Small Business Tips & Strategies for COVID-19 Coronavirus

So in case we haven't met yet, because I know this is on our page, I'm Ashley. I'm the founder at the Boutique Hub. And over the past couple of days, not only myself, but our entire team at the Boutique Hub has been digging in as deep as we can into ideas and tips and strategies to help every single one of you retail wholesale industry professionals just to manage some of the chaos that's happening in the world around us and especially in our industry right now. And I feel confident that those business owners and experts we've talked to that have lived through recessions and lived through 9, 11, and lived through hurricanes and lived through tornadoes and all the chaos that goes with those things have so many great ideas and strategies that are going to help every single one of you guys go through what we're going through right now. We are truly in this together, and I know we've got lots of things to share with one another that are going to help make it possible. All right, So I was thinking about this thing this morning in the shower, and I kind of wanted to start here today. I was thinking about that Christian song, Fear is a Liar. I'm sure you guys probably heard that song. It's been stuck in my head the last couple of days. But I was thinking about the saying that fear is contagious, panic is contagious, but calm is contagious. Right. I know that you guys know that when you're with your spouse or your kids or your family, you know, when you're at, like, a gathering, like Thanksgiving with your family and someone's stressed out or someone's angry or someone's anxious, whatever it is, whatever the mood and the energy is that that person has, it sets the tone for the rest of the group. Your energy is always contagious, and it can be good or it can be bad. But you have to choose. Are you going to be the thermostat that sets the energy in the room or are you going to be the thermometer that reacts? Right. It tells the energy in the room and it reacts to it. So it's up to us if we're going to live in this idea of feeding off of everyone else's negative energy and anxiety, or are we going to set our own? Are we going to choose how we're going to react going forward? And I think that always is going to translate in business. If we're fearful and if we're anxious and if we're in a panic, you guys, our customers can smell that a mile away. Your Customers know that, right? They're scared enough and they don't need you to add to it. So for so many of you, this is going to be an opportunity to be a light in a really dark world, right? This is going to be your opportunity to build relationships with customers like you haven't before, to show who you are and why doing business with small business owners is so much better than doing business with Big Box. Because you're a real individual and you care and you can serve them in a way right now that nobody else can, right? There's opportunity for you in so many different areas. But, you know, opportunity is only there if you look for it, right? I've been a firm believer my entire life that something good will come from every bad situation. And if you've ever heard me talk about my cancer story, that has always been the number one takeaway from that experience in my life, is that something good came from that situation, but you have to look for it. And the same is true for you guys today. So couple things, nuts and bolts of what we're going to do. I have a list of. I don't even know. I don't think I numbered them. I just have bullet points of lots of ideas to build revenue right now and lots of ideas on how to save on expenses right now. And I'm not talking about saving on investments. I'm talking about saving on expenses. And I will elaborate on that a little bit later. If you haven't caught any of the other resources that we've created so far in this process, I just want to kind of highlight them for you really quick. So last week we started creating several tools and also collaborating with lots of our partners in the industry on how to get resources to you right now. So there is a podcast. Last week's podcast is all about COVID 19 and how it could impact your business. But what are the opportunities you have at hand and what are potential threats and how can you mitigate that risk? We also did a blog post on the topic, and then the blog post goes through all of our partners. So, like Management one, the National Retail Federation, Whizbang Training, there's a section, several of them, that we listed all of those resources. So that is in the blog post. I will link all of that down below or if our team's watching, they can link that blog post podcast. If you're a member of the Hub, if you go into our training library, I believe it's under the module Business Resources, maybe. Thanks, Beth. I know, Beth, you can probably grab that link too. But there is a training in there. I think it's like six pages long. And it's a five step preparedness plan for you to execute right now. Each of the five steps has like multiple subcategories of how you can protect, protect your health, your team, your customers, the community around you and your business. Right, I know. And that's why you're all here today. How do we protect our business? So grab that in the training library. And then for those of you that are members, we have a commitment to go live each and every week throughout this entire process with not only our team, but also some experts we've talked about bringing in to help you address different areas of your business. Because I know that right now we look at it as such a threat, but really I think of this as such an opportunity. I think about sports. I know we talk about analyzing sports so many times and I talked about this on the podcast, too. But what do players do in the off season? They train. Right? Right. In the off season. Kobe Bryant became a great player because he trained. He wasn't sitting around saying, whoa is me, or here's my time to take naps and eat Oreos. Right? It was his time to train. So this is your time to strengthen your business. This is the off season for your business, and that's okay. Every business goes through this. Every business will have ups and downs. It's a part of life. And I guarantee you guys, if you're serious about business and you're going to be here for a while, this is not going to be the last time that you have something that steps in your way. This is not going to be the last time that there will be an economic downturn or fear or panic or a hurricane or a tornado or a flood or whatever the obstacle is. This won't be the last one. So you're training your brain, you're training your staff, you're training your reaction time on how you're going to handle this, of how you're going to handle everything else in the future. Look at this as an opportunity to get better, an opportunity to train. And when the season rolls back around, because it will for every single one of us, you're going to be the one that's the starting player. You're not going to be the one that's warming the bench. Right? So let's get into some nuts and bolts. How can we keep moving forward? All right, so opportunities number one again, money follows eyeballs. So the more you can continue to build engagement in your business, the more opportunity you're going to have down the road. This is going to take people away from shopping, big box sites or wish or fairy season or whatever it is and it's going to bring people back to you. So use that opportunity to build relationships and get more eyeballs on your content. You're also embarking on a time when you're going to know your numbers better than you ever did before, right? Unfortunately, some of you are like ostriches that like to bury your head in the sand and you're like, I don't want to know my numbers. They intimidate me. No need to have them intimidate you. This is your time to know them. Knowing your break even, right? Understanding deeply your P and L right now is critical. If you are not familiar with how to run QuickBooks, Google it, right? There are a million YouTube videos that you can use to set up QuickBooks for $10 a month. And it is not going to be challenging. You've got this understanding your average order value, your units per transaction, your best selling classifications in your store. All of those opportunities are at hand that are going to make you a stronger owner at the end of the day. And this is also going to be your opportunity to become a smarter marketer. You're going to learn how to segment your email list, how to use clienteling for your top 100 customers. You're going to understand the logistics of live selling and try on sessions and Instagram stories and IGTV in ways that you haven't before. Right? So this is your time to really get efficient in all these areas of your business. Alright? So revenue building ideas, revenue generating ideas. You guys have probably heard me when it comes to talking about productivity and we're talking about what is the 20% of your list that gets you 80% of the results. Give me a thumbs up if you've heard me talk about that, right, Eric? I give him credit because he and I have had this conversation so many times. When we're looking at our to do list every week, are we focusing on income generating activities or are we focusing on busy work? And the truth is when we're, when we're still on the small business side of things, maybe where it's you or maybe you have one person helping you, it's easy to get lost in that hustle mode of I have to do it, all right? But as you start to grow and scale your business and you realize I can't do this by myself, right? I have to be the CEO that has other People, help me scale this business. That's your opportunity to focus on the revenue generating activities and outsource some of the rest. That's task work. Because you can't grow a business by cutting expenses. You can't ever grow a business and you can't save a business by cutting expenses in a time like this. You can only grow a business by building revenue and getting lean and getting efficient. So that's really where I want you to focus. I know sometimes it's easy to go into panic mode and say, oh my gosh, sales are low right now. What am I going to do about it? And you're slashing expenses. You need that to an extent. But really where your energy has to show up right now is how you're going to focus on building revenue. That is going to be the difference at the end of the day in businesses going forward is who is smart about both sides of the spectrum, not just the panic side of slashing expenses. Drop me a thumbs up or a yes in the comments if you're with me and you understand you've got to focus on both sides of that business. So let's talk about building revenue first. Number one, I know lots of you. You've gotten emails from every single store you've ever shopped with since you were, you know, a little bitty baby. And they're telling you what actions they're going to take right now to keep you safe, right? If you're annoyed, that's fine, but you need to do the same thing right now too. There's so much fear and panic right now. The best thing you can do is eliminate some fear in your customers. Whether you have a storefront or whether you have an online business, this is your time to say, hey, these are the actions we're taking. These are the precautions that we're taking. Our store is still open. You guys come on in, like, come see us while you can drive that. Scarcity. If there's gonna be scarcity. If you have a brick and mortar, if you have an online business, hey, there's no coronavirus on the website. I mean, I've got virus protection installed. I've got McAfee or whatever it is, right? I've got virus protection. You can still shop online, things are fine. But make sure you let them know we're also disinfecting packages as they go out. Because remember all of the fear that we had in our industry when it came, when this virus first came around and we were like, oh, no, I've got all these packages Coming from China, should I Lysol them? What should I do? And you were scared. So imagine now your customer going, oh no, I shop with Sarah's Boutique online and I saw that Sarah's brother is sick, right? Should I open this package? So take that fear away, let them know what steps you're taking and maybe you are Lysoling your packages before they go out, I don't know. But let your customers know that you're there for them. You got their back, but you're also going to walk through this process with them hand in hand. Opportunity number two is gift cards. So just like we talk about over the holidays, where you're selling gift cards during the holidays and pushing for January or pushing for a slower season, just like Kohl's has Kohl's Cash, just like Gap and Old Navy give you a coupon for a future purchase every time you're in there. This is your opportunity too to share gift cards for future purchases. Gift with future purchase, whatever it is, just to keep people coming back again and again. That's a great way to drive repeat business is every time there's a purchase, you're getting them an opportunity to get back in the door with you or onto your website. I saw a really great tip this morning actually. Sarah with Mustard Seed Boutique, who's local to me and I got to see on Friday, dropped a note that she's actually sharing gift cards from other local businesses in her packages. And it's a way that her and other local businesses are collaborating with one another, trying to cross promote one another to keep business local. And again, whether you're online or brick and mortar, I think that's an opportunity for all of us is to find ways, number two, to collaborate with everyone, whether it's a pop up Facebook group, right? Can't have a virtual, I mean in person pop up. So have a pop up Facebook group, have pop up giveaways, share other people's live sales, promote having Instagram takeovers with other businesses you want to collaborate with. Share gift cards of other local businesses in your packages and have them do the same for you. This is your time really to be in community over competition and find ways to collaborate with all kinds of other businesses and to keep your numbers and to keep your traffic high. Tip number three, discounts. So you guys know I'm not a fan of flash sales. Never have been or not flash sales. I'm sorry, blanket sales. Still not a fan of blanket sales where everything's 50% off because you know what that does it says I'm panicking, I'm panicking, so I'm slashing my prices. Okay, you can still run sales and I suggest if you have some opportunity in some areas to run a promotion. There's a difference in a promotion and a blanket sale. So what are your best turning categories? You're not going to sell your brand new, new arrival when you don't know when your next couple of shipments are coming in. But if you do have things, if you are getting to the point where you've got to get some cash, go ahead and go for it, right? Get some cash if you need to in some different promotions. Or again, maybe rather than using the promotion of a percentage off, it's a discount for a future purchase. It's a gift card for a future purchase. Number five. I've talked about this when I talked about this tip on the podcast. I think there's a million ways to slice and dice this idea and make it unique to you. But hosting some kind of virtual closet clean out challenge or a beauty challenge or something to do with shoes, I mean you could do a number of things. Maybe you have a buy sell trade group that goes along with your business and really promoting that at this time where your customers are swapping with one another, but getting them to go through and do a closet clean out challenge and you could do it for free in your VIP group or you could do it as a pop up where they pay $5 to be a part of your closet clean out challenge and just for participating, they get a $15 gift card to come and shop with you and you're just going through and making a pure give of education. You're talking about how to create a capsule wardrobe or what key pieces they need to keep keep or when is it time to eliminate certain things or staples everyone has in their closet, but they.