Sorry guys, just been informed it’s ‘SEO’ and not ‘Essio’…
Boy is my face read!
CORRECTION
July 29th, 2010Gary Vine: Single
July 29th, 2010Well I’ve finally ended things with Lucy. But more importantly:
I HAVEN’T SEEN THE NEW DRAGONS’ DEN! PLEASE DON’T SEND ME SPOLIERS!
Anyway, it was time for me to kick her into the kerb and I did so after her 10-minute speech tearful about ‘moving on’. I couldn’t be happier to be honest, and the moment she stormed out I called Anya out from the kitchen cupboard and shrugged. You read that right – Lucy stormed out. She’s 25 years old.
So I’ve already started making plans for a Lucy-less operation. I think step one is to turn our flat into a makeshift office. It will help me to eat, drink and vomit business and it gives me a legitimate excuse to sell all Lucy’s stuff. I also think it’s a good idea to have Anya move in and charge her a bit of rent. That way, I’m not paying her any wages at all!
I’m sure people will get the wrong idea about Anya moving in, but if they read my blog and my Twitter (@GaryVine) they will see that I’m a good and honest man and that Lucy is completely in the wrong. After all, everything I have written here has been the absolute truth. Like Sir Alan Sugars says “Lies… YOU’RE SACKED!”
A friend of mine in Manchester I play on the online casino with recently brought up the idea of Essio marketing, which I believe is the practice of making your website the best by putting up pictures of cats and hamsters. With this is mind, I’ve already sent Anya out this morning to gather as many strays as she can and we’ll photograph them doing funny things and put them on the site.
The Manchester link has made me think about moving back up north. I’ve already added a number of Manchester-based Essio people on Twitter and I hope they’ll give me some great advice. Apparently there was even an Essio barbeque this week where people printed out Google pages and ate them! Haha just a joke! 
Must say “Ciao” for now. I have a Tomato Cappucino waiting and I’m ready to turn ‘Essio’ into ‘Yessio’!!
Dragons’ Den episode 2: The Dragonning!
July 22nd, 2010Dragons’ Den last night was an absolute barnstormer. It was literally The Wire of Dragon’s Den, with a bit of Family Guy thrown in for a laugh. I had a feeling it would be, which is why I gave Lucy £20 and asked her to go out for a drink somewhere while it was on.
I had a double agenda here, as I wanted Anya to watch the show with me so she could learn about how business really works. She loved it! Although there was confusion when Deborah Meaden said: “The fact that the washing line doesn’t spin has never entered anyone’s vocabulary ever.” It sent poor Anya rifling through her vocabulary notes for confirmation!
However, the old cockney man gave me an idea for a present for Lucy (she’s still waiting on a proper birthday present, but she knows I’ve been busy in the Office Depot.)…
Other notes:
- I must admit I felt a little uneasy when I saw Theo and Duncan arguing over a daft mini-submarine.
£1.5m for a toy boat? Not on my (business) watch!
- When the camera does that sweeping shot I feel like I’m combing Peter Jones’ hair and it’s beautiful. That man is 7ft 3 of cash.
- The wheelie bin fridge. What do you do if you’re having an item delivered to your house but you’re not in? Simple. Get your girlfriend to skip her Anatomy exam for you. If she loves you, she’ll do it.
Overall, a brilliant episode. I give it 5/5!
Anya slept in the kitchen again, and Lucy wasn’t too pleased when she came back later on. I explained to Lucy that it was a bit out of order to have a go at me when I’d given her £20 to go out on her own for the night. Anyway, she saw my side and offered Anya her side of our bed for the night. Anya refused, probably because (drunk) Lucy is very loud when she makes these offers to the women I have staying over.
Big day tomorrow, and I’ve got some big news in the pipeline, so stay tuned to my Twitter @GaryVine
Dragon’s Den is back!
July 19th, 2010Dragon’s Den is back on the air! Get in! Back of a net! I enjoy nothing better than coming home after a hard day’s work, kicking off my shoes, telling Lucy to spend the night at her mum’s and cracking off a cold bottle watching Dragon’s Den. I can honestly say it’s the best programme about inventions since any feminist documentary ever!
Only joking, ladies! Lucy’s into all that stuff, but I don’t really understand it personally. Why burn a bra? Why not just wear it or, even better, recycle it? Feminists obviously don’t care too much about the environment…
Two people who do care about the planet are my boys Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones. They invested £65,000 in a dairy-free alternative to ice cream, which proves their humanitarian side I think.
Straight away, I was on the phone to Anya and told her to get going on the latest idea for Gary Vine Associates – dairy-free cows. Think about it, if we can somehow breed cows that give out dairy-free milk, we cut out the middle-man and can make a fortune with … Dairy-free leather jackets. You heard it here first.
Other than that it was another enjoyable episode. I particularly liked Bannatyne’s shirt, which just screamed ‘BUSINESS’. My shirts don’t scream that, although I do have some electronic business cards from a long-forgotten venture which do literally scream “BUSINESS!”. They were huge among the partially-sighted, and if it wasn’t for that lawsuit from the Japanese I’d be living on a yacht somewhere drinking Pimms with Mel Gibson. R.I.P. Shake ‘n’ Shout!.
The rest of my weekend was spent, as you may have guessed by my jovial tone today, playing and winning at the online casino. I have a new strategy which involves me ringing up Anya in the middle of the night and asking for a roulette number. She shouts religious-sounding stuff in her crazy foreign language for a bit, then hits me with a winner. I really struck gold with that girl.
Ciao!
Lucy’s birthday
July 7th, 2010Lucy’s birthday was a great day for everyone – especially me! I woke up early to make myself a cup of hot chai tea with extra hot and then waited for her to come downstairs. When she did, she walked into the kitchen to find 100,000 ‘Gary Vine Associates – Advice For Life’ business cards scattered all over the floor. She was shocked. “I didn’t just get you one birthday card, babe!” I said as I went back upstairs for a sleep.
By the time I’d woken up again it was time for her next present. I came downstairs and the lovely little thing had made me breakfast – egg on cold toast. Ten minutes later I was eating egg on hot toast and really appreciating the wonderful girlfriend I have. I have never once regretted meeting her at that Castaway audition.
It took my little SME Of Joy a few minutes to work out her next present, but once I explained to her the benefits of an SDSL line at home she was really interested in how exactly I thought it was a good present. I told her that and she went upstairs for a lie-down, clearly overwhelmed by my generosity!
Next I had to do some quick business so I rang Anya and told her to engage some clients wherever she was at that moment in time. Needless to say, Gary Vine Associates may soon be entering into an agreement with the Lithuanian Methodist Church. Eat that, competitors!
For dinner, I took the apple of both my eyes for dinner to her favourite restaurant: Chez Gary Vine. We had a lovely frozen pizza made by some kind of doctor (so it must be good!) and then some ice cream left over from Valentine’s Day.
She then went to bed and I watched my Top Gear DVD. There were some really great cars.
Ciao!
Soliciting help
June 25th, 2010Looking for a new solicitor is proving to be hard work. I don’t so much need someone who understands business news as much as I need someone who understands how I work, you know? Vine’s Law. He needs to understand why (if not ‘how’) I can write a two-page business report while doing 500 squats (simple: balance).
You see, the thing with a lot of these ’straight-down-the-line’ business types is that they don’t know how to bend the rules to fit the mould outside the box, you know? I like to take three-hour lunches (11am until 2pm) because it helps me relax my mind and eat. I also go home at 4pm and take my work home with me. I need someone who understands that this means I’m taking second lunch and won’t be home until at least 8pm.
Similarly, I need someone who will call Lucy for me from the office when I’m too tired to even speak from all the business I’ve been doing. I can’t get Anya to do everything!
The office is coming along nicely, in that Anya is constantly looking at office listings and putting rings around the ones she thinks I’d like. She’s a really hard worker and last night I generously offered her our floor rather than have her go back home. It was 11pm, and you should’ve seen Lucy’s face when I told her in bed later on! She is always so amazed by my generosity!
Any place we end up renting (buying is for squares!) will need to be air-conditioned and have a leased line installed so I can stick on YouTube whenever the workload is getting too much. Actually there’s a thought – an e-mail advice service where we advise people to forget about their life problems by sending them a YouTube clip to watch!
Always thinking!
Business Plan
June 22nd, 2010I spent all of last night on the Gary Vine Associates business plan. It’s tricky, nailing down my vision when it isn’t really a word thing – more of a feeling. Still, I did managed to cobble something together in the early hours; a rough idea of where I want the business to go in the coming months. Basically, I want to start the business, then let it grow, then get massive. I find that in business it’s the simple plans that work best.
This morning I faxed over the plan to my solicitor, then waited around and rang him two hours later. Turns out he doesn’t have a fax machine, which put me on the back foot. Who in business does not have a fax machine? Next he’ll be telling me the 300,000 pagers I’m looking at buying in bulk are a waste of time.
Anyway, I persisted with my solicitor, let’s call him A. Layman, and told him about my plan. The good thing about my plan using my Polycom Soundstation 2. What’s really great about this is that I can walk around the flat while outlining my proposals, helping me keep on top of my mind and my body as I go. There was one awkward moment when Layman asked what the grunting noise was in the background, but I explained it was just Anya putting together the desk I had bought her the wood for. Turns out her great grandfather was a carpenter!
To be honest, I found dealing with Layman frustrating. The man is obviously not operating on my level. He’s all ‘emails and under-budget’ whereas I’m more of a ballsy ‘let’s Branson the hell out of this’ kind of guy. Then I found out he drives a Ford KA – not on my watch, buddy. Not on my watch.
So, I’m now in the market for a new solicitor! Any interested parties should feel free to get in touch. I’m a good guy to work for – just a small town dude with a big city attitude.
Master Inspirer of Dreams
June 18th, 2010I was sat in Starbucks one day later, drinking my coffee like nobody’s business. It was quarter past two which, according to a book I’d read by Richard Branson, was approaching the optimum time to do business. Then my first interviewee of the day walked in.
Straight away I knew there was no way Richard Hat was suitable for Gary Vine Associates. What was he going to give people advice on? Names? No. He was wearing a shirt I’d seen reduce in Burton Menswear and had a phone that looked like it was still excited by Bluetooth technology. He sat down and offered to shake my hand. No. In The Art of (business) War, the master Ciáo Bentos says you should never take the hand of somebody you don’t respect.
Richard Hat sat down and tried to speak to me. No dice. I stared at him until he left. I know about business – I’ve watched Madmen. I am Alan Sugars.
I had interviewed seven lessers before the employee who fit my business perfectly walked in. She was short, stocky, and had hair like a fire in a bush of hens. Her name was Anya and she bowed when she introduced herself. Here was an employee I could respect.
We spoke for only two minutes as her English was limited, but she had all the necessary ingredients required to be my secretary, namely a poor background and a strong back. I realised that it would be better for business if I kept Anya away from the public-facing side of Gary Vine Associates. Asking her to give advice to someone would be like asking a dog about Maths: you’re left with nothing but a dog.
I left Starbucks with a spring in my step and a Rocky Road and Bacon Quiche in my hand. I got home to find that Lucy had gone to her mother’s for a few days to “think about things”. Probably her next exam.
The Interviewer
June 15th, 2010Today was my first day conducting interviews for the position of secretary at Gary Vine Associates. I was pretty nervous about doing them and stayed up with Lucy all night watching videos of The Apprentice so I could study exactly how big business works.
Lucy started drifting off at about 2am but every time she did I turned the volume up on the TV a little more – did the trick! So this morning I woke up having had about three hours sleep, but with the wisdom of a cockney-wideboy-cum-good ringing in my eyes. “I am Amstrad!” I shouted at Lucy and she awoke with a start. She needed to be up for her nursing exam anyway. What a great boyfriend she has!
I did the decent thing and gave Lucy her bus fare as she was running late and couldn’t find her car keys. I needed to stay in and work on my interviewer technique alone. I think Lucy realised this, and spoke only to herself under her breath as she left the house.
My seventh latte was now inside me as I stared into the mirror. “You’re the man, Gary! You are Alan Sugars!” Then I pointed at myself, and imagined the trembling face of an incompetent employee after tripping the SDSL connection or forgetting my bagel at 11sies. “You’re sacked!”
I took Lucy’s car keys out of my pocket and headed to the door. I sped like a madman through the streets because business waits for no man, feeling that today it might just make an exception for Gary Vine. Before long I was at the office, and asked the Starbucks waitress for a black coffee with extra milk. I pulled up a pew and got my Blackberry out – tweeted that I was about to interview the hell out of some guys. Then I checked my diary and realised that the interviews were scheduled for tomorrow.
Between revising and working 12-hour shifts, Lucy must’ve messed up my diary somehow…
Business tips – youtube stylee
June 11th, 2010Just putting the final touches to my Business Plan for Gary Vine Associates. My solictor wants it in by next week, which is a little harsh considering the World Cup is on and I’ve just bought the Band of Brothers box set. So I’ve just put together a document with a load of YouTube videos in. Ones like this…
