With over 700 front-page covers around the globe President Obama
without a doubt has increased the scrutiny on his performance 10 fold. Many are expecting him to not only rescue a Nation, but potentially…the world. Ever an optimist, I firmly believe he just may be the man to do it and I’m rooting for him and the United States of America as well.
A few states over
, a similar, albeit lesser transformation has taken shape in New Jersey with well known Vlogger and “Triple Z list Celebrity” Gary Vaynerchuk as well. His cult like following (myself included) have positioned him to essentially do no wrong - and for good reason. His vlog posts on his personal website (garyvaynerchuck.com) are waited for with baited breath with all of the “Vayner Nation” RT’ing and commenting the second they appear. All of this, thanks to his energy, passion and CARING for his community, friends, family and well…fans. So with that being said, let’s piece together how all of this relates to customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and his recent notoriety, which has garnered NATIONAL media attention.
Breaking It Down Point #1 - Free Knowledge FTW!
In the quest to obtain and close business many forget that the relationship begins much before the ink hits the paper and you ask to “press hard 3rd copy is yours” on the contract. The best way to generate referrals, word of mouth and leads starts with offering something for free that people can resonate with. GaryVee has mastered this craft by throwing knowledge to his “Vayner-Nation” that they can thereby leverage in their daily lives. In fact he goes as far in a recent post to say “Nothing would make me happier in the word, that if you never watched a garyvaynerchuk.com video again..and you listened to yourself” suggesting that people follow their intuition. Salient points and there are plenty that he regularly pumps out, for free.
Breaking It Down Point #2 - Community Engagement
Recently Gary’s social media platform Cork’d was, well…uncork’d (see what I did there? - I slay me!) Anyhow it was unfortunately hacked. He immediately chimed in via video comment through the popular Seesmic platform and apologized publicly. By doing this, he did what many people cannot understand how fundamental it was to protecting his user base and community. The near real time engagement let people know he was on it and sorry. This is the true essence of today’s form of customer satisfaction with our now expectation economy of “I want it my way, on my terms, and on my time” Nothing prevents attrition like engaging proactively and fixing any issue before a spark of defection becomes a burning brush fire.
Breaking It Down Point #3 - Brand Thyself & They Will Come
Gary has mastered the art of his personal brands to a point that the naked eye can’t see.
Sheer Brilliance Example #1: He regularly engages his community via twitter, but requests that people don’t DM as he rarely checks them - Sheer brilliance. Perhaps it’s due to his hectic
schedule, but more likely because people regularly send tweets out by way of an “@garyvee” which forces his personal brand into everyone’s twitter stream - thousands of impressions seen daily I’m sure.
Sheer Brilliance Example #2 - His Brand is Everywhere
Gary has done a fantastic job with his branding by including it in any place he can. From his Viddler player
used for his vlog’s, on his social networking site Cork’d to his twitterback on his twitter profile he has done what most forget or simply do not think to do. He’s staying consistent across all mediums that he can and has woven a web of branding that is both catchy and sticky to his brand, therby giving him the eyeballs in the places that matter.
Sheer Brilliance Example #3 - Community & Caring
The saying “perception is reality” couldn’t be more bang on with large corporations and their customer loyalty levels. Many people perceive that companies simply don’t care and use this as the fuel to spread negative expressions of a brand throughout their personal communities. Gary continually puts out the message he genuinely cares abut his community, family and friends. Although this is merely the first step in the process, he routinely asks his followers for feedback and chimes in when appropriate to ensure he maintains the highest level of visibility to his community. This is precisely why, his following and popularity is growing day by day and it’s no different then the message we are instilling in the large corporations we deal with on a daily basis. Our motto of Real Time. Actionable. Intelligence is the fundamental principal in attating the highest form of Customer satisfaction, CUSTOMER LOYALTY. Gary has mastered this, cognizant of the fact or not and is living proof of the success it yields.
Conclusion:
Like President Obama, Gary has positioned himself to continue his rise in massive popularity by caring for his community, strategic marketing and walking the walk, not the talk. He has poised himself for success and should he continue his business practices of ensuring the utmost in customer satisfaction; his customer loyalty will remain at the highest benchmark levels. Finally, as a betting man, I actually might take the bet GaryVee just might be able to turn water into WINE - Keep crushing it.
