next portion of the interview will be released next Tuesday. Here is the transcript of our interview:

Mike Dougherty: First question, Gary, how are you doing?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Phenominal.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve got a bunch of stuff going on today.

Gary Vaynerchuk: [laughs] Yeah, man. It’s always hustle, it’s always grind, and it’s always exciting. And things are good.

Mike Dougherty: So you’re putting out a book.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yup.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve got CinderellaWine.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah you can see a lot of chatter out about that today.

Mike Dougherty: And then the gourmet site.

Gary Vaynerchuk: The GourmetLibrary.com site. It’s funny. You know they kind of got announced together. And I think all the hype is on CinderellaWine.com. And then there is Cork’d, which I only launched a month ago.

Mike Dougherty: How are they all going at the same time? How are you going with all of this at the same time?

Gary Vaynerchuk:

Mike Dougherty: So without giving anything away, how many irons in the fire do you actually have besides what you just launched now?

Gary Vaynerchuk: The ones that are launched now….these were my big secrets. As of August I had Cork’d, CinderellaWine, and GourmetLibrary all primed for push. They are now out. I think I’m kind of….there’s one more. There’s one more that will be out very shortly and then everyone’s going to be completely stunned by my insanity. Wine Library, Wine Library TV, the book, Cork’d, VaynerMedia, CinderellaWine, Gourmet Library, and one more really cool site.

Mike Dougherty: How is VaynerMedia going by the way?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Really well. You know my brother AJ is well on his way to getting his daps, not being my brother or getting a free ride. People are starting to interact with him and realize he’s got a lot of chops. Working with NHL, the Jetts, and a lot of cool brands and really enjoying it. Consulting is hard, you know, because the way I work, speed and hustle wise, is not normal. I’m starting to realize that. And it’s obviously very different for brands that are big, corporate, and fortune 500. There are a lot of cool things going on, but I’m enjoying it.

Mike Dougherty: Nice. For someone getting into “Crush It!” for the first time, or experiencing you through Wine Library TV or maybe GaryVaynderchuk.com, what is the best advice that you can ask for them to take away from “Crush It!”?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That everything has changed. That everything I wrote in this book was not real five years ago. And that’s really important to understand, because at the end of the day everything has changed and there’s so much opportunity. The fact that cash is now not king. The fact that sweat equity and caring and hustle and innovation is…that’s a big deal. The fact is that cash has been neutralized by the growing platforms of the internet.

Mike Dougherty: How long was “Crush It!”, from beginning to end, as a journey for you?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Writing it or the thesis of the book?

Mike Dougherty: The entire process from concept to creation.

Gary Vaynerchuk: From the actual practicality of the book. Probably four months. Not to bad.

Mike Dougherty: No, not at all.

Gary Vaynerchuk: You know, this is kind of my manifesto. So I very much dictated the whole thing. I can talk a lot so I banged it out. So it wasn’t too hard.

Mike Dougherty: So talk about the things people can do if they buy multiple copies of the book.

Gary Vaynerchuk: You mean the Experience thing I did? You like that?

Mike Dougherty: I love it.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah it was pretty cool. I really think this is the future of bands and content in general. You know, three books you get a wrist band. So on crushitbook.com, if you go there, you’ll see a big button that says “the experience” so you can buy three books. You can buy thirty-five books and get me to make a special video for you, which I think is pretty fun. I think it’s one hundred fifty books for a Skype call and I have this one day in December for two hundred and fifty books. Then there’s dinner and consulting for five hundred books. And so it’s just creating new and fun ways to interact with my audience. You know, it’s not the cheapest way, but for the one hundred fifty, two hundred fifty, and five hundred copies those are really for corporations. It’s going to be fun.

Mike Dougherty: Now how are you balancing all of that plus fatherhood?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That’s a great question. Not as well as I hoped, at some level right now so far, if I’m being honest and transparent. I would like to spend a little more time with Misha. Early on, it’s good that she’s still in that four months and under range. But this is a real big push for me with the book and all these launches. I’ll definitely be settling in, in 2010.

That wraps up Part One of my interview with Gary. In Part Two Gary gives the advice he’ll give to Misha when she enters the business world, his philosophy on doing business, and a really great answer to an odd question. Plus, you’ll learn how you can get a free copy of Gary’s “Crush It!”.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this interview so leave a comment here. You can reach me on Twitter by following me @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.