How Can We Adapt In Uncharted Territory

How Can We Adapt In Uncharted Territory

Hi ladies and gents. It is Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. I hope that this video finds you, your family, your loved ones, your friends doing as well as can be expected under the current circumstances. We are definitely in uncharted territory here, I know there is a lot of fear out there and I think it's important for us to interact however we can throughout this time and keep in mind that this too shall pass. We have no idea how long this is going to last, but I think we need to do our best to try and stay as positive as we possibly can.

No matter what business you're in, our jobs are to help people. And I think if we don't do what we can to help people, even if it has nothing to do with what we do for our business, we aren't helping ourselves, we're not helping our businesses, our clients, customers, and our communities. So in that vein, I've decided to start doing some Facebook live videos just to pass along information that I've seen, that I've come across, that I think may help not only me but other business owners out there who are trying to navigate this. So today what I want to share with you is some of the things that I have seen people do to try and adapt to our current situation and our current circumstances.

So the first thing that I saw is from an auto shop. It was an email that they sent out a few days ago, and it was just six ways that they could help right now. And so they were talking about touchless interaction, we've been told to social distance ... I saw somebody yesterday talk about how we really shouldn't be calling it social distancing. We should be calling it physical distancing because we are humans, we need social interaction. Which I thought was a really great take on it. But touchless interaction, right? So there's physical distancing, but we can still get your work done. Concierge service where they'll actually, if you're afraid to leave your home, you don't want to leave your home, they'll come and pick up your car, bring it back, do the service, and then bring it back. Digital communication, again, to physical distance. They want to talk about their detailed sanitizing process to make sure that things are as clean and sanitary as possible. Cost savings, so they were offering some discounts. I think from a marketing perspective, discounts in a market like this are not really going to help all that much. But in this case, I did think it was appropriate. And then they had talked about some of the financing options that they had as well, so I thought that was cool.

The second example that I saw was our kid's piano teacher go into virtual piano lessons via Zoom, will it work? I can't tell you just yet. But I thought that it was a great way for her to adapt and still help work with her kids and ... Because my kids have been home for a week, and they're managing, but it's going to get a little challenging. So finding ways that we can still interact, I think, is really, really important. So I thought that was a great idea.

Restaurants. I've seen a lot of restaurants, they're operating with minimal staff. If they are still able to be open, it's curbside pickup, no large gatherings obviously, but hey people still need to eat, right? So restaurants could start doing things like virtual cooking classes to stay top of mind for their clients and help them through this. You can still interact, "Hey let's have a virtual cooking class. We're going to show you how to make our favorite dish on our menu." Can you make money doing that? I don't know, you might be able to charge for it. Or if you can weather this storm a bit, you may be able to do that really as more of a goodwill thing to help stay top of mind. And I think anything that you can do like that now is going to come back to you as we start to recover and get through this.

The fourth example that somebody brought up to me was a remodeling contractor. They actually decided to shift some of their marketing budget right now to help support local businesses. They bought gift cards for local restaurants and they're sending them to their customers. I think this is double-sided. They're helping local restaurants by buying gift cards, but they're also letting their customers know, "Hey look, we need to do what we can now to support our local businesses." Local businesses especially are being hit really hard with this current situation. So I thought that was an interesting thing. And just really, I think, sends a really strong message to everybody about what we need to do. We need to help each other.

The fifth example really isn’t an example per se, but it's just like, look, there are a lot of us that are being impacted by this right now, but those of us that aren't being immediately impacted I think there definitely is going to be a ripple effect as we come through this and we're all going to be impacted. There are some businesses certainly that are seeing an uptick from this, but those of us that have downtime now, are there projects that we put off, tasks that we put off that we can work on now and get done to help lay a more solid foundation for our businesses moving forward? Are there new products or services that we could be and should be getting involved with to help us get through this, but also help our business expand as things begin to improve?

I don't have the answers for that, but those are things to think about because I think if you can come up with strong ideas, it definitely makes sense to start focusing and doubling down on those things that are going to help you work through this and grow your business as we get through this.

Okay, so I hope you guys found those things helpful. I don't have all the answers, but I hope the ideas were helpful for you. What have you seen other people doing? Please share because there are a lot of smart people out there and we need to share those ideas because I think it may spark things that you can do in your business to help get through this. So if you're struggling to adapt and navigate through this difficult time, please reach out to us. Look, I'm a marketer at this point now, but I've had multiple businesses, I went through the .com bust, I went through the great recession and I am happy to help give you some ideas or send you resources that are going to help you in your business. Not only from a marketing perspective but from a financing perspective. Operationally, there's a lot of things that we need to be doing operationally to help our businesses work and get through this. So please don't hesitate to reach out to help you in any way, shape, or form that I can. So thanks for taking the time to watch. Please stay safe and stay healthy.