How businesses can prepare for the post-pandemic boom

What we can learn from a pandemic

I think one of the biggest lessons that we’ve learned in the last 12 months is just how adaptable we are and how adaptable we can be as a species, as a culture, and as a community, because we’ve had to be. 

We’ve seen an incredible level of acceleration in development, and that has, in turn, produced an enormous amount of opportunity. 

The way we have adapted in different parts of the world, in different economies, in different industries is outstanding. We have had certain industries almost completely wiped out, but there have been other people within those industries that have gone to flourish. That in itself reflects not only the level of some people’s tenacity but that resilience we have as a whole.

The pandemic didn’t kill us, so to speak. The world didn’t end, although many people at some stage thought it probably was going to. We have seen so much incredible innovation and with this comes opportunity to be leveraged moving forward.

 My biggest piece of advice for surviving a crisis

When you look at the Australian events industry, 96% of this industry was shut down within a matter of months. So that’s almost an entire industry wiped out with only 4% still operating – we were in that 4%.

Like every other company that delivers its value through live events, we got hit, but one of the things that enabled us to not only survive but thrive in the environment was again adaptability.

We were very adaptable. In fact, we were in the middle of a $1 million tour across 11 cities when the COVID situation began to escalate. We eventually had to make the call to swap from live to digital broadcast mid-event and with only a few hours to pull it off.

It all came down to the fact that we had been planning for this for a very long time. One of the things that we do with our clients is we get very clear on not only the plans that are required to achieve their objectives but also the contingencies they need to be aware of in the event that things go wrong – because things always go wrong!

One piece of advice I gave my K2 Elite clients during the pandemic was, while you’re unable to operate at full capacity, use this time to focus on your presence and impact. I think whenever there’s any form of disruption when it comes to business (and this is one that no one saw coming), it comes down to your ability to stay top of mind – your ability to stay relevant. 

Social media gave us the ability to stay top of mind because it gave us an avenue to communicate with people about something that was happening in real-time. We were able to support people and take them through the process as we went through it ourselves.

The big thing that really supported us through this was just having that social media presence and being able to continually deliver value through that presence. 

What business owners stand to gain from the pandemic 

Whenever there’s chaos in any market, especially around a crisis there’s a lot of emotions involved, and when people get emotional, they do different things. In most cases, people do good things but they also do bad things and in some cases silly things. 

But what we always see whenever there’s a substantial crisis is a massive transfer of wealth. This has been historically documented now for hundreds of years and so when we look at a crisis of this kind, we look at all the economic rebound potential that we are just about to walk into.

People have been in lockdown for months with nowhere to go and nothing to spend on so that’s trillions of dollars in savings about to be unlocked. The world is opening up again – we see borders opening, people are able to travel – that money is going to be spent.

We’re going to see a massive rise in spending on leisure activities, entertainment, travel, fitness, and more. All of these areas are expected to boom and economists have predicted our economy to grow by up to 7% this year. 

There’s a lot of economic trends that are pointing towards a post-pandemic boom. I think we’re in for something big and a lot of people just are simply not prepared for it.

The ones that are prepared, the ones that take advantage of it, and the ones that use the right tools to be able to maximise the attention during this rebound are the ones that are really going to grow. Not only that, but they will be the ones to stake a claim for their own brand in the new age that we’re living in – which is very digital.

Three ways to take advantage of the post-pandemic boom

1. You gotta have a plan! 

You need to be planning your next objective and you need to understand that objective strategically. Know why that objective is important and tactically how you can execute on it. That’s one thing I see many businesses lacking. A lot of people didn’t have a plan when COVID came in, and now a lot of people don’t have a plan as it’s coming out.

2. Invest in self-education

Right now there is an enormous amount of change that’s happened in a very short period of time. If you’re not keeping up to date with the changes when it comes to technology, automation, communications, marketing, sales – you’re going to be left behind.

So you’ve got to be investing in yourself, you’ve got to be training yourself, you’ve got to be ‘sharpening the saw to make sure you can cut through that wood quickly’ as Stephen Covey would say. It’s the people that can move quickly that are going to take advantage, and in order to be able to move quickly, you need to have good information. 

3. Understand influence in 2021

Although this is my third tip, it’s definitely the most important. To take advantage of the post-pandemic boom, you really need to understand how influence is conducted in 2021. Look at the top businesses, look at governments, look at anyone with a vested interest in influencing people and you will see it’s through social media.

Social media has become and will continue to be the dominant source of information for people. You need to learn how to create quality, utility content – that’s information that solves a problem or serves a need and gives value.

The opportunity is endless right now, and a lot more people need to double down and invest in the area of communicating through social media in a way that puts them top of mind. That way when the consumer is ready to spend, it’s your business they want to spend with.

So you may have heard the good news...

Fast Growth Summit social media series is back!

The post-pandemic boom is here and it’s your opportunity to take advantage of it. We are on the road again sharing with you the latest and greatest tips and hacks that you can utilise to make money from social media. 

For one time only, attend Fast Growth Summit for FREE (LIVE or VIRTUAL).

Register here: https://kerwinr.ae/3xthd9m