Covid-19 has made our lives musical with no tunes match! Isn’t it? Whoever meets at the street, cries for this challenging time of economic down days. It’s not just the business sector but even the employed are facing the same tough time. Enough! We have had during the last three months of 2020 was a big learning and that is – we cannot stay infinitely competitive.
The market is no man’s land-
See past and present, and a must-see in the future, the market has never been completely your arena. Covid-19 is big trouble, but honestly, almost all businesses have had the troubles round the clock. COVID-19has just given the pause of those troubles and actually given the time to re-think on are you on right track? Let’s see those troubles – Working Capital, Investments, Finance, Labourers, Government Policy, Taxation, Shareholders, Vendors, Timely Supplies, Production, Storage, Training, Administration, Expansion, Competitors, Service Quality, After Sales, Customer Satisfaction and one can keep counting many more of such. Take a breath and think, how was your life as a businessman and during the last three months what have you done? The concern is not that you are down with bucks; the concern is that you are not in the business environment and God has given you a vacation that you had never planned.
Doing things differently-
We have been using this phrase and suggesting to people – ‘Doing the things differently’. Now, this is actually a time when we apply this advice on ourselves first. Almost every one of us was the zero starters! There are successful businessmen who have been using the best of the PR practices and were narrating their journey as successful entrepreneurs. Their success was started from the first day of laying the stone of their business, as setting up a business itself is a decision to commit providing employment to many. You are successful if you are committing to provide employment! Coz others look up to you in these critical times as their leaders and expect you to pump new blood in the veins to do the things differently!
Deploy the best of the Marketing Communications team-
Like most of the entrepreneurs have built their own empire by using the stones thrown by various challenges, consider Covid-19 as a big stone that can help us to create a multi-storied empire. Use the best of the marketing communication practices which most of us have stopped applying to save the bucks at this pandemic period. Business churns only with sales and sales is the tail of marketing. Using brand value one can start setting up new marketing communication strategies. Marketing Communication is the blood of business; stopping it from reaching in the veins means not curing the wound. Use the horsepower of marketing communication and reach to the customers with a new approach – offline/online and whatnot.
Praise if you can’t appraise-
Now, look at the human resources whom you have given salary cut or an ultimatum to sack if not performing. Do a small anonymous survey among them and find out how many of them are concerned about job loss? Whoever are concerned is the real gem in the system and should be motivated by not cash but the kind. A few days back there was a LinkedIn post by some genius asking ‘Appraisal is just about salary hike? Or it’s beyond it?’ Be innovative and think if you are praising and acknowledging the efforts of everyone in the organization by addressing them a personal letter of appraisal and mentioning the reason for not giving a salary hike due to business loss during Covid-19. Additionally, you are giving designation promotion without a salary hike to set the positive sentiments in the team. How does it sound? The confidence in you will go up and the team will definitely get motivated, isn’t it? Try it out this time and give yourself another chance to prove.
Using the loyalty earned-
Customer loyalty, Supplier loyalty, Employee loyalty, and many more such stakeholders’ loyalty is reserved with you. This is the best time of using this loyalty. You have always paid more than price to maintain relations, and that is your commitment. Commitment to the stakeholders has helped you to earn endless loyalty. The conversation at this time with these stakeholders will help you to re-start and gain confidence in doing things differently.
Do not wait now! Start planning and show the world your way of doing things differently! Cheers!