Video: Keeping in Touch… on Pivoting Your Business

Ken Boggis, Hibu’s VP of Digital Solutions, talks about what we’re hearing from our small business clients across the country, and walks through key steps your local business should be taking to keep in touch with your customers now, as well as, the best ways to position yourself for the transition back to the new normal.

Ken talks about the steps businesses are taking to pivot away from business as it’s always been to business as it needs to be now, to meet today’s evolving customer needs.

This is information we’ve learned from talking with hundreds of clients across the country — first-hand information that can help your business get through these challenging times.

[Video transcript]

Hello everyone. Ken here, from Hibu.

First off, I hope that you your family and your business are well during these interesting times.

We are now over a month well over a month into this coronavirus crisis and through hundreds of conversations that my associates and I have had there are specific certainties and insights that we’re seeing that we want to share with you today that we believe will help you navigate through these troubled times.

The first is that all small businesses have been impacted by the coronavirus crisis all across America. All across small business America we’ve seen this — now although some are accelerating and experiencing growth through this process, many of you are challenged on a day-to-day basis. But the point of the matter is nobody’s exempt from it. It’s a real hard truth every day we wake up. Hopefully by now you’ve communicated out your position to your marketplace. You’ve identified how this crisis is impacted your hours, it’s impacted how you interact with your clients on a day-to-day basis, how you’ve pivoted to meet the demands that are out there today.

And you really have to make sure that you communicate quickly and hopefully you’ve done that — using all the assets that are at your fingertips within your business — and that can be both on from an offline standpoint and most importantly from an online standpoint.

From an offline standpoint utilize everything you have if you have a storefront that you operate your business out of make sure your messaging, you know, speaks to what you’ve done to pivot during these times. If you have any specific types of vehicles that you use you know for your business make sure that again you make those changes and updates to be reflected on those parts of your brand that are out there in the community each and every day from an online standpoint absolutely critical to make sure that you are continuing an ongoing positive conversation with your community — your website, your social media, platforms directory listings — make sure that you’re letting them know how you’re positioned to continue to do business with them going forward.

That’s absolutely a critical piece you need to embrace — that digital presence. That’s never been more important than today. You have a captured audience — people are on their phones, they’re on their desktops, in their stuff — and they’re looking for information. We know that they’re still looking for many of your products and services — they’re just doing it differently. They’re just doing it with a more critical eye. And the importance of your message, the visibility of your message, the clarity of your message is really important at this point in time.

Your business is being challenged, right? For some of you it might be the pace that you’re bringing on clients — that velocity has dropped down — for others it may be your average order value has just taken a hit — your ability just to simply do business on a day-to-day basis. And it’s critical that you identify that, and you look at this as not just the challenges but also the opportunities within them for all of us — for all of you — it’s critical that we make smart changes in our business to meet the demands of what the market wants today.

It’s important that we pivot — and you may have to fundamentally change the way you do business — bringing new alternatives to your potential clients. And you know what, that’s okay. That may change your very brand as you go forward. But that’s okay. That can be a very positive for you.

I think it’s so critical for us to keep in mind that during a time like this this, it’s not about surviving this, it’s about coming out even stronger on the other end. In order to do that we have to make sure that we’re continuing to communicate in the high level to our clients, even your existing clients. Just a value-added hello. Reaching out to let them know we’re here, we’re thinking about you, we hope that you’re safe and if you need our product or services this is how we can help you in today’s marketplace.

So critical you do that.

And it’s important that we plan throughout. That we plan for our recovery in stages. That we don’t get just caught in the moment. You can’t get stuck in the now. I know that’s hard because on a day-to-day basis we’re being challenged just to kind of get through that day and move on to the next. But we really need to take inventory of where our business and our industry is today, where will it be a month from now, two months from now three months from now, six months from now — and how do we want to be positioned, how do we want our business, how do you want your business, positioned at those points in time.

It’s absolutely critical.

And let’s learn from this. There will be more challenges in the future for all of our businesses. There will be more disruptions. Can we learn from this? Can we… have you changed, you know, really, just the core of your business — whether that’s with the technology that you use to communicate with your clients or just even your revenue streams? Have you added a new revenue streams to your business to make up for other areas that might be challenged right now?

Be proactive. Be bullish and fight through this.

And, in closing… here at Hibu, our core focus has always been helping small businesses connect with their customers at the moments that matter most — and that hasn’t changed through this — if anything it’s only been amplified through this process.

So, whether you’re an existing client or you’re just a business that’s out there trying to find some answers and trying to figure out how to navigate these troubled waters… give us a call. Let’s have a conversation. We’ll try to look for the opportunities that exist in the marketplace for you and help you get to the other side.

Again, I hope that you, your family, and your business are safe. And we look forward to talking soon. Thank you.