Is your head at norming or performing stage?

As the Daft Punk track once said, where is your head at?

For the last few months, we’ve been on a roller-coaster ride of essentially improvising, responding and adjusting to events in the best way we can. Most of us are probably at the ‘norming’ stage where we’ve adapted to the change in our ways of working that it’s not so unusual anymore.

The question is, how long can we afford to stay in the norming state of mind? Is it distracting us from looking ahead to the long term ‘performing’ stage, far beyond the pandemic where results begin to increase again?

The ‘Norming’ Stage

The ‘norming’ stage is all about short-term focus on crisis-management – whether that’s delivering quick wins or more simply wanting to be recognised as a brand that was helpful/useful during the pandemic. Whilst this is a good thing, it shouldn’t get in the way of your long-term marketing and business goals.

So many brands are focusing on how they’re responding to Covid-19 but in doing so are struggling to stand out against their competition who are equally doing a great job of this. During this time, it’s understandably tempting to retreat and become risk-adverse. In doing so, you stop pushing boundaries and your marketing becomes less creative and doesn’t cut-through.

The ‘Performing’ Stage

If possible, now is a crucial time to start thinking ahead to the ‘performing’ stage. Where your marketing strategies are built around ‘an ideal world’ scenario i.e. life without a pandemic – with a clear focus on how you inform, engage, convert and retain your customers and prospects.

The B2B marketplace is crowded and we all know it’s getting harder to be heard above the noise – the brands that can see beyond the pandemic the quickest will be the ones that stand out and are recognised as being distinctive.

Our latest tipsheet, ‘5 tips to break free from the survival mindset’ will give you pointers on where you can start to adjust your activity and move away from the ‘norming’ stage.