“Why do we fall?” asks the father as he carries the thin frame of a 10 year old boy in his arms. The boy silently looks up at his father.
“So that we can learn to pick ourselves up!” the father answers his own question, with a smile.
As I watch this scene from Batman Begins (I know… it is an old movie but I like to watch it every now and then!), a spike of emotion engulfs me – every time. What a concept! With the latest economic situation, it makes perfect sense for small business owners to take note of it and to apply it.
I did the same with one of my companies, very recently. When we were effected by Google updates and business was slow, instead of languishing over the fact and panicking, we rebranded ourselves, changed our core business philosophy, shifted our location to New York and came out of the slump! We learned to pick ourselves up. The whole experience actually taught us quite a few things and enabled us to breathe fresh air into our business model.
When things don’t go right for a small business, the best way to handle that is to have a shift in thinking. To rethink a business model or strategy might be hard thing to do but if you can try, you will see magic happen. A downfall can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. It is possible – with a shift in perspective and thinking – to rebound back with a vengeance and to be a better company than before. Of course, this advice may not apply for all businesses and it is also true that having a shift in thinking alone may not bring a company back from oblivion.
But I have seen this very successful applied in my business. Instead of trying to change external factors – which were not under my direct control, I decided to focus on internal ones. I started looking at our fundamentals – how we were we perceiving ourselves, how were we perceiving our customers, who are our ideal customers, what does our brand stand for and so.
I realized that, the reason we were in that sad situation was because we had all our eggs in one basket – Google. We depended on traffic from Google for 100% of our sales. When Google pulled the plug due to some algorithmic updates, we went dry. As I started looking inwards, I started putting together a structure that changed the company from inside out – right from our core philosophy to our customer service – building a system and process that will ensure we will not depend on Google any more. I set down policies that took customer service to whole new level. I started a campaign to seek out partners and affiliates and work with them. I rebranded our company so that our new thinking and value proposition was properly communicated to our target audience.
Perhaps it is time for you to think the same. Look at what your brand stands for. In fact – does it stand for any thing at all? Identifying what your brand stands for could be the single most important thing you can figure that would help your bottom-line. It defines the essence of the company – an identity. With out an identity, your company will be weak and be swayed by the winds of change or fate. Building an identity and strong customer service will have a great ROI — especially when times are tough.
