Facing COVID-19 Challenges: 6 Tips for Staying in Business Before, After, and During a Pandemic

Small business’ around the world are facing challenges as a result of the current pandemic. Many of us are being forced to close our doors to our clients as we are labeled ‘non-essential’. However, this doesn’t mean that our doors will be closed forever. While you might be worrying about what the future holds for your business, we have 6 tips for staying in business before, after, and during a pandemic:

We, as business owners, tend to overlook certain things in our day to day business lives. Sometimes we can get too wrapped up in the daily challenges and not have the time to look at the bigger picture.

Here are a few things to look at when analyzing the bigger picture:

 ·  Do you have a business plan? (it might be time to make one)

 ·  Do you have a marketing plan?

 ·  Do you have business goals? (besides profits)

When looking at the bigger picture, it’s best to use the topdown approach – starting with yourself and your tasks and working down the assembly line’ to see where you could make improvements. Maybe it’s time to invest in a new set of tools or rework your schedule. Every business owner needs to evaluate their own work, no one is perfect! As you work down your‘ assembly line’ with your team you’ll need to evaluate each position and person. Doing so will help you eliminate any room for error. For example, a legal office might have both a receptionist and an office assistant. Upon further look, you might find a line of miscommunication between the two positions, leading to lost files, forgotten appointments, and other client errors. Overtime, this will begin to damage your business and lead to an unprofessional reputation among your clients.

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – Ask your team to submit a self-evaluation and compare the evaluation you do on each employee and compare. While you see a position running a certain way, the individuals actually performing the work may have a different point of view with real valuable insights.

There is no better time than the present to rebrand your business! Since many of your clients aren’t seeing you or utilizing your services, you can recreate yourself under the radar. While your workload is minimal, you have more time to focus on what you envision for the future of your brand. Rebranding can consist of new logos, imagery for social media, an updated website, redecorated office, and much more. Taking the chance to rebrand during a pandemic will also show your clients that your business is focused. When they return after the crisis to see a ‘new you’ they will know they are working with an industry leader.

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – Focus on the future beyond the future. After the pandemic, the thing people will want to see most is comfort and trust - Build your brand around this.

A crisis can slow you down, but things shouldn’t come to a complete stop. Having a plan in place will keep your business moving forward. You shouldn’t completely sacrifice your business in the sake of the current crisis. Having an ongoing plan of action can help your business stay afloat. While your inflow of clients slows down, other portions of your business can speed up. For example, as dental clinics are issued to cancel non-emergency appointments, they can now reach new patients (with emergencies) that they might not have before.

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – Before you put out anything to your clients, or to the world, think if it is something a major successful business would do. If your efforts are not on par, or above that of your competitors, take the time to edit or redo those efforts.

While your business is out of commission, you can restrategize your marketing plan to better reach your goals. Some tips for restrategizing your marketing plan during a pandemic:

· Cancel all current marketing for non-essential services – people are staying home and they aren’t needing your services now. Any budget spent on marketing is wasted.

· Look at analytics – if you haven’t recently, you can dive deep into your analytics to explore future paths for your marketing budget.

· Include a partnership opportunity – partnering with a marketing firm during a pandemic is excellent. Together you can strategize the future of your business and work on some damage control for after the crisis. Afterall, we make marketing simple!

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – Marketing plans should cover a quarter time frame. Since the world is changing and the marketing needs are constantly changing, a short-term marketing plan can offer better results than a long term one. Planning out for an entire year is unnecessary at this point – most information, campaigns, and budgets will need to be reworked constantly. Don’t give yourself unnecessary work!

For more tips on creating a marketing plan, check out our blog post HERE.

During a state of emergency, many businesses are forced to close their doors. Since you’re not going to be in the office, you can save funds on several parts of the budget. Everyday items are easiest to be cancelled – like office supplies or services for your office (like document shredding). Many services (telecom, for example) can be put on hold and can be reopened when you get back into business.

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – hold off on removing staff from payroll and focus on other courses of action. Many business’ will be receiving a subsidy from the government for keeping their staff employed.

Good communication throughout your office leads to a better business. When your team is communicating you are able to face challenges quicker and prevent future issues. To improve your office communication, you need to start with yourself – are you:

• Approachable
• Igniting conversation
• Easy to talk to
• Problem solving

Be the kind of person that your team can talk to! Issues arise in an office when the boss or manager is not approachable. When the team feels uncomfortable or afraid to bring up mistakes or problems, there is a strong chance they will begin to hide them out of fear.

This note on communication should also extend to your clients. It’s great to keep the conversation going even after they leave your office. Consistent emails, calls, or other forms of communication are how you turn a onetime client into a lifetime client.

Dr. Marketing's secret to overcoming this challenge – Create a ‘suggestion box’ or type of measure for your team. At Dr. Marketing, we hold weekly meetings with our team to learn about any personal challenges, ideas, notes, suggestions, or tips our staff might have. Overall, it helps us learn more about each department and provide better services to our clients.

While this pandemic is a scary time for entrepreneurs, this isn’t the time to close up shop. At this time, there are many things you can do to keep your business afloat. Don’t forget to keep calm and stay healthy!

Is your business facing challenges during this pandemic? We’re here to talk - Click the button below to call us!