Maugie: Are you a strategy bunny?

Elephants need fleas on their backs to survive, but in the Year of the Rabbit will Thumper become king of the jungle? Maugie Lyons, industry expert, questions the notion…

Spring has sprung and nature has a way of giving us renewed enthusiasm for our usual business activities. It is not simply the birds, bees and little lambs that get busy; our industry gets very excited with conferences, networking and exhibitions.

This is the Year of the Rabbit and I am advocating a gentler approach to our business and industry in order to get the results we need. Let’s face it the Year of the Tiger was just too harsh. Large corporate organisations have slimmed down so much in the past 18 months that they will be frantically outsourcing for 2011 and 2012.

Charles Handy, an inspiring business guru, once said that all elephants need fleas on their backs to survive. Those fleas are the key suppliers to the events industry that are being contracted to replace valuable events roles within organisations. We will need to find them to progress with our sales objectives this year.  So, you may need to define your approach to ferreting out these valuable contacts. Perhaps you will be a hawk and try to get a view from the top or your team will become moles and foxes to dig out leads and information.

Fans of Farmville on Facebook may take the approach that bartering or sharing animals is the way forward. Perhaps it is time to make your animal kingdom bigger by talking to your competitors? You never know, they might have an animal they cannot care for and vice versa. Everybody wins. Can you imagine the results if you worked together in an honest way? It would certainly reduce the amount of excreta your team would have to plough through!

Back to the fleas, they will need a warm home and nourishment as they can feel very isolated and alone on that big elephant’s back. I recommend that you find the cloud or nest they will be content to rest in, be it your product experience or a little home on your website and get them to go and play in your farm yard. Then, I promise the elephant will come to you.