Coping with COVID

When my Grandma was asked the question, 'How are you doing?', she always answered, 'Coping'.  This was well before 2020!  Now when I ask my business owner friends how they are doing, that's the answer I get.

2020 was a heck of a year.  Because we live next door to our largest trading partner, we've been caught up in their political and economic drama.  Try as we might, we have to pay attention to what's going on because decisions down there affect us up here.  

COVID gave us a reminder that despite what we plan, sometimes we will get punched in the stomach.  That has been the reality for many small and mid-size businesses who have had to close or reduce service due to lockdown rules.  We can't predict future government policies but it would be a safe bet that we'll be living with rapidly changing and seemingly arbitrary policy changes well into 2022.

We can whine or we can cope...

Here are the things I share with the budding entrepreneurs and small business owners in my Business Class at George Brown College:

1. Be prepared.  Now more than ever it is important to plan for the absolute worst!  Months without revenue, additional months with reduced revenue, increased COVID compliance expenses.  I suggest they run multiple cashflow scenarios to show these worst-case outcomes in their gory detail.  
2. Stay agile.  Make your plans, crunch your scenarios.  Then be ready to change on a dime.  I use the Business Plan Canvas Model in this course.  It's a simple one page document to look at new opportunities quickly.
3. Keep connected.  Talk to your friends, mentors, advisors, partners.  Share both your fears and your ideas for coping.  
4. Look for opportunities to solve problems.  This is the heart of every business.  The key is to evaluate the idea quickly to see if you can make money from it.  I use the tried-and-true SWOT Analysis:  Look at the strengths and opportunities;  Analyze the weaknesses and threats.  

Coping with COVID is the world we live in now. This IS normal! Start coping.

Until next time...

Chris

2020 Renaissance Time

The dictionary defines a 'Renaissance' individual as '...a person with genuine competence in and understanding of multiple different fields, all of which complement one another to make her/him a more talented and productive person...'. 

What the world needs now are these renaissance-minded people!  

My belief in this is rooted in my own business experience.  I have an eclectic background with varied work experience. I started as a Radio Announcer before transitioning into Sales. The Radio business taught me how to tell stories quickly. And as a commission sales person, I learned the difference between features and benefits:  people like features but they buy benefits! I still hold that tenet close.

From radio and sales I moved into Advertising Agency world.  It was the last gasp of the Mad Man era in Toronto back in those days. I still miss expense accounts! In Advertising I learned how to ask better questions. And not to stop until I'd found a key insight that solved a consumer need in a unique way.

Along the way I moved between Advertising Agencies and Client roles in Fast Food. These experiences taught me how to look at the Marketing business in a more holistic way. 

I've always been media agnostic and this became even more useful as digital and social media exploded on the media scene. Working for myself and then with some national brands reminded me that 'the medium is still the message'.  Working with these brands taught me that the basics still mattered:  What's the objective;  What strategies make the most sense;  How do the tactics work together most effectively.

Up next?  People with with genuine competence in and understanding of multiple different fields, all of which complement one another...Renaissance Women and Men!

Until next time...

 

Lessons from the Renaissance

The original Renaissance was an exciting time.  Scary for a lot of people with new ideas that upturned the status quo.  And at a rapid pace that kept everyone on edge.  This is what we are going through right now and there are lessons we can learn:

Until next time...

A Peek At New Normal

New Normal will look and feel different.  We'll think more consciously about personal hygiene at home and in public;  We'll think about personal space;  We'll change how we shop for goods and services.  It won't happen all at once and it will occur across a broad spectrum.  Here are some other things to look out for as we re-normalize:

Until next time...