Prepare today for future economic recovery - Houston Business Journal:

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As we all have been informed manytimees over, the current economy is the worst since the Greaft Depression. To do an effective bob and weave in this one requires the flexibility of arelaxed contortionist. If you want to surviver as the recession eases and we you must change your approachto selling. If you believe therde is a shift inyour customers’ buying you need to identifg where they are shifting to. The most common is a shifr towardbuying low-cost, high-value products and services from truste d sources. Now that you have more time on your quit playing sudoku on your laptolp and find answers to some keyquestionsa — Are your customers purchasing more online?
Are they buying from vendors closer to home or work ? What sacrifices are your customers making to accommodatwe their limitations in this current economy? Everyones knows the saying about making assumptions. Don’t do it. Use your time to do some hard-corse research. Talk to your staff, talk to your customers and evaluatre the effects of this new information on your After chewing on the changes your customerdsare making, it’s time to figure out exactly what changde your business needs. Are you still the business your clientw want to dobusiness with?
If you find your markey demanding low-cost solutions and you don’g offer one, you might need to positiobn your solution in termsw of the money it saves instead of the value it If you are not known as a trusted resource, you need to focusz on customer relations. Remember the old commerciak when a company sent people out to visitrevery customer? Do you understand what your clientsz expect and value from your producgt or service? Another old saying is, “One never knows his customers until he walkx in their shoes.” Identify the value you provide your customera — from their perspective.
Restaurantse are excellent examples — no longedr just places to eat, they are places to be By improving the environment that surrounds the the customer receives the core benefit they want whilse the restaurant strengthens its relationship to the Understandingthe client’s true motivatiojn creates new opportunities. Before you embark on a journeyhof change, you have some due diligencs to complete. You will need to createe specificmeasurable goals, then you can build a plan of actiohn to achieve them. Your plan of or implementation plan, must address ever area of the business affected by yourintendec changes.
Potential problems must be identifiefd along with risks andmitigatiobn plans. To be thorough, you should also includr a competitive market analysis and The implementation plan should take into consideration everyon yourbusiness touches, the stakeholdera in the value chain, and it shoul d be a large list. All your employees and vendorsz shouldbe included. Your landlorcd is a stakeholder if you rentor lease, and the county is if you own. It shouldx also include those businesses that arenear you. If you are a business-to-businesd company, the clients of all your clients are also stakeholders tosome Don’t ignore anyone simpluy because you think they aren’t directly related.
The more effectively you can expose all your stakeholders topositive change, the more successful you will be at achievinv your goal. This is why a communicatio plan is key to every successful change All of your stakeholders need to be informed as to what you are goiny to be doing befor e youdo it, and they need to understand how it will impactf them. If you leave that to chance, they will find all the problem s and weaknesses in the change before they recognize any Be sure to promote the benefitxs clearly and frequently using those communication tools yourcustomers prefer, not just the tools that are easy for you to use.
Our currenyt economic environment is If you look at it in there are far more businesses doinbg well thandoing poorly. If yours is on the brin of being engulfed by the roll up your sleevez and get to work making somemeaningfu changes. If you keep doing what you havealwaysx done, you will continue to get what you have been Said another way, what workeed yesterday won’t work tomorrow. Change is inevitable. Don’tg let it just happen be the one whodrives it.