Business Insights
WHY I LISTEN TO GARY VAYNERCHUK RATHER THAN SOME OTHER PEOPLE ON THE NET
From entrepreneurs and startups, to parents’ kids and new grads, I spend a good part of my week answering questions on how to succeed in business and careers. I find myself combating all the bad advice you find on the internet, ranging from poor content marketing articles to people posting videos of themselves on YouTube.
There are actually some great people giving out some great advice, but it is drowned out by the endless assault of bad content. Garyvee is one of the people I enjoy listening to. Now, I don’t agree with everything GaryVaynerchuk (Garyvee) says all the time, and I don’t think anyone does, not even his best disciple. But, he is one of the first people I listen to because he was, and is, in the trenches every day doing ‘it’.
The dude writes checks, and I recommend paying attention to the people that do. Every armchair General will tell you what you should do, even though they never have or even know what it is like to actually sit in the hot seat.
When decisions affect the coins in your pocket, you make different decisions. When you have employees that count on you for their home payments and their kids’ food, you make different decisions. When cash flow is low from a slow quarter and you’re trying to keep the doors open, you make different decisions.
Gary has a track record of success and is managing a 500–700+ employee business going through rapid growth. He has grown his wine business by crazy multiples, wrote books, TEDx and he has the war wounds and the stories to go with it. I listen to people like him because I trust people with scars, over those that are unblemished.
Here is the trick: good marketers know that they need to write the things you want to hear, even if that means giving out bad advice. It’s human nature to go search and search until you find someone to agree with you, so you can justify how you feel. What good does that do you? None! Looking for people to agree with you would be the same as if I went searching the net until I find an article that says if I follow their diet program I can eat bacon cheeseburgers and pizza and have the best results ever! Sure, that is what I want to hear, but it’s not what I need to hear.
Gary is going to talk about shit you don’t want to hear. He will tell you to do many things you don’t want to do. But in the end, if you want to grow and succeed, you have to do the hard things. Look at the track record of the person giving the advice before you take it, it may end up saving you a lot of trouble.
