We are living in interesting times indeed. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on businesses across the globe. While these are challenging times, we are not without hope.
At Jester, we understand your need to do everything possible to keep your business afloat during these difficult times, and we are here to help. We are experts at helping businesses to get online and to that end, we wanted to offer you some tips to help you build a strong online brand that will attract new business opportunities and assist you in maintaining your existing client base as well.
Maintaining Your Brand is Key
There has never been a more important time for you to be communicating with your clients. It’s time to beef up your social media channels and get some fresh content on your web site. Let people know that you’re still here, ready to serve in whatever capacity you’re able. Reassure your existing customers about the steps you are taking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (working from home, social distancing, hygiene practices), and let people know that while it may not be “business as usual” right now, that you are still in business and ready to help.
Beef Up Your Toolkit
If you’re going to do more business online you need to have the right tools. Face to face meetings are now screen to screen meetings, and that’s okay because there are plenty of online conferencing tools out there get you up and running easily and quickly. Project management, online team communication and virtual meetings are the way of the future, and starting now, you can get a jump on this new way of doing business by setting yourself and your team up with the right tools.
Stay Connected
In-person coffee dates might not be feasible right now but there’s no reason to eliminate them completely! Staying connected with your network in a time of crisis is vital to your business health AND your own mental health. Just because you are physically isolated does not mean you have to stop connecting with others. Arrange a Skype coffee date with one or a few of your clients, colleagues or friends. Sharing information is critical right now and even a short online meeting or chat can help to clear your head and open you up to new ideas.
Get Creative
Do you have a skill that you can share with people online? Maybe it’s not the core of your business at the moment, but if you have an area of expertise that you think others could benefit from at this time, get the word out! There are all kinds of creative ways to share your expertise and experience to an online audience, from webinars to video chats to online courses and more. Getting creative about how you share what you know can open up new and exciting opportunities for your business that you may not even have thought of before all of this happened.
At the same time, this could be a good time to upgrade your skills! There are numerous opportunities for doing training online, and in fact, that is one of our specialties.
What we need to remember is that this too shall pass. In the meantime though, we may need to reinvent ourselves a bit, for the health and success of ourselves, our businesses and the people around us. Frame this as a time of new ideas and new opportunities, and it just might lessen the blow.
Need help figuring out the next steps for your business? Jester is here to help. Contact one of our experts today.