Yes, it’s a whole new world out there. You’re going to have to somehow change and adapt, innovate and recreate. Here’s a few tips
1. How you treat your employees and vendors in this crisis will be heard by your customers, Big and Small. Will they see your compassion in every move or will they feel something less than that? You’ve created a good company because you hired good people. Yes, it’s tough, yes, it’s scary. Do your very best, be open, honest and concerned for your work family. You won’t be sorry.
2. You always wanted to make changes, but you never had time because you were so busy.
NOW is the time to build the changes you know your customers will love. And, you should have the time to get it done and ready to roll out when business begins to open up very soon. Let your competition sit back and whine about the future, it time to quietly innovate, turn some head, lead the way for others and look at this as a lesson in doing more with less!
3. If you think the world was becoming less relational and more transaction before, then get ready to see things move more in that direction going forward. Transactional customers are not ultimately what you want, because they demand and fight for the lowest price, the best terms and will barbecue you way more frequently and scathingly in reviews and social media than a Relational customer ever would. The secret will be crafting your message to the transactional beast while carefully turning them into a lifelong referral generating machine. I’ve seen this done so many times by savvy business partners. The brutal truth, this is not a time for sappy “we’re all in together” style of messages. Why? Because 99% of them are disingenuous. You cannot tell people that you care, you can only show them, DO THAT!
Enough of the canine rant! If you need a creative avenue to reintroduce yourself to your past and more importantly your new customers, consider doing it with music. We don’t just know music, we know advertising, we spend most of our lives doing it. People should sing your name, not say it. We average 95% approval on the jingles we submit to our clients. We are great to work with and we promise your customers will remember your name BECAUSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO YOUR SONG OUTTA THERE HEAD!!!!
That whole tirade just wore this mutt out, I think I need a break, maybe see if someone left a pizza on the kitchen table or see if that Beagle next store wants run back and forth on the fence talkin’ trash! Jingle up friends, it does a business right!
Yours in Melody,
Dicky Dog
