Elisa Ciarametaro — April 20, 2020 
We are dealing with a rapidly changing business environment today. How we live and work is being redefined and refocused. We recently shared ways to help you solidify your target market, change your short term target market focus, and gave you food for thought for future target markets. Still, drastic and rapid change can feel chaotic. This is how we in sales and marketing can stay focused: Be human and helpful in everything you do.
A number of businesses both large and small show how some are coping with change. They are being helpful and human to their past, current and prospective future target markets. These stories are inspiring!
To Stay Relevant in a Changing Business Environment: Be Helpful
We see a human and helpful shift to accommodate prospects and customers today.
There are countless stories of businesses adjusting their priorities to collaborate positively and serve clients in a changing business environment. Following are some real life examples:
- One business provides a financial solution to a niche market. They are adjusting their offering to meet their customers’ sudden product shift to their niche. By adapting, they are still able to serve their customers and bringing on new ones because they continue to solve a critical immediate challenge at this time.
- A contract research organization repositioned in an effort to help in the fight against COVID-19. They have assembled a lab designed to manage clinical trials for coronavirus vaccines.
- A business that produced medicated fabric for clothing has now completely turned their focus to antimicrobial masks.
- A one-person entrepreneur in Western Pennsylvania recently started a sewing business and began making face masks and donating them. Instead of mending a coat, a pair of pants, or a blouse, she chose to fill a different need in a new market.
These companies are adapting their solutions in collaboration with their clients to accommodate their customer’s current conditions. Now they are busy solving their customer’s most critical challenges.
Here is another remarkable story of help, humanity and adjustment in the face of adversity.
I have a dear friend who is a real estate professional. Today she works remotely from her home office where she lives and spends time with her aging mother during the pandemic. Both of them are incredible cooks. So what is she offering? She and her mother are hosting a weekly cooking show online. They provide prospects and customers a little entertainment and a good old-fashioned Italian recipe. Simple!
We are all at home with our families and cooking whether we like it or not. Her prospects and customers are doing the same thing. Not only is she staying engaged with future buyers on real estate topics. She is providing something different, delightful and relevant to those who will one day be her buyers again.
For some businesses, your personal contact with your target markets may be on hold. You have determined your target market will come back, but right now they are not considering nor even thinking about your product or service. You may think you can’t assist right now but can you? What could you do to be human and helpful?
You may find other real and human stories around you to help you to define and serve your target market.
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