In the 1800's, a scientist conducted an experiment on frogs, for the purposes of determining how reactive their nervous systems were. During the experiment, frogs were placed in a beaker of boiling water and naturally tried to escape once their nervous system registered the temperature. However, when placed in a beaker of cool water, which was slowly heated by a Bunsen burner, the frogs failed to register the temperature increase, remaining still, and after two and a half hours the frogs finally boiled to death.
While interesting from a scientific perspective, the experiment also inadvertently highlighted a universal truth; gradual change is often not perceivable… especially in business.
The way we market our businesses, facilitate our staff and service and communicate with our client bases is changing at a speed unparalleled by any other age. With so much new technology suddenly available to assist businesses, managers who may not entirely understand or recognise the changes happening around them are left with the following personality-defining question: will you choose to change and leap forward, or ignore it and watch the world around you heat up?
Change is something that most people fear and will resist, using phrases like "but, that's how we've always done it" and "it's too risky, let's just stick to what we know". But, change is unavoidable (after all, the world is in a constant state of change) and it is time for New Zealand businesses to embrace the new era we live in.
Being the electronic era, it is easy to identify that it is information management that has had one of the most significant shake ups over the past decade. However, some businesses are still unaware of changes happening around them and, more importantly, the changes their competitors are embracing.
Rather than investing in marketing that cannot be measured, you can now use your website, e-mail communications, social media and online advertising that allows you to track precisely how many people read your marketing message (sometimes even who they are) and what your return on investment is.
Rather than having staff that are unaware of upcoming events, procedure changes or the new roster, you can now give them a login to the company website (or wiki) to access secure company documentation and notices (even personalised messages).
Rather than having a call centre of employees that answer the same key questions everyday, you can now suggest users visit the FAQ section of your website (or search your social media profiles) on the initial phone answering message - significantly reducing the workload for fulltime staff.
Rather than limiting yourself to a local market, you can now reach the world without ever leaving your office, allowing you to sell online (24/7) or simply generate interest in your offering.
Rather than posting tediously long instructions on how to assemble the widget you sell (that most Kiwi men ignore anyhow), you can now provide your customers with videos of you putting it together, allowing them to follow along at home.
But, perhaps most exciting of all, rather than having to pay an IT specialist to do this all for you (at an exorbitant cost), you can commission the development of web solutions that (once built) allow you to do this all yourself (or add it to your receptionist's job description).
So, the question remains, are you happy to sit in your beaker of warm water believing that nothing will change or will you leap into the unfamiliar and manage the changes in your business?
Wendy Schollum is a web strategist and managing director of Xplore – your web agency (www.xplore.net). If you would like more information on leverage digital mediums to market your business, follow Xplore on Twitter (www.twitter.com/xploreNET), join us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/xploreNET) or call 0800 100 900.
