Can my lack of confidence of social be holding my team back?, Tim Hughes

We read about it all the time, the move to digital, the use of social media, but is it really a thing?

I read an article by a "cold calling guru" who actually suggested that we switch off from reading articles outside of our sphere of knowledge.

His view was that cold calling works, so we should not start reading articles about "new fangled" prospecting and selling methods as that will distract us. His advice was to filter out things we don't agree with or don't understand.

Of course he is going to say that, he has a vested interested that you don't move with the times.

Why email will never catch on :)

A friend of mine, many years ago, did a piece of consultancy work to create a business case that the company should get rid of the typing pool and stop sending letters and move to email. There was a clear business case, not just the headcount reduction but the speed and efficiency. Honest, this is a true story.

All this was presented to the board and it was turned down. The Board agreed, that email would never catch on. Why? Because lawyers would always insist on the written letter. Of course, we laugh at this now, I sign off my companies accounts by having a electronic signature. We use electronic signatures for everything. And we don't write letters any more.

It's the same transition taking place from legacy sales methods such as cold calling and email and the move to modern selling methods such as social selling.

Are we scared of the new and is that holding our business back?

I do wonder if the real reason was that the Board was scared of the new. It meant learning a new skill, having to do their own typing. We laugh at that now, but think about how, not embracing changes in our business holds the business back?

I'm sure the comments were "I don't have time for typing", "email is just for sending short messages to your mates", "email isn't really for proper business", "I don't want my workforce wasting their time on email, they should be sending letters, that's real work"

As leaders we have a duty of care to our employees

As leaders, we have the business and employees to look after and we have a duty of care. This is to make sure we make a profit, but that also means we need to create a profit going forward. That, may mean, that as a business, we need to make changes.

We know, that the world has changed with the internet, social media, digital, mobile and that duty of care extends to us to make sure we understand it and change with it.

Here at DLA Ignite, we can increase your revenue by 30% and reduce your sales cycles by 40%. It could be argued that by not social selling, you have decided to reduce your revenue by 30%. Anybody that wanted to reduce their turnover would require board approval I would think?

How can we protect ourselves, our employees and our business?

Protecting ourselves is about staying knowledgeable about the world around us, it is also about staying up-to-date. I'm not saying we have to buy the latest iPad, but we at least need to understand how to use one.

All I'm going to say, is that we have been transforming businesses to social and digital for 5 years now, it's all we do, which is why we are good at it. Maybe, if you are looking for help or a partner to help you, you could check us out.

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