If you're not putting out relevant content in relevant places, you don't exist.

First of all, when building a brand you have to know who you are, what you are, and what you stand for. That's clichéd marketing-bullshit jargon, but it does matter. It helps. You have to know who you're targeting. I think too many people fight the market. There are certain people who are never going to want your stuff no matter what you do. There are certain people are never going to love me because I curse and I have bravado and I'm a Jersey boy and I'm brash and they won't take the time to see the humility and the patience and the truth. They shouldn't.

When we launched the WineLibrary website in 1996, I didn't even own a computer yet. I just understood that there was an opportunity here to market in a different way.

Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of my life. Do that!

Really, truly, try to figure out what your palate is all about. If you've determined that you don't like dirty old stinky wine - old-world flavors - you probably like new-world fruit bombs. Stick to Shirazes and California Cabernets or Zinfandels.

Jabs are the lightweight pieces of content that benefit your customers by making them laugh, snicker, ponder, play a game, feel appreciated, or escape; right hooks are calls to action that benefit your businesses.

I think the opposite version of me is the one we don't see, which is there are tens of thousands of outrageously successful businesses of very quiet, very calculated, calm executors who are confident. You can't be successful without being confident. They believe in themselves. They have their own version of assertiveness ... I think confidence matters and I think other things matter, like I would tell you empathy is probably why I'm more successful than confidence. I'm empathic to the customer, to my business partners, to my employees.