The Pace Of Change And The Future Fit Board, Tim Hughes

This is an interesting article by Which-50 about an EY report called

“Setting the pace: how to ensure your board is fit for the future”

While that report was written in 2019, I still think it's relevant today.

The Which-50 article states, "EY identified six key ways for boards to test their future-fitness and, within each, highlighted questions any board should consider. This is a 2019 report, but interestingly the findings remain relevant despite the changes businesses and boards navigated.

The six steps:

Gather new perspectives
Revitalise board dynamics
Increase focus on the long term
Adapt communication, protect reputation
Align and monitor culture
Enhance risk and compliance oversight"

It's interesting that it says nothing about digital. Here I am sitting in London after a year of the Covid19 pandemic and everybody, in every country in the world has switched to working online and with digital. Everybody.

As a social seller I've had a prospective customer all over my content, so I went to the sales leader and said "why are all your team all over my social selling content?"

And he said

"As many other companies, COVID-19 has accelerated our cultural change on how to grow business in a virtual environment. As part of it, our strategy with in our sales organisation is Social Selling approach, through LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool. I, and several people of my team find quite interesting, insightfull and like your Post, therefore spreading the popularity of these posts into our community."

Which is lovely, as this just proves that this works. Regardless of if you are selling cars, software, hardware, whatever, you CAN reach prospective customers using digital.

Marketing looks after our social media

We see in many cases that marketing look after social media for some business, which is great, but I'm not talking here about your brand or a social media campaign.

I'm talking about your sales people accelerating deals, closing deals and becoming self-sufficient in prospecting by using social media strategically.

We often hear sales leaders saying "we are all over social" when it's clear from their Linkedin profiles and their activity on social that they are not. So let's unpack that.

My sales team are all over social

This is something we often hear from sales leaders, if you answer "no" to any of these 5 questions, you are not all over social and you need to talk to one of the DLA Ignite team.

1. The salespeople often get inbound from people wanting to buy?

2. You are getting 25% - 50% of your revenues from using social media?

3. Your salespeople have become self-sufficient in prospecting?

4. You understand the importance of why your salespeople need to create content like this blog and your team is empowered to do this?

5. You company is seen as the number one company in your industry and you often get asked in to sit on the "top table" regardless of size of your business?

We have hired a Millenial to do social

Again this is great, Millennials have grown up with social and are digital natives, this will be a boost. That said, critically, your business probably needs pipeline and it needs a strategic methodology to achieve this.

We have one competitor that tells their clients to put flowers on their LinkedIn profiles. Yes, really!

This will not drive you hard numbers in terms of pipeline and revenue. Flowers on your LinkedIn profile, may look nice, but when it comes to return on investment (RoI) you want $s in return. We have both been in sales long enough to know that means you need a process and methodology, for each salespeople and to scale the results across the team.

It's time for action

After this blog, if you are unsure about social in any shape or form, then please, contact one of the DLA Ignite team, they are all attached to our Linkedin corporate page, which is here.

If this article has been useful and you think it would be helpful to your network or individuals then please share it. Please also tag in the individuals.

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In its report, “Setting the pace: how to ensure your board is fit for the future”, EY identified six key ways for boards to test their future-fitness and, within each, highlighted questions any board should consider. This is a 2019 report, but interestingly the findings remain relevant despite the changes businesses and boards navigated. The six steps: Gather new perspectives Revitalise board dynamics Increase focus on the long term Adapt communication, protect reputation Align and monitor culture Enhance risk and compliance oversight

https://which-50.com/the-pace-of-change-and-the-future-fit-board/