5 tips to help your small business restart post-COVID, Coronavirus Economy Impact

5 tips to help your small business restart post-COVID

11 June 2020

Getting back up: 5 tips to help your small business restart post-COVID

With many countries’ governments relaxing the lockdown procedure in their states, small businesses worldwide have started gearing up to go back to their stores.

But before they do that, there is a big question that needs answering: how would they recover from all the havoc they’ve suffered in the past few months?

As a small business owner, how do you get your employees back to work without compromising their health? How can you assure customers that your business is a safe place to be? What about the money you need to get back on track, where do you find it?

5 tips to help your small business after COVID-19

These are some of the questions you’ll most likely need to find answers to before you open those doors again.

Luckily for you, the answers you seek are within the lines of this post.

Creating a detailed restart strategy

There is no denying that the virus has put a lot of things in jeopardy. As such, businesses would need to first create a detailed strategy on how they intend to open their doors before proceeding to do so.

Of course, you don’t just expect sales to ramp up overnight or your old customers to come visiting the first day you open again. But in preparation for this, you need to map out how things will run from now until your business is back in shape: that is, create a detailed strategy to follow.

This strategy will guide production, supply chain, marketing, and sales efforts. The restart day or phase is not the time to review old targets or set new ones; instead, you just want to map out how your business will survive until you’re back to full speed.

Reassessing your sales efforts

If you run a brick and mortar store business, you’re likely used to people walking down to your store and getting their items. Alas, business owners, this might change post-COVID. With almost everyone now used to ordering goods and services online, no thanks to Coronavirus, it would take a while before people revert back to the old system of going to stores to pick things up.

So before you open your doors again, you have to reassess your sales efforts. Do you still want to stick with the old system where customers have to walk down to your store, or you want to incorporate a digital store? My advice, please go digital. At least that way, you would be able to meet the demands of those customers that are still reluctant to come out to do business.

For your digital store, you’ll need to check out an articles website to get the word about the existence of your store out to new and existing customers. RankWisely is a good place to find these marketing posts – see https://www.rankwisely.com/

Provide your customers with the guarantees they need

After this pandemic, people will be greatly concerned about their health and overall hygiene more than ever before. As such, you want to follow all the health guidelines that have been put in place in your state to assure potential and old clients that your business environment is still a safe space.

This could mean investing in gun thermometers to check people’s temperature at entry points, offering sanitizers to visiting clients, and constantly educating people about the importance of good hygiene.

By and large, you need to be ready to cater to the new health demands of the public.

Reviving demand

Irrespective of what your business deals in, you shouldn’t be too surprised by a lack of sales in the first few days/weeks/months after the restart.

The world has just survived a global economic hardship, and as such, it might take a while before people return to their old purchasing habits.

But, of course, you can’t wait around for them. You need to take action to motivate and revive your customer base.

To do this, you can start by offering some promotional discounts, free delivery services, and other bonuses to entice new and old clients.

Consider how much you need and where you’re getting it

Unless you had a wealth of fortune going into the pandemic, it’s likely that you will need some working capital to jump-start your business operations coming out of it. So before you rush into opening your doors again, it is important that you first put into writing how much working capital you think you’ll be needing to get things up and running again.

Of course, there are lots of funding options for you to look into, depending on your state. For example, the SBA is an obvious choice for business loans. Alternatively, you can look around your state for any COVID-19 business relief funding program. Trust me; you’ll most likely find one.

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