Another pretty short but interesting read that appealed to my inner economist. It is easy to relate this kind of thing to my day to day life too which is always nice. Gary is a very charismatic, outspoken guy with some cool ideas. He is all about hard work and hustle. He made it big in the wine world by going big into e commerce early then being big into the whole social media/blogging movement. He would produce a daily video where he would taste wine and cheese and give people his thoughts. His style was brash and modern which was distinctly different to the somewhat pretentious and stuffy way the wine world is normally seen as. The theory was very much along the lines of do what you love and do it with passion and do it well. Engage with people and provide value and communicate your passion and knowledge and build brand equity. Something that you can relate to when selling wine (or kites/boards) but is probably hard for many (accountants/photocopy salesmen). Since he has moved more into the business/speaking/writing/consulting side of things.
The Thank You Economy is his second book. The key here is that the world is going full circle. Many years ago, local was important. Opinions and reviews from friends and experts were important. If you wanted to know how what the best cut of meat for a certain dish was, you asked your butcher. Then we all went into the globalisation era where we wanted everything to be easy and 24/7. Marketers loved that – it was an easy sell. Now however the circle is coming back round to local. We are no longer happy with globalisation and faceless corporations. We want our local bank manager who we trust back, we dont want to speak to someone different in Bangalore everytime we call. We care about where our food comes from – locally sourced is important. We care about food miles and paying a fair price. Cost effective is no longer number one.
Relationships are now the most important thing out there and word of mouth is better than any other form of publicity. Social media is therefore a tool to help us scale relationships and have all these conversations.
