Will your business survive Covid-19

Francisco Fernandez — Fri, 08 May 2020 08:00:19 +0000

The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of us worldwide, and businesses are scrambling to protect themselves and their employees. Will your business survive? The short answer: It depends.

Business is business except it isn't

Obviously, not all businesses are equal. You can have the greatest team in place, excellent management, and fantastic everything, but if there’s no demand for your product, or in this case, are not allowed to operate, none of that matters. The Covid-19 pandemic has upended our expectations, our projections, our livelihood. What applied under the best of times is no more.

Innovation can be the solution or not

Companies that can easily transition into a remote work environment have already done so, and are less affected than those service industries that Spain is so famous for. Hospitality in particular has been eviscerated by Covid-19. People are focused on whether or not they can open and what restrictions are in place, but the real industry killer is travel restrictions. There’s no innovation to fix that at the moment.

Still, for a lot of businesses, innovation can save them. Smaller businesses have an opportunity to digitize their operation and take advantage of modern technology to allow for customer interactions and orders through digital platforms. They can use even the simplest things to meet safety regulations and be allowed to open, even bars and restaurants. Will it be the same as before? No. Can it still be successful? Yes!

Increased profits to those who act first

The companies who act first and fast will be the ones who profit the most, but only if their solutions are acceptable to customers. People can only accept a certain level of difficulty when interacting with your company, even with imposed limitations from the coronavirus. They’ve been holed up for nearly two months after all.

Solutions must be relatively easy, palatable, and most of all understandable. It you’re a restaurant with a maze of glass to navigate where they can’t interact with their family member, you’ve lost. If your online order system isn’t clear and simple, you’ve lost. If you fail in delivery or showing your customers your willingness to protect them from the virus, you’ve lost.

In the end, it’s not how much you spent, but how you make that spending work for you to minimize loss and maximize profits while making it a win win for both you and your customers.

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Take control of your brand in 2020

Francisco Fernandez — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 07:52:00 +0000

With so many platforms at your disposal, it’s easy to get lost in the myriad of options, pricing structures, features, and other services these companies offer. Though many offer excellent products at great prices, the one thing a lot of people often overlook is a loss of control, becoming overly dependent on another company’s ever-changing offering that may or may not be here tomorrow.

Great platforms that change often

Google, Facebook and others offer an amazing array of tools for the modern company. They offer management tools, advertising tools, marketing opportunities, new business access, promotions, etc. They have become necessary in the modern business world. Whether their an evil or not, is up to each company’s betrayal to decide, for each company has expensively betrayed companies and users at one point or another.

When someone else controls the platform, they control your use of it. Google’s list of tools they’ve simply killed is so long, it’s easier to list the one’s they haven’t. Some companies depended on some of them, and had to scramble for alternatives. The same with some of Facebook’s features, which have changed with time and which along the way has ended up costing a lot of money for companies of all sizes.

Your platform your rules

While a lot of services and platforms are a modern requirement for doing business, especially social media, there’s a platform that you still control the message and functionality of… your website.

What’s this 1999? No, but in 2020, your website is more relevant than ever. It’s the one place on the web that you control everything, the branding, the experience, the message, the whole platform. You control it. It’s yours.

Your website is not the one of 1999, but a modern, more manageable platform that offers flexibility and expandability, while simultaneously integrating with all those ever-changing platforms.

An integrated strategy

Taking control of your branding starts with taking control of your presence on the web. That starts with making your website yours, with your platform, your rules, control, marketing, etc. It’s the place of reference, the one you send everyone to, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore everything else.

Social media is more relevant than ever. Certain expectations have formed around a number of platforms where companies are expected to be. Some of these change from time to time, but the expectations do not. These need to be part of an integrated strategy that starts with your website and stretches out to social media and beyond.

Of course, all this cannot ignore your business efficiency and function, which your website and server can help with, connecting your business operations with apps, other companies, and directly with customers.

Take control of your web presence. Contact us today.

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