We live in west London and are very lucky to have a garden, even though it's pretty small.  The garden was "landscaped" by the previous owners and they told us by somebody that had even exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show.

It's got to the point where the garden is getting "mature" and while we can prune and tidy, we wanted to get expert help on a tree so we got a tree surgeon in.

The tree surgeon had a "mate" working with him, who collected the cuttings.  It worked well, the tree surgeon was up the tree and he past the cuttings down to his mate.

We asked the mate "so do you sometimes go up the tree?" and he said.

"No, I'm actually doing this to tide me over. My background is in sales in the travel industry.  That industry is !@£$%^ and I'm going to retrain as a tree surgeon."

Covid19 has impacted so many lives and is changing the way we live and work.

Covid Has Accelerated The World to Digital

When lockdown started, back in March in the UK, my car was booked in for a service.  The garage called me saying they would shut for 3 weeks and we would all be back to normal.  Here we are in October and the scientists that advise the UK Government have admitted we are going to be in and out of lock down for another 6 months at least.

What impact is that making on business?

Research from the Insistuite of Directors (IOD) state 

"In a survey of close to a thousand company directors conducted last month, nearly three quarters (74%) said they would be keeping increased home-working after coronavirus. Furthermore, more than half of those polled said their organisation intended to reduce their long-term use of workplaces. More than one in five reported their usage would be significantly lower."

What’s more, the pace of growth appears to have accelerated in recent months. 

In fact this research shows that we have gained ten years of digital transformation in just 3 months. 

The Mistake Is That Digital Transformation is System Change

In this "famous" Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, Nicholas G. Carr laid out a revolutionary view that changed the IT industry.  From this, Carr, went onto to write his best selling book "IT Doesn’t Matter".

In summary, if you have a road and it gets you from "A" to "B".  That is great.  But if you dig up that road and lay another road. What has changed? Nothing.  The road still gets you from "A" to "B".  This is the fundamental issue with IT replacement.  It changes nothing, you spend money and get a new IT system, you might go to the "cloud".  But you still have an analogue business.

What as A Business Leader Do You Need to Do?

You need a strategy.

Your Board needs a strategy.

It needs to be a document, that you all buy into and provides you with a clear direction.

If you don't have this by the end of December 2020, then I will doubt you will get through 2021.

You need to understand how as a business you are aligned and you need to know how as a business how you are going to

Decrease Marketing costs, but maintain revenue

How you will maintain your visibility: Recognition in the marketplace

How you will grow your ‘Share of Voice’ in your sectors: Turning your volume up and the competition down

How to become a trusted advisor: Becoming the trusted voice in what you do

How you will get pipeline, growth & inbound: More conversations, more proposals, more Purchase Orders (PO)s…

How digital will provide you with recruitment opportunities: You need people and you want them to want to work with you.

Employee engagement & shared sense of purpose: A new sense of ownership.

People invited into deals early and controlling the "top table" of a sale

What is Digital?

Digital impacts the whole of your company, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Human Resources (HR), Supply Chain, etc.  This strategy needs to cover all aspects of how each of these departments will be transformed.

Not by buying tech, we all know "a fool with a tool, is still a fool" but how your business, people are process will be transformed. 

Let's Take Sales as an Example

Here are some questions to ask your leadership team.

Where is our strategy?

When were our Linkedin profiles optimised?

How to we get leads for our Sales team?

How much revenue to do attribute to our Social Media presence and activity?

What are our Social Media metrics? (Yes you can measure it!)

As Thomas Ross, one of our partners always says "you have not digitally transformed just because you have purchased a Peloton bike"

Where Do We Go From Here?

For those unsure of what to do, DLA Ignite will complete a review of your current social / digital / virtual / remote selling capability.  For free. 

We will take your team (up top 10) and perform a complete root and branch Social Media Performance Assessment.

Sales, Marketing, Management, Technical, HR. Procurement ....whoever you want to include.

This will include: Profiles, connections, followers, inbound and outbound activity, content, engagement, follow up, results.

(Happy to provide the list of deliverables).

We will map your business against the DLA Ignite baseline and present back to you our findings. We will show you where improvements can be made and what results should be expected.  No hard sell, just present back to you a road map.  You entered lock down analogue, this is your chance to leave this pandemic, digital.

Please contact me here or one of the DLA Ignite team here, so please pick one of our industry experts or one of our experts in your geographical locality.  Our website is here.


Thanks to Eric for allowing me to use parts of his blog.

Thanks to Tony Moroney for sharing the original article on Twitter.