Business Regeneration – Lessons Learned from COVID

Business Regeneration – Lessons Learned from COVID

BY HANK MOORE

Business recovery requires a lot more than loans to tide them over. Businesses need strategies. They need to know there is a place for them in a changing landscape. In addition to the health effects, COVID negatively impacted the economy and spurred a recession. The pandemic caused dislocation in business. Stopgap measures to recover business resulted in false starts, forced openings, forced closings, and the loss of customers. Those who were shutdown reported loss of marketplace, dislocation of clientele, and spending cuts that harmed their small businesses the most. According to surveys, 50 percent of business owners believed that the crisis would pass within four months. 54 percent of businesses closed for short-term periods, and 47 percent were marked by unemployment. Declines of 50 percent were highest in the hospitality industry.

The duration of the crisis played a huge role in the impact.

In the first months, 72 percent of businesses expected to reopen. After eight months, 47 percent expected to recover and reopen. Social distancing had a direct impact on customer service, relationships, and repeat business. 48 percent of workers in small businesses have livelihood directly tied to the ecosystem caused by downturns. Many found new jobs, took stopgap jobs, or gave up on their careers altogether. Liquidity crunches with cashflow disruptions showed slower cycles in recovery. Businesses suffered closures, losses, and missed opportunities. Many workers saw career dreams dashed, lost career momentum, and a reality that putting things on hold might encounter changed business dynamics.

Customer service suffered.

When you heard terms “contact-less and contactfree,” I heard customer service sinking to new depths. Human interactions were minimalized, making restoration of customer service more difficult on the backend of the pandemic. Some businesses added COVID charges to bills, citing increased cleaning and sanitation services plus costs for PPE. Many cited the loss of business in other areas due to the pandemic including limited occupancy charges, paying workers when the business was closed, and costs associated with re-launching businesses.

Hidden fees are nothing new.

Those who pay cable bills, healthcare statements, and academic charges are beset with recovery charges. Consumers who were hit hard by the pandemic had to bear the brunt for COVID charges. The auto industry thanked consumers for past business and encouraged them to buy more cars as an economic incentive. Education was changed by COVID. Learning went virtual, as did professional development. Many associations cut vital programs and met by losses in dues and participation.

Terms we learned during the pandemic included:

Essential workers, social distancing, cave syndrome, drive-by rationing, super spreaders, rolling blackouts, quarantine, response team, generation pandemic, zoom conferences, food insecurity, humanitarian crisis, distance learning, pandemic brain fog, PPE supplies, PEP loans, masking up, front-line staff, preventable crisis, infra-structure, boil water notices, sanitizers, vaccine hesitancy, the New Normal, and normalizing trauma.

Coping with stress, grief, and worry led to innovative communication. People used isolation time to engage in virtual chatrooms, reconnect with old friends, and attend Zoom meetings. As COVID forced most businesses to become distanced, the Zoom era grew rapidly. Conferences, meetings, professional education, and customer service began utilizing cubes of people to contribute to the business. In the post-COVID recession, many businesses went under. Many frail companies were not on firm foundations and abdicated their abilities to improve and serve customer bases.

As a Big Picture business strategist, I encourage businesses to adopt new ways of thinking about old processes. Here are new acronyms for COVID to help you visualize opportunities differently:

COVID: Community Operations Verify Intelligence Data

COVID: Collective Ongoing Virus Incidents Decreased

COVID: Corrective Organizational Visioning Involves Discipline

COVID: Corporate Organizations View Interests Differently

COVID: Courage Overrides Variance In Defeat

COVID: Creative Organizations Visualize Individual Decisions

COVID: Continuous Operations Validate Increased Demands

COVID: Coalescing Omnibus Value Intelligence Destiny

Small business is resilient and will recover and prosper. Cool heads will always prevail. Small business has learned many lessons from COVID. While some fight change and adhere to the same processes that got them into trouble, I still see great opportunities for businesses that are forward focused.

Hank Moore has advised 5,000+ client organizations including 100 of the Fortune 500, public sector agencies, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Hank’s Legends books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Contact Hank by phone at (346) 777-1818, by email at hankmoore4218@sbcglobal.net, or visit him on the web at www.HankMoore.com.