Coming to a gas station near you
Last Thursday and Friday I spoke to the Executive Leadership Conference of the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA). SIGMA represents companies that work close to the consumer end of the oil supply chain—including companies that sell fuel to gas stations and companies that actually run gas stations.
These companies are in an interesting position to impact the energy debate because while they do not have the wealth of some of the producers, refiners, and transporters of oil, they have direct contact with millions and millions of consumers every week. And those consumers are extremely energy conscious of the price of energy, making them potential allies in fight for energy freedom and against “green” energy restrictions.
Thus, I was intrigued to share ideas with these executives. And fortunately, SIGMA created a great format for learning—one that I will encourage other clients to adopt in the future. The format was 5 hours spread over two days with around 50 executives.
After looking at the different topics I usually speak about, SIGMA’s director of education, Liz Menz, suggested I hold a “Stakeholder Strategy Session” with the diverse group—something I usually only do for small groups at the same organization with a predefined project. So I led a more open-ended than usual strategy session on how to counter the unjust attacks on gasoline cars, often coming from the electric vehicle space.
The result was fun and fascinating. As we went through the 10 Ms of stakeholder strategy (mission, metrics, monkey wrenches, markets, messages, messengers, etc) the executives generated dozens of facts and ideas that had never occurred to me, which I could then integrate with my own tactics and experiences to begin “co-creating” some strategies I don’t think anyone in the room (including me) had thought of in advance.
I can’t say anything about what I ultimately recommended to the executives, since that is proprietary, but I can say that my own plans for the year have been impacted substantially—which you’ll hear about in this newsletter probably starting in April or May.
Oh, and I can also say this: I got several executives to agree to sell The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels in their gas stations! I’ll share pictures when it happens.
(If you’ve got a group that might benefit from a stakeholder strategy session, reply to this email with “Strategy.”)
Next week I’ll be writing about the top 10 communications challenges the energy industry faces in 2018–and a new approach I have to helping with them.