How to cash in on your passion?

How to cash in on your passion?


That sounds like a nice title for a book. Yes, you are right that is the meat of this best selling book by Gary Vaynerchuk, "CRUSH IT" . It is interesting how I got my hands on this book, it was from an email newsletter a few months ago, an affiliate marketer of Gary Vaynerchuck, which mentioned about a teleconference call Gary was conducting. I got on the telephone conference call; Gary was telling his story and basically pitching to buy his book. What is great about that was, you cannot ignore the energy and the enthusiastic vibe in his voice.



It was like a post on Seth Godin's blog, when a sales person fails to make a sale, people think they are pushy or that was high pressure selling, but when they succeed in selling; people say, they were very helpful. Coming back to "CRUSH IT", Gary did a unique thing to make people interested and he gave his facebook id  on the phone and asked people to post questions on his Fan  page in Facebook and mentioned; he would answer them on the phone(what a smart idea to increase the fanbase). People, were bringing down the FB server to get their questions on top(including myself:-)), he made it so much fun(small trivia: Did I get my question answered ? What do you think ? You bet I did.) and he mentioned that he was at some ranking on Amazon and with that call he wanted everyone to help him increase the ranking and we did. That's how I bought this book; and I am loving it for all it's worth. Just to give a quick background about the Author,



Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK) is a 33-year-old entrepreneur whose dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him known as the “Social Media Sommelier.” A self-trained wine expert, he revolutionized the wine industry with his video blog, Wine Library TV (affectionately known as The Thunder Show), and grew his family wine business from $4 million to $60 million in five years.



 In this book, he shows readers how to identify your hobby or passion and do it wholeheartedly without expecting the monetary part of it.  If  you love something and if you are passionate about it  then you can do a better job of doing it than anyone else in the world. He narrates how he used to respond to every single user who sent him an email on his video blog for months together. If someone has taken the time to write an email to you, because they care about what you are doing; then you should respect that - and respond to them and that's how you connect with people and that is how he got 80,000 users on his blog every single day.



 “Be patient. In time, if you continue to hustle, you’ll grow your presence and improve your skills to the point where the fish – really, really big fish, will be jumping straight into your hands.”



He talks in detail about the Social Media Marketing Web 2.0(Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc.,)that  has made marketing so cheap and valuable; and teaches the readers on how to leverage these tools to grow your business.



“Passion is everything.”

He shares his, "Hard working Immigrant hits gold" story. Gary who was born in Belarus and immigrated to the United States as a young child. Gary’s entrepreneurial instincts took over at a young age, when he owned a franchise of neighborhood lemonade stands and made $1,000 a weekend selling baseball cards.

 

Gary became one of the first to reach Facebook’s friend limit and accumulated more than 800,000 followers on Twitter, He has so received so many accolades for following his passion and for the level of commitment he shows towards his customers.



He made television appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Ellen DeGeneres, NBC’s Today Show, CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, was featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and has become a consultant for Fortune 100 companies, and a keynote speaker around the world.



Though there are several takeaway points in the book, like identifying your passion, what’s in your DNA . voice/video/blog?, Leveraging the Social Media marketing tools, one thing really stuck in my mind; It was almost at the end of the book, Gary shares a story that happened in his Wineshop, NJ during Christmas. A new customer from New York, had placed an order and she had called his staff to complain about a delay in her order and it was 2 days before Christmas(busiest time for most businesses not to mention a Wineshop), No way FedEx, could deliver it in that snow storm before Christmas. Gary, took a case of wine put it in the trunk of his car and drove 3 hrs in that snow storm to deliver that case to that unknown old lady who had never bought from him before. You bet she is going to be his life long customer!!!

Overall, Excellent read. Worth your money many fold. If you are serious about growing your business in the most efficient and smartest way get this book today.

How to keep track of the bills that are due

As a business owner, you juggle several different hats all at once. According to Michael Gerber in the book E-Myth, he gives this valuable lesson every business owner should understand and apply.

You should be working on the business and not in the business, what that means is - your primary responsibility should be to Market your business and always be looking for bringing in revenue to the company and delegate all else to your employee(s)/Manager(s). This post is not intended as a process implementation post but to share an excellent, award winning product to manage your finances and not worry about sending the bill payments late and paying the penalty for it.


The best part is it is free, you can add all your accounts to this and access it from anywhere in the world. It is called Mint.com
http://www.mint.com/


I use it and I am really impressed by the product. I am in no way affiliated with this company. you do your own due diligence before using it. It is really helping me to track things efficiently.

How to manage your Inbox

Are you tired of opening that Inbox after a vacation, the slew of unread mails stresses you out, the mere number of emails overwhelm you - then these 3 quick steps can help you like it did for me:

1. Read email in groups. Don't scan your email for urgent messages and leave everything else for later; that's how you begin to get buried. Check your email at set times during the day and immediately file messages into one of three folders: Take Action, hold, or archive.
2. Use the "two-minute rule." If an email will take less than two minutes to respond to (and many should), respond right away and get rid of it. Letting those easy-to-respond-to messages pile up can wreak havoc on your inbox.
3. Unsubscribe. There's nothing worse than unread messages from mailing lists that clog your inbox. Think about which lists add value and unsubscribe from the rest.

We Need you to Lead us

"A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea." I have read a few books on Leadership, some good ones too but Seth Godin has a unique way of looking at things; and it makes total sense.

We have heard people saying,
"You should have the charisma to become a leader".
"Leaders are born" blah...blah...blah, Seth throws fresh light on this school of thought.


Understanding Charisma:
Think about the charismatic leaders you've encountered. They might be young or old, rich or poor, black or white, male or female, extroverted or shy. Infact, the only thing they seem to have in common is that they are leaders.

I think most people have it upside down. Being charismatic doesn't make you a leader. Being a leader makes you charismatic.

There are leaders with speech impediments and a fear of public speaking. Leaders way down the corporate ladder and leaders with no money or obvious trappings of power. There are ugly leaders too, so charisma isn't about being attractive.

It's easy to give into your fear and tell yourself that you don't have what it takes to lead. Mostly, people give up when they get to the charisma part of the checklist. "I wasn't born charismatic, not like those guys, so I guess I'll settle for following."

The flaw in this reasoning is that those other guys weren't born charismatic either. It's a choice, not a gift.

Tribes need leadership. Sometimes one person leads, sometimes more. People want connection and growth and something new. They want change.

This book contains several real life examples of leaders who share a common DNA, they are fearless heretics. They are the new leaders. They challenge the status quo. They believe in their idea, they are passionate about it and they are fearless. The market place now rewards the heretics.

All Human beings can't help it; we need to belong. One of the most powerful of our survival mechanisms is to be a part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group of like minded people. We are drawn to leaders and to their ideas, and we can't resist the rush of belonging and the thrill of the new.

Seth is a great story teller; he keeps your attention through out the journey of the book. Talks about how a single person's vision of Wikipedia has formed a huge tribe. Seth, teaches you how the internet has given the tools and knowledge to create tribes of all kinds, wine enthusiast, Joel on running a software company, How Barack Obama can raise 50 Million in twenty-eight days.

Seth explains how a factory centric culture is thing of the past; it is for the first time ever, everyone in an organization- not just the boss-is expected to lead. Seth drives away the myth that only people in authority or specific privileges can initiate change; anyone who is passionate about something can lead and they will have a tribe sooner or later that would follow them.

These Leaders are not looking for credit, they are passionate about their idea/change, they care about their tribe, and they are not worried about what the whole wide world thinks of them. Seth gives a very apt example of Nokia and Apple. All the while, Nokio was making phones for the masses, but apple didn't make their iphone for the whole world they did it for their tribe, people who followed the tribe with faith, communicated among themselves and with their leader - Steve Jobs through blogs, forums etc.,

This book, Tribes will make you really think and it will help you understand the opportunities and what it takes to lead your employees, customers, friends, community etc., now, to which tribe do you belong?

I highly recommend this to people I care, you don't want your competitors to read this, it is full of great content. This is the first Seth Godin book I read and instantly became his fan, will write about his other great creations shortly. Check out Seth's Blog http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/bio.asp one of the top 100 business blogs you could find and click on his bald head:-)


I give a 4.5/5.0. Please share your thoughts and comments about tribes here.