MBA1540 Q&A Wednesdays: Should I open my shop doors with COVID restrictions?

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If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar100mba.net Today's question is from Phil and Phil asks should I open my shop's doors with COVID restrictions? Hey Omar, thanks for creating this podcast. Here in Australia the government has allowed for up to 10 people in my shop. This is to observe social distancing with COVID 19 I did the math with staff and other expenses. Luckily I own the building. It may work out that I break even during this time. Is it worth putting my team at risk for no real significant profit? Would love your insights. Thanks for the podcast Phil. This is a great question from Phil. It's a real question. We're in unprecedented times. It's not the normal set of challenges that most businesses will have to go through during their lifetime. So it's great that Phil is actually asking this question so we can work it out together. Is it worth it to open the doors? Is he putting anybody at risk here? Is there a benefit to opening doors and will it help his actual team if he does? We get into all that in today's Q and A Wednesdays episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So in today's Q and A Wednesday's episode, Phil is asking, should he open the doors to his shop, given he can only have 10 people at a time? He did the math, and it looks like he'd be breaking even with expenses that he has and paying staff. He doesn't have the reoccurring cost of rent because he owns the building, so that's a plus. But his question is, is it really worth opening the doors? Will he be putting his team at risk if he's not really going to make a significant profit? So, first of all, Phil, you're actually in a pretty fortunate situation compared to other small business owners, where you can actually afford to close your doors because you own the shop. Okay? You own the actual building, so you can actually stay there for as long as you like. Now, I'm sure you have other running expenses even with your doors closed, but they're probably minimal given the biggest expense is staff. So half of those problems are gone. I'm not sure what's going on with staff. I know that Australia has, like, a paycheck stimulus going on, so you might have that covered. But the question at hand here is that should you open the doors, you're concerned about your staff, you're putting them at risk if they're working during these restrictions. And I want to applaud you the fact that this is really your concern. You're really worried about your team. You want to make sure that they're safe, and I love that. But at the same time, I'm sure you're also thinking, hey, they probably want to get back to work. They want to start, you know, serving customers and possibly, you know, earn some extra money. To answer this question, I want to dial it back a little bit. We're going to kind of talk about what are the responsibilities that a business owner has towards their business. So I like to look at it as three big things. And the first thing is you have a responsibility to your team. And this is great. You're aware of this and you're really concerned. Second, you have a responsibility towards the product or service. So you need to make sure that, you know, you're delivering your product or your service in the best way possible. So if you're not able to do that, that should be something that you need to really work on or something you need to think about. The third thing is you have a responsibility towards your customers, the people that actually rely on your product or service. Now, I'm first to say that there's a lot of non essential businesses, quote unquote, that are actually essential in a lot of people's lives. Whether each individual thinks it's essential or not is kind of up for debate, but the point is that it is essential for some people. So it looks like you are what was called a non essential business that's now able to open and be able to serve 10 customers at a time. So given the three responsibilities, your team, your product or service and your customers, we want to try to make sure that we fulfill as many responsibilities as we can. So first of all, if you can pay your employees, if your employees are getting paid by the stimulus in some way and you can continue to be closed, that's something to consider that your employees are not going to be affected by you closing your doors. If that's not the case, if they're actually going to benefit, they're going to actually make money and earn a living by you opening the doors, even if it's just for 10 people at a time, then that's a really big reason to consider opening the doors. Number two, I know that Australia has done an incredible job with COVID 19 with the restrictions, with keeping it contained. And of course you're going to put things in place to make sure that everybody's safe. You know, whether it's hand sanitizer at the door, whether it's keeping things clean, social distancing, all that kind of stuff. So there are ways for you to protect your employees and open your doors if it benefits them. If you can continue to deliver the product and service at the same level that you did before COVID given these restrictions, then great, you don't want to sacrifice that experience. For example, Lush, the soap brand, if you walk into one of their stores today during COVID 19, it's a very strange experience. You walk in, they require you to wash your hands or to use hand sanitizer, which is quite normal. But they kind of make you go through this kind of maze or step by step procedure. You can't touch the products. You're going to need the help of a store, a representative who's going to actually, you know, take the soap and you're going to be able to smell it, but you can't really touch it or feel it. And if you've ever been to a lush store, this is totally different from the experience. It's a very tactile experience. You're washing your hands, you're making suds, you're really, you know, experiencing the soap. In my opinion, the experience and the delivery of the product and the service is totally different and is affected by being open during COVID 19. So if you are not like that and you're able to deliver your product or service without any effect effect and it's still a good experience for your customers, that's another plus for opening. Lastly, the restrictions are actually an interesting time. If you only have 10 people in the store, your die hard fans, your best customers are the ones that are going to show up and there's a good chance for you to maybe build a relationship with them, maybe build some sort of loyalty program with them. You're going to see the best of the best customers that you have come to your store during this time and you can strengthen that bond and serve those customers in a special way. Now, opening your doors may be a good option. Now, I will only say this because I know how things are in Australia. They've done a Great job with COVID 19 and the restrictions and lockdown beforehand. They've eased things up now because, you know, there's less than a thousand active cases in the whole country. I'm actually making a pretty good argument to open your doors if you're going to be helping your employees by paying them a salary. If you're able to deliver the service or the product with with the same level of quality and experience and you're able to really build that relationship with your best customers. Now, if you can't do this safely, if you feel like it's still too much of a risk, if you feel like maybe your shop is really small or whatever it is where you feel like this just doesn't feel right. If you have that kind of gut feeling, that intuition, you have the liberty to say, no, I'm going to keep my doors closed. That's the beauty of entrepreneurship, that you can actually listen to your gut. You can actually make the best choice, what you feel is best. You want to trust your gut, but you want to verify. You want to trust, but verify. I love that phrase. You want to verify that you're actually opening or closing for good reasons. And that's why I kind of gave you a matrix to follow.

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Guys, COVID 19 is the biggest curveball ever, right? No one expected this to happen. It's really changed the way we live our life as well as it changed the way we do business. So Phil's quality question is really, really timely and I really believe, Phil, if you can do this safely and you could do it right and it will benefit your team, your team members, you could do it without hindering the experience of your product or service and you help your customers, I think it's something to consider. I also suggest you have a team meeting, include your team members, everybody that's going to be involved that's going to be affected with this decision. Have a quick call and say, hey, I'm considering doing this. I want to hear everybody's opinion. I'm going to make the decision, but I want everybody to weigh in. I want to hear what you guys think. You might be surprised of the answers and you also might feel better if you get buy in from everybody else. Of course, ultimately it's your decision to make the decision you believe is right for your company, your team and your customers. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you have a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, just ask me over@omar00mba.net just pop me an email and we'll make sure we answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, guys. By hitting subscribe when the next episode publishes, which is every day, you'll automatically get access to it on your device. No searching no downloading. It's right there. Also, by hitting subscribe, you get access to over 1500 business lessons in our archive. It's absolutely free, and it's the only way to get access to all those business lessons. So go ahead and hit subscribe right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. As your business grows, as you get more and more successful, the harder it gets and the harder decisions become. No one said this is going to be easy. It's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be challenging. But it doesn't mean you can't do it. You can but understand that every big decision you make will shape the future of your business. So I'm glad that Phil actually is putting weight to this decision. He's not taking it lightly. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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