How Not To Make The Bad Worse
August 7th, 2020 // 11:06 am @ Scott Manning
Here’s the irony of this whole Virus thing… it has revealed who are the real business owners and legit entrepreneurs in every industry. You see people completely giving in to every excuse and using it to make it okay to fail instead of taking responsibility for their own success.
I shared a few stories a couple months ago but I have to tell you there has never been a more vital time in your business to grasp the reality around how customers feel about your business and how committed they are to you than right now.
This ties directly into the psychology we discussed last week (why a customer would give you money in the first place). What are they really buying?
Here’s where you find the difference between the losers and the winners.
You will see all the losers going right back to ‘products’ and ‘services’ and remove all the greatest aspects that differentiated themselves in the first place.
They instantly commoditize themselves. They use all the restrictions and changes and fear as an excuse but their business becomes a shadow of itself both in experience, in revenue, and in customer enthusiasm.
You can’t take away that which was the attraction in the first place.
They simply won’t buy.
And good for them. I like discerning customers. They value where their money goes and know they have choices. Someone should be working as hard for them to make a great experience as they did to earn the money they are giving them in the first place.
Losers think about how they water down the experience for their customers, how they can cut corners, make it easier and just get by. They are dumbing down the process.
Winners do exactly the opposite. They figure out how to make the experience better than ever before. They innovate, they adjust, they put themselves in the customers’ shoes, and they find ways to show they customer how much they value them now more than ever.
You know those times that you go into a store of some sort and you feel like you are an inconvenience to the person who is supposed to be taking care of you. It’s like you are interrupting their day (usually their conversations or social media).
If you’ve been out and about at all these days, you will see this dichotomy more vivid than ever – you see people that appear to have preferred their business just stay closed or like you are making them a victim for the fact that you are trying to become a customer and give them money.
And you will also see the opposite… the amazing gratitude and the business that goes out of their way for you. They see this as a business building opportunity. They are looking at serving people now in a memorable way marketing for their future.
Here’s one stepping over dollars to pick up pennies example that drives me the crazy.
Restaurants that take away menus and use QR Codes. What to save a couple pennies? I guarantee they drop their average ticket sizes by more than the cost savings on the throw away paper menus; not to mention the damage it does to the experience.
Worst case scenario, if they are scared of germs, they could let the customers keep the menu and then they’d have one at home too. There’s an idea. And why is every restaurant not giving a come-back-and-see-us or take-us-home-with-you incentive?
You won’t find any real legit restaurants that deserve to be in business trashing their actual menus. I haven’t.
The bottom line is that this has nothing to do with the virus. It is completely and totally about being cheap. Period.
They are throwing away trash, washing the tables, cleaning the dishes, there would be absolutely no difference than doing the same with the menus.
Instead, they are focused on saving money and in doing so they are actually costing themselves more money than they could even imagine. They will remain ignorant to this – by choice – and this is just one example.
In a time when they need profit and cash flow the most (and it’s hardest to come by), they do the opposite.
This brings me to a most critical point of confusing value creators as expenses and thus hurting themselves instead of helping the customer.
Value creators are the things that really make you stand out, they are the things that make the customer want to give you not just money, but more money and more than once. They are the things that a moronic numbers-only person sees as “costs” because they have no concept about being creators. These people and their ways show up more than ever during a crisis and a cash-flow crunch… only to make the bad worse.
Now is when you need enhancement, you need to double down on value creators, you need to understand the question I ask you last week…
Why do people buy in the first place and then do everything you can to support and reinforce that.
Here’s a thought: make it easier for people to do business with you – not harder to give you money.
The point is in the profit. When you make it easier for you instead of the customer, all you are doing is watering down the experience, shortcutting the process, and thereby diminishing value and robbing yourself of the profits that the customer would have been happy to pay.
This is really where the magic of business is at and it should be the fun stuff for you to think about.
Here’s another question: where are the real profits at in your business? Do you know?
Because behind the mask of your business is the truth about what motivates your customers to buy and all the things you do and can do more and better to make their experience more profitable to you by building value for them.
Speaking of paying attention to the profit – it is vital to know and be aware of the right numbers and that’s the only way you can make smart decisions.
We’ll talk numbers that matter next week with a powerful example that just might surprise you.
Category : Blog
