The Ant And The Grasshopper – A Moral For Modern Business

What teaches us to be better businesses is not by sticking to what’s tried but taking ownership of what is yours.

As a kid, one of the stories from school that always had its place is the Aesop fable, the ant and the grasshopper.

To those who aren’t aware, the story is about an ant that has spent the summer months storing food for the winter, the grasshopper basked in the sun and enjoyed what the good months delivered. When it comes to winter the ant has worked diligently throughout the previous months to still be able to eat, whereas the grasshopper is left with nothing when the leaner seasons build momentum. For a 1-minute film that sums it up, have a look.

Moving Away From An Automated World

This is similar to the way that the path for our businesses is now taking shape (this isn’t an article on the emphasis of working hard by the way). What I’m trying to highlight is that we are coming from a world where a lot was scalable and automated, where the choices were already made for us in neatly shaped boxes where we didn’t necessarily have to put in additional energy and drive, we sat back and waited. This is everything from advertising (press and banner), search engine optimisation, direct marketing, adwords, email marketing and PR.

Reward for business is now there for those who play the long game and make the investment in relationships. This is the human side of interaction and building influence with others via the host of platforms available to us that we can now control on our terms. We don’t choose to do activity because it forms part of a campaign, but a commitment to longevity and to keep with a tactic that works as it helps to build an audience and to influence a community. This could be a focus on email marketing, when it is a continuous duty to your audience not a one-off pat on the back because you’ve pressed the ‘send’ button. This could also be the social media commitment where the onus is on being informative and helpful not an angle of dictation.

Connecting in a meaningful way becomes more apparent when you use a host of platforms and messages and use those that are most appropriate to your audience. Rather than thinking that the world is on Pinterest thereby you have to, does this provide benefits and help to solve problems for your audience?

What The Ant And The Grasshopper Represent Today

The ‘grasshopper’ represents the business that is happy to stick by what they have always done before with the same results, with an automated way of working. For instance, audience’s have been hired from media lists and messages sent to audiences who aren’t familiar with what you represent. The past successes and resting on those trusted laurels become a habit.

The ‘ant’ showcases the business who not only puts a focus on persistence, but to embrace change and adjust for the long term where human interaction and connecting with others via using platforms (on and offline) in a more creative way can provide the path for longevity and success.

When bringing an old school story into the equation puts the modern world into perspective.