Jab, Jab, Right Hook

Lace up your gloves for 12 rounds with Vaynerchuk

Jab, Jab, Right Hook“Authentic” is an eye-rollingly overused word, but I still apply it to Gary Vaynerchuk. I first ran into Gary about the time Twitter started, and every time I’ve encountered him since then I’m always curious to hear what he’s going to hold court about. I know I won’t always agree with it, but that’s fine. Gary always calls it like he sees it, and I rather like disagreeing with smart people. It forces me to up my game.

So I took Gary up on his offer to check out a copy of his new book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World” (JJJRH). It was almost exactly what I expected, which is a good thing.

In person, Gary can both pontificate on grand ideas and back it up with specific examples. JJJRH does the same. It’s a mix of perspective on content and communication, alongside entertaining decomposition of very specific examples. And I mean he has actual screenshots of tweets or posts so you can see what he’s referring to. No vague handwaving here. A lot of social content books don’t get down in the mud and specifics perhaps for fear of not pissing off the companies in question. Gary lacks that fear.

I also enjoy how much improvisation Gary has in his style, which you really appreciate if you see Gary speak in person (and work a crowd). You can see hints of it throughout this book even if he doesn’t call it by that name. Listening, engaging, and playing by the rules of the scene are all here.

His key message is right in the title – balance your engagement and don’t try to make everything a knock-out blow. He’s right, but I rather wish he had lightened up on the boxing analogy a bit. It felt a little overdone by the end, and I hope he doesn’t try to bite my ear off for thinking that. (badum-tish!)

RRJH fits well with Gary’s other two books, but they aren’t prerequisites. If you’ve been doing content and marketing work for a while, read it for some new ideas. If you’re new to this space, read it for some great perspective and background.

 


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