Roman Prokopchuk Founder Nova Zora Digital Attending Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crushing It Book Signing

I had the pleasure of attending Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crushing It! Book Signing at Wine Library in Springfield, New Jersey February 24th with my brother.  For those of you that don’t know who Gary is, he got his start by using social media when it was still a fairly new concept to grow his family liquor business from 4 million to 60 million in sales.  Some of the tactics he used were starting one of the first YouTube channels to review wine and getting 10 cent clicks for Google AdWords when the ppc (pay-per-click option) was still young.   His current media agency Vayner Media he started with his brother, now has 800 employees with earnings around 150 million dollars.  Hey is a sought after keynote speaker, 5 time author, co-founder of Vayner Sports, among many other ventures and investments.  He did a lot of this through great personal  brand building and an always hustle mentality.

Gary immigrated here with his family in the 1970s from Belarus and credits a lot of his success to his family and what they went through.  I think I gravitate to his story and where he came from, because I came here in 1990 from L’viv, Ukraine with 6 other family members, stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment, and watched everyone work super hard to better our situation.  My grandfather was already retired in Ukraine, and after coming to the United had to work another 20 years in roofing without any complaints.  I’ve written and spoken about immigrants have an advantage to hustle harder based on their journeys in the past.  I actually got to speak to Gary’s dad for a few minutes about their journey verses mine, work ethic, and how immigrant mindsets have changed over time.

Gary’s fifth book Crushing It! has something for everyone.  It’s a healthy mix of stories of those that have used social media tactics to build their brands, as well as providing real world examples for platform uses including emerging technologies like home voice assistants.

There were about a thousand people that showed up when it was all said and done, and the atmosphere was great.  People were conversing in line with one another and taking the opportunity to see how they could help one another and network. It was a hunger for success crowd that seemed to be taking the steps to get there.  Some people even drove as fair as 16 hours away.  Gary stayed to sign and meet with everyone, even though the time went over.  He was a down to earth dude and hopefully in the future our paths cross again.