Our first and fundamental quick win principle is about reframing your messaging and value proposition to resonate with people’s new priorities in a post-Covid world. 

Maslow’s Hierarchy is a simple framework showing the fundamental needs of every human according to Abraham Maslow.  In a nutshell, according to Maslow, people won’t be interested in meeting any of the upper needs util all of the more rpessing needs underneath are already being met.

The framework gives us a really interesting way to compare your market in 2019 with that of 2020 or 2021. 

In 2019, if we look at the Hierarchy image, the majority of people in Australia had their physiological needs met. They had their safety needs well met, had their love and belonging needs well met

By that I mean we had all the food, food, water, everything we needed toilet paper, everything was in place. We had everything we needed on the level of safety, we could go out into the world in 2019, we could expect everything to be safe and easy, and, and we would come home safely at the end of the day. 

In terms of love and belonging, we all had our social lives dialed in, seeing each other regularly, we were going out in the evening, going off at lunch, connecting with people in the office, or school or wherever it is that we happen to connect with other people. 

We had a lot of activity going on on a social level, so these things were all in place, esteem as a result was strong, for many people. Everything was in place, what was to worry about?

So on Mazlow’s hierarchy, self-actualization a large number of people were focused on their self-actualisation needs. 

When we’re in that situation of everything else being met, the marketing messages, and the sales messages of most businesses were geared towards a market that was that was optimistic that was positive that was euphoric. 

So marketing messages could be more ambitious, they could rely upon a higher degree of confidence from the audience that we were talking to, they could rely upon a higher sense of abundance from prospective clients, clients being confident that their own business or their own career, or work was safe and secure and cashflow was safe and secure and they had plenty of money to invest in what it is that you were selling. 

So with those basic needs being met, we could send those messages out to people that were a lot more optimistic. 

Cut to 2020. And those, those bottom needs are no longer being met. The physiological needs, suddenly they’re whipped out from underneath, and people, people can’t just assume that everything is there you know we had runs on certain things in the supermarkets. 

Toilet paper you couldn’t get, some pasta, rice, water suddenly not there. Obviously that was only brief and for most, that was well met, but then you go to the next level of safety needs. They weren’t being met either so people couldn’t simply go out into the into the world and assume that it was safe, there was suddenly this killer disease that anybody could contract and possibly die from. It was a horrendous period particularly earlier in the year, it looks like things are getting better now, touch wood. 

So, your successful messaging from 2019 was really all geared to that self-actualization and esteem. That’s where you were probably getting your most success from your marketing messages. 

If you’re still bringing those same messages to an audience in post COVID 2020/2021, they’re largely falling on deaf or semi-deaf ears. The first thing you need to do is you need to adjust your messaging, so that you resonating with the new fear that people are feeling the new lack that people are feeling the new pessimism, the people are feeling the new concern. 

It’s a volatile period right now, and you really need to let your audience know that you understand that they’re in a new place that you empathize with them that you feel for them. 

And if you can, you need to reposition your value offering so that it addresses these new concerns these new triggers in people and that’s perhaps the most fundamental shift that you need to look at, which is a quick win. 

If you haven’t done that yet, you need to do that, ASAP.

Want some help repositioning your value offering and winning more high-value clients? Apply for your FREE Financial Business Accelerator Plan today.