Business Lessons in Lockdown # 5

Pigeons. Go anywhere on this planet and, unless your're in the Sahara, Antarctica or the High Arctic, you'll probably see them. Most people wouldn't give them a second glance, which is a back-handed compliment, because it shows how successful they are as a species. Whatever the climate, food source or landscape, the humble, but highly adaptable, pigeon will find something to eat and somewhere to nest.

Like the ubiquitous pigeon, businesses need to be adaptable to survive, as the recent pandemic has proved. When you're suddenly told to close your doors and go home, unless you're providing an essential service, there's no time for evolution, it's all about revolutionary thinking to adapt and do it fast!

It's been fascinating to see how different local businesses reacted to lockdown. Some high street shops decided that if customers couldn't come to them, then they would have to go to their customers. The milkshake shop offered home deliveries of retro sweet selection boxes, while our local pub landlord started delivering popular items his menu to your door. Both used social media to raise awareness of their new services and word of mouth quickly ensured that the whole town soon knew about them. At Fab-Biker, our main focus quickly became how we could help our clients adapt to their changed circumstances, and those of their customers.  

Other businesses took things a step further. The artisan coffee roasters reopened as a farm shop, (selling really good coffee to take away with your locally-produced groceries). This proved so successful that they went a stage further and, on weekends, provided a pop-up kerbside 'drive-thru' coffee and donuts service.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it would be a shame if this creativity and speed of implementation petered out once the immediate crisis ended. One of the lessons we've learned is to regularly ask ourselves "How can we adapt to new situations and help our clients do the same?" For example, travel restrictions make it likely that huge numbers of people will be having 'staycations' during this year's summer holidays - what will they need to make their home-based holiday relaxing/fun/memorable? All industries are adapting, and some at great speed. We've learned how valuable adaptability is and we hope other businesses have too.