Even into the back half of 2021, COVID-19 continues to severely impact businesses across New Zealand as we ride out another lockdown. As we’ve yo-yoed from lockdown to lockdown, we need a survival strategy in place to give us the confidence to overcome these setbacks. A survival strategy could include such elements as streamlined communication with our customers and shareholders, a supportive network such as that provided by the Bartercard family, and the expert tracking of expenses.
Bartercard provides you with a vast marketplace of thousands of businesses to trade with the world’s largest cashless business networking platform, to help you get through this difficult time, but there’s more to surviving lockdown than your trade network. Below, we’ll offer some tips to help you withstand the challenges of moving in and out of lockdown.
Managing Effective Communication in Times of Crisis
These are unprecedented times for small businesses, which have fundamentally changed the way we work and live. Your customers may be feeling uncertain about the future, quite possibly questioning whether you’re still there for them. Steering your business through the pandemic depends largely on how you communicate, setting up a dialogue with the market, with the customer, and with the future.
The current environment also means the timing and the methods of communication you select will be critical in helping you retain customers and keep your business solvent through this challenging period.
How to Improve Communication with Your Customers
In this ever-changing economic climate, it is more important than ever for businesses to think outside the box. This means they need to be transparent and keep their customers informed. A good idea is to maintain timely and effective communications, including on virtual platforms for client meetings. This means finding and nurturing a good IT provider, so help will be quickly at hand.
You should ensure your staff have access to good internet, equipment, and processes to enable them to work safely, productively, and collaboratively at home. You should also be proactive in providing regular updates to all your stakeholders, internal and external, and let them know what you are thinking. Finally, work on effective ways to build your interpersonal communication skills to keep your relationships strong, even if you are not necessarily communicating face to face in the real world.
Focus on Building your Business During Lockdown
It makes sense to focus on building your business during a lockdown, and Bartercard makes it easy to keep your finances on track, by fitting into members’ existing accounting systems. You can offset your expenses and keep cash in your business while continuing to strengthen and expand your networks.
Consider updating to more modern accounting and reporting software that offers new technologies to boost business productivity and streamline operations. Technology has in the past been considered a threat to the workforce but, in today’s new world, if the cash isn’t coming in to meet your monthly expenses, you’ll find yourself in the red. You can start by regularly reviewing your existing expenses and how much you need to cover them with the aid of new, enhanced technology.
Joining Bartercard Will Help You Survive Future Lockdowns
Joining Bartercard will help you increase business growth during the COVID-19 lockdowns and help get your financials out of the red and firmly into the black. We have members who are finance savvy professionals and keen to work with you. Our members also believe this is a better, more sustainable way to do business in the future, by utilising all the tools in the Bartercard trade exchange to make that happen.
Our team will also show you how to save cash on your business expenses, so contact Bartercard today to find out how we can set in place survival strategies to get you through the lockdowns and out the other side in better shape than ever.
