Where Have My Customers Gone? Time for Creative Thinking!
One thing for sure – things will never be the same again post pandemic. The business climate has changed immensely since March 2020 and many business owners see that their ‘regular’ or ‘old’ customers are no more in many markets.
In terms of those businesses who serve the consumer – consumer habits have changed significantly – more shopping online, less trips to the city or town, Peloton’s at home leaving the gym high and dry etc. etc.
But the same pressures also apply to the B2B market. Many retailers have disappeared who suppliers had traded with for many, many years – never to be replaced by retailers who operate in the same way.
So, what to do – one thing to remember in business – things are always changing you can’t think about yesterday or even today because business is infinite – ever changing. Yes, events like the pandemic have speeded up the pace of change for a period of time but change will always come and the businesses who succeed will be those who (in modern parlance) can ‘pivot’ and create and develop new opportunities.
We often talk in some of our Webinars about sea-changing initiatives in the past – The ‘Hole in the Wall’ – The Assembly Line initiated by Henry Ford – the Microchip – the Internet etc. etc. Game changing moves that were initiated by an idea – an idea sparked in someone’s head that was developed into a new way of doing things.
You as a business owner have that opportunity but only if you allow your business to think about new opportunities and empower the people in your business to think creatively. Yes, even those people who may be ‘long in the tooth’ and you longest serving employees – how much opportunity have you the owner given these people to think creatively and openly about the business in the future? People with know-how are a great asset and they become even more powerful if you permit them to use their mind and think creatively about things like:
What new opportunities might we be able to grasp out there?
What other things do our customers need that we might be able to provide?
What would happen if we sold our products into the xxxx sector?
If these ideas are useful and would add value how would we make them happen?
Running a brainstorming session with the right people involved and facilitated well might be the best investment of time you have made in a long time. It could uncover great new sources of revenue for your business as the door closes on business that you have done for a long time.
Give us a call and we’ll talk to you about how we go about helping businesses pivot and how one of our clients – serving retailers at the start of the pandemic – lost many of those yet still posted a 50% increase in revenue and profits versus their best pre-pandemic years – what was the key ingredient?
CREATIVE THINKING!
If you need some support handling one of your key people leaving, or better still showing you how to retain more of your good people, get in touch with us at ignite@tinderboxbusinessdevelopment.co.uk or call us on 0116 232 5231.
Also have a look at our online learning platform provided by our sister company where you can find useful business tools, courses, articles, access to Experts and more.
Click here to access The Box Academy and see for yourself, you can join for free and if you like what you see, join as a full member giving your people access to a huge amount of learning and development material.
The Tinderbox Team
