Prepare today for future economic recovery - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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As we all have been informes manytimes over, the current economy is the worst since the Grea t Depression. To do an effective bob and weave inthis mess, one requiresw the flexibility of a relaxed If you want to survived as the recession eases and we recover, you must changew your approach to selling. If you believde there is a shift inyour customers’ buyint habits, you need to identify where they are shifting to. The most common is a shif t towardbuying low-cost, high-value products and services from trusted sources. Now that you have more time on your quit playing sudoku on your laptop and find answers to some keyquestionzs — Are your customers purchasing more online??
Are they buying from vendors closer to home or work ? What sacrifices are your customers making to accommodate their limitations in this current economy? Everyone knowa the saying about making assumptions. Don’yt do it. Use your time to do some hard-core Talk to your staff, talk to your customers and evaluatr the effects of this new information on your After chewing on the changes your customersare it’s time to figured out exactly what change your businesds needs. Are you still the business your clientes want to dobusiness with?
If you find your marke demanding low-cost solutions and you don’t offer one, you might need to positiojn your solution in terms of the monety it saves instead of the value it creates. If you are not knownj as a trusted resource, you need to focus on customed relations. Remember the old commercial when a company sent peopled out to visitevery customer? Do you understande what your clients expec t and value from your product or service? Another old saying is, “On e never knows his customers until he walks in theif shoes.” Identify the valu e you provide your customers — from their perspective.
Restaurants are excellent examplesz — no longer just places to eat, they are places to be entertained. By improving the environment that surroundsdthe meal, the customer receives the core benefi they want while the restaurant strengthens its relationship to the Understanding the client’s true motivation createzs new opportunities. Before you embark on a journeyof change, you have some due diligenced to complete. You will need to createw specificmeasurable goals, then you can build a plan of actionm to achieve them. Your plan of or implementation plan, must address every area of the businessa affected by yourintended changes.
Potential problems must be identified alongb with risks andmitigatiob plans. To be thorough, you should also includre a competitive market analysixand budget. The implementation plan shouled take into consideration everyone yourbusiness touches, the stakeholdersd in the value and it should be a large All your employees and vendors should be included. Your landlord is a stakeholderd if you rentor lease, and the county is if you own. It shoulde also include those businesses that arenear you. If you are a business-to-businesw company, the clients of all your clientds are also stakeholders tosome degree.
Don’t ignore anyone simpl y because you thinkthey aren’t directly The more effectively you can exposr all your stakeholders to positive the more successful you will be at achievinf your goal. This is why a communication plan is key to everyt successfulchange effort. All of your stakeholderas need to be informed as to what you are going to be doing before youdo it, and they need to understande how it will impact them. If you leave that to they will find all the problems and weaknessezs in the change before they recognizeany benefits.
Be sure to promotwe the benefits clearly and frequently using those communicationsw tools yourcustomers prefer, not just the tools that are easy for you to use. Our currenft economic environmentis tough. If you look at it in there are far more businesses doing well thandoinhg poorly. If yours is on the brinj of being engulfed by the roll up your sleeves and get to work making somemeaningfukl changes. If you keep doinh what you havealways done, you will continuew to get what you have been Said another way, what worked yesterday won’t work Change is inevitable. Don’t let it just happen — be the one who drived it.