Solutions and help for businesses, communities and organizations

Destination Creation, Becoming a Facilitator, & Holding a Town Hall with Covid-19 Business Strategies: May 8, 2020

May 8, 2020 | Blog

This is my “Just Over 4 Minutes E-Newsletter” with my observations, tips, and two powerful tools (way down at the end) that you might want to use right now

Two weeks ago, I surveyed my entire e-newsletter list and asked business owners what they were doing, whether their businesses were open or not, whether customers were coming in or not, or whether they were in quarantine.

The answers poured in: Most were doing good deeds for their community, but a large group of shut-down owners were busy cleaning, rearranging, painting, and starting new projects.

If businesses were selling groceries, alcohol, home improvement products, or marijuana (like here in Colorado) they were swamped. If businesses had an e-commerce presence or selling via Facebook or Instagram, they were often realizing sales that offset their loss in customer traffic.

But no matter what your situation, here is what I hope every owner realizes:

IF YOU OWN A BUSINESS, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A COLOSSAL WAVE OF BUSINESS REINVENTION.

There are differing opinions on the Covid-19 virus, but here’s what can’t be argued:

#1: The virus doesn’t care if you think it’s dangerous, and  

#2: Every business, regardless of its size, will have certain parts of its business model fail. This is because a large percentage of consumers who bought from your business previously aren’t thinking or acting like they did 8 weeks ago (and they won’t, for a long time).

Here’s what this means to you as a business owner:

  1. This is not the time to coast! Put away the paint brush and Windex. You have bigger challenges to tackle.
  2. This is the time to make significant changes to your business model. There are components of your revenue-generating process that are probably NOT coming back and you need to adapt quickly.

And yes, I know you are busy right now, but making strategic changes to your business model is different than being busy.

Here’s what no one is mentioning (but two savvy retailers said to me): Opening back up helps generate some revenue now, but what should one do to recapture lost sales, to drive revenue higher, and (if the virus wave comes back), not lose the entire Fourth Quarter of the year?

Yes, that’s the question!

Here’s something else that’s really interesting: I am getting calls from communities and associations who have never called before because they are aware that customer traffic is going to be less moving forward. That’s a guarantee. There will be less festivals, less concerts, less collective gatherings, less people browsing, less in-store shopping, and fewer people eating in restaurants. In fact, some consumers who see a business as being unsafe will shun it, without hesitation.

This means walk-by traffic will fall and spontaneous purchases will decrease. That means the businesses in the best marketplaces will have to be more proactive in their marketing, positioning, online presence, and overall outreach than they’ve ever had to be because consumers who used to be there, won’t be there in the same numbers.

As I told someone the other day. “This is a big challenge, but you just have to reinvent your business. Aren’t you glad you don’t own Disney World?”

Tools to Help You, Your Community, and Your Association:

Number 1 Tool to Help You:  You should learn about my online Destination Creation Course. It’s an 8-lesson, 20 webinar class with a new Covid-19 survival webinar and this online class can be taken as early as next week. Designed by me but taught by trained Facilitators, you can learn a simplified version of my Destination Business process and immediately apply the information to make powerful, strategic changes to your business. This isn’t busy work. This course teaches steps that will drive customer revenue into your wallet, even if customers don’t enter your doors.

To see our Destination Creation Course schedule, our team of Facilitators, the classes that are available, and all the varying schedules from 2 to 8 weeks, click here or go to SuccessfulIndependentBusiness.com.

By the way, if you’d like to become one of our Facilitators, click here. The next Facilitator class starts on May 27.

Number 2 Tool to Help You: I am now conducting live 2-hour Business Strategy Town Hall Meetings focusing on what businesses need to do right now (whether they’re closed or open). Each presentation is customized to the questions submitted by the group’s business owners and tailored to the current needs of the group. Whether you have a city, town, downtown, chamber, Main Street, franchise group, or association that needs help, this can help you. The entire session is live, with a Q&A session at the end. We also record the Town Hall and make it available to just your specific group’s members, even those who can’t attend the live session.

If you’d like to know how you can host one of my live interactive Town Halls, send a note to my personal email address: [email protected] and I will respond directly to you.

That’s it. Thanks for reading my E-Newsletter.

Reach out if I can help you or just to say hello!

Jon Schallert

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