I’ve just had a superb conversation with a client that I wanted to share. I’ve been working with this business on and off for two years on a variety of transformation projects in the areas of product development, logistics improvements and company culture.
The business is fantastic but they have been very resistant to address the obvious benefits for his business going online. A few months ago the owner passed a comment that he didn’t want to get involved with Twitter or Facebook because he felt that things change so fast that in a few months time, those platforms might have been surpassed and therefore his investment of time and resources might be wasted. As someone who’s spent a lot of money over the years on traditional media advertising, his hesitancy was understandable if a little frustrating as I saw the many opportunities pass the company by.
I got a call the other day asking to book an appointment for this morning to meet him and his management team. No topic, no agenda, just bring myself I was told. I arrived at the meeting intrigued. We all sat down in the boardroom and he turned to me and simply said “Convince us.” I looked at him confused for a second and then the penny dropped that this was going to be a conversation all about social media.
To keep it short, I’ll share my pitch to them over the next couple of posts. The main point I want to make is that after the meeting, while the coffee was being consumed I turned to the boss and asked him plainly why he had changed his mind and what had happened to convince him that he needed to take this whole area seriously. “Everything changes”, he said. “I might not fully understand it all now, but I know that this is going to be important for the business. I had to learn to deal with email and we’ll work this stuff out as well.”
I could have hugged him! The switch had clicked. He understood. He finally got was I try to tell all my clients who don’t believe that social media is a bigger change to business models than the introduction of the mobile phone…
Everything changes.
All the best.