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With skyrocketing gas prices in the US people seem to be doing what they can to save a little gas here and there. My wife and I are hopping on our bikes for grocery runs and walking to the nearby coffee shop. Returning to good, wholesome basics is what we’re doing. Stuff we should be doing no matter what the cost of gas!
It’s funny but that seems to be the lesson we all need. In times of economic uncertainly people tend to refocus on blocking and tackling, doing the basic stuff you should always do. When the market is rockin and gas is cheap it’s easy to get lazy. Let calls go unreturned, let relationships drift, let the blog posting wither, chase the next new thing.
The best thing about a slow market is that it slaps you upside the head and forces you get back to basics.
So, instead of focusing on the external circumstances beyond your control turn your focus to the internal realities within your grasp. Hug your customers!
- Call five customers just to find out more about how you can help them deal with a downturn
- Reach out to five potential strategic partners and start a discussion about banding together
- Visit a local floral shop and send five bouquets of flowers to five referral sources
- Sit down and write five hand-written notes thanking five people for something
- Take your banker, accountant and five suppliers out to lunch to talk about ways to cut expenses
And. . . go pump up the tires on your bike.
Comments
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at Jul 03, 08 | 7:34 am and is filed under Entrepreneur, Financial Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
So true! Just talking about this! We should always be working hard to save money and get business, but when gas prices rise, we focus more on this.
Margie Zable Fisher
http://www.zfpr.com
The good old list! We can make more of our trips and avoid the expense in both gas and time by making a list/agenda for them.
I see a downturn every summer anyway, as it’s out of season for my business. We are working doubly hard because of it!
I really think I’m going to look back on this summer 2 years from now and know that it was when we took our marketing from Copycat/Ostrich to Sticky!
You;re right. Why is it all of a sudden the big topic is conserving fuel and running more efficiently to save money. These were always good ideas. Seems as though tight economies magnify the ideas that were always good ideas.
Those are great tips, especially beginning the 2nd half of the year.
These are great tips. I think making your vendors / suppliers / and customers feel appreciated goes a very long way. A simple thank you note, like you said, can do just the trick.
John,
Thank you for your inspiring and practical posts.
Happy Independence Day everyone!
I especially like the handwritten note tip. I’m also an artist and I handpaint thank you notes, which when accompanied by a handwritten note inside, really makes an impression. So much of our correspondence anymore is through email. I recently received an overwhelming response to one such note that I actually hand-delivered to a business office. Being personal is something we must always remember to do as well as making full use of technologies. Great post.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Yes things will be difficult but that makes it even more reason to focus, engage our brains and take highly targeted actions.
Customers are still buying.
Not as much maybe. A little more price conscious maybe. Less inclined to make impulse purchases maybe.
Customers become more quality conscious and more afraid of making a mistake. So the move is away from hype and towards education marketing, which calmly explains what the benefits you will get and what you have to do to get them.
I am talking more and more about how to survive and thrive these tough times on my business coaching blog.
I’m not saying it will be easy but effective marketing is more important than ever.
It is so easy to forget about those little things although they can certainly make a difference to our business.
Those 5 tips should get our mind going with more ideas. I already got a few from the comments.
These are good. The trick will be once everything starts picking up again, to remember these things and keep the momentum going.
People seem to forget with time…
John - This is an excellent point. Everyone has got too used to hopping in their cars for the shortest of journey’s. We’re now doing a lot of what our bodies were designed for - walking.
Very true! I have definately become less lazy as the gas prices rise. A bicycle is the way to go these days!
Rgds
Muvar
Great list, John.
I started using the thank you idea a few months ago (thanks to reading an article by Andrea Nierenberg), and it works really well.
Jodi
P.S. No bicycle for me, but being in NYC no gas either.
Perfect post for the current economic climate we are living in! I’d also suggest this is the perfect time for businesses to look at their on-line operations and ensure that their web-sites offer an exceptional customer service. Attention to detail will be rewarded by sales, customer loyalty and even word-of-mouth!
hmmm, that is one way of looking at it. Every cloud has a silver lining, so I suppose there are benefits to expensive gas prices.