One of our teammates – Nick – was recently interviewed for a blog article on a well-known website and was asked “if you had one lesson you’ve learned working with local, small businesses, what would it be?”

That’s a difficult question to answer. Everyone at Forum learns new things every day from our clients. However, there is one thing that we’ve seen time and time again from clients young and old – the fear of change.

Now, we’ll admit – not all change is for the better. However, some change is necessary. Here are 3 reasons why we believe change can be a precursor to future success.

#1 Prior success doesn’t lead to future success.

That’s hard to accept. Everyone likes to think that the things that they did just a few weeks ago, if not years ago, will be successful again. Unfortunately that’s not always true.

Because of the pace of change in just marketing, we can’t count on a strategy to be successful year over year. Now, sometimes they are! And that’s great. It makes the work for our clients simpler and their success easier to achieve. However, at other times, that’s not true.

We at Forum believe sticking to a brand direction and position is important, but not to a fault. Sometimes admitting that something isn’t working and moving to a new strategy is just what is needed to revitalize the brand or the entire organization.

#2 No one is “always” right.

We all love to win. And for small business owners, who could blame them? Winning for their business directly affects their income, lifestyle, and at times, their businesses existence. But, sometimes that want to win, and be right, can come at a fault – especially if it’s negatively impacting the organization.

Think of the financial impact of a business decision. An example – You hire someone to help in your front office. The first two weeks are a little rocky but it seems to be ok. A year later, your relationship is difficult and they’re simply not doing the job they were hired to do, nor providing value to the business. Do you continue to keep them on staff because they’re a friend or do you discuss alternatives with them – with the possibility of them leaving the company? Many small business owners will keep them on staff rather than make the business decision and find them an alternative position and / or workplace.

This is just one example. In our world, it’s the length of a marketing campaign or effort. From experience, we know that admitting our failures early can lead to a huge win. As marketers, we have to accept failure because it’s going to happen. Not every campaign is going to blow the doors off of a business. But, we like to say if you’re going to fail – fail fast so it’s not detrimental to the business.

#3 Shaking things up may be exactly what you needed.

Some of us fear change because, well, things will be different. But sometimes that’s exactly what the organization needed. For a lot of our clients, this may be the first time they’ve ever worked with an agency. And that’s a good thing! They’ve taken a step to help move their marketing effort forward in a new way.

For others, they’ve worked with agencies in the past but it didn’t work out. That’s ok too! Realizing that there was opportunity in the midst of a prior failure goes back to point one.

At Forum, we work really hard to be an integral part of our client’s organization. We want every client to feel like they are our only client. We also believe whole-heartedly that we win and fail together. That honest and transparent relationship is why we’ve been so successful. We love our clients and are glad that they’ve continued to rely on us to help them find their voice in a crowded marketplace.

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