It is important to learn how to keep your business running as the coronavirus pandemic causes businesses to close down and halt their activities until further notice. The pandemic is already hurting the economy, the world over, and you need to safeguard your business so that you are within the almost vanishing economic safety blanket. Perhaps your business can wax strong in spite of the pandemic. Or, is that just a myth?

With our own business running smoothly within the pandemic, we would like to share with you some measures to keep your business in shape until all this is over. As the virus continues to spread, we may need to run our businesses from the safety of our homes for a while longer. We need a level of preparation to get this done effectively too. If you are finding it difficult to work from home, check our previous post below on how to stay on track and achieve real time results while working from home.

How to Work from Home Effectively in 2020

If you have totally shut down your business, you may need to reconsider that decision because it is possible to stay afloat in the current crisis and achieve your business goals. This would keep you in a better financial position after the pandemic rages past.

Learn our tips for safeguarding your business as coronavirus spreads.

Work on Your Business’ Demand and Supply Curve

Protecting your business so that it is intact at a time like this is an inside-out job. You have to go to work on your business, both internally and externally, to ensure that all the regular interplay that keeps your business going are not lost to the virus. Well, things would change but you can determine how much of that change affects your business. Go to work on your demand and supply curve.

Here’s how to do that.

External Policy Shifts for Your Business

For businesses that have a demand-supply chain in manufacturing, there is already a downward spiral. You need to look into how you get your products and how you dispersed them to the final consumer. There may be something you can do to adjust things there.

Reach out to your supplies

Pick up the phone and have a conversation with your suppliers over how you can work together to make things better. The thing is they are already seeking solutions to the problem and looking out for ways to minimize the damage. By having this conversation with them, you will put things in perspective and help them know what your precise expectations are. You can also suggest your own solutions to the problem. If you have deliveries lined up, these can be postponed and tackled at a fast pace later. You can also let them know which deliveries are a priority to you and should be tackled first.

Put your clients and customers into the picture

The situation is affecting your customers as much as it is affecting you and your suppliers. So, put them into the picture. The solutions that you come up with should ease things for them also. Find out which of your products and services are relevant to them at this time and how you can make your terms more flexible to accommodate their worries. Offer discounts, freebies and promos. Your customers may not be able to get the things that they order right now depending on how strict the lockdown is in your community.

However, at the first chance they get, they would want to receive quality at a price that takes into consideration the current situation. Otherwise, they would move on to a different brand. You want to be able to retain your clients and customers right now and when all this is over.

If you want to learn about the customer retention tips working right now, click on the button at the end of this post to download our eBook put together to walk you through the right tips.

Internal Policy Shifts for Your Business

Now that you have gone to work on the people who provide your products and the people who need them, you need to get to work on the internal organization of your business. You will need things to continue running smoothly despite that they are no longer the same.

Here’s how you can go about that.

Create a New Plan

I am sure you have a template for running your business. Now, you will have to assume that the Coronavirus Pandemic has defeated that first plan you had for running your business. If you want to make some headway right now, you will need to create another plan. You need to determine how you would continue making sales and attracting new clients amidst the spread. This is an emergency and it requires that you create emergency plans. The Work from Home Policy that everyone has adopted is one of such plans. But you need to be specific about what you need to do to make things continue to move.

Give Clear Directives to Your Employees

Communicate your new plan with your employees. The plan ought to include them as much as it would include your customers. If you will be enforcing the WFH policy for example, you need to let them know. Let them know the other parts of the template for running your business within the crisis. Make sure that your employees are not working from home without pay. They need motivation to work under these circumstances. Whatever your new plans for running your business are, be clear when you express the parts that concern your employees to them. Don’t leave them guessing what to do.

Utilize Online Workplace Tools

The previous point includes issues like what workplace tools you would be using. How will your staff members deliver on their projects? Through what tools, and do they know the tools they can use? Utilize workplace tools available on the internet to your business advantage.

If you need to learn which tools to use, check the tools we are trying through the Send My Tips button underneath this post.

Create systems for receiving updates from your staff and update them on the progress that you all are making as well. Keeping in touch will give each person added motivation to get things done. The feeling of doing it all alone would be far removed from the new working situation.

Emphasize Personal Hygiene

The current situation provides us with reasons to look out for each other. If we forgot how to do that, we are reminded once again how much we need the next person. While you enforce rules to make work run smoothly from everyone’s location, you should also check in on how these people are doing. Remind them of the safety precautions put in place by health organizations. Emphasize the need for cleanliness and personal hygiene, and let them know that they are responsible for their health and that of the next person.

It is a tough time right now for businesses but in a few simple steps, your business would be running smoothly despite that its location has changed.

Remind yourself that panic would not help the situation. If you need more tips on how to stay afloat through a COVID19 tainted world, we have put together survival tips for your business that you would find helpful. Click on the button below to get yours.