Friday, January 1, 2010

No. 1: Human-Centric Businesses

Business used to be about companies. Now it is about people.

No. 2: Collaborative Markets

Markets are no longer about selling to buyers, but collaborating with them to develop better and more sustainable solutions.

No. 3: Sustainable Communities

Organizations of people are evolving from exclusivity to inclusiveness. This creates more sustainable communities where members place their trust in each other.

The Evolution of this Perfect Storm

All of these trends are simultaneously converging to create a perfect storm of opportunity for businesses, especially small or entrepreneurial business that are characterized as having personal relationships with customers.

If you go back to the late '50's and early '60's, there was an emerging technology that changed the world of marketing. That technology was television. In the midst of an expanding post-World War II economy, middle class consumers embraced television. Television had reach. People had discretionary income. And all of this created a new era of consumerism that helped make many brands household names.

Television was a marketing technology that made everything more expansive by bringing it to a larger stage, and that fit perfectly with the growing economy. What followed was a love affair with the automobile, highly stylized fashions, and countless consumer products guaranteed to make your life a dream! Those companies were at the right place at the right time to capitalize on the converging trends of the day. Needless to say, some of those industries and companies are faltering today.

Human-Centric Businesses are Local

New Media Marketer and small business expert Jeff Korhan suggest, "If you are an entrepreneur, you are now at the right place at the right time, due in no small part to your local focus."

The technology that is transforming the business environment in favor of entrepreneurs is social media marketing. It is giving everyone a voice at a time when people have gone through some tough experiences. They want to move forward, but it is still uncertain where the economy is going. Until that happens, they are looking for people to trust. This means they are going to be doing business in their local communities.

This is why every Fortune 500 corporation has a presence on social media. They know that business is going local. They are seeing how social media is leveling the playing field to create equal opportunities for every company. In a nutshell, they want to be perceived as local and human-centric.

Jeff Korhan comments further, "The challenge for small businesses is to be who they are, human-centric organizations that are willing to reach out even further than they already have. Social media is ideally suited for this purpose, and most significantly, its influence is sustainable."