Turn Those Business Blahs Into Something Positive
All business owners experience that feeling of monotony when the doldrums of operating a business on a day-to-day basis becomes merely a series of redundant tasks. What once seemed like an intriguing challenge has officially become a headache and a hardship. Or has it? Do truly entrepreneurial people ever stop searching for ways to create, innovate and keep profits coming in?
Possibly not… but like any human, you’re bound to have a dry spell from time to time.
Here are a few ideas on how to liven up the daily enterprise when you’re a burned-out business owner.
Spy On Your Competition
Here’s one way to kick-start enthusiasm for running your business. Go poke around and see what the competition is up to. You can visit their website or peruse their product pamphlet if they’ve put one out that you’ve managed to scoop up in your travels. Check out customer reviews and feedback. See what they’re doing right as well as where improvements may be needed so you can step up your own game.
If theirs is an online business model that includes an online membership or ordering process, sign up for what they have going on using a fake account. Is it spying? Yes. Do people do it all the time, YES, they do! This will enable you to live their customer experience and compare it to what your own customers want, need and are getting from you. You can even make a purchase on their website if it will help you get clarity on what things you can be doing better in your own business.
Buy Your Business A Gift
Thinking you’d like to break up with your business? Buying a gift for someone you love can inject new life into a tired relationship… so why not do the same for the company that you’ve put so much love, equity, sweat and tears into growing?
Your business would love any number of gifts, and you can go big or small depending on how much you’ve got to invest and what you’ve prioritized in the way of new growth and expansion. Could a branding overhaul be in the cards for you? What about some fresh tech upgrades?
Even something simple like signing up for a subscription to Camtasia that enables you to take screencast recordings and share them with your audience, could make a huge improvement in your business communication which can really help you grow sales. Or what about a selfie stick, so you can take more day-in-the-life business photos to connect with your fans and followers online?
Here’s another amazing idea for a business-centered gift. How about investing in a seminar or retreat? You can focus on motivation, business creativity, forming collaborative relationships, creating winning coaching products, or anything else that might result in improvements to your product line, services offered, or result in a new income stream.
Start with a Google search or explore your favorite business networks to see which boss babe or power marketer is hosting an event near you. Or, hit Airbnb for possible nearby (or hey, why not go for exotic!) locations where you can meet up with a few business colleagues and get cozy with a relaxing, rejuvenating, business-focused retreat. Plan to run things like brainstorms, creative themed events, spoken presentations and work-related assignments (like course creation) to make it productive and stuffed with profit potential.
Learn A New Skill To Shake Things Up
Here’s a gift to give your business that will keep on giving. Enroll in a course, sign up for a seminar, purchase a tutorial or take an in-person or virtual class that covers something you’ve been wanting to know. It could be something you master in a week, like how to make your own branding and design elements using a program like Canva. Or it could be a more in-depth skill, like becoming certified in website design, or obtaining your real estate license.
Feeling like you don’t have the extra time to invest in extensive learning? Worried about money, or the lost productivity that you can’t afford to let go of at the present time in the life of your business? Then do something simple. Just set aside some time, in a single afternoon, to research a new skill or area of expertise that relates to your business.
Run A Customer Appreciation Sale
One of the quickest, easiest, most profitable ways to drum up new interest in your business is to run a sale or offer a price break of some kind. You can make this as simple as you like, or you can get into the finer details if you think it would result in more business for you.
This will actually pull you back into engaging with your business again.
What does this mean? A simple sale could be a percent off, good through a specific series of dates. The percent off might apply to only certain products. Or it could be a site wide, or store-wide sale.
If you do a percent off, and you have other coupon offers already circulating, you’ll want to set some rules just to minimize confusion and let people know exactly what they get and what applies, up front. You might say, one (or two, or three) coupon(s) per customer. Or you might include a disclaimer that reads, “Does not apply to existing coupon offers in effect.”
Another thing you can do is apply a bulk discount. Could be anything from a buy one, get one free sale, buy two, get one half off, or get reduce pricing when you buy 10 or more (units of whatever it is you’re selling).
A package deal is another possibility, especially if you offer services. Try to come up with a running theme. Do your services work around a certain theme?
What if you’re a relationship coach, and it’s Valentine’s Day? You can easily package up a fun product theme that includes 1 hour of spot coaching for your relationship troubles, 1 marriage journal with 7 days’ worth of assignments to explore challenges you’re having with your partner, one set of Love Coupons for couples to share (include things like “cash this in for 1 back rub”).
Get Some Serious Customer Feedback
One quick way to inject new life into your business is by opening the lines of communication with customers. There are a few things you can do to start a conversation around the customer experience, your products, and services, and how things are functioning in general. Here are some ideas:
Send out an email asking for customer testimonials, feedback, and criticism. Direct your customers to a specific method of submitting their comments. Could be email, could be a review site like Yelp, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Etsy, or wherever you hang out online.
This works by getting your customers involved, which will remind you how valuable what you do actually is to others. You’ll take some of this feedback, sit down, and start to strategize how you can best use it. Will it inspire a new product or service line? A major upgrade to your pre-existing services? A complete shakeup of your brand identity?
Start A Survey
The tediousness of daily business tasks is getting to you. Taking a day or two out to focus on developing a valuable (and fun) survey for your customers may not sound like a huge change, but it will help to recenter your focus.
People like to take surveys; the trick though is to create one that is equally helpful and revealing to your business as it is entertaining and enjoyable for your customers to take.
People love to give their opinions. You might think about an incentive to get people to take the survey. You can offer a special discount, free giveaway, or something else.
