This EY report, has a great quote 

"With businesses adopting a digital-first mindset ....COVID-19 accelerated digitization. Where there was some fatigue prior to the emergence of the pandemic, 76% of US business leaders now plan to increase digital investments as a part of their 2021 strategy."

But what does that mean?  EY, go onto say... 

"Everyone is grappling with what changes are permanent and which are temporary, but it's clear that digital investment is a necessity. Executives are doubling down on their ability to connect revenue sources more tightly to business, employees to employees, and customers to customers."

But what does "digital mindset" really mean?

Many people think that digital is about system change, in my last corporate role, I sold accounting systems. I spoke to many a company that wanted to be digital and they saw this as a new system.  But what did that company, and it's people do anything different?  Nothing.  A car takes you from "A" to "B" on a road, if I dig up that road and lay new tarmac, what difference has it made?  None, I can still travel from "A" to "B".

Digital mindset, is about you being ...... digital.  Digital in your outlook and digital in your processes.  This also needs to happen strategically, not tactical.

Often companies say to us "we are all over digital".

When they explain, it is because somebody is posting on the Linkedin page, maybe once a week or once every two weeks.  I was told today about a company that posts "corporate posts" every day on social.  And the result?  Nothing.  Because nobody is interested in corporate post.  This isn't digital, it's an analogue business desperately trying to be digital and failing. 

The other week a CEO sent me a post where he had received 40 likes. 35 of the likes were from his staff and the other 5 were from mates.  This is all tactical, in other words this isn't strategic.  It's just a random act of social and people are posting in their own echo chamber.  This isn't being "all over social", if you business is doing this you need to stop.  

You might be on social, but this isn't digital, it won't "move the needle".

In fact this is a cost to the business, not a revenue generator. 

Show me an example of a digital mindset?

If you want to see how companies are accelerating by using digital as a strategy, read on.

Case study 1

In this case study, Danielle Guzman, talks about how Mercer, empower their employees to talk on social.  The ROI (return on investment)?  Danielle explains how Mercer as a brand will develop the business a certain amount of business, because they are well known in certain markets.  She also confirms in this video how empowering people on social and giving them personal brands gives Mercer 4 times more revenue than the brand. 

Case Study 2.

This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite here is a post that he put up.  We have all seen posts like this, we see them everyday, but people treat social tactically.  You post, because you think you have to or somebody tells you you should and walk away.  Let's talk about this post. 

 Eric's post of his 16 year old son, Austin, on his Birthday got 18,000 views and 165 likes, which is great.

But better still, he got 6 - C-Level meetings from this post?  How?

Let's stop and think about this for a second.  

This post took 10 minutes to create and it got 6 C-Level meetings, how come?

Because, all of Eric's post are strategic.  He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.

He doesn't always post "humanised" content, I'm using this as an example.  

But an example of why you need to get your employees and sales team on social, just think of the $ impact to your business.  Especially if you scaled this across your business. 

How does Eric do this?  He builds relationships with prospects and customers and because they have a relationship with a human, not a brand, people are happy to engage.  Eric is also able to cut through the myrmid of noise that brands keep putting out.  If you are a buyer, where will you spend your time?  Reading an advert that says "buy my product because it's great" or look for the insight and educational content that people like Eric is putting out?

In a recent article, Nick Dangles, co-founder of Kinetic, was asked for his best advice on social selling and he said

“The best advice I can give about social selling is that it’s not about selling. It’s about creating meaningful and engaging content that will resonate with your audience. Approaching social selling with the intent of providing something of value will give much better results than simply pitching your company on social media,”  

Don’t let fears or misconceptions about digital mindset hold you back

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through what we are doing in the form of case studies, what we are doing for other businesses to transform them to digital.  No hard sell, just practical examples.

DLA Ignite is a global business and we understand that a "cookie cutter" approach to digital does not work, we have to take into account local language and cultural sensitivities.  Which is why we have built teams across the globe, that can support you by country and industry sector. 

For more information contact me here, visit our website, or visit our Linkedin company page and contact one of the DLA Ignite team members.