Is Change Good For Your Business?
I was taking with a marketer friend the other day and he was telling me about one of his sites he was trying to change. He was trying to move his subscribers over to another website and domain where he could be a little more functional.
His new site really looked good and it offered a host of new things that his members would be able to do. But the problem was there were a lot of people still heading over to his old site. And he was actually still getting sign ups there.
As we were talking about this he mentioned that it was hard for people to change. I had to actually think about that because it is so true. When people get use to doing things one way they fall into a routine and it just becomes second nature to them. So, when you ask them to change it can be catastrophic.
Has that happened to you in your business? Just when you have your subscribers, customers or your list doing one thing you decide that you want to change. Now you are generally doing it to help you and them but maybe you have not explained it to them in the right way. Or you did but they did not hear it as being helpful to them.
I know myself that if I have something that is working well I find it hard to change it. Again it could be for the better but that resistance is still there. I have to check my boold sugar and my doctor gave me a new meter because the on I had was a few years old. So now I have to learn a different meter. Now they both will do the same thing but one is newer. Just adds a little anxiety.
Kind of like my last post where I talk about the WordPress update.I always want to ask why don’t they just leave it alone. Of course I already know the answer.
Step back and re-evaluate what you are doing. maybe try mapping it out as to why and how you are going to do it. Maybe make a couple of columns on a sheet of paper. You might label them as positives and negatives of what you want to do. Take a look at it from their perspective. It might help you to understand that you are not doing anything wrong it just takes time for people to react to change.
Is change good for your business? It probably can be but it must be done in the right way. look at it from the customers side and see just how much they will be affected. it probably will turn out to be the right move if done properly. And it will cause less confusion and headaches for you and them.
You bring up a great point. We who run our own businesses need to be flexible to change, even though we may have been doing something one way for so long… if the market doesn’t like it anymore, we need to consider changing.
One example is the down economic market, most of us have had to change the way we do business in order to keep growing.
Would have to agree with you Andre.
We are all creatures of habit and as such find it very difficult to change after having done something one way for any length of time.
I know it is said that change is good, but when you are talking about your subscribers, you must be very careful. You have to know that what you are doing is going to be a good thing in the long run, because too much of a change and you will get a lot of unsubscribers.
Great post and it kind of has me thinking now.
I agree that change is good if done correctly but as you say it can also make us anxious. It’s always a good idea to step back before making any major changes in business or for that matter in your personal life. If a change is necessary that plan it out carefully. Great post and great food for thought.
Yes we all need change over time. If I look back to some of my older websites, those it doesn’t fit anymore the current looks. So change is requited, sometimes you can do a re-direct, sometimes you mist redo. But changes must be planned (especial if some of the older pages are indexed well in google….).
Fred
Interesting point. But, yes I think that change is good, especially when you can identify that change is needed. Too many people resist change but sometimes it is needed in order to move forward.