According to a survey conducted by Tsinghua University and Peking University, approximately 85% of all small and medium sized businesses in China will run out of cash within the next three months if the Covid-19 crisis does not abate.
How prepared is your business?
While governments are implementing plans for financial aid, many businesses will still struggle financially. In fact, 94% of the fortune 1000 companies are already seeing ramifications from the Covid-19 crisis.
With many employees now working from home, it is more important than ever that companies have proper tools and strategies to keep up business as usual. Our common goal should be to work towards getting people to act as normally as possible, ensuring the economy going forward.
How do we ensure that our businesses do not suffer more than necessary from this situation?
How do we keep up efficiency, ensure cash flow, and continue with our sales work?
Having a continuity plan in place is essential. Important questions to answer are “How are we going to continue to sell?”, “How are we going to collaborate?”, “How are we going to communicate efficiently with external parties?” and “How do we make sure that everyone stays efficient while working from home?”.
Here are some of our best tips on how you can ensure that your company is keeping full speed ahead
1. Have regular online check-ins with your co-workers
Staying united and maintaining a sense of team spirit is especially important during these days. Remind everyone that they are still a part of a team, working towards one common goal. Employees with a sense of belonging are proven to care more about the business and it’s goals.
2. Use video as much as possible
Encourage your teams to do daily video meetings, or even coffee breaks together over video. Seeing colleagues and clients face to face- even if it is through a screen, can help increase productivity and get you in the right mindset. Knowing that you are going to be seeing other professionals during the day can help everyone get in the right state of mind, and according to interviews performed by Forbes,video conferences can even help drive cooperation, engagement and effectiveness.
3. Engage your sales force
According to Hubspot, data shows that less than 30% of today’s workforce is truly engage even at critical moments. With a large proportion of teams now working from home, one can assume that engagement is vulnerable. This will cause problems if it is not dealt with. Keep your sales force focused on maintaining a healthy pipeline. Know your team, motivate them, and keep them happy.
4. Support your marketing department with digital tools
Make sure that your marketing department has everything they need in order to work remotely. Here’s why it’s important:
- It helps you connect with your customers. After all, digital marketing is all about connecting with your personas in a meaningful way, without having person-to-person contact – which we are all trying to avoid right now.
- Content will help drive your business. 61% of people say that they are more likely to buy from a company that delivers content. Consequently, enabling your marketing department to create valuable content and work efficiently with digital tools is extremely important right now.
Proper tools to ensure efficiency while working remotely
Make sure that your marketing team has the tools needed to collaborate while working from home, and that they can access all marketing assets from anywhere. Only then can they continue to attract relevant leads for the sales team.
Proper tools could be: