Recently I was saddened by two items I read on the web. First, apparently one of the U.S. senators from my state of Nebraska has never used an ATM. (Come on Sen. Ben Nelson! Are you living in the world your constituents live in?) Second, the wacky ex-governor from Illinois, “Captain Blago,” does not know how to use a computer. What?
It’s time to get with the program — technology is like communicating! In fact technology is communicating; they are not mutually exclusive. If you’re in sales and you can’t embrace technology at close to the same level as a “20-something,” then you may be on a steep downward slope to becoming irrelevant. I’m still finding salespeople who can’t send a text message or don’t know the power of social media. Sales motivation, customer service, prospecting and your selling skills are dependent in part on how willing you are to embrace technology.
It doesn’t matter what you sell or how you may think your customer base doesn’t use these types of technology. If you are thinking you can simply ignore technology, then you might as well forget about building a 5-year business plan. Look at the industries that have been rocked by technology, such financial services, travel and retail. Your world will be rocked too, so you might as well get ahead of the curve or at least be operating on the curve. If you’re wondering how to get ahead of the curve, you can start by visiting three sites and simply start typing in key words of things you want to learn more about. The three sites are Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia.
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