We run a restream every Friday at 14:00 UK and 09:00 US eastern, where we talk about what we have learned that week.  The stories maybe serious, they may be funny.

You can watch this week's here.

Today, Thomas Ross, talked about this McKinsey article, which is available here.

In the article it states

"Only 11 percent believe their current business models will be economically viable through 2023"

Let me repeat that ...

From a sample of 1,140 only 11% of senior managers believe their current business model will be economically viable in 2 years time. 

This week I have been prospecting, as CEO of a small business, I have to prospect, just as much as everybody else does.  This week has been an eye opener.

I've gone to a list of competitors of a company I know has transformed their sales team to digital selling / social selling and said.  

"Just wanted you to know, your competition has transformed their sales team to digital if you want a chat to hear about it, let me know".

Now I don't know about you, but if somebody says they have competitive information I'm all ears.

As a leader, while I know I'm walking into a pitch :) I also know that if I'm the smartest person in the room I'm not learning.  It's all the reason to have a growth mindset.  

I learn, I innovate, I move ahead of my competition.

Or of course, you don't learn and you fall behind.  That's my opinion.

The results

I do have a number of meetings as you would expect, which is great. 

I also have a CEO that is too busy closing business to meet me.  That I totally get, but if you were told a competitive sales team had been given knowledge that could destroy you business of tomorrow. You might invest an hour?

Another response was interesting. I was told by the Sales VP he didn't need to speak to me because they had a global social selling team and everything was taken care of.  This sales VP has one of the worst Linkedin profiles I've seen in a long time, he still hasn't changed his URL.  So he looks like a spammer.  (A sales VP of a large company that looks like a spammer, go figure.)  I also couldn't see anybody in that business (I looked on LinkedIn) that had any "social selling" skills.

I do get they won't be the first company with a global social selling team which is ineffective.

(As a side note, we are currently doing a competitive analysis for a client and one of the competitors in that analysis has a well publicized global social selling team and we couldn't see they were making any difference.)

Digital isn't for shits and giggles

There is a massive transformation going out there right now, I totally get in those famous words of Donald Rumsfeld, "we don't know what we don't know". 

But as business leaders we have a duty of care to our employees and shareholders and we cannot just piss away a business because we cannot be bothered to learn about what's going on out there.

I totally get that I'm trying to sell something and we all get contacted by sales people who say they can change the world.

There is one slight difference with DLA Ignite, we are at the forefront of digital change as discussed by this McKinsey article and spending an hour with one of the team from DLA Ignite, will blow you mind. 

Guaranteed.