What can business learn from the General Election?
Despite all predictions that this would be a close run election and difficult to predict, in fact one party has done much better than the others. So what can we learn as business owners?
People don’t do what they say they will do!
All the opinion polls got it wrong. The only polls that were predicting a conservative win were the polls tracking the record of what people had done, rather than asking what they were planning to do.
We often hear that the foolproof way to predict what your customers will do is to ask them. The big problem here is that you are asking questions in a vacuum. When it comes to actually paying very often the story is very different from what people say they will do. It can work both ways, however. Sometimes even though you may have received negative feedback about your product or service, in fact you can find that people will buy!
My own experience was in offering product and packaging to potential customers. I was told that nobody would ever buy it, and the colours we chose were completely unacceptable. In fact in both cases the product was incredibly popular, and the colours chosen were adopted by the customers for their own branding! Seriously you can’t preplan for both success or defeat.
Social media is important and may become more so.
There was a comment allegedly by Nick Clegg put on twitter by a Liberal Democrat which actually made the mainstream news. Social media is increasingly important and is unlikely to go away in the near future.
UKIP are saying that a lot of their voters are younger and that social media was an important part of their campaign. When you think that traditionally it was all about door to door canvassing politics is moving more towards using social media. Even if you don’t get the “Win” the support is very important. Staying in touch with your “supporters” with social media, email etc means that maybe the win can come later.
Strategy is key.
Patching things up and moving forward with a quick alternative is not the answer.
Labour’s losses both in Scotland and in England and Wales are being attributed to the loss of direction. Traditional Labour voters were not sure what Labour stood for, and Labour was not appealing to new voters. It is important to get the strategic vision right.
You are only as strong as the people who believe in you.
Your voters, your customers are what you are all about. David Cameron has used the word Serve in relation to becoming Prime Minister again.
It is tough when things don’t go right.
The people who have failed to get re-elected : Nigel Farage, Danny Alexander, Vince Cable, Ed Balls, for example have by and large been dignified in defeat. It is extra tough in politics when your failure is so public and quite so brutal. In business you can spring back after failure – even bankruptcy. But it is always tough.