How many of these names do you remember: American Motors, J. M. Fields, Packard? Do you remember cassette tapes, floppy disks, photographic film, video-cassette recorders, payphones, long-distance charges, telephone books and record stores? The list goes on and on.
As time marches on, the way we live continues to change. Business is undergoing constant change as well.
Cab drivers are fighting against extinction as Uber drivers are taking their jobs away, but the cabbies will get their revenge. Google and others are perfecting driverless cars. Someday in the future the Uber driver will be replaced by software.
As our practices march on in time with the rest of the world, change will be required. Even prospecting is changing dramatically. In the future, how will we acquire new clients? Is the Internet the answer? Certainly the Internet must be a major player in our future client acquisition efforts. But, how can we integrate what we know and do, what we know and don't yet do, and what we know we must do even if we don't yet understand how?
Our younger colleagues are already beating the older producers. Hand a five-year-old your smart phone and he will probably know his way around as well or perhaps better than you.
I speak to producers every day who are resisting the future as though it's some kind of terrible menace that wants to make their lives miserable. But in reality, it's not getting worse for us, it's getting better.
Change is always challenging. As a 63-year-old, settled in his ways as a business owner, I find it quite intimidating to grapple with change. I don't like it. Change in the past came in waves of years, allowing time to adapt. Now change comes in torrents. Keeping up is a real fight, but one worth fighting.
