COVID-19 is having a global impact on economies, businesses, and jobs. Companies are needing to adapt to social distancing and the inability to provide services like they used to. Many of them are feeling severe financial impacts or are having to close up completely.
If you’re a business owner feeling the same squeeze, there may be a few ways to get through this downturn a little easier. Here are a few ideas to continue to build your business through a recession and come out stronger.
Be Prepared for a Disaster
Many recessions are purely economic and are based around financial or real estate collapses. In the case of COVID-19, there is a an external force that is impacting large populations. The same thing could happen if a natural disaster occurs that affects your business.
Being prepared for a disaster requires some planning and thought to be effective. Once a disaster occurs, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses should transition smoothly to your business continuity plan.
The type of disaster will dictate the impact on the business, which will also vary between businesses. A restaurant will face very different challenges than an engineering firm.
Taking COVID-19 as an example, the virus has forced society to adopt social distancing to slow the spread of it. As people become concerned for their own well being, they are taking precautions to sanitize anything they touch, stay away from people, and reduce travel.
For a small business owner that relies on in-person interactions, this can be a huge challenge to maintain sales and service. Restaurants, bike shops, plumbers, hair dressers, gyms, and dentists are all feeling the affects of this virus.
Adapt Operations as Much as You Can
As we adapt to the new reality of living and working with COVID-19, small business owners need to get creative to survive. A restaurant owner is probably seeing a large drop-off in walk-in business, if they aren’t closed completely. A traditional restaurant may consider adapting by providing take out food or starting to deliver to people’s houses.
Plumbers, electricians, and other construction professionals may have to stagger when they work to provide enough social distancing. There might be opportunities to adjust the services they provide to be able to work outside or in more isolated locations.
A barber or hair dresser may be able to take a few select clients to limit exposure to other customers and to themselves. Due to the close proximity to customers, these types of businesses have to be very careful to provide the correct level of personal protective equipment to their employees.
An auto mechanic could provide special hours to space customers out appropriately to limit people in the waiting room. Or, they could pick up the customer’s car from their house to avoid them from having to go anywhere.
During tough economic times, you will likely need to adjust your operations to reduce extra spending and maximize profits. Get creative with how you operate and you’ll be better positioned for when things get better.
Get Online and Provide Paid Digital Services
One of the best ways to stabilize your business operations during the COVID-19 quarantine is to allow customers to reach you remotely. The internet is the easiest way to do this and it starts with building a website, if you don’t have one already.
Once you have a digital platform, you can start providing paid services to your customers. You’ll have to get a bit creative, but it is possible to find solutions to earn money.
A restaurant could use their website to automate online ordering and delivery for take-out. They could also provide online culinary classes for people looking to make their own food at home.
A gym could naturally move to online fitness bootcamps or classes that would allow their customers to continue their training remotely.
Tutors are in high demand with students being unable to go to school, so it would be easy to charge for your skills helping students.
There are some businesses that are very difficult to transition to an online product or service, but there is probably something you can provide. Get creative with your skills and see if there is a way to move your business laterally while getting online.
Build a Following
Even if you don’t have a good service or product to sell online, take advantage of any market slowdown to continue to build your following. Having a group of interested people in your lead pipeline will help you bounce back quicker when you get back to normal.
Your following can include email signups, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Youtube views, or other social media interactions. It can also be to get people to your website with a tracking pixel so that you can retarget them with ads later. The goal is to grow your lead base so that you can easily reach out them later and turn them into paying customers.
One of the best ways of doing this is to provide free educational content that is relevant to your business. A plumber could create Youtube videos on how to fix a toilet or leaky sink. You might think that this will reduce your potential sales, but it actually improves your reputation as a local expert. There might be a few people who decide to fix their toilet themselves, but most people will still look to have someone else do it for them.
During a recession or COVID-19 outbreak, there will be a reduction in spending in certain businesses. Even if they are not spending money, they will be on social media for entertainment. Be there with them to help provide some levity and education.
When done correctly, you’ll build trust and respect that will help grow your customer base later on.
Build Your Sales Funnel
If you don’t have an online sales funnel, now is the time to build out your digital platforms. Update your business website to make sure it is relevant, responsive, and modern looking.
Make sure you’re using social media as best as you can with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube profiles. Focus on your branding and spreading a consistent message across all platforms. Once you have these properties set up, work to drive social traffic to your website sales funnel.
Once people visit your website, they should be driven through a sales funnel with the goal of converting them to customers. Get their email or phone number to be able to follow up with them. Educate them about your product and expertise. Convince them that you are the best business to solve their problem. and then close the sale.
In a recession, this last step may be delayed, but you can still drive traffic down your sales funnel to get them primed to purchase later. If normal operations have slowed, that the time to build out your website appropriately and drive targeted traffic to it.
It Will Improve Eventually
As Winston Churchill said, “If your’e going through hell, keep going.” Even when times are tough during a recession or disaster, stay strong and know that it will eventually get better. Put together a strategic plan for your business for how to adapt. Work towards accomplishing those changes and continuing to get stronger as a company.
At the end of if, the businesses that are able to adjust to change and stay relevant in any situation will be the ones that survive. Best of luck in these tough times!
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