In this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast, Shaun Whynacht addresses the challenges businesses face amid the COVID‑19 pandemic and offers practical guidance for shifting from in‑person to digital operations. He outlines how companies can continue promoting themselves online through live streams, social media, and appointment‑based retail models such as curbside pickup. Shaun emphasizes the importance of maintaining direct communication via phone forwarding, website chat (e.g., Drift), and social channels. He then dives into the surge in usage of video‑conferencing tools—Zoom, Google Meet (with G Suite’s new enterprise‑level offering), Skype, and Google Hangouts—and explains how professional‑service firms can integrate these platforms with scheduling systems like HubSpot to automate meeting creation and calendar management. Throughout, he stresses the need to keep business momentum by refining systems, revamping websites, and focusing on processes rather than panicking. Shaun shares how his own agency, Blue Cow Marketing, has applied these tactics and invites listeners to reach out for help transitioning to a more digital‑focused business model.
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Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast. It is March 24th, and boy oh boy, we are in some different times, are we not? Whole COVID-19 virus hitting the world. Business is kind of turned on its heels, so to speak. Things are a whole lot different. We're finding a lot of retail outlets being closed, people being laid off, and if you've got a digital business or a service business, you're still working, but you're working a bit differently. You're now being forced, so to speak, to work from a distance and working from home, and that's what I want to talk to you about in this episode is, is how do you do that? How do you take a look at your business? How do you continue to keep that momentum going forward but in a different way? So let's look at a couple different things. First of all, let's talk about how do we continue to promote our business. Obviously, you know, if you, if you have been reliant on methods that were in person, so, you know, maybe you were doing in-store promos if you're in that retail space, or maybe you're a realtor and you're doing open houses and things like that. Obviously right now at the time of recording this podcast, you can't because of social distancing, self-isolation, things of that nature. So how do you go about continuing to promote yourself in this digital world? Well, it's, it's going to be in a way of using tools that are out there. So you're seeing a lot more people going live, doing Facebook Lives, you know, being more candid, being open. It's not like you have to explain the situation to people because everybody knows. So that's a good thing. Everybody is aware that things have changed and things are a bit different. So some of our retail clients at our marketing agency at Blue Cow Marketing are changing the way that they're doing that business. So if they have a retail outlet, they are doing, you know, shopping by appointment where only one person is in the store. At a set giving time, or they're selling products online, or curbside pickup, which is ultimately you place an order with them, you know a time when you're coming to pick it up, and they're gonna bring it out to you. So really eliminating or minimizing that opportunity to be in large groups or in places that may be contaminated with the virus. Now, the other thing too that you need to look at is how are you meeting with people? How are you continuing those conversations? I like to look at this as this is an opportunity to strip down the way that we have convoluted a lot of our marketing, a lot of our communication, and look at how do we get back to the basics? How do we get people to engage with us over the phone, right? If you've got a business number, call forward that to your cell phone. So now you can take those calls from people calling your main number even when you're not at that place of business. One of the things that we were doing is, or not we were doing, we have been doing for a long time, have been using the internet. So having website chat on your website so people can ask questions, because a lot of people will have questions. And there's a site called Drift, drift.com, D-R-I-F-T dot com. They have a free chat that can easily be put onto your website. Making your social media a main channel of communication is another great way to do that. We're seeing the increase, um, not interest, but the increased use of meeting software like Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, or Google Meet is what they call it now. And if you've got a G Suite account, which means you're using the, the Google system for your business email, they've actually just announced as of yesterday— I got an email— that they're giving all G Suite users the enterprise level for Google Meet, which means that now you can hold group meetings online for up to 250 people. You can record those sessions, you can stream those sessions. So now you're able to then take your business and do webinar type formats if you already are a Google Suite customer. Zoom, another very popular platform. We got people that are using this very well very effectively. Heck, I even had a client who mentioned that they were going out for drinks with their friends over Zoom— virtual drinks with friends. So obviously, if you're not familiar with Zoom, it is like a meeting platform that you can use your webcam. So brings up on the screen everybody's camera feed, you can chat, you can engage with people. So really a great way to do that. Now, we do a lot of work, and I do a lot of work in that professional services type of business like financial advisors, insurance brokers, those type of things where you're, you're doing a lot of one-to-one meetings and you're not able to meet one-on-one, you're now going to be utilizing these meeting tools and these techniques like Zoom. How can you do that? Well, you can integrate it with other systems like HubSpot, which people could able to go and book a meeting with you and it will automatically create a Zoom link for them, send them the meeting invitation. So now you basically are giving people access to book times with you when you are available because it takes into account your calendar. And this is where we have been pushing for people to look at this for years, and there's a lot of people who have had great success with this. But now what we're actually seeing is businesses are at that point where they're being forced to look at this. And now it's like, oh, it's, you know, we need to get this in place. We need to do this right now. And the tools are there. The tools are there, okay? It's not like you have to worry that you're not gonna be able to do it. There's no method to do it because the tools are there. They're readily available. So look at that in your business is how can you leverage the current situation to keep the momentum going in your business. Here's the thing I urge you to do. Don't stop. Don't sit there in a place of panic and stop your business from moving. It can slow, that's okay, but there needs to be some type of forward momentum. It is a lot harder to get started back up when things have stopped than it is to just increase the velocity of forward momentum that has already been going because you may have just slowed down things. Focusing on your systems, your processes. Look at your website. Spend time to look at your website this time that you have time working on your business, less time working in your business, and what can you revamp? What can you change? Here at Blue Cow Marketing, we did the exact same thing. We revised our website. 2 weeks ago, and we continue to look at it differently every single day. So like I said when we started, these are difficult times, these are challenging times, but these are times that we will get through. Don't freak out. Look at what you're doing and make a plan to keep that momentum going forward. And I wish you all the best. Hang in there. We're all fighting the exact exact same battle. Be positive. If you have any questions, you'd like any help with setting up systems, getting your business to more of a digital age, please, I open that invitation to you. I'm here for you. I love that you listen to this show. You can find me at bluecowmarketing.ca. You'll be able to reach out to me with a live chat there. And I'll respond to you as soon as I get it. Thank you, and please be safe.
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