In this March 2020 video, Roy Abdo delivers a sector‑specific survival guide for businesses and professionals impacted by the COVID‑19 pandemic. He begins by addressing associations and nonprofits, urging them to pivot canceled in‑person events into virtual conferences using Zoom and Facebook groups for live Q&A and networking. For restaurant owners, he recommends curb‑side pickup, online delivery, targeted email outreach, reconfiguring dining spaces for social distancing, and using the downtime to develop new menu items and visual branding. Doctors are advised to adopt telemedicine, set up digital payment channels (PayPal, Venmo), create self‑diagnosis kits, and build a booking site via Shopify or similar platforms. Accountants, financial advisors, and other service providers are told to maintain client contact through phone calls and emails, leveraging the increased availability of their customers. Educators and trainers are encouraged to monetize their intellectual property by recording classes, publishing them on platforms like Teachable, launching newsletters, offering services on Upwork, and conducting live sessions via Zoom with digital payment options. Throughout, Abdo stresses a positive, proactive mindset, focusing on what can be controlled, learning from historical resilience, and using the crisis as an opportunity for digital transformation and self‑improvement.
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Is your business struggling because of the coronavirus? Is your position in danger because you're working from home? In this video, I'll walk you through different steps on how you could deal with this crisis. Associations and nonprofits. As an event person or a person who works in nonprofits, you're probably right now thinking, God, my event and my conference was canceled. There's 20,000 people that I cannot have, and they used to bring me a lot of revenue. Here's the catch. Turn it to a virtual conference because those people went to the conference for their learning and the outcomes and the connections. You can, guess what, put up a Zoom account where you can start hosting virtual conferences and live streaming the events. On top of that, have Facebook group for those attendees where they can converse and set up in that group some time with the speakers where they can have chances to do Q&A and a live Facebook with them. Restaurant owners, you probably were hit the most and the hardest with this crisis. My recommendation to you is set up your curbside pickup, to offer online deliveries, and look at those emails you've had and contact from those customers and send them an email that you're offering online deliveries. But also use this time so you can rearrange the layout of your restaurant. This crisis is going to be over. What the new norm is, is social distancing, so make sure your guests have enough spaces between each other when they come back. And use this time to take photos and build new dishes so when those customers come back, they feel it's a whole brand new experience in your restaurant. Doctors, this is a time when you have to be thinking of the new way of doing medicine because you can't go to your medical practice. It does not mean you cannot help people. Telemedicine and online medicine is actually highly recommended at this point. So set Set yourself with a PayPal account, set yourself with a Venmo so you can accept payment. Also think about a kit that people can order so they can self-diagnose themselves and while you're with them on FaceTime. And set up yourself a site using Shopify, using any online tool where you can basically do telemedicine and people book you online. Accountants and services and financial advisors, all those service sectors, this is, I mean, this crisis should be irrelevant to what's going on with you because you have to be spending your time outward. You have to be making those phone calls, you have to be sending out those emails, giving that advice. So this crisis should not affect you because you have to pick up the phone and connect with people. And guess what? A lot of those customers have a lot of time because they're at home. Teachers, professors, educators, if I was you, the first thing I'll think about, I have my intellectual property. I should go on video, record a bunch of classes, go on teachable.com, make myself a class and upload it so people can start buying my learnings. Start yourself a newsletter and email those you know that, hey, I have an online class you could take. Not only that, go on Upwork, list the services you have, and set up yourself a Zoom account and a Venmo where you can accept payments so you can do online learning and online classes. This is the way to— time to build yourself your digital and intellectual property online where you can benefit from it from wherever you are. Whatever profession or business you have, we're going to survive this. We've been through worst cases, wars, we've been through different catastrophe and stuff. Because look at history, we've always survived and we will survive this. And it's time for you to think about a change of mindset, a positive mindset where what is it that I can control? Because a lot of things are happening right now are above your control, but within your control is how you react to them, what are you gonna build, what the preparedness you have, and what are you using this time for to self-improve and build great things? Mm-hmm.
