How To Make The Most Of Lockdown

By Bill King

Albert Einstein once said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” In conversation with many vendors in the water and wastewater markets over the last few weeks, it’s evident that many are struggling to know how to keep pedaling during this unprecedented time.

A lot of companies are realizing that with a pandemic affecting many cities across the world, carrying on with product messaging without deference to the situation their customers find themselves in positions their company as cold and insensitive.

Other companies are leaning into the crisis and addressing it head on, looking to craft messages of care and togetherness, but risk coming across as insincere or worse, opportunistic.

For as science and engineering-based an industry as we are, these communication nuances provide real difficulty. Many companies are simply deciding that it’s easier to stop “riding the bike” altogether and wait for the trail ahead to clear.

Here are three pointers for what to work on right now:

1. The Future – Sales might have slowed, and projects might have stalled as utilities focus their labor on maintaining essential services and mass unemployment looms large over short-term municipal budget forecasts. This does not mean that it will always be this way. The water market is resilient and improvement projects will open back up whether on their own or stimulated by government-sponsored infrastructure bills to get economies back to work. Take a minute to list out all the longer-term projects and tasks you don’t get to when normal operations have you focused on short-term objectives and look to get one or two longer-range priorities taken care of now.
2. Relationships – At the best of times, we all know our Sales teams focus on the next best opportunity and struggle to maintain an adequate network of relationships to aid growth down the road. Now is a great time to focus on increased outreach, especially as many of the professionals you wish to connect with are no doubt sheltering-in-place too. New product literature will fall on deaf ears right now as your customers focus on the here-and-now. Publishing some helpful content that teaches your audience something new positions yourself as a thought leader in the market and fosters relationships. This is a great way to use the hours you would typically be traveling.
3. Connecting – As we are all realizing, modern videoconferencing and presentment technologies provide a powerful platform to stay connected to your customers and prospects. Despite the lack of tradeshows and in-person meetings, Webinars, video explainers and other online presentment platforms offer a great way for your subject matter experts to connect with current and prospective customers, partners, and distributors.

I hope this post finds you and your family healthy and safe. Stay productive. Keep pedaling.