They Ask, You Answer, 2nd Edition

51 Real-Time Conversations Are Changing How They’re Asking and We’re Answering

We’ve spent much of this book talking about how buyer behavior has changed — specifically, your buyers are now firing up their search engines of choice in pursuit of expert advice, information, answers, and solutions when making a purchasing decision.

But another dramatic shift in buyer behavior has occurred since I sat down and wrote the first edition of They Ask, You Answer. In order to understand what’s changed, however, I want to ask you a question that HubSpot VP of Marketing Jon Dick asked me during a recent conversation: “When was the last time you actually communicated with any of your close friends over email as a way of exchanging information or planning something?”

After a few moments of silence, I shook my head and laughed a little bit.

“You know, Jon,” I said, “I don’t know. Longer than I would probably care to admit.”

That was precisely his point.

The Way We Communicate Has Fundamentally Changed

Think about it — today, we live so much of our lives online. We’ve got Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, WhatsApp, Snapchat, native text messaging, and countless other applications at our fingertips that not only enable us to share our lives with the world, but also empower us to communicate in much smaller group messaging settings with our friends, family, and loved ones.

All in real time.

What’s more, we live in a time when our smartphones are like an extension of our persons.

In fact, ...