All right we’ve talked about the amoeba like qualities of a
business community and why we have to evolve from having a static,
transactional based database to a space where people who love what you do
interact with each other. Sometimes you’ll organise this, occasionally the
community will organise themselves. BMW doesn’t organised the Mini Club rally’s
that take place on sunny Summer afternoons!
What’s critical in this process and what binds your business
community is its connections. The connections between your employees, their
customers, suppliers, their customers customers, competitors and you! You’ll
map this connection visually once a year (we’re working on a model at the
moment.) This will show connection lines, participation lines, influencing lines,
prospecting lines and information channels.
Once you’ve mapped it, you can start to influence it
yourself. This is where the new marketing tactics complement direct mail,
telesales and advertising. This is not about stakeholders, like an overladen
plane, that really never took off. This is about the regular convening of
groups of people, facilitated by you across cross-sections of your business
community with common interests. We’ll call them hot groups an evolvement of
Jean Lipman- Bluemen and Harold J Leavitt’s idea! Where WOM and viral really
can take hold.
It will eventually develop into an eco-system that thrives
on information and knowledge flow. It will mean your organisation unlearning
and letting go of lots of stuff:
Control to facilitation Marketing to business
communities Closed to open Broadcast to socialRestriction to freedom Management
to leadership
I’ve seen this working with a few clients and organisations
and its fascinating, powerful, enlightening and inspiring watching companies
engage with their ‘database’ sorry ‘business community’ in a very, very
different and dynamic way!
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