Shannon Lynn Fox – Author

By Gary Vaynerchuk

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

If you work in the social media and marketing world and you don’t know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, clearly you haven’t gone deep enough into learning about your craft. Gary is a thought leader in that arena and in business in general. You’ve probably seen his videos on Youtube or read his articles on Medium at the very least. If you’re like me, you’ve gobbled down his Ask Gary Vee podcast like candy. Gary is energetic, enthusiastic, intense, and incredibly focused. His work is something you need to check out if you have a business, want to own your own business, or need someone to give you some clarity on this whole internet age.

That said, this book is pure Gary. It sounds exactly like him. So if you’ve listened to his show, watched his videos, or read his articles, and don’t like him and his message, you aren’t going to like this book. Crush It! has all the same energetic hyperbole that listening to an episode of Ask Gary Vee does, now in convenient book form!

Crush It! is a fairly short book, but it packs a lot in. In summation, the steps to Crushing It are:

1. Find Your Passion
2. Create Great Content
3. Choose Your Platform
4. Keep It Real
5. Build Your Community
6. CARE
7. Make the World Listen
8. Start Monetizing
9. Enjoy the Ride!

Sounds easy enough when you put it down on paper! But most people can attest that while #1 is totally doable, things kind of go off the rails during #2-7. And those are the real areas you need to put in work. Something’s going wrong in between, it’s up to you to figure out exactly what that is and fix it.

Crush It! was written in 2009. So in some ways, it feels a tiny bit outdated. Some companies have lost attention, others are on the way out (Sadly looking at you Tumblr. You were what my early college years were made of and now I don’t even remember my password). But this also gives you a chance to witness Gary’s oracle skills in action. He made mention several times throughout the book about a combination cell phone and FlipCam hybrid coming to consumers everywhere in the near future. If you don’t know what a FlipCam is, it was a handheld, easy-to-use, easy-to-afford camera. Its relevancy faded as the capabilities of our cell phones increased and in 2016 we saw the broad rollout of live video…exactly as Gary predicted several times over in Crush It!

Crush It! is a great introduction to Gary Vaynerchuk and his message. If you’re a Gary Vee fan like myself, you will also love this book because at this point you’re probably drinking in everything he says like a plant during a desert rainstorm.

I’ll leave you with one great quote from this book:

“No matter how big or small you want to go, your authenticity will be at the root of your appeal and is what will keep people coming to your site and spreading the word about your personal brand, service, or whatever you are offering.”