Business For The People, Powered By The People. Culture Driven By Community

The World we are living in today is strongly being positioned as a b2b and b2c specified space, It is my belief that if you fast forward ten years you will find many more businesses have shifted in to a ‘Brand Famous mindset’ of a B2P (Business to People) mentality.

Businesses such as Airbnb, Easyjet, Amazon, Netflix and Tripadvisor are working in this model already and dealing in what has become a new savvy PEOPLE POWERED marketplace – they are engaging in and creating conversations with the Person and ultimately drilling down in to the “I only work with customers who…” conversation. In Easyjets case perhaps this might be: “I only work with customers who are… modern day business owners who frequently travel”, and “…young families with modern lives”. This means that they can be specific on what exactly they provide these people with and how they will best receive it. There has been a noticeable change in everything that EasyJet has done over the past two years from how to book flights to changing the food you eat on the planes. All derived from listening to the people.

These businesses are not worrying about whether their business is speaking to a business or speaking direct to consumer and are more concentrating on what the obvious ‘needs’ for the person are and how to keep them engaged and connected in their community. Each of these businesses take pride in what their passion and purpose is focussed on including:

• What they want to be known for as a brand
• What their key message is
• How they want to leave people feeling whenever they have contact on any level with their brand

It will then be apparent in absolutely everything they deliver to their specific target audience whilst leaving the person feeling positive knowing that all their needs have been met and in no doubt about using the service again – most importantly they go on to share that experience with their friends!

All these businesses are savvy enough to look at multi-channel delivery for their products and offer multiple layers in their pre- and then post-product offering before actually delivering on the core offer whether selling a flight or providing you with a room!

Businesses with an old school bricks and mortar mentality are being edged out of the Big Games currently being played; new school businesses such as these have realised that a strong culture and an invaluable community builds the platform to provide them with effortless and global distribution channels.

This provides a world class way of spreading messages virally and sharing invaluable content so that people can like, post and share their authentic stories to create the momentum that is required for the brand to drive sales and community growth, ultimately driving up the value of their business so that the brand can watch their business go Global before their eyes.

AirBnB has flown up the ranks as a business that has taken on the new school methods of business growth and has embraced all the layers described in the Brand Famous book from identifying the Gap and getting underneath the passion and Purpose (as mentioned above), to drilling down in to who they are talking to and knowing what Fame game they are playing to drive the awareness to the brand. Taking this knowledge they have built a multilayered product plan which provides their community with a tier priced product stream that will engage and grow their culture and community for distribution. All these key ingredients form a strong foundation for a FAMOUS BRAND.

B2B business’s now have a huge opportunity to mirror the game changing way that these businesses behave and taking those step in to the ‘BUSINESS TO PEOPLE’ space to enable them to also ‘STAND OUT’ from the crowd, drive their business to BRAND FAME and become a house hold name!

Linzi Boyd, Founder, BoB Group