When you think about it, business is just a vehicle for delivering an outcome to a customer.
So when a situation like ‘lockdown’ prevents you from delivering your usual outcome for your clients, remember you still have incredible value, you have incredible expertise, you have capability and you have the capacity to solve some incredibly meaningful problems for people.
Many businesses have already acknowledged this and are starting to explore ways to ‘productise’ their value.
But with a few rare exceptions, most of them will have not checked their assumptions about what people want and will more than likely end up with disappointing results.
So, before you engage your creative side, please make sure you take this essential first step.
First, pick up the phone and check in with your highest spending clients – the top 20%. Find out what their biggest problems, challenges and frustrations are right now.
Ask questions, listen and take notes.
Then survey the rest of your client database, and your social media followers.
When you’re done, read through that long list of problems and ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. How could I be part of the solution?
2. Who else might I need to involve?
3. What would be the most convenient way for people to get the answers they’re looking for?
The very first time we did this exercise, we found that the vast majority of the problems, challenges and frustrations of our clients were around ‘marketing’
Specifically – how to attract the attention of consumers who are either considering or actively seeking a cosmetic enhancement like Botox, Dermal Fillers or other rejuvenating face and body treatments.
Fortunately, we already had specialist knowledge and expertise in this area, so we just had to find a way to package it into something that our clients could access quickly and conveniently.
So we put it to the vote and our clients decided that a modular e-Learning course was their preferred format.
We made our clients a big promise to publish the first module of the course within a month, so we needed a lot of help with the technical side of things in order to keep that promise.
In the end, we selected an e-Learning platform called ‘Kajabi’ because they were the only reputable company who could offer the level of technical support we needed to meet our timeline.
Soon after we launched the first module, we were blown away by the response from our clients.
They found it invaluable as it was helping them to solve a very big problem that was preventing them from taking their businesses to the next level of impact and income.
And we were delighted to have found a convenient way to give them the answers they were looking for.
The Kajabi platform also enabled us to create other training and educational products and market them online as entry-level offerings for prospective clients.
This has proven to be a very fruitful income stream for us.
If you are interested in going down this route, Kajabi are currently offering a fully supported free trial here
So please bear in mind that your target clientele still have wants and needs, even if their spending habits have changed.
The businesses that will survive are those who take the time to ‘tune in’ to those needs and find new and alternative ways to fulfill them.
In many ways, for many people, you could be more valuable that you realise.
Best Wishes
Pam X