Ten tips from Gary: How to use Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice to shape your brand

Despite his enormous portfolio of businesses, marketing advice seems to be his mainstay. Here are ten of Gary’s top pieces of advice, and how to apply them to your brand.

1. “You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.”

Takeway: If you don’t understand and appreciate your brand, then no one else will. Stay true to your brand's ‘why’ and shape your steps, goals, and content from there. Follow your own instincts and forge a unique path that serves customers and lays a true foundation for your brand's success.

2. “You need to spend all of your time and energy on creating something that actually brings value to the people you’re asking for money!”

Takeway: Perfect example of customer-centricity. Find out what your potential customers’ needs are before you jump into the product. It’s easier to shape your product to them, then to shape a customer to your product. Also, don’t be afraid to let your brand evolve to the needs of your customers. What you think they want may be different than what they actually need.

3. “Whether you’re nine or 90, stop trying to fix the things you’re bad at and focus on the things you’re good at.”

Takeway: Build your team as a foundation for your company and as a support pillar for yourself. Every team member has a skill set they were hired for, let them do their job while you focus on your strengths. Enrich the skills you already have and help your team enrich theirs with continuing education and team goals.

4. “Relationships are leverage. If you give value to someone else first, you have leverage.”

Takeaway: Your brand must provide value to its audience, not the other way around. All your marketing content should be able to impart your product's value in a way that connects with consumers and puts their needs first. If consumers understand that you are there to help them they will boost your message for you.

5. “If you’re not putting relevant content in relevant places, you don’t exist.”

Takeaway: Go to your audiences don’t make them come to you. Find out where they hang out and where they receive the most value. Create content that speaks in their ‘language’ and understands who they are. Don’t be afraid to ask them what type of content resonates the most.

6. “Saying hello doesn’t have an ROI, it’s about building relationships.”

Takeaway: Relationships help support your company in more ways than word-of-mouth. It’s about going beyond a revenue goal and instead, learning from others while they learn from you. Building supportive relationships helps your brand grow.

7. “The best marketing strategy ever: care.”

Takeaway: If your company is always about the bottom line it will show in everything you do. Contributing to the value of your customers’ lives spreads much faster than a paid ad ever will. Your core value needs to enrich the lives of your customers as well as your employees.

8. “People will watch a 4-hour movie, if it’s great….and they will get out of a 6 second Vine, 2 seconds in, if it sucks.”

Takeaway: Content is everything when building a brand. If it isn’t focused, shaped to its audience, and true to your brand, then it’s just a waste of money and resources. Take the time to understand how your customers like to engage, how they like to be spoken to, and how they spend their time. The deeper you understand your customer, the better your content will be.

9. “People need to start breaking the rules. Stop going about it the way you think that it needs to be done.”

Takeaway: Don't follow the crowd when shaping your brand. Be unique, think outside of the box and treat your customers like human beings and not dollar signs. Dare to be different by following the ethos of why you started your brand in the first place.

10. “I think the biggest mistake we make, is we hope who we are, instead of auditing who we are.”

Takeaway: Step back and look at your brand the way consumers see it. Is your messaging coming across the way you intend for it to? Is your brand staying true to its purpose? Have you made mistakes you need to correct? Self-evaluation helps your brand to evolve and serve its customers at a high level.

While this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Gary Vaynerchuk quotes, it’s important to realize you should approach these lessons in a way unique to your company. Shape your brand in ways that allow you to grow, learn, and serve, which are Gary’s main philosophies.

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