Posts Tagged ‘Positioning’

Gary Vaynerchuck

Gary Vaynerchuk has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to build his family’s local wine business into a national industry leader, Gary rapidly leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine. As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.”

In addition to the Web 2.0 keynote above, Gary’s remarks on personal branding, social media, and business at FOWA, Strategic Profits, and South By Southwest occasioned praise from established web denizens including Kathy Sierra and earned the admiration of countless bloggers and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Gary’s landmark seven-figure book deal with Harper Studio was featured in The Wall Street Journal.

What motivates this revolution, you ask? Our movement seeks to break down the barriers, stereotypes, and misperceptions that otherwise prevent people from exploring and enjoying the exciting and rewarding world of wine. Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK), the star of Wine Library TV, is Director of Operations at Wine Library in Springfield, NJ. With his unconventional, often irreverent commentary on wine, Gary has attracted a cult-like following of more than 80,000 viewers a day. In the name of “expanding one’s palate”, Gary convinced Conan O’Brien to lick salted rocks and shared samples of dirt and grass with Ellen Degeneres. He routinely pans popular wines (even ones sold by Wine Library). He interrupts his webcasts with rants about his beloved New York Jets. This is not your typical wine expert.

Gary’s roots in wine tasting come honestly – his Russian immigrant parents owned a liquor store when he was growing up. Bored at the cash register, Gary began reading Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to his previous hobby of collecting baseball cards. As a teenager, tasting wine was legally impossible, so Gary set out to train his palate “backwards”. To study various flavors associated with wine, Gary tasted obscure fruits and vegetables, along with earthly influences, including grass, dirt, rocks, tobacco and wood. “I probably consumed more New Jersey grass in my teens than any lawn mower.” By familiarizing himself with the numerous tastes that contributed to a specific wine, Gary was able to detect subtleties that an ordinary palate wouldn’t recognize.

With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents’ store, rebranding the family business as Wine Library and establishing himself as a respected expert. As the store’s only wine buyer, he sampled every wine that entered the store. Customers depended on Gary for his advice and within a five year time period, Wine Library grew from a $4 million dollar business to a $45 million business.

But Gary’s career took a new turn with the advent of Wine Library TV. Gary’s key goals are twofold: “First, I want people to try different wines. How can you have a favorite if you only know a few? Second, I tell people to trust their palates. If a wine appeals to your palate, then it’s a good choice. Don’t feel pressured to like popular brands or what experts recommend. Buy what ‘brings the thunder’ for you.”

It always troubled Gary to observe the stuffiness of the industry–conceited sommeliers, snobby shopkeepers unwilling (or unable) to educate their consumers, and seemingly mystical conventions all combine to make wine seem intimidating to the uninitiated. Wine Library TV has reinvented the concept of wine tasting for a new generation. In addition to encouraging straightforward wine tasting, Gary educates viewers about the effects of regional factors (soil, sun, wind) on wine flavors, and how to buy wine. Debunking myths (red vs. white, big name brands vs. independent growers, the pitfalls of wine ratings, etc.) is another ongoing theme of the show. Specific episode topics have included decanting, how to train your palate, the impact oak aging
and barrel fermenting have on wine (Beware of the Oak Monster!), and comparisons of wines made from the same grapes grown in different regions.

WLTV has blossomed into a full-fledged community. The viewers (self-named “Vayniacs”) convene on an extremely active forum, and have organized numerous off-line gatherings. Gary and the viewers have teamed up with Crushpad in the past year to create the first ever community wine, Vayniac Cabernet.

Gary Vaynerchuk has been featured by a variety of national media outlets, including:

National TV

• Late Night with Conan O’Brien – May 12, 2008
• The Ellen Degeneres Show
• CBS Early Show
• Mad Money with Jim Cramer
• Nightline
• The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien – August 1, 2007
• Spike TV
• ABC News
• CNN Your $$$$$

Al Ries

Al Ries is chairman of Ries & Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm that he runs with his daughter Laura Ries.   Al is a legendary marketing strategist and the bestselling author (or co-author) of 11 books on marketing including Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Marketing Warfare, Focus, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR and his latest The Origin of Brands.

After graduating from DePauw University, Al worked in the advertising department of General Electric before founding his own advertising agency in New York City, Ries Cappiello Colwell. The agency later changed to a marketing strategy firm, Trout & Ries.

In 1994, Al started Ries & Ries with his daughter Laura. Al and Laura continue to work together consulting with Fortune 500 companies, writing books and giving seminars around the world.

Al was president of the Association of Industrial Advertisers (now the Business Marketing Association) and the Advertising Club of New York. He was also chairman of the Club’s Andy Awards. In 1989, Sales & Marketing Executives International gave him its “Tops in Marketing” award. In 1999, PR Week magazine named him one of the 100 most influential PR people of the 20^th century.

Always one for controversy, Al’s book, The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, has generated enormous interest in the marketing community. The book made both the Business Week and The Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. In addition to being reviewed by these publications, it was also reviewed by USA Today, Harvard Business Review, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications.

Al’s latest release, The Origin of Brands explores “divergence,” the best way to create a new brand. The concept is analogous to the creation of a new species, as pioneered by Charles Darwin in his classic book on the subject.  Al currently writes a monthly marketing column for AdAge.com and is an often quoted expert in many publications. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Mary Lou.

Jack Trout

Instrumental in developing the vital approach to marketing known as “positioning,” he is responsible for some of the freshest ideas to be introduced into marketing thinking in the last several decades.

Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA and offices in 13 countries. Jack Trout manages and supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. The firm has done work for AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and other Fortune 500 companies.

Jack Trout started his business career in the advertising department of General Electric. From there he went on to become a divisional advertising manager at Uniroyal. Then he joined Al Ries in the advertising agency and marketing strategy firm where they worked together for over twenty-six years.

With Al Ries he co-authored the industry classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, which was published in 1980. In 1985 he and Al Ries wrote a second best-selling book entitled Marketing Warfare. Positioning and Marketing Warfare are now published in 14 languages. In 1988 Bottom-Up-Marketing was published. In 1993 their book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing became the marketing bible. It outlined the basic reasons why marketing programs succeed or fail in the competitive nineties.

Jack Trout closed the circle with the sequel to Positioning in 1995. Entitled The New Positioning it takes the world’s No. 1 business strategy to a new level. It became a Business Week best seller and has already been translated into 16 languages.

This was followed by The Power of Simplicity – A Management Guide To Cutting Through the Nonsense And Doing Things Right.

Then it was Differentiate or Die – Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition which presented the keys to survival in a killer global economy. This has also become a best seller.

His latest books are entitled Big Brands Big Trouble and The Genie’s Wisdom. They explain why the marketing process is so important for senior management to learn and practice.

Jack Trout is President of Trout & Partners Ltd., where he supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. Trout is recognized as the world’s foremost marketing strategist; his concept of “positioning” has become the world’s #1 business strategy. Trout writes a bimonthly column for Forbes

UPDATE OCT 30th:

WOW…  and a big fat Apology.

We knew this program would really resonate with people but we never thought it would have the amount of activity it did.  Needless to say, it chocked our servers.

All of us here want to say sorry to all the disappointed people that could not get on the web cast because as you can see all the people that were able to attend absolutely loved it.

Again, we are sorry and we will have more horsepower for this Thursday’s call so don’t miss it.

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League Of Extraordinary Minds – Discovery Session 1 Webcast

Be sure to join us for our first discovery session webcast in our 6 week series this Thursday October 29th at 8:00pm.
If you haven’t already registered for the webcasts you can do so here

You won’t want to miss this historic event as Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren interview this first group of panelists which includes:

• Michael Bosworth
• Stephen MR Covey
• Bert Decker
• Russell Granger
• Kevin Hogan
• Joseph Jaffe
• Jack Trout

Be sure to come ready to listen intently and take notes as Rich and Jay dig deep to get answers to tough questions like:

1.    What’s the single biggest strategy for moving from distrust, dubious, and suspect to seismic credibility and what’s the single biggest action our members should do first and why?

2.    There are 2 aspects to credibility – quick fix and long term remediation – What actions would you recommend that can be taken quickly and what actions would you recommend that are more long term and self-sustaining?

3.    Most Entrepreneurs do not think of themselves as not being credible, trustworthy or believable – so what’s the best way to get an unbiased viewpoint of what we are really conveying to the marketplace and how do we develop thick enough skin to see ourselves as we really are ?

4.    Let’s talk about specific tactics – How would you suggest our members make each contact point with their market – more effective?  Whether it be customer service, marketing, advertising, or simply describing the attributes of their products or services?

5.    If you were to give each of our members an exercise that would constantly put them on the path to growing their trust, believability, and credibility, what would you recommend? What benefits will accrue by doing it and why?

6.    Of all the things you’ve researched, written, and presented on what’s the single biggest distinction, realization, insight that you need to get across to this group that hasn’t been covered so far, and why?

7.    Through the lens of your expertise; What one question do you wish we would have asked you, that we didn’t, that relates to helping members on this call make their business more profitable, more successful, more competitively advantageous right now and into the future? Why is it an important question? And had we asked, what would your answer be?

The answers and secrets these experts reveal during this 90 minute event will completely blow you away! Fortune 500 companies pay these guys tens of thousands of dollars for information like this that Jay and Rich are extracting for you for FREE!

Don’t miss this exclusive webcast.  It will not be re-played. To get all the details, register here

After you’ve listened to the webcast, please come back to this page and let us know the biggest insights and takeaways you gained from the panel. We have some special surprises for those of you with the best comment!