Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Are you focused on flogging stuff or building relationships? The difference is substantial but often misunderstood. 

Doug Levy has written an interesting article titled 5 principles of breakthrough success in the “Relationship Era”. Levy talks about the history and evolution of business through the following phases:

Product Era: The focus is solely on transactions.
Consumer Era: The focus is still on transactions, but the idea of trust enters the dialogue as a way to persuade people to transact more.
Relationship Era: Trust between a brand and consumer is mutual. Trust and transactions are seen as distinct, and both are important. 

I especially like his succinct principles for a relationship: 

Principle 1: Clarify purpose
Principle 2: Commit to sustainable relationships
Principle 3: Connect with authenticity
Principle 4: Treat customers as partners
Principle 5: Engage 

My thanks to Sarah Derry #sarahderry for telling me about this article. Read the complete article.

New competitors for established businesses can come from surprising places. If all a bank does is monitor competition from other banks they could be in for a surprise or two.

Here are a couple of lines from CNN:

“It’s become increasingly clear in recent weeks that Facebook is finally inching toward the launch of a micropayment platform.

“The social site has been expanding the presence of its virtual currency, which Facebook debuted last November when it changed the monetary units for its “Gifts” product into “credits” rather than U.S. dollars.”

How near is Facebook Bank plc? If you read the whole artice, and an interesting article it is too, you will not see the mention of Facebook becoming a bank. But with the possible developments discussed they get a stage closer. And with in excess of 200,000,000 members what a constituency to work with.

The additional reason why Facebook could suprise markets and excite the public is trust. Trust is the basis for most relationships. The Edelman Trust Barometer talks about this in great detail.

We all like to deal with businesses we trust. Trust in conventional banks is at a low. Here Joe Garner, HSBC, talks eloquently about trust in banks.

Facebook could become a bank. eBay, with PayPal has already created a new bank model. Who else would the world’s public trust with their money?