You can stay afloat during a grave situation if you reconsider your usual patterns and stop working by inertia.
All businesspeople react differently to crisis and external shocks: some give up, others panic, and only a few begin to work with tripled vigor. Accordingly, those who made every effort to save their business have a better chance of recovering from the crisis. And in this article, you’ll find the particular solutions to keep your company in the hard times and give it a second wind.
# 1 Get Your Head Out of the Sand
The first thing to do is to stop ignoring the problem. It would be best to get out of the crisis’s denial stage and soberly assess the situation. Of course, this isn’t easy due to the natural defense mechanisms of the human body. Usually, people refuse to believe that everything has changed, and they have to adapt to new realities, which is very energy-consuming. However, the farther you go from the problem, the longer it takes to return to it.
The sooner you realize that life has irrevocably changed, the more you’ll have time to negotiate rent discounts before the new deadline and rearrange your marketing to be current. If you find it difficult to concentrate on making a list of things you need to do in moments of stress, take advantage of the best writing services. Qualified professionals will provide information on any issue you are interested in.
# 2 Cut Costs
It’s vital to audit all company expenses and freeze anything that doesn’t lead here and now to money. It would help if you closed projects aimed at long-range profits and those that may not work. Moreover, it’s an excellent time to complete donor-funded projects that take money from a profitable business. The next step is to negotiate discounts with partners and landlords.
Unfortunately, you may even have to move to a smaller office. Then, naturally, you must stop buying snacks and coffee for your employees and stationery and temporarily cut back on expensive packaging. Prepare to have a lot more work to do with your team members. You have to move some of them on a piecework basis and cut back on weak and difficult employees. There are two ways to do this:
- Cut salaries.
- Keep the team as much as possible.
- Reduce the staff by shifting work to the strongest.
Also, it depends on the price of your employees: how many resources it costs to find and train them and what value they represent to the company. If you use the word “temporary,” people are comfortable taking pay cuts. Everybody understands everything. But make sure you get your team together and explain to them your decision that you have a tough choice: either fire them or take a pay cut.
Team members may not perceive it loyally without voicing it since it’s their money. And the last thing worth mentioning in this paragraph is cutting personal expenses, which is pretty obvious. Remember, however, that the only thing you shouldn’t miss during this period is marketing expenses, as will be discussed later in this article.
# 3 Take Care of Marketing
The main rule in this context is to invest only in marketing and advertising for a profitable product. Over time, competitors who advertise randomly will run out of budgets, and there will be a point when leads become cheaper. So it’s an excellent time to put things in order and cut the ineffective ones. If you have the resources, create pent-up demand. Investing now in advertising, even if there are no sales “here and now,” you are investing in future sales. Naturally, it would help if you had a CRM and a sales department.
# 4 Change the Offers
In a crisis, the request with which people are looking for products changes a lot. Thus, you need to quickly update the product and packaging and offer to the current situation. Indeed many people have seen irrelevant ads a lot of times. For example, an ad to visit a barbershop appearing on Instagram during a strict quarantine is an example of a terrible attitude towards marketing. So try to make your business relevant not to lose the customers you already have.
# 5 Don’t Lower Prices and Keep an Eye on Competitors
Weak entrepreneurs operate with discounts instead of subtle solutions in every situation. What’s more, in a crisis, consumables go up, and margins drop all by themselves. This way, there’s no need to lower prices, mainly if the company already worked with low margins. So it makes no sense for the company to operate at a loss or zero.
But it is essential to make prices competitive in conditions of tough competition and slowing down processes. At the same time, you shouldn’t raise the prices too much. The business needs to ensure financial flow without being too attached to margins. Of course, it’s better to think about margins and price increases after the stabilization, but you need the money to flow into your business right now.
# 6 Generate Good News and Offer Shortcuts
In times of crisis, all people lack news, especially negative news. The brain can’t get enough of any amount of information and demands more and more. So, they frantically go through channels looking for more negativity. So, start generating positive information and become a reliable shoulder for your customers.
Then, when the crisis passes, customers will come to you to buy your products. It is also worth bearing in mind that people don’t want to wait in the face of uncertainty. They are interested in what they can get here and now. Consequently, a bright product that closes the problem quickly will win in any competitive struggle.
Conclusion
In difficult times, all people are affected by the socioeconomic situation and the whole emotional and anxious state. But there’s always a way out if you stop complaining and act in a pattern. Of course, it may be unwarranted optimism to say that the crisis is an opportunity. But you can stay afloat during a grave situation if you reconsider your usual patterns and stop working by inertia. And to start with, you can try to use the tips outlined in this article.
