A blog from Nat....

We’re all facing tough times and massive challenges both personally and business-wise but we’ll all get through it if we all pull together, I have written this blog post to offer some hope and inspiration...

Here goes.....

DON’T STOP MARKETING

This is the single biggest mistake that businesses that fail make in a recession. If you had a profitable business before this virus outbreak, low or zero sales for a few weeks won’t destroy you. What will destroy you is, when we emerge from this, if you have stopped all customer communication, you’ll have no backlog of pent up demand and customer goodwill to fall back on. It will take you another 2- 3 months to catch up when you turn the Marketing back on and by then it may be too late.

RING FENCE YOUR CUSTOMERS

Do you care about your customers? (OF COURSE YOU DO) so why would you stop communicating to them just because they can’t give you money right now? The business owner who ignores their customers during this time is telling them they view their relationship as purely transactional: When the money stops, the relationship stops.

People aren’t stupid. They’ll remember this and they’ll treat those business owners accordingly when the time comes. Meanwhile, if you take the time and trouble to keep communicating with your customers, you will be rewarded. It’s also just the right thing to do.

customer communication: Emails, Facebook, and Instagram are key…

If you’re not currently offering your services just get in touch with your customers and see how they’re doing. Nobody is bothering doing that and it will blow their minds. So email them, call them, text them. People are going to crave connection in the weeks ahead. Do the right thing and you will be rewarded.

TAKE THE MONEY

Across the world, governments are putting billions into funding small businesses. You may or may not agree with how they’re doing it, but if there’s cash available, take it. Even if you don’t need it right now. Take it. Cash is King.

In most countries, you can take a three-month mortgage break. Take it for yourself and bear it in mind for your staff if you’re feeling guilty about paying them less. Make sure they’re educated on everything they can claim too.

FIX THE HOLES IN THE BUCKET

All businesses have ‘holes in the bucket’ through which money falls, even in the best of times.

Examples are: not emailing customers at least twice per week, not following up with leads and prospects, not selling more to existing customers, not testing premium-priced offerings, a Google Ads campaign that’s not being run properly, not having video, not having a ‘Mobile First’ strategy, not doing Remarketing on Facebook, Google and YouTube. I could go on. It’s a very long list.

All of the smart Entrepreneurs are using this time to fix the holes in their Marketing bucket. Let’s face it, you never get around to the Marketing because you never had enough time. You’ve probably now got some time. So please use it to obsess about making your Marketing brilliant.

Here’s some good news in all this chaos. The fact is, the money your business might lose in the next few weeks/months is nothing compared to the money you’ve probably lost over the last few years and would have lost over the next few years by not having great Marketing.

While none of us want the current situation, it’s no exaggeration to say that for some businesses, being forced to finally sort out their Marketing over the next few weeks will be one of the best things that ever happened to them.

PREPARE FOR THE MORGAN FREEMAN MOMENT

I’m sure you’ve seen those films, where the world comes close to ending, either from aliens, earthquakes or similar disasters.

At the end of those movies, there’s always a scene that shows the rubble, the sun rising on a new dawn, and in the middle of the rubble – the President, who for some reason always seems to be Morgan Freeman, giving a stirring speech about the dawning of a new world. Everything is finally going to be OK.

You should be preparing for our Morgan Freeman moment. We are all understandably fixated on the now. But some time travel into the future would not be a bad idea. When Morgan speaks, make sure that your business is in the finest possible position to rise with him.

Finally, for those of you who are having a really hard time, some words of wisdom from someone who knew a few things about dealing with adversity.

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in”

Winston Churchill

Much love to you all….

Stay safe and stay at home

Nat x