Photo: Shutterstock.

Many of you have emailed me, asking for advice on what you should be focusing on right now.

Obviously, different businesses have different needs. But as we all know, hunkering down and waiting for things to magically just get better, isn’t an option.

With that in mind, here are some general examples of things you should consider.

1. Research the new needs of your marketplace. It definitely will not be business as usual after the crisis passes.
2. Stop watching rolling news and feed your mind with useful ideas instead.
3. Build strategic alliances. Partner-up with providers, who offer a complimentary, but non-conflicting product or service.
4. Sketch out ideas (and then develop) new, highly profitable services.
5. Plan the way forward for your business.
6. Form endorsed relationships.
7. Before you market anything to anyone, remember that these are weird times for everyone.
8. Look outside your industry for new ideas, which could dramatically improve your business.
9. Get to know your clients better.
10. Hire expert marketing help. This is the worst time in history to rely on DIY marketing.
11. Start a blog, then distribute it via email. Like I do.
12. Ramp up your marketplace outreach.
13. Look for ways to connect your clients or customers with one another.
14. Ask your clients and former clients, “How can I help?”.
15. Send a ‘thank you’ to all those helping you during the crisis.

Most importantly, get active now. Don’t let your competitors gain a huge advantage over you, by building their businesses while you’re waiting to see how things pan out. That’s an unnecessary additional business problem, which you really don’t need. So get moving. And get moving now.

Photo: Shutterstock.

I wrote recently that your marketing is toast. That’s to say, what motivated people to hire you or buy from you before the coronavirus pandemic, has changed. In that post, I provide some ideas to help you put things right.

Today, I want to help you identify and fix another two, extremely widespread marketing challenges.

Check your marketing promises and guarantees

I’d like to start by drawing your attention to the various benefits of buying from you or hiring you. Specifically, the guarantees and promises you offer. That’s because almost every business makes promises in their marketing, which they can reliably keep in normal times, but can’t achieve in the current economy.

These vary from industry to industry and may include things like:

• Guaranteed delivery times.
• Payment terms.
• Guaranteed results.
• Price match promises.
• Enquiry response times.
• Opening hours.

Obviously, if you’re no longer able to fulfil any of the promises or claims in your marketing, make the required adjustments. Also, look for new, attractive promises that you can deliver on.

What’s new with your competitors?

I also very strongly recommend you take time to do a little research on what your competitors are doing right now.

That’s because it’s entirely possible some of them will have made significant changes, which could impact your business. Even those competitors that seldom change their marketing may be forced into action, as they try new things in order to adapt to the current challenges.

Again, these adjustments will change from industry to industry and may include:

• Discounting their prices or fees. Many will start discounting, because they have no expert marketing help, are panicking and assume slashing prices is the right thing to do. (It absolutely isn’t for a number of very good reasons).
• Changes to their payment terms.
• New bundling of products or services together, in a way that makes them more attractive to prospective clients (your prospective clients) than they used to be.

Once you know what you’re competing against, you can look for ways to regain your competitive advantage.

I hope you found these ideas useful. If you did, please continue to share them with your friends. We’re all in this together.

Photo: Shutterstock.

A few months from now, we will all know a lot more about our business, our marketplace and the people we rely on.

That’s because when times are tough, we learn what people really think. We learn what standards they have and what their priorities are.

• We’re learning how strong our relationships are, personally and professionally.
• We’re learning who we can trust in the future.
• We’re learning how honest our service providers are.
• We’re learning who we can recommend.
• We’re learning who the real leaders are.
• We’re learning how people, systems and businesses perform under stress.
• We’re learning who really does go he extra mile.

And our clients, customers and marketplace are learning this too.

Warren Buffett famously said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently”.

As you have almost certainly seen by now, a lot of business owners are not taking his advice. They’re thinking very short-term and creating a far bigger problem for their business, than the coronavirus.

In a few months

Long before the pandemic ceases to be the main news story, business restrictions will start to ease. People will be able to move around more freely. Things will start to feel closer to ‘normal’ than they do right now.

As this happens, the marketplace will start regaining confidence. Spending will increase. Cash flow will improve and increase.

It’s at this point that many business owners will pay the price for short-sighted decisions.

We have to be smarter than that.

We need to be very aware that every decision we make has consequences. The marketplace is watching us. And it will remember. As Buffett said, one short-sighted move and a 20-year reputation can be destroyed in minutes.

The only way forward is to think ahead, because things will improve commercially, and a lot sooner than many business owners seem to imagine. Only then can you plan effectively and make decisions that are best for the medium and long-term.