We know Covid-19 is on it’s way.
Covid-19 certainly seems to be dictating the rate of change of the business right now.
The Health Minister in the UK announced that she has contracted the virus. We know that it’s going to make an impact, but what as a business should we be doing?
It’s clear we are going to need to work in a world where there is no face-to-face meetings. This will have a massive impact on the sales process at a time when there is likely to be a slow down in business.
Mark Schaefer recently said in a blog “you have 24 hours to be angry, then you need to get over it.”
So what practical steps can you implement?
Stop any unnecessary spending, the priority needs to be on weathering this storm for the business. Spend should be on support of the employees in terms of their day-to-day and want they will need to support them to help you sell.
There needs to be a realism that business will not take place face-to-face and we need to work how to support this. It would be “normal” to offer staff a conference calling platform. And allow people to work from home.
In addition we would suggest looking at tools like LinkedIn. This will enable people to get the depth of relationship.
Get people to update their LinkedIn profiles. After all, this is your shop window to the world. With no face-to-face meetings and more people using social your business needs to show it’s best position. There is a saying that everybody is in sales, everybody is also in branding.
Connect, connect, connect, you should spend time connecting to your prospects, customers and account influencers. Again, if you are not going to have face-to-face meetings then you need to get the depth of relationship somehow.
One trick that is so often missed by a business is the need to connect wide and deep in accounts. Leaders know leaders and the leaders in your business need to make connections as a leadership level.
Don’t forget to connect to each other across the business, this allows each of you to sit in each other’s network.
Reconnect to people you have not spoken to for a long time.
Run a webinar.
Write a blog, share you experiences.
It’s terrible to hear about the Covid-19 deaths people are losing loved ones. People are stuck on cruise ships, which I’m sure the novelty would wear off very quickly. This is also a time where we can sit back and hope or try and take control and turn the challenge into an opportunity.
We will get over this, leadership and life is about an ever changing environment and with some clever preparation we will over come it.
When one of Louise Halford's staff members returned from a ski trip with flu-like symptoms, she advised him to work from home rather than risk bringing the coronavirus into the office. Ms Halford also decided to work from home after feeling some possible symptoms as well. "We work with someone who has a compromised immune system, so I don't want to take any chances," says Ms Halford, co-founder of Manchester-based Evolve Family Law.
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