Complete Story
05/27/2020
Business as Unusual
Source: Bob Cargill PINE Magazine, May | June, 2020
During the coronavirus crisis, business as usual has come to a complete halt. It’s been business as unusual. After all, these are difficult days.
During this pandemic, our priorities have shifted to taking care of ourselves and our loved ones, our friends and our family, our colleagues and our neighbors.
Our work is important, but our lives are at stake.
How do you communicate to your customers and prospects? What do you say? What do you do?
The first step to take is to pause all your existing advertising and marketing messages until you’ve had a chance to review them and determine if they are still relevant during these difficult days. Chances are, they need to be shelved for the time being and replaced by entirely new messages that are more reflective of the times.
This is not the time to be selling aggressively, if you’re even going to be selling at all. This is the time to show the human side of your business. This is the time to ask your audience what you can do for them, not tell them what they can do for you.
Demonstrate your empathy. Show your concern. Tell them you have their backs. Put yourself in their shoes. Everyone is struggling. Everyone is scrambling. No one wants to be on the receiving end of sales pitches now.
That doesn’t mean you can’t increase the value of your business during this difficult time. So don’t disappear from sight. Quite the contrary. Using social media, online meeting platforms, chat services, text, email, direct mail and, yes, the good, old-fashioned telephone, show up on a regular basis just to say hello and ask people how they are doing today.
Anything you can do to help others – especially those less fortunate than you– will be greatly appreciated.
Continue Reading the full story
