Navigating the Post-Literate Society: Insights and Strategies for the Digital Age

As an author of this daily sales blog and seven books, I think writing and reading are incredibly important to personal and professional development.

I read books because they teach me things I don’t know and that, if I could find a way to make it actionable, then I could do something better than what I'm doing right now. I believe that today we live in something that's called the post-literate society. I would call our current society the TikTok Society because that app and similar online spaces is where people are spending time, and a lot of it is algorithm-controlled, short-form content. Now let me give some criticism about this because I think it's really important for human beings to understand how we capture and share information.

First, with this type of content consumption you're leaning back in your chair and passively consuming one piece of content, then scrolling to the next. You don't have to do any of the work of engaging with it. You don't have to choose a book and pick it up. You don't have to try to understand the message, or consider what you think of it. You don’t need to wonder how it relates to something else you’ve read or seen. This means you're passive in the experience. For example, if you’re watching me in a YouTube video, you're having a passive experience. Information is just coming to you, but you don’t have to do a lot of the work. Maybe you think, “I don't know if Iannarino is right or wrong. Could he be lying about this? We don't even know if there's such a thing as post-literate society?”

But I promise you there is. I also believe you already know that we are in generation TikTok. That means that we're going to have 20-second videos. This is like consuming bumper stickers. They might have a small amount of wisdom, but there’s no room left for actionable advice. TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts can deliver the same low level of information as a bumper sticker. The shorts are very short. I've done a bunch of them, and I don't really love it. I would rather have an actual conversation, where more information could be exchanged and that information was actionable.

You may also like podcasts. I am an Audible listener and it helps me retain more information. I read books, then I listen to them because that helps me retain the information. But listening is also a lean-back activity, so I'm passive. I'm just listening to the words come in but for some reason that works for me. Maybe it works for you, too. I listen to a number of really good podcasts, including ones from Andrew Huberman and Tim Ferriss. I especially like ones where people are really interesting and have something helpful to say.

If you don't pick up a book, and if you don't do the reading, and if you don't do the research, you're not going to have an easy time being an insight-based salesperson. You have to find books, do your research, and work to understand what people smarter than you are thinking and saying. That’s the only way you can say, “I've developed this unique perspective through these insights.”

If you read the right books, they will give you insights and a perspective that will allow you to teach your clients what they need to know.

I have bought all kinds of books for my clients, but now I realize that has little value. If I read a book that would be great for a particular client, I would give it to my contact, who would stick it on their shelf. A month later, I'd be back for a meeting and sit down, and I would see that the book was covered with dust, like they didn't even open it. I realized if I want them to know something really important, I need to teach it to them myself because they're not going to open that book.

When a person takes a book and shelves it without reading it, they feel like they already solved the problem. (Seth Godin told me this.) That’s impossible because, unless you open the book, it can’t help you with your problem.

If you're not reading books that are consequential and analyzing how they could be helpful to your clients, you're missing part of what you need to be to be a trusted adviser. The trusted adviser does the work for their clients. They aren’t the guy that comes around when your business fails, “You should have come to me!” We want to be the person who knows what's around the corner. We know what the future is going to look like, we have a good idea, and we share that with our clients before it hurts them!

I'll give you a good idea right now: 78 million baby boomers are entering retirement. The number is at 10,000 a day right now. In the future, this will cause a collapse of demand because 80 million people are not going to be here over the next decade and a half.

So now we have to figure out what we are going to do. We're going to need fewer sales organizations and ’salespeople, and we're going to need better salespeople. Lower demand will mean it's going to be more competitive and they're going to have a very difficult time surviving. There will not be enough for everybody to have what they need to be able to reach their goals. To replace the people who are dying now, we need 2.2 babies per couple. We’re currently at 1.66, and we're already about 25% behind, and that means that we're in deep trouble in the future. I'm telling you this not because I'm negative—I'm the guy that wrote The Negativity Fast—I'm just telling you the truth. It's going to get rough, and some of us are going to have to figure out what we need to do to change and get the results that we need.