Change is one of those inevitable constants I write about fairly regularly here in the Home Business blog. The truth is that flexible business models that can change and adjust with market fluctuations and trends are a very good thing. BUT, change isn’t always easy. As a matter of fact, there can be a fair amount of resistance and stress around changes in our home businesses—both for us and for our customers or clients. Learning how to make changes as painless as possible for those we do business with can be a benefit to our bottom line.
There is a balance between letting your customers and clients know about pending changes in advance and waiting until the last minute. It really involves a judgment call as to which method will work best in a specific situation. Try to view a pending change from the customer or client point of view and see if they will need plenty of heads up to ease into a new way of doing business or if a quick adjustment will be more painless. This may mean overlooking your own issues around changes in order to make it better or easier for the customer. Keep in mind that you will want to do as much of the leg work as possible so that the changes will seem more of a glitch than anything major.
How do you work best when it comes to making adjustments? Can you make them on the fly or do you need plenty of time to mull things over and come up with a plan for how to implement changes? The established truth is that fighting change makes it more painful—so regardless of HOW you adjust best to changes, making a plan and working through your own stuff first—before you pass it along to your customers or clients will make your home business changes as painless as possible.
See Also: Setting and Monitoring Priorities