Chris Brogan in Three Points
At Gnomedex this weekend, and I had a chance to connect with Chris Brogan again. I met Chris for the first time earlier this spring–we had dinner together in New York. I asked him to summarize his world for me and he broke it down like this:
- Typically, he works with enterprise clients because it’s easier to sell one large contract than it is to sell ten small ones. This reminded me of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is selling lemonade at $300 per glass. Hobbes suggests that’s a bit expensive, to which Calvin replies: I only need to sell one.
- Unlike other marketing consultants, he doesn’t suggest that marketing organizations throw away the “old way” for the “new way”. Rather, he understands that a company has a sales pipeline and that social media tools have an appropriate place to supplement and improve that pipeline. This makes sense to me because it’s less threatening and more effective for them.
- As dinner and our conversation wandered, I realized that I never got the third point: “What’s the third point, Chris?” “I’m glad you asked…that’s my book,” he said, and you’ll have to wait.
Well, the book–Trust Agents–is finally out and available at Amazon.com. I picked up a copy of it this weekend, and read the first few chapters. While I can’t offer a full review yet, it’s certainly a must read for anybody who is “[u]sing the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust”