Adapt.
Pivot.
Transition.
Evolve.
All these and more not-so-new words have been added to our business dictionary. Every business now, no doubt, has had to take some unplanned action/s to ensure survival in the next coming months. Businesses that fail to take any action will indeed struggle to get ahead and will die eventually.
As part of our Timely Pandemic-proof Business Plan ™ and our Timely Recession-proof Business Plan ™, we provide our clients with actionable steps that every business needs to have checked off.
As adjusting is now a major aspect of acclimatizing to the new normal, Entrepreneurs need to challenge themselves by building a pandemic-proof and recession-proof business that can withstand any given crisis. At every ‘Launch and Learn Event”, our words rang true – “We need to change the way we do business.” Unfortunately, it took a global pandemic for people to listen and finally take heed.
The pandemic has brought businesses to their knees and has crippled almost all business activities we had planned. The way we do business will no longer be the same; there will be new methods, new best practices, and new procedures along with industry-guided policies, especially with respect to the work environment.
Let us share with you, some immediate actionable steps put forward by our Business Crisis Management Team.
Set up residence online – we are talking about building your digital home. That is exactly how we encourage you to look at your online space – as a new home. Set up and manage your social media platforms properly and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. You want visitors to feel welcomed when they visit you in that space. The same applies to your website. Didn’t think about getting one? Well, you should.
A website is your 24-hour service store. An eCommerce website will help you earn money while you sleep. Of course, this means that you will have to level up your marketing game and you will NEED to learn HOW TO SELL. The sales strategies you employed pre-COVID may or may not work now. All efforts at this time during an ongoing global pandemic are hit-and-miss. You must not allow yourself to get into ‘insensitive marketing’, but rather, make sure you are ‘COVID-marketing’.
Focus now on engaging the customer instead of selling. Greater respect for humanity is needed now. When you reach out to your customers, do so genuinely, asking them questions of concern. Doing this will show your customers that you do care beyond the dollar and you will no doubt stay on top of their minds. You will also build trust and foster a spirit of compassion – characteristics that everyone needs right now. Setting up your business online will open a much-needed new sales channel for you that will help you to survive and thrive, ideally – in our current global economic situation.
With the world being held ransom by a global pandemic, it is difficult to set up a plan of action for long-term success. All businesses are threatened, and supply chains are broken. Your digital space will provide you with that voice of communication to your customers in the midst of it all. Your customers are watching and looking intently at your response to all that is going on.
Communicate regularly and simply to your customers. Keeping the lines of communication open is key at this time. Do not attempt to instill fear in your audience – COVID did that already. Show that safety is paramount in your business and talk TO your customers instead of talking AT them. Allow them to ask questions, seek feedback and make comments. Quell their fears about your business. Are you open for them? Do you have sanitization protocols in place for when they visit? Can they reach you on all communication channels easily? Can you provide them with convenience in terms of delivery or curbside pick-up? Whatever their concerns, make sure you have a solution you can offer them. Be mindful that their needs are changing depending on which way the COVID -19 wind blows.
Give value-added promotions instead of discounts – when the pandemic first hit, people were still unsure of the depths of the economic disaster that it came with. So, while it did take some time to settle on people’s minds that something real was sweeping in and crippling world economies, businesses soon found out that their cash flow was in trouble. To combat the effects of a dried-up cash flow, store owners and service providers started discounting their products and offering low-cost deals in order to appeal to customers. It may have at that time, seemed like the best immediate thing to do, however, to many customers, this move came off as insensitive. How could any business expect one to take advantage of beaten-down prices while everyone, customers included, was also feeling the effects of tightened cash flow and loss of jobs coupled with increased prices for necessary goods and services and the additional expenses of sanitization items and masks? For many, survival was the only thing on their minds.
We recommend that instead of hurting your margins by offering discounts, rather, seek to provide your customers with something of value. Be mindful that your customers are like you – struggling with the unforeseen, experiencing many things: loss of jobs, deaths, homeschooling, working remotely, safety insecurities, and much more. Approach customers with a product or service that is valuable by demonstrating it to be more of an investment rather than a purchase for the customer. Shift the customers' focus away from the price, to what they will gain from the investment. You can also offer something extra to give some immediate perceived added value to your customers.
We believe that businesses can find innovative and creative ways to survive and get through this pandemic and economic crisis. Be mindful that the economic crisis has not taken full effect just yet. Think of the money economies will need to spend, to continuously keep up the supply of vaccines, machinery, masks, etc.
It is no longer just a matter of being prepared. The scope of this crisis requires businesses to be more than prepared. It requires us to be flexible enough to adapt, pivot, transition, evolve, AND implement changes whenever necessary AND expeditiously, as the world heads into a new reconstruction period.
