Summer is winding down.
It’s hard to believe all that has happened over the past six months, but here we are.
The other day I completed my first socially-distanced workout at my gym, now open under “phase 3” in Ontario, Canada.
This means we’re working out in a 10x10 square, trainers wearing masks, strict pathways to get from one end of the gym to the other, and no high fives with your fellow workout buddies.
It felt great to be back.
Meanwhile, my wife has been told that she’s heading back to a classroom of 30 kids in a couple of weeks, and my kids will be back in class.
Who knows what will happen. Some say it’s time to get back to normal, but there’s no right answer here.
Either way, I've been thinking.
I remembered back to last year when most of the clients and prospective clients I was working with were worried that their record growth had little to do with them doing things more right and more to do with the entire economy being on a rocket ship to nowhere.
It’s true. For years, we were operating in the longest bull market in history. Compare that to the past six months, which has shown the most significant economic decline in US & Canadian history.
Last year at this time, there was a good bit of fresh worry about a potential recession.
Nobody had any idea what was to come a few months later, even though many were right.
They had been riding the perfect storm of a healthy economy without spending enough time asking themselves tough questions or making the right investments in their businesses.
As we move into the post-pandemic period where much of our economy is trying to get the engines turning again, there are a few key questions to consider that will be more important now than ever before.
For example, look back and ask yourself the following:
Before the pandemic, how much of your growth had been fueled by new customer acquisition?
Versus:
How much of your growth had been fueled by increasing the number of transactions with your existing customers?
Or:
How much of your growth had been fueled by increasing the profitability of each customer transaction?
Or another approach:
Why did you lose most of your customers over the past five years? What was the single biggest reason you could get the first sale, but not the second, third, or fourth sale?
Here’s the thing: A healthy market makes up for many sins.
To use one of my favorite metaphors, when the tap of new customers is running strong, it doesn't matter how strong your customer retention efforts are – you still grow.
When the tap slows down or shuts off, if you've gotten used to making money even with no on-boarding, no referral generation, and no real excellence, then your company is in trouble.
So here we are now, heading into a post-pandemic world, and some businesses have experienced record sales and seen no significant change. Others have had to completely reinvent themselves over and over again, and many businesses have not made it through the past six months.
Regardless of what has happened, we can’t be complacent regardless if business has been good, bad, or indifferent. It doesn't mean things will stay this way. You need to be asking yourself these critical questions and considering how you can be better, stronger, and more successful in a post-pandemic world.
Your challenge for today: What steps are you taking right now to build a more successful organization for tomorrow?
Instead of winding down from this tumultuous pandemic time, let’s see how you can wind things up.
As always, if you want help, I’m here to help. Feel free to reach out.