“Anything a customer can do for themselves is where service stops and relevance begins.” – Jim Blasingame***
It was predicted earlier in the year that Covid-19 had created an economic instability that would linger for some time after populations increased the rate of vaccination obtainment and moved closer to herd immunity. The lockdowns and health precautions that forced business closures, unemployment, inability to pay rent, lack of spending and more continues to leave its residual effects as we slowly get back to more active forms of living. Changing trends, attitudes, generational differences, seasonal changes, national and international shifts and trends can also have an impact.
Covid-19 Changed the Game
Covid-19 and changing trends are not the only things that effect the production of wealth and resources in our businesses and religious institutions today but how we manage those trends and available resources is and will remain a very important issue for leaders.
Covid-19 forced the world to change and learn how to thrive in unfamiliar circumstances. We had to figure out new ways to do things… not always new ways to do what had already been done, but often new ways of doing new things. Not only did we have to learn new ways of doing things but we had to figure it out and learn how to maneuver within and around it quickly. We did not have the luxury of time on our hands.
Two examples, I’m married to a church pastor. When the pandemic’s effects first began to rise in our area, my husband had to decide whether to convene the congregation as usual for worship service on Sunday morning. It was a major decision and certainly not one that most would ever foresee having to entertain, however, the threat to our congregation and the fact that he ultimately had to make a decision that could affect multiple families was daunting. Thought he wrestled with it, he decided to cancel service that Sunday. The following Sunday most churches had to follow suit as the pandemic numbers continued to rise across the country. By the second week, knowing this might last a while, we had to identify a means of providing an online worship service and Bible study. Not only did we have to identify the platform, but also purchase equipment and learn both the platform and equipment for broadcasting the services the following week. Bear in mind we did not have the luxury of an AV ministry team to help us during the pandemic lockdown. We only had the distant input of an individual from that ministry who could lend some guidance on the use of some of the equipment he was familiar with. The social media streaming platform was new to all of us, as were the applications needed to render the broadcasts. We had to recruit my 14 and 20 year old kids to serve as the technical streaming crew to help us do the broadcast. We made it work! I can guarantee that things will never be the way they were on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights. Covid created long lasting change. Almost every church I know, and I know quite a number, began online worship services. Some of my friends and family have yet to return to in person worship at their churches. They prefer the online experience!
My second example is one to which many can relate. Ordering food became a frequent occurrence in many households. Prior to Covid lockdowns there were two restaurants that my family frequently ordered from, who would deliver – the Chinese restaurant up the street and the Pizza restaurant about two miles away. Most other places did not deliver. Well now, every restaurant we frequent, delivers and I must say the delivery costs were not excessively high. I didn’t even mind adding additional tip money knowing the risk these drivers were taking to make everyone else’s lives easier. Where restaurants previously so no reason to pursue deliver or thought it was not cost effective or advantageous to do so, Covid-19 changed the game. Reality is, the pandemic forced everyone to become more competitive and dared us to enter the 21st century.
Remaining Relevant
In business and in leadership, if we want to remain viable we have to remain relevant. This requires going beyond a basic understanding of your core business or function and moving to a space of “what could be”. The pandemic forced us into the “What could be” state, but it wasn’t such a bad thing. Many churches already knew the value of streaming and online ministry but for whatever reason did not take the steps to make it happen until forced to. What restaurant couldn’t benefit from adding and promoting delivery of their food? Delivery saved many restaurants from going under and I dare say, pushed individuals who might not normally utilize delivery to do so as the need for a break from the stove and to help support local businesses became more of a necessity.
Thinking with relevance and innovation in mind might have prepared us all for what was to come with the pandemic. We might have been more primed for the mental, physical and financial impact we faced in making sudden changes to stay afloat and meet customer’s needs. Here are just a few thoughts for relevant thinking in this season of leadership:
1. Stay Attuned to Trends in Your Field or Business
Read, join online communities, follow businesses, groups or individuals who do the same kind of work you do and find out what others are doing to improve all aspects of their businesses and operations. Even in the church, do your homework (we call it benchmarking) to see what other, successful ministries are doing. Once you identify things that fit with your business or ministry, do a deeper dive to learn how that particular function or process could work in your neck of the woods and how to make it unique to your mission and vision. Don’t do it just because someone else is doing it. Do things that fit with your ministry, improve customer service, meet compliance requirements and create a more innovative and successful organization.
2. Have a Plan But Be Willing to Make Adjustments
In leadership and business don’t just wing it and don’t just plan to wing it. Instead, have a plan that keeps you on track for reaching a particular goal or outcome. That starts with a vision. Your vision documents and guides you as to where you plan to end up…what you want to be. Your mission tells why you exist. When you develop a plan, for doing things, it should line up with your mission and vision. Part of planning is to identify what you need to do, i.e., stream an online program, but it has to include additional detail, such as who is your target audience, why you want to stream, the expected outcome of streaming, how you will promote your program, how you will measure success, timelines, point people, follow ups etc. Don’t try to do anything major without a documented plan, otherwise, others who get involved will each have a vision and a plan of their own and you will ultimately end up with bedlam.
3. Do Not Shy Away from Social Media
Not only have we discovered the value of streaming on social media and the importance social media plays in keeping us connected with friends, family and colleagues but it also has its place in advertising. The key to social media is learning how it works, working with it and learning how to make it work for what we do. It’s not all fun and games. It is actually a lot of work when utilizing it for business but it can work for us if we do our part. If you don’t have time to do all aspects of social media marketing, consider hiring someone or having a more knowledgeable techy person do some of the research and help you get some automatic posts and ads set up for your organization. If you have a business worth patronizing than it should most definitely be featured on platforms where millions of people could potentially learn about you.
4. Mind Your Highs and Lows
While economists and experts are monitoring the economy and resource transitions of today, we should be monitoring our own trends. Don’t leave things to chance. Monitor what comes in and what goes out. When are receipts the highest? When do they drop? Can you answer the question as to why this happens? Just because volumes increase at the beginning of the month does not mean you are doing something right, especially when they are disturbingly low by the end of the month. Analyze these trends to figure out why they happen, if there is a way you can redistribute the balance to make it more consistent throughout the month and how you can build upon the answers to these questions to increase revenue every week of the month. To this, you may need to create ongoing monthly reports and make sure everyone on your team keeps track of their numbers consistently and avidly so you have reliable data to review. Over time, you can determine trends and prepare accordingly. It is not unusual for organizations to capture data and do absolutely nothing with it. You have to push yourself and others to use the data you capture and hold people accountable for consistency of data gathering and reporting.
5. Listen to Your Customers
Somehow you must obtain feedback and input from customers to learn what they need, what they want and what they think of your offerings. This should actually be done on a regular basis but it is extremely important that insights shared are treated fairly, anonymously if it is likely that people on your team know your customers and could become resentful of negative feedback. Make sure actions are taken to rectify anything that customers or clients say is a problem and add new offerings (that make sense) that clients say they would like to see or receive in the future. Customer feedback and meeting the customer’s needs can lead to phenomenal innovations given the chance to develop and be implemented. The customers can be valuable extensions to your team.
Closing Thoughts
I know many are struggling to get back to work and get things flowing consistently again. As stated many times before, we now have a new normal and I don’t think we know what that is yet. People are slowly going back to their offices and are struggling to move from remote work to the place where they can actually interact with others…live! Some are tired of the remote setting, others are tired of the back and forth and some are tired being back in the workplace. Yes, we’ll settle in overtime but we’ve entered this hybrid mode of living where we have to effectively balance it all. We’ve learned social media but it’s exhausting trying to be consistent.
It’s safe to say, it’s a process and we’ll get there. We adapted to change quickly for the onset of the Covid pandemic and we may be a little tired from going ever since but at least we can now leave the house and take a vacation. After that we can get back to it and adapt to the new changes that the aftermath of the pandemic has delivered. In other words, it too is a process and we’ll get there.