In the last few blogs, I went over the major shifts we’re seeing in our economy. How business owners need to respond in order to stay alive and thrive during these weird times.
We talked about how to reduce expenses and how to increase revenue. I even shared a notepad list of exactly how I would do it.
Here’s part 1 and part 2.
Now I want to cover another incredibly important part. You need to understand what our global economic world is about to go through.
In the business world, this WILL come down to survival of the fittest.
And in this sense, fittest means most adaptable. You need to be able to change on a dime. You have a plan A, B, C, and D.
What I’m about to recommend here is actually what people should be doing when times are good.
Many don’t bother until it’s too late. It’s actually these things that will create a “moat” around your business.
Build a Moat Around Your Business
Remember moats we’d see in children’s books?
The kinds with alligators and explosives and such?
No one could penetrate the fairytale castle because of the moat!
Creating a moat means your business is untouchable.
It means your brand is difficult to knock off.
It means competitors can try but they just can’t beat you.
It means your customers are so loyal that even if they bought less, they’d still buy, and you’d still be in business.
That’s what we’re going to build for our businesses.
Only, it should have been done from the beginning.
Now, when times are uncertain, is better than never, but just realize that these are things that should be implemented from Day 1.
Each of these points is an entire lesson on its own but I’ll cover them briefly here.
Rule #1 about moats:
It’s not about you, it’s about them.
Building a moat all comes down to customer experience.
What does the customer experience entail?
Everything from….
…the first time someone becomes aware your business exists
to the first click to your social media presence
to the first interaction with a post
to the first click to your website
to the feeling they get when they see your colors, branding, and photography
to the flawless checkout experience
to the first customer welcome email they get
to the follow-up email sequence they get over the next several weeks
to the community of other customers they interact with regularly
to the “wow!” moment they have with their unboxing experience they have
to the customer service interaction they have
to the gratitude shown to the customer after being loyal for a period of time…
Is this clicking so far??
Basically… none of those points mentioned are going to be GOOD automatically.
It takes INTENTION and PURPOSE to even think through those individual experiences, let alone design what you want them to be, and then implement them.
I could summarize this customer experience into these categories:
⚜️ Branding: look, feel, taste, vibe, colors, sound, expression
⚜️ Community: how your customers interact with each other
⚜️ Culture: what your brand is all about, interests, hobbies, inside jokes, values
⚜️ Experience: website, checkout, user interface, tech
⚜️ Unboxing: product, packaging, visuals, tangibles, delivering a “wow” moment
⚜️ Customer Service: conflict resolution protocols, personality, service
There is more I could unpack, but this covers the basics of customer experience.
Do you see how much intention needs to be put into these things?
It’s actually not difficult to stand out when you give even five minutes to any one of these things because most people give NO attention to any of them.
So if you spend a bit of time thinking through each detail of your customer experience, you are digging that moat around your castle.
And the more you think through and implement each detail, you’re now adding one more alligator to your moat.
Now you can see why I said that these are things business owners should think through regardless, not just during shaky times.
But when times get shaky, if you don’t have these things in place, your business might be one that doesn’t make it through.
I said recently in a tweet that bad economic times are the great sifting of the excellent and the mediocre. You need to become excellent ASAP.
Take the points above and start a note… start thinking and dreaming about the experience you want your customers to have, and you’ll already be digging that moat.
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