When I was young, I thought I had all the right answers.

Later on, I thought I had all the right questions.

Then, I thought there were no right answers.

And now, lo these many years later, I’ve reached the point where I think I was right in the first place.

Here’s what I mean. I was having a conversation with a young lady, a recent college grad with absolutely no business background or particular interest in marketing. We got on the subject of a b2b project I was working on involving website content creation and some social media work. At one point the conversation went like this.

Her: Wow! That’s a neat product. They should put a video on their website.

Me: Yeah, I’ve suggested that, but they don’t want to.

Her: But that’s what people want. They love video. It should be funny, too.

Me: Well, a couple of their sales people suggested funny video, but it got shot down. Too wild and crazy for their business, they think.

Her: (Stupefied expression) But their customers are going to be people my age pretty soon, and I’m telling you, we love video with a comic slant. Don’t they realize this?

Me: Well …

When marketing ideas that elude b2b leadership are patently obvious to young adults with zero training in marketing – you’ve got yourself a real problem. You’ve got a disconnect between what buyers want and what sellers think buyers want. Or, more precisely, you’ve got a disconnect between what buyers want and what sellers think they themselves want when they’re buying.

This point has been made time and time again by David Meerman Scott, and quite recently in a blog post by Jeff Bulla, 6 Questions To Ask The CEO When He Says Social Media Won’t Work For His Company. Corporate honchos use the web and social media when they’re buying or researching a purchase, but they continue to push old school marketing on their own customers.

Are these corporate honchos hypocrites? Idiots? No, not at all. I really do think the problem is generational.

• Old school business discipline says, keep business and pleasure separate. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Be the first one in and the last to leave. New school discipline says, if you can’t enjoy your job, you should be working somewhere else.
• Old school business discipline is risk averse. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Don’t jeopardize one customer relationship attempting to initiate two new ones. New school discipline is willing to take chances, willing to offend in pursuit of a vision.
• Old school discipline plays it close to the vest. Loose lips sink ships. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt (A. Lincoln). New school discipline communicates everything with everyone, everywhere.
• Old school discipline is hierarchical. Decisions are made slowly. Communication goes up and down ladders. Trendy ideas are stale by the time they are acted upon. New school discipline is experimental. Better to implement a half baked idea than get burned by the competition.

If you put all this together, you have a recipe for communication disaster. I think that intellectually, business leaders know that the future of marketing is blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. But on an emotional level – and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s where decisions are made – people my age just have a tough time pulling the New Media trigger, going against the grain of every behavior we lived and died with throughout our careers.

Of course the transition can be made, as a multitude of social media marketing geezers wiser and more accomplished than I have proved over and over again. But the issue in b2b is not if the transition can be made. The real issue is that the transition to social media must be made. Otherwise, that young lady and millions like her will continue to take their business elsewhere. Companies that are risk averse should never take a chance like that.
___________________

Chicago based SEO copywriting, blog consulting, and content strategy consulting.