While the world seems to be slowly coming out of the Coronavirus-induced hibernation, with governments working on plans to make sure life continues without jeopardizing the health and safety of the public, as a business owner, you are probably contemplating how you can shake the dust off and get your business back on its feet.
Here are some ways to get your business back on track after the pandemic:
Reinvent
As rules of nature infer, only the fittest survive, and the same rule applies to the economic world. The faster you accept the change and embrace it, the faster you will get your business back on track.
Instead of dwelling on what your business looked like before the Coronavirus and trying to bring that back, take this situation as an opportunity to reinvent different areas of your business. Reinventing will look different for different businesses, so take a deep look at what that may look like for you.
Reach out to your customers/clients and collect information about the shift in their purchasing habits and their current needs and wants. Consider ways you can accommodate them. Look at what your competitors and other businesses are doing to transform or upgrade their marketing strategies to match this new landscape.
Maybe it’s time to re-brand, or offer different services or products. Consider hiring or consulting with professional service providers that can assist you in this arena, and support your business with functions that are outside your expertise.
Revisit Your Budget and Your Expenses
Take steps to assess any damage, and to ensure that moving forward you are spending wisely and within your budget. Sit with your finance team or financial business advisor and analyze your financial data to figure out what to focus on and where to start.
The first step is determining if and how severely your business has been affected.
If you haven’t updated your financial statements recently, such as profit and loss or cash flow statements, do so now. Compare them to last year’s numbers to see how much your business may be down. Some businesses actually learn that the damage has not been as bad as they thought, while others may find they are more deeply affected.
Aside from the hard numbers, consider other ways in which your business may have been affected. If you’ve had to lay off some or all of your employees, factor that into your rebuilding plan. If some of your customers have migrated toward your competitors, consider different financial resources to help your business recover. If you’ve cut your advertising and marketing budget down, see how you can re-invest to get back on track and start growing your business again.
To save on the salary of in-house staff, this could mean hiring a virtual assistant; hiring consultant(s); outsourcing your call answering service; only keeping your morning shift telephone operators; etc.
Until the market starts to show clearer signs of recovery, consider wisely where you want to invest, such as in implementing health and safety measures to enable your employees to come back to work without delay, or to renovate so your customers can be comfortable and feel safe.
And, for many, working from home is becoming the new norm. If this is the case for your business, make sure you are set up properly so that you are efficient, productive, and comfortable as you perform your work. If you haven’t already, take necessary steps to create a professional setting in your home office, and remember to invest in appropriate security against cybercrime.
Another important area to consider investing is in marketing research and implementation of new strategies to help you adjust to the new norms and better meet the post-pandemic demands of your customers.
Revisit Your Business Plan
Your business model may have worked perfectly fine pre-COVID-19, but now may need to be fine-tuned to adjust to a new normal. When revisiting your business plan and business model, get clear on your business’s strengths and weaknesses, and then analyze what was working before that may not work as well now, and how you can adjust or improve to remain competitive.
For example, many businesses that used to rely on foot traffic for sales are taking steps to ensure a strong digital presence to accommodate the rising numbers of people who are shopping from home.
If your employees didn’t have the option to work remotely before and it can work for your business, you may want to incorporate this in your business model.
It’s also beneficial to analyze how your overall industry has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, paying attention to the trends and focusing on finding the opportunities. You may find a gap or need that your business can fulfill that’s been overlooked, leading to you recovering and expanding your customer base moving forward.
Finally, make sure your business goals are realistic, given the current circumstances. For instance, your target revenue goal for the year may need to be scaled back to account for the hindrance the coronavirus pandemic may have put on your Q2 sales.
Get Creative
The pandemic has taught us how important it is to be able to adapt – use what you’ve learned during the coronavirus pandemic to insulate your business from future hindrances.
Create a contingency plan in case any emergency comes along to disrupt your business again.
For instance, start building up liquid cash savings as soon as you can; focus on paying down your debt; trim nonessential spending. Maybe you need to find ways to help your staff work more efficiently to cut operating costs.
The more outside-the-box thinking you can do to prepare for a worst-case scenario, the better. Having a Plan B and beyond can help improve your business’s odds of not just surviving, but also thriving again.
Still, for some, it might seem impossible to believe that they can get their business back on track. However, one of the vital things to learn from this experience is that we are resilient and resourceful beings, and that there is always a way to keep going forward.
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