Businesses flourishing during pandemic.

It's been a crazy few weeks in business. COVID19 has presented us with some real challenges.

​I promise I won't try to give any health advice - I will leave that to the health professionals. However, I've spoken with some pretty amazing business owners this week who are being responsive to their client base and not just looking to survive this crazy time, but thrive thereafter.

In my role, I am in a privileged position where I get to see the inside workings of some pretty amazing businesses. With their permission, I want to share with you some fabulous ideas:

Splitting their team into shifts.
This particular business owner has identified that the risk of staff members coming into contact with someone with Coronavirus as pretty high, and getting higher as time goes on. So the risk of his team members needing to go into self-isolation is also pretty high. Rather than wiping his whole team out, and him needing to close his doors for 2 whole weeks, he has split his team into shifts. That way if he does need to put a team into self-isolation, he doesn't have to close his doors. When we spoke this week, he was working out if he splits his team into 2 shifts or 3. Lateral thinking - I like it. I reckon this could be used in a number of businesses that might be in production, manufacturing or trades where working from home is useless for most roles.

Responding to current demand.
I spoke with a lady who owns a cleaning company this week. She has seen clients complain about toilet paper shortages and disinfectant shortages. Traditionally she only sold her cleaning service, but now has extended her offering to included selling toilet paper, paper towel, disinfectant and other cleaning related products. Her clients love her for it and she's making additional sales. Win - win!

Preparing for future demand.
I have spent some time this week with a few different clients who have in place their responsive business models for the short term. What I got very excited about was talking with them about the opportunities for growth that the economic downturn has presented. Once the economy picks up again, they want to be in the drivers seat to take advantage of the market lifting. I was honoured to be part of special conversations this week, ensuring branding and marketing activities align to their overall business strategy. 

Using Zoom video conferencing.
I use Zoom video conferencing regularly for meetings with clients who are based internationally and when we aren't in the same town. I've used it for years now. Thanks for getting me onto it Andrew Griffiths. What is new, is how many times I used it this week; I had every single client and staff meeting over Zoom. I'm very lucky that my role suits video conferencing. Our signwriting team can't make signs via video conference, they need to be on site. What I realised is not everyone knows about Zoom. So this is my gift to you. If you haven't worked it out yet, get on it.

The key take outs from this week in particular have been that the short term pandemic survival plan is different from the long term thriving plan. They can look and feel completely different, however the branding and positioning needs to be consistent.

This post has been written by
​Roxanne Grey
Partner
Grey and Grey