19 Ways to Survive and Even Thrive in a Global Pandemic
1. Where possible create a digital version of the services that you can’t provide during lockdown. Turn conferences into webinars and yoga studios into virtual yoga classes.
2. Implement same-day invoicing. Don’t wait until the end of the week or month.
3. Take advantage of free but high quality business mentors that are available in many countries (eg. SCORE and Small Business Development Centers in the United States).
4. Brainstorm how to use your staff and assets to generate alternative streams of revenue.
5. To improve cashflow consider alternative financing options such as invoice factoring, merchant cash advances or inventory financing.
6. Improve brand loyalty by offering your existing customers free upgrades, discounted pricing or extra features.
7. Negotiate discounts or better payment terms with your suppliers and landlord and eliminate or reduce expenses that are not core to your central product offering.
8. Overcome people’s reluctance to spend by offering monthly instalments, longer free trial periods and more generous money back guarantees.
9. Competitors of your current or former customers are also likely to need what you sell. Target them as you attempt to rebuild your customer base.
10. If cashflow is extremely tight, consider selling fixed assets and leasing them instead.
11. Review your sales contracts to determine under what circumstances customers can cancel orders and if necessary update them to limit the ability of customers to do so.
12. Forget your balance sheet for the meantime and devote all of your attention to your cash flow. Forecast it for the next 6 months and review weekly.
13. If you have added more sales channels such as online sales, local delivery or virtual events, publicise it as widely as possible using social media, email marketing and direct contact.
14. Find out if you quality for emergency government funding or low-interest loans and apply as soon as possible.
15. Collaborate with your local Chamber of Commerce, business association and local businesses and actively participate in creative business development initiatives.
16. Check your business insurance policies to see whether they include business interruption insurance that doesn’t exclude pandemic-related claims
17. Communicate with your bank as soon as possible and face issues head-on as honestly and transparently as possible.
18. Focus more on low-cost but effective marketing techniques that have a high ROI such as email marketing.
19. By showing ongoing and genuine compassion to your staff, customers and suppliers, you can maintain positive business relationships even when tough business decisions such as layoffs need to be made.
If you have any comments about this post we’d love to hear from you. Email us at support@BusinessIntelHQ.com.