Where are You on Your Personal Digital Journey?

Many business owners have been slow to recognise the beneficial impact digital technology and social media can have on performance. To dismiss the more familiar elements of social media - Facebook, Twitter, You Tube et al - as trivial and irrelevant to the serious world of business - is an enormous mistake.

Social media can be viewed as a sort of a ‘marmite’ test - love it or hate it. But, truth be told it’s not as binary as that. Like it or not social media - and its big brother ‘Digital Technology’ - are here to stay.

And, like the sea nibbling away at the cliffs on the South Coast - Sidmouth, Durdle Door or Torquay - Digital is nibbling away quietly but voraciously at your business.

I’ll come back to the wider business impact of digital technology in another blog. For the moment, let’s just look at why as a business owner, social media should be centre screen on your radar.

Social Stages

I’ve seen the journey expressed as four stages of development  - with the stages applying to both your personal and business journeys:

1. Unsocial: Not elegant I know with its overtones of teenage rebellion! Most teenagers these days, though, are social but not in a way many of us would recognise! Interestingly, there isn’t such a big bias as you would imagine towards the younger generations in terms of use of social media. Bear in mind that the younger person sat opposite you is just multi-tasking!

2. Social: Increasingly these days, particularly for small and medium sized businesses, you are the brand.  It’s often said that people buy people. So there is much to be gained by building your own social profile - anonymity is for wimps. Telling your personal story and being explicit about you interests and ambitions helps build empathy with customers and suppliers alike. It takes time but so does building your business brand. Start now!

3. Thought Leader: Never before has it been so legitimate to share a point of view and social media makes communicating that point of view much easier. Take a moment to think about who you might follow at a personal and business level. Would you want to promote a point of view of your own or just collate and re- distribute what others say? There’s room for both approaches and now really is the time! You can write it, film it and tell it in pictures using platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.  

4. Communities: Communities of interest have mushroomed as social media has grown and there are now legions of persuaders and influencers in the social media space. The interesting and indeed challenging point about these communities is that they defy the traditional ways of categorising people - community members self-select. You can approach communities in a number of ways either as a contributor or setting up your own special interest group. LinkedIn provides a good platform for this.

Be Curious

So be curious, most of the common social media platforms can be accessed with little or no cost - so start ‘plugging and playing’ now!

Chris Farrance e: chrisfarrance@frontiercoaching.com t: 07770 465560 www.frontiercoaching.com

How Sustainable is Your Business in the Digital Economy?

We’re reading daily now about the improving state of the UK economy - although there’s a studious avoidance of the term ‘green shoots’! Improving business prospects may lessen the pain that many businesses have been enduring since the recession hit. But, the trading environment today is significantly different from that of a few years ago and disturbingly there’s no guarantee that what worked for your business in the past will work going forward.

So, the question you now need to ask yourself is how well positioned is my business to cope with the world as it is now? And, more specifically, how am I responding to the challenges and opportunities that are now out there?

Here’s one passage of play that you may have been tempted to ignore - the impact of Digital Technology. Digital, by the way is just a way of encoding and transmitting information - it’s faster, cheaper and more immediate - I describe this as playing with live ammunition!

Given the understandable focus on keeping you head above water, you may have missed some of these trends. Here are five key ways in which digital is probably already impacting your business:

1. Your customers are taking control

These days customers are more likely to have spent time searching online, comparison shopping and talking with friends before they come to you - if indeed they do! With today’s mobile devices, this can be done real time and on the move. For example, how did you go about buying your last television, washing machine, car or holiday or stay in touch with the football transfer market? In all probability the last person you spoke to was the business you actually bought the product or service from. Historically it would have been the first!

Do you really understand how your customers buy from you today?

2. Conventional businesses are failing

Just look at the way in which internet shopping is mushrooming and the impact on well-established businesses in sectors such as music, books and travel. Many businesses that relied on distributors or middlemen are now able to sell direct to customers. Have you worked out whether this is an opportunity or a threat for you?

Is this a real risk for your business?

3. Social media is here to stay

You just can’t afford to like it or hate it - it’s not a Marmite test. Business is now much more social. This involves customers as we’ve mentioned previously, but you also need to be tapping into your employees' growing comfort with social networks - there are potentially significant productivity and knowledge gains for your business here.

Do you systematically capture what your staff know about your business?

4. The marketplace is now global

Remember too, that the marketplace is now pretty much global - for many the costs of entry are much, much lower. Your competitors - the ones you can see and the ones you can’t see because they’re over the horizon - will probably already be factoring in the benefits of technology already. So, being average is not good enough to survive in this increasingly competitive environment.

How robust is your competitive advantage? Are you creating the right memorable experiences for customers? Are your staff sufficiently engaged and motivated to build your business too?

So who are your competitors and what are they doing?

5. New Game New Rules

This isn’t just about technology - it’s about moving from the old way of thinking and working which we describe as ‘closed, selective and controlling’ to developing a new mindset - the Digital Mindset which is for us ‘open, random and supportive. These are not simple extremes of course, for most businesses some areas such as data protection and risk management remain hugely important.

Have you got a Digital Mindset?

In summary, new ways of looking at your business and new ways of thinking are likely to be the recipes for success as is a well-developed understanding of how technology can help you. The good news is that it’s not too late to get on-board and embrace digital and build a business for 2020 - or whatever your time horizon is.

So, if you’re serious about unlocking the full potential of your business - and learning to play with live ammunition - then let’s have that conversation now Chris Farrance e: chrisfarrance@frontiercoaching.com t: 07770 465560 www.frontiercoaching.com