If you want your business to flourish during COVID-19, you’re going to want to take these next steps. It’s been predicted that a lot of industries will suffer due to lack of consumers and lack of money. We can look to China as the first survivor of a shutdown economy and can evaluate what the successful companies did.
Here’s what you should do now to try to survive.
Shift your sales strategy and employees to online
Since most things have already shifted online, this is a necessity. In China, those who shifted their sales strategy online were available to avoid heavy losses. Already online shopping has increased, by 57% actually as reported by Rep Points. This could have a long-lasting impact on e-commerce and could be the new norm in a post-pandemic world.
According to the Harvard Business Review, one cosmetic company in Wuhan closed 40% of its stores and brought the 100+ beauty advisors online to engage customers virtually. This increased their sales by 200% compared to prior years. To do this you can sell on social media, putting your email list to use, and using a video to reach new leads. This is also a great example of retraining staff.
In China, Master Kong, a leading instant noodle and beverage producer, reviewed their dynamics daily and then reprioritized efforts consistently. By doing this, he was able to anticipate hoarding and stock out. It also turned the focus away from offline, large, retail channels to e-commerce, and smaller stores. They were able to adapt their supply chain because of the consistent tracking. This lead to the supply chain recovering by more than 50%, just weeks after the outbreak. This also leads to them being able to supply 60% of the stores that we reopened. This was three times as many compared to some competitors.
Plan for long term
Reported in SmallBizTrends, 27% of businesses expect the coronavirus to have moderate to high impact on their revenue. Another 30% expects the virus to impact their supply chain, ranging from a moderate to a high impact. And that’s right to assume. In China, retail fell 21% and industrial production fell 13.5% in the first two months of the year.
To get ahead, speak to your supplier, investors, partners, and locals to start to implement safeguards that will help you stay out of the red.
Expect different recovery speeds for different sectors
It shouldn’t be a shock that different sectors recover at different rates, and China proved this. While the stock market fell across all industries two weeks after China’s epidemic sped up, software and services, and healthcare equipment and services recovered within a few days and have since increased. The opposite, the hardest-hit sectors, like transportation, retail, and energy are still down and showing minimal signs of recovery.
This means you should reevaluate your business approach. One global food and beverage conglomerate used the crisis to add new products, like health-relevant products, imported products, and online sales channels, to their inventory.
Another example is when an insurance industry added free coronavirus-related coverage to its products. This lead to an expected 30% increase in insurance income. This is because this serves a customer need while also promoting awareness of the company’s offers and improved loyalty. What’s something similar you can do?
Some other tips that don’t need as much explanation are using top-down leadership and create security for employees. If your business needs help using digital marketing to make it through COVID-19 contact us today!
