It’s Time for a Change

Fall is my favorite season. The temperatures are getting cooler, this horrible southern humidity is loosening its grip, college football is on TV, and the topwater fishing bite is on fire. Sorry Andy Williams, you can keep the “kids jingle-belling” – THIS is the most wonderful time of the year for me. Well, at least for a few days it will be…

The changing of the seasons around here can be fast and furious, and we’ve been known to skip seasons altogether. Monday you’ve got highs in the 90s, and by Tuesday you’re in the 60s. Friday drops in the 40s, and it’s time to unbox the winter coats. Now throw in the very real possibility you have a random streak of July heat during November, and you’re ready to be an Alabamian.

Change is a part of life, and whether it’s happening fast or slow, all things in life are in some stage of transition. Heraclitus said, “The only constant in life is change,” and that’s especially true in the business world. The old way is getting replaced, the new way needs an update, and there’s always something brand new-er than what you just upgraded to. From a marketplace perspective, if you aren’t changing and adapting fast, you’re getting left behind.

And truth be told, that thought scares a lot of people. Why? We’re afraid of and resist change because, to our minds, the outcome is almost assuredly going to be negative. According to a 2018 Barna poll, when people were given the option of their lives staying exactly the same or gambling on making a change, for better or for worse, a staggering 89% said they’d rather just stay where they were. Because you know, they might end up unhappier than their current unhappiness. Pessimism reigns supreme. But here’s a thought: If that’s your attitude toward your business, not only will you miss out on potential growth, you’re also losing more and more of what you think you’re shrewdly protecting every single day.

The Law of Diminishing Returns states that if all other variables are held the same, the yield will predictably lower over time. That is to say, “If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting slightly less, and slightly less, and slightly less of what you were getting… until you don’t get any more at all.” As we said above, nothing truly stays the same, however much we will it to.

You launch a new website and are met with fantastic traffic and lead numbers, but then in 6 months the stats don’t look as good. And over the next few months they drop even lower. The website still looks great, it’s actually exactly the way it was when it launched, so what changed? Your market changed and Google’s algorithms on site optimization have changed. And left untouched, over time “no change” amounts to lots of change and some equation of 5 less visitors per day, then 10, then 30 and your leads disappear altogether.

The reality is even though our natural tendency is to protect what we have and resist the uncertainty of change, quite frankly, the world around us doesn’t care. It’s going to continue changing either way, and being tentative and fighting to stay the same often carries much greater risk for us long term.

Here are a few areas you might be due for a change:

1. Change your mind. It’s easy to sit back and wish for a return to the “glory days” when there were only a few essential media options for marketing your business. Things were simpler when everyone was just jockeying for position in the Yellow Pages, but those days are long gone. Now billboards have gone digital, millions of eyes are on social media, and even traditional TV commercials are fading away with everything going “on-demand.”

Marketing has changed and will continue to, so the first step to improving your results is a simple change of mind. Success will take exploring some uncharted territories and enduring a few shaky starts, but your competition should be scared of you breaking the “this is how we’ve always done it” mold and opening your mind to new possibilities.              

2. It may be time for a rebrand. A full-scale, top to bottom rebrand of your company may not be necessary, but if you find yourself in the “resistant” category, it’s probably time for an identity update. Many contractors use nostalgia as a selling point with old-timey looking logos and proud claims they’ve been serving the community for 30+ years. Those are excellent badges of honor and you should be proud of your past, but make sure your marketing is reminding people of the past only in the best ways.

The mantra, “We’ve been around the longest” speaks to your sustainability, but people desire a company that is cutting edge too. After all, you’re being asked to service some of the most advanced machinery they own. Does it exude confidence if your website looks clunky and it’s not mobile friendly? If you think longevity alone is enough to keep your business afloat, ask yourself how the new company in town comes in with no reputation, just good marketing, and starts stealing your customers. A few updates and you could be using your trusted reputation AND an image that sells to blow them out of the water.               

3. Let someone help. This is a scary concept and not something that happens overnight. No one expects you to go from 0 to 100, jump in with both feet and change everything about the way you’ve been doing business for years. That would be foolish, but where do you start? How do you know what needs updating and is holding you back or what’s vital to your success and needs to be left alone?

How about some outside eyes? How about some help bringing you up to speed on some of the newest effective ways of doing things? Or how about someone you can trust to hand off some of these things you don’t (and probably don’t want to) understand?

As I’ve said before, no one expects you to be a social media expert, a website developer, a copywriter, a brand strategist AND THEN a contractor if you’ve got time left over. But your customers do expect someone to be doing all of those things well. Sure, asking the teenage CSR to help update the company Facebook page is a start, but maybe it’s time to outsource some help and get serious about your image.

If you’d like a fresh set of trained eyes on how you’re doing things, some simple suggestions on how you can improve, and some solutions to lighten your workload I’d love to help. Click here to start the conversation.

I’ll leave you with this quote by renowned motivational guru John Maxwell: “Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.” Change will happen either way, but you can choose right now to start changing for the better.