COVID-19 pandemic - business and personal

Isn’t it interesting to contrast the COVID-19 lockdown responses between LinkedIn and Twitter? There are sober and (mostly) professional LinkedIn postings, some of which are in evidence on Twitter too, but with added personal and deeply emotional posts as well. I’ve lived through various economic and personal crises in my life, but to have this toxic combination of both is new, unfamiliar and threatening.

Social media is now our umbilical cord to the outside world. But, unlike the parental connection in the womb, this umbilical does not filter out the bad parts. For those suffering from loneliness, anxiety or depression, social media can be malevolent and a false friend. So it’s heartwarming to see the responsibility, the warmth and caring, the after-work virtual happy hours, those mental costumes, the random appearances of children in Zoom backgrounds - all of which have been the overwhelming theme of the #AVTweeps world.

The old SELL SELL SELL tweets and postings are no longer so appropriate. But this is also exactly the time to get our marketing mojos in full working order. So what can we do? At Visual Displays we’re not actively selling anything, just nurturing all the opportunities that still have a pulse. But we are offering education, essential links and all the support we can muster. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still taking orders, but it seems wrong to be effectively saying ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling so concerned and anxious, but I’m damn well going to flog you this car anyway’

We’ve furloughed some of our team. UK resellers are furloughed, so we’ve got no-one to sell to for the time being. I didn’t enjoy anything about doing this. But the mother ship must survive. Without a company there are no jobs for anyone, let alone those furloughed. 

A recent COVID-inspired webinar by Donald Miller, author of Storybrand (www.StoryBrand.com - marketeers, read his book and thank me later!) was helpful. To paraphrase: you have to pivot your message; it’s all about empathy. Apart from his great guidance (which was way more detailed and nuanced than my clunky paraphrase), I just loved this parting question: ‘What does this lockdown allow you to do that you couldn’t do previously?’ Well that set me thinking…

This lockdown has allowed me to: spend time thinking and on R&D; work in concentrated blocks of time; differentiate between what’s urgent and what’s important; connect with how much I care and love for my family, extended family and friends (not least by how painful it is not to see them); to reaffirm my love for being and exercising outdoors; to reread favourite books; (be grumpy and self-centred). 

Stephen Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, may share with Stephen Hawkin’s A Brief History of Time the doubtful accolade of being a least-read bestseller, and he steers a wobbly line with being a self-identified saint, but it’s still an important book for me. The seventh habit is ‘sharpen the saw’, taken from the fable of the woodcutter who worked incessantly, but couldn’t understand why his neighbour could cut far more wood than him, because his neighbour was often to be seen sitting down. He hadn’t noticed that the neighbour was sharpening his saw, expending less effort for more results, working cleverly rather than just working hard. Well that’s what I’m trying for, so let’s see how I manage when the doors open and I emerge blinking into the daylight and clients are wanting stuff again. Yesterday, natch.