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• Words to Comfort and What People Want

Words to Comfort and What People Want

written on July 14, 2009 by Nikki Evans

Picture this.  Your surviving loved ones gather their chairs around a table and hold hands.  At the center is a crystal ball, and seated with them is a woman dressed in colorful turban and robe.  After speaking quiet words in an attempt to reach you, your significant other calls out, "[your name here], where did you put the key to the riding lawn mower?"

This will never happen if you complete My Survivors' Guide: All You Need to Know When I'm Gone.  When the worst that can happen does, your survivors will be left to grieve your passing but not to struggle picking up the pieces you've left behind.  At 23 pages, this workbook has space for all the information you'll want to leave for them. 

Think I'm kidding about there being such a thing?  I'm not.

Shortly after 9/11, I revised and re-published the workbook I created a few decades earlier.  After finding retail outlets for the guide and arranging several effective PR events, I received orders for hundreds of guides.  I began to dream of quitting my day job and reaping the financial rewards from bringing my great idea to full fruition. 

Here's what I knew: Post 9/11, nearly everyone in the United States was pondering the fragility of life and witnessing what survivors went through after their loved ones' unexpected deaths.  Millions of baby boomers were on the brink of becoming official senior citizens.  Imagine the size of my market.

Here's what I didn't know: Most people are uncomfortable talking, or even thinking about death, much less preparing for it.  A large number of people in that huge market I imagined weren't going to want my guide.

The lesson for me: I should have executed a far-reaching needs assessment or market survey before printing another 300 guides.*

The lesson for you: You should understand very clearly what your target market will want to spend money on before spending any of your own.

Here's some good news and advice on the matter from a recently released e-newsletter from MarketingProfs:

There's something in the air.  There are small and (dare we say) consistent signs that the economic crisis has begun to level off.  Many companies, while still implementing cost-cutting measures, are beginning to plan for growth.  Phillip Lay, of TCG Advisors, writes in Under the Buzz: "Executive teams are starting once again to look to the future and make investments accordingly.  However delicate things still are in the global and U.S. economy, this change in movement signals the return of the single most critical ingredient that makes the world go round: ... hope."

That said, Lay advises...business leaders to "take the temperature of their company's ongoing business viability" and address core questions like these:

"How 'investable' are our main categories to customers today and going forward, in light of the changes occurring in the U.S. and global marketplace?

"What offerings do our target customers need from us to solve problems that are critical to them going forward?  How different are they from what we were providing twelve months ago, when the economy was in a very different situation?"

"What different marketing, partnering, sales, and/or channel programs do we need to execute today in order to create and fulfill demand, and to satisfy our customers' needs for support and care?"

The Po!nt

Having reduced costs and re-engineered processes to weather the bad economy, many of your customers will emerge from the recession leaner, stronger and poised for growth.  Prepare now to meet them.

One of my clients confessed recently that she grew up during the time when an enterprising person could come up with a good idea for a business, hang up a sign and others would come to buy.  Recognizing how things have changed, she's now re-defined her market's needs and executing revised marketing plans to meet them.  Smart woman.

© 2009 Nikki Evans, Spotlight Writing

* COSE MindSpring readers are in luck. I still have some guides in stock.  Let me know if you're in the mood for writing some comforting words of your own.