BOOK SUMMARY

WRONG

you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times. Everything has changed.

People are posting updates to Twitter, liking pictures Facebook and creating

videos on Youtube. Finally, technology is connecting everyone, and everything. A lot

has been made about the fact that media is now democratized. Every company on

the planet is on an equal playing field when it came to creating and spreading media.

So, all that is left for companies and organizations to do is to create a Twitter

account, put up a Facebook page and shoot a few Youtube videos. Right?

fI

WRONG

The smartest people among us – like Gary Vaynerchuk – are realizing that while

these tools give us the ability to reach more people than we ever thought

possible, that very thing is causing a rewriting of the rules of business. However,

this isn’t some futuristic new world we are heading for. We are heading for the

Thank You Economy, which has its roots way back in small town America.

I have a lot of love to give...

Running a business was different 50 years ago. While there was still a lot of work to do,

the pace was slower. To succeed, you needed to put relationships ahead of

transactions. If you owned a bakery during that time, it was very likely that you lived in

the same neighborhood as your customers. You probably knew the names of their

children and exactly what they were going to order even before they walked in the

door. This was the Thank You Economy. If you were the baker, you thanked your

customers with a Baker’s Dozen by throwing an extra bun in the bag without

making a big deal of it.

Creating truly real

relationships and giving

incredible service to your customers was the

game. One bad experience and the entire

town might hear about it. Giving customers

a great experience was the only way to build

a business. Your business would rise or sink

based on what your customers shared with

the rest of the neighborhood.

SWEET VAYNERCHUK’S

BOOYAH!

WINE & CAKE

that happened after the Second World War

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Ho

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Larger stores started opening which made it even harder to build personal relationships with all of your customers.

As more and m

ore people drove cars to w

orkto buy their goods, we lost

strong ties to our customers.

that we lost our way?How do w

e know

and

Today,

we put

companies

who create

a great

customer

experience

on a

pedestal

and write

books

about

them.

The service that the or Zappos have become famous for were table stakes in the old Thank You Economy.

Over the next 3-5 years, they are about to become table stakes again. In the meantime, the companies who can grasp this will be ones who will win hearts, minds, and wallet share. We are going to skip the arguments about whether or not social media is actually going to change the business world in this way. It is. Get on board or get left behind.

Like it or not, social media has created

the Thank You Economy. There is no

separating the two. Unfortunately, many

business owners look around and find

as many reasons as they possibly can to

resist moving their organization

forward. If you want to stick your head

in the sand and hope that this

revolution won’t have an impact on

your business, here are the statements

you can make...

The Blueprint

(For Being Left Behind)

Yes, however, there is one

difference between the Thank You

Economy of old and the current

Thank You Economy: first mover

advantage today is huge. Because

social media is a global

phenomenon, waiting until the field

matures is a certain death

sentence. Ask Blockbuster and

Borders how that went while they waited for the Internet to mature.

There is a lot of humming and

hawing about the validity of

metrics with social media.

However, we also know that

statistics on television viewers

suffer from the same sort of bias,

and have always been a less than

optimal way to measure customer

engagement. Don’t fall into this trap.

This one has been debated to

death. It’s true that many

organizations are having a tough

time defending the ROI of social

media over short-term intervals,

like months or quarters. Investors

and the stock market want their

returns now. However, the real

return in this medium happens

over time and comes when you create advocates for your brand. One study has shown that

customers are willing to pay 5% - 25% more for a superior customer service. Hundreds of

other studies show that the most profitable form of advertising is word-of-mouth. Social

media is the perfect tool for building both of these situations.

There is no ROI

  The metrics aren’t reliable.

  Social media is too young.

Unfortunately for you, you can’t

afford not to. The companies

building the brands that future MBA

students will learn from are

realizing that great customer

service is now their best marketing.

Take some budget from some

underperforming bucket

somewhere else in your company

and give it to the customer service team to engage in social media.

There are plenty of other reasons you might have for not participating in social media, but

the answers all lead to the same place. This shift is much bigger than the tools and social

networks you hear about in the news. This is a transformation in the way you do business.

You have never truly been in

control of the message, it just

seemed that way. Now that your

customers and the marketplace

have the ability to “talk back”, we

are starting to realize that our

elevator pitches and the untold

hours we’ve spent creating them

were a fairly poor use of our time.

Ironically, as I sit here creating this content, I am overhearing two executives wonder what

they are going to do with “that blogger and tweeter”.

Wrong. Just turn on the news and

see how governments around the

world are falling like dominos. In

large part, you have social media

to thank for that. If it can topple

dictators, it can certainly topple

your position in your industry.

Social media is another trend that will pass

  We need to control our message.

  We don’t have the time to respond

to everybody.

The Way To Win #1: Instilling the Right Culture

Although Vaynerchuk built his company and personal brand on the back

of entertaining and educational online video, he would be the first to

tell you that this isn’t the magic sauce in the Thank You Economy. The

path to victory is through caring more than the competition. However,

this isn’t something you can decree in an email or a company address,

and sit back and magically watch it all come together. There are 6

building blocks you need to implement if you want your organization to

be a lean mean, fight-for-the-customer machine.

As you’ve heard before, as a leader you are on a

stage every day. Your employees watch and

believe your actions more than your words.

Make a point of doing something that makes

your organization stand up and take notice. If

you need inspiration for this, look no further

than John Pepper, the CEO of the Boston-

based burrito chain, Boloco. Pepper makes it a

habit to respond to customer emails personally. More importantly, he does it without

corporate speak, and does it from the heart. When was the last time you responded directly

to your customers’ emails?

This doesn’t mean you have to go and steal

an insane amount of money from somebody

else’s budget in order to create a brand new

social media department at your company. But

as Gary points out, the mental commitment to

the movement can be made in a millisecond.

Make the commitment like you are burning

the ships and there is no turning back.

If you don’t feel the need to fight for your

customers, then how do you expect your

team to? Succeeding in the Thank You

Economy is hard work. If you don’t feel the

love for your customers flowing through

your veins, it’s unlikely you are going to

inspire others to do the same.

Begin  with  yourself

Commit  whole  hog

   Set  the  tone

There’s a saying that you need to love yourself

before you can love others. The same goes for

your team. You can’t expect them to create

amazing customer experiences if they aren’t

happy themselves. The great news is that most

people are seeking recognition and great work

rather than more money, which are for the

most part free to the organization. Reward the

people who share your passion for the customer, and take it on themselves to step up and

innovate in the customer experience process.

 Invest  in  your  employees

This one is simple. Most organizations create

process after process to ensure that

untrustworthy employees don’t make mistakes

that end up costing the company money or

reputation. Netflix has a interesting take on the

process it has created: the rules they create for

the company are intended to allow talented

employees get more done. Zappos takes this

same principle to its logical conclusion by

allowing their call centre employees to stay on the phone for as long as it takes to make

the customer happy. Do you have rules that stand in the way of your employees using

their best judgment to do the right thing for the customer? If so, get rid of them. If you are

fearful of doing that, you probably have the wrong people.

Trust  your  people

This word has become a cliche in the past

few years, but at its heart is an incredibly

important distinction. If your heart isn’t in it,

your customers and employees will pick up

on the BS immediately.Be  authentic

Create these building blocks in your company, and you’ll be ready for the Thank You Economy.

The Way To Win #2: Using Traditional

and social media together

Vaynerchuk

is one of the few

people in the social

media space that will

admit that social media

and traditional media

just may in fact work

well together. It’s not

that

traditional media

is a terrible investment,

it’s that traditional

media is a terrible

investment if it is too

expensive. That, Gary

says, is the problem. So,

if you can find the right

pricing, traditional

media can still give

you

a great boost.

NOT THEIn fact, Vaynerchuk used traditional media in

some instances to advertise his last book,

Crush It, in New York City. The key to doing

this well is to use the offline media to spark

and continue a discussion online. One of the

brands who did a great job of creating engagement in social

media that was originally sparked by traditional media was Old

Spice and the “Man your man could smell like” campaign. For a

short time, Old Spice and its agency connected with fans and

followers in social media by creating a large amount of custom

videos. However, after this original push, they did not continue the

conversation online, and hadn’t posted a reply to their Twitter

account in months. If you are going to use traditional media to its

fullest potential, you need to create a never ending game of ping

pong. It would probably help to start to think in terms of

movements instead of campaigns. Campaigns have a start and

an end date.

Movements do not.

SWEET VAYNERCHUK’S

If you want to get ready

for the upcoming

business revolution, you

need to look beyond the

social media tools at your

disposal, and get ready

for a shift in the way you

conduct your business.

Get your company ready for the Thank You Economy, or you might just find yourself on the wrong side of history.

CO

NC

LUSIO

N

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