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The Social Strategist - Digital communities, ecosystems, and partnerships

The Social Strategist - Digital communities, ecosystems, and partnerships

 

In 2018 I was the Managing Director of an Energy Service company.

I had a selection of ‘tools and techniques’ that I used to grow businesses back then. On the Sales side I was very much into the ‘Challenger’ thinking. You may have read the book…

"Instead of leading with information about their company and its solutions, Challengers provide customers with surprising insights about how they can save or make money", we put this to effective use back in the day and it got us to commercial positions we could not dream of getting to by using other means.

My tools and techniques worked very well for a time, then I noticed they were becoming less and less effective. More calls, more emails, more adverts, more PR, more shows…. declining results.

The rise of Digital.

Back then, ‘Digital Transformation’ meant ERP systems and Project Management systems. Things that would make life easier once we had won projects and were managing them, but Digital began to spread into other areas of business.

Digital HR portals, Digital HSE systems, Digital Quality processing…

I noticed the Digital Impact on Sales, Marketing and Business development in 2018, but I didn’t understand it.

It was becoming increasingly difficult for us to get to the right tables. If we did get there, we were increasingly late in the process.

Trudging through analogue mud as the world turned digital…

In previous articles I’ve discussed how influence over broadcasting is key to progress in the strategic application of social media. Buyers tell us that they are more interested in your teams thought leadership content than your marketing materials and product sheets, they want to hear from the people not the brand…

People are winning the battle over the brands…

Buyers are cutting out the ‘door openers,’ choosing which doors they want to open and opening them themselves.

Buyers want thought leadership content to allow them to assess whether you really understand their issues and can solve their problems, so it makes sense to have your team dominate the thought leadership space in your sector.

But so often we see organisations stuck in a corporate rut of stiff, glossy brochureware that is blending into the mass of other stiff, glossy brochureware that is not in any way creating influence in their sectors?

Influence comes from people connecting with people on a technical, commercial, and personal level, the means bringing personality into the picture.

Lean into the army of technical and commercial influencers you have in your team. Look outside your office or on your next team video call…your army is right there, and they have untapped agency.

“But Eric, we are an (insert your specialism) company, surely this doesn’t apply to us…?”
Yes, it does…

If your business model requires businesses to buy your products and services…it applies to you.

Modern sales and marketing is all about creating digital communities

If you’d come into my office in 2018 and said…"we can see into the future and it’s all about digital communities, ecosystems and partnerships", I would have fallen off my chair laughing.

…it’s a commercial reset.

  • We must be thinking influence over broadcasting and creating a space that people want to walk towards and join in.
  • We must understand that the engine room for this is in our people, not out brochures.
  • We must be thinking about training the internet to see us as the answer to all those questions that we need to be the answers to.

Then we need a process and a framework to convert all of this into relationships, conversations, orders, revenue, and other meaningful business results.

The world has changed, your business world had changed whether you accept it, or not.

Your people build digital communities, ecosystems, and partnership, not your marketing materials and products sheets.

The battle lines for order intake, revenue and ebitda in your sector are drawn, and they are online…do your people have the skills and expertise to build digital communities, ecosystems, and partnerships?

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE

Published: 18-10-2022

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