With the current health crisis come other issues in our personal and professional lives, like a potential recession and rapidly changing workforce. Many small business owners are concerned about the long-term and short-term impacts that the coronavirus can have on their business. Amidst the flood of business advice thrown about during this time, we’ve compiled a shortlist of the most important things you can do to protect your business during this uncertain time and even build it for success.
Cut budgets where you can
It’s important that you look for ways you can reduce your spending without significantly affecting your business to offset any revenue loss during this time. With many states requiring nonessential businesses to work remotely, your operations have likely moved out of the office, making office management expenses and on-site benefits unnecessary.
Cut your budget allocated for office snacks, client lunches, parking stipends, gym benefits, and travel. Depending on your size, this could save you quite a bit of money to use on a more lucrative area. It may even serve as a wakeup call for ways you can make your business more cost-effective for the long run once the pandemic passes.
Move necessary errands online
It’s important that even if your team is remote, you’re still able to complete daily tasks that remain essential to your business’s success and growth. Move what you can online so you’re able to social distance as much as possible while still maintaining essential aspects of running your organization.
Financial errands, like depositing checks and paying bills, can be done online with the use of a small business-focused digital bank to avoid risking your own health or that of your business. Additionally, you can meet with your advising professionals, like your accountant or business coach via a video conferencing platform to stay on top of your organization’s needs and adjust in real-time. Post-pandemic, these tools may help pave the way for a more efficient process for your daily tasks.
Pivot your offerings
If your product or service is not solely online, it’s likely that your business is losing revenue from significantly decreased foot traffic. Take some time to consider the different ways you can adapt your business offerings to meet these unprecedented customer needs.
If you’re a dry cleaner, can you do a curbside pickup system? If you’re a bar, can you deliver cocktails, or have your bartenders teach online mixology courses? Adapting to the current climate will help you offset some of the revenue loss and can even inspire a new and lucrative business model for when you reopen.
Maintain employee morale
Because this time can be especially nerve-wracking for business owners and entrepreneurs, it can be easy to forget that your employees are also likely worried about their future. However, employee morale is an essential part of your business’s success. Your trained personnel are one of your largest assets, so it’s important that they feel confident in the business’s future and trust your leadership so they can work more productively with clearer heads.
Be honest with your employees about the business’s financial situation, but follow it with your protection plans that they can buy into and feel a part of. This will help them feel invested in the organization’s success and may help motivate them to work through their nerves.
Every business is impacted by this virus, whether for the better or worse; no one is excluded. However, with some planning and a critical eye, you likely can find ways to help manage your business and even help it grow during the pandemic.
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