Rebuilding Your Small Business After A Pandemic

Due to the spread of COVID-19, millions of small businesses have been forced to close their doors, and some may never recover. Now more than ever, small business issues are taking center stage in state and policy discussions as legislators recognize the importance of entrepreneurship to our economy and act to implement policies to help small businesses through this crisis. But, how do we ensure these policy actions truly benefit entrepreneurs, and how do we keep the conversation focused on small businesses post-pandemic?

In order to come back stronger, companies should reimagine their business model as they return to full speed. The moment is not to be lost - those who step up their game will be better off and far more ready to confront the challenges—and opportunities—of the next normal than those who do not.

Rethink your business strategy

Due to COVID-19, most small business plans have become outdated aspirations. If the pandemic has rendered your plan obsolete, it’s time to start fresh.

• state. This would be a good time to reevaluate your SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
• Determine Your Goals: Your previous goals might be unattainable now, and that’s okay. What’s going to be your new 12-month, 3-year, and 5-year goals? How quickly do you plan to recover and get back to business as usual? 
• Analyze the State of Your Industry and Customers: Revisit your customer persona so you can have better empathy for your clients and provide them the services they need right now.
• Investigate Your Indirect and Direct Competitors: Remember, healthy competition is good for business. Think of ways you can team up or work together to keep everyone going strong.
• Strategize How You Will Make Your Goals a Reality: Now, it’s time to make a detailed plan for how you’re going to make your business dreams come true. If you plan on reclaiming all your lost clients, how are you going to make it happen? Where are you going to find the financing to fund your rebuilding projects?
• Transform Your Knowledge into the Business Plan: Put all your answers, tactics, and knowledge together into a formalized plan with everything from your executive summary to your financial strategy. By maintaining one source of truth, you can seamlessly keep your entire team synced on the direction and focus of the business.

a> Secure Necessary Capital

Right now, focus on securing the capital you need to survive. 

After the survival period is over, inventory will need to be restocked, orders fulfilled, marketing campaigns reactivated, and more—business as usual. Except your cash flow is going to be stretched 

Silver Lining: The whole country has come together to support small businesses. The government, state and city governments, tech companies, nonprofits, and more are providing financial assistance to keep small businesses going.

b> Rebuild Your Dream Team

If you laid off employees to keep the business from going under, it’s time to rebuild your staff. You’re going to need to find, hire, train, and retain a new team. You’ll likely be able to get previous members of your staff back, but some will have moved on. It’ll take money, and it won’t happen overnight, but you’ll eventually rebuild your team. 

People need jobs, and your business needs people. Start doing your initial research now so you can recruit the top talent when the time is right.

Silver Lining: Conflicting role responsibilities can lead to costly deficiencies. As time goes on, you may have too many experts in one talent and too few in another—these overlapping skill sets limit certain employees. Now, with a fresh slate, you can hire for precisely what your business needs.

c> Reclaim Your Customers

When these closures lift, you’re going to need to act fast, reopen, and reclaim your customers. For example, gym-goers will need to return to the gym. If you’re slow to reopen your doors, your former clients may sign a contract with another gym. 

It’s nothing personal, but customers are anxious to return to normal life, and they might be willing to get a haircut with someone new rather than allowing their long flowing locks to run wild. Be ready to reactivate your marketing campaigns and execute your communications strategy. Communicate by email, text message, social media, blog posts, physical signs on your storefront, flyers—anything and everything to keep your customers updated.

A big step in rebuilding your business will be reclaiming your loyal clients. You’ll need this predictable income to sustain your business’s recovery. Make your customers one of your top priorities.

Silver Lining: This crisis may have exposed new customers to your business. Individuals trying to support their local economy may try your business, and they may become regulars even after the pandemic ends.

d> Restock Your Inventory

When things started turning ugly, you may have sold your inventory at a discount to get the necessary cash to pay the bills. Or, if you’re in the food and beverage industry, you may have decided to donate all your goods before they spoiled. Regardless, once you return to work, you’ll need to restock the shelves and rebuild your inventory.

Keep in mind that your customers have likely been going without your product or service for weeks or months now. When you reopen your doors, you may have an initial influx as customers stock up on goods they’ve missed out on. To avoid turning away clients, you’ll need to make sure you have sufficient stock from the get-go.

It’ll be tricky to stock your shelves if you typically fund your inventory with sales. This situation is where a bit of financing comes in handy. A business line of credit, short term loan, or merchant cash advance could provide you with the ready-to-use cash you need to resupply before the doors open.

Silver Lining: If you’re like most small businesses, then your backroom gets a little more cluttered year after year. Now, you have a fresh slate—no old inventory taking up valuable space. Get your systems and processes in order so you can keep it that way.

e> Cut Wasted Expenses

COVID-19 taught everyone what’s truly essential and what’s not. Small businesses learned how to get lean, cut costs, and operate on the bare minimum when times got hard. Once your doors reopen, continue with that frugal mindset and watch your profit margins soar.

Silver Lining: COVID-19 taught us how to do more with less. Continue with your newfound frugal mindset to cut costs and save cash.

f> Identify Opportunities

This pandemic has been hard on everyone. There’s been a lot of change in a short amount of time, and these changes have sparked opportunities. Think of the emerging possibilities:

• New talent is available, and they’re eagerly looking for jobs
• Prime real estate may have been vacated
• Product and service gaps may have arisen in your community
• It’s about doing what’s best for your business, employees, customers and communities.

Silver Lining: Seizing an opportunity for your business might not just benefit you—it may help other employees, businesses, and the community as a whole.

g> Prepare For Tomorrow 

It’s easy to think “things couldn’t get worse,” but the reality is that they can. Things can get a lot worse.

Take this opportunity to start preparing for the next disaster:

• Build a sufficient cash cushion: If your rainy-day fund wasn’t adequate before, start saving more and secure a business line of credit to provide you the capital you’ll need.
• Prepare alternative business plans: COVID-19 taught us that it’s not enough to have a solid plan. You need a backup plan and another plan to back that up. 
• Change your policies: Those without remote policies in place before the pandemic faced a harsh transition when businesses closed their offices. Remote work is the future, so the sooner you adopt it, the better you’ll be able to handle calamities like the coronavirus.

Final thoughts…

If you take the right steps, you can turn this calamity around and rise like a phoenix from the ashes. It’s up to you now. It’s time to rise and rebuild.