Forced Change: how small businesses have taken charge of their destiny

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted and take it from me, I have lots of unfinished blogs of great wisdom and advice of marketing for your business sitting in the background. I might have some time in the near future to finish them but I feel that now isn’t a time to educate but more to share and give a hoorah out to some of the things I’ve seen recently.

We’ve all been reading a lot about the changing business environment and the sudden impact that COVID-19 has had on everybody’s lives – actually if you haven’t can you please tell me how you are managing to hide away!

One of the things that I’ve noticed and, which has impressed me, is the way that many small local businesses around me have responded to this disastrous situation.

In times of change like these, it’s a natural reaction for people to stick with what they know and take comfort from this but what I am proud to see is, that businesses are thriving by making some small simple changes which I wanted to share as we can all take not only learnings, but inspiration from each small change.

  • the local butcher has added on a local delivery service
  • the local bookstore is doing home deliveries and has launched an online store
  • the local community has created a Facebook page for people to register for assistance, whether it be to get to an appointment, find toilet paper, get some groceries, ANYTHING
  • Businesses have very quickly moved employees in to online environments and video conferences from the kitchen table (with kids running around in the background) is the new norm
  • Schools have set up virtual classrooms and “home work” is going to take the place of classroom teaching for the short while
  • Choirs of thousands of people are singing the same song from their lounge room and it’s being shared around the world
  • Celebrities are reading books to children through instagram and online via soundcloud
  • Gyms have converted their classes to online virtual fitness programs
  • Similarly you can also do workouts with the likes of “Thor” and his group of fitness gurus

This is just a short list but it is amazing to see that, given the challenge, so many businesses and people have stepped up to support customers and neighbours alike.

Post this, it’s going to be interesting to sit back and review the actions that were taken and how we can learn from these and adapt speed and flexibility back in to our every day business lives. To understand what values we derived from this situation and how we can learn about our responses and those of our peers in order to improve the future.

So well done to all of you out there who have not let this beat you. Challenges are certainly ahead, but you’ve succeeded so far and it’s going to be great to see what each and everyone of you do next.

Keep surviving and good luck to all of you!

©The Marketing Elf
March 2020

 

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