In the following interview segment, Doug Levy, author and CEO of MEplusYOU, explains how caring more can actually make you more successful. The full interview with Doug Levy can be seen HERE, in which he discusses his new book, Can't Buy Me Like. In the book, Levy tackles the changing marketing space, believing that companies must either adapt or continue to put blind faith in increasingly ineffective advertising. Levy also explains a new era that we've entered, dubbed the 'relationship era', and describes how this will change marketing for all companies, big and small.
More Great Advice from the Motley Fool
The Motley Fool's chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: "The Motley Fool's Top Stock for 2013." Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan Byrnes: Hi, I'm Brendan Byrnes and I'm joined today by Doug Levy. Doug is the author of Can't Buy Me Like, and also the founder and CEO of MEplusYOU. Thank you for your time.
Doug Levy: I'm delighted to be with you.
Brendan: My first question is about the book. You talk about this Relationship Era that we're now entering. Can you describe that, and what that means for marketers?
Doug: You bet. First, a little context. We have entered a new era. We got here by way of a couple of preceding eras. The first era of marketing I call the Product Era, where marketers just talked about the product and the features of the product.
That gave way to a new era around the 1960s, when marketers realized that they could not just talk about their product but really get to know the people who were intended to buy their product, and win over hearts and minds, so marketing shifted from the Product Era to the Consumer Era.
We've now moved out of the Consumer Era. We've moved to a new era. This new era is called the Relationship Era, and what we're seeing is that marketers who continue to do business in a way that was prescribed by the Consumer Era are struggling, relative to those who have fully entered this new era.
Brendan: How do you enter this new era? What are some principles that you can use to be successful in the Relationship Era?
Doug: Chief among them is that companies that care about something bigger than selling their product sell more of their product. It's counterintuitive, but that's exactly it. What I'm talking about is not moving away from caring about selling your product, or not caring about profit.
The companies that have been the most successful in the Relationship Era care deeply about selling things and about profit. In fact, they've been extraordinarily profitable. They care about something in addition to that, something bigger than that, also.
