Wednesday, March 25, 2009
It's the same - only different
Recently, I've had the chance to visit with business owners, a school district superintendent, a school board president, university leaders, church leaders, scouting leaders, Rotary club leaders and to look in the mirror.
The challenge of growing or managing growth turns out to be pretty much the same for all of them and us. Sure, there are often different constraints imposed by the type of organization.
For example, an organization which relies heavily on state funds or tax dollars, may not have the luxury to add a new product to the portfolio to grow the top line. Tough choices about programs are made within fixed budgets and the rationale needs to be communicated. Perhaps bond programs need voter support.
An organization which relies on donations needs it's members to either contribute directly or help drive the fund raising from donors. Both the member and the external supporters need to value the output. How are they kept up to date?
In government, the customer is the constituent and to stay in office, an elected official ultimately has to serve that audience. How does that audience know they have been served?
A business needs not only it's customers but also it's employees to fuel the engine of growth. Customers have to "know" they want & need the products in order to be motivated to buy them. They have to know you even have products. How do they find out? Employees have to agree on the strategies that produce the product. Do they agree?
The questions are effectively the same.
All of those organizations also interact with a value web of suppliers, bankers, accountants, and community to name a few. The only real way to grow is to build relationships with all these "target" markets. Markets? A term referring to a group. A group of what? um... That would be... people! Individual persons. At some point you need their "buy-in" to what you are doing - individually. You need convey you expertise, your intention, your status, plans and more to secure that buy-in
For centuries, a really good way to reach people has been, and still is, to get face-to-face. A drawback to that approach are the limitations of time and space. We all have the same hours in a day and can physically can only be in 1 place at any given moment. So it limits how many people you can reach. A perhaps obvious solution (to some) is to use technology more efficiently to connect with people. We've all become attached to our technology. Even dependent. Addicted? You know who you are. ;-) These attachments are the way for your organization to find people - internal or external - where they are. It won't be the same for everyone. The way to reach one person, may not work for another. Your message may not play well in all mediums.
You know what? Nearly every organization I've encountered are under utilizing and missing the leverage of the power of technology available to them. We really need to fix that.
That's why you need to build an interconnected network of your own to communicate your results, your expertise and relevant things about your organization.
The 30 second formula is this: I recommend websites serve as hubs. Then use email, blogs and social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These - when all connected and cross linked - can serve as an organic growth engine. Then layer on affiliates, Pay per click, auctions, classifieds and other advertising approaches as appropriate for your organization. Chapter 2 of "Grow! - The eCourse" starts to look at websites - from very basics to the activity around them. Other elements are covered in later chapters.
Wes.
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