Gary Vaynerchuck is a multi-millionaire with such passion and a great message for the new marketing society and why its time to cash in on your passion.
“Gary Vaynerchuk is a New York Times bestselling author and American businessman who was born in Belarus and immigrated to the United States as a young child.
Gary’s entrepreneurial instincts took over at a young age, when he owned a franchise of neighborhood lemonade stands and made $1,000 a weekend selling baseball cards. Much to his dismay, his father Sasha pulled Gary into the family business, a local liquor store called Shopper’s Discount Liquors. Before long, Gary recognized that consumers collected rare wines just like people collected baseball cards, and he was off to the races.
Gary transformed himself into a wine expert because he took advantage of a niche idea and ran with his passion, rebranded the store as Wine Library, launched a retail website in 1997, and by 2008 he had raised annual revenue from $4 million to $60 million. In 2006 Gary achieved one of his life-long goals when he was caricatured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in an article about online wine sales.”
The brief description of Gary’s entrepreneurial rise is from his blog at
His new book “Crush It” is available in kindle or paperback.Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
Michael Dell Shares Entrepreneurial Advice
Dell Computers were one of the first big companies to utilize twitter as a successful online marketing tool. Dell made $3 million in 2 years over its Twitter stream. Can small companies do the same?
While at the University of Texas at Austin Michael Dell started a computer company called PC’s Limited in room 2713 of twenty-seven story residence hall Dobie Center. With a loan from his grandparents Michael dropped out of the university at the age of 19 to run PC’s Limited, which later became Dell Computer Corporation, then ultimately Dell, Inc.
Dell survived the race to become the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world, with sales of $49 billion and profits of $3 billion in 2004.
Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) discusses marketing and customer loyalty through the WOW factor and customer service. Mr Hsieh is a perfect example of translating a value proposition into action. He took an idea that no investor would touch and 10 years later sold Zappos.com to Amazon for a deal valued at 887 million.
After researching a 40 billion dollar industry he partnered with Nick Swinmurns who wanted to sell shoes online. “It sounded like a poster child for bad internet ideas”. Mr Hsieh invested 500k and then changed the name from shoesite.com to zappos (after zapatos which is Spanish for shoes). The rest is history.
The outstanding customer service that Mr. Hsieh contributed to the success of Zappos is illustrated through the humorous pizza story at the end of the clip. Zappos proved to many hesitant companies what could be achieved by marketing online.
Heish demonstrates the value added proposition and based this on the most important element which was the paying customer. Why this was so brilliant at the time was because online shopping was not as popular as it is today. His customer service was his value proposition or the “WOW” factor which became the feature or iconic element of the companies brand. People enjoyed the distinct pleasure related to doing business with a company that ‘cared’ so well for them. And it paid off big through customer loyalty and trust.
Wow Seth Godin, What Can I say About This Incredible Man
Remarkable is something to talk about and Seth Godin is remarkable on so many levels as well as a marketing genius. Seth Godin is the author of ten international bestsellers that have been translated into over 30 languages. He has changed the way people think about marketing and work.
His books are about the most powerful form of marketing–leadership–and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.
Hector Ruiz is executive chairman of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Born in Piedras Negras, Mexico, Dr. Ruiz is passionate about the role of technology in education and empowering the underprivileged. At the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, he announced AMD’s 50×15 Initiative, a commitment to provide 50 percent of the world’s population with basic Internet access by the year 2015.
Ruiz contends that his company’s 50×15 initiative is “not only possible; it is perhaps the most important transformational event we will experience in our lifetime.”
“Technology is only as powerful as it is accessible. The IT industry has nearly unlimited potential to educate the world by connecting the world.”
Hector Ruiz
Sir Ken Robinson
I am a Huge Fan of Ken Robinsons. His engaging wit is coupled with a profoundly intense message of society killing creativity through education systems, a flaw I have personally witnessed all of my life.
Sir Ken Robinsons incredibly engaging discussion regarding the limitations society and education place on children in society is outstandingly brilliant.
Creative thinkers, true artists and entrepreneurs who have pursued and developed their creativity are greater, stronger individuals because they overcame the constant struggles in limiting environments. .
Think for a moment if there was a shift in societies reality where creative thought process was the most important thing and valued highly. What would happen to an individual’s success rates? How would benchmarks change and new levels of possibilities evolve?
I want to be a part of change and witness that world. I feel we are on the brink or edge of something really big.
