You can call me a mean guy, because I rarely buy books as much as for the reason I have put miserly less priority on reading books of my monthly free time, if there’s any such thing called “free time”. As you can imagine, books have been replaced in my life by more than 50 blogs delivered via RSS everyday. I have stumbled upon one of such blog posts and come to know about Gary Vaynerchuk’s The Thank You Economy. I have quickly read the review on Amazon, decided to purchase the book and discovered myself reading it on my Kindle immediately. Gary consumed me for straight 2 days by his amazingly addictive write up. Most interestingly it took me by surprise, many of the concepts described in this book, I have been following lately in my personal life, without even being aware.

I was never a big fan of Gary, and one of the reasons was he talks with too much enthusiasm, almost like a show-off, to provoke my suspicion that he is trying to acquire me by the material he is trying to deliver. And what sort of Software guy will hear lecture on Social Media from a Wine seller anyway? Now that I have read his first book for me, I know this guy put substantial amount of time thinking about the philosophy behind human nature, business, social media and how business is moving forward using social media and satisfying age-old static human nature. All my skepticism is gone by now, because no matter how technologically sound you are, social media is about people, and nobody understands better than a business guy whose only passion in life is pursuing incredibly happy customers.

I was becoming more skeptical by his almost show-off enthusiasm about social media (or you can say about everything!), as I had been progressing through the book. But behold, he is aware of the fact that I am not yet ready to accept his too much passion for what he does, and what a great disclaimer that was in “Why I Speak in Absolutes:”

I’d rather shock you in paying attention, and admit later that business rarely requires an all-or-nothing approach than take the chance that you won’t take the situation seriously enough.

He wants to give us an inch, so that we can run a mile with it as he claims. 

The Bottom-line aka. Preface

Couple of points (mostly action items) that I have made out of this book, should be helpful for me in future as well. In his introduction he laid out two simple criteria for success in highly customer-focused businesses:

First step to liking something or someone is getting to know about that thing or person well. Hence, a conversation about the product or with the person is required to happen. Communication makes people happy, because it allows them to know about the thing that you want them to like about. This is where social media enters empowered by people’s chatty nature. Current businesses meanwhile, are changing themselves to take advantage of the social media thing. And this books tells us the philosophy, dos and donts.

Chapter 1: How Everything Has Changed, Except Human Nature

I am not associated with an underworld group, but I like a few concepts of Mafia. Make your customers so happy that they automatically owe something to you, and ready to return the favor like right now – it could be even by word of mouth or refer your products to their friends. A good business should expose its heart and soul, then people will respond. In one sentence: in order to be cared by your customers, you have to care them first. As he says:

Deliver shock and awe to your customers without investing a lot of money, just a whole lot of heart.

What is this social media driven Thank You Economy anyway? That is genuinely treating each customer as the most valued customer in the world.

We’re living in what I like to call the Thank You Economy, because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way—and do it authentically—are going to have a prayer of competing.

Care everyone. The tiniest customer of yours might be spending elsewhere, which could be yours in time.

Chapter 2: Erasing Lines in the Sand

A bit of historic essay why businesses should get rid of the resistance in adopting the new way of doing business.

Chapter 3: Why Smart People Dismiss Social Media, and Why They Shouldn’t

He, then goes over 11 myths that he frequently encounters with by the execs he meets.

Myth 1: There’s no ROI in social media

  – turn customers into advocates, because people tend to buy things that are mostly recommended by F&F.

Myth 2: The metrics aren’t reliable

  – SEO, Analytics, targeted Facebook Ads, Impressions.

Myth 3: Social Media is still too young

  – the right time to start building relationships is right now, because Social Media will grow old.

Myth 4: Social media is just another trend that will pass

  – it’s like jumping to a new car, so jump along with them; the relationships will not evaporate.

Myth 5: We need to control our message
  – You can fix anything unless you’re doing something grossly wrong. As long as you’re keeping your communications civil and honest, there’s no point in worrying about controlling the message and image going out there on your behalf.

Myth 6: I don’t have time to keep track of what every Joe or Jane says, and I can’t afford/don’t want to pay someone else to do it

  – the issue here is, you simply cannot afford not to! Your big spenders and casual browsers are all living in the same ecosystem, one where news of how you treat one customer can easily spread to hundreds of other current and even potential ones. That’s a big, big deal.

Myth 7: We’re doing fine without it

  – if you are fine by it. So be it. You do not deserve to stay relevant anyway. A competitive company is always on the offense. Always. Always. Always.

Myth 8: We tried it; it doesn’t work

  – it requires tons of patience.

Myth 9: The legal issues are too thorny

  – varies by industry verticals.

Myth 10: It takes too long to pay off

– it’s a marathon, you can’t win it without much patience and determination

Myth 11: Social media works only for startup, life style, or tech brands

– works for any entity as long as you care your customers

Buy it now!

In Chapter 4 and onwards there are whole lot of real life, granular level and fascinating examples from Amazon, Zappos, Boloco, etc. many big brands and gives a detailed framework on how exactly you can put the theories in action. But, that’s it for the review. The rest you should discover by yourself reading it. This book is a goldmine for anyone who wants to succeed in B2C. Worth every penny!