The last blog focused on the defensive strategy for survival - first things first, which means making sure your current business is in order.  This means right now, today….getting clear about ‘what is’.
Now that you know the facts, you can choose whether or not to make changes within your business.

You now have an inexhaustible and clear ‘well’ to draw from. 

Though you want to be on the cutting edge and as proactive as you can be, 2009 is a year to respect the limitations of the economy.  Though I do not suggest  you follow a different approach than you might follow in a prospering economy, I do suggest that you take more time to make decisions and exercise caution.  Time and caution means exchanging information with customers, competitors, supplies and other sources.  It also means conducting yourself with the utmost professionalism.

PROFITS PRINCIPLES TIPS FOR A PROACTIVE BUSINESS

• Reality
  ANSWER THIS QUESTION:  WHO GETS THE PROFITS?                           

The first step is to think about how you perceive your current value chain.
Typically, your end user will have the most direct relationship with consumers.
Yet, you, the business leader are losing control of the consumer through social networking.  You may not agree or want to consider this. 
Reality is - that you need to ‘get your social networking’ in order because your end users and consumers provide vast on line feedback about you…..and THEY ARE DETERMINING PRICING AND PROFITS.

A month ago, Don Bartholomew, member of the Measurement Commission of the Institute for Public Relations, asked the question, “Is 2009 the tipping point for social media accountability?’ The answer was a resounding YES.
Your next question for guiding your proactive business approach is:
Am I attempting to control my brand - or am I willing and able to interact with social media and engage effectively?

David Cearley, of Gartner spoke at the Emerging Trends Technology Conference in Melbourne last June, about the total disruptive social media technology.  Social media IS NOT a tool.  It is the key shaper of your business.  Social media provides a platform that encourages participation and feedback from employees and customers alike,” he said. “The added value for businesses is being able to collect this feedback into a single point that reflects collective attitudes, which can help shape a business strategy.”

• Flexibility
  ENGAGE YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES TO RESPOND TO SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCES 

There is nothing more important than creating responsive customer processes.

The late Michael Hammer, in his business revolutionary books, Reengineering the Corporation:  A Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperBusiness, 1993), The Agenda, What Every Business Must Do To Dominate the Decade, (Crown Business Books, 2001), speaks to the FLEXIBILITY OF PROCESS.

This may sound like an oxymoron, as process defines a structure - yet you will find the flexibility and freedom that process truly provides.  It’s being ‘in control, out of control’ at the same time.
If you have not already done so - allow social media to influence how you shape and brand your business processes, rather than the other way around. 

Think about how you will best adapt to how your customers make decisions - not only psychologically, but through the influence of their on-line influencers.  Many times, decision making becomes an instantaneous ‘interaction effect’ between customer and social media, much like the new physics highlighted the shaping of the observer and the observed.  (Gary Zukav,The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics: Bantam Books, 1984).  Make sure your processes allow for quick adaptations.

• Obtain Vital Information
  ENGAGE WITH INFORMATION SOURCES 

Find out what people are saying about your company, your competition, your vendors, your sales outlets, your leaders.
In the past, companies relied on focus groups and pilot studies, as well as information research databases such as Neilson and others.
This is no longer sufficient. 

Your leadership MUST have the mindset - a sixth sense in absorbing social media information into the fiber of their being - otherwise, they will miss vital information.  (See Frank Rushkuch, PR Media, July 1, 2009).  Many business leaders still tend to resist its influence and persist in controlling their brands, rather than adapting quickly to customer’s ‘legitimate’ demands as contrasted with fickle demands.  You must develop the judgment to sort between these.

According to Jeffrey Henning, the biggest advantage of online feedback is that it becomes an asset.  Where focus groups are variable costs, online communities, when companies create them are fixed costs.  Where focus groups must be organized to address the issue at hand, not providing results for weeks or months, online communities are like ongoing focus groups that can provide answers in hours or days.  Where focus groups can only provide qualitative research, well-designed marketing-research online communities can provide qualitative and quantitative research.      
                                  

 
Your comments keep this blog alive.  Thanks all, for the wonderful responses, particularly those who migrated their comments from Linked In and Twitter for the previous entries.  Keep posting!

Warm regards,
Rosalie