This year has been full of pivots. As business owners, we are constantly pivoting to changes large and small. What’s different about this year is that some of the changes we’ve made ended up being permanent.
Re-evaluate your goals
With some of these more-permanent changes, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate your business goals. Has new customer retention fallen or remained the same as last year? Don’t look at this like a con, rather take the opportunity to invest more time and energy in the customer base you already have.
Do you feel like you’ve spent all year focusing on short term goals instead of mid-to-long range goals? If you feel this way, you’re not alone. It’s ok to continue responding to you ever-changing short term goals until things feel stable again.
Change marketing
Part of the business shift this year is redirecting your marketing to mainly online efforts. Since we’ve had to remain at home people have been spending much more time online. This is a great way to reach your audience—find out where they are (Facebook? Twitter? Tik Tok?) and spend your marketing budget there.
Pivot from the sale
Selling to someone who recently lost their job or continuing your sales operations as if everything were normal is insensitive. Instead, practice empathy and let your customer base know what you’ve been doing to respond to the health crisis, as well as share that you know what they’re going through. This can mean changing your inventory to include more of what they need (supplies to make face masks) and less of what used to be a trend the same time last year (ribbon wreaths).
As we mentioned earlier, business owners are constantly pivoting to respond to market needs. Why should this pivot be any different?
Inspiration for this post came from “The Art of Pivoting” by Sommer Leigh published in the October 2020 issue of American Quilt Retailer.
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