Your Business Needs to Learn from “Snow”.

Snow. We’ve got some snow in North Carolina!

We moved to the Carolinas almost 10 years ago from Canada, the land of wilderness, trees, fisheries and snow. When we moved south, we gave away our snowsuits, shovels and winter boots. We were done with it. We moved to the land of sun!

Then, about 2 months after we moved here, we got a bunch of snow. Just like we did this weekend. About 10 inches to be exact.

But unlike Canada, this amount of snow shuts the place down. TV news programming forgets about all other news to scare us with the fact it’s going to snow. Then when it finally does, they forget the news again to talk about the horrible snow. Grocery store shelves are empty as people frantically clean them out (just in case of “something” I guess). Church was canceled today and school is canceled tomorrow (2 full days after the storm). A state of Emergency was called by the Governor. It’s crazy.

Snow got great “word of mouth” advertising this past week. Wouldn’t it be great if your business could? Here’s what your business could learn from our snow day!

1. Be different. We don’t get a lot of snow (although we get too much for my liking!). Try to decide what everyone is “used to” and be different. No one will talk about you if you’re the same old, same old.
2. Comparison get’s reaction. Everyone talks about how much snow we got compared to the usual or the last storm. This helps exaggerate the small amount and creates great buzz. Consider what you can compare your services or products to, in order to generate some shock and awe.
3. Involve media. It’s hard to get your business to preempt the news, right!? Well think differently about media. Think social media. With the right buzz and message, you can control facebook and twitter for a short time. But you can’t, unless you have “followers” or “friends”. How do you get them? Get an account and be friendly and informative. Then when the right time occurs, you can launch a product message. Just don’t overdue it, or you’ll lose the people that follow you.
4. Negatives need to point to Positives. When you hear about stores shutting down during our storm, you wonder, how on earth does that help business?! But then you see or hear ads that state that they’re open and delivering to those who can’t make it out on the slippery streets. Or you see one of the weather people broadcasting from the streets; and she thanks a fast food restaurant for bringing her food. Start listing the negatives about your business — then consider how you can turn them into positives.

Well, hopefully people will be careful as our snow slowly melts away. And I hope you’ll be careful to always find a reason to talk about your business. It’s key to your success. Learn from the snow that fell in NC!