With the pandemic in mind, what are your choices in this current economy? Has this pandemic got your attention? Has it put a dent in your sales and your income? Want to discover what to do about it in order to put your business back on top to make this year your best ever? Or perhaps branch out! Over the years, you’ve put long hours into building your business, and now, the pandemic, the economy, and a whole bunch of stuff beyond your control have put a wrench in your plans. What can you do about it? What strategies can be used to save a small business? The first thing to realize is that you have a choice.
The reason most businesses lose during a pandemic like the one we’re experiencing is that they use the same marketing strategies they used when the economy was in a boom cycle. That’s like wearing your summer sandals with their smooth soles in winter while trying to walk across snow and ice. It won’t work, and you’re likely to fall and hurt yourself. To succeed in this pandemic, you need a proven business survival strategy during a pandemic that generates leads, sales, and higher profits. Without it, you could lose your profits and your business.
The Quality of Thoughtfulness
The ability to think and plan strategically is perhaps the most important single skill of the effective executive. In a longitudinal study of leaders who, in retrospect, made the best and most effective decisions, the single quality that stood out from all others was the quality of “thoughtfulness.” Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
Most Powerful Tool
The most powerful tool that you as an executive have to bring to bear on your work is your mind – your thinking ability. Everything you do that sharpens and hones your ability to think with greater clarity before acting, will benefit you and help you to move upward and onward more rapidly in your career or business. Hiring an expert business coach can assist you in generating quality thoughts and ideas that can help create your business survival strategy during a pandemic.
Use a Two-Pronged Approach
The best way to approach strategic thinking is two-pronged. This means to work simultaneously on the personal and the corporate.
Increase Your “Return on Energy”
In personal terms, strategic planning is an exercise in increasing the “return on energy.” Your greatest single asset is your earning ability. And your earning ability is nothing more than the total of the mental, emotional, and physical energies that you can apply toward getting valuable results for yourself and your company. Anything that you can do to increase your return on energy invested will increase your overall levels of effectiveness and contribution in every area of your life, especially, and most importantly in your work. By doing this, you’ll be able to find surefire ways that can save a small business.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to increase your return on equity and your return on energy. First, think about everything that you are doing in terms of its financial return to your organization. What are the things that you do that yield the highest return on equity? Whatever they are, do more of them. Second, think in personal terms about the things you do that give you the highest return on energy. Where do you contribute the greatest value and achieve the greatest satisfaction? Whatever they are, do more of these things.
Now more than ever, small businesses are getting hit hard as a result of the current pandemic. However, this doesn’t mean your business has to shut down immediately because of this! Hiring an expert business coach can greatly improve how your business fares during this challenging time and FocalPoint Business Coaching of PA is here to help. Contact us today to get in touch with our professional business coaches!