Crushing It! teaches readers how to build a personal brand through mindsets, success stories and practical advice.

Bullet Summary

• Create lots of great content
• Be authentic
• Build partnerships with influencers in your niche

Crushing It – Summary

About The Author: Gary Vaynerchuk is an American entrepreneur, influencer and speaker.
He is also the author of “Crush It“, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” and “#AskGAryVee“.

Intro: You Can Do It

Gary says that building a personal brand has become a feat anyone can achieve.
And “Crushing It!” is your guide to doing just that.

The 7 Essentials

Gary Vaynerchuk says there are 7+1 key factors in building a personal brand.
They are:

• Authenticity
• Passion
• Intent
• Attention
• Patience
• Speed
• Work

The 8th Essential: Content

Gary says you need to keep producing high quality content, with high consistency.

And he highlights a key mistake people do: they care too much about the style.

Things such as design, camera angle, lighting, movements.
That’s all secondary.

When you are documenting your life, Gary says, aesthetics don’t matter. What matters is being authentic and speaking your truth.

This Is How You Start

The very first step is creating a Facebook page.

Then you should list all the relevant hashtags for your niche and content and start promoting your content with them.

Then look for partnerships.
Gary advises to message people in your niche directly and find a way to give something back.

Also read:

• What’s In It For Me Technique
• Avoid looking like a freeloader (with examples)

Overcome The Common Fears

Gary tackles the major fears and excuses people have before starting their personal branding.

These are:

• Fear of Failure
• Fear of Wasting Time
• Fear of Seeming Vain

Tailor Your Message to The Platforms

Marshall McLuhan famously said that “the medium is hte message”.

And Gary Vee, albeit not an academic researcher, certainly does have the first-hand experience to talk about tailoring the message.

indeed, this is posible the most interesting and concrete part “Crushing It”, with Gary reviewing the major social platforms out there:

1) Musical.ly

This platform is very popular among teenagers and it’s mostly suited for entertainers.

If you’re a singer, dancer, comedian… Start using those hashtags and collaborate over to Musical.ly.

2) Snapchat

For those who know Gary, he’s big into Snapchat.

And he’s been saying for a while that it’s one of the most underestimated medium available.

Snapchat is perfect to show your truest self, your rawest and unfiltered personality.

Use Snapchat as your chance to speak your unfiltered self.

3) Twitter

Twitter is for the latest news.

It’s the online equivalent of the water cooler where people go to hear the latest rumors.

Gary says you should listen on Twitter to catch the latest trends and stories.

4) YouTube

The biggest platform for video creators, which will soon overcome television for time spent watching videos.

It’s just too big to ignore, says Gary.
Vaynerchuk says that even if you think this is not your medium, you have to give it a try.

My note:
I couldn’t agree more from my own personal experience.
I started Yotube with good content but super very low quality videos. For a while I thought I was wasting time and that web was my mainstay.
However, my YouTube channel has recently seen a major acceleration and it might become more central in my content strategy.

5) Facebook

Some have been calling Facebook’s demise for a while now.
But the giant is still there, still the biggest media platform around.

Which means to you, you cannot not have a Facebook page.

Facebook is possibly the best platform to target your audience, and works great even with smaller budgets. And don’t forget Facebook Live.

6) Instagram

Gary says that Instagram’s private message is one of the best ways to connect with other influencers.

He has been saying it for a while as a friend of mine mentioned it as big game changer some time ago.

Then he found out those people must follow you back or your DMs will go into an “other” folder which will likely never be read.

7) Podcasts

In a world of busy people, podcasts break barriers by allowing consumption on the go or while doing something else.

Very good for shy or introverted people.

8) Voice-First

Voice first is the new kid on the block. Spurred by Amazon Echo and Google Home voice, says Gary, is the future of interaction.

If you’re serious about personal brand, you must look into Alexa.

CONS

“Crushing It” is a good book for people who seek ot become more like Gary Vaynerchuk.
But, in my opinion, that’s more cult of personality than actual entrepreneurship.

I say this because I see many younger fellas who get the two confused.

Here is what I didn’t like:

• For Influencers, not Entrepreneurs

The line between influencer and entrepreneur might be blurred in some cases.

But Gary is more for people who want to build a social media presence and follower base rather than building a company.

For example, Gary recommends using Youtube for vlogs. But vlogs are not for everybody.

• Risk of Entitlement Mentality Vanity

Gary says you shouldn’t fear vanity.

But I have a different point of view: you should fear mediocrity maybe, but you vanity is definitely something you should move past.

Before starting to put yourself out there, you should ask: do I have something to give?

Self promotion without being great at something is entitlement mentality.

Some can make it without really adding value (law of the large numbers), but your best bet is to make yourself a great person first. Gary addresses it in Crush It.

• Unscientific (“Told You So” With Induction Fallacy)

Gary uses this book as a way of saying that what he told you with his previous book works.

But that doesn’t really prove anything and it’s a typical inductive fallacy mistake (check Fooled by Randomness) and prone to survivorship bias.

As an example, imagine that today I’d tell you: the best way to get rich is to invest in lottery tickets.
Then 5 years from now I’d present you a list of people who got rich with lotteries. Would that prove anything?
Exactly my point.

Gary Vee Critique

I’ll be honest:

I’m not a big fan of Gary over-the-top style.

And not even of his advice.
if I look at Gary’s followers, most of them fall into two categories:

1. Struggle lovers: they keep repeating themselves that the struggle and hte hustle is everything. But most of them keep spinning their wheels going nowhere.
2. Vain and shallow attention whores who seek recognition and external validation through the number of likes and followers

This is a an interesting critique of Gary’s motivational soups:

That being said, there is also one thing I like a lot about Gary:

• Before you speak, become someone people want to listen to

This is a message Gary repeats often.
And I couldn’t agree more with him. That’s how I based my life and my business, after all.

Crushing It – Review

Gary Vaynerchuk is widely considered an expert of social media because, well, he is doing well for himself there.

So he does have the credentials to speak and he does have experience in it.

If you are serious about building a personal brand, you should look into guys like Gary Vaynerchuk.
And Crushing It! sums up his views quite well.

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