Joseph Doohan — September 21, 2018 — September 21, 2018
Most business industries evolve over time and customer buyer habits change. As a result, how your business adapts to these changes will directly affect how successful you will be in the future.
There are many famous companies in the past that failed to adapt to buying behaviour of customers and as a result, they have been consigned to history. Kodak for example were once probably the most trusted brand in the photography industry. The company failed to adapt to the digital photography revolution, which was one of the fundamental reasons for their downfall.
qimono / Pixabay
In this post, I will outline some measures that you can take to help future-proof your business for ongoing success.
1) Adapt Your Products / Services
It is important that you get regular feedback on your products that you sell or the services that you provide. What you offer needs to evolve to match customer needs.
Free-Photos / Pixabay
Disruptive businesses can potentially change buyer behaviours. Netflix and on-demand television services have disrupted more industries than just the movie rentals and general television sector. Off-license liquor stores and take-away restaurants have had to adapt how they serve their customers.
Before on-demand TV, certain demographics would rent or buy a DVD from a movie store, get some beverages from a liquor store and get a take-away meal from their local restaurant. Today, people can order food and alcohol from their smartphones and have it delivered direct to their home. For businesses, that failed to adapt their business to serve the needs of their customers change of buying behaviour, are likely to have failed
There are a number of ways that you can learn about changes to your customer behaviours including:
- Attend industry conferences
- Follow industry influencers for latest industries
- Create surveys to send to your customers on how to better improve your offering
If your business remains stagnant and you fail to adapt, you will miss new opportunities or ultimately fail.
2) Secure Personal Data
In recent times we have seen where businesses have lost revenue, consumer trust and in some cases even failed as a result of a breach of customer data. Large companies with a large online customer base have become a prime target for cyber criminals. Organizations like Yahoo, JP Morgan Chase and Home Depot are all companies that have suffered massively as a result of a data breach and have faced a drop in share prices, lost customers and had their reputations damaged.
If your company is responsible for holding customer data, you have an obligation to protect it. Failure to do so could have major implications on your company.
3) Constant Flow Of Leads
Whether you are a product based or service based company, you need to have leads coming in on a regular basis to nurture into sales. Whether you offer product demonstrations, free samples, discounts or just attain new subscribers for newsletters, you need to continue working on your lead generation to bring you in new sales.
nattanan23 / Pixabay
The way you get your business brand in front of as many potential leads as possible will go a long way towards gaining new leads. Previously, radio, newspapers, TV and cold calling were the primary methods of getting your brand in front of people. Some of these advertising methods would have got you a huge reach, but you may not have reached your target market.
Today, inbound marketing activities like social media, blogging and getting your website found on the internet are critical marketing activities for small businesses to reach their audiences.
As a business owner, you must understand your customers. By creating a persona of your ideal customer, you can better manage your marketing tactics to reach exactly your target market. For small business, with online marketing you can manage your budget for marketing to the type of person that would convert to a lead and then to a sale.
4) Develop Your Staff Capabilities
It is important that you invest in your staff so that your business can grow into new markets, stay up to date with latest innovations and diversify your product or service offering. By investing in the people in your company, you provide new opportunities and set new revenue targets.
Some ways that you can invest in your staff to future-proof your business includes:
- Customer service skills
- Leadership skills
- Personal branding
- Business efficiency
- Upskilling
Some examples where investing in people can benefit businesses include: upskilling in the creative industries and efficiency and processes in manufacturing.
In creative industries like graphic design, the obvious solution for managers in this industry is to invest in upskilling their staff to learn animation as animations get more interactions on social media than just plain graphics. For animators, there are opportunities to become skilled in VR design. Such examples are ways in which businesses can invest in their staff to better future-proof their business.
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