It all used to be so simple.

You had sellers and you had buyers. The seller brought a product or service to the table. And the buyer brought money. The transaction was straightforward. The price was the price.

But now an increasing number of business dealings are as fuzzy as Donald Trump's eyebrows. You can't tell who's the buyer and who's the seller. Heck, a lot of times, each are both. And even when the roles seem clear, the form of payment is more convoluted than the plot line of a Quentin Tarantino film.

If you look closely, you'll see that people are being compensated not just in money and products, but also in things like information and emotional well-being.

Intangibles are in
Thanks to the rise of these intangibles as a source of value and the spread of connectivity; business-to-business transactions are anything but straightforward any more. In fact, about the only thing you can be sure of is that the price is no longer the price. And the product is no longer just the product, or the service just the service.

Things other than monetary payment—specifically information and emotional engagement—make up a growing proportion of the value being exchanged in both directions.

Simple buying and selling is out
So much so that the terms "buyer" and "seller" aren't accurate anymore. In fact, in this new paradigm they're about as relevant as Bob Dylan's tuning fork.

They imply that the only exchange going on out there is the traditional, two-way affair where money is swapped for goods and services. The truth is, there's more kinds of value being tossed around and flying back and forth in this new connected marketplace than cream pies at a Soupy Sales reunion in the Sara Lee cafeteria.

And if you don't want to get one in the face, you need to stop thinking about price-for-product transactions and start thinking about the mutual, reciprocal exchange of many things of value.

This is no time for conventional wisdom
The problem, again, is conventional wisdom based on an old paradigm. It says that buyers come from one direction bearing money, while sellers come from the opposite direction with a product or service.

In reality, value is shifting to look more like a multi-level, intertangled freeway interchange. The right lanes convey economic traffic. The middle lanes zip along on informational exchanges. And the passing lanes speed past carrying exchanges of emotional value.

Driving in all lanes at once
The economic lanes are still made up of goods and the money to pay for them. But now it's a more complicated flow because it includes variations that didn't exist before.

In other words, you've got people changing lanes and moving across the flow quicker than Mario Andretti after drinking a pot of espresso and realizing he's out of smokes. The interactions that all this movement between lanes initiates are new forms of economic value created by connectivity, speed and intangibles.

And where the exchanges of value are getting really wacky is in the information lane.

Companies who used to simply provide goods and services are finding that the information content of their offerings is the highest source of value added and the driver of higher profit margins. Not to mention a main source of competitive differentiation.

Shove it into reverse
So now these wackos are driving in reverse. They're discovering the value of information that comes back from buyers and goes directly back into the front lines of their company. And as a result, they are more eager to listen than to inform. They actually ask for customer input on an ongoing basis. They evaluate it and implement it to add value and reap additional premiums for their brand.

The key to leveraging this value is to construct communication mechanisms that actively hear and respond to the voice of the market. (If you'd like to see such a mechanism, check out our case studies.)

Wanted: Drivers with heart
Like information, emotional value has always been around but generally subjugated to economic transactions. In fact, at most business-to-business companies it was paid about as much attention to as Moneypenny at a Bond girl reunion.

But now that customers and prospects control communications, some business marketers are beginning to realize that their audiences place real value on emotional intangibles such as loyalty, esteem, professionalism, learning and engagement. Even highly technical, spec-oriented business-to-business marketers are starting to get the message. (Check out a few examples by clicking on some case studies.)

As one CEO of a stat-obsessed mutual fund company has reported, "The most successful communications are relationship oriented and not hard-driving product ads." On days when such communications runs, the company receives hundreds of additional calls from investors.

There's sap all over the highway
Emotional value doesn't just come from conventional media. Good vibes all around a brand lead to loyal repeat purchases. So new-paradigm communicators are learning to engage customers on other levels in a true give-and-take of emotional value.

In fact, if you want to see emotional value come into its own as a currency of exchange, check out a business-related discussion forum on the Internet. These conversations can get pretty ebullient and by turns pretty vitriolic.

And companies with these kinds of listen/respond mechanisms imbedded in their brand communications in all media will have a greater capacity to tap into the power and value of all that emotion. And turn this market shift into a competitive advantage.

In this new world, customers and prospects are co-creators of the value offering and of defining the value being offered. And without these kinds of reciprocal relationships revolving around communications, your brand equity is going to drop faster than a pair of tube socks on Kate Moss.

Bottom line
In the old industrial model, the economic benefits of mass production created a one-way relationship in which business marketers defined the product, set the price, established the time and place of purchase and filtered the product-positive information to prospects down a simple channel through monologue communications.

Well, things have changed, Bucky.

Your buyers now exist in a connected world of perfect information and speed. They're easily able to get all the specifics they need and want about competitive products instantly. Even better, they can talk directly to users and makers of these offerings.

They don't have to wait until you're ready to communicate to them anymore. That's one of the reasons the game has changed so dramatically. And it's the main reason that the things that constitute value are being redefined.

Start changing lanes and your point of view
As a result, markets are becoming true markets again. Filled with conversations between what used to be called buyers and sellers around mutual exchange.

These new markets will belong to companies that change their points of view and enter the market conversations. Companies who engage prospects and endear customers to them with human emotion. Companies who learn to respond rather than send one-way messages down channels. Companies who provide value through information that will help people do their jobs better, faster, and more effectively.

And most important, these new markets will belong to companies who are able to integrate all these values with what used to be called products and services into value offerings that they strongly brand.

Shift in brand communications

There are things you can do right now to take advantage of these shifts in value. If you'd like to see them, visit the "Five ways" section.

And if you'd like some ideas on how to incorporate a customer/prospect perspective on what is of value into your brand, check out "Increase your brandwidth."