Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck

My friend, Nick, recommended this book to me. Vaynerchuck is one of those guys who just seems to have been born with an entrepeneurial flair. When he was quite young, he built his father's liquor store business into a multi-million dollar operation, in part by anticipating the boom in the the wine business. Since then, he's built his own personal brand via the internet as a true, and honest, wine lover.

In his book, Vaynerchuck encourages everyone to build their own personal brand using the vast number of online assets available today, such as social networking. He promotes the idea of taking whatever subject you're passionate about and becoming the person that people think of first whenever they're looking for information on that subject.

Most of us, I think, are somewhat concerned about the dangers posed to our privacy by posting too much information online. Vaynerchuck doesn't talk about this much, and most of what he says flies in the face of conventional wisdom on the subject. I believe there are some dangers inherent in having a huge online presence. For example, I make it a policy not to post something on Facebook saying that I'm going out of town, so as to avoid the possibility of some criminal taking the opportunity to burglarize my home while I'm away.

I'm also cautious not to post anything critical of my employer - not that I would ever have those sort of feelings - or that would disclose confidential business information. And, of course, just out of common courtesy, I try to avoid needlessly saying something offensive for racial, political, or religious reasons.
But Vaynerchuck believes that many companies today are mistakenly pursuing a policy of limiting their employees in what they say online about their places of business. If their business practices are open and aboveboard, then he feels that they can only benefit by encouraging their people to talk, blog, tweet, and post videos about it.

I picked up a few good tips about how to expand and promote my own personal brand, and I'll probably be working on those as time goes by. As in some other business books I've read recently, the people who can primarily benefit from his approach are those who already own their own business. However, I think that there can be some serendipitous effects of letting people know who you are, what you're capable of, and what you're passionate about.

This book is a really quick read, just a couple hundred pages, and it's definitely the kind of work that will make you think. Thanks, Nick.

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