by Jeffrey Hedquist
Your client works hard, but they’re not getting the same results or the same increases in business they used to get. Their response: “We’ll do even more of what we’ve been doing, or we’ll work harder, or we’ll sell for less.”
Instead of supporting them in a futile endeavor, maybe it’s time to step back and examine what their customers are asking for, but that your client isn’t delivering or communicating to them. People change, markets evolve – your client needs to change and you can help.
Maybe their product or service is fine, but they need to create a way for customers to finance their purchase, or to buy smaller amounts of it at spaced intervals, or lease instead of purchase.
Maybe they need to make it easier for customers to make a decision by limiting choices, or bundling products or services.
Maybe your client needs to change the products or services they offer, or the way they present them.
Yes, this goes beyond what you’re used to doing. Sometimes helping your clients reinvent themselves is the best thing you can do for them.
Maybe they’re delivering exactly what customers want, but are not making that clear to their audience. Help them reinvent their marketing approach.
Example: maybe they’re known as a wedding venue, and they also provide all the associated services – food, beverages, entertainment, photography, videography, invitations, decorations, tuxedo rental, transportation – but potential customers don’t know that, because they’re positioned in their customers’ minds as a rental hall. You can help them reinvent themselves as a full service wedding packager.
We helped reinvent a landscape business as a service with an outrageous guarantee, car dealers as people helpers, a floor-covering retailer as fussy, fussy, fussy, a homebuilder as a dream builder. In each case, the change grew the business.
It may mean helping them get a better URL. JPGeschecterhausenPlumbing.com is not only difficult to remember, but it doesn’t tell people about their HVAC systems expertise. HomeComfortHeating.com and HomeComfortCooling.com as landing pages for JPGeschecterhausenPlumbing.com might serve them better, and get better results from their commercials. It’s the kind of easy reinvention that you can help them with.
You won’t succeed every time with the reinvention process, but if you at least try, you’ll become known as someone who really cares about your clients’ business, not just as an order taker, or commercial maker. When you create outside the scope of what’s expected, your client’s success will become your success.
Need help reinventing your client? Email me:
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