In the business world, changes can come from myriad directions—in our small businesses, we may need to make adjustments because of a change in our schedule, shifts in our families, or even natural disasters can affect how we do business. One of the realities that we have to adjust to is when those changes to our business or industry come from the consumers. Our customers and clients can be strong forces in pushing us to do business differently. These are those consumer-driven changes that I wanted to write about.
There are many factors that influence a market—even a small market like ours. AND, many of us operate our home businesses within a larger industry. As our consumers make demands and share what they want and expect, we may very well have to adjust how we do business.
For example, when I started out freelance writing it was very much the “traditional” version of freelancing. I would make pitches to a few of my client publications and get hired to write articles based on my ideas and pitches and what was going on in my “beat.” I would also query publications and clients with other article and writing ideas. I know there are plenty of freelance writers who still work this way but my business moved in a different direction and I had to change my writing to match what clients needed. As I learned how to write web content and do more marketing writing and more “on demand” writing—I had to get quicker in my turn-around and develop a different style; I had to adjust to consumer-driven changes if I wanted to continue to grow my business.
We can change and there can be many advantages to listening to what our customers and clients are saying when they share what they want. Of course, in the end, we have to decide what we can and cannot do.
See Also: Making Business Changes Painlessly
When Changes Need to be Made in a Rush