Gary Vaynerchuk, aka Gary Vee, is an Internet marketing icon. Crush It is Gary’s first book about getting started in online business. The book is a roadmap to the online business world and how to effectively connect with your audience via social media. Gary takes the reader from start to finish.
The full title, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, doesn’t really do the book justice. The subtitle could make someone believe that it is yet another get rich quick book. It is as far from get rich quick as a book could get.
Who should read Crush It? Anyone, actually. However, the book is ideal for people considering getting into online business. Since Gary breaks down online business and social media from the basics, defines everything he talks about, and provides examples that are easy to relate to, someone with zero experience online can figure it out.
The core of the message that online business needs an audience. It is up to the business owner to find, reach, and develop that audience through one or multiple of the mediums available to everyone, including social media. Once you have that audience, and that audience trusts you, you can begin to monetize that audience.
Gary is clear, despite the title, in letting the reader know hat he is not selling a get rich quick internet scheme. This is a book on building a real business that will mean something.
Who else can read Crush It? Someone who already has an online business. Every business needs help. Every business needs ideas to grow. Every business can use the concepts from Crush It.
There is almost no business out there that has all the answers. Gary even calls out Aspirin in the book to give them ideas for how to reach more people. So if Aspirin can learn something from Crush It, then so can your small business.
Although Crush It was written in 2009, targeting an industry where 5 years is an eternity, the principles still apply today. Some of the technology has changed, but should not dissuade you from reading Crush It.
Crush It is on the shorter side in length, and is a very easy read. Gary gets his point across with no more words than necessary, which is great for those of us who don’t need banter or like fluff for fluff’s sake. It is very conversational, and you can almost hear Gary telling you the story in his own voice. The fact that he basically dictated the book to be transcribed is evident.
The only part of the book that may appear as fluff is in the beginning when Gary discusses his background. It’s an entertaining story of how his family immigrated to America, how he sold baseball cards as a kid, his entrance into online business himself without realizing what he was in for, and how he got to where he is today. But those stories offer context. They set the stage. They help explain what makes Gary Gary. He refers to parts of his story to show how anyone can make an online business, and how each anecdote has lessons for anyone’s journey.
I highly recommend reading Crush It. If you are considering an online business, read it. If you have started an online business and just need some fresh ideas of how to build and connect to your audience, read it. If you work for Aspirin and want to know how you can leverage Twitter, read it.