I’m often asked for advice to help businesses grow. My answer is never popular.
Most businesses think (hope) they’ve not been using their marketing tools wrong, so they think (hope) I can wave a magic wand or give them a few quick tricks to help them do it better.

​The problem is however rarely the way marketing tools (social media, websites, emails etc) are used. Too few businesses understand what it is they’re supposed to be focusing on to successfully sustain growth.

My first question when asked for business growth advice - especially in terms of marketing activities - is always: “Why should customers buy from you?”
The answer is usually a muddle between technical specifications, how long the business has been around, and “because we need them to”.

None of these reasons are however strong enough to make a case for a prospective customer that is faced with too many options, and not enough guidance. But businesses can’t guide customer decisions if they themselves are not crystal clear on the value they offer, or how it connects to the needs of their customers.

Business growth should focus less on the tools to be used, and more on staying in sync with what customers need now, and how the world they live in is changing. Only then will you be able to develop marketing and development activities that support your business growth objectives.

Gone are the days of customer service consisting of treating buyers with common courtesy. Customer service has been disrupted by an expectation of a total customer experience that is dictated by the customer, not company policies.
 
The disruption to the age-old practice of keeping customers happy resulted from a combination of technological advancements and societal changes. These collided into a perfect storm that is leaving companies breathless as they try to balance what customers want with what they can reasonably offer.
 
Omni-channel

It’s not strange to find someone standing in front of a shelf in a retail store, checking the reviews and price of the same product online, and even purchasing the product from a competitor’s online platform … all while in the store.
 
Companies offering services rather than products have also not been spared in the digitisation of the customer experience.

In addition to customer service training companies now need to invest in understanding how customers use online platforms to shape their total experience.
 
Omni-hours
The always on nature of the omni-channel customer experience has brought with it several challenges. Companies that have traditionally been used to having some time to regroup, restock, and rest now have to create procedures that have to adapt to a customer habit of instant gratification.
 
An auto-responder with an estimated timeline for feedback might generate some patience. Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence are however quickly rising to the rescue of brands struggling to deliver to their desired level of excellence at all hours. These tools can help to answer basic queries and might even be very effective in resolving complete matters.
 
Omni-advice
Customer experience is shaped by touchpoints with a brand across multiple channels and over a longer timeline than just the actual buying decision. The total experience is also shaped by what their circle of influence – friends, family, and an extended online network – has shared about their own experience with a brand and its products or services.
 
Buying decisions are therefore made with much more than product specifications or service delivery promises in mind.

Omni-cycle
Customers shaping their own experiences with channels and inputs that are not dictated by brands have also had a significant impact on the traditional sales funnel.
 
Instead of linear thinking that develops an opportunity into a lead and eventually into a sale, customer experience agents have to adopt a matrix thinking approach. This approach allows for fluidly moving back and forth between the phases of the customer journey based on the preferences of each customer.
 
The age of industrialisation has allowed for the creation of many standardised policies and procedures focused on increasing profits and reducing expense by keeping customers happy.

Only 25% of the world’s population is comfortable with changing the status quo and doing things with an innovative twist. These individuals are often called disruptors or innovators.
As businesses struggle to create success in their sectors that have been disrupted by technological advances, these individuals are now highly sought-after and rare.

It is often not the physical difficulty of doing something differently that holds us back from change, but the emotional discomfort that goes along with it.
 
This emotional discomfort stems from a complex combination of neurobiological, psychological, and sociological factors.

Mental discomfort
The human brain is designed to conserve energy as a survival mechanism. It does this by creating neural pathways that drive unconscious behaviour – habits – for tasks we perform on a regular basis. Any new task or activity requires a lot of effort, and the brain will therefore always try to revert to habits that are already formed.

We are used to preparing for and dealing with cyclical change – like seasons that come and go – and are not often exhausted by it because there are periods of stability in this type of change.”

The nature of disruptive change differs from cyclical change; it is unpredictable and does not contain periods of stability.

Emotional discomfort
Our personality types shapes our dependence on stability. 75% of the world’s population prefers to operate in familiar environments and from skills they’ve already perfected.

Disruptive advances however require us to work in environments that seem to have changed overnight.

Emotional reactions to change often include anger, fear, and sadness. These emotions are not only driven by individual employees’ personality types, but also by the culture of the business.

Social discomfort

Groups – whether it be colleagues in the work environment, or friends or family – set and manage their boundaries by showing acceptance or rejection of the behaviour of individuals. If the behaviour of an individual threaten the group’s regular way of doing things, the individual might soon experience that they have been rejected by the group.

There is significant discomfort in being on the receiving end of rejection by a group, and this discomfort will often drive an individual to follow popular opinion rather than follow their own choice.

This play between acceptance and rejection manipulates how easily people in businesses adapt – and stick – to new ways of doing things.

The discomfort of disruption is what drives businesses and individuals to continue to seek alternatives to change – such as denial, delay and undermining tactics – even though they know that the world as we knew it will never return.

My advice for businesses is to train their employees in the skills needed to accept change quicker by understanding what the core purpose – not job description – of their roles are.

This understanding must be combined with knowledge of the major trend predictions for the future of their particular profession or sector, and a replacement of industrial management habits with a design thinking mindset.

When a new era dawns in any organisation the habit is usually to turn towards motivational techniques to effect the necessary change. This is however exactly what prevents most organisations from changing effectively.

While traditional motivational activities work very well for creating shared intentions – usually based on hope, fear, or peer pressure – real change only happens through sustained and disciplined action.

The missing link between intent and action for change is the skill to change one’s own behaviour.We often expect people to adapt to change – especially when we’re excited about a new opportunity – without ever teaching them how to change.

This expectation is as unfair as asking an artist to do the job of a trained accountant. They might be very willing to, but unless they receive the same training, they will be largely unable to, or at least be unable to perform at the same level.

Translate the reason for change
The first step in developing the skill to change is to ensure that everyone affected understands exactly what should change and why.

While this might seem obvious, change management campaigns are often reduced to clever catch phrases developed by marketing departments.

Very few organisations invest in translating change messages into a context that is relevant to and understood by various groups and individuals.

Never assume that everyone understands why change is necessary. It is easy to mistake shared intent for true understanding. This is often a symptom of too much focus on motivating change, without the necessary backup by a clearly understood reason for change.

The logical reason for change will be the basis of discipline that’s left after the initial motivation – driven by emotion – has subsided.

It is also imperative to be very specific on which behaviours are expected to change.
People find it easier to change if they are told exactly what is expected of them in terms of both undesired and replacement behaviour, rather than leaving it up to individual interpretation.

Understand the complexity of resistance to change
Even the most compelling reasons for change, and the clearest communication is however not a guarantee for changed behaviour.

Humans are neurologically, psychologically, and sociologically programmed to resist change as a survival mechanism. We are hardwired to think that we can only ensure our future survival if we can control what the future will look like.

Organisations have to teach those that will be affected by change how to accept the unfamiliar and remain focused on the core purpose of the organisation. Resistance to change is dependent on so many complexities that the “mind over matter” approach of most change management programmes is unrealistic. Organisations that empathise with its people and train them on how to reduce the habitual resistance will see much better results.

Don’t count on linear results
Traditional change management programmes rely on motivation led by a change champion, and an entire group moving from one point to another through massive effort.

The problem with this linear approach is that it is not suited to the agile world in which we live. Very often, we find that change has changed by the time we get to where we thought it was going to be.

This strengthens my argument against relying too heavily on change driven by motivation, and led by a single source.

Change driven by several individuals or smaller groups – who have been trained in how to change their own behaviour to effect change – might not deliver results that align with each other simultaneously. It does however allow for these individuals and groups to take responsibility and be accountable for continuous movement towards a shared goal.

While linear results might look better in a report, more organic results have a compound effect across an organisation. Before you expect something different of people, first make sure that they understand exactly what is expected of them, and take responsibility as an organisation for equipping them to do differently. It might seem unnecessarily frustrating and lengthy in the beginning, but it will be an investment that continues to provide returns.

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!

Depending on your personality type, your appetite for risk and popular opinion of the people that surround you, your reaction to this statement will either be one of excitement or one of absolute terror.

The future is often described as an insurmountable obstacle racing towards us at a frightening speed.

We are however not as unprepared as we might think, even when we take into account trend predictions made by futurists. Developments over the past decade have already provided us with guidelines and structures to prepare for the future.

All we need now is a shift in mind set.

Disruption as base for vision
When we set the direction for the future we need to have a basic understanding of the innovations that are predicted to disrupt the industries we operate in and rely on.

With social media enabling the instantaneous sharing of ideas and discoveries, keeping our finger on the pulse of innovation is easier and cheaper than ever. In most instances it is not even necessary to understand the intricate details of all the innovations; a broad awareness will help guide leadership decisions toward setting a direction that is less likely to be surprised by disruption.

An honest look at what our world may be like in the future will enable us to focus on what is necessary to keep fulfilling the purpose of our effort.

We need to have a clear purpose for our efforts combined with a firm understanding of innovations that will have an impact on those efforts.

The purpose of an organisation can no longer be merely self-serving. Society demands that all organisations set a direction for responsible effort in the triple context of profit, people, and planet.

Sustainability as a habit
Sustainability is a term often used interchangeably between the continued existence of an organisation and the environmental impact of a product.

It should however be used as combination of the two and adopt the King IV Report on Good Governance description of “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”.

This description refers not only to the responsible use of existing limited natural resources, but also to the investment needed into alternative materials and methods that will reduce the negative environmental impact from decisions made by previous generations.

We need to consider how each decision we make now - as individuals, communities or organisations - will change the quality of life of our children and their children's children.

We must also understand that future generations will not live in the world that we know now. A change from automation by machines programmed by humans to robots that function on their own through artificial intelligence, is merely one of the changes that is no longer a prediction, but already a reality.

Communication as a hard skill
It is therefore necessary to ensure that we do not merely build our awareness of potential disruption, but that we also share it with others and prepare them for it.

Change management programmes and the communication plans that go with them has become a specialised function, but it seems to have little impact where disruption is concerned.

The problem with change management is that it is a linear process, while disruption is known for change that has changed by the time you deal with it.

Effective communication that attempts to prepare teams for disruption is barred by human nature that triggers an automatic resistive response once we're faced with something new and unfamiliar.

We need to distinguish between communicating change and communicating crisis by training our teams to form a habit of seeing disruption as an opportunity, not a threat.

To achieve this we need to stop delegating communication to marketing teams as a support function. We need to retrain our workforces to develop communication capabilities as a core skill, as that is predicted to become our saving grace for when the robots do come.