By D'ARCY RAHMING
Most people in a business have a fixed and inflexible attitude towards how a business makes money. But it is important that you as a member of the Marketing Revolution have flexibility. Because it may be the case that you have to change your model, especially if you have some major interruption that stops you from being able to pay your bills. For example, let us say you have some major roadworks that stop people from being able to come to your business.
Now you have three choices: To freeze, to move or to go to your customers. In either case you have to be prepared to reexamine your relationship with your customers, and how you receive money from them at the point of sale. My Judo school is a prime example of this. I had to employ a very flexible attitude to survive in my business.
When I started in 1997 I moved into a single location and met with some instant success due to the underserved market in eastern New Providence. I quickly outgrew my space and had to rent a property three times’ as large. Then I bought a couple of buses and began to bus students into the school, which caused its own share of problems. But we were doing well financially.
So I dropped the busing model and began to set up programmes in primary schools. That led to explosive growth. And things were looking really great. Then catastrophe struck. In 2005, my landlord decided to virtually double the rent. I began to feel deep resentment, almost as if I were working for the landlord instead of him providing me a service. So I bought my own building.
That, unfortunately, meant moving over a mile-and-a-half away and off a main busing route. I practically lost all the students at the main school. But because the majority of the students were in the primary schools, I survived and was able to rebuild my student base at the main school. And then the recession hit. Now I had to move to a more event-driven model where free community clubs and other schools participated in tournaments that I held.
This flexible thinking can be applied to many different businesses. I have a cousin who is a mechanic; he went through similar challenges. And I know of a barber who had to deliver the services instead of building up a client base in a fixed location. Grocers have now begun pick up and delivery services; the list goes on and on. My challenge to you is to expand your thinking.
• NB: D’Arcy Rahming holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and has helped small and large clients, both in the Bahamas and internationally. Go to DArcyRahming.com and get his free video training series on How to Get a Paycheck From International Clients While Living in the Bahamas.
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