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January 17, 2021 by Karen Friedman Leave a Comment

Four Ways to Reinvent your Business During Covid 19

Comedian Joan Rivers was called the Queen of Reinvention. Throughout her tumultuous career that spanned sixty years, she faced multiple personal and professional tragedies. She climbed to the top of popularity during an era where comedy was very much a boy’s club event but also spiraled downward more than once. Yet through it all, the late icon continually reinvented herself and came back stronger than ever launching her own Emmy winning talk show and producing her own line of clothes and jewelry that generated over $1 billion in sales.

As 2021 unfolds, most of us have been forced to reinvent our businesses, products, services and the way they’re delivered. In establishments, customers are still forced to mask up and distance. Coaching and training firms like mine have turned virtual for the foreseeable future. Yet reinvention, real reinvention isn’t about temporary fixes like virtual meetings. It is about how these temporary fixes can help us learn new ways to be better versions of our old selves, so we are more effective for others.

The starting point is understanding that the client mindset today is different than the mindset in a pre-COVID world. While customers may still need your services, they want you to help them adapt and meet their changing needs with care, empathy and compassion.

Helping people become empathetic communicators has always been at the forefront of our business. During any crisis, people want to know their leaders genuinely care about them and not just the bottom line. In a recent survey conducted by a public relations agency, 71% of people said if they perceive a brand is putting profit over people, they will lose trust in that brand forever.

That’s why businesses that probe the hearts and minds of their customers to genuinely understand what they value most in these turbulent times will have an easier time reinventing the customer experience. Below are four steps to help you do just that.

1. Clear the Weeds

The customer doesn’t care about your problems. They’re not interested in your struggles with technology or how you’re longing for things to return to the pre-COVID way. They want to know how you will deliver services differently to help them thrive in a new normal that in some ways is here to stay. Communicating clears the path because it keeps them informed and can change perceptions. What is available to them? How will it be delivered? What will be different? What will be better?

2. Redesign and Redecorate

To do things differently, you have to think differently so you can find new ways to deliver value. For example, in our business for the foreseeable future, we are not traveling. That means time spent on the road frees us up to work with more people which allows clients to receive the same services faster rather than waiting for a calendar opening. We’ve also redesigned workshops and training programs to foster online interaction and keep people engaged in a virtual environment.

3. Ask the Right Questions

If you want to make sure clients keep buying tickets to your venue, then ask them what they want and need. What would be the biggest value to you moving forward? What do you lose sleep over? What weeds are in your path that we can help you clear? The answers will help you redesign ways to help your customers by adding new products and services or delivering them differently. Restaurants are an excellent example of how delivering services has drastically changed. Many have been forced to switch to a takeout model to help survive. For customers, it’s created new convenient and safer options to order and pay online and take advantage of speedier curbside pick-up.

4. Create Twitter Moments

A Twitter Moment is a carefully chosen story that is shared with masses through tweets. How can you create a great story or experience for your customers that they want to share with others? You don’t have to take to Twitter to tell people someone saved you time, money or provided a great service. If you produce valuable outcomes, your customers will do the talking for you.

The ability to move from who are we and who do we want to become is no easy feat. However, like Joan Rivers, high performers are always looking for ways new ways to deliver value and reinvent themselves. Sometimes, just trying to survive can uncover new ways to thrive.

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Filed Under: Philadelphia Business Journal

January 6, 2021 by Karen Friedman Leave a Comment

Quick Tip #101: How to Get Rid of those Fillers

Nothing damages a speaker’s credibility and distracts listeners more than those ums, uh, ah, you know, and other fillers so many speakers lean on. Learn how to get rid of them so audiences pay attention to your message.

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Filed Under: QuickTip TV Tagged With: business, communications, delivery, fillers, Karen Friedman, leadership, management, Media, message, pause, presentation, speaking, storytelling

December 1, 2020 by Karen Friedman Leave a Comment

Quick Tip #100: Moving with Purpose

Hard to believe but this month’s quick tip video, Moving With Purpose, is #100 from me. In monthly videos to come, I outline game-changing secrets of great speakers in a series of interviews with Dr. Jennifer Caudle.

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Filed Under: QuickTip TV Tagged With: business, Communication, delivery, Education, Karen Friedman, management, Media, pace, pause, presence, presentation

August 11, 2020 by Karen Friedman Leave a Comment

Why Agreeing to Disagree is OK When Having Difficult Conversations

In early March, I spoke with a friend who said she believed the coronavirus was “nothing more than a glorified cold”. She went on to say the media was going to send this country into a quick recession if they didn’t stop hyping the story.

I strongly disagreed and we argued. Like me, she is a former news reporter. She is also one of the smartest people I know. After our disagreement, we agreed to disagree but didn’t speak for a while.

Two months later she emailed me. Her healthy vibrant Mom had died of COVID. Living in a senior facility, Mom, who had no underlying health issues, contracted the virus. She was gone in six days.

I reached out to my friend who was clearly devastated. Opinions and political differences aside, we have always been there for each other and still are.

Weeks later, when we spoke again, we agreed we were both upset with the escalating COVID numbers. She said she was furious that states were making individual decisions that were hurting the economy. She strongly believed businesses should be allowed to open quickly.

I said if the country had a master plan and stronger leadership at the top, states could follow protocol. She disagreed. We debated some more and said we’d talk soon.

My mother is also in a long- term care facility that has seen COVID deaths, so like my friend, I have a personal connection to this story. However, as a communications coach who has helped companies navigate a myriad of crises for more than two decades, there are seven basic crisis principles that should be applied in every situation including:

  • Have a plan
  • Act quickly
  • Prioritize those who are affected
  • Be proactive and transparent
  • Take responsibility
  • Communicate early and often

As a proud citizen and business owner, I understand the importance of economic recovery, but not at the expense of lives.

New Zealand, South Korea, Vietnam, and other countries including nations in the Caribbean are now moving forward because they either banned incoming visitors in the early stages of the pandemic or quickly initiated quarantines. Some countries like South Korea developed their own testing systems while others simply responded faster to the pandemic.

In many of these successful countries, specifically Asia, they believe the government is responsible for solving the problem and instituted national plans that were quickly communicated to their people.

Putting people first is critical during any crisis and here in America, we failed to do that. In a recent survey by public relations firm Edelman, 71% of respondents said they would lose trust in a brand if they believed that brand was putting profits over people. With the United States leading the world in confirmed cases of coronavirus, the need for empathetic compassionate leadership has never been more important.

My friend and I haven’t talked in a while. We will. When we do, we’ll again agree to disagree. Fortunately, we care about each other too much to let it ruin our friendship. Unfortunately, nothing will change. She’ll stay on her side and I’ll stay on mine. She’ll hear me and I’ll hear her.

Yet, like so many on different sides of the discussion, we will be listening, respond and defend our positions, not understand and fix our collective problems.

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Filed Under: Philadelphia Business Journal Tagged With: business management, Communication, delivery, Education, Karen Friedman, leadership, Media, message, presence

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