What’s your perspective?
Are you looking backward or forward?
Let’s be blunt – there is no end to the uncertainty at the moment. It is still hard to see when things will change – and in what way. Hopefully we’re all still taking those deep breaths.
It’s human nature to base a lot of decisions on past experiences. As businesses we have learned many lessons as time has gone by that have given us invaluable experience to build on for future success.
However, we also know that we cannot base our future actions entirely on what we have done in the past. That’s the route to complacency and being left behind.
So here are my current thoughts about how we should be holding our perspective right now:
You might be wishing that things would go back to the way they were a few months ago. While we can hope for the best, it’s important not to get stuck waiting for things to magically reappear in their old format; for things to be “fixed”.
Being attached to the past is never a good strategy – what can you do right now? Think of one way that you can reach out to your community this week that shows you are still here, you are still moving, you are still wanting a relationship with them. This may look different to the way you did things before. Maybe it should.
If you don’t feel as though you can have a long term marketing plan right now then what are 3 things you can do to market your business this month? Write it down on a piece of paper. Look at it every morning. Just do 3. For example: resolve to make a couple of extra social media posts each week. Send a monthly email update. Call someone in your community every day. Keep it achievable.
When talking to your community I think it’s time to stop the cliché – I have deliberately written this piece without using the words “unprecedented”, “COVID-19” or “new normal”. It’s time to talk about now, about hope and rebuilding.