Your legacy is being written by yourself. Make the right decisions.
When it all comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.
Whether you’re 9 or 90, stop trying to fix the things you’re bad at, and focus on the things you’re good at.
I always say that the real success of Wine Library wasn’t due to the videos I posted, but to the hours I spent talking to people online afterward, making connections and building relationships.
What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.
Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started ‘Wine Library TV.’ They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.
My dad is like a cactus – introverted and tough. I’m a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He’s my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.
Okay, let’s talk about cartoon labels for half a second – some people think anything with a dog or a car or a colorful alien is garbage, which is not true. Look at Big Moose Red. It’s, like, a $6 wine with a cheesy label, and it’s actually a solid wine.
Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.
It’s about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it’s Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it’s going to be, ‘Storyteller.’
Stop doing things that waste time. Don’t replace time with your family or things that you need to do. I needed to put together two fantasy teams this weekend because that’s something I enjoy, but I did stop playing Nintendo Wii for hours on end.
Passion is contagious.
Through EdgeRank, Facebook weighs likes, comments, and shares, but it currently does not give greater weight to click-throughs or any other action that leads to sales.
Ignoring platforms that have gained critical mass is a great way to look slow and out-of-touch. Do not cling to nostalgia. Do not put your principles above the reality of the market. Do not be a snob.
Your story isn’t powerful enough if all it does is lead the horse to water; it has to inspire the horse to drink, too. On social media, the only story that can achieve that goal is one told with native content.
You can’t read about push ups. You gotta do them.
Marketing just got hard.
If you know exactly what you want to be, you need to spend as much time as possible with people who are actually that already...
Adding a social layer to any platform immediately increases its effectiveness.
I look at two things while angel investing. Are you solving an important problem? Do you care about the end users.