Returning to a Thank You Economy: Inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk

My grandmother is better equipped for the next decade of business than I am. At least that's what entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk argues in his new book The Thank You Economy. In his latest release, Vaynerchuk discusses how small and big businesses are regressing back to an age largely unknown to my generation. Back to the small town era in which your local butcher remembers the cuts you order and your florist asks how your children are doing. We are in the nascent stages, he says, of the humanization of brands -- both big and small. Here’s an excerpt from the book's description:

Gone are the days when a blizzard of marketing dollars could be used to overwhelm the airwaves, shut out the competition, and grab customer awareness. Now customers' demands for authenticity, originality, creativity, honesty, and good intent have made it necessary for companies and brands to revert to a level of customer service rarely seen since our great-grandparents' day, when business owners often knew their customers personally, and gave them individual attention.

I’ve just returned from South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, a 5-day sensory overload of panels, parties and promotions. The keynote delivered by Vaynerchuk, known to his devotees as Gary V. or @garyvee on Twitter, was hands-down the best session I attended this year. And it wasn’t just me that felt inspired and challenged by his talk -- the entire room gave him a standing ovation. Here are my notes from the session. 

Lesson #1: The first lesson I learned from Gary V. happened before I even entered Ballroom D in the Austin Convention Center. He shook my hand -- as he did with every single person that entered the auditorium -- personally thanking me for coming to see him talk and giving me an orange wristband with the book's logo (a person, arms outstretched, heart at the center). It’s the only piece of swag I took back to Seattle with me. Gary V. was able to personally thank thousands of people in under an hour. One-on-one marketing is here, and it works. (Case-in-point: I’m purchasing his book today.) “Caring is scalable now,” he said.

Lesson #2: Business can be human. You have to truly, genuinely care about your end users -- each and every one. And relationship building doesn’t happen overnight. Work really, really hard to make every connection valuable and your business will grow because of it. Out care your competition.

Lesson #3: Do not be on the wrong side of history. “When everybody wakes up, you don’t want to be the person who supported the Blockbuster decision,” he told the crowd. Have confidence in yourself and stand up for what you believe in, and do it in a respectful way.

Lesson #4: Take your thank you outside of the context of the business. In Gary V.’s case, he was selling wine when they had a $20,000 order come in from a customer, and wanted to send a gift along with the wine order. How did they go about this? They went online, found the customer on Twitter and saw that he was a fan of a particular professional sports player. They bought a signed jersey and shipped it to him. Customer retention through individual engagement is key in The Thank You Economy.