I Could Never Sell

Reading Crush It, by Gary (Gennady) Vaynerchuk.

In a box by itself he says “Social Media = Business”.  If you want to know what that means, says a note at the bottom of the page, you can email Gary.

I have an idea what that means.  Walk with me for two minutes?

You walk the same side of Commerce Street in a hurry a dozen times a week for years.  Now and then in clear Winter weather you glimpse an alley from the corner of your eye, and a neon sign through bony branches, under trees that choke the passage.  Advertising, you think, without breaking stride.

Occasionally in the first warm days of Spring you stroll along Art Avenue again, remembering how it looked when you came there more often, in a different time of your life.   Some years you come early, before the trees are thick with leaves, and glimpse a neon sign down a narrow alley, looking just as it did when you first passed this way.

One day…

This is how Story begins, zooming in:  Every day….  Some days….  One day….

One day Commerce Street is blocked, and the detour sends you down that alley.  You grumble as you go out of your way.   Who needs this, today of all days?  Under the neon sign you pause.  You almost missed it.  It looks different up close.  The letters spell Bardavon.  Not advertising, a theater.  The same theater you have glimpsed from Art Avenue early in Spring some years.   In your mind two sides of town suddenly connect, and two eras in your life, in the glow of those letters, in that narrow alley.

Social Media = Business, says Vaynerchuk.

Business is Theater, I’m thinking.

Why does that sound so strange?  Because in Business we have always called that theater Advertising, not Theater.  Because as far back as college, the business school and the drama school were worlds apart.

But Gary makes business a big drama.  He’s a star on the Internet, at his websites and in his videos and his blogs, and in everyone else’s websites and videos and blogs.  He tells a great story, back to his father’s first days in this country.

He loves wine in a way that gives you permission to love wine in the only way you could ever love wine.  He also loves selling in a way that gives you permission to love selling in the only way you could ever love selling, you who swear “Oh no, I could never sell.”

That’s selling too, by the way, when you swear “Oh no, I could never sell.”  You’re telling people what you are and what you are not.  You’re telling your story to the melody “I’m no fool, unless maybe a fool for love.”  You’re telling what you love.  Your hunting dog, a pointer.  Your handmade hunting bow.  Your iPhone.  Your sheep farm.  Your ice axe and pitons.  Your music, your melodies.  Your show.  Your favorite show that tells everyone about you.  When you tell anyone your favorite show, you’re starring in your favorite show, the What I Love show, the What You Should Get About Me show.

You’ll sell your show better if you know it’s a show and if you know you’re selling it.

…if you know Business is Theater…

…if you know where to get people who get you…

…if you know that Social Media = Business…

…if you get that Social Media is your best chance to find people who get you…

…if you get that Gary Vaynerchuk gets you…

…even if, at first glance, you figure the two of you live on different planets…

…even if you never thought that you, of all people, would stand on stage…

…alone in the spotlight…

…and tell your story…

…or hear the thunder of applause, from paid ticketholders…

…or count receipts from selling your story.

Social Media = Business.  Tell your story and tell what you love, to others who love it too.

Business is Theater.  Star or starve.  Sell your story, or sell the story “Oh no, I could never sell.”

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