The Coronavirus pandemic has created a major economic crisis and has put many businesses in survival mode. In this blog post I will give you some advice on how you can help your business survive the Coronavirus crisis.
I have an MBA from the University of Michigan, one of the best business schools in the world. After business school I worked as a business consultant for a Fortune 500 company in NYC. As a business consultant I helped executives deal with a variety of different business crisis. Therefore, I decided to write this blog post today with some basic steps that you can take to save your business the unprecedented global economic crisis caused by the Coronavirus.
ADVICE #1: RESEARCH FINANCING OPPORTUNITIES
If your business has any physical locations your revenues must be way down this month. It is difficult to generate sales when most people have been asked to stay at home. Even if your business is an online business you probably have not been spared from the global economic crisis. I run a digital marketing agency and my revenues are way down this month too. When people are not allowed to go outside money doesn’t circulate and there is less money for everyone.
On the positive side, governments worldwide have been very proactive about helping businesses overcome this challenging situation. Governments from countries impacted by the Coronavirus have put together huge business support packages for local businesses of all sizes. In the USA president Trump signed a $2 trillion virus bill, the largest stimulus bill in USA history. While the UK government announced a £330 billion business loan package, the largest peacetime business support effort in UK history!
If you are a business owner, my first advice for you is to perform an extensive research about business financing! Try to find all the government financial support programs that your business is eligible for. Then, you should also research financial support programs at business-related governmental agencies (e.g. the Small Business Administration in the USA), charity organizations and even commercial banks.
However, before you apply for any program, please make sure that you thoroughly review their terms and conditions. Governments and banks have announced very “creative” financial support programs to help local business survive, but those programs have very non-standard, terms and conditions too. Therefore, it is very important that you review the fine print for those programs before signing up.
ADVICE #2 NEGOTIATE
You know that good negotiation skills are very important for success in business. The Coronavirus crisis has has totally flipped our world upside down! As a result, everything is up for negotiation and re-negotiation right now.
I have experienced this in my business too. Some of my clients have asked for discounts during the Coronavirus crisis. Also, I have offered discounts to some of my long-term clients too. I value my relationships with my long-term clients, and since some of them are struggling right now I have proactively offered them discounts.
If you are a business owner, the second advice that I have for you today is to re-negotiate your expenses! Make a list of all your reoccurring expenses and then call the suppliers/vendors to negotiate. You should be able to get many deals and discounts in the current economic climate.
ADVICE #3 WORK ON YOUR BUSINESS
As business owners normally we are very busy working “in our business”, and we don’t spend a lot of time working “on our business”. What does that mean? Working “in your business” means doing specific and repetitive daily tasks for your business like an employee would. For example, if you are a fitness coach,when you have sessions with your clients you are working “in your business”. As business owners we are also employees of our businesses, therefore it is understandable that we have to spend some time working “in our businesses”.
On the other hand there is the concept of working “on your business”. When you work “on your business” you look at your business as the boss and you think about how to improve the business entity as a whole. When you work “on your business” you think about new processes that you can introduce to run the business more efficiently, you think about new products to introduce to the marketplace, and you think about the skills that you need to develop or acquire in order to grow your business.
If you are a business owner, the third advice that I have for you today is to spend the additional free time that you have during the lockdown to work “on your business”. Think about how to reorganize and improve your business now sot that it will not only survive the Coronavirus crisis but will thrive after the pandemic ends.
I hope that the advice that I shared with you in this blog post was helpful. I have also recorded a video on this topic that you can watch on my YouTube channel. Also, please subscribe to my newsletter to get monthly updates on hot topics in marketing and business.
