Well, wow. What a month March 2020 turned out to be.
As many people suddenly found themselves unemployed, self-employed or having to urgently employ more people to meet unprecedented demand, March was a month many of us will never forget.
It felt like almost every businesses on the planet had to act quickly, adapt their offering, deliver what they do in a different way or move their whole business online.
So, what about you?
Have you had to change track, reinvent what you do or find new ways to carry on solving the problem you started your business to solve? I’ve certainly seen some great pivots and inspiring examples of companies responding and adapting quickly and creatively.
Some of my favourites include:
The princess party business now offering 20-minute one2one video calls with your kid. You can literally book a 20-minute spot for your child to talk to their favourite princess over zoom. How cool is that?
Or the cheese shop that will put together a selection of fine cheeses and wines for you, together with tasting notes and a video walking you through each of them. They’re also offering a cheese, chocolate and bubbles box!
Or the barber teaching wives how to trim their husband’s hair, while they’re in lockdown!
But, I totally get that not all businesses have been able to carry on doing what they do during this majorly turbulent time. So, what if you can’t do any of those things? What if your business has just come to an abrupt halt and there’s nothing you can do about it?
That’s hard, and thank goodness the Government seem to be stepping in to offer support where it’s needed. But, maybe there are some things you could be doing during this downtime to make sure your business comes out the other side of COVID19 in a good place – strong and raring to go!
Here are a few things to think about:
Could you teach what you do?
I appreciate you may not be able to create a complete training course on the spot, but is it something you could be working on now so that you can offer it in the future?
If you’re a florist, could you create an online course showing people how to put a beautiful table arrangement or wedding bouquet together?
If you’re a musician, could you teach others how to write music? Or how to play certain instruments? After building his own successful business as a drum teacher, Total Drummer now helps other music teachers build a profitable business.
And, who knows, teaching others to do what you do might even turn out to be more profitable than doing what you do!
Could you learn a new skill?
If you can’t teach what you know, what about learning a new skill yourself? Maybe you’ve been wanting to learn how to design graphics in canva or write more compelling presentations or get better at social media?
I’ve just signed up for Maria Watson’s Trello course – The Trello Learner’s Lounge – so I can finally learn how to use it properly!
There’s never been a better time to dive into the millions of challenges, courses and tutorials available online, on just about any topic you can think of, and learn a new skill.
Could you get your finances in order?
I was watching a training this week (online of course) from a company that helps people build wealth. They were talking about how many people are feeling the pain right now of having just one source of income because, when that one source of income suddenly stops, there’s nothing to fall back on.
Could now be a great time to learn how to create multiple streams of income? I appreciate that isn’t something you can do overnight, but could you take the first step and get some education around how you might do that?
I’ve been working with the guys at Wealthbuilders, who’ve just re-opened the doors to their 7 steps to wealth programme. Doors close on 2nd April so you’ll need to act quickly if you’re interested in checking it out.
Could you work on your marketing?
As Donald Miller, author of Building a StoryBrand, said this week “while others are hitting ‘pause’, how can you hit ‘play’?”
Even if you’ve had to hit ‘pause’ on your business right now, it doesn’t mean you have to hit ‘pause’ on your marketing activities. Now could be the perfect time to work on your online presence, upgrade the copy on your website, create a free download for people to sign up for, write an email campaign for a new product you’re going to launch or just check in with your customers regularly, so that they’ll still be there when life and business finally get back to some kind of ‘normal’, post COVID19.
Want help with that?
If you’d like my help with any of that, I’m offering one-off coaching sessions to work on whatever you need to focus on right now. Whether you need to adapt your message, improve the copy on your website or write an email campaign that keeps your audience engaged, I can help you get that done.
If you want more details, just email susan@thebusinessofstories.com with the word COACHING and I’ll be in touch.
Or come join my FB group. It’s a place to continue the conversation about how to engage your customers, by talking about the things that matter to them.
I’ll see you in there!
