I had yet another Zoom call today with a client who has attended 2 separate, 1 to 2 hour ‘Social Selling’ ‘Masterclasses’ and are now more confused than ever.

I was brought up in old school ‘Interrupt and broadcast’ Sales and Marketing methodology and techniques. When I got into Social Media for business it took me 3 months of intensive study and application to get to the point where I could deliver transformation workshops to individuals and businesses. 

When I understood the breadth and depth of the subject and how it impacts business, not just in Sales but across all functions, I had to seriously reset. 

I often tell clients that this is not a simple ‘course’, this is the start of an end to end transformation process for your business. That might sound a little dramatic but, if you do this well, you will speak a different language internally with each other from now on. You will have new ways of measuring performance, you will look at territories differently and you will see a dramatic change in how you are perceived as an organisation.

Social Maturity is not achieved on a simple course – It is a complete transformation of how you ‘do’. We also can't expect everyone to learn and apply at the same pace and with the same level of competence, this needs proper coaching.

We’ve all been on one of those training courses. You attend / log on, the person dumps a lot of information on you and you think “I might give that a try”, but we generally don’t bother.

The world has changed with Social Media, Tweets are reported as News, we buy things based on Social reviews and try to think of a single person under the age of 65 who isn’t in some way Social….

Social has dramatically changed the world. For the first time in history more than half the population of planet earth is an active user on Social media – 3.96 Billion people – that’s you, me and our clients.

On a recent Crux Cast, Chris Fleming the CEO of Cyberhawk, spoke about how he sees the lines between work life and home life blurring with Social Media. We expect to use social as part of our daily lives. This could be looking people up on Social before we meet them, connecting or following people that will help us grow as individuals and expanding our network, often as part of a continual learning programme.

Social Media for business is complex yet simple, when well trained, explained and supported.  You cannot hope to be anywhere close to Socially Maturity in 1 or 2 hours, it takes coaching and commitment, patience, collaboration and support.

A masterclass is a flash transaction, it’s not sustainable transformation. Transformation is about permanently altering presence and behaviour for the better.

At DLA Ignite we employ change management techniques to enable the bridge from simple transactional 'courses' to sustainable transformation coaching. Our aim is to develop you and your team to become the influencers in your sector.

Lets talk about transformation programmes or any other topic related to Social Media for your business - contact me here:  www.linkedin.com/in/ericdoylecrux

Eric Doyle

Crux / DLA Ignite