Thriving businesses in the age of Corona

The Coronavirus / Covid-19 pandemic has caused chaos for the economy but the bulk of the pain by far has been felt by small businesses all around the world.

It's no secret by now that many people worldwide are starting to file for unemployment whilst businesses have been forced to shut down or severely limit their operations.

You can find thousands of hours worth of stories about the sadness and depression currently plaguing the small business landscape but I'll spend this time speaking about all the businesses doing well.

Deep Cuts Dallas owner Nathan Abeyta's business has been booming thanks to a major turn-up on March 22, 2020. He said if he could describe the turn-up with one word, that word would be "insanity".

Nathan said that “This hit us out of the blue. It’s like Christmas sales [except] it’s all random orders: for bacon, pastas, sweet potatoes, pork fat, stock bones, chicken. Everybody’s seeing the absurdity of the situation and filling their freezers,” he says.

Dairy farms are also seeing a huge surge in sales. Business is doubling in an industry where it's typically a feast or famine scenario. Almost never in the safe middle. Erica DeSmet with DeSmet Dairy in Bosque Farms said that "in addition to milk and eggs, yogurt is also flying off the shelves at super-speed because people are stocking up at the grocery stores.

Orders are up 40% for the Freehold, New Jersey-based meal prep and delivery service, Eat Clean Bro. The minimally reported trend continues with businesses like Cannizaro Sauces who've benefited from a 40% increase on orders as their fresh tomato sauces fly off the shelves of local grocery stores and Allwood Recyclers, a small landscaping and materials company out of Fairview, Oregon who said that normally, they don't start-up until May, but they started early and are pumping out 12-15 deliveries a day with all hands on deck.

Some minority-owned businesses in the grocery and supermarket space are also seeing surges in sales that in many cases, have never been seen before because typically they exist in largely diverse or predominately minority communities where the shoppers tend to reflect the ownership, but the coronavirus has caused shortages at the most mainstream businesses and cause a cross-pollination of white shoppers to find rare and desperately-wanted items in places they would otherwise never have visited.

Inside the South Los Angeles's own Glady’s 98 Cent and Up Store, working-class residents have been stockpiling canned food and toilet tissue. A customer by the name of Marlon Chavarria had to hold up his pants as he sprinted to the store to pick up 3 boxes of toilet paper. People were literally shopping for toilet tissue as if they were shopping for a week's worth of groceries.

Some businesses like Mad River Distillers in Warren, Vt. have gone the extra mile by repurposing their alcohol for hand-sanitizer to nip away at the shortages seen in their local community. They have been providing their DIY hand-sanitizers to small groups of people they are familiar with within the local food industry. Better yet, they have been giving it away for free! Mad River has also been fortunate enough to avoid laying off its small staff of 12 people by redirecting them towards other duties, like social media outreach.

On the tech side of things, revenues by more than 1,000% year over year in just the past week have spiked at PhoneSoap, a Utah-based company that makes devices to clean phones and other items with UV light. I remember when their product first debuted and I thought about buying one before opting for the cheaper disinfectant wipe and a paper towel. Now they seem to be hotter than pancakes for the time being at least, and likely for 1-2 years after.

If you are working remotely like me, you are likely enjoying the flexibility of communication tools like Slack, so it comes at no surprise that they are also seeing increased usage. I predict that businesses will finally embrace the idea of a remote workforce as a legitimate and surefire way to get work done in the future. Many employees, particularly younger employees, have been requesting the flexibility and perk of remote working for the better part of the last 10 years. Honestly, the technology is mature and ready enough for that in 2020. The adoption of this way of working will likely be one of the possible positive reactions of the coronavirus.

These no doubt that pain is being felt across the globe but rays of sunlight are shining through for many underdogs. Times like this always prove that things will get worse before it ever gets better. Many of the businesses to survive the drought season will survive primarily because they had cash in reserve, not because of any special marketing strategy or a silver bullet that makes customers forget that we are in the middle of a pandemic.

For businesses going through a hard time or slowly falling into a dizzy spell, here are a few steps to follow to help lighten the blow:

1. Try to help those in your local or extended business community. The more you help others worse off than you, the better you’ll feel. And, who knows what may come out of your good karma in the future.
2. Strongly consider exploring or activating new revenue sources to help diversify your business revenue streams. The more, the better. Aim for 3 as a starter, but 3 that you can comfortably manage.
3. Revisit your business's strategic plan and make some changes. You should start attacking some long-delayed items on your wishlist if they still fit in with your plan after your review. This may be the time to cut back on expenses but don't discount the work and strategy you could still be working on at little cost.
4. Allow your employees to work remotely from home and establish the new rules under this arrangement. This will require an investment into some technologies like Slack, Asana, and other tools that are central to your specific business. Figure out and list all the functions within your business that can be managed remotely to clearly identify what requires on-location presence. You would also be wise to revisit your payroll and compensation arrangements for all remote employees to fairly and strategically reduce pay if necessary for productivity or sales-based roles.
5. Invest in marketing and sales like never before. If you are now finding yourself using your social media more because of the hard pivot to take-out

Jeremy M. Williams is the Chief Code Architect / Growth Strategist @ Vyudu, Inc. | An App Design & Growth Lab. We build websites and apps with elegance and beauty so that people are more attracted to your business.

If you or any business that you know needs help keeping the doors and online operations of your business open, please reach out to me at [email protected]

Written By: Jeremy M. Williams, Vyudu Inc.