Crush It: Chance meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk

I enjoy getting surprise good news. The kind of where you want to drop everything and pay attention. I’m on Lewis Howes’ mailing list. If you don’t know, Lewis is the LinkedIn specialist. About once every 3 months the native St. Louisian hosts a “LinkedIn” networking party here in the land of the Arch. I was unaware of the party tonight and he kindly sent me a reminder, like any good social media expert would do. I was going to pass up on the party as I have been to the last 3 then I saw Gary Vaynerchuk would be speaking. All my plans changed and found myself magically ironing my shirt and taking a shower.

1 hour later in the truck, I’m driving, feeling like a 5th grade boy on the way to Disneyland and hoping Micky is as cool in person as he is in the cartoons

After about 2 hours of signing books Gary put down his pen, stood up on the chair and started off something like this. “After signing most of your book, it sounds like most of you know what my book is about, so I won’t talk about that. Instead I’ll tell you something nobody has asked me before….” And this is where it starts to get good. You felt like he was about to tell you secret nobody else did.

Gary begins to describe how many interviews he has done, from bloggers with 3 followers, to big name media outlets like Wired, yet none of them ask why the work “now” is highlighted on his book  Crush it!

Before he tells us the reason why, Gary conveys his astonishment several times, nobody asked him about the ‘now’. Like at good joke set up he makes us want to beg for the punch line and he drags it out a bit longer. He expands on his astonishment more talking about how it is so obvious yet nobody sees it. I being to wonder just how important is it. What does he see nobody else can.

“Because if I wrote this book two years ago it would be shit.”

That is the only quote I can remember word for word. He believe it too, and then he makes us believe it. For 30 minutes straight Gary talks on the power of social media and why now is one of THE most important times in the history of humanity. In a nutshell we have just become so connected that word of mouth now is more prevalent than any other form of advertizing. Relationships matter once again. But this time it is more powerful. The corollary being: Now it is easier than ever to start your own business.

Gary put it this way. 2 years ago a New York socialite could tell 50 of her friends about the next best restaurant the next day after visiting it. Today an introverted kid who lives in the basement of his parents can tell 10,000 people in 5 minutes. Word of mouth advertizing (good or bad) will reach farther than a Super Bowl advertisement. At least that is why Gary thinks Pepsi decided not to put in Super Bowl ad for the first time in 23 years

I’m going to give you a top list of points I took away from the talk.
1. Social media forces good customer service.
Why? Because everybody is watching and knows who you are. Gary equated it with living in a small town. In a small town you are not going to get all up on somebody at the local bar, because everybody is going to know what you did. In a New York club, nobody is going to care. Social media forces service and product providers to live in a ‘small town’, or else. The good news being if you take care of your customers, it will get around.

Amazon just bought Zappos.com. Gary proclaimed Jeff Bezos the smartest CEO ahead of Steve Jobs for this move. Why? Even though Zappos has price points above the average shoe store (online or not), they took care of their customers. People want to be taken care of. “Don’t like your shoes?…, return them at no cost”. Just call up the customer care person who sounds like a sweet grandmother. She will make everything better.

2. The cost to entry is near zero.
That is right. Near zero. Think about it. What are you advertizing costs if you rely on word of mouth? Nothing. The cost of building a website in near nothing. There are so so many web hosts that have automated systems you don’t need to hire a programmer, like two years ago.

3. We are at the tip of a long tail of a trend and there is more low lying fruit than most people think.
This Web 2.0.. err.. social media.. err ok really it IS the media now. Think of a brontosaurus whose tail and back are like an outline on a growth chart for a new industry. The tail is the start and the back being the exponential growth of the industry. There is a long long run up before the big growth happens. Again using Gary’s paraphrased words, “If this is a football game and the beginning is singing the national anthem, the singer is just getting out the shower before getting into the car to drive to the stadium.

4. You can niche in almost anything and succeed, because you are passionate about it and the next guy is not.
You don’t have to worry about somebody stealing your idea. The passion you bring to your idea is what is going to keep you up late at night working. The guy who steals the idea will not have the drive. With the zero entry fee, the small guy with good word of mouth can win. The zero entry fee can allow you to work smart. Smart is what used to cost you the big dollars. Now everybody can work smart.

So what is there to do? Hard work, lots of hard work. It is easier than ever before to start your own business, but it will require hard work. Don’t quit your day job. But the good news is you can now keep your day job and work a few hours at night. Before you had to work extra hard to make up for not being able to work as smart. Why not just work extra smart. Once again Mr. Crush It put it well. Imagine him taking on a voice of a scoffer..“Well Gary I don’t need to work hard, I just need to work smart.” Returning to his normal self “Yeah well I work smart and hard. Now what are you going to do?”

Go crush it.

Media Scrub: Before you search for job on the net, search yourself.

The Internet is a powerful source of information on just about everything, including on you. Several HR heads have secretly told me they do an Internet search on the names of employee candidates. I like anybody in touch with employment legal trends said, “Isn’t that illegal?” They shrug their shoulder and explain the law is gray in this area. But more importantly they have a pile of 200 resumes all with similar stats applying for the same job and HR will take any extra help in finding “the one”.

Sometimes finding the one is a process of elimination. Companies are looking for anything that will differentiate you from the rest including ‘dirt’ on you. Before getting upset with HR tactics remember they are taking a big risk on you. It costs medium to large companies in the neighborhood of $10,000 – $50,000 just to find a right person. Even then they have no guaranteed it will work out. Instead of getting upset, help the HR people out by doing a media scrub on yourself.  Here are 3 steps to make yourself look better.

1. Linked-in:
   Have a Linked In profile and make sure it is uniform with your resume.  Something even as small as inconsistent dates of employment between your resume and linked in profile can send up a red flag.   Most HR departments are not going to round file your resume on that alone, but you don’t want to build up points against you.  Recommendations: These are your best friends, literally.   Have your colleges vow for you.  You never know who might know who.  Your reference might know the hiring HR staff personally.
2. Facebook:
   Do not assume they can not see your profile (if you have one.)  Again you never know who knows who.  A friend of a friend can still look at your profile.  Look for any photos which are unprofessional and simply de-tag yourself.   It seems like it should go without saying but watch out for ill-humor comments on your page.  You control your presents always.
3. A general search on your name:
   Search to see what they will see.  Notice what results are you and NOT you.  It is hard to remove anything from the web you do not control.  If you come across an item which does not put you in the best light you can try to have it removed.   Even then there can be evidence it once existed in search caches.

   It is better to know it is there and should it come up in an interview acknowledge its existence  give a brief explanation and let it rest.  Honesty is always the best policy.  Now if the interviewer asks an unrelated question which seems to come out of the blue, you will know it is in reference to the other Jeff Smith who shares your name.  The importance is to know what other might know about you and to not surprise you in the interview.

A little prevention and foreknowledge will put you on top of the rest of the candidates.  In this market you have to do all you can to become ‘the one.’

~Christopher