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Leslie Carothers principal The Kaleidoscope Partnership
Before you know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. How many times have we heard this tired cliché? What is happening in our industry is that many people know where they’ve been, and they used to understand the language in which the question “where are you going” was couched, but, today, the vocabulary — the literal language — being used to explain the world of technology is foreign to many of our industry’s business leaders. In addition, our business is a legacy business. As a result, the people with the financial capital to invest in new ideas — the parents — don’t understand the vocabulary and are uncomfortable releasing scarce financial resources
into an unknown realm and the people with the intellectual capital regarding technology and the Internet — the next generation — do not have the experience of their parents so they can’t put the benefits of technology into a context their parents can understand. The result of this lack of communication: A void. No movement. The generations cannot bridge the “language and context” gap and therefore strategies that could easily help retailers make money — even in these tough times — are not being executed because very few people with the financial wherewithal to make them happen even know they exist. To be fair, many furniture retailers in the West do understand the web, and are driving revenue, engaging with their consumer and perfecting multi-channel marketing. To those of you who fit this description, congratulations — you are the leaders and the eventual winners — and you can stop reading now! For anyone else, my column over these next four months will help create a context for you and give you the language to use so you can ask intelligent questions and feel comfortable making the resource investments necessary to stay competitive in 2009 and beyond.
Backstory first In 2002, I started my company, The Kaleidoscope Partnership. We are a social networking consulting firm and teach all industry segments how to use web-based new media strategies to drive sales. We provide online reputation management consulting, e-conversion sales training, e-content writing and website analytics consulting, too. Over these past six years, I have also done a lot of writing and speaking on behalf of our industry with the intent of educating my readers and listeners to best practices. Earlier this year, WHFA asked me if I would speak in Maui next year to help their members understand the web and how to use it to drive sales and foster 16
January 2009
westernreporter
Contact WHFA at www.WHFA.org or (800) 422-3778.