Continuation of the review for Jay Baer & Amber Naslund’s book The Now Revolution, 7 shifts to make your business faster, smarter and more social.
The message in this chapter is simple. Be what you say you are. What isn’t simple, is creating a clear corporate culture that employees can invest in. The authors provide reasons why this should be important and make recommendations on how to achieve it.
This chapter got my heart pumping because as a consumer I am beyond fed up with the BS factor of many companies. Requiring consistency of culture has been in my blood for years. In the early 90‘s I quit a management job after being asked to apply for a promotion. The company’s message to consumers AND employees was constantly being contradicted by actions coordinated through middle to upper management. I love solving problems but these issues ran deep; I knew my requests for positive change would be akin to a gnat pushing an elephant, so I chose to walk away.
Marketing departments know what consumers want and yet everything that happens in between the marketing message and consumer investment has become disconnected. Over the years, intelligent buyers have become hardened skeptics which has made the sales process more difficult for all organizations.
The Bedrock chapter provides ideas and techniques for creating a consistent culture throughout your company. Why is this important? The transparency social media creates makes it more difficult for companies to hide behind their marketing messages.
In the past, companies were like layered cakes baked in teflon pans. The use of social media by employees and consumers has changed the container. Those layered cakes are now being baked in transparent pyrex. More end users want to see the ingredients in your efforts.
The company culture Jay and Amber present in chapter one set my heart aflutter (it IS February 14th!) I thought, “THIS is a company I could work with.” (“This” being a general term for any company that adopts the style outlined in the chapter.)
Despite my avid agreement, I found myself wrestling with a consistent single thought throughout the chapter: “Great in theory but very difficult to find people with the skills required to pull this off.”
The authors must have known because… The next chapter is Shift 2: Find Talent You Can Trust
Have your expectations for companies changed? Do you find yourself considering more than just the product in front of you when choosing who you do business with?
Leave a comment and you have a chance to win your own copy of The Now Revolution, 7 shifts to make your business faster, smarter and more social. LOVE the book and want more than one opportunity to win? Tweet about it too but cc me to bring it to my attention.
