While we’ve been living in a global pandemic for several months now, I know it’s still been difficult for a lot of people to get a handle on how COVID-19 is affecting business. I was intensely curious myself so I created a survey and asked everyone I know to fill it out. Now, I want to share the results with you. I’ve got the answers to questions like: what are companies doing to adapt? How are budgets and hiring plans changing? What can I do for my business?
Read on to see what your fellow professionals had to say.
Money, Money, Money
I was surprised to find that most businesses are operating only slightly below their normal budget. In a time when it can be all too easy to find bad news, this was a breath of fresh air. Whether due to internal practices, external support, or a mix of both, I was happy to discover that, rather than sinking, many companies are still navigating these tricky and rough waters.
Knowledge is Power
I asked the tough question, “If there was one area to focus on right now during the current landscape, what would that area be?” Almost all the answers I received fit within three categories: How to Stand Out; Communication; and Finances. Here are a few specific examples business leaders shared:
How to Stand Out
- Being top of mind when a client can’t hire full-time, but can hire an interim consultant
- Keeping in front of prospective clients
- Giving back
- Enhancements that help people do business digitally
- Focusing on things that might seem unimportant but will be harmful if left on the backburner too long – like SEO
- New course format, service offering, and website upgrade to reflect new services
- Retention of current clients by showing them our ability to be nimble and flexible
- Developing and using appropriate messaging
- Better targeting and identification of our ideal customer
- Building new relationships
- Connecting members to one another
- Social media and everything digital
- Lifting people up via valuable content
- Top of funnel awareness building
- Expanding production capacity
- Focusing on federal government spending
- Conserving cash
- Identifying new prospects
- Loan forgiveness
- How to save clients money
- Growing existing clients
- Hitting our revenue target
- Reducing spending
- Completing planned campaigns
- Launching products
- Hiring
- Social media presence
- Organic search optimization
- PR
- Paid digital advertising and Online reputation management
- Review sites, like Yelp
- Increasing sales (60.27%)
- Cutting expenses (38.36%)
- Updating and expanding a Wikipedia presence (60.27%)
- A better understanding of Google Analytics and Google Data Studio; and having a high level of visibility into the ROI of a digital ad spend (both 28.77%)