One of my favorite things I get to do with Full Scope Creative is attend some amazing networking events. This morning, I was at a Green Bay Packers Mentor/Protégé event with Neil Anderson, the director the N.E.W. (North East Wisconsin) Zoo, located here in Brown County. I learned a lot of really cool things about our local zoo – like the fact they are 100% self-sufficient and don’t take any tax money! One of the best nuggets of information I got in the meeting was when Neil said one of his biggest goals is to, “always keep the NEW in N.E.W. Zoo.”
I started thinking of how often I’ve seen businesses go on year after year and never really have many changes. If your business is falling into that trap, where nothing new is happening – act quickly! Make something change! Re-brand, come up with a new tag-line, add in a new service, work with a new demographic of clientele, change your business model, do ANYTHING! If you don’t, your business will remain stagnant, and what life grows in a stagnant river? As Neil Anderson said – nothing.
For example, look at successful bands who have weathered the storm for decades. Their sound today is not the same as it was when they first started; they changed things up to keep it fresh. McDonald’s started with just burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Look how much their menu has changed since their first store back in 1955.
I’m not saying you need to completely reinvent your business or introduce major changes by any means. But do something new in your business to keep things fresh and relevant.
One of the easiest changes you can make is to look at the wording you use to describe your company. Talk to current clients to find the shortcomings of your message and clarify those points to tell a stronger story. Once the verbiage is new, you can look to a slightly more daring task of freshening up your business cards: change the layout, the logo, the colors, something – ANYTHING! The, when you’re really ready for new, take a look at your other marketing material and your product offerings and see what you could benefit from some updating.
For Full Scope Creative, we ran into this about a year ago. The business needed something to pick it up a little. We were doing great with website design, graphic design, and website hosting, but we needed a new something to really help keep things fresh for the company. That was when we first introduced our copywriting services. That was a good move for us, but that’s not the end of it. We’ve got several other things coming up throughout 2018 to help keep Full Scope Creative new and relevant.
If a zoo in Brown County, Wisconsin has the goal of, “keeping the new in N.E.W. Zoo,” it really should be a big focus of your business as well. Keeping your businesses as far away from being a stagnant river is a key step in business survival.
