Last week I started my website because I wanted a forum to share my experiences and passion for people, leadership and inspiration with anyone willing to listen. Why I think it will be effective, I don’t even know – I’m 99% passion, 1% writer and editor. Hell, even something as simple as WordPress Editor escapes me most of the time.
I originally read “The Thank You Economy” to review it so I could create “content” for my website so that the (literally) 8 visitors I’ve had in the last 5 days will have something new, exciting, and probably not very well written to read.
Of course, that’s assuming they choose to come back.
(please come back!)
What followed transformed from “GOTTA CREATE CONTENT!” into a journey of self discovery (sorry for the wonky, flighty, cliche), where I placed the microscope on myself and took a long, hard look at how I, my business, my peers, and employees deal with (and regard) our customers on a day to day basis.
What I learned is that my business doesn’t live the “Thank You Economy”, but we need to be, because we can’t afford not to. And while I am just a small cog in large machine where I work, this book, and subsequently, Gary’s videos and lectures, have motivated me to do everything I can to incorporate TYE into it, and this website.
With my most heartfelt and sincere “Thank you” to Gary, I will now allow my 8 readers to get on with their regularly scheduled Book Review…
The Thank You Economy
In The Thank You Economy, Gary stresses the absolute importance of social media integration for businesses of all sizes in order to connect “one-on-one” with their customers.
“The Thank You Economy” refers to making genuine emotional, financial and “human” investments in your customers.
“Caring your face off”, as Gary puts it, converts customers into “advocates” for your business; these are the people most likely to rave about your products or services through word of mouth, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.
From the Book:
- Advocates’ share of wallet is 33% larger than customers who aren’t advocates.
- Advocates spend 30% more dollars with their favorite online retailers than non-advocates do.
- Advocates stick around longer, proving themselves less likely than other customers to switch to a competitor even if it offers similar products at similar prices.
- Advocates have significantly higher value than regular customers, for not only do they spend more now, they are more likely to keep spending, and even increase their spending, as time goes on.
However, Gary makes it clear that intent is the most important part of any business, and your intent should be to create an amazing experience for the “end user” of your product or service.
Following this simple rule places you light years ahead of your competition who may either not yet be engaged in social media marketing, or who may be using social media improperly. For example, companies who only use Twitter as a vehicle for advertisements, instead of using it to maintain a “dialogue” with their customers are not embracing the “The Thank You Economy”.
Gary passionately promotes the “humanization” of business and posits that companies who are able to create “context” by changing the way customers can interact with their favorite businesses will thrive; the rest will crumble.
Gary’s Twitter feed is living proof of this concept. If you look at the Twitter feeds of most large companies, they read like a series of advertisement; Gary’s reads like a conversation as he takes great care to reply to customer comments, concerns, and suggestions.
Taken one hour ago from Gary’s Twitter:
@garyvee Gary Vaynerchuk
Hope everyone has an amazing day – seriously – We are down right lucky to be Humans, we could have been friggin rocks, I am so pumped !
This is a man with a $60 million dollar a year business and nearly a million Twitter followers.
While I found myself fully buying into his vision for customer engagement, where Gary really sold me was on the following quote:
“I care more about my employees than I do about my customers, and I care more about my customers than I do about breathing”.
While this would normally register as gratuitous lip service, anyone who has seen Gary’s lectures know he is the real deal.
Overall, I enjoyed “The Thank you Economy” and recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the impact of what a successful social media presence can have on their business.
While performing research for this review, I came across many of Gary’s videos online. Five hours of Gary V’s videos later, I found myself still watching them, absolutely captivated by his down to earth style and genuine passion for people and business.
One of my favorites from Gary