When you start out it’s difficult to get everything right the first time. Even once you’re established, there are still things that need to be adapted. You are constantly looking to improve your offering and ways of positioning it to potential clients.
The main thing is to not let your fears of making mistakes get in the way starting. Particularly at the beginning, it can seem far more important to ensure perfection; focusing on getting it right not done. If you let this consume you, you’ll never start.
So how do you when it's right to adapt or reposition your services?
Spotting The Signs For Change
The obvious signs are, of course, in spotting a pattern of losing business, not attracting new business or not renewing business. However the less obvious ones are the one offs. The single episodes that you could normally dismiss as "you can't win 'em all". The ones where there are extenuating circumstances, which provide a comfort blanket of excuses for why you weren't successful this time. When you didn't win a client, which you really should have.
This is the time to look at your offering, critiquing its positioning and adapting if necessary.
The key word here is positioning. That is how you are presenting information to a recipient. It is the details around the information that are taking centre stage, not the information itself.
If the context has changed, then the packaging needs to adapt with it.
You could have the most appropriate product, in the right place, to the right people at the right time, but if those people can't identify that, distracted by the wrong details - all those rights, can only make a wrong.
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Even when it is a case of external circumstances, a global pandemic say or a recession, wholesale changes aren't always the answer. It's in the repositioning where the differences are made.
If you know the prices or services are not the problem, it's almost certainly how you have arranged your offering to your target audience. And this may well be because of your perspective rather than theirs.
Showing Your Value
Is the value of your services being blurred by confusing proposals which don't bring out the most important information or aren't signposting properly? Are you pitching with the wrong hat on? Are you presenting yourself from the wrong perspective?
What are their expectations? What is their impression of you, your business and your offering? Do they understand the value of your services? Are they seeing you the way you see yourself?
These questions are important to help deduce where the issue is. It is similar to writing a message, which you see as jovial but is interpreted badly by the recipient. The intention was good but the execution missed because tone is difficult to translate in a text. Positioning is the same.
Looking inwardly and critically assessing your actions is much harder than we think, especially if it concerns your expertise. We are so subjective to ourselves that seeing ourselves objectively is a skill we all need to master.
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It is a satisfying moment when you identify your mistakes, adapt and land a client from the new adjustments.
Evolving And Growth
Nothing is set in stone. You can always change, tweak, adapt, evolve. You should change, tweak, adapt, evolve. Even your T&Cs (especially your T&Cs). Just because you are version 1.0 now, doesn’t mean you have to stay there. We are not boxed. We can always reinvent ourselves, our offerings, our services.
We’re not saying it won’t haunt you, especially if you made your mistake in front of 200 people or the chairman or your first day at work, . We’re fearful of making mistakes and especially of other people finding out about them but it doesn't have to define you. We have to adapt to grow. So own your mistakes, critique their reasons and make those changes. Don't let fear get in your way. It'll make a great story one day.
What is the greatest mistake you learned from? How did you adapt from it to succeed? Maybe you landed on your feet straight away? Do share in the comments!
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