The Benefits of Professional Services in These Times
This is a tough time for businesses which have razor-thin margins and rely on customers coming to them for discretionary purchases: restaurants, retail stores, gyms. It’s a better time for businesses with required or emotionally needed services, from gas stations to beauty salons, liquor stores, and pharmacies. It’s still a better time for businesses that can sell online and deliver quickly, such as retailers with such capabilities, technology companies, and office supply. (Staples and Prime deliver faster to me than if I drove over to one of their stores.)
But it’s the best time for professional services, which can be provided remotely, “personally” through Zoom and other technologies, and where the value is in the result of the service, not physical presence. That includes consulting, coaching, legal, financial, tele-health, and so on.
I have five Zoom group meetings, and two dozen individual meetings over these two weeks. Frankly, I don’t think there in any discernible difference from an “in-person” meeting, and when you calculate the savings in everyone’s travel time, airport hassles, expenses, and so forth, it’s at least a “wash” and maybe a net gain.
Count your blessings and figure out how to provide innovative marketing approaches (I provide a lot of free opportunities) and innovative offerings (I’m providing alternative coaching experiences). We’ll get back to physical meetings in the next few months I think, but the question is: Do we want to do so as much as we’ve done in the past?
