Show notes
While many businesses are now getting back to work, it's not always smooth sailing. Some industries are returning more slowly than others, which leave many business owners and salespeople wondering what they can do to get their business back in gear.
David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about getting your business back in gear. Welcome Chris.
Chris: Hi David. You know, it seems like many people thought that business would just automatically bounce back and return to normal. As soon as these restrictions were lifted. That's not a given, is it?
David: No, it's turning out it's really not a given, particularly in the early stages. You know, we just thought this thing would probably come and go fairly quickly and then it didn't. And then the longer it went, I think the more difficult it got for people, but yeah, as different states come back at different levels, it's really been a bit of a challenge. And so I think the idea of it happening by itself or happening automatically is probably not really the way that things are going. And so yeah, we have to see what we can do more proactively to get things going again.
Chris: So when you think about getting a business going again, where do you think that business owners and sales people should start?
David: Well, I think I'd start with looking at your existing customer base and asking yourself, okay, how many of these people are ready to move forward? How many of them are in a position to move forward? Because obviously it's always easier to sell to your existing client base than it is to sell, to, or find new people. So we definitely want to start there. Just going back to them, trying to find out where they are, how they're doing, what they're thinking and all that sort of thing. So finding out from them also how well things are bouncing back or not bouncing back. And a lot of industries are responding in different ways. Certainly the food industry -- restaurants have really struggled with a lot of what's going on. I know hair salons here in Pennsylvania are still closed as of the time that we're recording this. I'm sporting sort of a seventies, early eighties "do" at the moment because...
Chris: Oh, but you look great, David.
David: Yeah, I do. It's fantastic. Just this sort of a Bee-Gees look. Vintage BeeGees. But anyway, some of those types of industries are going to remain affected until things get back to normal. But even then, it's not a given that people are just going to automatically start spending again. So I think we need to look at "what is our existing customer base doing? How are they dealing with it? What can we do to help them to take action and move things forward?" And also just look at what are we doing? What are we doing in our own businesses to remind people that this is not forever. And we need to take as many actions as we can to help our customers to move things forward.
Chris: One of the things, I think we've talked about this in a previous podcast, is the whole idea of doing a check in with my client base. All of them. I mean, why not call everyone and just say, "Hey, I'm calling to see how you're doing." I mean, just that as a starting point, and if you've got a prospect that you've been working with, I think it's fair to say, "Hey, also want to check in and see how you're doing. Where are you with what we've been talking about? Obviously a lot of things have changed and I just want to make sure that we're on the same page moving forward." Does that seem like a good way to start from your standpoint?
David: Yes, absolutely. And we did discuss that in previous podcasts. I think if there's anyone listening who has not yet done that, you definitely want to do that. Just reach out to them, find out how they're doing, find out how things are going. And you can do that with a combination. You can do phone calls. If you can't reach everyone by phone, you can certainly do something similar, initiate a conversation via email or on social media or via messenger, lots of different ways to reach people, particularly those that you haven't heard from, the ones that you have not been able to sort of requalify and find out where they stand. If you haven't been able to do it on the phone, try a different method, try something like email or social media or whatever else you can use to reach them and to find out how they're doing.
Chris: You know, there's a product that I use and there's a couple of them out there... more than a couple, probably three or four that are all geared toward simply being able to quickly record a recording with the screen or without. I use it to do a check-in, especially if it's somebody that I haven't heard from in a while, it's my face. I'm sending them a link to a video that automatically uploads to the site of the vendor. So for mine, I think it's Screencast-O-Matic. And I just say, "Hey, how are you? I'm just checking in, been a while. And I wanted to make sure that you were okay." It takes a few times to practice it, but it's such a nice way to kind of get into somebody office or home and just say hello. And I think it personalizes it at a whole nother level over an email or a text. I've been really, really pleased with the kind of responses I've been getting.
David: Yeah, that's great. And I know we have in previous podcasts talked about the use of video and the more comfortable we can get with that these days, the better off we're going to be. Because even if we do get back to what used to be completely normal, where you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, and not have issues with it, the ability to continue to reach people using those sorts of tools, allows you to leverage yourself. It allows you to multiply yourself. You can essentially be a hundred places at once, where, when you're having to do things in person, you can only ever really be one place at a time.
Chris: And I think it also goes back to this idea of if things are changing significantly down the road for some time to come (and I think we both agree that they are,) this is a fabulous way to start to begin to change that process, to be able to take lemons and make some lemonade by using video, by using social media, whatever the case may be. Whatever's kind of not in your standard bag of tricks. This is a great way to start to move in a direction of, like we talked about at the beginning, getting your business going again.
David: Yes. I agree. You know, I had some situations recently where I was out and about a bit, and I was getting into some businesses that had been closed for a while. And I thought it was interesting to notice the difference between the way that some businesses operate and the way that other businesses operate. And I had experiences with a couple of service businesses recently, and I had some experiences with some retail businesses recently. And I thought it was interesting because I was kind of excited to be able to get out of the house and actually go someplace and buy something. And I went to a furniture store recently. I had to buy a piece of furniture, not terribly expensive, but not cheap when you're buying furniture.
Chris: Yeah.
David: And I was excited to be there. I was happy to be there. I was happy to look around. And what was interesting is the salesperson I dealt with seemed very pleasant. But when we went to actually go to the customer service area where you pay for the order, the people behind the counter just seemed grouchy. And I don't know if it's because they had been off for a long time and now they were back at work and they weren't happy to be there or whatever? But I thought, "wow, that can really make a negative impact." If you've got a customer who's actually happy to be in your store and ready to spend money with you. And then you're kind of grouchy. And then I had a situation on the way back from that experience where, there is a candy store that is not too far from where we live and they do this homemade chocolate, which is really good. And I thought, "okay, I'm going to stop here. I'm going to pick some of that up for the family, so when I get back, we have some candy!" And I went into this place and... Similar situation, the woman behind the counter was just not all that pleasant. Now. She was not the owner. My gut is that probably if the owner was behind the counter, he probably would have been very happy to see me. She was not the owner. She just seemed sort of grouchy and you know, not all that happy to be back. And I thought, "wow, that is not ideal when you're looking to get things back in gear," which of course is the topic of this podcast. But on the flip side of that, I had a couple of service experiences recently that were really great. There was a company I contacted, we had some water in the basement. So I had to contact a carpet cleaning company to clean up the carpets down there. Guy was awesome, contacted him, let them know we need something, you know, relatively quickly. He got us on the schedule. He came out, he was very friendly, very personable. He was all masked up, and very clean and, you know, doing everything the way that you want him to do it. And it was a really great experience. And I was thinking about how I really like spending money with businesses who "get it," with businesses who understand customer service, who understand lifetime value of a customer. And I really don't like doing business with places that don't get it. It's like, you don't want to spend your money there. It's something that I think a lot of businesses could really take to heart.