heartharmony.com.au

Yesterday I was given access to a preview copy of the latest Choice Magazine article on debt relief – and while the content is very useful in terms of what to do if you are deep in debt and disaster happens, what really struck me from the article was the how the debt relief industry had adopted a very narrow view of the world.  For me it was a feeling of if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

To give you some context, the article created two fictional people and then mystery shopped 11 debt relief companies to see what sort of advice they would be given. The advice they received was basically to go into a formal debt agreement (an expensive choice), with lesser options mentioned in passing such as call the lender, refinance and going bankrupt.

What was interesting is that no-where was seeking financial advice from an accountant or financial planner mentioned by the debt relief companies.These companies only recommended solutions from within their mental frameworks and product base – even if this meant the customer would be significantly worse off over the years.

Unfortunately this is the trend in many businesses where people are so hungry for customers that they focus on only selling the services or products they offer, rather than thinking through what the customer really needs, even if this means referring the customer to someone else. It is this sort of approach that gave used car salesmen a bad reputation and is a very old fashioned form of sales and marketing.

Modern businesses that will be around for the long term take the bigger picture. By being honest and caring for the customer’s needs, then you are more likely to gain a long term loyal customer rather than a short-term sale.

So do I practice what I preach? At Heart Harmony we believe in placing the customer’s needs front and centre – and providing advice and recommendations from that space. Just this afternoon I spoke with a lovely lady who is creating a new website and needed SEO copywriting – except that the industry she is targeting is a highly competitive one in terms of search engines.

For her to achieve the page one ranking she wanted, she needed very high level SEO and so I referred her directly to a great SEO firm that deals with complex SEO rather than try and sell her on our services. She was quite surprised and kept trying to get me to sell her something – but in the bigger scheme of things she will get the best results from going with an SEO firm that tackles her particular niche. I lost a sale, but know that this particular customer will get great results.

But back to the Choice article. The debt reduction firms by their actions will create a long term backlash against their industry unless they take a wider view.

In the meantime – if you start to see a mountain of debt appearing and are starting to lose sleep over it, check out the Choice article and then speak with a qualified accountant or financial planner to help you plan your strategy.

If you want help creating a budget – Choice has a useful on-line budget planner that makes things simple.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer