Gary Vaynerchuk Crush It Now Book Signing

Gary Vaynerchuk finally meets Atlanta Wine Guy!

Gary Vaynerchuk was in Atlanta last night, promoting himself and his book, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion from 6PM to 8PM at the Cost Plus World Market on Piedmont Road in Buckhead. In case you missed it, here is my review from a few months ago.

I’m not sure of the crowd size that showed up, but my guess would be somewhere between 125 and 150 and again, I wasn’t really trying that hard to gauge crowd size. I got there earlier than expected and while I wasn’t first in line, I was in the first 5. While we were waiting, I got to talk to a few folks whom I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with or at least, I’d like to think we will. I met Ben Love (whom I must also thank for taking the photo), Jeff Herring, a nice lady who was with Jeff (so sorry I forgot your name…please email or Tweet me so I can update this!) and Eddie, the real estate / DJ who was first in line. Also in attendance were Taryn Pisaneschi, Joe and Ed.

Gary signed books for about an hour, so I waited patiently in line for the talk with Q&A that was to follow. I spoke with Ben about his love of gadgets (he had a Blackberry, iPhone, iPod Nano, Sony vidcam and a MacBook Pro on him), what he did and what he hoped to do. Smart guy. We also chit chatted about assorted other topics and I forget who asked, but someone wanted to know my opinion on the Top 10 Douchebags of Social Media. I’m not a hater, I’m a lover, so I just said I didn’t care for folks (and I don’t) who use Twitter to gather followers and do nothing but self-promotion. If you have software that follows me and then unfollows me if I don’t follow you back, you got my nomination for his list.

So, Gary signed the books and spoke at length about how humble and thankful he was for everyone turning out. He gave his remarks and then opened it up to the Question & Answer session, where folks asked about a wide variety of topics. I don’t have any audio or video of the event, so everything I’m about to write is summary and drawn from memory. If anyone reading this has something to amend, please email me and I’ll do so. I think my memory serves me accurately in terms of providing the flavor of Gary’s answers and if I don’t write about something, it means I probably don’t quite remember it well enough to justify writing it. These topics are in no particular order.

Up and coming wine regions

South Africa: With the attention coming to South Africa’s as host of the 2010 World Cup, Gary felt there would be some marketing done at retail and online emphasizing their wines. When I took WSET classes a few years ago, my teacher Ophelia Santos mentioned the same thing. She thought their investment in new technology and long history of wine making would bring them to the forefront, it would just take at least 10 years or so. Be on the lookout for Pinotage and Chenin Blanc. I of course am keeping an eye out on their sparkling wines and want to know, what will the winning team celebrate with?

Sparkling wine from Brazil: 25% of Brazil’s wine production is sparkling wine. I’ve had one and for $14.99, it was really good, with a very classic taste and no sign of sweetness whatsoever. Gary said you combine Brazil’s reputation as a party place, mix it with a product (sparkling wine) known as the celebratory beverage, mix in the 2016 Summer Olympic games and there is opportunity abounds. See, this guy knows his schtuff and is always looking forward.

Baja and Mexico: I don’t remember much else (I just updated this) beyond these areas.

College

If you are going to be a doctor or some sort of professional where you require training, go for it. If you want to be an entrepreneur or in business, you may want to look elsewhere. He mentioned sitting in on some social media courses at really big time name schools and said the academics don’t live it, so how can they possibly understand it, let alone teach it? He also made note of the fact a lot of IT students were going for a semester or two and then dropping out, hooking up with local tech companies / start-ups to get their careers started. Internships were a more positive experience in his eyes, since you could go to work somewhere for free (versus paying to attend college) and in 90 days learn a lot more than you could at college. Again, if you want to crack open chests, be an engineer or architect, college is an awesome choice, but otherwise Gary wasn’t too keen on it. I think he was intimating college could be an industry that collapses under its own weight and become replaced by other more compact, intense forms of education that cost a lot less.

Hunger

I don’t think this was really a particular topic, but someone asked what Gary’s advice would be for someone starting with zero, versus a million dollar business that you grow into a multi-million dollar business. (Assumed reference to the fact Gary took over a brick & mortar store that was started by his father). Gary said you have to be hungry and not in it for the money. If you have to work a job to pay bills, work a lower paying one with less demands, allowing you to spend more time on building your brand / business. Eat Ramen noodles. Live with your parents. Don’t buy everything you want or think you need, only stick to the basics. Have roommates to split the bills with. Be satisfied with less in the short run so that you can have everything you want in the long. That was the general jist of the answer as I perceived it. Gary doesn’t say it will be easy or fast and that most folks won’t become millionaires or the next Oprah, but that you can make a good or better than you have now living and be a lot happier doing it. He is out to buy the New York Jets, so he has an end goal that will require a lot of money, but you shouldn’t focus on the money (unless you too wish to buy a professional sports team).

Three tiered alcohol distribution system

I asked the question if there was anything that would topple the system. Gary said no, we are stuck with it. He actually said the system of 3 tiers (winery -> distributor -> retailer -> consumer) was a primary reason he was even doing what he was doing. Without it, he may very well have stayed in wine retail. He said it was a form of communism and that all the talent was being driven out because of the stifling of competition. Talent doesn’t like to be stifled, so it leaves. He said once Amazon decided to bow out, he felt there was no chance of the the system ever changing.

World’s smartest entrepreneur

Gary said he felt Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was probably the smartest businessman / entrepreneur in the world, even more so than Steve Jobs of Apple. He though their purchase of Zappos.com was brilliant and proved that lowest price doesn’t always win. Customers do value service and are willing to pay for it more often than they aren’t.

Books

Someone asked Gary about his experiences on the book signing tour and if they’d met any good authors. He said he doesn’t really read and he has only read like 3 books in his entire life. One was about Joe Namath and I forget the other two he mentioned. As for most memorable book signing experience, he mentioned being asked to sign a girl’s boobs and meeting a baseball player (I don’t recall the name) whom Gary had on his fantasy baseball team for 2 years were amongst the more memorable experiences. He also mentioned that at one signing, there were only 7 or so people in attendance, so he really got to sit down and know them and that that too was a really cool experience.

Miscellaneous

Here are some other snippets that I remember:

• He recommended the Riondo Prosecco when someone wanted to know what wine we should buy at Cost Plus.
• He called Ben’s wife to make apologies for Ben being out and not at home. She didn’t answer, so Gary left a voicemail while Ben was taping. It was pretty funny actually.
• He only cursed a couple of times, which is really rare. There was a little kid in the audience and Gary was trying his hardest to be respectful. I think he said shit maybe 2 or 3 times, so really quite mild compared to what you usually hear.
• He shook hands and took photos with everyone. He asked everyone how they were doing. If he isn’t the real deal and genuine, then go ahead and give him a star on the Hollywood walk of fame for the world’s greatest acting job.
• He plans on going right up to 999 episodes of Wine Library and then calling it quits, always leaving the unicorn of the 1000th episode to be chased. That or he’ll quit the same day as Oprah.
• He was drinking root beer and coffee. Didn’t he mention somewhere about doing a book on root beer or doing  a new root beer a day for all of 2010?
• You can “Google that”. A phrase he repeated when it came to learning things. He didn’t want folks to be intimidated or get caught up in the basics, saying you can Google just about anything and learn it pretty quick from someone else who is more than happy to teach you or has already put up all the content you’ll need.

Well, that about wraps it up. I’m sure there is a lot I am missing, but hey, I covered what I could. I can always do updates or rely on folks who attended to amend via comments.

Check out my friend Ed’s post on the book signing. He’s got video too!

Tim Goleman, whom I’m not familiar with, also posted about the event.

Ben Love posted video of the event.

Hope you have an awesome day and if you like what I’m doing, you know that I please ask to pass it along to your friends. The tool just below this makes it real easy to do so.

Haiku
Gary V thunder
Atlanta crowd embraces
Resolute we are