Change isn't always easy but it's inevitable. Whether it's change happening in your personal or professional life it still affects what you get done and how. I personally love change. It challenges me and helps me grow and learn. Nothing can grow if it doesn't change. While this is hard in many organizations, I hope some of my thoughts on change might help you get out of a rut in your organization and keep things moving forward.

In this episode you'll learn:

→ how to approach change, when is it necessary and when isn't it.
→ how I process change.
→ why failure helps to propel growth.

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[3:03] How does your organization embrace change? Do you want to make changes at the drop of a hat if things aren't working within days, do you always do things the way they've been done and don't want to embrace change, or are you somewhere in between? Moderation is key and understanding WHY the change may need to happen not just making change for change sake.
[8:02] Bring decisions about change back to your big picture goals. Will the change help you get to where you're headed or will it take you farther away. We want to avoid shiny object syndrome. If something is working will for you keep going, if it's stagnant then it's time to make a change.

Resources

Online Fundraising Virtual Summit Waitlist

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey everybody, Sami here with another episode of the digital marketing therapy podcast. And today we're talking about change. Change is something that's hard for a lot of us. It's hard for a lot of organizations, but it's something that happens all the time. And it's definitely something that's happened in my life happening in my life. So I wanted to just talk about how I kind of process change and maybe give you some thoughts for how change can be good for your organization.

I know that we tend to want to follow the path, you know, that has been laid before us. And depending on the board, and depending on, you know, the longevity of our organization, or even if it's a new organization, like change can be a crazy, daunting, scary thing. And so I just wanted to share kind of how I embrace change why I think it's good, and how we are embracing change in my business and my personal life, and family life right now. So, I hope, I hope you'll join me on this journey during this episode. And share with me maybe some of the ways that your organization has been successful in implementing change.

But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by the online fundraising virtual summit, the waitlist is officially open, y'all. And I'm so excited. I don't know why I said y'all. I'm not I'm not Southern. But anyway, we are focused on helping you run a more profitable event with less stress, we have some amazing speakers that are going to be talking about how to set up your event how to, you know, run your event. And then once it's over, how do you retain those donors and turn them into larger donors and larger givers, it's going to be incredible. And this event is free, it runs from May 17 to may 21, I hope you'll join us you can get on the waitlist at onlinefundraisingsummit.com, and learn more about all the amazing things that we're going to be talking about and some of the amazing speakers. So I hope you'll join us there. But for now, let's get into the episode.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing, and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[BODY] Okay, so when you think about change, what does that like? Do you have initial reaction? Like some people have an initial gut reaction? Like, oh, I don't want to deal with that, or I can't handle that or changes, you know, not worth it. Or some people get excited by like, Oh, I love to try new things. I love to see what else is out there. What does that reaction feel like for you? Like, I want you to just sit with that for a minute. Like, when I think about change in my organization? How does that make me feel?

And sometimes it has to do with the reason behind the change. And I you know, there's people out there on both sides of the spectrum, right? You have people that are wanting to change at the drop of a hat. You know, we've tried this for three days, and it's not working, we have to change it or people that are on the flip side that are like, well, we've always done it this way. And so why would we change it now, even if it's not producing results. So I'm sure that you have experience with both types of people when it comes to change. And I would argue that both of those perspectives are probably a little bit unhealthy for long term growth and expansion in your organization. So I want you to go back and think about the people that maybe came to mind when I said those things. So people don't want to change things at the drop of a hat like what Who are those people in the organization? And what kinds of issues have you had to deal with when it comes to bringing them on board? And then on the flip side, what frustrations have you felt when you've been sitting at a meeting excited about an idea and people say well, that's just how it's been done.

I want to challenge you to take a look at the people that are in your organization. Um, you know, what does it look like, on a day to day basis? Do you feel hindered by wanting to do new things? Or do you feel hindered by wanting to slow down and try to do things you know, at a slower pace and, and really stick with that and make sure that you understand how that how that is for you. Now when we think about change in organization, I always feel that it's necessary. There's always things that we need to do differently.

So you may have run the same event for a period of time. You may have the same annual campaign that you've done over and over. But if you're not breathing new life into those things, then they can become stagnant and feel a little outdated. So we want to really think about what is the feedback that we're getting from people? And we tend to get inside our own heads and say, Okay, well, we should do this, because this is what I think this is how I feel this, you know, very me centric. And so if you feel like you're in a period of, you know, you're in a rut, and you're not really trying new things, you're not really reaching out, and especially in times of COVID, I think it's forced organizations to really think outside the box, when they maybe should have done that a long time ago. But regardless, it's like, What are you? What are your goals? And where are you trying to go, and let's think about new ideas that are specific to reaching those goals.

So if you've got a fundraising event that's consistently performing, and it's raising money, and people are showing up and your ticket sales are going up every year and your sponsorships are going up every year, like what you know, don't let don't mess with that. But if you're, you know, finding that you're plateauing and your fundraising or things are, you know, not really growing like you'd like, then maybe it's time to think about new and different things. And I get it changes hard.

So my family is recent is going through, the reason why I wanted to do this episode, this right now is because my family is going through a major change in a major transition. And it's something that my husband and I have thought about for a very long time, you know, just kind of in conversation off and on. But not something that we were ready to pull the trigger on. And that is moving cross country. And all of a sudden, in January, all of the pieces kind of came into place. And it made sense. And so the change happened, and we moved forward, and there was times along the way, where we were like, oh, should we do this? Should we not but we were are the ball was already rolling? Like let's keep going. And ultimately, the questions about should we or shouldn't we weren't questions of real validity. They were questions of fear questions of like, we you know, we're comfortable where we're at, are we as happy as we could be our be as successful as we could be? Are we growing as much as we could be? Not necessarily. But it's comfortable, right? We know what that feels like, we know what to expect, we know what's coming. And that's where a lot of people feel that resistance to change. So we've been moving through this process, as I'm recording this episode, I'm not sitting at home, and it might be really echoey in this sound here. But we will be you know, in transition. So I'll be recording episodes for the next three months, like from hotel rooms and houses and family and friends places. And so we you know, we made this choice to do this to take this journey. And who knows what's going to come out on the other side. But we have chosen to do this because of very specific reasons for goals for our family.

Now, I understand this is a personal example. But I think it's true for all decisions that we make in life. What is the end goal that we're trying to do? And are the things that we're doing right now getting us there? Or are they just keeping us comfy Is it like being wrapped up in a warm cozy blanket where it's like, you know, it, I might be getting more traction if I got out of this comfy blanket and went and did XYZ, but I'm just gonna stay in this comfy blanket because it feels good right now. And so that's the challenge that I want to push to you guys. Just because it's real for me right now. And I wanted to bring it up. And I am not a motivational speaker, I am not a life coach, none of that stuff. Like I'm just speaking to you from the heart and from like, what we're experiencing and what we're going through, and just sharing with you real life.

So, um, when it comes to, you know, getting in the online space, getting into digital marketing, updating your website, doing all of those things, running online events, there's a lot of resistance to change, there's a lot of resistance to well, that's not proven yet. We don't know if that's going to be successful. We don't know if that's gonna work. And I agree that it can be scary, it can be challenging, it can be all of those things. But how do you know unless you try and so then the opposite kind of conversation to change is failure. So anywhere, anytime we attempt change, we risk failure. And I feel like that's something that we're all scared of.

I have failed at many things in my business. And I'm very proud to say so because because of that I have been able to find my sweet spot, find my niche. And so yes, my challenge to some of your board members, staff members, people that are resistant to change is to say yes, this might not work. But what we know is that we're not growing in this avenue of our organization. And so let's try something different that we know has worked for other organizations and see if it works for us. Let's embrace that failure. Because we won't grow, we won't expand, we won't change if we don't embrace failure. And I know that you know, your finance people, your accounting people, your what all those people on your board are going to look at you like you're crazy. And they're going to be like, well, how much is this going to cost us and what's you know, ROI, and, and all that good stuff. And that is definitely valid. I don't want to discount that. But one of the things that I'm going to start implementing in my business is kind of that padding for trying some things that that might fail.

We decided this year to do these four summits and just see what happens. And we budgeted accordingly, not knowing how they were going to go. And we're reevaluating on a regular basis. That was a big change for us. But what I'm finding is I'm loving it, I'm loving the experience of networking with speakers, I'm loving getting to know so many of you on a deeper level. It's just been incredible. And so I just has everything gone smoothly, no has every single goal that I wanted to accomplish with these summits happened, no. But I'm learning and growing as we go, and we're in it for the long game. And we're in it to make change. We're in it to build our communities up or enter to support people and the environment and animals and all the things and now I'm starting to rain. So my challenge to you with this episode is really just to take that thing that you've been thinking about in the back of your head, that idea that you've had that would potentially you know, help kind of grow your organization, or that might put things a little bit out of the box, or that might challenge the way that you guys provide your services, or the way that you reach out to donors. Think about it. And I want you to put that out to your leadership team. Or if you are the leadership team, pitch it to your board, whatever it might be, but just have a start to have that conversation about how you might be able to think outside the box, how you might be able to do things a little bit differently, and what that impact might be on your organization.

And I would love for you to share with me what that is you can DM me on Facebook and Instagram at the first click marketing. I would love to hear what change you're making in your organization and how you're going to inspire your team to do things a little bit differently. Try something you've been wanting to try and get out there and make a bigger impact on the communities that you serve. Okay, so this is just an episode from my heart to yours. I hope that's okay. I so appreciate you listening to these episodes. And if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review on Apple podcast, I would so appreciate that. But for now, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on a single episode. And I will see you on the next one.