An Atlanta colleague of mine, Mark Moore who heads up ChickenFox, wrote a blog post back in September entitled – It’s All Transition, What Happens Next? Mark talks about how those words were expressed by a character who had just kicked the bucket in the hit show – Dead Like Me. I don’t follow the show myself. Tried it once…just wasn’t for me. But the words, my gosh, they are powerful.
That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Transition. Whether it is business or personal, we are always moving, transitioning to something new, whether we like to think so or not. What’s important, I think, is how we handle the process. We can fight it. We can pretend that things are not changing around us, and do absolutely nothing, plugging along as we always have. Or, we can embrace the opportunity that transition presents by asking – what’s next?
As it relates to sales, transition is long over due. It’s time for sales people and their leadership to pick a new lane, a new speed AND a new approach. Spewing features and benefits off the marketing 1-sheet just doesn’t cut it anymore. Buyers are tired of that nonsense.
Transition is not always easy. In fact, it is often the most painful thing in the world, because as we move forward, we might have no clue about what’s to come next. That can be downright scary! But fear cannot stop us from moving ahead. We must accept that transition is inevitable, necessary and vital. We have to forge ahead even if we aren’t quite sure where we are headed. On the eve of the Great Depression, our 32nd President of the United States of America had this to say:
This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. —Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
I think that sums it up quite nicely!
PS…
Please do check out Mark’s company. His team works with businesses – and business leaders – to improve individual and organizational performance through the application of learning and knowledge strategies. Mark also happens to be a member of an elite group of professionals called Black Diamond Consultants, who went through a very rigorous program to earn their enterprise social media strategy certification.
An Atlanta executive who ought to know better (psst, not the guy to the left!) is now informing his business community that social media is worthless. He believes no results are likely to be had, and he smugly insists that the social web and all that it implies is a passing fad guaranteed to fade into the night.
