COVID-19 is an infectious disease that has been causing worldwide concern for some time now, As a result, many small business owners are wondering how they are going to survive. There are New York bodegas trying to figure out how they will make rent. Also, there are gyms that are trying to understand how long it will be until people feel comfortable working out again. Furthermore, there are restaurants that have no idea how they will be able to come out on the other side of this crisis. There are people trying to find an off-market property.
Of course, there are some innovative entrepreneurs that will be able to figure out how to survive COVID-19. One thing is for sure: business owners will have to come up with creative solutions to figure out how to generate revenue. Here are some tips for business owners to survive COVID-19.
Related: 10 Ecommerce Predictions Influenced by COVID-19
Think Digitally
People are going to be staying in their homes, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t still need your business. If you are a restaurant that has never partnered with a delivery service – you might want to reconsider during this time. Similarly, if you are a personal trainer, you might want to touch base with clients and let them know that you are available for online lessons of some sort.
For ecommerce and brick-and-mortar shops, going digital is inevitable and in order to provide stellar customer experience, you need to better your competition. You may consider implementing augmented reality solutions to simplify purchasing, boost sales and increase brand awareness. When it comes to improving your customer shopping experiences where they can find your products on both your own website and the marketplaces, for example, integrating Shopify with Etsy is a wise choice.
Bonus resource - Learn how to start an Etsy shop
Ultimately, people still need products and services. If there is a way to access these products/services online, why not take advantage of that? If you are a thought leader or influencer, you might want to consider teaching a course on Skillshare for some extra revenue, for example.
Related: 30 Experts Discuss Their BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) Predictions for 2020
Put the Big Plans on Hold
Entrepreneurs can often be stubborn, and often take a “my way or the highway” approach to business. It might even be one of the reasons that they are a successful business owner! However, there is no doubt that spending exorbitant amounts of money to expand right now might not be the best idea in the wake of COVID-19.
You might have been planning on opening another location or gearing up for a massive marketing campaign. It won’t be easy – but consider delaying these big plans for some time, or at least until COVID-19 subsides. If a business is going to survive, it will take a lot of communication about what the future holds. You may want to invest in a tool like MeetFox to encourage communication and collaboration regarding your next move. It is the simplest tool to meet your clients online.
Offer Deals
It’s not just your business that’s suffering – there are many people all over the world that are out of work. If you want to generate revenue, you will have to keep that in mind. It doesn’t matter if you run a coffee shop or an art gallery. Either way, now it would be time to offer some incredible deals to try and get your customers excited about your business again. Millions of Americans will be going on unemployment thanks to COVID-19, so it’s not as if they have plenty of disposable income to spend.
Business owners might want to partner up with Groupon to help garner some more interest in your business since people are trying to save more money than before. Either way, remember to keep in mind that there are plenty of people that aren’t receiving paychecks during this time – and ignoring that might prove to be a mistake.
Go through the State of Marketing Report post-COVID-19 to better market your brand.
Check Out the Competition
Entrepreneurs and business owners can often have tunnel vision when it comes to their business and the vision that they want to execute. However, you might want to take this downtime to research the competition. COVID-19 might make it so that you have a lot more free time – so why not research your competitors and figure out how you can gain more market share?
Business owners might want to check out Komptye, to make sure that they remain a step ahead of the competition. One of the great things about Komptye is that you can find out about what the competition is changing or removing on their website. Also, you have access to in-depth reports regarding competitors, as well.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there are many business owners that were already having trouble before COVID-19. There are other entrepreneurs that will be able to weather the storm and are using this time to come up with some creative and innovative concepts. Either way, business owners might have to think outside of the box in order to survive COVID-19 – depending on the sector or industry.
Related: Online Business Advice
At the end of the day, business owners should be using this time wisely to figure out future strategies. If your business relies on foot traffic, for example, you will want to figure out how to pivot towards some kind of online business model. You also might want to research competitors and figure out what they are doing that works, whether it has to do with marketing, customer service, or price points. It isn’t easy to survive COVID-19, but it certainly is possible.
