In meeting with a group of small business owners, they weren’t personally small, they were actually quite knowledgeable and motivated, we agreed that times have changed. Ok, so that doesn’t sound so intelligent and knowledgeable. You’d have to be a hermit to not be aware that there is a different climate in our economy today compared to a year ago.
Frankly, I don’t like talking about the economy. Not that I am ignoring the impact it is having on business. I just don’t want to be party to adding to the general sense of negativity and fear behind it all.
By the way, on a side note, a friend of mine who works for a local talk radio station shared with me that the station got a letter from the ‘big boss’ regarding the tone of the news being reported. Apparently the owner owns multiple stations across the country and sent the same letter to all his stations. It basically stated, we need take the lead and start reporting some good news. Listenership is down because people have gotten sick of the bad news. Good for him.
Personally, I was getting ready to call for a boycott on all media and news. That’s my inexpensive solution in place of a trillion dollar stimulus package. If we can get people to stop focusing on the negative so much I believe that in itself will help to stimulate the economy. Alright, off my soap box.
Back to the meeting with the business owners, we quickly came to a very important conclusion regarding factors that were directly effecting business revenue. Now we know that there are many systems that impact revenue. Specifically your advertising or lead generation systems, your sales or conversion systems, you fulfillment systems (delivery of your product and service, let’s face it, if we can’t deliver, we can’t get paid). We resolved however, that the most important system to focus on is the System of Evaluating Customer Perceptions and Needs.
You see they have changed over the last six months or so. People are thinking differently about making purchases, doing business, buying and transacting. Those that have jobs that are not threatened have stopped spending too. People are in a holding pattern and yet, most businesses have not changed their messages, sales approach and even their product offering, because they haven’t truly considered how the mind of their prospects have changed.
Begin today by evaluating and demonstrating, what I would call, Empathy Marketing, by putting yourself in the shoes of your prospects and ask yourself the question, “How do they feel and what would motivated me to buy today if I were them?”
See how that begins to change your lead generation, conversion and fulfillment systems.