"What is the point of knowing how to text when you can just pick up the phone and call them?"

First let me say that earlier this morning I received 30 minute tutorial from my dad on today's newest form of social media...Twitter!

Yes...you heard that correctly! He tutored ME on the uses of Twitter!

Now to tell you a little bit about my dad...he has always run at my pace (sometimes even faster) when it comes to the newest tools, technology, social media, music etc.

Needless to say...he is a lifelong learner!

In all honesty, I have always taken his "youthful" demeanor for granted! I just assumed that most people were as driven to see through the curve as he was.

Ohhhhh how wrong I was!

I didn't realize just how unique his style of learning and growth was until I attended a training session we put on in Houston in the first half of last year.

We were about three days in and my dad was speaking to a group of about 15 senior managers and he was addressing the ways that we can, in the sales profession, leverage the many forms of communication to improve our business.

He had no idea the resistance he was about to face with his next comment (and neither did I)...

"Ok...let's dive into some of the ways we communicate with our customers....email, phone, text messaging..."

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" a guy yelled out from the back of the room...

"Text messaging?!?! That's rediculous! Why would you ever text message a client when you can call them or email them?"

My dad quickly seeked clarification from the gentleman and asked..."I'm sorry...what is about text messaging that seems so innappropriate?"

The manager said, in a VERY convicting voice, "Honestly?!?! I mean...how unprofessional is sending a customer a text message?!"

(Knowing my dad's style and his confidence in me...I knew he was going to throw me into this at some point)

He said, "Ok...How many feel that text messaging is ineffective or innappropriate?" The majority of the room raised their hands! "How many of you know how to text message?" Only 5 (out of 15) raised their hands.

"Ok...so let me ask you a question...Is our generation getting bigger or smaller in the workplace?"

The group answered, with some reservation, "smaller."

"What generation is getting bigger?"

The group quickly pointed at me (I'm 24) and said, "His"

My dad responded by calling on me...

"Jason...what form of communication do you use the MOST? If you were to need to get a hold of your fiance or your freinds...how would you go about contacting them?"

I said very directly..."I would text them!"

My dad, in a very calm voice, said "So if our workforce is being taken over by individuals like my son back there and they communicate through text messaging...why don't we know how to use it? Why do we feel that it is innappropriate? Do we feel that they should adapt to our style of communiaction or should we learn how to use their form of communication?"

The room was very silent for a second...

My dad, then added "I am not saying we need to stop calling customers and only text them. I am just saying that it is a tool that we must know how to use! We must have it in our bag! If a customer says text me...we need to be able to. If we don't then we immediately lose credibility with that customer. They will go to the young guy across the street that they feel they connect with."

I was sitting in the back nodding the whole time...

How true is that? Would we, as young professionals, rather do business with someone who can relate to us... or someone who is so old school that they communicate via "pony express"?

I don't bring this story up to encourage you to text because I am assuming you do...

I say this to make all of us aware that we have an immediate advantage if are well versed in all of the forms of communication...because so few of our, more experienced, counterparts are using these tools!

We should be masters at programs such as... LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Why?

...because they are crucial tools for creating a following!

Would we rather have a couple clients pushing our brand or have a following of thousands spread across the globe?

I heard an interesting fact the other day... If MySpace was a country it would be the 5th largest (population) in the world!

You mean we could have access to that many people from our computer?

Exactly! So why not learn how to leverage these tools to help grow our business?

These forms of communication may be an advantage today...tomorrow they will be a must!

Start creating a FOLLOWING now!

What is the world coming to? Watch this and find out...


p.s. We will be addressing the application of these tools throughout many of our upcoming blogs and articles! If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at Jason@aplayersonline.com .