Diversity TV Business Panel had two guests discussed COVID-19 survival tips, giving us new insights into how the new world order is affecting businesses.
Our guests were Kim-Ann Wilson founder and owner of SASS and Perry Brooks of Micro Business Training Centre, all in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Question: Could you give us some survival tips that businesses could implement during this time?
Kim: What I want to implore all business owners to do is to go digital obviously that’s the world, that’s the way to run businesses now is by going digital. It’s kinda more less taking yourself out of the equation, it’s more about meeting your customers needs. Whether that means for you to create an online portfolio for yourself, you need to show up where your customers are. If most of your customers are on social media, Instagram or Tiktok, wherever their platform of choice is you also need to show up there, because you need to build your brand awareness, you need to gain credibility.
These assets and these platforms are easily accessible by not just people in Edmonton but people all around the world. You have a wider reach, you get to build a community and network that way as well, and you get to show your brand personality. That’s just one of the ways businesses can pivot and take advantage of the digital world that we’re living in and I don’t know if people are paying attention. Obviously I do because this is my field. As of June 2020 the marketing stats show that e-commerce sales are up by 120%, that was of June compared to the same time in 2019.
If you’re not thinking about taking your products or your services online and ways you can do that, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot and that’s probably why you’re seeing the drop in sales that you’re currently seeing.
Perry: I’m gonna talk a little bit more about sales and one on one sales, when COVID hit, it just changed everything and salesmen that used to be on the road some of them are at home and we all just got a little bit lost for a little while. There’s three things that changed with COVID and the first thing is, there was a time when you had to talk to people face to face, if you wanted to do work at the Geoffrey gas plant, they wouldn’t even talk to you, they expected you to drive to Geoffrey, it took you a whole day and that was the cost of business up there.
Nowadays they’ll talk to you over zoom, so that’s a positive thing. The second thing is, now more than ever you can get to the decision maker, so often when you make a sales call and you try to talk to the decision maker, which we always call the boss you know, who’s there? We have the receptionist and that person is stopping you from seeing them because they’re busy, they have a million things on the go, they just don’t have time. Today is different, everything is slowed down, lots of places have laid off people like receptionists and sometimes it’s the boss themselves that are answering the phone now.
So for the very first time we’re able to actually connect directly to the decision makers and it’s easier than ever. And then finally the third thing is, businesses are more willing to look at different suppliers now than they ever were before, so you can imagine, if you have a business and it’s just going full tilt and you’re working 10-12 hours a day cause you know you’re the guy but you’re making money. You don’t wanna change anything, you don’t wanna change the janitors, you don’t wanna change the people that change the snow, you don’t wanna change anything because you just don’t have time. Now we fast forward to today, oh boy that bottom line’s not looking so good. We need to cut back, now all of a sudden when you show up and say I have a different solution that might save you some money, people are more willing to listen to that than they ever were before. So there’s three things that have changed during COVID that help with sales.
Question: Some businesses more than others have been affected, food business and event business have really been affected by COVID as most of them are based on social interaction which have been banned for the meantime. How are businesses managing with the restrictions?
Perry: You know I think more than ever, the world of business was just turned on its head, we went from a time where the things we talked about in business were making sales, how to get market shares. Suddenly we’re talking about, government money, how do we handle it, how many people can we go down to? We’re approaching employees and saying we gotta cut back, we wanna lose some people.
It really has changed the way we think and one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs love to go up and they’re terrible at going down. So when the economy gets better, we’re great at buying new buildings and hiring more people and doing more stuff. But when things slow down we tend to drag our feet because you know, we’re always reaching for the moon. So one of the challenges we have is that this is a time when we do have to shrink back for the most part. And so we need to just change our thinking.
Kim: Yeah I agree with you Perry and I kinda wanna jump on what you said and step back a little bit. Don’t forget too, with the restrictions on going out, and the focus being digital, this is a really good time for business owners to look around them to see who they can collaborate and partner with. See what kind of packaging in terms of being creative, how you can out together a package that would be beneficial to your joint customers. So it’s like you have sausage and you have a bun.
Obviously those two are compatible together in selling a hotdog. So if you’re the baker and you’re someone who’s in meat obviously you guys can collaborate and work to push your product forward. Don’t despise the fact that, you know it’s a quieter time, take the to look around you and see who you could partner with and that being said if there’s nobody around that you can actually partner with take the time to reevaluate your own marketing plan reevaluate your processes your systems and see how you can become better.
One of our clients, he has a car auto spa on the north side of town and obviously with the limited disposable income that we’re now experiencing across the economy, across the country, he’s had to be creative in a sense. They opened last year and it’s been challenging in a sense but we’ve been able to sit down with him and you know reanalyze. It’s important to understand your ideal client, it’s important to understand your audience.
Who are you selling to? What need are you feeling the gap for? What problem do you have a solution for? And with it comes with, you know taking a step back and really getting into the brain of your customer. If you’re in business you obviously do have current customers, contact them, ask them the hard questions. Why did you choose to buy from me? What was different from the competitor? What stood out for you that made you wanna purchase from me? This information will help you market your product in a better way by understanding what need exactly you were able to fill and what solution you had for a particular problem. We live in a day and age where there’s competition for everything, for pens, water bottles, cake!. There’s options, I [customer] do have an option, so why should I choose you? You need to sit down and figure out that why for yourself and then you can actually speak to your audience in the language that they speak.
Question: How have your businesses managed during this time and how do we move forward after covid?
Perry: We weren’t affected by COVID quite as much other than we’ve had to adopt all the procedures that kinda come along with living in a pandemic and of course we do that and it’s working out fine. As we go forward, things aren’t gonna go back to the same, things are gonna be different and they might be a little different or a lot different. When kim talks about talking to your customers that is just so vital, I mean you might have a company and you rent 10 trucks to this one company all the time, that might not happen after COVID, maybe they don’t need to rent trucks, maybe they need something different.
Businesses that have survived have changed so much, there was a story about a bookstore in Edmonton that got out of a retail space and went online delivering books. That seems weird to me, a year ago if someone said they delivered books from Edmonton, I’d be like I don’t see a need for that but today’s there’s a need for it, it came. The only way you learn that, is like Kim said, you talk to your customers and find out what it is that they want. Kim: For us as a marketing agency, to be honest with you, COVID has been a blessing to us. Our ideal clients are business owners and we help them elevate their brands voice so that they can have a raise in terms of market share. With COVID affecting them obviously they’re looking for professionals and you should be looking for professionals because you’re best at what you do, you’re best at creating your product, you’re best at selling your service. You’re not best at reaching your ideal client. And especially the time we’re living in, you do need experts to navigate the chaos of what COVID has caused.
I know right now everyone is being budget savvy and really being careful in their spending. Do take that time to just take a step back, at the end of the day your customers want to see you as an individual, they want to understand you. There’s a saying in marketing, “people don’t buy your product they buy the story behind the product”. They’re so many different options, it’s not necessarily that they’re gonna buy this particular product because it’s the product, they support the business because of the story that resonates with them, the brand story. Take that time to build that out for yourself and do get on social media, the whole world, pretty much now is looking on social media in a sense, that’s where they get most of their information, that’s where they get the news and updates as to what’s going on.
So, if you’re not representing your brand on social media, I’m sorry but after COVID you’re not gonna survive, because the other companies who are doing that will be way ahead of you. When the customers are ready to make a purchase they know exactly who to go to, because they’ve seen them on social media sharing how the product is being made and what goes into creating the product. They see that person showcasing their knowledge of that particular industry of that particular product and service. So you as a business owner need to kinda get out of your head and get on social media. Show your audience that you know what you’re talking about, show your audience that you’re an expert in what you do, show your audience how you make what you make. Acknowledge their problem and “Be real and be Personable”.
Perry: I coach young entrepreneurs, and they haven’t had any business experience and they’re always worried about sales. I’m always like, your sales are your stories, tell your story, everybody has beautiful beautiful stories. Sometimes you have to massage them so you get’em right, but when you tell your story, as long as it’s truthful and it comes from your heart and people see it, people naturally wanna help people out. So there’s nothing wrong with going to people and saying, you know I’ve been struggling and this would really help me out, this is how I feed my kids.
Kim: Exactly Perry and I want to give an analogy when it comes to you building your story. I’m actually doing a six part series called build your brand on Instagram, I do it live every Tuesday morning at 9 am, so feel free to jump and see what I talk about there. Just yesterday, I was talking about building brand image and creating a brand image, it starts with your story. Be honest in your story, don’t be too fluffy. If you make candles, don’t be like “I want all women to feel beautiful, I want women to have a nice environment and a scent.” No, be honest, say, “You know what, I started this company because COVID really affected me and when I go to the stores what I bought had chemicals in it and it started affecting me. So I decided to create an all natural brand so that women can feel beautiful, have a great environment and it’s all natural”. That is a story and that’s what would resonate with people, not the fluff.
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