Fighting Back Against The Coronavirus. What Your Business Should Be Doing

Since the declaration of a National Emergency, the US has seen a large number of businesses shut down operations for at least two weeks. Restaurants, bars, movie theaters, even theme parks have shut down to reduce the spread of COVID-19.  

Smaller, independent businesses have been hit the hardest; either having to suspend operations for the time-being or have employees work from home when they lack the infrastructure to do so.  

Others believe it won’t affect them. I spoke with my Director of Management Consulting, Mike Lockey, who had this to say: 

“Whether or not you believe how serious or mundane this virus might be, the reality is it’s impacting everybody.”  

All of our clients were paying attention to the news because the information was inescapable. Though the coronavirus is impacting our clients in different ways, many were taking a wait-and-see approach. 

If a manufacturer wasn’t impacted right away, they would continue operating and just wait until everything dies down. 

“We’re definitely not a wait-and-see type of company!” 

“You have to have an action plan, you have to implement those actions, and you have to be brutally direct” Lockey said. “Our philosophy is if you’re waiting for the impact, it’s too late. You have to get ahead of it.” 

Our plan of action with our clients was to address their needs, covering various components. We mainly focused on their financial well-being. If worst comes to worst and the banking systems shut down, we wanted to ensure they had sufficient liquidity to get them through a reasonable amount of time.  

At American Management, we too are feeling the effects of COVID-19.  

We’ve reduced the hours of those coming into the office by 50-percent and implemented a work-from-home program with 50% of our personnel. 

As many of you already know, I’m not a big proponent of working from home. While I think the idea of working from home is pure insanity, I do find it necessary in extreme circumstances. 

Some of our clients didn’t test working from home. They waited until they had no choice to begin implementing that change. Trying to keep your employees’ productivity high is a challenge. When you have line-of-sight on your employees, you can simply correct their actions. When working remote, you have to create a virtual line-of-sight.  

“Your employees must have a quota, a requirement, something that is tangible that you can sink your teeth into. If you can measure that throughout the day, then, in a way, you do have line-of-sight with them.” 

As the coronavirus continues to threaten your business, you have to fight back. If you need help with that, don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly at louismosca@amserv.com, or on Twitter @moscasmallbiz.  

In the meantime, you can listen to my full conversation with Mike Lockey, which includes cutting overhead and what happens after the virus goes away, in our new podcast The Hardball Profits Way, available  now on Spotify and Google Play, and soon on iTunes.