NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL SOCIAL! 21 Digital Tunes for the here and now.

You remember the tunes yeah.

You remember buying the tape deck and the blank cassettes and sitting by your radio and listening to your tunes and the charts coming in every Sunday for god knows how long.

You remember pressing pause just as the song ended and trying to get your double tap button off pause just as Bruno Brookes kicked off the next tune.... so you didn't get any voice over on your megamix you were taking down the club to play fives to.

Yeah. So do I. I remember those days to.

The good old days. When we would run down the other side of the street, across the road, down the path along the side of the flats, around the corner, nip through the fence, over the park, down the side of the alley, knock on your friends door.

"Is Craig coming out to play football".

"No, not tonight".

"Oh....for f)@7s s@Je".

Then you run back home. And maybe try another friend on the way back home.

The good old days.

When you got a phone (Nokia) and you played snake with your friends and txtd. Wow it was like a new age was dawning.

You went down town with your pals on the bus.

You played hide and seek and two man hunt and world cuppy.

You and your friends went climbing a hill (munro back then) and it was 2 hours of walking and you packed enough food for a week. When you came back, you talked about it like it was in a Dungeons and Dragons episode.

Then once you grew up, you left school and got a job.

You went to the office or yard or factory.

You got paid in a brown envelope or a cheque.

You then developed into an adult and started hitting the town.

You got a girlfriend or boyfriend or neither.

You got into trouble maybe and had a black eye.

You get promotion or move job and begin to see a career advancing on.

You had a family or travelled or got married.

Those were the days.

In 2019 COVID and pandemic blew a big hole in the economy and a bigger hole in the hearts and minds of all the good people and great businesses of the UK and worldwide.

It devastated an industry or two or three.

It gave people little hope of holding down that job or career.

It left a mess of the way we were used to operating as business people and humans.

Things that we had never done before where being forced upon us by the pandemic.

And things that we had always done were at the same time, being taken away.

From March 2020 onwards until a month or so ago we had gone 18 months operating and being different people in our approach to each other, those around us and in how we done our daily tasks in personal and working life.

If the last 18 months has taught me anything. It is that we had become too complacent and too over zealous in our reach for the WANTS against the NEEDS. A real eye opener.

We had become zombies to a mindset and a handset. We had become less engaging as humans. We had evolved into robotic workaholics who could not see the wood from the corporate trees.

I think the last 18 months has been good for the sense of the re-boot that potentially the whole country and other nations needed to adjust, take stock of what is important and re-evaluate what means the most to us and our families going forward.

I like the sound of the the office workers returning.

I like the sound of networking and events coming back onside.

I like the sound of business and growth in the news.

I also like the sound of the wind. The wind of change in that matter.

However you want to view the rest of your daily 9-5 or working life, you have to view them through 2021 glasses now and not 2019 or before. Those days are gone.

If the office is an option. Let it be that.

If networking is your thing and an option. Let it be that.

If business is picking up and you are in a good spot. I congratulate you and your team.

BUT....

If you are still looking around at the big hole that the pandemic left in your business and your team has been left in the isolation of working from home, and they feel a bit lost or a bit confused as to things that are no longer relevant or working for them, then this is where as a true leader and a manager of people, YOU MUST DO SOMETHING FOR THEM.

If this means upskilling them for a new DIGITAL landscape, then look at this.

If this means finding a fit for a balance working environment, then look at this.

If this means developing social and wellbeing skills for them, then look at this.

What I do with the wider team is look at the landscape in business to business and listen to the industry analysts that tell us that we cannot send anyone from 2019 onto a SALES field in 2021 with the same tools. They will be quickly forgotten about and out of a job.

Like it or not the goalposts are gone. BUYER & SELLERS are on DIGITAL platforms.

DOING BUSINESS EVERY DAY. 24/7 365. ARE YOU BEING FOUND BY THEM?

If you or the company you work for don't have a substantial digital and social presence in 2021 then you are simply INVISIBLE. Harsh but very, very true.

SOCIAL SELLING & INFLUENCE is a GAMECHANGER in the B2B landscape.

Nothing comes close to the results and development that coaching and mentoring gives a team or an organisation willing to adapt at pace and change the fortunes of the business.

It is scary and you are not alone. But it is world class coaching that deliver from a strategy that is underpinned with changes in habits, behaviours and your social presence.

STOP looking for the quick hit webinar, the masterclass day workshop or the hints and tips. THEY WILL GIVE YOU A SORE HEAD and A SORE BALANCE SHEET. Zero return.

I loved the good old days like anyone else. But the last 18 months have accelerated 2025 to be front and centre in 2021 now and you must get on board with the pace of this transformation or as above you will may be out of work and invisible going forward.

This is the best opportunity you will be given this year. 2022 can be amazing.

We can still reflect and have all those memories and build those lives as before but like anything in life, we evolve, we learn we develop. All by listening to those around us and creating new skills, new opportunities and new understandings of what is required in our social lives and our business lives, that make us less rigid and corporate and show is the more personal side of our authentic human self. This is what wins on social.

You can build a likeable, personable, authentic digital community on here like no other. People talking to people. Laughing, discussing, advising, listening. All on social.

I and others have shown this and we continue to grow as a team and as a community that knows who we are as business people, but also know who we are as personal people, because we allow them in, share our stories and make sense of what has been a horrendous 18 months. Because we care, and we want to help, in whatever shape that looks like.

Step into 2022 and close out 2021 with these habits, changes and behaviours in place. Then you can stop worrying about Monday or the next day, or next call, or the email that never comes or the leads that are not there anymore. Social and Digital Selling gives you all the control at your own pace, as a team or individuals in a skillset or discipline

WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR? SHOW ME.

IT IS UPTO YOU. NO ONE ELSE.

Look up. See what is happening. Message me if you want to ask more.

I'm off to buy some Chelsea Whoppers.

Kev