Advice from Gary Vaynerchuk at Inbound 2016
Get ready world, because Brand Yourself has just become a HubSpot Partner Agency! That means we will be offering more high-quality inbound marketing than ever before. I flew out to Boston for their Inbound Conference this week. I wasn’t sure what to expect but was very excited about the opportunity to see Gary Vaynerchuk. He made a lot of great points during his Keynote — here are a few of my takeaways.
“Wake up and try to put yourself out of business.” Strive everyday to be better than you were yesterday. Build a better business than you had yesterday. Always be innovating. Always be working on the next best thing.
Other inspiring ideas from Gary were to “Spend time on self awareness and bet on your strengths.” I have been diving inward a lot lately–both personally and professionally. My strengths as a marketer and agency owner is in social media strategy. I love encouraging businesses tell their own stories through well-developed content and campaigns. And while we are diving inward, I can also identify that my strength as a human is my awareness of the energy I bring into a room. I also am fairly direct with people. [However, this trait has been both recognized as a strength and as a weakness by peers and friends alike.]
“Be interested in being wrong.” I’ve failed. The fear of failure used to paralyze me. But, Gary was right in the saying we live in a time where failure isn’t just accepted, it’s expected. Sometimes we measure success by how well we come back from failure. The big shift I have made as an entrepreneur over the last year is no longer being afraid to admit my faults and failures. 2016 has been a doozy, and I’ve learned a lot about myself, my business, and what success means to me. People respect me more for being authentic, honest, and vulnerable. I love looking at challenges from different perspectives and learning new lessons from every opportunity. Sometimes those opportunities only present themselves when what you made plans for or worked towards is no longer at the finish line. Changing directions always offers more opportunity.
“Trends have changed. You should take advantage of this and don’t dwell on the negatives.” How many of you still use a paper calendar? Mine had to be pulled out of my tightly gripped fists only a year ago. I finally embraced the digital calendar this year [I told you 2016 has been a doozy!]. In addition to embracing the digital calendar I’ve worked hard to accept that they way people communicate [yeah, I’m talking about social media] has drastically changed over the last few years. People now find out about pregnancies and promotions on Facebook. They learn about tragedies and [yes] elections by checking their Newsfeed throughout the day. Friends snapchat instead of text or call. Children use apps and iPads in school to interactively learn with their peers. People find love on social media. While negativity can spread online, so can inspiration. Support groups can be accessed virtually at any time of day. Friends and family can connect from around the world instantly. The next time you send a recipe to your friend via Facebook Messenger or scroll through someone’s vacation photos on Instagram be mindful of the fact that you’ve begun [maybe very, very tentatively] to accept the changing trends. A question to ask yourself might be: Is your business embracing and taking advantage of these trends or will you be left behind dwelling on the negatives?
[Tweet “Embrace changing trends! #inboundmarketing #inbound16 Via @brandyourselfmn”]
I’m excited about the rest of this conference and super excited about where Brand Yourself will go in 2017!
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