While the pandemic has closed millions of businesses across New York City for the timebeing, it’s unclear when or how reopening will play out in the future. But how can business owners manage at the moment, and plan for growth in the “now”?
“Give yourself time and space for creativity,” advises Rhett Power, CEO of Power Coaching And Consulting who was also named 2018 Best Small Business Coach in the U.S. “To survive and grow right now, you can't operate with a business-as-usual mindset and mentality.”
His bestselling book “The Entrepreneur’s Book of Actions” provides daily exercises for transforming one’s approach to building a business by making the best use of time, energy, and creativity. But with so many businesses in dire need of guidance, he and other innovative leaders share actionable advice for running a business right now--even if your doors are shut.
Rhett Power’s Top Tips For Being Visible (And Ultimately, Profitable)
Power Tip #1:
You don't have to find the path forward to your company's growth alone.
Power Tip #2:
Remember that your customers are online.
If you haven't put much thought into a web or social presence, it's time to rethink your plan. Website domains like .NYC and .US enable so many businesses to establish an online presence complete with contact pages, e-commerce platforms and more.
Online sales and delivery might be the only way to survive for the foreseeable future until people are confident in a vaccine and feel safe sitting in a restaurant or music venue again. For instance, roughly two-thirds (61.4%) of Starbucks guests use the company's app to order.
A good website, app, and a good social media plan will help you expand your presence and reach and could help save your business.
Power Tip #3
Ensure a robust and informative web presence.
Creating a website can be even easier than launching an app or social media account--and it’s something you can do for free and in under an hour. Whether you’re launching or updating your business site, make sure it has all the information your customers need.
For instance, sports and fitness complex Matchpoint is leveraging both its website and social media presence to keep its community fit and moving amid the pandemic. As posted on their Instagram account: “While everyone is social distancing we'll be posting workouts you can do at home! Stay tuned for more! Post your favorite exercises to support our #matchpointnyc community. Tag @matchpointnyc and we will share your workouts with the community. We are in this together.”
While the gym continues to post workouts on Instagram, it also maintains a fully operational and robust website on Matchpoint.NYC, complete with schedule, types of classes, and contact information.
The streaming workouts will undoubtedly boost customer engagement and loyalty. Equally important, consistently providing clear and readily available information about their business online may lock in new members or customers once quarantine ends.
Power Tip #4:
Harness your gratitude to grow.
In times like these you should take time to give thanks. You're probably not thinking much about the positive side of life during this crisis, but you should, especially for your team's sake.
Events like this pandemic create stressors, and those stressors need to be alleviated and talked about as much as possible. Then your team can be calm enough to overcome the challenges in front of them.
Psychologist Robert Emmons breaks this all down for us: "Consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude builds up a sort of psychological immune system that can cushion us when we fall. There is scientific evidence that grateful people are more resilient to stress, whether minor everyday hassles or major personal upheavals."
Power Tip #5:
Tap other voices.
The next time you face a challenge, do yourself and your organization a favor and think about (and reconsider) the voices at the table. Chances are you've been asking the same people for a long time to help you solve problems. That leads to bias and blind spots and bad decisions. Before making big changes, you should bring in additional stakeholders to contribute to a wide variety of perspectives. Your willingness to hear other voices will ultimately lead to better decisions and better results and will undoubtedly lead to a better culture in your organization.
Power Tip #6:
Creative collaborations.
Perspectives can be helpful with reshaping your vision, but collaborations can produce immediate and palpable results. The most successful leaders are surrounded by strong support systems. That means more than just having friends and family in your corner to cheer you on; it also means filling up your network with experts from different spheres of influence, especially in areas where your skills are weakest.
Tap your network to see if there is a need you can fill, and if there are partnerships that might make sense right now. Right now, I am partnering with other speakers and coaches to develop new ways to deliver our products. Ultimately that will help us all be better and deliver our product in a way the customer needs it.
Power Tip #7:
Take ideas all the way.
Don't be afraid of big ideas. Particularly in the brainstorming and early phase of a project, it's easy to shrink ideas down to a more manageable size and scope. The problem is this short-circuits creativity and limits your options in the future, warns Duncan Wardle, founder of iD8 & innov8, a creative consulting company.
"You can always take a great, well-thought-out idea that's ultimately too large and 'value-engineer' it smaller, but you can't take a small idea and make it bigger later," says Wardle, who’s also the former head of innovation and creativity at Disney.
So right now, all big ideas need to be on the table. Rather than dampening your team's enthusiasm for a new idea, encourage the group to extend an idea to its fullest.
MakerSpace serves as the perfect example of taking on big ideas. While the community workspace has shuttered its Staten Island and Brooklyn locations, they posted the following update on their MakerSpace.NYC site: “Please note that during this crisis, both locations are closed to members and the public. We look forward to reopening soon. In the meantime, we are using both spaces to produce PPE for healthcare and other essential workers.”
Talk about boldly taking on big ideas! We applaud their team for their relief efforts.