Great Work Ethics > Talent: Here’s how this person achieved whopping success as an entrepreneur, author, and influencer!
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Monday: MicroBusiness and Marketing Marvels |
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FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: Monday, we feature these outstanding professionals and highlight their insights, contributions to the industry, and experiences. Today, we’ll talk about a famous entrepreneur-influencer whose “hustler” work ethic earned him a top-rank reputation in the marketing industry. He is also known for using his expertise to help big brands and aspiring entrepreneurs. Read ahead to know how this self-made billionaire emphasizes the importance of perspective and work ethic for success. Have fun reading!
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Great Work Ethics > Talent: Here’s how this person achieved whopping success as an entrepreneur, author, and influencer! Gary Vaynerchuk: CEO of VaynerMedia As CEO of MBO Partners, Miles Everson likes interacting with his fellow business leaders to gain additional insights on how he can further improve his leadership style. He is also an avid reader, and he often reads books or any other published works written by professionals in the same field of expertise. What else? He likes listening to podcasts! In fact, one of the podcasters he is very fond of is the person we’re featuring in today’s article: Gary Vaynerchuk or “GaryVee!”
Vaynerchuk is the Chairman of VaynerX and the CEO of VaynerMedia, an 800-employee business that has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, Latin America, and Singapore. He is one of the leading global minds in predicting trends and patterns in the market, and he makes waves in the industry by working with Fortune 1000 brands and inspiring entrepreneurs through social media. Vaynerchuk is also known to be a natural-born entrepreneur. However, his story shows that talent isn't enough—and that much of his success is due to his perspective and work ethics. The GaryVee Story Vaynerchuk and his family immigrated to the US from Belarus in 1978. After moving to a new country, they first settled in a studio apartment in Queens, New York before relocating to Edison, New Jersey—the place where his father’s wine business was located. As a young boy, Vaynerchuk began his entrepreneurial career by picking flowers from his neighbors’ yards and selling those back to them. He also established a lemonade stand franchise with his friends to earn additional income. At age 14, his father let him work in their family’s wine business. Seeing that the business only had a few customers, he took initiative and thought of ways to boost their sales. One of those ways? Selling wine through the Internet! This new and revolutionary tool helped jumpstart his career in the business world.
During his college years, Vaynerchuk launched the first e-commerce wine business in America—the winelibrary.com. This helped the family business grow from a USD 3-million to a USD 60-million business in 5 years! … but Vaynerchuk didn’t stop there. He knew that the Internet was going to boom further. So, in 2006, he launched the “WineLibraryTV”—a YouTube channel where he talked about the types of wine that his family business offered. This led to a lot of people watching and buying wine from them. Awesome, right? However, as the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end.” After spending the best 12 years of his youth building his dad’s liquor store, Vaynerchuk left the wine business with no money and no equity. He said: “I was worthless to the banks.” He literally went back to zero after leaving his family’s wine business and pursuing a greater calling… but despite that, he NEVER complained. Since he didn’t have enough money for rent, he borrowed a conference room. There, he met with a small new team he formed after leaving the wine business and created VaynerMedia. At first, Vaynerchuk knew little about media agencies. He wasn’t aware of the traditional concept of having creatives and media as separate entities. That was a good thing for him and his small company, though. Why? His little knowledge of media agencies led him to offer a full-service scale—media, creatives, strategy, and consulting in one company! This enabled VaynerMedia to stand out and appeal to many clients. After 4 years, VaynerMedia went from a 7-member firm to an 800-employee company. It started earning USD 100 million in revenue because of working with high-ranking brands like Pepsi, Under Armour, Toyota, etc. Once VaynerMedia gained traction, Vaynerchuk then created VaynerX, a modern communications company that houses VaynerMedia, VaynerProductions, The Sasha Group, Gallery Media Group, VaynerCommerce, Tracer, and VaynerSpeakers. Vaynerchuk was able to establish these firms because of a wide range of experiences, insights, and exposure to the business world early on in his life. Through these, he didn’t only become a successful entrepreneur but also became a 5-time New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, and influencer. He was also featured in various articles from notable media companies such as The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune 40 under 40, Entrepreneur, and others. Was it solely his talent that got him to where he is today? The answer is NO. Vaynerchuk believes that while his talent is a unique gift, there are two other factors that significantly contributed to his success: Perspective and Work Ethics. Let’s discuss both in detail… Perspective will Make or Break You Vaynerchuk believes that people who complain a lot lack perspective. Why? When people lack perspective, they won’t find happiness and optimism in the things that would otherwise help them create something unique and revolutionary. According to Vaynerchuk, the way people look at the world is the quickest way to tell who they are. If they look at it from a negative perspective, then they have a “losing pessimistic DNA.” On the other hand, if they think the world is phenomenal and amazing, then they have an “optimistic winning DNA.” These are the people who make waves in whatever industry they’re in. Work Ethics is King When asked for advice on the prediction of trends, Vaynerchuk says he can’t teach something that is uniquely natural to him—it just can’t be controlled, forced, or explained to others. One of the things that he believes anyone has control over? WORK ETHICS. He said: “Work ethic is a taught behavior. It’s something that you DO have control over.” Vaynerchuk states that creating systems for himself that help him become accountable for his work is a huge part of his success. For example: He never liked going to the gym but he knew that it was important for him to stay healthy. So, he hired a personal trainer and made a commitment. With this established system, he achieved his goal of staying physically active and healthy. The key takeaway? Work ethics—and ethics in general—are important. We hope you gained a lot of useful insights and new perspectives from Vaynerchuk’s radiating success! As long as you remain open to new possibilities, keep pushing forward, and have a sustainable work system that works for you and your team, you’ll achieve both your personal and professional goals. As Vaynerchuk said: “There’s just so much good and opportunity… and the current mainstream media globally is just talking about so much bad. Bad sells in the short term. Good always wins in the end.” Have a great start to the work week! Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Monday’s Marketing Marvels! “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” - Heraclitus Learn more about Seth Godin on next week’s Marketing Marvels! |
