A Word From Our Founder - COVID19

It’s awful to hear many so many different stories about how covid-19 is affecting your businesses. It seems so unfair, but shows with corporate events what a vulnerable industry we are in. We rely on other businesses doing well. It’s a generally reactive industry with no guarantees of if, when or where the next enquiries will come from at the best, but no one could have expected something like this to happen in our lifetime. My sincere hopes are that you all find a way through.

I’ve always been the optimist and believe that if you plan well now you’ll be better placed than ever to be up and running with business returning later in the year.

I guess for a lot there will be cost cutting exercises in the short term and my heart goes out to those effected, but if you can find a way forward now is a great to time to perhaps focus on those duties you don’t always get round to or simply choose something else in favour of them!

My advice is to sort out your short-term costs and then focus on these areas:

• Cleanse your CRM or Database (sort and close old contacts, update the new)
• Keep your business profiles public. Look at low cost options to market and keep yourself seen and be ready for when the surge happens.
• Clear out unwanted stock. Give to a charity for some exposure or try to sell stock on something like Shopify or Ebay. This may help reduce storage costs too as stock disappears.
• Create a plan that works for your business should something like this happen again. This will help you enter that period with a much clearer head than you probably have right now.
• By testing with people working from home ask yourself, do we really need an office? Appointments can be held anywhere and there’s software now that can give you that virtual office experience with you and the team all working from home offices. This can save the business rent and perhaps phone lines, broadband etc…. too. Oh, and your staff save a fortune in petrol costs which will please them no end!
• Ask for help. Your suppliers may be able to give you some short term relief of payment or discount. They will want you as a customer forever remember and the most they can say is no……so make sure you ask everyone for help.

I understand that you’ll all be working through your own circumstances and not all of the above will apply to you, but for those that it does, I hope it helps in some way.