Functioning during a pandemic is the ultimate conundrum. While constant uncertainty, risk, and complexity complicates (and slows) every decision, the pressing need for immediate change, adaptation, and redirection never lets up. It’s a relentless balancing act between immediate survival and long-term success and the only sure thing is inconsistency. Amidst so many necessary adjustments, it’s difficult to know the best way to advance effectively as we are maneuvering through a pandemic. But, alas, advance we must.
Are baby steps the answer or is big change the way to go?
As we find ourselves maneuvering through a pandemic, on one hand, some baby steps are critical because problems continue to develop every moment that require urgent and immediate changes. While we are rushing to develop solutions, the nature and complexity of immediate goals has dramatically shifted. Safety must be at the forefront of every program and decision. Short-term financial constraints have become paramount while uncertainty is limiting most forecasting through 2021 at least.
Crises Response:
With forecasting unavailable in a rapidly changing business environment, instant flexibility and response are crucial. For example, work-from-home, online shopping, and crowd avoidance will continue to evolve over the next few months.
People management is requiring more quick decisions and administration. When, who, and how do you bring back staff? How do you make decisions and adapt the organization while considering factors like work-from-home, more volatility, and more uncertainty? Should you consider hiring creative types or especially skilled people who can offer new solutions?
Pricing strategies during a pandemic are critical both in controlling costs and generating volume. In particular, you need to recognize new costs and new customer preferences; which will require analysis and measurement using multiple small trials. Consider alternative pricing tactics as well as the entire pricing package. Online sales, measurement, and flexibility will make these rapid changes executable.
The latest trends in dealing with the crises also bias our decisions. For example, many businesses are executing 25% operating formats that most experts think will fail. Every business owner needs to continue to test a lot of alternatives that integrate expectations, uncertainty, psychology, culture, risk, quality control, consumer confidence, and values.
Planning ahead:
Short-term small efforts must be integrated and designed with long-term strategies and operational efforts in mind. Start with a quick assessment of who you are and where you are going with your business. Don’t worry about the details. Just take a half hour or so and write down key goals, challenges, and opportunities. Make it short so you can focus on priorities rather than overwhelming yourself with too much. You can (and should) come back and revise this list frequently.
Assess your potential profitability and financial needs. There are simple profit models that can help you easily determine your viability, key issues, and alternatives. In particular, the analysis should focus on the impact of various factors on your profitability and potential. One of the surprising aspects of this analysis is that growth and prioritization are frequently more important than cost cutting in business success.
Focus on what you do well and eliminate efforts that will fail.
Keep strategies and programs integrated. Issues like rent, supplier relations, marketing, operations distribution, etc. are critical and must remain flexible on a daily basis. And while finances may be tight, marketing could be the best opportunity for success. Additionally, collaboration with suppliers and landlords will be essential for success. Many tenants and landlords seem to avoiding each other, but I suggest negotiating new rent requirements and marketing efforts in order to survive and generate more business. There are also a number of marketing efforts that can be tested and purchased on a reduced or trial fee.
A lot of great discussions are taking place regarding working-from-home, office spacing, and communication. However, most of the talk revolves around physical settings to accommodate spacing and other requirements. We need to also examine the impact on structure, communication, social interacting, and decision-making.
The new normal must include tools that encourage informal communication in order to help develop relationships, build trust, encourage new ideas, and create safe feedback. Examples: some in-office meetings and social events, including part-time or other department staff, promote health and wellness, and develop community efforts to replace interactions that no longer exist such as “water cooler chats.”
“I just thought we should talk more.”
In general, I support developing confidence and taking more risk. In many cases, we overestimate the costs of failures and underestimate the value of success. Midst pandemic, constant uncertainty makes risk more prevalent in all decision-making. Make sure you understand the value, alternatives, and the probability. Similarly, analytics frequently ignores the potential of innovation and out-of-the-box-solutions. Adapt and be flexible. Most efforts won’t succeed on the first try, but practice integrating the positive components from each trial with some different approaches.
Traditional organizations will most likely fail in the wake of the “new normal” because they are inflexible, hierarchical, and change too slowly. Walter Isaacson’s book, The Innovators, illustrates how commitment, diversity, collaboration, and friction among diverse participants such as Jobs and Wozniak or Gates and Allen led to success. The structural key to change is the need to be open to measurement and feedback. Looking at, understanding, and sharing financials, operations reports, and sales reports are the first step. Simple research studies and social media can be additional tools.
As we find ourselves maneuvering through a pandemic, the solution seems to be found in a paradoxical combination of immediate change and big baby steps. Inarguably, the slate needs to be wiped clean and new paradigms are a necessity. This will include immediate crises and opportunity management as well as long-term strategic considerations. A focus on cooperation, open collaborative systems, and trying to keep in mind that “smaller can be better” may offer hope for organizations as they restructure. Finding a way to stay afloat and, ideally, thrive during such a transformative time requires nuanced decision-making. You’ll need to find a balance between small steps, immediate action, gradual shifts, and drastic change while determining which approach works where and deciding if it’s a short-term response or a long-term solution. Sure, it sounds complicated, but that’s the nature of business. And you already knew that.
There is value in proper planning and execution, especially related to “Marketing & Sales.”
Yet, how many times have we heard successful business entrepreneur share their success (after many failed attempts) when they didn’t plan on it?
In this post, I will explore how “Not Overthinking and Just Doing” can also be a useful strategy for growing business. This technique can be employed by all businesses, yet it is the small business owner who holds the advantage of this strategy, as resources are more flexible. In addition, the absence of tiered staff and bureaucracy allows for more inspired and engaging strategies to be implemented faster and adopted as needed.
I will share two examples of how “SHOOT FIRST… ASK QUESTIONS LATER” has served my clients with great success.
SURPRISE SALES” CAN LEAD TO “SURPRISING RESULTS”
DROP PRICES TO INCREASE LEADS
(15% versus the usual 25-30%)
My client “Jane,” a small business owner, has found her sales success to be based on regularly introducing new products. With each new product, she would carefully plan the new rollout, developing marketing, pricing, and communication strategies for few months at a time. During her last product launch, she got antsy, and just posted an introduction on her web site with a very modest sale.
The result was the best single email and ad in a few years.
GO WITH YOUR GUT
Her usual product launches involved strategy, analysis, and tiered introduction of the products. With this GUT INSTINCT, to just post a modest sale to her new product, the timing and response was just perfect in her category, giving her more exposure, in addition, with Amazon and other retailers (as timing was perfect).
RIGHT PLACE – RIGHT TIME
Had she waited few more weeks or months for all marketing research and strategy to be concluded, she would have missed the “RIGHT TIME.”
This new success has found her a new strategy that she employs regularly now with success. Online business and internet sales now allow us to “test” and “analyze” strategies faster and adapt to the changing market trends.
SPENDING MONEY ON MARKETING & NOT GETTING RESULTS?
Our second client case review is about a service-based business that has failed repeatedly, even though the offered services were very useful to the target audience. Where did they fall short? Having hired numerous marketing experts to conduct testing, analysis, and creating “ads” and other related marketing tools to drive “traffic,” each marketing project tapped into their budget with no results.
TO DO …OR NOT TO DO?
Market research requires an allocated budget, and implementation time can take months (which small business usually don’t have, as they need sales to keep there doors open). The down side of “Expert Market Research & Planning” for small businesses is that, if the result of all the research and planning was unsuccessful, their budget can be exhausted, and repeated action of the same approach will delay immediate actions that could be taken.
DON’T JUDGE THE MESSENGER
Small business have an advantage, as they can easily test the techniques that work best faster than larger corporations. After many failed attempts, and many marketing experts later, the company programmer had an idea. With the ease available now to make websites, and all the templates available, he suggested, “Lets create a few mini test websites,” and drive traffic via cost efficient ways. Use “Google Adwords,” and test which style will resonate, and best convert the traffic into leads.
In the company’s prior approach, each website change involved a lot of research and planning. This new strategy allowed them, in real time, to test multiple styles. They could focus on the successful ones, and adapt the others based on what they learned. Best of all, this can be done quickly and inexpensively.
MULTIPLY YOUR TESTING
This technique of utilizing your resources to create test sites and other “POP UP-like” sites for your business will allow you to get immediate feedback on what works and what doesn’t, without months of planning each strategy, and waiting for results, only to adjust again later. In a few days, you can get preliminary feedback on almost anything and develop further tests. You can also do simple AB testing, to make the tests even more valuable. Google Adwords can be tested and quickly modified, based on results.
SUGGESTIONS HOW TO “SHOOT FIRST & ASK LATER”
Develop, test, measure, and adapt. Think outside the box – create pilot test programs you can utilize with your business NOW – without over-planning. This will allow for the gathering of more data faster, and help you find what works best.
Focus on winners. Find your winners, and expand on those techniques.
Less talking, more action. Understand what you know, what you learn, and what you don’t know. In particular, reduce endless conversation about alternatives, where there is little empirical evidence, but lots of opinions. At the same time, learn from your test results, and execute for your success quickly.
Details matter. Examine the integration of variables and success. Presentation, details, marketing, and pricing can all affect the success of a program. “What did you do that made it work?”
IN SHORT…
We frequently spend too much time analyzing what we don’t know. Allow for some uncertainty and for more testing, especially on the Internet. Make it fast and inexpensive. Most importantly, test to identify real winners, and then, reconfirm, and expand as fast as possible.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, president of www.startupconnection.net, is a graduate of Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. He served as the president of WestPoint Pepperell’s apparel fabrics business and President and CEO of Sure Fit Products. Having provided counseling to over 2,000 clients, he focuses on working with select start up and small businesses.
Business risk happens to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. However, if you give all the sheep hockey sticks and a puck like Wayne Gretzky, that wolf will likely hide behind the goal’s net. No one likes getting hit by the puck several dozen times! But we get it, though: we’re afraid of ticking off that wolf, and lo and behold: the wolf might come out from behind that net and start really nasty grunge fights with each sheep, and instead of a hockey game, we have a slaughter on our hands.
Honestly, Business Risk Is a Lot Like That: an Angry Wolf
But here we have the key to taming that wolf — we mentioned Wayne Gretzky.
It turned out he had quite the quote that makes perfect sense in hockey —
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
When you think about it, that makes perfect sense! And there’s no way around it. Truthfully, if you’re running a business, you have to accept the fact that you’re always going to be facing risk. And if you run away from it, the risk is even greater.
The key to managing risk is to take those chances — and learn from the historical data. Part of the problem is that we think risk is a lot bigger than it actually is. That wolf does look a lot bigger on the ice rink — until you start chucking pucks at him.
Sadly we’re creatures of habit, and before the innovation of technology — the Internet, mobile, Google, Amazon — we didn’t have a lot of “pucks” to chuck at the wolf like Wayne Gretzky would. So we were stuck on the old methods and didn’t want to try something new. And it’s understandable! — after all, we can’t predict much results with new programs or methods, because there’s nothing as far as historical data for us to analyze.
Thankfully, I Have the Goods Here About How to “Take All the Shots” Like Wayne Gretzky and Manage Risk Without Failure:
Here are some tools to keep in mind as you manage risk head-on while moving forward in your small business:
Measure, Estimate, Prioritize, and Adapt — Testing and experimenting are the keys to taming that wolf. In fact, we once had a client simply focus on key inventory items, eliminating unproductive factors by just looking at the clicks and monitoring the Google Analytics data. It’s simple. That’s one slap shot you can take like Wayne Gretzky.
Follow the 80/20 and 90/30 Rules — Develop your business methodology down to these numbers, and it’ll be a lot easier to forecast results. The 80/20 rule is how you’ll expect 80% of your sales coming from 20% of the offerings you make. So do the math. Likewise, 90% of all perceptions of your product will be realized in your customers’ heads within 30 seconds. So, in other words — make enough shots at the goalie in a short period of time, and you’ll definitely expect a lot of scores.
Lastly…. You Will Make Some Mistakes, and That’s OKAY — Why? Because that gives you the opportunity to adapt. After all, the longer you keep making those shots, the more hits you’ll make over time.
In other words: the more business risk you take, the less risk there will be.
It’s Not Easy, and You Need to Exercise Caution, Obviously
Simply be strategic. Don’t go all out. But balance your efforts. After all, Wayne Gretzky didn’t win on sheer will and tenacity alone; he had the skill.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
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When you want to stand out, reach out to Bert for the tools that will build your “sticky” brand. My focus is on understanding and analyzing your dilemmas and challenges, so your company becomes profitable faster.
Call (914) 632-6977 or email me at bshlensky@startupconnection.net. Don’t leave without signing up for our useful free eBook!
Feeling stumped or overwhelmed? Contact Bert at (914) 632-6977 or Email to start the process. Thanks!
