When the Rules Change, Your Business Needs to Adapt

Change happens.

And not all change is good, but regardless, no matter what changes occur, we need to adapt to whatever new reality comes our way.

For example, there are some changes in the way baseball is played at the Major League level this year, and the rule changes are affecting how the teams play. One change is the adoption of instant replay, where teams can challenge some of the calls made by umpires. And while some of the challenges have helped my beloved Phillies, I’m not a big fan of instant replay. One of the biggest ways that teams have had to adapt is how they argue a call.

In the old days (read: last year and before), if a team didn’t like a call, the manager would run out onto the field, get in the face of the umpire, and a yelling match would ensue, sometimes enhanced by some other antics. Former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was a master of this.

But now, with the specter of instant replay looming, managers stroll slowly onto the field, allowing one of their coaches to have the time to get on the phone and ask someone to watch the play to determine whether or not they should challenge it. And once a play is challenged, whether the call is upheld or overturned, the manager then quietly returns to the dugout. Gone are the days of wild managerial antics, crazy arguments, and ejections.

Since the rules have changed, managers and teams have had to change their tactics. They’ve had to adjust to the rules.

When the rules change for our businesses, particularly online, there isn’t much we can do about them. Our best bet is to adjust. Adapt.

We can complain about the changes all we want, just like I complain about some of the new rules in baseball, but it doesn’t change the fact that the rules are there. We still have to play and function within the rules.

I think the best recent example of this are the changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm. We wring our hands, whine, and complain about how we’re not getting the reach and engagement we once got. But that doesn’t change the algorithm. Our job is find ways to work within the system and continue to do our best. Google also changes its algorithm, and website designers and owners panic and scramble. But again, our job is to adapt.

We do this in our every day lives, adapting to changes in technology, and we need to be able to do this in our businesses.

Laws change, rules change, algorithms change. So if we’re smart, we’ll change as well, whether we like it or not.

How have you adapted your online strategy to the ever changing world of digital marketing?

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