Why Face-To-Face Engagement Will Always Matter

Has the world shifted in front of us?

Gary Vaynerchuk has made an absolute career, legacy, legend - the kind to which urban myths might even be jealous- based upon his use of social media. He’s a maven.  A zealot.  A pioneer that has the ability to create an upheaval in ideology that mimics a piped piper type sensibility.

For all intents and purposes he is ‘Social Media’.  He shares his hacks.  He works closely with moguls who are trying to up their game.  He has written books.  He’s done hours and hours of videos on the subject.  He coined action plans such as $1.80 principle to encompass his brilliance.  But even Mr. Social Media genius can’t do this one thing. He can’t force people into his world.  He can’t force people to watch his videos.  He can’t force people to buy his books.  He can’t beg, borrow, and deal to get their business. And from what I know about him and his books, he would never.

Face it.  For those of you, like us, who have built a business- network marketing, fitness, real estate, coaching, consulting, speaking, you name it in the last 10 years via social media, it almost seemed too easy.  It was a new marketing world and people were buying and the products you wanted they were sharing. Most corporations hadn’t caught on.  Facebook was the busy ‘Farmers Market’ dejour of products and offers and they all screamed with genuine social proof.  They were marketed with stories of real results from real people.  People you actually knew or had some kind of tangible connection with.

Then the landslide hit.  Money did what money does, it changes the landscape.  People learned that social media was a treasure trove of marketing and money poured in from advertisements.  Money poured in from opportunities.  Money poured in from all places and the once quaint comfortable ‘Farmers Market’ where you knew the guy selling the tomatoes, the tomatoes he planted and harvested, the guy you knew from your high school friend that dated your cousins sister and on top of that you were friends on Facebook.  You trusted him!  The guy you trusted was replaced with a version that almost seemed to good to be true.  They had the shiny watch.  They had the shiny truck.  They had the flashy marketing.  They had fancy logos and flawless pictures.  They implored that you too could have a vegetable stand.  They shared how easy it was.  So easy that you could forgo the life of living in the cubicle farm and replace it with days of traveling the world.  Money was so easy to make via social media that you would make money forever.  You could ditch the grind of tilling the soil, placing the seed, waiting for it to grow into a productive plant. Every day was harvest day.  There was never insects, pests, drought battle against.  Once you had all the fruit of your labors you could setup shop at the corner of main and first and customers would trip over themselves to have your TOMATOES!

Gary, as we, as did the mythical farmer found themselves facing reality.  The reality.  Their prowess was not in social media.  Their prowess, Gary’s prowess was the trust.  The influence flowed via the trust that had been developed by delivering people true value.  

So as much as the today’s social media world has been overrun, with paid advertisements and purchased proof.  The man standing at his booth and selling the tomatoes he grew himself still has the exact same trust and value as he did years ago.  Gary Vaynerchuk focused on adding value and creating a memorable experience for his wine store customers.  He ran a ‘Thank You Economy’.  He gave people value and with that value they developed trust.  Trust that buying wine from Gary’s store was better.  They were paying for his advice but after he gave it to them rather than before.  This is an element that social media bots and systems can’t fake.  It’s where funnels that find and deliver value to people for FREE yield the best returns to sold product.

So if you are still running the business that was started during the ‘social media bubble’ as we are, know this.  Hope isn’t lost.  If your number one objective is to serve first.   If you’re number one objective is to ‘kill it’, ‘sell fast and hard’ or ‘make gangster money’  then you too will be like anyone else caught in the wake of a bubble; Popped! People still want products; they just go about the buying process and experience differently today.  Face to face, just like the tried and true Farmers Market, where trust is developed one tomato at a time, is as powerful today as it ever has been.  The twist is you can use technology to be face to face!