If you’ve been on the internet for any amount of time, you’ve heard of Gary Vaynerchuk (or Gary Vee as he is more commonly referred to). The internet entrepreneur is this week’s spotlight, and with good reason. Gary has the golden touch, starting with his family’s liquor store and building a wildly successful full-service advertising agency; there’s nothing Gary hasn’t done, and, more importantly, done successfully.

Four Factors Responsible For Gary Vaynerchuk’s Success

In this post, we’ll look at four key factors that have propelled Gary Vee, allowing him to become possibly the most well known serial entrepreneur.

Being An Early Adopter

Gary’s success story begins as an early adopter of e-commerce. In 1997 after graduating from college and joining the family business – selling discounted liquor – Gary saw an opportunity in e-commerce. Gary successfully moved the family business online as Wine Library and grew sales from $3MM a year to $60MM a year.

What You Can Take Away:

Be on the lookout for new tools that will elevate your ideas. Of course, there aren’t as many inventions as big as the internet. However, there are smaller opportunities that can still have a tremendous effect on your success. Take podcasting as an example. Podcasting is gaining traction but is still an unsaturated market. You can use lesser-known tools or platforms to give your creativity a competitive edge and become an early adopter of something that has the potential to be “the next big thing”.

Turning Your Passion Into Profit

Gary’s passionate about so many things, the New York Jets, wine, entrepreneurship, and social media, most of those passions he has been able to turn into a profit. Because Gary’s passionate about these topics it’s easy for him to maintain interest in them, allowing him to create strategies that enable him to be on the leading edge. Another benefit of doing something you’re passionate about is that passion is infectious. The content you create around what you are passionate about becomes relatable because people relate to ideas when they’re conveyed convincingly. 

What You Can Take Away:

The first thing you can take away from Gary’s approach is that you don’t only have to have one passion. Gary has a passion for social media and marketing, finance, wine, the list is endless, and so are his supporters.

What’s more is that you should focus on monetizing a passion: something you can see yourself maintaining interest over a long period. This will help you create content and market it convincingly to potential buyers.

Teaching Through Different Mediums

Gary’s a speaker, writer, podcast host, YouTuber, and course creator. The serial entrepreneur has shared his expertise through most platforms and formats. This allows him to meet his ‘students’ or followers where they are in their journey. It also allows him to relay his knowledge to varying degrees, depending on the platform he is using. 

What You Can Take Away:

There isn’t one method to impart knowledge. Instead, examine the best method for your situation, expertise, and resources. You can start monetizing your knowledge through books or podcasts, or go the more traditional route and publish your expertise through an online course, or you can do what Gary’s done and use a combination of all of the above. 

Creating A Memorable Personal Brand 

Within a few minutes of watching his YouTube videos, reading his blogs, or listening to his podcast, Gary’s personal brand is clear-cut. Even if you don’t know what he does, Gary hones in on a select few undeniable truths to position himself as an expert and trustworthy source:

a) he created an empire without relying on debt to fund it

b) he used e-commerce to grow a local business into a national brand, making millions in the process

c) he is an early investor in startups that have the potential to become mainstream successes

d) he uses social media to create and maintain buzz in all of his business ventures

All of these facts allow him to position himself as an authoritative figure on several subjects.

What You Can Take Away:

We’ve discussed this before, but personal branding is the cord that ties your online ventures together. You may think: how does someone go from being a wine expert, hosting daily wine tastings, to becoming the CEO of a full-service ad agency working with Fortune 100 companies? The simple answer is branding. 

Of course, Gary’s prowess in marketing allowed him to achieve the level of success he had with his family’s business, but it’s positioning himself as a doer who knows how to turn ideas into money-making ventures that allows him to be taken seriously regardless of the venture he’s taking on.

In the same way, you should discover how to create a personal brand that doesn’t limit your potential.

Reverse Engineering Gary Vaynerchuk’s Success

Gary Vee has an infectious persona and can sell any concept he takes on because of his sheer passion, but if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t on Gary Vee’s level. You have to start somewhere. To help you do that, we’ve summarized Gary Vee’s philosophy for entrepreneurs:

“Start With What You Have & Constantly Look For Opportunities”

Gary Vee is known for his firm stance on debt. While some don’t agree with his views on building a business without debt, being a lean entrepreneur certainly has its benefits. Therefore, if you want to achieve Gary Vee level success – who is currently worth more than $160 million – the key is to start with what you have.

Often the focus for entrepreneurs and creators is what you need to acquire to achieve your goals and not on what you have.

Gary Vee’s principals shift this focus, so you’re looking at what you have at your disposal and how you can use what’s at your disposal to achieve your objective.

Once you’ve built a knack for focusing on what you have at your disposal, your resources, talents, knowledge; it’s easy to pivot that so that you can see opportunity anywhere. 

All of this can be summed up in one sentence: 

The key to reverse engineering Gary Vee’s success is to examine what you’re currently doing and ask yourself, “How can I make it better, more efficient, convenient, or user-friendly?”