Woohoo, I've just voted

Okay, so I’ve just gone out and voted. Get me!!! Who did I vote for? Well I’m not telling you, but it was the same folk that I always vote for.

In the UK, we have dozens of parties. Granted, there are the “big three” where the minority get the majority of the votes, but that is like everything in life. That is why something like 5% of businesses makes up 70% of all UK business turnover. I may have just made those statistics up, but you get the idea.

So why do I always vote for the same people then? Is it just me? I doubt it. Truth be told we all do this. It is not a fear of change that stops us, indeed most of us secretly love change, but it is the fear of uncertainty that keeps us in the same place all this time. We don’t know if the new guys will be worse than the present ones. Mr Labour voter may worry that, despite the Lib Dems' promise on social issues, that they may be taxed out of their car. Or their central heating.

So this brings me on to the world of business. Now I don’t want to start offending people and be met with calls of “ageism”, but I want to talk about the “old school” of businessmen. The ones who have seen many summers and can recall when “they were a lad” and how things were different in the “old days”. You don’t even have to be thousands of years old to fall in to this category. I know this as I work with some of them. They have a ton of experience, and know what people want, and they know this because they have dealt with them for decades. All is well so far, yes?

No.

The problem is that they are dealing with yesterday’s problem. I was at a meeting this morning with a smart young man who summed the problem up very well. He said that back in the early 90’s, he had a kitchen draw that he kept mailshots in; just in case they needed something (I can almost see the readers nodding their head at this). When it got full, then he threw the old ones away and topped them up. When we get a mailshot today, it goes in the bin. So what has changed? Well, everything for a start!

Back then, companies went looking for customers, and usually found lots of interested people. If Volvo said that their new car did X or Y, then people listened, even if they did not want a new car then. They listened because when they want a new car, that information would not be there so readily, hence the kitchen drawer. Today, I can find out the exact length of a new car, its MPG, how many cup holders it has and what shade of blue it is, all within minutes. The sheer volume of information at our fingertips is utterly gobsmacking! So the result is we all get bored. I don’t care about a new Volvo’s MPG now, I’ll find out when I want one thank-you-very-much.

And this is where the problem with the businessmen who grew up and worked in the 70’s and 80’s comes in. They did business in the “old way”, when people would listen to whatever it is that you were saying, because they may not get that information anymore. The world has changed dramatically, but they are not changing with it. They are still sending tens of thousands of mailshots out, and getting no responses when they may have had hundreds in the past. “Maybe the design is wrong” they say. It is not the design of the mailshot, it is the mailshot! Today, businesses rely on networking and word of mouth to get things across, but too many people are scared of the uncertainty of this new way. I mean, the old way worked fine before and they know this well, so they don’t want to mess around with this new-fangled “Facebook” or the “t’interweb” thingy. Sadly, they will fall by the wayside, just as companies that refuse to use the telephone did. Today, we rely on a trusted company teaming up with someone else to make our decisions for us. How many people would use PayPal had they not partnered with EBay? LowCostPR certainly would not, for a start.

Folks, we need to change the way we market ourselves to take into consideration the new world we live in. This is the only way to get ahead. Then, when the world changes again, we will need to adjust to that.

Hopefully by then, there won’t be some young know-it-all typing on a blog talking about the “older businessman”, and referring to you.

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