#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness.
The new book by entrepreneur, Gary Vaynerchuck, #AskGaryVee is an extension of his YouTube show, The #AskGaryVee Show (or shoooooooooooooooooow to avid watchers). In the show he answers questions sent in by viewers, usually based around business, social media and his values, with the odd wine or sport question thrown in to mix it up. For a number of people these shows have become a way for aspiring entrepreneurs and general business enthusiasts to learn from someone who’s been there and done that. For the book, the questions and answers from the shows are mixed with new questions to add additional value from the YouTube shows. In the audio book all the questions are read by a variety of Gary’s celebrity friends and answered by him personally. He always jokes that when recording an audiobook he goes off script so much it almost becomes a different book from the written version, plus his crazy enthusiasm and energy makes it easy to listen to the 11 and a half hours of Q&A.
11 and a half hours of Q&A?!?!?! How many questions are needed to fill that time? Does it not get repetitive? Does he really have something new and interesting to say throughout the book?
“Well, yes and no, let me explain” (a phrase used many, many times when he answers).
Each chapter focuses on a different topic, from self-awareness to family business, each chapter offers a unique insight into his beliefs, rules, thought processes and experiences. However a lot of underlying rules are repeated – by that I mean his approach to building anything; go online, create content, engage, talk, create more content etc.
However I feel as though this book could be cut by 25% as a minimum and bring even more value! At times it felt like content overload, too many questions in a chapter leading to similar answers. The beauty of the Q&A format is that it allows listeners to pick up key insights for certain topics, rather than having to apply the theory to practice. However, the answers fell on very similar groundings and a shorter book pointing out the common trends in a clear way would have been better in my opinion.
Is the book worth it if he posts everything on YouTube?
This depends on whether you are a Gary fan.
If you aren’t or don’t know who he is, or you just want to know what he’s learnt then the book is great! It will cover pretty much everything you want. It could be treated as a bible for some areas of business. Have a question, see if he’s answered it!
If you are a Gary fan, then I’d say no to the book and yes to a YouTube marathon. The majority of questions (or similar) can be found on YouTube, either as part of his #AskGaryVee Show or on his second channel ‘Entrepreneurship Answered’ in short, snappy clips. Why do I prefer these? Well, you get to see him react to the questions, react to the people around him, all in his businesses environment. He knows his best medium is video and I agree, so if you’re willing to watch all the videos to experience his vibe and energy rather than just to hear his answers, then the videos are for you!