Written by Gary Vaynerchuk

Reviewed by Marty Vanags

In 1985, I took a series of wine classes at a retail wine store in the Chicago suburbs where I was living and working while attending graduate school. We started with German wines and worked our way through all the different types of wines and regions that were considered appropriate at the time (Europe and California).  The last class was the kicker – “Champagnes, Cognacs and Sherries.” I had to call a cab to get home after that class as I was unable to make it in one piece without risking my life, jail time and my new career. It was a great class, and I learned a great deal; particularly, that wine is to be enjoyed, and you can pair any wine with any meal or food as long as you like it. No wine snob can tell you what to do. We did learn, however, that certain foods taste better with certain wines, and I suppose that is the purpose of the pairing process.

So along comes the Internet and some guy from New Jersey spitting into his New York Jets bucket after each tasting on a video blog called Wine Library TV. I had never seen an episode of this wine tasting show until I became familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, the video star, as a speaker and Internet social media maven. Now, one can see him everywhere talking about his passion for what he does – at social media events, on mainstream television talk shows and now with a new book named Why Now is the Time to Crush It! Cash In on Your Passion.

If you have been following the burgeoning growth of social media these days, you might be familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk. He is the impassioned, over-the-top, obnoxious, in-your-face, crazy man of video blogging and Wine Library TV. Gary Vaynerchuk launched his every-man wine tasting online party in 1997, long before video blogging was something that might be considered mainstream. And from there, he has risen to the top of the social media world and is considered a must-have at any blogging, Twitter or video blogging boot camp or convention. He has taken this new medium and turned his persona into part and parcel of the product he is trying to sell.

Some people would call his effort egotistical or even narcissistic, yet Vaynerchuk tends to pull it off, and if you don’t mind his rapid-fire, frank and sometimes humorous description of how wine tastes, you won’t mind Gary. In fact, you will like him. And if you need a football coach-type of pep talk about getting off your butt and doing something you want to do with your life, he’s your man.  Vaynerchuk is the darling of social media types and has turned his success of making a Jersey liquor store one of the leading seller of wines in the country from a single location into being a top purveyor of “you-can-do-anything-you-set-your-mind-to-as-long-as-you-work-hard” industry. This is nothing short of amazing.  Watching him work a video blog is like fighting a brown paper leaf bag. You can open it, but it’s never complete.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really wanted to like it because at a base level I love people like Gary Vaynerchuk. Another example is Oprah. I don’t like to watch her show. I don’t DVR her daily broadcast. But, I like what she has done with her life. She didn’t have the easiest upbringing, yet she persevered. Today she sits upon an empire of media, only and mostly because she worked hard at it for many years. The opportunities come to her now, and she doesn’t have to work at it as hard as she used to, but no one handed her a media empire. She did it herself.

Vaynerchuk’s story is different from Oprah’s, but it’s a good one. Even though his book is fairly simple, it tells the story of a guy who came to the United States with his émigré parents and an uncertain story. I love the immigrant story, particularly the ones that include success, and Vaynerchuk has certainly parlayed his hard work into success.

The book is basically how to develop your own “personal brand.” That is the talk of social media these days, and many people are uncomfortable with it. Social media begs the user to create a persona and to build upon it. A corporate persona doesn’t work. It is not authentic. Social media requires individuals to promote themselves; if you are uncomfortable with yourself, you will be uncomfortable with social media.  Chapter titles include somewhat cliché headings like, “Passion is Everything” (Chapter1); “Keep it Real…Very Real” (Chapter 7); “Roll with It” (Chapter 12); and a conclusion titled “The Time is Now, the Message is Forever.”  These are all really nice, if not smarmy, titles to chapters from a guy who pushes authenticity.

Early in the book, Vaynerchuk says people must do what they are good at, what their passion is. Ok, I believe that, but isn’t that the message of just about any inspirational speaker or leadership writer in the past 50 years? He says he is not good at writing, but that he is good at talking and his book has been transcribed from a tape. When one reads it, that is very apparent. Kudos to Gary for recognizing it and making that disclosure, because it certainly doesn’t read like someone who has spent much time writing.

Those who are fans of Gary Vaynerchuk and his in-your-face style of communication will love this book. As I read it, I can hear his voice. Loud, fast, quick and to the point. There is advice in this book I was eager to get my hands on, for I don’t have the time to wander through his Web site and get all his tidbits of wisdom. I like books like this because they are quick and easy to read. They give easy advice to follow. If you are looking for deep wisdom and the underlying basis as to how people think about social media and the communication theories behind it, you have picked up the wrong book. If you are seeking hard information for how to do a lot of things on the social media front, you are headed in the right direction. Gary V. fans will love this book. Those who don’t know anything about Gary will find it a bit juvenile.

At the end, I found this book to be pretty much what I expected: full of “Gary-isms.” One annoying thing he does is tell us to do or try something, and then in the middle of the page he tells us to tell him about it by including his email address. Odd for the middle of text, but fully part of the way he presents himself verbally, which is to say how he transcribed it.  After all the reading I did, I felt like I watched a Wine Library TV episode. His voice kept coming through. I suppose that is what a book is supposed to do, and I still don’t know what he means by “crush-it.” I don’t think I missed the point of the book, but “crush-it,” really?