First off, I hope you and your loved ones are well.
I have been self-isolating since Saturday, as well, and I work from home so I was self-isolating by accident before that, if you can pardon a little joke right now. My parents and their siblings and my girlfriends’ parents and their siblings are all in the more vulnerable age group so we have been taking precautions for a while now.
Ontario declared a State of Emergency today. I cannot remember this ever happening in my lifetime. For me, the biggest disruptions I can recall are the constant teacher strikes of the 1990s (I was in high school), the east coast black out of 2003 and our mini ice storm of 2013.
This feels different and it is different. It was easy to the see the other side in 2003. It was easy for most of us to see the other side in 2013. (My power went out for an hour. Others’ was out for a week, though.) But we don’t know when this will end. Everything I’ve seen about numbers in Canada is not exactly positive. We’re roughly on Italy’s track still and we really don’t want to be there in 2 weeks.
For the next few weeks, at least, it will not be business as usual. But we all need to live and eat. Business owners are going to suffer a lot in the next few weeks. Many are suffering already.
So how can you, a business owner, survive the next few weeks and prosper once the pandemic is under control?
We live in an incredible time, in terms of technology, and many of us don’t take advantage of it. If there is a side-benefit to what’s happening, it’s the realization that, in some ways, modern technology lets us live our lives even if we cannot see each other in person.
You can still help your clients and interact with your customers. If you’re a professional service provider, you can do much of your work for your clients without a face-to-face meeting.
Though this is a little outside of my normal sphere, I’m offering a brief webinar on how to continue operating your business online during the pandemic, and ways in which your business can be primed for the return to normalcy.
It’s on Thursday at 3:30PM Eastern. Register Here. It’s free, of course.
We’ll cover:
- Video Conferencing (all the rage now, it seems)
- Email strategies for keeping in touch
- Other online tools for keeping in touch or providing services
- What your business can do to help right now
- What your business can do as the pandemic subsides (here’s hoping!) and how it can come out of this crisis in good shape.
I want to keep this personalized so I’ve capped the number of available slots.
If you’re interested, please sign up here.
Regardless of whether or not I see you on Thursday, please take care and exercise caution.