In times of crisis, it’s easy to feel lost and unsure of what your next move should be. Everything feels like it’s in flux, leaving you all turned around and confused. This happens to us as individuals, but it also happens to businesses around the world.
On top of dealing with personal adjustment to such an unusual time, it can be hard to stick to your company’s original business plan. With new stressors arising and things falling apart, it can be hard to breathe, let alone thrive.
So, what can you do to improve sales during a crisis?
These 5 crisis management strategies will help you focus on what is most important and what will help you grow right now.
5 tips to maintain and even grow your business
- Digitize (if you haven’t already).
Anything and everything that can be done virtually should be done virtually. This is anything from moving your brick and mortar store to an online shop or just handling administrative tasks online, so your team can successfully work from home.
- Evaluate - Which products are doing well, which aren’t?
This is a great time to sit down and really evaluate or assess what’s working and what’s not within your business. What products are weighing you down and what products are skyrocketing? After you evaluate your company, realign your business plan to keep up with the current climate.
- Connect - Reach out to existing customers and deepen loyalty with them.
It’s more important now to retain current customers than ever. Of course, you want to build new business but keeping current customers happy is key. Right now, your current customers want you to be transparent about how your business is adjusting and how you are able to continue to serve them.
- Collaborate - Partnerships can lead to new customers - think outside the box!
In times like these, collaboration can really help improve your company’s sales. Even unlikely pairs of companies can come together and help each other out by offering special deals if customers buy one of the products.
For instance, GoPro and Redbull-- they sell two very different products, but they both focus around living fearlessly. They’ve done numerous projects to help boost each other’s sales. Finding a company that has a similar mission to your own, will be the common ground you need to build a good partnership.
- Experiment - Now’s the time to try new things (with minimal investment).
Going off the assessing tip, use this time to evaluate. Think about those side projects you’ve wanted to add to your business. Maybe you wanted to launch a blog or podcast, but haven’t had the time to get around to it.
These are two great ways to further connect with your current customers and assure them that you’re there for them that costs you little, to no money. Small tasks like these will help all your customers feel more connected and help you improve sales.
Conclusion
There’s never going to be a good time for a crisis. So you need to be prepared for when one does arise. These 5 crisis management strategies will help you figure out what’s most important, what you need to implement and how to stay connected to those loyal customers.
Crisis management may not be the most fun thing to deal with it, but regardless it can be one of the most important. If you can streamline your company to come out of a crisis, you should be able to handle anything that comes your way!
