5 Things You Must Do Today to Save Your Business

After years of being in business, some owners get stuck in a rut. That is, they do the same things day in and day out, without adapting to the changes happening around them. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic forced many business owners into reinvention – and some have discovered that it’s not so bad.

1. Don’t panic! All small business owners right now are going through various feelings of anxiety and you need to slow that down – it’s not going to help you or your business. Take inventory. What is causing you stress the most? If it’s the news, stop watching or limit yourself to 5-10 minutes daily – preferably not first thing in the morning. Start every day by grounding yourself and setting a positive intention for the day. Then you can bring yourself up to date (the news is moving so fast the reality is that even if you were on it all day long, you still wouldn’t be caught up so there is no point in obsessing).
   
   If social media is doing the same then the same tactic will work for that as well. Seek out the positive and inspirational and stay away from the fear and negativity. Start every day with an intention and end every day with writing down the positive things that happened to you. Journals are great for this if you don’t have a journal a blank piece of paper will do. Writing things down make them stick. Don’t focus on the things you don’t have or used to have, go into a rebuilding mode and think about the possibility for the future. How can you do things differently when you rebuild, what are the positive changes you can make in your life.

2. Create or Stick With a Regular Routine – There are a lot of social media posts right now about staying in pajamas and not wearing a bra – where that is definitely a fun distraction, don’t make that a habit. Sticking to a routine that has you getting up in the morning, showering and getting dressed is important to good mental health and well-being. When you get dressed every day it changes your mindset, suddenly you are ready for anything the day throws at you. I have worked from home now for almost 6 years and I always get up and get dressed for the day. I even have “weekday” clothes and “weekend” clothes to help me distinguish the difference (funny that my dogs even know the difference). No track pants and sweats for me during the week when I am working and when I put those on on the weekend, my brain automatically shifts into relax-mode. Don’t take “relax-mode” for granted, you will need that later.

3. Communicate Positively – Connect with your customers and suppliers in a supportive way. Everyone is pretty much in this together so it definitely levels the playing field. Reach out and ask them how they are doing by email or better yet by phone. Be you. You don’t need to create anything official and formal, just be you. Now is the time to use your own voice in a positive and supportive way. Be careful of spreading doom and gloom, pick your customers and suppliers up, don’t wallow – create an intension that with every correspondence, you will pick someone up, not hold someone down.
   
   Depending on your business you can find a creative way of checking in. Use social media like a lot of healthcare professionals are doing by setting up online workouts and Facebook lives, email (one-to-one if you can or at least personalize group emails) or just pick up the phone. If you have updates as to business hours or services, be sure to post them to your website in a prominent spot.

4. Go Through Your To-Do List – Are there things in your business that you have been putting off until you had more time? Now’s the time to get those things organized and done. Do you have equipment that you can fix? A storeroom to clean, files to purge, or even organize a massive inbox (mine has over 10,000 emails in it!) or clean up a messy desktop. Tasks like this not only help keep your mind busy but also will help you to hit the ground running when restrictions start to ease up.

Here are a few “marketing” things you can be working on:

• Create or update your marketing plan – do it as a “perfect world” scenario, you can always readjust it where necessary
• Plan or plan and schedule holiday posts for social media for milestone holidays such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Look for more interesting ones such as Grandparents Day, National Pet Day, National Water Day, etc. Make them fairly generic so that you don’t have to go back in and adjust them.
• Examine your current sales if you are already in business and see where they are coming from and compare the sale to your effort. Are you doing things that aren’t making you money in your business that you could stop doing and are there things you are doing that make you good money that you could be doing more of? Work through scenarios that could change the way you do business to make it more profitable for you. If you are just starting up, create a few scenarios and estimate your time and expenses for each versus the revenue to plan for your startup. When you hit the ground running, you might need to do things that don’t make you money to start, but that could be rolled into more profitable actions once you have the liberty to do so.
• Identify other businesses that you could partner with to co-market your services. They are most likely in the same boat as you so many of these initial discussions might be blue-sky but trust me, you can make them a reality someday.
  

5. Exercise – You’ve probably been hit with this suggestion many times over by now, but it is true! Exercising brings so much benefit to your physical and mental health and well-being. Get out walking on a daily basis. While you walk, smell the air and feel the ground with each step. Listen to the sounds around you instead of listening to music – appreciate nature – it’s everywhere, even in the heart of the city.
   

If walking isn’t something that is normally in your routine or you find it hard, just start off slow. Give yourself a few milestones to hit and keep going (and don’t undo the good by consuming more as a reward. Your reward is feeling better). Just going for a daily walk and making that part of your routine will do you wonders now and into the future!

Today is a new day and it’s all yours. Do you best to plan it out and if the plan all falls apart, don’t give up. Tomorrow will be another new day with another new plan. Aim for progress, not perfection.