Guest Blogger Rob Jones

Today’s guest post is from marketer, blogger, and social media participant Rob Jones of BuildDirect, an online building materials company that has been engaging customers and other businesspeople on social media platforms for several years …

I’ve been involved in social media since chat rooms, newsgroups, and message boards were all the rage. At that time, the thought of bringing that kind of communication into a business sphere wasn’t thought of. But this is not necessarily because they weren’t suitable as media for commercial advantage.

In business, it used to be that there was always a distant and frightening chance that in opening up the windows and doors of “the fortress” would lead to some unspecified disaster. It was feared that some equally unspecified foothold would be lost just by being honest about what could really be offered to customers and to those in complementary industries. Championing someone else wasn’t done, never mind inviting them into a collaborative process.

But, things are changing.

Since my days of involvement in social media purely as a pastime, I’ve converged my interests in it into my job at BuildDirect, an online building materials firm in Vancouver. This has been pretty easy to do, because I find myself in a sales and marketing environment which is largely defined by openess, and by the impulse to invite rather than to protect. And what I’m finding is that the idea of forming relationships with people is being recognized more and more as the oldest sales technique there is.

What lies at the heart of this attitude? Well, I submit this. It means inviting, welcoming, cross-promoting, and encouraging each other for the sake of strengthening a community of trusted individuals. It means forming a tribe.

In this, astute business people working in this new age of technologically empowered social media are bolder. They are more confident, because transparency in business is no longer terrifying when you’re in community with those who are known and trusted. Business relationships are stronger, and sales are more easily won.

The reason we’ve always formed community as a people and as a species is because we’re looking to create situations where everyone wins, whether it’s in making more sales, or hunting woolly mammoths to feed us and keep us warm. Of course, competition is yet another primal force not to be discounted among people. But, I argue that competitive advantage rests on how strong one’s connections to others are, not on how well protected one’s resources happen to be.

And to make the point again; forming relationships with individuals, and forming community with groups of them, is the oldest sales technique there is. The act of building trust and throwing in one’s lot with others of common goals and values predates the Internet. It predates the industrial revolution. It predates nearly everything. Coming together and forming tribes with those with whom we have things in common is the oldest instinct we’ve got. And standing off on one’s own, with high walls around our assets runs contrary to that.

Social media helps us to get back to where we need to be in this respect. It demands a change in attitude. But, it’s not a new attitude.

5 Comments

Teri Conrad
March 24, 2010

Thanks for such a great post Rob! We recognize the power in collaboration and promoting each other! Its great for business! Gone are the days when we thought there were only so many pieces of the pie and we had to get our share of it! Now we know that there’s enough pie for everyone! Sharing is where the real leverage is at!

Cheers!
Teri

Jeff Waldman
March 25, 2010

Rob,
This is music to my ears!! I agree with 99.9% of everything you said. The 0.1% is the comment around hunting woolly mammoths!! :) How FusionPoint develops business is by developing the strength of its network — not how many advertisements you release, how much money you spend on advertising, how many presentations you do…. you get the point! People are naturally draw to other people that they like, trust, resonate with and are comfortable with. Take the example of a company hiring a new employee. Candidate A and B are absolutely deadlocked in skills, education, speaking abilities, references and virtually every other aspect that is evaluated during the hiring process. Which one gets hired if only 1 job? The one that has some kind of personal connection with the company, hiring manager and/or employee. There is a comfort level with being around people that you already know, you trust and have some linkage with. Now, all social media does is provide another channel to develop these relationships, with a potentially different community where you can more easily form communities of similar interests. Social media enables the relationship building process, and I’ll bet my last penny that in 5 years, another newlyl developed mechanism will replace social media as another relationship building enabling tool. Love your post, like your company perspectives in a traditionally non-social media savvy industry. Jeff

Rob Jones
March 26, 2010

Thanks for comments, guys.

For me, forming a “tribe” and championing each other’s content/services/products to me is not only cost-effective for everyone involved, it’s also a lot of fun. I think that’s the real hook for me, that balance between maximizing productivity, minimizing costs, and making a lot of friends while I’m at it. Why wouldn’t you do things that way?

Jeff, you mentioned new mechanisms for forming relationships, and that’s a pretty exciting prospect. I can’t wait to see what that will look like. But, for me the principles behind it are really basic, and in the end really old school. Networks and “tribes” have always been a part of how business is done.

The difference is that now, everyone is enabled to do it, not just those in privileged positions. It’s a unique and exciting time to be in business in that sense.

Thanks for comments!