Coronavirus: Act Now to Protect Your Business

by Serious Small Business Magazine

Responding Powerfully to the Coronavirus in Your Business

The worst thing you can do for your business during the Coronavirus pandemic is to do absolutely nothing. This worldwide crisis demands a response and ignoring it will be fatal to many businesses around the globe. Don't let the business you have put so much of your life into be one of them.

Serious Small Business Magazine offers the following considerations that may help you in these unprecedented and turbulent times.

Act now!

Don't waste any time on anxiety, fear, and self-pity. This accomplishes nothing useful and it can ruin your health.

Also, do not wait until you use up all of your financial reserves before you respond to the new business environment that we are all in during the crisis. If all of your reserves are used up, it will dramatically limit your ability to respond to changing conditions and will drastically shorten the time that your business can remain viable before it can no longer function as a business. Schools are closing all around the world, and you do not want your business to follow suit if it can be avoided.

The smart thing is to respond quickly and intelligently to the new challenges that face you so that, once the crisis has passed, your business can bounce back strong and healthy. On the plus side, when business does pick up again and the Pandemic is behind us, there will be less competition to deal with because your competitors did not respond nearly as well as you have. Remember, you are in this for the long haul. The time to respond powerfully is now.

Establish priorities and respond to each appropriately

Notice how large companies and industry leaders respond and take your cues from them. They frequently have a great deal of research, insight and specialized knowledge behind their methods that you do not have available to you as a small business person. Benefit from the wisdom they have developed. 

But do not follow them blindly. Use your own discretion. Some methods a really large company uses is not scalable or practical for a small business to implement. In addition, if you see a company or a government agency doing something really stupid, do not imitate that behavior! Not everything they do is wise or prudent (or even sane!). 

Safety First

Your number one priority must be the safety of yourself and your employees, even ahead of your customers. As much as we hate to think about it, your customers can always go to a different place to fill their needs or choose to do without, but the workers in your business have to be there every day to feed their families and build their own dreams. They are the ones who have less choice, so they must be your first concern. Don't forget, they are the ones helping you build your dreams. 

Employee Safety

Take common-sense steps to promote safety for yourself, your family, and your employees wherever possible. Some possibilities are:

• Teleconferencing

Can you do a conference call instead of a face-to-face meeting? If you have a small group, you can get a free account with www.instantconference.com which will allow you to have a conference call with up to five lines calling in totally free. Do you need more lines than that? They're charging less than $10 a month for a plan that allows up to 150 lines per call. We have upgraded to the paid plan to conduct our own meetings and it works really well for us. 

Consider other services such as Skype which works through your computer and www.join.me which allows screen sharing. Find what works best for you and your budget.

• Social Distancing

Consider how you can enable employees to work farther apart from each other. Simply rearranging work areas or moving certain activities to other parts of the building may be all it takes to make a difference. 

• Sanitize Facilities

The first thing to do is to make sure you have facilities for handwashing for your employees. If you have a crew that works in the field, you can get them a large container of water and some inexpensive hand soap and paper towels that they can take into the field with them. Frequent washing is good for us all.

• High-Risk Employees

Certain populations have been shown to be at higher risk to Coronavirus infections, such as people over 65 and people with underlying health issues. If you have any of these people working for you, consider alternatives for them such as working from home or working in a more isolated location.

• Education

Educate your employees on what you understand about the Coronavirus and how it is spread. Understanding the importance of washing hands frequently, covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze, and avoiding touching your face are extremely important to staying healthy and containing the pandemic. The only way this can happen is when people are aware of what they can do to remain healthy and keep others healthy. Posting clever signs in strategic areas will also help them remember. Remember, the healthier your employees, the healthier your business.

• Customer Safety

Right on the heels of employee safety is being carefully considerate of your customers. Not only is it the right thing to do, but you have a moral obligation to protect the public as they do business with you. 

Many of the things you do to provide employee safety will also help protect your customers.

Show polite consideration for your customers in everything you do. This may include rearranging your service area or waiting area so that chairs are farther apart and facing different directions. You may be able to clean out another available room to provide an additional waiting area. If you are a restaurant, tables can be moved farther apart or you can choose to seat customers at every other table.

You know your business better than anyone. What steps can you take that are not cost prohibitive but that provide better protection for your customers and keep your place a safe and pleasant place to do business? Your customers will notice and appreciate it. 

Consider new ways of doing business that protects your customers (gloves for employees, disinfectant wipes for surfaces a customer might touch, frequent cleaning of bathrooms).

Explore alternative methods of delivering your service (drive-up/drive-through, online ordering, delivery service). In what new ways can your business provide a superior product or service and yet maintain a safer environment? This may be a way to expand your business beyond what you've done before.

Make sure your customers know that you are looking out for them

If you are taking steps to promote your customer’s safety make sure they know it. Find appropriate and fun ways to point out how you are going above and beyond for them. This is really good PR and good marketing. If you are doing the work, you need to be getting the credit as well, so don't keep what you're doing a secret like your competitors are.

Again, watch what the big companies are doing and improve on their ideas. 

• Watch Your Cash Flow

As business (income) drops, some expenses which are linked to your income will naturally go down. 

For example, if you are a coffee shop, your cost for paper cups and coffee beans will naturally drop as you sell less coffee because you will be depleting your supplies at a slower rate. But some expenses are more fixed such as rent and loan payments, and even your labor costs (unless you cut employee hours).

This is why it is important to take immediate and dramatic action to cut costs wherever you can do so without impacting your ability to conduct business for your customers and, as much as possible, without impacting the livelihood of your employees.

If you must cut employees or reduce employee hours for the business to survive, do not hesitate to take that action early, but this has got to be a last resort. Your people are directly related to your ability to serve your customers and grow your business, and it's important that you be loyal to them as you want them to be loyal to you. Think of them as part of your family and give them that level of consideration. They will remember and appreciate who you are being and it will reflect in their loyalty to you and their efforts to grow your business.

Having said all that, it is critical that you quickly cut all unnecessary expenses not directly related to the end product of your business. Income can drop off dramatically and suddenly in times of crisis. We are seeing this around the world in today's global business environment during the outbreak and this volatility may continue or even intensify. You must be ready.

• Protect Cash Reserves

If you have money saved up to support your business, it is a mistake to continue doing business as normal until all those reserves are gone and your business is in crisis. By reducing your expenses wherever possible immediately, even when it hurts, you will delay the need to use your cash reserves as long as possible and enable them to last as long as possible once they are required to get you through the crisis.

The biggest mistake you can make here is by continuing to do business exactly as you have been and use up all those cash reserves. If you choose that, you will probably not be happy with the end result. 

Another cash flow mistake to avoid is to borrow too much money to support your business. If you have a line of credit, you have the ability to pull in additional funds to prop up your business through the lean time, but that money still has to be paid back.

First, slash your expenses so that any borrowing that has to happen to survive is kept absolutely to a minimum and it is only done as a last resort. No one knows how long this environment is going to last or what it will look like tomorrow, so any financial resources you have available may become critical to your business survival.

The most common path to bankruptcy is borrowing money that you do not have the ability to pay back later. Proceed very carefully and cautiously.

Protect your cash reserves and borrowing power. You may very well need them before this is all over. 

• Seize the opportunity!

While you would never choose this business environment, it does present some unique opportunities that you can benefit from. Gain some valuable benefit from your free time.

Learn

If business is slow for any reason, it is a great time for you to work on your education such that, when business picks up again, you will be even more capable and effective than you have been in the past. Grow your brain skills!

Get Caught Up

This is a time to get the things done that you were too busy to get to before, especially things that can grow and develop your business. 

Grow

Develop new skills and abilities. Research and explore new opportunities for your business. You are already powerful and capable and you can become even more so if you apply yourself. 

Brainstorm

Develop new business ideas and processes. Discuss ways of improving and expanding your business with your employees (They are actually partners in your business, after all. While they are not owners like you are, they have a tremendous amount of expertise just like you do and they also have a perspective from the front lines that is different than yours, so they may see things that you don’t.).

Expand your vision so that, when your business recovers, you are primed and ready to take it to the next level. 

Prospect

This is a great time to prospect for new business. At some point, business will pick up again and if you increase the awareness of the public regarding your expertise and your services, you may attract new customers once this crisis has passed. Get your name out there and let people know that you are still here for them. I see big companies doing this a lot using email announcements. 

Plan

Think through your complete marketing plan and prepare new marketing materials so it is all ready to implement when the appropriate time comes. This downturn will not last forever and you want to be ready to launch your business when it picks up again. 

Be Flexible and Powerful!

It is critical during this extraordinary time throughout the world to keep yourself healthy and your business healthy. This means you have to think differently and act differently today to protect both you and your business for the future. 

Make a Plan and Take Action

There are opportunities to thrive out there if you think it through carefully and act decisively. So act now!

Our hope for every one of you is that you be healthy and your business be strong. We wish you the best and we'll see you on the other side of all this.

- Jerry Hignight, Editor in Chief, Serious Small Business Magazine

Do you see strategies or opportunities that we didn't cover? Enter them in the comments below and share them with our small business community. We can all learn something from your perspective. Thank you for your willingness to share with us.

About the Author

Jerry Hignight is Editor in Chief of Serious Small Business Magazine, a businessman, author, coach, trainer, and speaker. His current positions include:

• Editor in Chief of Serious Small Business Magazine
• Founder/Moderator of the Serious Small Business group, the Personal Power group, and eight others on LinkedIn including co-founding the Today's Businesswoman group
• Executive Director of I Love To Help (an organization devoted to benefiting disadvantaged children at Christmas time)
• Author of The Magnificent Gift, a touching Christmas story - available as a free gift at www.MagnificentGift.org
• Founding Board Member of the Center for Fathers and Families
• Project Manager/Lead Trainer of Delta Wireless, Inc.
• Owner/Lead Designer of Dreamnet Design

Growth Group Leader Coach and volunteer at River City Christian Church

He is former President of Pacific Pointe Insurance Agency, Inc.

And if that wasn't enough, Jerry is also in the process of writing two new business books. It's no wonder he is the recipient of Motorola's Overachiever Award!

Here's a partial list of LinkedIn groups Jerry founded you may have an interest in, all sponsored by Serious Small Business Magazine...

• Serious Small Business group (success in business and in life)
• Today's Businesswoman group (especially for women)
• Personal Power group (using your natural power to create a life you love living)
• I Love To Help group (volunteers and nonprofits)
• My Small Business World group (small business owners, executive thinking)
• Social Media Power group (leveraging Social Media for success in ways you care about most)