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.
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