In their new book Can’t Buy Me Like: How Authentic Customer Connections Drive Superior Results, Bob Garfield and Doug Levy note that: “This is the Relationship Era, the first period of modern commerce when your success or failure depends not on what you say, nor even on what you produce, but increasingly on who you are. And it isn’t hard to discover who you are. Just Google yourself. Take your time. It’s all there, in perpetuity.”
Here are three key observations by Garfield and Levy:
- “Millions of people will, of their own volition, announce to the world their affection for a brand. Not for a person, not for an artwork, not for a dessert but for a good or service. Congratulations. People care about you.”
- “Your brand is inextricably entwined in such relationships. If you were to type in ‘I hate Exxon,’ you’d get 2.16 million hits–not counting the ‘I hate ExxonMobil’ Facebook page. People are decreasingly listening to your messages, but that hasn’t stopped them from thinking about you and talking about you. And each of those expressions of like, dislike, ardor or disgust has an exponent attached to it, reflecting the outward ripples of social interaction.”
- “What used to happen in the privacy of your own boardroom, plants and C-suite is now extremely public and common currency on the Internet. People in glass houses shouldn’t do anything illegal, embarrassing, hypocritical, offensive, tasteless, vulgar, excessively greedy, or otherwise incorrect — especially when getting caught being honorable and constructive has such benefits. Perhaps by coincidence, but most likely not, this sudden vast availability of information corresponds with a societal megatrend of judging institutions not only on their offerings but on their conduct. Thus, for the first time in commercial history, there is not just moral value but asset value in being a mensch.”
Click the book image to read a longer excerpt from Fast Company.
