Thank You Economy — Summary

by

On several occasions Gary mentioned that the Thank You Economy is is most underrated book. I agree, Gary too — guessing from his retweet 😄

This book breaks marketing down to an essential principle like no other I’ve read. Caring about your customer. Let’s start with a few of my favorite quotes.

How do people decide they like each other? They talk. They exchange ideas. They listen to each other. And eventually, a relationship forms. The process is no different for building relationships with customers. If your organization’s intentions transcend the mere act of selling a product or service, and it is brave enough to expose its heart and soul, people will respond. They will connect. They will like you. They will talk. They will buy.

…

The thing is, people don’t talk about things they don’t care about. So it’s up to you to make them care, which means you have to care first.

At its core, social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. They’re going to have to take the long view and stop using short-term benchmarks to gauge their progress. They’re going to have to allow the personality, heart, and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show. And they’re going to have to do their damndest to shape the word of mouth that circulates about them by treating each customer as though he or she were the most important customer in the world.

Reading about how social media brought back the power to customers and that caring about them is really the only good long-term marketing strategy was such an eye opener for me.

To give you a glimpse of how Gary communicates this, he talks about how in the old days, businesses had close relationships with their customers. Then when highways and cars became common, giant shopping centers became the norm. People had the benefit of cheaper prices and more selection, but lost the close relationships to the business. Big businesses had all the leverage because customers couldn’t effectively express themselves. Then came the internet and social media.

Social media enabled customers to express their frustration. For instance one viral video could mean bad news for careless businesses. Businesses have to start listening to their customers again because they now have the leverage thanks to social media.

Now, people expect you to give a damn about them. Not only that, they expect you to prove it. And the only way to prove it is to listen, engage, give them what they want when you can, and, when you can’t, give them an honest answer why. They just want to be heard and taken seriously. That’s all.

If there are any shortcomings in your brand or product, they might be starkly revealed once you start implementing social media correctly. Don’t let this possibility stop you. Listen to your customers’ suggestions and complaints (as well as their praise), and take the opportunity to fix the problem; then use social media to show the world how you’ve changed and improved.

It’s not the numbers

It’s not the number of followers you have or “likes” you get, it’s the strength of your bond with your followers that indicates how much anyone cares about what you have to say. In this game, the one with the most real relationships wins.

Focusing on the numbers is a bad north if you want to focus on the customer if you think about it. How do you feel if a company treats you as one more customer instead of an individual person with individual needs and interests?

It is true that you need to use social media because otherwise your competitors will get ahead of you. Yet how we speak and behave when we’re going through the motions of caring is vastly different from how we speak and behave when we care from the bottom of our hearts. Our intent affects the force of our actions, so if a leader has simply got a case of monkey see, monkey do (where people throw themselves and their companies into social media solely because their competitor is doing it) and her intent isn’t to infuse every aspect of her business with Thank You Economy principles, of course she’ll never reap the full benefits. She’s like a competitive swimmer who hangs around the edge of the pool for a month, carefully dipping her toes and analyzing the water, and who then complains that her swim times aren’t improving.

… if the only reason you’re on YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, or any other vibrant online community, is because you’re trying to attract more followers and fans than the other guy so you can market your message to that user base, you’re playing the wrong game and you’re going to lose. If your view of social media is so tunnel-visioned that all you care about are the number of fans or retweets or views you’re garnering, you’re missing the whole point. Success in social media, and business in general, in the Thank You Economy will always have to be measured with an eye toward both quality and quantity. You can throw meaningless tactics around to increase your numbers, but even if they work and your online numbers look impressive, you won’t have gained anything of true value because you didn’t put anything of true value out there.

Care about what you do

If you’re not passionate enough about what your company does to find fuel for conversation every day, for hours on end, with as many people as possible, maybe you’re in the wrong business.

You know that old sales quote where you first have to “sell” a product to yourself before convincing anyone that it is any good? I’ve found it to be true through experience.

Being authentic

The same intent that fuels any successful social media campaign also has to be behind the day-to-day engagement a brand pursues via social networking sites. Your intent should be twofold: water as many plants as possible, and put out every fire. When you’re tending to online relationships, every engagement should be answered with emotion, from the heart. You may as well get good at it now, because very soon it will be an extremely important part of your marketing mix, and quite possibly the only approach that actually works. That does not mean you have to write a sappy love letter to everyone who praises your brand. Emotion doesn’t have to be wordy; it just has to be authentic.

Most brands use social media incorrectly

“While marketers such as Dell, Comcast, Ford and Starbucks have been, at times, clever participants on Twitter, the majority of marketers use it as a mini press release service. Only 12% of messages from marketers are directed at individual Twitter users, meaning marketers still see it as a broadcast medium rather than a conversational one.” So you see, it’s not that Twitter doesn’t work; it’s that most brands aren’t using Twitter correctly.

The Biggest Mistakes Companies Make with Social Media

  1. Using tactics instead of strategy
  2. Using it exclusively to put out fires
  3. Using it to brag
  4. Using it as a press release
  5. Exclusively re-tweeting other people’s material rather than creating your own original content
  6. Using it to push product
  7. Expecting immediate results

How to Win in the Thank You Economy, the Quick Version

  • Care—about your customers, about your employees, about your brand—with everything you’ve got.
  • Erase any lines in the sand—don’t be afraid of what’s new or unfamiliar.
  • Show up first to market whenever possible, early the rest of the time.
  • Instill a culture of caring into your business by:

Being self-aware

Mentally committing to change

Setting the tone through your words and actions

Investing in your employees

Hiring culturally compatible DNA, and spotting it within your existing team

Being authentic—whether online or offline, say what you mean, and mean what you say

Empowering your people to be forthright, creative, and generous

  • Remember that behind every B2B transaction, there is a C.
  • Speak your customers’ language.
  • Allow your customers to help you shape your brand or business, but never allow them to dictate the direction in which you take it.
  • Build a sense of community around your brand.
  • Arrange for traditional and social media to play Ping-Pong and extend every conversation.
  • Direct all of your marketing initiatives toward the emotional center, and to the creative extremes.
  • Approach social media initiatives with good intent, aiming for quality engagements, not quantity.
  • Use shock and awe to blow your customers’ minds and get them talking.
  • If you must use tactics, use “pull” tactics that remind consumers why they should care about your brand.
  • If you’re small, play like you’re big; if you’re big, play like you’re small.
  • Create a sense of community around your business or your brand.
  • Don’t be afraid to crawl before you run.