Good people will thrive outside the constraints of big business and high overhead The future will be a field day for “everyone with talent” because they’ll be freed from bureaucratic bonds.
Chapter Four starts with an example we recognize – newspapers and magazines. Traditional platforms (the publisher) are struggling as readers move on-line. In market after market, and across media lines, hard-copy circulation drops as readers gather more news and information from the web. You might guess that’s a bad thing for writers.
Not according to the Vaynerchuk. He says that’s “the best thing that can happen to journalists … the good ones, anyway.”
That’s key to his point. Independence is an option that just wasn’t there before. Now, with a personal brand and a bit of technology savvy, anyone can become an expert, and profit directly from that knowledge. Who needs a magazine to become a foremost travel writer? Who needs a bookstore to sell books? Who needs an impressive and expensive building to offer banking services?
In a sense, the middleman – an employer who puts up needed capital and then pays us out of profits – is losing power in this new information democracy. In fact, the need for capital is shrinking daily. Without expensive printing presses or monster television towers, (or factories, or distribution centers), it’s really quite simple to build a profitable following. Instead of buying advertising to attract readers, an enterprising expert can be selling advertising to outsiders interested in reaching his (or her) readers! That’s the whole Google advertising model in a nutshell, actually.
Remember that Gary Vaynerchuk by-passed normal distribution channels to market wine from his father’s liquor store. He built an empire with direct sales from his Wine Library, the store that grew from his personal video blogs. And – he points out – the videos were not originally about selling wine. They were about selling Gary. It’s all about a personal brand.
Questions for blog discussion:
1. How is new information and/or technology changing your current industry?
2. Who are some “personal brands” in your industry? How did they get to be personal brands? Local, regional, national?
3. Anyone you know who has jumped an existing distribution system?
4. Where is the intersection between your personal expertise and your personal passion? Everybody has at least one.
It's difficult to imagine that new technology isn't changing every industry. My industry utilizes e-mail and facebook to connect with the multitudes of people in the area and we get more and more requests for webinars versus in-person trainings. So, I think technology is assisting my industry (business consulting) to be more efficient both with time and finances (after all, it is cheaper to view a webinar than to pay for travel expenses to a conference). That being said, some face time with people is still needed from time to time to help facilitate understanding.
ReplyDeleteThose are great points, and I agree that social media will never replace face-to-face. But, it already augments f-t-f in many ways. And - as you note - it decreases some costs. Like email, there are both advanatages and disadvantages. Use it wiesly!
ReplyDeleteMy main thought on this chapter was that he makes it sound so easy. If only all journalists that have left the industry (by choice or by downsizing) could just start up their own website, etc. While it sounds easy, getting sources to trust you, etc., comes along much quicker with the name recognition of a newspaper, tv station, etc. I'm not saying it can't be done on a local level, I just don't think it's quite as easy as the author makes it sound.
ReplyDeleteRemember that he successfully attacked the wine industry from the outside. I share your concerns. Do you know how many investment people are out there? Can you imagine how hard it is to distinguish yourself in that competetive environment? I can attest that it's not as easy as he makes it sound. Even when you have some of the tools and talents he cites.
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