If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business it's.....

[isabelle]

Hey all! ✨Hope everyone is having a fantastic week thus far. 

Today we're wondering..

If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business and what’s needed to evolve in this new world, it’s ________. 

Fill in the blank! What did the pandemic teach you about running your business? What was needed for you to evolve to this 'new world'? 

We look forward to reaching your replies! 💫

[Sam_400º]

If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business and what’s needed to evolve in this new world, it’s that I'm Jon Snow..... I know nothing!

Still learning new stuff every day & the past year has made that ever more apparent! 

Gotta say so many of the responses ring true - makes it kinda nice to know that the challenges we've been facing here aren't personal or because I've got it all wrong before, but more that we're all just dong the best we can in a situation I don't think any of us have been in. 

[isabelle]

I've loved reading these replies! I think you're so right, it's a situation no one has been in yet and everyone is just doing their best! ✨Ty for sharing. 

[promila]

The trust building with clients is very important. It helped me to retain the clients during Pandemic, as well as to do transition from services to pick up products at curve-side. 

[Pizzajoe94]

If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business and what’s needed to evolve in this new world, it’s that compliance isn’t always what’s best for your business.

[Twiggy]

CAN I JUST SAY IF ANY OF YOU ARE FEELING VULNERABLE AND A LITTLE ON THE EDGE - message me - you are not alone xxx We can help - Listen - Accept - Guide - ! Listen !   

[isabelle]

💕

[Skinetics1]

What did the pandemic teach you about running your business? What was needed for you to evolve to this 'new world'? 

It gave me "courage" to continue my business not knowing what the future will bring.  No matter what happens with the roadblocks this epidemic threw out there, we focused on being the best.  

[lindsaybee]

Hi @Skinetics1 I loved this response..

As someone who's always worked for someone else, I've always thought that small business owners are some of the bravest people we've got. It takes a lot of guts to be fully responsible for your own livelihood and make your own path. Make that double -- triple -- with the challenges we've had in the past 1.5 years. I really admire all of you so much for that. Maybe I'll get the courage too one day 🙂 

[Rkyoungb]

If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business and what’s needed to evolve in this new world, it’s how important it is to build and maintain relationships with customers. A relationship with a customer adds depth and commitment to each other thru thick and thin!

[Mywifedidntcook]

Never give up! Be creative everyday and find new ways to make your customers keep coming. Also never stop helping or giving back to your community this is key.

[lindsaybee]

Thanks for the response @Mywifedidntcook !

I had to check your website out with a name like that 🙂 Your origin story is amazing. And what a time to start business too -- in 2019?! Really glad to see you here and to know that you've got a strong community in CT. 

[vrGuy]

Don't open a business in the middle a pandemic. Don't sign a lease before a pandemic starts. Our government sucks and does not care for new small businesses. 

[beyondbrandi]

Reconsider owning a small business in California

Additionally, lots of new opportunities exist now but it requires a different mindset. 

Lastly, I have learned that politics and medical are now married. 😢

[lindsaybee]

Hey @beyondbrandi it really has been tough hasn't it? I'm in California too, in the Bay Area, where are you?

How has business been with the reopening? Have you been able to reopen?

[dimo10]

If there’s anything the pandemic taught me about running my business and what’s needed to evolve in this new world, it’s be nimble and adapt, collaborate with other business and bring forward new initiatives.

In the first week of the Lockdown we found our sales dropped 50%, I also noticed that our local taxi's had no work as everyone had locked down. We are located in a small town in central Victoria, Australia so as a small town we have no third party delivery services. So once I knew that as a take away store we could continue to trade I approached the taxi's to do our deliveries for us. They agreed, we worked out the rates and within 24 hours we had a delivery service up and running.

We had to shut our waiting area due to density requirements and we found customers getting frustrated due to not being able to know when their orders where ready. So after a bit of research I found an app that would broadcast to a TV the names of the orders that where ready. This solved this problem but was manual entry and staff didn't priorities this when we got busy.

As we had only taken over in October of 2019, my new website was good but not integrated into the POS we where using at the time. Once Covid hit our online ordering took off and we had a lot more orders online which then had to be manually entered into the POS. So after looking into integrated POS with website, I found Square's solution and in Feb 2021 we launched new website and new POS, with Fresh KDS running the Kitchen displays and TV displays. All the manual entry was taken away. We are now so much more efficient it make our old setup look Archaic even though it was only 12 months old and worked great. This integration also saved us around $100 a month in subscriptions.

The taxi deliveries are still running to this day and our customer are both grateful and happy that they can support both businesses with one transaction.

So what have we learnt,

1. There is always a better way

2. Use the downtime to improve your systems and process

3. Look at the problems from your customers perspective

4. Try collaborating with other businesses.

Take care and good luck.

Chris

Blue Sea Fish Shop Castlemaine 

[Helen]

Thanks for sharing this @dimo10 - what a great idea to use taxis and help them during the lockdown too. 'There is always a better way' is such a great way to summarize this!  

[DinaLRosenberg]

.. that you are fully responsible for your business and as a small business owner you must react quickly- not be attached to the outcome, be willing to try new things and step out of your comfort zone.. yeah I know- what does this all really mean... well- when we were forced to close our retail shop at the beginning of the pandemic we knew we had to do something. And what we had access to was Instagram live (obviously you can use Facebook too) in order to reach out to our customers. We decided to go live on Instagram nightly- not just selling (we only did that 1x a week) but teaching, we hosted a book club- we just offered tons of content... and we were able to grow a community in those 3 months that were all around the United States. Sure, showing up live on Instagram nightly was exhausting. I worked harder when we were closed than I did when we were open.. but it WORKED.. and we showed up as US- sometime no makeup.. sometimes crying.. it was crazy