Staying Relevant With Your Business During Covid-19 (2) Updated for 2024

Hi, how are you today?

In my last blog, How To Keep Your Business Relevant During Covid-19, we covered two answers to the question on how you can stay relevant with your business for your customers during this pandemic. In this blog I wil give you two are other tips.

Here they are.

• Prioritize Safety

No business will survive the current crisis that doesn’t take the situation seriously. This is not a time to take the pandemic lightly or act as if the safety of your employees and customers doesn’t matter. People are being hit hard by an ever-worsening reality and they won’t thank any business that’s dismissive of their fears.

Some of the things you can do to show you care and that you take your customers’  health and safety serious include:

• Posting a statement on your website and on social media outlining the precautions you are taking to minimize the risk. Here’s a good example from Target. You’ll notice that they’ve talked about what they’re doing to help employees, new cleaning procedures for their stores, precautions for product pick-ups and deliveries, and their community efforts to help people impacted by the pandemic.
• Offering deals on your products or services that are specifically helpful to people at this time. That means being creative and being mindful of the needs of the people you serve.
• Avoiding anything that seems opportunistic. Of course ,you are worried about the survival of your business, but showing empathy to the very real concerns of your audience won’t help you survive.
• If you have clients or customers that owe you money, work with them to create payment plans if they ask you to. It’s natural to be concerned about cash flow but pushing people who are worrying about their own financial futures won’t make them pay you more quickly. In fact, it may make them avoid you. Be compassionate and you’re more likely to get paid.

In other words, you should market and advertise, but it’s essential to do it in a way that’s mindful of the current circumstances and shows your audience that you care: you have to show empathy.

Embrace the Uncertainty

Uncertainty can be difficult to cope with, but the truth is that none of us knows what tomorrow will bring – or next month, or the month after that. Despite hopes that social distancing would be a temporary measure, the rising number of cases suggests that we’ll be battling this virus and its devastation for a long time.

One difficult decision that’s on the horizon for some businesses is the need to lay off employees. If you can’t meet your payroll, then it’s best to lay people off now and file a claim with your local department of labor or unemployment office. When you file as the employer, you’ll be smoothing the way for your laid off employees to collect unemployment benefits.

The businesses that will survive this crisis are the ones who manage to maintain their agility in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. As a business owner, you’ll need to lead your employees in a way you never have before, providing steady guidance and reassurance even if you’re filled with doubt.

Take Help If You Need It 

Finally, and this is important, don’t hesitate to take help from any source that will provide it if you need to do so. Not every business will survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The ones that will are those that listen to their customers, get creative, and find ways to stay relevant. It’s going to be a long road, but your business can get through with some hard work and luck.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to figure everything out on your own. There’s help available. Anyway, you really have to make sure you take the right decision with the help from the right people. People you can trust.

If I can help in any way, please do not hesitate to call me on Skype on tony.de.bree or email me here.

Kind regards,
Tony de Bree