Book Review: Crush It – Why Now Is The Time to Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

You’ve heard all the hype surrounding Gary Vaynerchuk  and his best-selling book, Crush It: Why Now Is the Time To Cash In On Your Passion. Is the book worth buying? Read on for my review.

I’ve seen other reviews of Crush It  and of Gary Vaynerchuk  around the web and thought to myself, “What’s the attraction? Why is everyone talking about his book and his videos ?” That is, until I read his book! Talk about passion! The book is a very fast read (for me at least) as it’s only 142 pages, but it’s jam-packed full of both personal anecdotes and useful information on how to find your passion, define your brand and use social media to build your business.

Whether you already have a bricks and mortar business and are looking to get energized to bring your business up to the next level, or you’re like me, just starting out building your online brand, this book will definitely ramp up your imagination to see how far you can take your business on the internet.

Gary starts with his background, how the family came from Belarus, the ‘Old Country’ to America ‘The Land of Opportunity’. His father and the entire family as Gary says, they ‘worked their asses off’ for many years and were able to make sacrifices to co-own a small liquor.

From an early age, Gary had a passion for entrepreneurship and making money, including having neighbourhood lemonade franchises when he was 8, and later knowing everything there was to know about buying and selling baseball cards to his schoolmates and then to the larger community in his state.

When Gary was old enough (16) to work on the floor of the family liquor store, his entrepreneurial and social skills were already part of his DNA. With every customer that came through the door, Gary would be able to talk about what wines to buy, what went with what, and to influence customer’s decisions about buying wine.

During this time, Gary was honing his social skills with each customer that walked through the store and was also building up his knowledge base concerning wines.

With the advent of the internet, Gary started winelibrary.com  in 1997 and from the beginning, the sales took off and by 2001 the family was doing $20 million in online sales.

From the not-so-modest online sales, Gary had an AHA moment and decided in 2005 to start video blogs to build a whole new world for wine and for himself. Thus, the start of ‘Gary Vaynerchuk’  the brand was born.

This is an important part of the book’s message. In today’s competitive marketplace, you have to build your brand and stand out from the crowd. You have to work very hard and hustle to gain exposure for your brand.

If you’re not willing to work hard, then you might as well accept that you will not grow your business.

Building your brand through social media is currently one of the best ways to do this. It’s free and only takes time and imagination.

Gary admits that social media has helped him tremendously build his brand and presence online (he even responds to every comment and provides his personal email address more than 5 times times in the book).

This is a guy who wants to show you exactly how he did it and wants to help you, too.

While the tools of building your online presence may change (how old is Twitter anyways? a couple of years?), social media and interacting with your customers is here to stay.

With the internet, we all know that the game has changed and there’s a level playing field. Those people who have the passion, the hustle, transparency and patience to take advantages of everything that is offered will be the winners. The rest will be left in the dust.

I really like how Gary talks about his own success and that anyone will passion and drive can do the same thing. It doesn’t matter what your passion is, either. He provides great examples of people in very small niches who are living their passion and are reaching financial success.

I also love how Gary has broken down his success into three simple rules: 1. Love your family 2. Work super hard. 3. Live your passion. I think we can all follow these rules. I know that I can. Can you?

Final words: This is a strong BUY for me. I don’t think I have ever felt so energetic and full of inspiration from reading such a short book in my life. My mind was swirling with possibilities after reading this book and I couldn’t help thinking “If he can do it, then so can I“. Maybe I can’t make a gazillion dollars, but I can love my family, work super hard and live my passion.

This is the first part in a 5-part series that I’m having this week on books. I hope you enjoy this review and the upcoming ones.

Related Posts:

1. Are Books Worth The Money?
2. How To Make Better Decisions That Move You Forward In Life
3. My Top 5 Secret Success Factors
4. Book Review: The Leap
5. Book Review: The Alchemist

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Tagged as: Book Review, Crush It, Passion, Social Media