The key to your success is in your hands, but I feel your pain
Being back in the retail end of the business is a mixed bag of emotions for me. I get the opportunity to try out all of the things I have talked about for some years. However, it has brought more than a few memories back and made a few things clear to me quickly. I ran quite a successful business for several years, a different industry but my own business. I remember the stress of it clearly, I had not forgotten it, just pushed it to the back of my mind.
It has been brought to the fore in recent times in my new position. I don’t own the company, but I feel personally responsible for it and the welfare of the owner and staff. So for all intensive purposes, it may as well be my own business. That pressing concept has lead to very clear thinking, particularly when we had a relatively slow week.
The slow week was a designed phenomenon, the first two months of this year have gone exceptionally well and the company needed some quiet time to regroup. But as we went through the week I got a little panicky, the old god what if we don’t get a sale next week set in. Then I thought lord, what if I had a slow week that I hadn’t designed happened. I would be crawling the walls, panic would be really setting in.
I can understand how you as an independent business owner feel. Here is the rub though, I know that I have the continous answer to my business levels in my hands. I don’t mean my marketing activities, they are designed as cream. My bread and butter is in the careful tending of my existing customers. Call backs, follow ups, yearly clean and checks are the planned business providers I have.
Most months I can give relatively accurate guesses on revenue based on the appointments I am generating. You can too, the key to your success is in your hands. It is the customers you have, take care of them, make sure they are happy, go that extra mile. Not least of all because that is the right thing to do.
But also because they will deliver to you riches, a constant flow of riches. Through their recommendations, through their return business. So when you are looking at a bleak week, I would ask you why, why aren’t you busy building your brand and engaging your Patients. Engage your Patients, touch them on an emotional level, connect with them, take care of them. Because if you are doing this, the only quiet weeks will be designed weeks.