No matter what size your business may be, it is hard to stay on top of the day-to-day operations as well as maintain relevance with your customers. Relevance is not about being the most popular or the more fashionable; it is all about providing your customers what they really want. How do you remain relevant when you have so much going on?
Listen to your customers. One of the easiest ways to remain relevant, no matter what industry you may be in, is to listen to your customers. You don’t have to send out an expensive survey or hold several focus groups to obtain this knowledge (although those methods are useful). You can simply talk to your customers face-to-face during the day. Find out why they are at your place of business or why they use your services. Talk to your employees and find out ways you can better meet the needs of your customers. What are your customers complaining about? What are they bragging about? Make the changes you need to meet these changing needs. You need to act to be effective and to remain relevant.
Look forward every day. Are you spending time each day looking at the strategy you developed for your business? Are you taking a good percentage of your time to work on the different things you believe will help your business continue to move forward? If you’re not, you need to start doing this every day. Don’t say, “I don’t have time.” The reality is that if you don’t take the time to look to the future every day, you may not have a future with your business.
Use technology to help you. Part of being relevant is allowing people to know who you are and what you are all about, and then having a way for them to access your business easily. Use the appropriate technological tools to help you move your business to meet the needs of your customers.
If you would like to learn more about how Southern Bank can help your business, click here. We would be happy to partner with you to maintain and even improve your relevance in many different areas of your business.
Source: Southwest Strategic Marketing, LLC © 2015 Harland Clarke Digital®