Working on your business while you can't work IN it
2020 truly rocked the boat in the world of business. At the turn of the century, who would have thought that come March our goals and plans would be pulled straight out from beneath us. While you may have had to hit the pause button on your business, you might be at a loss on how you can help your business make it through to the other side. What better way to do that than to make sure you hit the ground running at reopen time – better than you were before.
So, you may not be able to work in your business right now, but you can certainly work on it! Here are seven tips for working on your business while it has been put on hold
Grow your online presence
Social media hasn’t been put on lock down – otherwise I think the world would go mad. With all the algorithm changes constantly being introduced to our favourite social media apps, it’s proving harder and harder to grow our following and reach more of our target audience. Now is the time to do some research on the current landscape, the strategies you can use and the content you should be putting out there. Social media strategy is time consuming, but with the current situation it’s the best time to put your all into it. When you reopen, you will be at the fingertips of not only your loyal customers but your new audience followers too! Here are some great resources to get you started at the following links.
Growing your social media following
*pay attention to tip 4, liking and commenting genuine interaction with your audience is more valuable than many believe.
But, you can’t do that without content, and content is King – If content is kind, is social media queen?
P.S. Are your social media links/icons easily visible on every page of your website? Why on earth not?
Blogging
Adding a blog to your website (if you haven’t already) is another great way to grow your audience and increase your website visitors while working on your business. While they may not be able to purchase whatever product or service you sell on your website, at least you still have traffic coming in through a blog. The benefits of this are endless especially when you reopen. Blogging broadens your value proposition, opens opportunities for partnerships, grows your presence in your industry, illustrates your brand personality and more. This can be a long term project, the perfect one to take on while you work on your business
Better business practices
Now is the time to tackle those tasks that simply never fit into your daily grind. Yes, we’re talking the boring stuff – fixing that second till, sorting out that ginormous pile of paperwork (go paperless), cash flow restructuring, looking at where you can save money, remarketing all your insurances etc. This could include internet and other service providers. In a situation where we are all trying to save as much as we can, this is the best time for it. But also, some of these things require you to get in the zone – reading up on your legalities, improving policies and procedures, fixing that group head that broke 6 months ago (whoops). Let’s start smashing through that long to do list.
Website audit
The one thing that promotes your business 24/7 is your website. So, it should be beautiful and functional both inside and out. Broken links, slow loading pages and 404 errors are simply not good enough in 2020. You have endless free apps on Google that can help you optimize your website – now is the time to utilise them!
PageSpeed Insights by Google
Simply enter your homepage URL or specific pages on your website and it will analyse it. Then it will provide tips on errors or things that need to be changed to increase your page speed.
10 tips that can drastically improve your website’s user experience
For those selling products online (particularly skincare) – 6 simple ways to improve your website
Upskill
You’re an avid soap maker but your marketing skills are well… non-existent. Or maybe your marketing skills are honed to perfection but your business mind…not so much. In 2020, we’re fortunate enough to have access to endless online courses. Many in which are free. During this pandemic, many are even offering half price. Therefore, today is the perfect time to upskill with a course that will complement your business to have it thriving more than ever.
COVID-19 support/fee-free courses with Tafe NSW
Free courses at Deakin University
40 free online courses you can take right now
Set goals
While everything is so full of uncertainty, it’s a good idea to set goals to give you or your team not only a purpose but a clear path for working on your business and moving forward. Goals are steppingstones to an accomplishment. Without them, you may get lost along the way. So, whether the end goal is to revamp your website, grow your social media following or financial goals. You should be setting SMART goals to accomplish them. Smart, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely goals will be the steppingstones to your biggest accomplishment yet. That may look like gaining 30 Instagram followers each 30 days in order to reach 4000 by the end of the year.
Cement your relaunch strategy
With all that lost time, you want to come back with a bang, right? Lucky you’ve got time on your hands to make sure that happens. Whether it’s a solid launch campaign or it’s a mixture of all the tasks we detailed above. This is your chance to really remind your customers what you’re about, and why they should support you. So, put on your marketing or business strategy cap, and get planning.
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