Weave’s 2021 BGS Webinar Series

About the speaker

Roy Banks¹, Weave’s CEO, spoke to an online audience during the Spring 2021 Business Growth Summit about his passion and love for small businesses. Roughly six months ago, Roy came out of retirement to lead Weave because he feels so passionately about what small business does for our economy and our society.

The pandemic has created a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt for everyone, Roy admits. However, it’s also forced businesses to adapt and transform by applying new technology and solutions to their work. No one could have anticipated the masks and social distancing that are now commonplace. Roy admires the responsiveness of small businesses to this crisis.

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Learning from the past

In 1970, NASA² almost experienced disaster when the Apollo 13 had to abandon its attempt at a moon landing after 56 hours of flight. The space shuttle had lost its ability to generate electrical power, provide oxygen, and produce water.

Instead of believing that disaster was unavoidable, flight director Gene Kranz declared, “This is going to be our finest hour.” The Apollo 13 astronauts returned to Earth safely. NASA turned a potential tragedy into triumph.

Learning about these types of challenges inspires Roy. He’s constantly reading nonfiction and memoirs glean advice and expertise from others. Shortly after joining the Navy 30 years ago, Roy adopted the mantra, “The only easy day was yesterday.” He understands that businesses need to use the knowledge they gained in 2020 to fuel their growth in 2021.

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Challenges for small businesses

Since becoming Weave’s CEO, Roy has made it a point to listen to calls from customers and find out which sorts of challenges Weave’s clients are dealing with on a regular basis. He believes understanding these challenges will help Weave serve businesses in their quest to attract new customers and implement new growth strategies.

Although there are many types of businesses out there, the challenges they face are the same. Roy says there are three key challenges facing businesses today.

Challenge 1: Inefficiencies are holding you back

Both inefficient tools and inefficient systems can hold back small businesses. Owners and employees of small businesses often find themselves bouncing from phones to text messages to email marketing software to payment collections to analytical tools in a frenzied state. Their passion is their product or service, not the tools they use for operation. It’s too bad they end up spending much of their time figuring out these tools.

Challenge 2: Competitors are modernizing faster

It often seems like the exponential growth of technological solutions is paralleled by the rapid adoption of this technology by competing businesses. Small business owners find themselves feeling like they’re stuck on a hamster wheel. The prospect of keeping up with modernizing competitors is daunting and overwhelming for many small businesses.

Challenge 3: Growth and quality seems at odds

When small business owners are focusing on growing their business, it frequently seems as if they’re having to sacrifice the quality of their product or service. Most business owners got into their industry because they love the impact they have on their customers’ lives. Constantly trying to spur growth by optimizing routine tasks feels like a distraction from the responsibility to provide the best product or service possible.

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How to create big wins

To overcome these universal challenges, Roy offers the BGS audience some important advice on accelerating growth by personalizing the customer experience.

Customers want to be seen

Roy shares an anecdote about a time he went to a dealership to purchase a new sports car. Roy’s a casual dresser, and he was in his usual baseball cap, shorts, and t-shirt. After waiting around for 30 minutes for help, he got frustrated and started walking back to his car. When a salesman approached him and tried to win back Roy’s attention, he told him it was too late.

Making sure your customers are seen is vitally important, and too often businesses fail to put themselves in their customers’ shoes. Roy has new Weave employees listen to customer voicemails on their first day of training. Listening to these messages lets employees know the types of challenges faced by Weave’s clients.

Small businesses don’t have to sacrifice amazing and memorable customer experiences for scalability. Most business owners and their employees yearn for meaningful interactions with their customers. Saving time and meeting customer expectations are ways to create a more personalized customer experience.

You have to stay ahead of customers

During the pandemic, a McKinsey study³ found that focus on a quality customer experience drove better returns and helped businesses grow. McKinsey also discovered that around 40 percent of consumers4 switched brands during the pandemic.

There’s now an imperative to provide higher quality experiences and adopt alternate forms of communication with customers. Small businesses should be communicating in a way that’s unified, modernized, and personalized.

Roy was part of the first company to facilitate online credit card payments. This innovation was a game changer, allowing for the advent of e-commerce. Prior to this innovation, the internet was only for research.

Consumers are ready to get back to business in a new normal. How will you make your interactions with customers amazing? What will you do to show you’re evolving as a business? Are you paying attention to the needs and behavioral changes of your customers?

Growth starts with you

You are the X-factor, says Roy. The ability to transform territories competitors. In today’s business world there are dozens of ways to learn about your customers’ experiences: online reviews, surveys, SMS, emails, web chats, and more.

There’s no excuse for not asking customers to leave a review on prominent review sites. Remember, the feedback you get isn’t always going to be positive, so you need to have an optimistic mindset in order to grow from feedback. Dedicate time each day to studying online reviews about your business.

When a Weave employee recently asked Roy about his proudest accomplishment, he was reminded of the time he watched the ticker on his office wall reach 200,000 small businesses served. He recognizes the problems faced by Weave’s clients and believes our solutions are an equalizer for small businesses.

This is your year to triumph. Game on! If you want to create big wins for your small to medium-sized business, schedule your demo with Weave today.

 

Notes:

  1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/weave-selects-roy-banks-ceo-140000519.html
  2. https://www.nasa.gov/
  3. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/elevating-customer-experience-excellence-in-the-next-normal#sudy
  4. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/survey-us-consumer-sentiment-during-the-coronavirus-crisis