自拍时代的自我推销之道

    2006年，自称是小商贩的加里•沃伊涅尔查克决定，是时候尝试新东西了。过去10年中，沃伊涅尔查克已经把他父亲的酒铺扩大成了一家名叫“葡萄酒图书馆”(Wine Library)的成功酒企。然而，对于这位雄心勃勃的年轻人来说，这仅仅是个开始。他一直很善于发现潮流所向，能够感觉到客户作出购买决策的方式正在发生切实的转变。他打算利用这种变化赚一笔。

    沃伊涅尔查克架设了一个摄像头，让一位同事拍摄他聊葡萄酒的画面。他的评论直截了当，尖锐犀利，风趣幽默，最重要的是，信息量非常大。但不知疲倦的工作态度才是他真正与众不同的地方。他每周有5天会都发布一段全新的“视频博客”（他把它戏称为“葡萄酒图书馆电视”），而且一有空就发微博，坚持不懈地为视频内容提供支持，一直到凌晨三点，甚至更晚。

    沃伊涅尔查克的方法得到了回报。不仅葡萄酒销售生意增长到了空前的高度，他本人也成了一位畅销书作家，代表作包括《粉碎它！》(Crush It!)和《右钩拳》( Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook)。此外，他频频登上顶级商业杂志的封面，而且还经常受邀在大批企业家和高管面前发表演讲。他的拥趸甚至开始以“沃伊脑残粉”自称。

    加里•沃伊涅尔查克崛起为网络明星、同时在现实世界赢得万贯身家的经历代表了当今工商界的一个强大趋势。这种理念已经被无数文章和商业书籍探讨过，它就是：在数字时代收获成功的唯一途径是，不遗余力地推广你的“个人品牌”，特别是通过社交媒体。

    这个进程的强度可能令人胆寒。正因为如此，一个致力于提供励志商业建议的作坊式产业已经在网上破土而出，它充满了集自助和严厉之爱于一身的格言警句。事实上，还是沃伊涅尔查说得最清楚不过。他在接受社交媒体博客Mashable采访时盯着摄像头，带着他特有的自信，言之凿凿地说：“如果我比你更成功，那只有一个原因——因为我比你工作得更努力。”他所说的工作指的是，花费大量时间为他的网络形象打造粉丝群。

    这是一种极具吸引力、非常直观的成功秘诀，非常符合美国人秉持的一项基本理念：如果你比其他人更加持久、更加努力地拼搏，你所有的梦想都可以变为现实。这里只有一个问题——对于许多人来说，这样做根本行不通。

    “自我品牌营销”不断飙升的人气仅仅是大卫•兹威格的新书《隐形：在自我推销时代中匿名工作的力量》(Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion)探讨的主题之一。这部定于本月末发行的著作被沃顿商学院(Wharton)教授、畅销书作家亚当•格兰特誉为2014年最值得期待的商业书籍。兹威格试图挑战一个普遍认同的观点：花费最多时间争夺其他人眼球的那个人终将获胜。为了达到这个目的，他深入剖析了一些正处于各自职业生涯顶峰，同时主动避开聚光灯的成功人士。

    这本著作审视的成功人士包括一位全球顶级香水开发商，全球最大建筑物的结构工程师，以及发行过多张白金唱片的摇滚乐队电台司令(Radiohead)的吉他手。在《隐形》一书中，所有大获成功（而且收入不菲）的大师级人物都在长时间工作，其中一些人的工作时间跟自我营销的精神领袖所指示的时间一样长，甚至还要更长。但他们并没有利用这些时间叫卖，而是全身心地工作，打磨自己的技艺。

    茨威格并不是要说，营销是邪恶的，也不是要论证营销是无用的。“我并不是说某些类型的专业人才不需要自我推销，”他写道。“很多人都需要。”

    不可否认，以加里•沃伊涅尔查克为代表的自我推销一族往往工作到凌晨时分，为自己和自己的品牌赢得了关注，最终建立起了自己的商业帝国。在如今这个时代，上网搜索已经成为几乎每一项购买决策的第一步，那些没有在网络上安营扎寨的人往往要面临一段坎坷的前程——无论他们的产品工艺多么精良。兹威格最重要的观点很简单：如果一种文化青睐的是不计代价、24小时全天候的吆喝叫卖，那么它能推动多少企业，就一样也能拖累多少企业。

    因此，问题仍然是：如果你经营的那门生意需要你直至凌晨三点还在酿酒，而不是叫卖其他人已经做好的酒，你怎么去竞争？

    In 2006, self-proclaimed hustler Gary Vaynerchuk decided it was time to try something new. Over the previous 10 years, Vaynerchuk had expanded his father’s liquor store into a successful wine business called Wine Library. However, for the ambitious young man, this was only the beginning. He had always had a nose for trends, and he could sense a real shift in how customers were making buying decisions. He wanted to capitalize on it.

    Vaynerchuk set up a camera and had a colleague shoot him talking about wine. He was direct, brash, funny, and above all, informative. But what really set him apart was his sheer work ethic. He posted a new episode of his “video blog,” which he dubbed Wine Library TV, five days a week and relentlessly supported the content by tweeting in every spare moment, until three in the morning and beyond.

    Vaynerchuk’s methods paid off. Not only did his wine selling business grow to unparalleled heights, he became a bestselling author with books like Crush It!and Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook. He was featured on the covers of top business magazines and received invitations to speak in front of massive audiences of entrepreneurs and executives. His fans even began calling themselves Vayniacs.

    Gary Vaynerchuk’s ascent to online stardom and real world riches typifies a powerful trend in business today. The idea, written about in countless articles and business books, is that the only way to make it in the digital age is to relentlessly promote your “personal brand,” especially though social media.

    The intensity of this process can be daunting. As such, a cottage industry of inspirational business advice has sprouted online, full of aphorisms that combine self-help and tough love. In fact, Vaynerchuk put it best during an interview on Mashable, where he looked into the camera and stated with his characteristic confidence, “If I’m more successful than you, there’s one reason for it—it’s because I outworked you.” And by work, he means spending a huge number of hours building fans of his Internet persona.

    It is a recipe for success that is attractive, intuitive, and appealing to our fundamentally American belief if you hustle long and hard enough to get yourself in front of people, you can make all your dreams come true. There’s only one problem—for many of us, it doesn’t work.

    The soaring popularity of “self branding” is just one of the topics addressed in David Zweig’s new bookInvisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion (Portfolio/Penguin), which is slated for release later this month. Named as a Top Business Book to Read in 2014 by Adam Grant, a Wharton professor and bestselling author in his own right, Zweig challenges the pervasive notion that the people who spend the most time getting others to pay attention to them win. He accomplishes this by conducting in-depth profiles of individuals who are at the zenith of professional success in their fields and who actively shun the spotlight.

    Some of those Zweig examines in his book include one of the world’s leading perfume developers, the structural engineer of the largest building on earth, and the guitar technician for the multiplatinum rock band Radiohead. All of the highly successful (and well-paid) masters featured in Invisibles work long hours, in some cases as long or even longer than what the self-branding Maharishis prescribe. But instead of spending these hours on promotional hustle, they dedicate time to working on and refining their actual craft.

    Zweig’s argument is not that marketing is evil or useless. “I’m not suggesting that some types of professionals don’t need to self-promote,” he writes, “Many of us do.”

    There’s no denying that people like Gary Vaynerchuk have built empires by working into the wee hours of the morning to draw attention to themselves and their brands. In an age where doing an Internet search is the first step in virtually every buying decision, those who don’t maintain an online presence have a tough road ahead of them—no matter how well-crafted their work. The author’s overriding point is simply that a culture that favors around-the-clock hustle at the expense of all else holds back as many businesses as it helps.

    So the question remains: How do you compete if your particular business requires you to be up until three in the morning making wine instead of selling the wine that someone else has made?