How “Essential” Is Your Business During a Pandemic
“My business isn’t essential for survival.”
Ummmm, excuse me? I thought as I stared at my client last week, my mouth agape. Now, look, I know a lot of people are labeling certain businesses as essential and non-essential, so I had to dive deeper.
“Essential for the survival of whom, specifically?” I asked, “For you. For it? For the people you serve?”
“Of course it’s essential for me,” she replied, “But for humanity when people are in crisis, it’s not like I’m in healthcare or selling food.”
“What are humans starving for more than food right now?”
She paused.
I held the space for the appropriate cinematic moment before the #micdrop came out of my mouth.
“Connection.”
IT IS ONE OF OUR ESSENTIAL HUMAN NEEDS...WE’VE GOT SIX OF THEM.
When people are isolated, quarantined, unable to talk to others unable to escape their own home, if you have a product or a service that connects them to other humans, connects them back to themselves connects them to their family and their loved ones, instead of escaping into a bottle of wine and the Tiger King…
HOW IS THAT NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR THE SURVIVAL OF OUR HUMANITY?
One of my favorite shows is The Walking Dead.
Believe me, I appreciate the irony that I was wine tasting with some of the cast in Australia when this pandemic was in its early stages back before social distancing was a thing.
The Walking Dead not just about zombies, the literal walking dead. It’s about the people who survive and how much of their humanity they sacrifice to stay alive. Some become monsters. They may not be physically dead, but their soul is. If you haven’t watched the show, now is the perfect apocalyptic time to watch it.
Your business and ALL businesses solve a problem.
That problem is because someone - your customer - is missing one of their six human needs in some way.
We all crave certainty, variety, love and connection, significance, growth, and contribution.
Maybe your customer doesn’t believe they have significance because they are not being noticed by their husband, so you the fashion expert with those cute lacy bras solve that need by giving them a product that she feels sexy in, so her husband DEFINITELY notices her romping around in her loungewear (hey, it’s the latest trend, right?)
Maybe your customer is struggling with loneliness during quarantine, being stuck in her apartment all by herself, and your business as a professional matchmaker solves that need and helps her start having amazing, meaningful conversations with a handsome fella or two on the interwebs.
Maybe your customer is lacking the spice of variety in his life, with every day feeling exactly the same - crazy - with kids running amuck, no time for himself, and struggling to keep up with his remote workload. But, your parenting coaching business solves that need, bringing more fun, play, and in-home obstacle course ideas with your services, tools, and productivity tips.
So the question is...
What human needs does your BUSINESS meet? And, how are you meeting those needs for your customers?
NO.1 - CERTAINTY
Certainty is not just about the job that you do, it’s also about how you show up. Sure, maybe your customer doesn’t have certainty in their finances, so you, as a wealth manager or financial consultant solve that need for them with your services. That’s one form of certainty.
Also, as a business leader, you meet your customer’s need for certainty when you show up...CONSISTENTLY
That’s how you build your “know, like, and trust factor.”
Even if you’re just starting your business, consistency of showing up, day in and day out, both by you personally as the business leader and for your customers, is the quickest way to destroy doubt. It gives them certainty that YOU will be there for them, period. Come rain or shine.
WHEN PEOPLE TRUST YOU, THEY WILL MORE LIKELY TRUST YOU WITH THEIR DOLLAR.
Back in 2008, I was just getting started teaching Pilates. I became the youngest, most booked, and highest-paid instructor in the studio within a year or so. Why? Because six days a week I was there, consistently, teaching my classes to one or two or ten people, and always delivering as though I were teaching to a full classroom. To this day, I still have my former Pilates clients asking me to teach them again. Because I was mother-effing consistent, and I showed up every day, regardless of how I felt or what I was going through. (And that was back when my romantic life was a hot mess too.)
As a bonus, with consistency, you also meet your own need for certainty.
When you consistently take action - you know the action in your business that scares you - and you see results from those actions, like your first product sales, or your first mentions in the media, or your first high ticket coaching client, that trains a sense of certainty within yourself that, “YES, you can be a successful business owner.”
NO.2 - VARIETY
Maybe your business provides innovative marketing solutions, so your customer - the owner of a VC-funded tech startup - gets to always keep it fresh for his customers, like Dollar Shave Club.
When it comes to your customers, though, how often are you providing them with variety? Maybe you do some new branding. Maybe your messaging gets more polarizing.
How often are you surprising and delighting them with new opportunities (aka variety) and new ways to engage with you?
HOW OFTEN ARE YOU INNOVATING NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO MEET THEIR NEEDS?
Recently I’ve been loving doing my 22-Minute Espresso Chats. I haven’t done free calls in looooong time, but I make it clear, these are no-sales calls. It’s just a way that I absolutely looooooove to meet, connect, and love on my community. Speaking of which...
NO.3 - LOVE AND CONNECTION
Membership, dating sites, relationship coaches, networking groups are all business models that meet this need for customers. But, when it comes to your customers...
How much are you loooooving on your customers right now? As creative leaders, it’s very easy for us to fall in love with our products and services - the IDEAS, the brilliance that we have in our minds. Problem is, when you operate your business from that space, you’ve fallen in love with your own ego...instead of your customer.
No one likes being in a relationship with a narcissist. If your business is all about meeting YOUR needs and YOUR ideas, doing what YOU want, making YOU money, you’re missing the whole other person in the relationship of your business - your customers.
Fall in love with your customers. Literally be OBSESSED with meeting their needs...and in doing so you will meet your own and then some. Rachel Hollis is a fantastic example of this, which is why it’s no surprise she has cultivated a culture of raving fans.
NO.4 - SIGNIFICANCE
Your products and services are providing your customers with a specific way of feeling. A woman who buys a Louis Vuitton handbag more than likely buys it to feel significant. A man who buys himself a fancy sports car usually buys it to feel significant. One of my clients bought a gym membership to Equinox, simply because it made him feel like he’d “made it” to be able to spend that amount of money on a gym membership.
When it comes to your customers...
HOW OFTEN ARE YOU APPRECIATING YOUR CUSTOMERS?
How often are you acknowledging them through this time?
Every single human wants to be respected, acknowledged, and understood. And the best salespeople on the planet, usually are so because they know how to make their customers feel really, freaking significant. And, ideally, they’re doing it from a place of serving their customer’s highest and best. Because selling, after all, is not about you, it’s about the feeling that your products and services bring to your customer.
How are you showing your customers appreciation for their significance to your business?
WHAT DO YOUR CUSTOMERS NEED TO HEAR TO FEEL SIGNIFICANT?
When you are so dialed in on your messaging, that your ideal customers are like, “OMG, you get me!” THAT is making your customer feel significant. It makes them feel heard and understood. And no one likes feeling like they don’t have a voice.
Politicians use this need all the time...not always in a way that I personally admire. But if you listen to a politician speak, usually they are speaking to YOUR need to feel significant and heard and powerful.
One of my dear friends, Luci Lampe, is a fabulous recording artist, songwriter, coach, mompreneur - basically a badass. As a songwriter, she meets her audiences’ need to feel significant in feeling all their feelings - the light and the dark. Her honesty, openness, vulnerability, and raw lyrics provide permission to feel whatever it is that you’re feeling. Yes, I am also a huge fan.
NO.5 - GROWTH
This is pretty straightforward when it comes to what business you’re in. Any motivational speaker, coach or consulting business is designed to grow you or your business.
One of my clients has a business that on the surface many would call a hobby - embroidery. And yet she is growing rapidly and is positioned as a leader in her field simply because she understands the need her business meets - growth.
Offering your customers a challenge, something that builds their skillset of resilience, THAT meets a human need. What makes her so successful is that her patterns and work are challenging, and she champions her customers to complete them, and through the work that they do building these quilts, they grow to have that sense of accomplishment, that pride of ownership.
Think of a time you finished a project, maybe a book, or a course, or a program, where you felt really freaking accomplished afterward. It’s BECAUSE of the challenge that it grows you.
CHALLENGE YOUR AUDIENCE, YOUR CUSTOMERS TO RISE, AND THEY WILL MEET YOU AT THE LEVEL OF YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THEM.
No one grows by doing something that is easy. You need a challenge, and a wee bit of stress to grow. And so many people right now are diving into this need right now - taking more online courses, hiring coaches, challenging their mindsets, skilling up for whatever is next. My mom, at seventy-two, God bless her, is even taking an online marketing course!
Sadly though, many others are not having this need met - sitting on the couch watching another Netflix show that is mildly interesting, but mostly mind-numbing.
NO.6 - CONTRIBUTION
For non-profit businesses, it’s quite simple. However, when threats of recession and financial instability happen, and people start tightening their belts, cutting down on their expenses, and, honestly living in scarcity, non-profit donations are one of the first to go down the drain.
People need to feel a part of something more, something purposeful like their life means something. My mentor and fellow certified high-performance coach, Brendon Burchard’s motto is “Live. Love. Matter.”
Maybe your business as an environmental consulting agency, helps your clients feel like their business matters to the world by taking charge of their carbon footprint. Maybe your work as a massage therapist helps that single-mother of three feel like she is contributing to her family because after that massage she’s not as snappy with her kids. Maybe it’s in the ripple effect that you provide with training and certifications for your customers so that they can serve others.
How does your business allow them to contribute?
Or, perhaps it indirectly with your social causes and charities that your business aligns with to pay it forward. Last night I tweeted out that we made another donation to Operation Underground Railroad, not to brag, but to show my absolutely faith and trust in Karma. I mean, it’s freaking biblical, right? It is one of my deepest honors to have a socially-conscious company and to create socially-conscious leaders.
When my client recognized how her business contributes to the human needs of her customers, she changed her tone, went all-in, and launched a membership program to serve her customer’s need for connection on a deeper level.
REMEMBER, YOUR REIGN IS NOW.
P.S. If you’d like to explore what core need your business meets and how you can better meet ALL the needs of your customers, book a 90-Minute 1:1 Consult with me and I cannot wait to show up for you on time with certainty, provide you with breakthroughs, belly laughs, and a variety of perspective shifts, connect with you deeply, hear you completely, challenge you to grow so that you can contribute to the world on a whole new level.