Hey CEO, What’s Your Pivot Plan?

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old
but on building the new.”
Socrates

So here we are. So much for post-COVID. With numbers soaring, the media screaming recession and many schools and universities not opening in the fall, it seems the end to this madness is not in sight afterall.

Onward. 

We’re too busy to pay attention to the media hysteria. We have businesses to run, clients to serve, new projects to launch, supply chain issues to solve, staffing challenges to sort and consumer demand to reignite.

The way I see it every business has three options:

1)    Give up and close your doors

2)    Put your head in the sand and continue operating pretty much the same post-covid as you did pre-covid, or

3)    PIVOT. See this as the perfect opportunity to transform your business – quicker than your competitors. This means formulating a strategic plan, allocating resources and taking action. 

As you’re still reading I’m going to assume you’ve chosen option three. 

Option two is not sustainable. We are in unchartered territory, a new economy – and anyone who thinks they can merrily hum along post covid the way they did pre-covid is in LA LA land. Nothing is the same… 

 And option one – isn’t an option at all if you’ve invested in the right people, the right products and the right marketing.

So PIVOT – option three it is.

Now the question is how.  

The Client Stampede Marketing Formula

Let’s do a quick consult on this using the Client Stampede Marketing Formula.

Step 1. Target Market

Start with your consumers, your clients, your customers.  How has their behavior changed post-covid? Their mental state has clearly been altered but what about their buying behaviour? Do they even have use for your top products and services?  If yes, great! How can you change your marketing message to help them remember who you are and how you help them?  If the answer is no, or not sure, don’t worry. Now it’s time to do some in-depth market analysis to see how you can modify any of your products and services to meet new needs. Repositioning is key and this is where the strength of your marketing message comes into play. 

Step 2 What Is Your Marketing Message? Based on the new needs of your customers, how are you changing your marketing message so that you can demonstrate how innovative you are?

Step 3 Branding & Celebrity/Leader Positioning How can this innovation be conveyed across your entire brand? From the way your own staff talk about your company, to the message contained on your website and the language used by your sales people? 

Step 4 Packaging Products & Services What packages can you now offer in this new environment to help meet the new needs? Kickstarter packages? Business acceleration packages, “COVID Thrival” Packages? Packages are the secret to prevent price shopping and being able to compare apples with apples. This is where your strategic creativity needs to kick into high gear.

Step 5 Pricing Don’t worry, offering packages doesn’t mean having to offer discounts. This is where pricing strategy comes into play – how can you get new clients to do business with you and get existing clients to re-engage?

Step 6 Your Marketing Toolbox.  Right here is where the rubber hits the road with your pivot plan. You’ve come this far but if you don’t have the right kind of marketing that contains the right kind of messages and targeted to the right people – your pivot plan isn’t going to work. Do a deep dive into your Marketing metrics. Know what worked before and why – and keep this as your control, but don’t be surprised if post-covid the marketing landscape has entirely changed and what used to work doesn’t any more. Conversely this also means what didn’t work before might work – or it might mean your marketing is ripe for an overhaul and you need a new marketing system built.

Step 7 Extraordinary Experience. Don’t forget that getting the sale is just the beginning. How can you ensure that their customer experience blows them away?

We are in unchartered territory. All bets are off that what you’ve done to drive sales in the past will work in the future.  In fact the riskiest strategy you can implement is no pivoting at all – or a pivot plan that is sorta-kinda implemented. A band-aid here and there.

This time is a gift. Invest in the right strategy and then go implement it like crazy!