Small Business Owners: How to Look Forward and to Lean In
BY MICHAEL SICURANZA
Depending upon what part of the country you are in, things are beginning to loosen and open up. We all still need to be diligent, smart and protect those who could be at greater risk. Business owners, hopefully, you’ve read and executed my small business triage list. If you have stabilized your business, now it is the time to start thinking about how to maintain great customer relationships and think about growth going forward. Here are some ideas that you can consider as you move forward to getting your business back into growth mode.
Focus on Your Culture – With many working from home currently and probably into the future maintaining the culture of your company is hard. Make sure there are constant check-ins and trouble shoot problems together. Continue to try to and do virtual lunches and happy hours. Remind everyone of what the purpose/mission of the company is.
Be Like George Costanza and Do the Opposite – I remember my brother, who is a business consultant, sending me a McKinsey report in 2011. It was an analysis of the companies that thrived post the 2007-2009 financial crisis. One of the key characteristics of the companies outlined was doing the opposite of conventional wisdom. So instead of shrinking budgets, they expanded them. Instead of laying off employees, they hired or upgraded their talent pool.
Rethink How You Connect with Your Customer – COVID-19 is/has changed the way B2C and B2B interact with each other. Many of the ways we have triaged our businesses have and will become norm. We’ve seen this with the communication tools that all of us been using for the past few months. Businesses need to build out a customer experience that takes into account the new normal and will be table stakes to grow your top and bottom line. This includes creating a great digital, operational and face to face customer experience.
Market Compassionately Not Grossly – I cannot tell you how many emails I’ve gotten over the last 7 week with the headlines “How to get new customers during COVID-19”. These emails just felt gross, inappropriate and not well timed. The best way to “market” right now is to generate valuable content that help lots of people and to be there for your customers on a greater than transactional level. You care about the people you do business with, do they know this? Show them.
COVID-19 fast forwarded several trends that were on the horizon but now are facing us directly. How you handle these trends will greatly determine how well your business does going forward.