Lessons from May in June

By all accounts, the Tories ran a dismal election campaign. There are many lessons for business owners to glean from this, and I thought it might be a good time to pick over the bones.

This is MOST DEFINITELY NOT A POLITIC POSTING!

1.You need a positive message

We all want our customers to buy from us. it has long been established that consumers buy one of two things: good feelings (A BMW) or a solution to a problem ( a car to get me from A to B). The problem faced by May in June was that her message delivered neither. There was nothing to attract voters, neither did she focus on the problems that she would solve if elected.

2. You need to connect with your marketplace

I believe Mrs May was badly advised in steering clear of public interaction and debate.

Business owners must also recognise that they have to "connect" with their prospects, find out what worries them, keeps them awake at night, challenges them, and then offer solutions to those problems, and/or find strategic partners who can.

Labour did very well in engaging with younger voters using social media. How well are you doing with the newer means of mass communication?

The old adage holds true "if you don't talk to your customers, someone else will."

3. Even when the competition does better, you can still do very well

Much of the press coverage after polling day concentrated on the excellent progress made by the Labour Party. However, not so much was made of the fact that the Tories polled more votes than ever before, and actually increased their share of the vote. Both major parties got more votes (as a percentage) than Blair's Labour in the landslide victory of 1997.

Businesses, particularly SMEs can take comfort from this. Most of us hold a very small market share of our particular sector. Even if the other guys are doing well, or the economy as a whole is doing badly, we can usually maintain our volumes. I often advise clients that they could quadruple their market share without anyone noticing. In our case, Numbers (UK) Limited could easily do this in the Plymouth accountancy market.

Again, you can retain sales and customers in difficult times by engaging with them, adjusting your service/product to meet their changing demands and delivering new solutions to new challenges

4. Most customers will forgive you the odd mistake

If you treat your customers well, if you communicate effectively (that means they understand what you're saying), and you put in the effort to make them feel well served, customers will (usually) forgive the odd, minor mistake. Remember, more people voted Tory than any other party, despite the errors I have listed above. The same is true in business.

Theresa May took responsibility, apologised and decided to stay and sort out what went wrong.

That's not a bad pattern for any business owner hoping to survive the next five years!

Share with me, and the LinkedIn community the lessons that you've taken from the recent election.