Of all the presenters at CO-OP's recent THINK Conference, perhaps no one gave CUs more to think about than Gary Vaynerchuk. He was brash, outspoken, brought a track record of building multi-million-dollar businesses, and was enough of a straight-shooter to begin his remarks by asking, "Who has no idea who I am?"
When most hands were raised, he joked, "S*#@, that hurts."
If you also have no idea, it means you're not among his million-plus Twitter followers. Vaynerchuk is CEO of Vayner Media, but what he really is is a street-smart, self-made entrepreneur who has built two $65-million businesses in the past five years, including WineLibrary.com. He also deserves credit for having done his homework on credit unions before speaking to THINK.
Great At One Thing
"I'm really great at one thing that 99% of people are not great at, including your organizations," Vaynerchuk told CUs. "It's something grossly missing in the organizations in this room, and that is that I market in the year we actually live in. It's 100% what I'm trying to achieve today. In your industry the average user of your product is 48 years old. The average age in America is 35, so you have a 13-year-gap issue. I surveyed 247 Vayner Media employees between the ages of 22 and 34, and just 11 knew what you were — which was about eight more than I expected. That is not a dig. I'm confused and lack the understanding as to why nobody in this room has the DNA of being a marketing company, which is what you are."
Vaynerchuk was one of several THINKers to make reference to "information fragmentation," but he spun the concept in a new way. "You go walking around saying we need a 'Got Milk' campaign, and I'm saying you need 7,000 of those." In other words, every CU should be telling its own story.
"We need the attention of the end-user and once we have that we have the ability to tell our value proposition. If you are unable to convey why someone should use your thing, you've lost. In 2014 we have a supply and demand issue. There is a crapload of stories, and our attention has not expanded. Everyone in here has the ability to be a media company. We are living in the single biggest culture shift, and everyone is vastly underestimating what we're living through. This is the second Industrial Revolution."
Vaynerchuk shared several anecdotes of the lengths to which his companies go to provide service — including calling as many as 600 to 700 new customers every day just to say thanks even though the purchase interaction was done online. Is it worth the phone calls? A test conducted by WineLibrary.com, in which it only called half its customers, found that those it gave a 40-second phone call spent "8,000% more money with us."
"What story are you telling people once we have them in front of you?" he asked. "The answer, from what I've seen, is the same story you've been telling them for 10 or 20 or 30 years. We are living through the youth-ification of our society. It's changing the one thing everyone in here should care about: where are the eyes and ears of our potential consumer?"
I am a big fan of the THINK Conference, and was honored to emcee the very first one. It's become the TED Conference of CUs. But one thing that's true at THINK and other CU meetings is that often provocative, challenging comments go unchallenged in return, as if saying "hey, wait just a minute" to some claims that are made means you're some Luddite who refuses to get with the times. For instance, Vaynerchuk asked how many people watch "TV on your time" using a DVR (most folks) and who "fast forwards" through the commercials (most hands remained raised). The implication was that billions of dollars are being wasted on TV advertising. And yet if I were to say to you, "It's Huuumppp Daaaayy!" or "the Hopper" or "talking Gecko," you'd know exactly what I was talking about.
Similarly, Vaynerchuk joked that no one in New Orleans was dying to get home to read their direct mail, which drew laughs. And yet again, I know of a number of CUs that rave about their DM response rates.
The Scary Stuff
That said, Vaynerchuk had plenty to say that was spot on. "There are people in this room who are drawing lines in the sand and saying 'this is how we do it.' That is a problem. The quickest way to go out of business is to be romantic about how you make your money. What scares me is I have enormous empathy and respect for the people in this room. You're not here if you didn't navigate through this world successfully. What scares me is the speed at which change occurs today is going to catch a lot of people off-guard. The speed with which one can connect is being collectively underestimated."
If those words worry you, they shouldn't. Concern, yes. Worry, no. That's because Vaynerchuk offered a reminder that even with the newest cultural shifts, old observations still ring true. Credit unions have always been local institutions, and he observed, "The Internet has made us a small town."
That's the good news. Now, get on the phone and start calling everybody in town.
Frank J. Diekmann can be reached at
