Coronavirus Playbook: Business ideas to fight the Coronavirus fear
Tags: Small Business, Business Ideas, Savings Tips, Employees, Coronavirus

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

Stress levels over the roof?

You are a leader, you set visions and purpose for your followers. You can’t lead yourself or others if you are under too much financial stress. Definitely seek to give yourself a break. Breath! Get your heart and mind in balance. Exercise! Only a calm and healthy mind can solve problems.

Just remember you just need to “recalibrate” when confronting any hurdle. The following are some ideas to help you through this difficult period.

How to get more customers?

Show your customers they are SAFE and you have extra Extra Hygiene in your processes. Redirect your staff to spend more time on cleaning. Use the CDC guidelines.

and you have extra in your processes. Redirect your staff to spend more time on cleaning. Use the CDC guidelines. Change your processes to reduce physical contact, encourage distance between everyone

Send communication to customers on your new processes

Have more signs put up around the business on health and safety

Be direct and let the customers know you need their business (be vulnerable!). After all, who doesn’t want to help?

Cooperate with your neighboring businesses. Cross sell. Do a group promotion. Share cleaning equipment and staff

Introduce new products which can compliment your business (e.g. travel size sanitizers over counter

Sell gift cards at a discount

Do group orders specials (so only one person comes to pick up)

Ask your employees to spread the message

Do a video introducing yourself and business. Share it with business networks to see how they can help

How to reduce costs?

Speak to employees about the situation and see if they are willing to move to flexible hours. Sometimes being transparent helps.

Remove the less sold items, focus on the most sold items (and sell more of them)

Share cleaning staff with your neighbors

Consider moving to online operation. For example, if you have a consultation clinic or similar, can you see your patient over WhatsApp, Zoom or similar communication platforms?

Do reduced operating hours (if you see it being more beneficial than staying open). Think longer term

Ask the banks / creditors for a break on interests or payment terms.

Kindly ask customers to provide more tips to your employees

Ask for volunteers (and provide freebies for their service). Don’t be afraid to ask, many people are on social media waiting to help!

Citibank is waiving fees for early withdrawals of CDs

Wells Fargo is helping customers with financial hardship due to the coronavirus. Similarly PNC Bank is providing support.

Working with employees?

This is a temporary issue, and try to avoid laying off employees. They were there when you needed them, so at this time, try to look after them as much as possible. We all know how bad the issue is, if we talk frankly with the employees, they may understand and be willing to work with you.

Some ideas:

For employees who are not feeling well. Encourage containment. Especially if you have older staff. Here’s the CDC guidance for employee who are sick. For those employers/employees with confirmed cases, you may be able claim Disability Benefits

Reduce employee hours only if you have to

Encourage customers to tip more to help your employees out

Provide employee new benefits to help them through it (e.g. if you are food business, free meal)

Ask employees to be flexible and do something different to their normal role. Example, helping with “phone in & door pickup orders” (instead of the normal in store only sale)

If you can, try and pick up other folks who may have been laid off (they would be so thankful and definitely going to work hard for you!)

If you do have to lay off stay, do provide them support in getting unemployment benefits. For those employee who need to take time off to care for a COVID related case, they may be able to claim Paid Family Leave

Communication and helpful tools

It is important to stay on top of communication with everyone. Share how you are doing. Communicate to your employees of your plans. Communicate to your customers about your goal to keep employees and persistence to wear this out. There’s plenty of resource out there to help. Further, take advantage of some of these support from major tech companies:

Coinbase released their business continuity plan/email templates, worth checking out and re-use some of their email templates.

Google is providing free access to their premium GSuite products (Google Sheets, Docs, Drive, Hangouts, etc).

Google My Business is providing instructions to help you instantly update your business information, operating hours, and contact information.

Zoom conferencing is providing additional online classroom learning features for education sectors.

Microsoft is providing 6 months free access to the premium version Microsoft Teams (Collaboration platform).

What support network is available for me?

Small business support hotline

Social media networks

Ask your friends, you would be surprised at how small the circle is

Talking to others, you may realize everyone is facing a similar situation, and may learn something from others

I need short term help with money

Speak to your local banker, credit union, and financial institution

Utilize extended interest free credit cards, HELOCs, and other products

Consult with the business chamber

Local city government. For example the San Francisco city is providing a grant of up to $10,000 for business who can demonstrate their business revenue was impacted. They also allow deferral of business taxes until 2021.

Stay in control of your Credit Score

Your individual and business credit score is important. If you are having difficulty paying your overdue bills or balances, don’t do nothing! Instead, call up the creditor and ask for an extension. They may be happy to give you more time (or options to pay less for now). Also encourage your employees to stay on top of their credit score.

How to be innovative and win new business?

When fears are high, it is the best time to stand out and take leadership in the market. In order to do so, you will need to encourage innovation in your business. Think of new ways you can do things, think of how you can help solve real problems your customers are facing right now because of the coronavirus. A good way to approach this is to ask your customers what’s stopping them from coming to visit you? Can you deliver your product remotely? Can you do business through social apps like WhatsApps, Facebook messenger, zoom video conferencing? How about taking your business through new channels like affiliates, influencers, commission based marketing. Businesses like AirBnb, Slack, Uber, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon were all either founded or excelled during the economic downtown. You can too!

Innovation is doing things which consistently exceed your customers’ needs.

Lastly, smile 😊 , have faith 🙏🏼 and gratitude 😇