Why Golf Reminds Me Of Social CRM

I play golf badly and it struck me today why trying to improve one's golf game is like social CRM. I keep being told to visualize where you want the ball to end up, imagine the flight of the ball then keep your head down and your eyes on the ball all the while you are taking your swing.

Oh and by the way you have to keep doing that for every shot until you sink that little sucker and repeat it all again for 18 holes.

Social CRM is in many ways just like that. It isn't a one shot implementation of a piece of software or even a business process. It needs to be ingrained into the culture of the organisation. It is serious business. Conversations are going on all the time about organisations, it's behavior, it's products and services and what you don't could actually kill your brand, reputation and credibility. The recent negative tweeting about a company in Australia called Gasp is evidence of this.

But simply assigning people to monitor what is being said about you and your business is not enough. You need to know the environment and ave an idea of where you are going. Like golf it simply sin't just about you, your clubs and the golf ball. You need to take into account the stupid trees that line the fairway, those damned bunkers that get in the way and oh yeah, what about those water holes and ponds that just pop up round the corner that you did not see when you teed off.

A old hand at the game said to me at the end of a round the other day said that if you want to really improve your game, you can't just play once a week. You gotta do it regularly which is the same of social CRM. Its not something you just do when you feel like it. You have got to be in it all the time. It has to be part of your DNA of your organisation otherwise you will never get better at it