August 26th, 2009 | 
Author: Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I’d like to hear from you this time around with this post. I think it could be really cool if we could get a bunch of different takes on this idea. I’ve ran the idea by a bunch of people recently and it seems like it has a lot of merit. So give it some thought if you would, then add your comments at the bottom, even if someone else already posted the same idea.
How is crafting an E-Business Strategy a lot like crafting an exercise strategy? Simple enough concept??! I’ll throw one out from my buddy Tom Loftus with DISpecialists that tweeted: “Once you see results its kind of addictive? ”
What are YOUR thoughts? Please Comment
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Last week I gave a preso at the KAIA conference in KC on Web sites and Social Media. (View the file in my slideshare.) It was a great session. The conference facilitator wrote me this week and said, if I may “toot my own horn” as my Dad used to say, “Thanks again for coming to the Tech conference! Everyone who attended your class and panel had nothing but great things to say about you!” And they even got CE credits!! How cool is that?!? The thing I learned is that a few agents are jumping into social media and seeing good results. Steve Anderson said one of his insurance clients is seeing amazingly good results from Facebook advertising. Others are starting to figure out Twitter. Some really encouraging things happening….
A couple pictures:
with Cindy Adams, Holmes Murphy; Liz Kittell, Big “I” of NE (twitter & SM queen)
Panel I facilitated on Agent Communications (VoIP, Mobile, Web-sharing, Texting, etc.)
Cindy Adams; Bob Fee, Fee Insurance; Greg Meyer, Meyer Insurance
Steve Anderson, TAAR, pilot and agency technology guru
Comment on the thread!!! Really appreciate it. I’ll give you credit in the upcoming book! JK
Posted in Insurance-Technologies
Hi Mike,
I think there are a lot of correlations here. Maybe I’m crazy too..!
I think E-business, like fitness, requires a plan. You can’t just throw yourself into it. You need to see a doctor to make sure you’re ready for it. You need to develop a schedule, ideally alternating aerobic and anaerobic activities. You need to work hard, gradually building on your success as you go.
Also like fitness, you can never make the mistake of thinking YOU’VE ARRIVED and now you are DONE. E-business is a transformation. A company must change they way they work, to become closer to their customers, and to align their products and services to the immediacy and customer-criticality e-Business demands. They must ALWAYS EVOLVE, letting customer feedback tell them what they must do next. Like fitness, a company is never done with e-business. It has to become a way of life- or it won’t work.
Also, another thing that comes to mind is that E-business, like fitness, is always something companies will think about TOMORROW…. then tomorrow becomes a month, a year, etc. Then… one day it becomes SO much harder to get there because of all those days and years your competitors were growing/evolving while you sat there with old methods, processes, getting soft… :)
At first I didnt think your question was that interesting. As I typed… you proved me wrong. Hope you’re well, Mike, let’s catch up some time.
- Mark Seghers
Sorry- one thing I forgot to mention in the first paragraph. Checking with a Doctor to make sure you’re ready for a physical fitness program correlates to a company hiring an e-business consultant to formulate an e-business readiness assessment (one of my offerings when I consulted for companies on e-biz strategy) to see what they needed to shore up culturally before beginning on a program which would only be destined to failure due to pre-established barriers that would first need to be dealt with.
Like any lifestyle change, you need to give it time to gel. I believe the magic number is 28 days. If you can follow an exercise routine or new eating pattern for 28 days, odds are it will stick. Same holds true for an e-commerce strategy implementation. You need to stick with it for at least a month and be disciplined enough to stick with it and practice it every day. Do that and you will not only see success on line, you may even lose a few pounds!
Creating an effective exercise strategy starts with understanding the need to exercise and then quickly follows with actually being willing to exercise.
There is a big difference between agreeing that you need to exercise and actually being willing to take the first step. Agencies generally know they need to bring in new business in order to survive. Yet few have created a marketing plan and taken the first steps to actually implement a marketing process.
The rapid changes that are taking place because of the development of the social web (and its implications for marketing to a new generation) are leaving most agencies behind. They don’t have a marketing process in place now, so how are they to understand how marketing is changing because of the social web?
So the first step for any strategy to work is — to actually take a first step.
These are all great points.
Similar to Steve’s sentiments, I agree that it’s one thing to intend to exercise, but it’s a completely different thing to take action and do it.
Many people have good intentions to do something, like exercise or create an e-business strategy, yet never do it. What’s important is the process of acting upon that intention.
Olympians don’t become Olympians without intention, vision, goals, physical/dietary assessments from a physician (nod to Mark), discipline and a constant refining of the routine. This list could go on. I think the parallels are clear.
Businesses need to not only be willing to take that first step, but also the next step and the next and so on as technology/tools/resources continue to enter, exit and evolve within the marketplace.