If you are in leadership at a professional service firm and you haven't heard about #social or #digitaltransformation I will pray for you and, more importantly, your employees. If you are aware of the massive shift in how we acquire and retain both clients and employees I have a question for you:
How are you approaching the central issue of organizational change: "Are you looking to the future, or, are you stuck in the past?"
"Rethinking isn’t a struggle in every part of our lives. When it comes to our possessions, we update with fervor. We refresh our wardrobes when they go out of style and renovate our kitchens when they’re no longer in vogue. When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, though, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard." ― from "Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know" by Adam Grant
If that quote from Adam's incredible book resonates with you in some way...you have a unique opportunity to capitalize on your awareness. The shift to #digital and #social has already occurred in your buying process...you need to make sure that you now eliminate silos and make #socialselling an organizational strategy.
Whether or not you have a ping pong table in the workplace or not isn't going to propel you and your organization to current and future success. That is a possession...not a strategy for sustained and resilient growth.
How you and your entire team #rethink is what will take you to the next level. Rethinking is what will allow you to win through #digitaldominance by ignoring quick fixes and automation in favor of the hard work and proven success that strategic planning will bring. The absence of rethinking will guarantee your continued slide into obscurity and market weakness.
Where do we start?
How about some 'Do Not Do's" for a change?
- Don't be 'all over social'. This is where you task your marketing talent to share lots of content that achieves only one goal: lots of content. Instead, you need to unleash your marketing talent to execute upon strategy. Creating a bland post and then having your employees 'share' it out onto social isn't worthless, but pretty close. What does that reposted article from another source say about your companies creativity/originality? How does it display what makes you different from your competitors in the high speed and high stakes world of getting prospective customer attention? Here is your answer: not much at all.
- Don't only have your sales & marketing team on social. The most credible people on your team are your technical experts (the research is easy to find on this) and your regular employees. The buyers on your prospective client staffs are most likely to believe the content your TE's could produce. Are they writing blogs and sharing curated content with explanations and insight? If not, you are missing out. Are your employees sharing original content about how they enjoy working at your firm and serving your clients? If not, prospective employees are eliminating you as the employer of choice in your marketplace. How long will you expect to win when you are getting second tier talent because you aren't even considered by the best clients because of your company's #socialpresence.
Those are just two examples of specific points to 'rethink' for you and your team. Your clients and prospects are undertaking the search for your replacement online right now (according to Gartner over 50% of the decision making process is done prior to contacting any #salesperson) and you need to adjust your strategy accordingly.
You need to expand your thought process and get outside of the box of prior success if you want to lead a winner in the future.
How do you begin that process of rethinking?
What can you do to be confident that you are going about it in a way that will work?
One tried and true solution is to get some outside help, a guide on your rethinking journey. That guide needs to be a 'rethinker' as well, someone that isn't stuck in the past and is also keenly aware of the need to change via strategy and process.
Related: Traditional Sales and Marketing Strategies Will Fail Your Company on Social