Gary Vaynerchuk was born in Belarus (USSR) in 1975, emigrated to the United States in 1978, rebranded his family business after graduating from college as Wine Library, growing it from a $4 million to $45 million business, and building on his passion as an unconventional sommelier devoted to educating consumers, is now a leading social media superstar, a bestselling author and consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Gary Vaynerchuk is a phenomenon!

• The video here is from a CNN Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk on May 16, 2009, before his book Crush It! was released. In the interview he says he has 350,000 followers on Twitter. Now just 8 months and a bestselling book later, he has 847,199 followers on Twitter (Oh! did I forget to add you?). Check his current number of follows on Twitter @garyvee.
• He is a great example of how passion goes farther than polish, and a huge inspiration to entrepreneurs and leagues of people who are trying find a better way to work for a living in a down economy.
  
• His achievements are remarkable. He signed a 10-book deal with HarperStudio for over $1,000,000. And his first book in the series Crush It!, became an Amazon and a New York Times bestseller. His Wine Library TV Show airs as a daily Internet video podcast, and attracts up to 90,000 viewers. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, GQ, and Time Magazine, and you can read even more about him on Wikipedia, as well as his bio and media credits on his Wine Library TV website.
  
• In this interview he makes some very interesting points for entrepreneurs and for businesses challenged by the changing economy. He says that everybody needs a platform, whether it be Internet, TV, or print media. And yet the secret to the platform is not about broadcasting but about engaging people of like interest in conversation. Traditional businesses are lost in this world, because they are still stuck in the paradigm that they control the message, rather than the audience of their potential customers. He says that Twitter and Facebook should be thought of as a cocktail party, rather than a networking event, and that if you come from the heart with quality and passion and work hard to participate, only then can you find ways to make a living from your passion.
• He says that his passion has attracted eyeballs, and whenever that many people start paying attention to something, it automatically attracts people who want to participate and are even happy to pay for the privilege. Already Gary consults for Fortune 500 companies who want what he’s got, the ability to attract and engage with their customers. And he has a steady stream of people who have direct or peripheral connections to the wine industry, from wine glass makers to mineral water producers, who want to pay him thousands of dollars to be part of his show.
• While Gary’s style may not be your style, and you may not be willing or able to devote almost full time to maintaining such a presence on line and in the media, one thing is for certain. As he points out, the Internet is still a teenager, and we have only begun to comprehend its potential. He compares Twitter and Facebook to tools like crayons, markers, or fax machines, and says that once people get how to use these tools to really reach out with what they care about, the potential to survive and thrive in the new economy is like a dream come true.
• Meanwhile, why not join Gary for a glass of wine on his Internet program, Wine Library TV, and think about how this might apply to your business.