Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
The Opportunities Of Customer Change: Get Out Of Your Mental Tracksuit Pants
Share
Customer Change Electric Car
Articles

The Opportunities Of Customer Change: Get Out Of Your Mental Tracksuit Pants

April 12, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth
https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Client-Change.mp3

Sorry my voice is shot for various reasons and this is the worst voice recording I’ve ever done. Listen if you really must but best to just read it yourself this week. Spotify here.


Opportunity Is On

 

Whatever happened to the old you? The energetic, optimistic character with big dreams and exciting plans? If that’s still you, give yourself a gold star.

Because so many people are in power-save mode now.

A lot of business folk I’ve spoken to lately are just not feeling it. They’re going through the routines. Even if they’re in industries that are doing ok.

Fair enough, because they’ve been through a lot over the last year. How much pain, change and boredom can you put up with? So it’s easy to just ‘wait and see’.

Let’s see what the government does.

Let’s see what changes are temporary versus which will be permanent.

Let’s see what our competitors are doing.

Then it’ll be safe to act.

Wait if you want. But be prepared to hit 2022 and realise you missed some of the biggest opportunities of your business life.

Because the whole economy is in Ctrl-Alt-Delete mode.

And that’s serving up an all-you-can eat buffet of customer change and  different buying habits. Those habits have been set in cement for so long, and in the good times they’re hard to change.

Now, it’s on.

Never Waste A Good Crisis

 

My business partners and I owe everything to bad times.

We started in late 2006. So many customers told us:

‘Our existing supplier sucks. They’re expensive and slow to respond. IF ONLY someone would offer better service and reasonable prices, we’d so use them instead!’

On that exciting prospect, we opened in four cities over that first year. We pitched our shiny new equipment and skilled technicians to those clients. Here’s that thing you asked for!

100% of those clients said:

‘Thank you for all the effort you put into your proposal, but on this occasion, we’ve decided: better the devil you know.’

Unloved and unwanted, we set fire to bales of cash for a year. Then in 2008, the US housing bubble popped and the world was plunged into financial crisis. Corporate budgets got slashed. And the customer enquiries started, looking for that better deal. We were away, and it’s all worked nicely since then. Thanks for the recession, dodgy finance derivatives cowboys!

 

‘At least this will help an obscure audiovisual startup in Australia.’

 

That wave of customer change was purely driven by hard times and low budgets. There weren’t the wild daily behaviour changes we’ve seen in the last year.

For customers coming out of a year-long change boot-camp, decisions that would have seemed risky in 2019 aren’t that big a deal.

I’ve just changed airlines after more than a decade of Platinum-hood with an airline I loved a lot. Now they have private equity owners. I’ve worked under private equity overlords. It was the inspiration for the original blog title, Kill All MBAs. The new owners will say all the right words about keeping that airline’s spirit alive. But their actions will turn it into a Two Dollar Shop with wings.

All it took was a modest status-match offer and I was out of there. Who knows if it’s permanent but I’m up to test it out.

 

How To Use Customer Change To Your Advantage

 

Now is the time to talk to potential customers who wouldn’t take your call before. And to get really close to your existing customers, because they might be looking elsewhere right now.

Talk to them and find out what’s changed in their world. What their new objectives are. What challenges they face that you can assist with.

Take an open mind and listen. Your old assumptions might not apply any more. Now is not the time for talking over them with your pre-prepped selling points. Shut up and learn.

Even if their business hasn’t been affected or changed at all, in their minds it has.

They want to feel they’re stepping up to the challenges of the new era, because that’s the way the herd is running.

Don’t say ‘nah actually nothing’s changed in your game, let’s just keep going like it’s 2019’.

Bring your noticings back to the office. Get all your staff involved and put together a plan on what your business is going to be in 2021 and beyond.

(You’re thinking: Ian what the fuck are noticings? It’s an even worse version of learnings. I thought I was on top of work buzzwords but I hadn’t encountered noticings until this story. Read through the comments for some horrifying gear, like this Sydney-centric shocker:

 

Harbour cruise customer change

 

Sorry didn’t mean to distract you from what is an important point.

We have lots of ideas and plans to take advantage of customer change that’s probably going to happen when our industry starts functioning again.

Do we know exactly how things will change? No. But we know something will, and you have to be ready.

 

Getting Out Of Your 2020 Rut

 

Getting back to not feeling it: most of us are in a bit of a rut. For those who can remote work, it’s a familiar, comfortable cycle. Same surroundings, same conversations, same routines.

 

Groundhig Day Customer Change

 

You forget how much your batteries get recharged by other humans around you. (Sorry, families don’t count, they’re great but it’s a different energy).

Imagine sending people a Zoom invite saying:

“Let’s just hang out and talk pointless crap for a couple of hours. No objectives or action items at all.”

They would not take that call. It sounds so inefficient.

Yet when you get interesting work people together in person to do exactly that, you come away excited about something that had never entered your head before.

You need reminders that there are bigger possibilities out there. Forcing yourself to re-join the physical world will do that.

I plan to go out for drinks.

Our first 2021 face-to-face industry event is next week, and I’m so excited for that.

Yes, I know some people are introverts, and I’m one of them, but staying comfortable in your cave isn’t going to help your cause. You don’t have to be a pushy, elevator-pitching party animal. Catch up with one or two people at a time if that’s your speed.

 

Change Your Daily Routine

 

Another suggestion: examine your daily routine with all its leftover lockdown habits.

Change it in some way.

Start small if you want to.

Just break that endless sameness.

Get out of the house.

We’ve started visiting our interstate offices again in person, and it’s so valuable. Staff want to know what’s going on. We want to know how they’re feeling.

You don’t realise what you were missing until you feel it again.

The random conversation detours. The instinctive feedback you feel without a word spoken. The questions people feel more comfortable asking you in person. The side conversations away from the rest of the group.

These are essential culture building-blocks that will never happen on Zoom.

The opportunity gate is open. Time to get out of your tracksuit pants.

 


 

SUBSCRIBE

I do a story or video like this every Tuesday. Drop your email here to get it in your inbox, entirely free of charge.

Bonus: you get a free e-book on 20 Ways To Improve Your Business Right Now. Practical tips we used to build a $20M national business in about 10 years.

And did I mention I’ve got a book coming out?  Why not pre-order it here.

 

Undisruptable Ian Whitworth

NEW-ish! Undisruptable YouTube channel!

 

April 12, 2021

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Articles

Why Don’t Your Staff Do What You Tell Them?

June 22, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Most managers speak in rubbery words that let their staff choose their own adventure. How to avoid that, plus why it's time to drop the Corona platitudes.

Read More
June 22, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Articles

“Wouldn’t make me buy it”: the profit-killing myths of marketing

May 2, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Most businesses could radically lift their profit margins, but choose not to. Because they think short term, and believe two big myths about marketing.

Read More
May 2, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Articles

Nick Kyrgios Is Your New Inspo King

July 5, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Australia's new realistic philosopher king: why we can learn more from Nick Kyrgios than Olympic gold medallists.

Read More
July 5, 2021
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
Man Versus Hotel Room: Stupid Customer Confessions
NEXT POST →
Realistic Post-Jobkeeper Survival Tips
FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Scotty Marketing
    3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
    May 30, 2022

    Don't be a product that people only buy once. How to make marketing a force for honesty and profitability in your business instead.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
The Opportunities Of Customer Change: Get Out Of Your Mental Tracksuit Pants - Undisruptable