“Wine Online” by Daria Meoli (New York Enterprise Report Magazine, April 2009, NYReport.com)

There is one word for the story of NJ liquor store owner Gary Vaynerchuk and his $50m per year (and growing) Wine Library… OMG.

Conclusion: It’s not who you know. It’s not how many people you know. It’s not even what you know. It’s how many people want to know what you know. And figuring out how to make that happen for them. In other words, this isn’t about selling wine. That’s just the bonus round.

This artcle also contains the understatement of the year (so far). In the last line Vaynerchuk say, “I feel that America is ready for wine and I could be one of the next breeakout hits.” At $50m this guy is just getting started. How about that?

“5 Minutes With… Barbara Corcoran” as well as “5 More Minutes With. . . Barbara Corcoran” by Daria Meoli (The New York Enterprise Report, April 2009, NYReport.com).

A two part interview – because we can all use a little more inspriation. The bit about her experiment with  “Hot Homes On Tape” is a particularly interesting failure (that eventually turned out to be the “mistake” of a lifetime).

“How to Successfully Market IT” By Susan Cramm and “How CIOs Can Best Influence Stakeholders” from the CIO Executive Council (CIO Mag, 1 April 2009, CIO.com)

Now before anyone jumps to conclusions such as, “Why should I read all this CIO stuff? I’m not a CIO.” Well, either are we – but that doesn’t mean we can’t all gain something by thinking like one. IT divisions are  often (ideally) set up to run like independent companies and in adding value and serving customers, etc. there are themes (read: best practices) that exist beyond type of industry, size of company, etc. When you read these two quickies just replace CIO with business owner and IT with the name of your company.  The odds are good that you’ll be happy to be thinking like a CIO.

“Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking” by Editor In Chief Maryfran Johnson (CIO Magazine, 1 April 2009, CIO.com) does a handy job at helping raise your public speaking game. She’s even goes bold and gets it right when she says, “It’s not about you.”

However, we’d actually like to take that a step further and rewrite her “most important question” (mentioned in the next to the last paragraph) to “What is this particular audience going to hear when I tell the story I want to tell?” A truly effective communicator understands context and that as Frank “Words That Work” Luntz says, “It’s not what you say, but what people hear.” In other words, the story you want to tell is meaningless, it’s the story they’re going to hear that really matters.

And while we’re on this subject here’s another from CIO,  “How to Master Professional Speaking” by John Baldoni.