You have a business and now the world is pretty much upside down because of corona and all the measures around it. What should you do as a business owner? And how should you think? You need to do some things radically different but have the same mindset as always.
What do I mean by that? Whether the economy is good or bad, you should always think flexibly and forward. Looking at what can be done. In good times you have more competition, in bad times you might be the only one plowing through from your competitors. I don’t want to make it smaller than it is, certainly certain sectors are affected tremendously. What I am talking about is looking at what is in your power and that is rarely nothing.
- Weigh what is really urgent and what is not. What needs to be finished today, this week or this month? Start with what must necessarily be finished today and spend the rest of your work time each day thinking about and implementing the points in this blog.
- Be kind to yourself . If you are busy right now because your children are at home, because you yourself are sick, because you are taking care of sick relatives or running errands for elderly people who don’t dare to leave the house right now, that takes priority. That’s OK. If you fall over then your business falls over too and we don’t want that. So be realistic in what you can do now.
- Review your goal for the coming year. Need to adjust your sales expectation? If you sell peanut butter or paracetamol then you’re probably on a roll. But if you are in capital goods, run a gym or an events agency, you will probably have a big dent in your sales. Set yourself up for that to be the case no matter how shitty it feels. The sooner you get used to that idea, the calmer your brain will be and the better you can think about what can be done.
- Serve your clients differently. As a business coach, my colleagues and I have always done a fair share of our meetings with clients via Skype, so increasing that share was not very difficult. However, I did give a lot of workshops and speeches and that has now been replaced by webinars so that took some research on the best software for example. So how else can you deliver? Restaurants are moving en masse to takeout, doctors partly via Skype or similar. Even the Efteling now offers on-line classes for children to keep their customers warm now that the park is closed.
- Look at your costs. Can you keep them low or flexible? Making sure your costs are mostly revenue related is always a good strategy to adhere to, high overheads are often the reason companies go out of business, even in good times. And maybe there are payments you can make in installments or defer by agreement so talk to your suppliers as well.
- Take time for your internal organization. Clean up everything from your desk, paint your office, give your bookkeeping a thorough review, switch to better software, take an on-line course or read books in your field, keep your network warm via mail/Skype/phone or take a walk together 3 feet away. Building on the back of your business now won’t help in the short term, but will ensure that when the measures are lifted later your business will be ready to steam ahead again.
- See what government assistance there is. On the Chamber of Commerce site, among others, you can see what kind of measures there are. For example, there is help for entrepreneurs who fall below welfare level or who employ staff. You can get a loan more easily and defer many payments to the municipality or government.
- Take a hard look at your marketing and sales strategy. Do you need to start acquiring your customers in a different way? Where you used to do it through networking, maybe now it should be through a webinar or social media. Or old-fashioned flyering if your customers are consumers. Businesses don’t have many employees, so old-fashioned flyering doesn’t work there. Accept that some potential customers are now postponing their decisions, but don’t neglect that group. Even in these times you can still win new business in many sectors so just do that.
Hopefully these tips will help you get through the coming time well. Would you like practical help implementing these steps? A sparring partner to give this some thought? Or do you still find it difficult to think so positively about your business now? Then contact us. Brilliant Work’ s subsidized business coaching continues, so together we can see what you qualify for.
Lizanne Jakobs, Founder Brilliant Work/business coach
Voted NL’s best SME coaching and consulting firm for 2019
