Walking into this January many of my clients have had to adjust their entire business models to meet the challenges left in the wake of 2020. While I can’t take credit for their ideas or visions of what their businesses should achieve, I can confidently say that working with them this year was challenging and personally rewarding.
With my focus primarily on small businesses, I have a unique perspective as to what it takes to make a business survive when the world goes haywire. I had clients who had to shut down their businesses completely for long stretches of the year, while others were able to jump and jive their way to finding new ways to do business and generate new revenue sources.
What was really key for survival for all of my clients in 2020 was finding new revenue sources.
One of my clients is a boutique owner whose main revenue source is ‘in person’ retail shopping. Clothing, jewelry and home decor were her top revenue generating products. Her online sales made up approximately 10% of her revenue stream.
In 2017 this same small business owner had the vision to start carrying boutique wines. Prior to 2020 it was not a major revenue stream. Then covid hit and she shut her doors for 5 months. It was then she had the idea to host weekly virtual wine tastings. Her marketing strategy was simple and was just to send emails to her current list of customers and also to post on social media.
She started doing virtual wine tastings in April of 2020 and they not only sustained her through the closure but her online business went through the roof.
Another client who owns a coffee shop and cafe was also facing closure of her business during the early days of the shut down. After many hours we came up with a plan for her to turn her cafe into a grocery store and she started offering “$30 Family Meals” which could be picked up or delivered. It was a huge success! She too had a healthy email list we had captured over the years which was instrumental in marketing her efforts.
If your business is struggling to do business in the same way it always has my advice to you is to dare to think bigger, lean into something new and try it.
Wishing you success in the new year!
~Christy