Redrawing Your Map: Selling in the Knowledge Economy explains how the 21st century and digital social networks are changing client behavior, and sales, forever.
Having started in business in the 1980s in Chicago, I have had a front row seat to the waning of the Industrial Economy, which has created unprecedented human wealth through fabrication, distribution and scale in countless iterations. Its meltdown sets the context for a profound shift in all businesses, and it holds the key to understanding the new ways to bring new business to your firm. The Industrial Economy practice that is known today as “selling” is on life support in the ICU, and it won’t survive in most areas of the economy. Here I’ll explain how profoundly things have shifted and how you can use this understanding to revitalize how you bring new business to your firm. I’ll close with how social business empowers this disruption.
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While preparing to launch Social Business Services for B2B Sales in January 2012, I have been engaged in its Ecosystem Audit. I have plumbed online conversations about B2B Sales and Marketing adoption of social business (erstwhile social media). I have been struck by a recurring realization: a large part of Marketing and Sales as we know them is significantly out of alignment with B2B customers. Social business is permeating customer networks throughout the economy and changing customer behavior and expectations. This has created a rare opportunity for B2B marketing and sales people who understand and respond ahead of the market. If I’m right, this could be one of the most important posts you read this year.
“Social media monitoring” is one of the trappings of social business, and most organizations are bewildered by the various approaches they could use to “listen to the ecosystem.” No one argues that a key part of social business governance is determining meaningful metrics to measure the impact of interacting in social venues, but how you use metrics to listen and measure is far from obvious, so here I’ll share some insights I’ve developed based on helping clients through the process of selecting a “listening solution” as well as the process that we have used. Based on these experiences, I have developed an offering by templating the processes, but I won’t go into detail about that here.
The Maple Leaf Digital Lounge has selected the Social Network Roadmap(SM) to build the social presence behind its launch, and CSRA has been working with their team for a few weeks. The Maple Leaf Digital Lounge (“MLDLCA”) is a virtual ecosystem that promotes discovery and collaboration among Canadian digital startups, foreign and Canadian investors and other enablers. Their mission is to facilitate cross-border high tech deals. “The Lounge” has two incarnations: several online venues combined with periodic physical events. Their launch event will happen on March 12 at the South by Southwest Interactive (“SxSW”) conference. Read on for my insights from working with them so far.
2011 Social Business Predictions and Recommendations describes current social business adoption and advices firms and people how to get ahead.
Comparing Enterprise Social Media Consultants and Providers offers tools and processes to compare various types of social business, social media and social networking consultants. This came up this evening, when I responded to a question in one of my LinkedIn executive groups in which another member asked whether social media consulting was a “real business” for which market demand was real. I always appreciate these questions when they reflect a sincere desire to get a feeling for an emerging market space. Here is how I responded, plus additional details.
Social Business Engagement Summit Keynote—Stan Rapp, Engauge kicked off the first day of Alterian’s 2010 User Conference, Engaging Times Summit. He picked up David’s theme but drilled down into the history of (mostly direct) marketing to explain how powerful the transformation will be.