Business
Gary Vaynerchuk – The Thank You Economy
The month of March has been great for new books in my office, I love social business books, and I like this one, Gary has a special way of saying what’s on his mind and what he sees. CRUSH IT was just a sampling of what’s yet to come out of Gary, he describes his first book as his Keynote(s), and this second book is his consulting. This book is packed with example after example, be sure to pay attention while reading.
I finished the book today, I am full, this book has more to digest than CRUSH IT, more to think about, and it makes you look at your own business again and again. The book grabbed me right from the first paragraph, why, I’m older and remember small town thinking, maybe you do to. Everyone knew each other, everyone helped each other for the most part, and we watched out for each other. The neighborhood watch was invented back before Jesus walked the land. The first chapter has you reminiscing, Gary starts the book with, “Think back on the last time someone did something nice for you.”
That opening sentence really sets the tone for the rest of the book, I’m sure that’s no accident, he touches the nerve-endings that make you remember back to a better day. A couple paragraphs jumped out at me, ironically, near the end of the book, but I enjoyed the book from beginning to end.
Gary says, “the biggest disconnect for business leaders is in their understanding of how they should treat customers they meet face-to-face, and how they should treat the ones they meet through their computers, iPad, iPhone and what have you, there should be no difference.” He’s right of course, I’ve always said, Social Media is not new, it’s just gone digital, so your off-line conversations have merely moved to the Internet.
Later on he makes another interesting statement, “companies that soar in 2011 and beyond are those that will figure out a way to balance the short-term demands of what wall street or investors with the long-term demands of The Thank You Economy.” Think about that for a moment, maybe read it again.
I loved his few words on how fear blocks innovation:
“It’s becoming more unusual for a big consumer brand to really innovate and create a great product. Vitamin Water didn’t come from Coke; Pom didn’t come from Pepsi. Too many companies get stuck in the muck of their own fear and short-term concerns, which prohibits them from taking risks and following through on great, creative thinking. They’re too wrapped up in meetings and procedure and stock value, or worst of all, the politics of keeping their jobs, whereas smaller, scrappier companies are often still ruled by passion and have the freedom to experiment.” WOW! I couldn’t say this better!
On page 228 he lists the biggest mistakes companies make with social media, keep in mind this what most companies and individuals do in my humble opinion, here is Gary’s list:
1.) Using tactics instead of strategy
2.) Using it exclusively to put out fires
3.) Using it to brag
4.) Using it as press release
5.) Exclusively re-tweeting other people’s material rather than creating your own content
6.) Using it to push product
7.) Expecting immediate results
I’m not going to add much here, I can’t improve upon anything Gary shares in his book(s). As a futurist, I see much of what Gary claims, and some things he doesn’t, in the end we are shouting from the roof tops to pay attention to what’s going on in the world of business. Great book Gary, thanks for being who you are.
I hope you enjoy the book, if you don’t have it, you can buy The Thank You Economy right here.
Gary’s point is this, The Thank You Economy is about the life-time value of a customer, brands / businesses need to be human, period.
Tell me, did you like the book, and what was the best part for you?
The Future Of Business – Turn Your Business Into A Platform
This idea of platforms has been talked about for years now, new start-ups are popping up everywhere, many are trying to convert and become a useful platform. Why a platform? The business of the future needs to become a destination and useful, a place where people can come together and do something useful. People always return to things and places that are useful to them.
The best example of a platform to date is Google, they provide an environment where you can run your entire business. That in itself is very useful. Crisis mappers wasted no time responding: In under 2.5 hours Google launched its person finder application, which was also used when New Zealand’s 6.3 quake. A platform can be built upon and used, think of all the things you can do at Google, problems you can solve, and dare I say it, the time you can save. Today you can view your street via Google Maps, you can get images, videos, news, books, you can use Gmail for your primary email service, you can use Blogger to put your content on the NET, you can translate the language of a site. Google provides all these tools at no charge to you, an open & free business model to the extreme, it’s what the cloud is meant to be.
If you have a platform, you will need developers and other entrepreneurs to build on it, creating more functionality which brings more users. FaceBook did that. Networks are built upon platforms, the Internet is a platform, services like Flickr, WordPress, PayPal, self-publishing company LuLu.com, and business software Salesforce.com.
Google as I mentioned above is not just one platform but multiple platforms, multiple ways of using Google, multiple ways to build upon what Google has built and provides to you for free. What is a platform, platforms help users create products, businesses, communities, and networks of thier own. If it’s open and collaborative, those users may add value to platforms.
Questions to ask yourself: How can you or your business act as a platform? What can others build on top of it? How can you add value? How little value can you extract? How big can the network grow atop your platform? How can the platform get better learning from it’s users? How can you create an open standard so competitors will use and even contribute to the network and you get a share of thier value? It’s time to make your business a platform. It’s time to make your business mobile.
As you can see by the list of questions there is much to consider, pull together a team to begin the process of building you platform. If you are looking for help in creating ideas to adopt the future of business, stay here, I will be continually be posting concepts and ideas for you to build upon, or, just e-mail me.
The Future of Business – The Leader of Tomorrow
You don’t have to look far to find a book, a seminar or a website on how to be a leader, what a leader is, and what they even look like. The truth is, the list of characteristics of a leader in the future is actually quite short. As business becomes more and more human, so is the leader believe it or not.
I’m willing to bet that special person in your life, that person that influences you or gets your respect is not your boss. Most bosses have a problem with power and authority, they don’t know how to use it, they are truly bad at valuing people. They typically have a superiority complex, they are authorities on everything, it’s their way or the highway, there’s no compromise. I know you have a boss like that or you know someone like I just mentioned. There is good news though, business leaders are changing, if not today, they will be in the near future.
The leader of the future listens to whats going on, they realize it’s not about them, the also understand the Internet is not an echo chamber. They know the value of people, the conversation, they understand it’s first the fan (follower), then the customer, they know how to grow bigger ears. They have a good idea where the world is going, they understand brands have to be likeable and loveable in order to win in the digital marketplace. They also understand brands need to be human.
Making business human is the strong suit of the leader in the future, they know a brand is is a voice, a product is a souvenier, and that everyone brings value to the table, that the voice of the follower, the fan, and every person that visits their business is precious. The leader of the future knows that Social Media networks are the 1st listening platform to invest time in. That today online and offline are no longer different places, everything is being integrated to be social and mobile.
But the genuine authentic leader has 4 qualities:
1.) They Care on every level.
2.) They Believe in you – they want to be with dream makers, not dream killers.
3.) They are Fair, and they don’t play favorites.
4.) They expect Excellence at all time.
What are your 4 qualities the leader of tomorrow should have, what does your list look like?
If you had the opportunity to talk at TED, what would your speech be about and why?
In a group called TED Ideas Worth Spreading, a discussion on LinkedIn with Andrew Oduro Ayim, he asked an interesting question, If you had the opportunity to talk at TED, what would your speech be about and why?
I responded as short as I could:
I would share my passion as often as I can, for as long as I can, and I’m sharing that passion at The World Futurist Society Conference in July 2011 on The Future of Business – The Open & Free Business Model. It’s not what we do, it’s not a skill-set, it’s about how we think, it’s how business really is in our world. A world where Access trumps Ownership, a world where generations yet to come will and do not value ownership of home, ownership of car, they value life-style not a work-style.
Business owners still don’t even know what Social Media can do for them in my area, we are in for a world of hurt, the paradigm shift from closed to open is too painful.
What would you talk about?
The Future of Business – Don’t Sell, Just Engage
You’ve either heard me say it, or you have read it here many times, ” The Future of Business is not a skill set, it’s more about how we think”. For some reason business owners always end up at tactics, they come back to the ground level and try to do what they have always done. A great example is the Old Spice Campaign, they went out and created an amazing series of commercials, ran them and missed out on the most important part. Engaging with the audience! Instead they went right to tactics to get more views and more followers instead of actually talking to their audience. They really missed the boat here, they blew it big time. What happened, it became just another advertising campaign that was clever and amusing.
We are entering a huge crisis for business owners, it gets more urgent the longer you wait to educate yourself on how business really is today, and will be tomorrow. Part of the challenge is in the business owners head, they believe they know what is happening, and they don’t want to look foolish either, so they plod along not asking for help.
With everything going mobile and social, more and more to tiny screens, some on larger surfaces, we are moving away from what we have always done. We used to be people of the book, now we are people of the screen (a Kevin Kelly quote). In fact, Kevin wrote a bitty on 6 trends:
1.) Screening
2.) Interacting
3.) Sharing
4.) Accessing
5.) Flowing
6.) Generating
I’ll let Kevin Kelly fill you in on the details of these 6 trends, which he wrote about in 2008, I’m just going to touch on a couple.
Everything is flowing now, it’s endless rivers of content, endless streams. Business today is shifting and flowing from one thing to another. We are going from pages to streams, the PC to the cloud, from Today to NOW (real-time streams), from me to we, from items to data. Gerd Leonhard claims Data is the new Oil, how we harness that data can determine much of our success in the marketplaces. Today, everything generates a stream everywhere. Gary Vaynerchuk calls it our legacy, the trail of digital crumbs that we publish on the Internet is how people will remember us.
Ultimately, our business world online is shifting to a very uncomfortable place, we live in a world where everything is moving to free, or feels like free. Someday soon, like music, all books will eventually be $0.99, and will stay in long tail for many years, generating longer cash-flow. We have been moving to where the only things of value are things that can’t be copied. Business owners need to realize, where ever the attention flows, money will follow.
The psychology of tomorrows entrepreneurs is simple, they want lifestyle not work-style, they will look for ways to get attention, this attention will provide the lifestyle many of us have worked for 30 years to get. They will do it in months instead of years. These entrepreneurs don’t value ownership, ownership of home, ownership of car, they are for more willing to rent, the shift from ownership to rental, where access is better than ownership. The likes of Netflix and services of that nature are driving this new theology. It’s not skill set, it’s how we think, we need to pay attention, listen more, and we have to build things that can’t be copied, like Trust. How do you build trust, get to know your audience, interact and build relationships. Don’t sell, just engage.