Doc Searls first talked about the intention economy in March of 2006 on the Linux Journal.

“The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don’t need advertising to make them.”

And that is all fine and good. But if you don’t do something as a seller, business owner, professional service provider, how are those buyers going to find you? Kevin O’Keefe talks about the “intention ecoomy” in a post titled “revisiting the ‘intention economy’: the case for lawyer blogs.”

Here is what O’Keefe says in his post:

Lawyers don’t need advertising to make or get clients.

Lawyers get work as a result of networking via conversations, relationships, and having a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority.

Lawyers need to proactively do something to get work this way

Clients find and hire lawyers who network, build relationships, and create a word of mouth reputation as an authority — lawyers don’t capture clients through marketing.

“The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions” That I get. And I agree you don’t need advertising, per se. But you do have to do something.

Doc Searls further states:

Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just “branded” by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.

We have talked about tools so many times on this blog, I can’t even count how many. However, the key tools available to everyone so they can be part of this “intention economy” are blogs and other social media tools like twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. These are the precise tools which help you start the conversations between yourself, your business and the potential buyers, customers and clients. And once those conversations start, you have the opportunity to use these same tools to build those relationships so important in this “intention economy.”

These same tools help you build the “networks” mentioned by O’Keefe too. And these tools help you create a reputation and set you apart as a thought leader and opinion shaper in your niche or targeted market.

And it is blogging and these other social media tools that meet the final thought mentioned by Searls in his statement about the “intention economy.” “The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or capturing) buyers.”

It is the activity of blogging and using twitter, Facebook and Linkedin which will put you in a position to build that reputation as the place to go for answers to their problem or to fill their need. It is a proactive method you can use so buyers find you.