Now, I know what you're thinking: what on earth is DIallY? Well, it means quite simply: Do It ALL Yourself (and yes, the term is copyrighted by TIG). The next question then is, what do I mean by it?
In the past, the business world was very simple: it was us and them. We had to beat our competitors in order to succeed. This thinking then embedded itself in the 80s in public services and community groups. Compete or die was the clarion call. In effect, organisations became closed off to outsiders, everything was protectionist: they were OUR clients, OUR markets, OUR resources. And so we simply HAD to do it all ourselves. Trust was nowhere, after all if we introduced soandso into OUR customer, wouldn't they just try to steal it?
The truth is, I never subscribed to this thinking even in the 80s. I created massive income streams for companies I worked for by looking around and saying- "who out there has got a product/service/idea that I can add to my product/service/idea to make a real solution out of?". My entire working career has been about working in partnership with others, asking "what can I do to help you" rather than "what's in it for me?"
And so here we are at the end of the Noughties and about to start the Teenies. Just think about that. The Teenies. The age where all things are possible and life is just waiting to be grabbed by the horns and brought to task. Now, I'm sure we can all remember back to that time, and the eternal optimism (except at anytime before midday of course) that we had. And it is whilst I have you in that moment I want to ask you all to keep that optimism and join in a new way of thinking.
You see, in the current economic climate, the only way that new, small or local businesses are going to thrive (yes, thrive! Be optimistic!) is by engaging with other new, small or local businesses. The age of competition is dead, the do it all yourself attitude will drive you out of business quicker than Nick Clegg's fall from popularity.
The secret to business success is simple: you must network, network, share and network. Identify your key strengths and partner up with other organisations that compliment your weaknesses! For example, I offer get-yourself-established websites for £100 all in (including .co.uk url and hosting) BUT I will always recommend two new businesses to do the e-commerce development (brandnoo) and e-marketing/social media strategy development (thatsocialboom) because they are experts at it and I'm not.
Likewise, they recommend me to do training and project management services because I'm the expert, and they're not.
With all this in mind, we're working together with OXIN (who run Barnsley's Digital Media Centre on County Way) and other organisations in the Centre to create a hive of activity to help local businesses, community groups and statutory services (council, police, NHS etc) to develop, grow, improve and generally take advantage of some of the changes coming due to the economic climate. We're not doing everything for free, but we are doing things economically, locally and expertly.
The first stage of this is NEXUSBarnsley, an event that will allow local businesses and organisations to exhibit, do demos, talks and presentations, or simply just network with your peers. Want to find out if a social media strategy can help your business? What is this social media thing anyway? How can training improve morale and what training should you consider? Who is out there to give me free business advice and resources? Come to NEXUSBarnsley and these and many more questions will be answered with people from the DMC, A4e, Businesslink, the BDA and more.
We're planning on holding NEXUSBarnsley w/c 29th November and if successful it will be the first of a quarterly event promoting local business services to local businesses & organisations. Please watch out for information on eventbrite, the local press or if you would like to receive an email contact me at darren@theinformgroup.co.uk with the word NEXUS in the title.
Until then remember, Network. Share. Network.
darren@theinformgroup.co.uk www.theinformgroup.co.uk