We are a generation entering into our version of the unknown. Not in the last 70 years have we gone without access to all our wildest dreams, been free to explore the world without boundaries and have all the information we could ever use at our fingertips. COVID-19 has brought upon us our first real taste of adversity in many generations and so far, to be honest we are doing a very poor job of handling the situation in a positive manner. We could be reacting to this situation and seeing as an opportunity in the business world to better ourselves and our overall business models. Everyone is affected by this pandemic just like everyone was affected by the last pandemic and each one prior to throughout our history.

See article link below from The Economist: March 12 2020.

https://amp.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/03/12/throughout-history-pandemics-have-had-profound-economic-effects

After reading this article we wanted to give our input on how business owners and entrepreneurs can help themselves to thrive after the dust settles to create a stronger business with economic viability.

5 Ways Small Businesses Owners Can Help Themselves

1. Pivot

   1. Deviate from your business plan

      1. Adjust your 5 years earning projects to be more pessimistic

      2. Adjust your market and trend analysis statistics

      3. Prepare for potential need of additional financing

1. Find new ways to market your business or product to consumers in quarantine

2. Adapt your distribution networks and channels to limit personal contact

• The Back Up Plan

  • If you don’t have an emergency plan or back up plan reach out to someone who can help you navigate your situation

  • Don’t re-invent the wheel but re evaluate your operations, overhead and cost accounting

  • Don’t be afraid to make the tough decisions

    • Lay your staff off and let them collect EI – better to have a business to come back to than an empty building

    • Reach out to your land lord and negotiate options

• Blow out sale your inventory

• What ever your back up plan/ emergency plan entails start to follow those steps and take some austerity measures personally

  • Take less income per month

  • Revaluate your personal spending habits  

• Find out about deferred payments, insurance coverages, government assistance etc.

• Communication with clients/vendors/staff is key

  • Press releases to on your social media platforms

  • Constant updates on closures

• Change Your Marketing Budget

  • Online sales-

    • Offer discount codes, live auctions ,get an online quote/estimate system in place

• Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, Twitter Etc – utilize these to your advantage as everyone will be at home

• Be creative but sensitive to the situation and plan events and future sales to bring consumers back once life begins to normalize

• Focus on perfecting your product/ service/ craft  – R&D time

• Build a how to catalogue to make it easier for your future consumers to navigate what you offer and how it can benefit your consumer

• Update/ Modernize

  • Fix, update and tweek your old website

    • Learn how the back end of your site works and play around with making a website

• Get into tune with younger buyers, they will be your future customers

• Update your catalogue/ website / data bases

  • An efficient  back end of your business will make a more efficient front end and user friendly platform/product

• Clean up your online store/ estimating processes/

• Update old out of date software – you can find affordable software online

• Have new content to promote once the pandemic is over

• Mindset shift

  • Stop looking at all that is going wrong and find the opportunity within the treat

  • Be smarter than the problem

  • Find ways to better your business for future unforeseen “business interuptions”

  • Consider collaborations  with other businesses outside your niche to find new revenue streams in the future

  • Be happy your alive and well and able to work on your businesses versus working in for a few weeks!

  • Try a SWOT analysis of your business to identify your Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and double down on all of them.

Everyone’s circumstances are different and each business owner prepares differently but these are ways we have evaluated our business in the past 2 weeks and things we are working on that we fell every business owner could benefit from doing during a down period like this. At the end of the day – you just need to live to fight another day and stay in the game. Do not quit, do not give up and find a way to be stronger when we start to recover as we will recover!

Shop Ph:403-498-4517 sales@twobirdsfurniture.ca