Proposing no Saturday deliveries and raising stamp prices merely strikes at the branches and does not deal with the root issue of whether our beloved USPS is still relevant.

The truth is – Saturday deliveries or not – this downward spiral will continue to occur.  When the USPS has to keep increasing fees to continue covering losses, it drives more and more communication on-line.  With such a high fixed cost structure, the Post Office will be forced to continue drive prices higher and send their customer base scrambling to consider more economical modes of communication.

The heart of the issue here is our Postal Service is no longer relevant.

A few years ago I was asked to keynote a national panel of CD and DVD duplicators/replicators about the future of their industry.  Guess what, it didn’t go over too well…

As a tool to measure relevancy, I presented a concept of the “recovery time.” I simply asked the audience to consider the ramifications of eliminating their products and services from the marketplace.   The “recovery time” is the degree of pain the market would endure before the product’s replacement leaves us no longer wanting what we once had.

In addition to its application for the CD/DVD industry, I asked the audience to consider the “recovery time” of the newspaper industry, the corner video store, and the Postal Service.  Think of the long-term disruption if each of these were yanked away never to return.

Think about your own business and more specifically, how relevant are you to your clients and prospects?  If you’re feeling the world would have a short recovery time in your absence, it’s critically important start defining your real value by asking a few questions:

1. What would your 10 best customers say they value most about you, beyond your product and service?
2. What root issue, pain, or gap does your organization’s product or service solve/fill?  (Think transportation not wagon wheels, think editorial content not a physical newspaper)
3. What are your organizations unique talents?
4. What are there things you ask your customers and clients to pay a premium for, because you do them better than anyone else?

By asking yourself these sometimes uncomfortable questions and framing your discussions around them, you are addressing your business challenges at the root, and you may just find the additional relevancy and margin you’ve been seeking.

As customers’ interactions with companies (brands) are increasingly online, shouldn’t we shift our focus? Why do we still believe traditional marketers should control branding? Why are we afraid to put branding power in the hands of the digitally-driven folks? After all, for many current and future customers, your website is your brand. It’s the hub, the driving force behind all of the experiences customers have with your company. People are spending as much or more time online as they are watching TV these days – and that’s not just the teens and 20-somethings. Digital is already driving brands, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

Online-only businesses are obvious examples, but increasingly, traditional brick and mortar and B-to-B businesses are reaping benefits – and raking in sales – by creating digitally-driven brands.

Let’s review a familiar example: Best Buy. They’re still an electronics store with lots of semi-annoying helpers in blue. The face-to-face experience will never go away. It’s just enhanced by a bevy of online communication tools.

For example, customers can reserve products online (on a phone or a computer) and pick them up in stores.

Once they take products home, they can talk in real-time to Best Buy’s customer service folks through Twelpforce, a group of 2,200 Best Buy employees who answer customers’ questions and solve issues via Twitter.

If customers come up with grand ideas that would make their experiences better (a key component of branding), they can share them at Best Buy’s IdeaX.

Best Buy has tackled everything from creating a streamlined mobile site to customer and employee forums, blogs, and Facebook applications on their fan page. They’re all over digital branding. In other words, they create positive customer experiences through the tools, accessibility and information they provide online.

Now, I know you’re thinking: well of course she believes in digital branding…she works at a digital agency! And that’s fair. As an early adopter and digital marketing geek, it’s easy to see why I’d be a proponent. But there are plenty of people backing me up these days. And there is plenty of new research that supports the theory. An example? How about this Razorfish report about digital experiences driving brands. I think you might like it.

Slide 8 is my favorite:

• 65% of consumers have had a digital experience change their opinion about a brand.
• 97% of consumers say their digital experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased a product or service from that brand.
  

So tell me: how do your customers experience your brand in this Digital Age?

Miranda McCage is an Associate Digital Strategist at MediaSauce. She’d like to hear about how you’re developing a brand with digital. Contact Miranda at 317-284-5683, on Twitter @mirandamccage or email her at miranda.mccage@mediasauce.com.

The problem is, the number of unique visitors, page views, or time on site is only an indicator of a site’s success. The real measurement is the number of actual conversions that happen on the site.

In this context, we define a conversion as “a prospective customer taking a marketer’s intended action.” These conversions are tracked through form submissions, data tracking and other methods that reveal to you insights about your visitor, their behavior and ultimately that they conduct some form of transaction with you.

Let’s explore a few different conversion concepts:

1. The form. The most simple and direct form of conversion on a web site is the use of a form. Often asking for a direct inquiry of the customer to your business, the form provides a direct method of a site visitor to reveal who they are and what they want. Strategy tip: Don’t rely on a single ‘catch-all’ form for your site. Utilize custom, targeted forms that fit the context of the page it appears on. For example if you’re a C.P.A/tax advising firm, offer a form on your site’s page about “auditing advisory services” that specifically address if the site visitor is currently being audited or has been audited in the past. If they are visiting the “John Doe, C.P.A. profile” then they should have a form to ask “John” a tax question.
   
2. The special offer. Offers and promotions create a very specific promotional driver to capture details from a site visitor. Often tied into a marketing campaign or promotion, special offers help prompt specific responses to a specific issue/need/topic that can help you generate business. The key factor here is that there really must be a deliverable/return for this conversion. People expect something unique and timely. Strategy Tip: Special offers need to have a valuable reward; otherwise they’re just another form. If the visitor is on the “tax tips for 2009 filing” page, create a form that specifically lets them complete a check list of things they qualify for as part of their submission to get more info from you and give you their email address for future communication.
   
3. The sale. An obvious ‘in your face’ conversion is the purchase of a good or service. This is ultimately what many businesses are seeking from their website…a return on investment. Consumers are turning to the Internet more and more to make a buying decision. As a marketer, it is your responsibility to observe the paths a consumer takes while navigating through your website. Strategy Tip: If you are using a shopping cart as part of conducting this transaction – a big tracking factor is the abandonment rate of items in a shopping cart that do not result in a final sale. It’s not just the number of sales you’re making, it’s what is happening to stop a sale.
   
4. The interactive questionnaire. A very engaging method for developing strong conversions is to give site visitors an opportunity to participate in a series of questions that result in an outcome of value.  These quizzes, tests, self-assessments and other questionnaires not only keep your site visitors engaged on the site, each answer provides you more insight into their needs and helps you push them further down the conversion funnel. Strategy tip:  Utilize results-specific topics to implement interactive questionnaires. Keep these conversion tools simple and straightforward to drive responses that have actionable results. For example, if a company builds and sells valves to manufacturing facilities, they might use the interactive questionnaire to learn about what applications of valve the customer uses, the average replacement time line, volume of use and current preferred brand . Once complete, the valve company provides a price quote and comparison sheet on the competitor’s valve versus their own.

While it is important to watch metrics such as the percent of site traffic coming from search engines and a site’s bounce rate to make sure your site is optimized and prepped for conversions, it is imperative to set up conversion goals and monitor them regularly to ensure a true return on investment. Don’t get lost in the glitz of percentages and click through rates. Make sure you stay focused on the conversion.

You may be wondering…what do I do with all his information? Here are your action steps:

1. Make sure you have analytics installed on your website. (Google analytics is offered free of charge.)
2. Set up conversion goals within your analytics. (What do you want your audience to do?)
3. Include conversion points on your website to gather data and understand your audience. (Pick at least one of the four examples above and get started.)
4. Optimize, test, optimize… (The beauty of the Internet)

Sheila Smiley is a Senior Media Strategist at MediaSauce. She’d like to hear from you about how you measure conversion. Comment below, or you can reach her via email at sheila.smiley@mediasauce.com or call at 317-218-2500.

If you continue to do business as usual, running your career and business day by day, then you will find that you might not be needed. Consider these red flags:

1. You don’t have a mobile strategy, yet you spend all your time relying on your mobile device to connect and communicate.
2. You have no defined online strategy, you just guess and explore, yet like eighty percent of all c-level executives, you  spend up to 4 hours a day on the Internet.
3. You think Facebook is something for your teenage kids, yet over 90 percent of your customers believe a company should have a social media presence and over 40 percent want to do business with a company that uses social media platforms to solve their problems or solicit their feedback.
4. You think “interconnected” is a puzzle or online porn, yet you are always available via a mobile device and the majority of your customers are demanding new ways to interact with your brand.
5. You think transparency means controlling information, yet younger buyers are spending their time buying from companies they can authentically connect with.
6. You don’t update your online presence, yet you have your physical office cleaned regularly and they take out the trash every day.
7. You spend countless hours working on office efficiencies, yet you have an online office that is widely inefficient.
8. You, like most people, want to read more but you never make the time, yet your online destination is stacked tall with text waiting for all those non-readers to dig in.
9. You think the Internet is just another platform, yet the average professional will spend more time online than they do talking to their spouse or watching broadcast media.
10. You say you want more, yet you do the same things expecting different results.

The challenge for you today is to look at these ten paths and decide if you’re willing to change direction, or if you’ll continue down the road you are headed. Leadership isn’t just about guiding the troops to a destination, but in also being willing to change course when a new route identifies itself.

Times are rapidly changing . If one of these flags sound familiar, now is the time to adjust or be left wondering where the world went while your company proceeds down familiar, but irrelevant paths.

David Cain is President and CFO of MediaSauce. He’d like to hear about how you’re tackling transformation in this Digital Age. Contact David at 317-218-0500  email him at david.cain@mediasauce.com.

As a strategist at MediaSauce, I’m often charged with helping clients launch their social media initiatives. I’ve found that the most challenging thing for most marketers isn’t learning how to use new tools. It’s knowing how to get digitally organized.

Time management, baby.

Now, I should clarify. These tips are for businesses. If you want to spend 5 hours checking out your old high school friends’ family photos, by all means, feel free. Your time, your dime!

For marketers performing social media for business, getting digitally organized includes:

• Figuring out how to manage time and organize information (and there’s a lot of information out there).
• Discovering ways to stay away from that oh-so-entertaining – and unrelated – Twitter discussion about Tiger Woods.
• Trying to focus on what’s relevant for your business – and what will have the most impact in the least amount of time.

If you only have a few minutes a day to dedicate to social media, what’s most important?

Even with the most solid, bullet-proof social media strategy, a lack of organization will completely derail your hard work. Social media ADD is a real affliction, folks. Let’s talk about ways to get some digital Ritalin (without the side effects).

If you only have 15 minutes a day to dedicate to social media, what should you do?

Respond to EVERYONE. Before we dive into any of the tactics listed below, I want to hammer this point home. If you commit to participating in social media communication, you’ve committed to responding to everyone that connects with your business through social media…no matter how little time you have. The whole point of social media is connecting and engaging on a one-to-one basis. If you can’t commit to responding to everyone and anyone, you may want pause and consider whether social media is the right step for you right now.

Google Alerts. These babies can pack a serious punch…if you set ‘em up properly. If you’re tracking more than one word (a phrase), don’t forget quotation marks. If you do, you’ll suffer the consequences by receiving everything under the sun about anything having to do with any of the words – not phrases – you entered. For example, instead of seeing articles related to “ugly holiday sweaters,” you’re going to see every article with the word “ugly,” the word “holiday,” and the word “sweaters.” Think about that.

Hot Tip: Send your Google alerts to a feed reader. Trust me, you will thank me when your inbox is clean and you can organize your alerts in folders by category. Which Reader should you use? Personally, my favorite reader is Google Reader, just because it’s easy. And if you already have your alerts going to your email, you can switch them to a feed reader.

Twitter Search. Even if you’re rolling your eyes at its goofy name, Twitter affects your business. Why? Because the things people say on Twitter are indexed by search engines. And search engines are kind of a big deal. So hop on Twitter search to see if the search terms for which you’ve already set up Google Alerts are being discussed right now online.

If you only have 30 minutes a day to dedicate to social media, what should you do?

Continue doing everything listed above. Just add:

RSS Feeds. These are feeds from your favorite blog and news websites. Just like the Google Alerts, set these up in a reader, like Google Reader or FeedDemon to save yourself time. Instead of going to 15 different websites, you’ll go to one inbox, where you can organize your feeds by category and scan posts quickly to see whether they’re worth reading, sharing and commenting.

Hootsuite. The biggest benefit to Hootsuite: you can pre-schedule your tweets. It’s what keeps me coming back, even though TweetDeck is my fav. For those of you who just don’t have time (yet) to do much more than use Twitter as a news release/blog promotion tool, this is a great service. If you know that new blog post won’t launch until tomorrow morning, and you have a meeting from 8 a.m. to noon, you can just pre-schedule your tweet and rest easy knowing it’ll go out on time.

Hot Tip: Don’t forget that you still need to monitor your Twitter accounts for responses.

If you have 1 hour a day to dedicate to social media, what should you do?

Just because you have more time doesn’t mean you can ignore the tools we just discussed. Keep at ‘em! Now start adding:

TweetDeck. Some people prefer Seesmic, I play favorites…and TweetDeck wins. TweetDeck is a desktop application that you can easily download and customize until it becomes your own personal crack. Oh wait, did I say crack? I meant personal Twitter organization tool.

In TweetDeck, columns are your friend. Groups are your BFF. Search columns are your BFF-forever-and-ever-cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. You can set up columns and groups to organize your Twitter streams, so that you can always see what people are saying about “Ugly Sweaters.” You can monitor a single Twitterer’s account. You can create groups of similar people, like trade publications, in a column. You can also set up search columns – just like Google Alerts – where you can constantly monitor what people are saying about any given topic. Personally, my TweetDeck is so heavily categorized that you can scroll through my columns for an absurdly long time.

Manage Your Facebook Presence. If you have an hour a day to spend in social media, you should absolutely have a Facebook page for your business. Once you’ve set up your page, what should you do? First and foremost: respond to everyone. If you’ve got that covered, start sharing. Links (of your own stuff and others’ content that you recommend), photos and videos are some of the most popular – and effective – things to share. Got news? Share it with a status update. Just keep your Facebook presence up-to-date.

Manage Your LinkedIn Presence. Your business should have a company profile on LinkedIn. Do you? If not, create one. If you do, be sure it’s accurate. Ask your employees to join LinkedIn. Create groups for your business or affiliations. And again: whenever someone connects with you via LinkedIn about your biz, respond!

If you have 2 hours a day to dedicate to social media, what should you do?

Blog. If you have two hours, you can maintain a blog. Yup. Even you, ye of little faith in your writing abilities. Think like Water Boy…you can DO it! If you have a hard time finding things to write about, start with a plan. Hook up with a coworker or friend and brainstorm all the things you could ever possibly write about on your blog. Write the ideas down. Prioritize them. Scrap the ones that don’t make sense. Start writing the ones that excite you most.

Comment on Other Peoples’ Blogs. Remember those feeds you set up for blogs and news sites that contain relevant content? Oh yeah, those. Well, instead of just reading the posts, start commenting on them when appropriate. Social media is a good will, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours kind of community. The more you connect with – and respond to – other bloggers and social media folks, the better your chances are of seeing success with your own social media efforts.

If you have more than 3 hours a day to dedicate to social media, what should you do?

First, thank your boss, because (s)he’s totally with it. If you have a solid 3 hours or more every day to dedicate to social media, you’ve most likely graduated from playing in the Social Media Pop Warner league, and you’re ready to play Varsity.

Take Pictures. Upload them to Flickr and Facebook. Pictures of what, you ask? Well, whatever it is that you’re writing about in social media. Have a tradeshow coming up? Do you have pictures from last year’s event that you can share online pre-event? People like pictures. And they really like seeing themselves in pictures, so if you take pics of your customers, try to connect with them and Facebook tag them if possible.

Create Video. Upload it to YouTube and/or Vimeo. This doesn’t have to be complicated. I do it with my day-to-day digital camera. At this point, most people can even do it with their phones. Just capture some customer reactions, behind-the-scenes footage, event participation – anything entertaining, really. Video makes everything more interesting and engaging.

Start Something Unique. Here’s where social media gets really fun. Do your homework. Find out about all of the cool social applications and campaigns companies have created using social media. Brainstorm some of your own. Make a plan. Get started. BUT…don’t even think about spending big bucks on an application or campaign unless you have a plan and you’ve already committed to all of the tactics listed above.

Now go forth and prosper, my social media padres! Please do your best to ignore the siren call of that Facebook friend request from your high school’s prom queen – focus on your business goals and manage your time wisely and you’ll see guaranteed results.

Next time, let’s talk about those goals…

Miranda McCage is an Associate Digital Strategist at MediaSauce. She’d like to hear about how you’re managing your time in social media. Contact Miranda at 317-284-5683, on Twitter @mirandamccage or email her at miranda.mccage@mediasauce.com.

A few weeks ago I told the story behind the inspiration that prompted MediaSauce. I promised at that time to also give some insight into how our name came into being.

Looking up the definition of ’sauce’ in the dictionary gives a wide variety of results, but I’d summarize the overall points to:

1. Adding flavor, moisture and visual appeal to dishes – often a unique element to cuisines around the world
2. to give piquance or zest- to spice up the experience
3. to add value and change the ordinary into something unique

The term ’sauce’ really stuck with us as we looked at all the amazing things our creative team was capable of putting together – and the dreams and ambitions we had for the company in our early days.

Add sauce to the term ‘media’ (derived from the creative team’s artistic background working with ‘media’ of various sorts) and we had an option.

Turns out, the deciding factor was that mediasauce.com was an available domain for us to buy.

Name? Check!

Logo? Oy…a whole other set of issues.

Our original tagline was “tastefully blended digital bits of information” with the steam being a cute assimilation of 1’s and 0’s. A bit too literal perhaps (hey, I admit we’ve grown our branding experience and team skills exponentially since those early days), but the concept was on point. In the early days our commitment and belief focused on the fundamental shift in brands, conversion and commerce migrating to a 24/7 online world.

A good cook once told me, a great sauce must shift to the meals it is being prepared for.

It couldn’t be more true. Today, we’ve morphed MediaSauce into a firm that deals in all forms of media, from traditional to events to experiences; centered around online integration that leverages digital and social media to create a whole new result.

In a world where commoditization of products and communication has created a high degree of confusion, boredom and disengagement; having the right sauce is critical. And understanding that every meal (and business situation is different) requires the acumen and experience to adapt those past experiences for the current challenge at hand.

We didn’t know how our business would evolve; yet seven years later the name MediaSauce couldn’t be any more relevant.

What’s in your sauce?

The challenge for your business is to decide what’s in your secret sauce as you transform your company for the digital world ahead. What are you going to blend or create that provides a more flavorful experience for your audiences? A lot of companies are experimenting with new ingredients, but many are failing to lead the way hoping that the same-old ingredients will be enough to get through.

We’re seeing sauces, being created all around us; creating new, fresh and inspiring work product. The same won’t do. We can’t afford it, it doesn’t resonate and it’s not what consumers in this Interconnected Age are expecting. I dare you to add a little spice to your business – or risk missing out on the opportunities ahead.

Bryan Gray is co-founder and CEO of MediaSauce. He’d like to hear about the moment of inspiration that sparked your business. Contact Bryan at 317-218-0500, on Twitter @bryansgray or email him at bryan.gray@mediasauce.com.

How will history adapt to remember those of us from this age when so much information is being created and shared? It’s just one of many topics discussed during the “Digital Museum” class I recently led at the Seminar for Historical Administration, hosted by the Indiana Historical Society.

Here’s the presentation:

With access to more and more information available online, some museums will seize the opportunity to extend their expertise to an ever wider audience while others will relegate themselves to an ever diminishing status quo.

Five years from today, will you be more or less engaged with what museums have to offer?

Mitch Maxson is a Creative Strategist at MediaSauce with a passion for non-profits, associations and cause marketing. You can reach him at mitch.maxson@mediasauce.com.

The idea for MediaSauce formed a few years before the company was formed – which may sound familiar to most of you who have also launched firms from an idea or vision.

I’d been fortunate, or crazy enough, to have built two businesses from scratch and both earned spots on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing companies. In my previous business, before MediaSauce, I owned a fast growing ATM distribution/processing company. Our success came, in part, from a really innovative branding program that helped us generate business from local financial institutions.  Growing nationally, we were struggling to get traction on the East coast and so I traveled there to immerse myself in the marketplace and find out why our program – working elsewhere in the country – wasn’t working there.

I asked each of our eight sales reps in the area to define our branding program – as they understood it. Keep in mind we had all the traditional marketing materials (brochures, video tapes, etc).  The result was a real shocker! I got eight different answers!

They each had the same brochures, the same tapes, the same training. Yet their failure to consistently tell our story led to limited success in the marketplace, despite having an otherwise good team.

That moment stuck with me. I’ve worked with a variety of very successful sales professionals but when you have confused sales people calling on confused prospects, the net result of confusion is commoditization or no decision. Neither are good for the bottom line.

Move the clock forward a few years (the ATM business sold and me looking for what’s next) and I’m at a trade conference in Chicago when, during the show,  I received a video delivered via e-mail for the first time.

This message, concisely executed, featured the company’s spokesperson explaining their offering, testimonials justifying their claims, and a forward to a friend button.  That was it. Simple by today’s standards but in 2001, it was cutting edge.

It was different. It was unforgettable.

At that moment, I had a vision for the future.

At an on-ramp to 294, I made the commitment to start a company that could help other organizations tell their story through these highly effective digital tools. I’d always known that stories connect us, not spreadsheets.  I knew a company that could help develop a digital business strategy, to help executives understand which emerging technologies could best help them sell, would be an invaluable service.

In this Interconnected Age, connections and engagement are driving business forward. Sales forces need to have the digital tools to create personalized messages that also accurately and effectively tell your story. Customers seek to be entertained and interacted with – and they are responding more than ever to video, animation, games and other interactive, rich media to identify purchasing options and make buying decisions. Printed brochures and a DVD aren’t cutting it any more.

One of my favorite quotes is from Jack Welch, former CEO and Chairman of GE. “The rate of internal change must be greater than the rate of external change, or the company will fall behind.” It couldn’t be more true in this Digital Age.

The challenge today is figuring out which tactics to use so that your customers can hear your story and be resolved to action. Whether you have a complex or challenging business model, or just a powerful story to tell, don’t fall prey to the past.  It’s not engaging, and never was.  There’s a better way. It’s your job as CEO to ensure that your company moves forward, less you fall behind.

Bryan Gray is co-founder and CEO of MediaSauce. He’d like to hear about the moment of inspiration that sparked your business. Contact Bryan at 317-218-0500, on Twitter @bryansgray or email him at bryan.gray@mediasauce.com.

Last week I visited with the HR leadership and employee culture committee at one of Indiana’s largest and most successful manufacturers to hold a workshop on how  social media and employee engagement can spur a new found desire to become part of your company community.

The  presentation focused on several important topics, including:

• The world is changing – and company newsletters and picnics are no longer having ‘value’ as an organization’s communication tool
• What platforms and tool can help you activate employees to take ownership of their culture and inspire awareness?
• What do your employees really care about in life and work that you can capitalize on to inspire them to connect with colleagues?
• What are the rules for successful employment engagement and activation?
• What makes a company culture viral, in the online world?

Check out the presentation here:

(I’ll be following up in the coming weeks on some of the rules, with additional insights and detail for your consideration.)

Remember, in this Interconnected Age, employees are going to respond to community and communication tools that integrate into their personal lifestyle. Txt messaging, email, social networks and personal interaction all play different roles depending on your audiences, proximity and technical savvy. What’s important is that when employees are given ways to share and demonstrate their contribution to their work – or what their team contributes to the organization, they will share it with their social network (which often includes their colleagues).

Even better, company culture that goes viral as a secondary benefit: customers who want to interact with your organization more. One of my favorite examples of this comes from Southwest Airlines embracing their flight attendants to have fun with the safety information/warning prior to take off. I’ve flown Southwest (follow them on Twitter at @southwestair) dozens of times, and am routinely entertained and actually pay attention to the pre-flight announcements because I never know what little quip might get thrown in.

Of course, sometimes, I get lucky and I get an even more unique experience. I could explain, but you’d better off watching a YouTube clip of the perfect example of how a company culture can go viral…(as of last count, this video has received 2.5 million views):

Building a corporate culture, both in white collar and blue collar settings, no longer will survive with monthly stand-ups and newsletters…it’s going to take a new wave of platforms and content approaches to inspire your people to become more than just employees.

Companies like Southwest, Best Buy and others are supporting their most passionate employees to become more than just team members, but ambassadors to the world – and that’s very exciting for all of us.

What tools does your company use to engage and connect? We’re curious to hear about the best-practices and applications you’re using to connect in this 24/7 world.

James Burnes is VP of Strategy at MediaSauce.  If you’d like to discuss how your company can better connect and engage your employees, you can reach him at james.burnes@mediasauce.com, reach him on Twitter @jamesburnes or call at 317-512-3612.

I did, and later the manifesto was published in The Social Media Bible as part of the contribution MediaSauce made to this important book.  And now, I share it here with our readers of the MediaSauce blog.

Why do we sell the same way we always have? Because it’s safe and reliable. Because it’s what we know. Because we’ve become entrenched in thinking that what we have to say is what our customers want to hear. Because it has worked for the past (insert your number of) years!

But the world is rapidly evolving. Advertising, messaging and communication behaviors are changing more quickly than how we tell our story. Worse, our messaging is competing more and more with the noise that overwhelms our target customers every day/hour/minute/second of their lives. Customers are tuning out our old messages while social media and the Internet connect them with information that bypasses our expensive marketing communications strategies.

The old tried-and-true tactics of the past (insert your number again!) years like our flashy direct mail pieces, our witty trade media advertisements or those well written, but terribly expensive, brochures aren’t setting us apart.

Worse, they aren’t even being looked at. They’re being ignored. And we’re becoming irrelevant. We’re becoming part of the noise.

Can we stop being noise and become relevant again? Yes! Absolutely we can. But we have to have a new way of speaking to our customers. We have to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world and be fresh and exciting.

We need to transform the way we touch our clients, and integrate ourselves into the very fabric of what they do every day. We have to embrace that social networks, digital connections and the online experience and build an organization that embraces conversation and transparency.

We need to take advantage of a new approach to selling; where we are problem solvers and the “go to” team for our prospects whenever a project arises that we contribute to. Everyone sells [product]. We have to be bigger than our [product]. We have to solve our client’s pain points.

We need to get digital. We need to take advantage of the tools digital and social media can provide us to open up new channels and speak to prospects on the business issues and problems they are trying to solve.

We need to tell our story in a way that doesn’t just interrupt our clients, but engages them and gives them a reason to pass it along. We need to be viral, innovative, non-traditional and aggressive in how we seek out new business.

How will we do it? By embracing the opportunities that social media offer us to become connected to our customers. We’re going to build a culture where communicating, engaging and embracing the feedback positive and negative, to make us a better organization

There’s a new standard in sales: smarter, not harder work and doing more with less. And it’s required to be in business in our 24/7 economy.

What are you thoughts? Do you believe this Sales Manifesto is accurate and reflective of where our new economy is going?

James Burnes is VP of Strategy at MediaSauce. You can reach him at james.burnes@mediasauce.com, follow him on Twitter at @jamesburnes or call at 317-512-3612.