Six Examples of Business Brilliance Amidst The CoronaVirus (and How You Can Learn From Them)
There’s one major skill that will help us get through this time: creativity. The combination of being small businesses and the coronavirus is calling us to be creative about new products and services, problem solving, and ways of doing business. In business lingo – it’s called pivoting.
To me, pivoting simply means leaning into what’s going on, and changing direction. Work with it, not against it. Try new things. Alter old things that no longer work. And do your best to come up with solutions or changes that go with the environment at hand.
Now if you are anything like me, you need some examples. Some real-life pivots that businesses are making in light of the chaos. Coming right up.
Here are some great examples of pivots from some known companies and some anonymous ones. Let them serve as inspiration
- Virtual Classes – Shakti-barre. This is my local yoga studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After first announcing that they were going to limit classes to 10 people, they later realized that even this wouldn’t work. So they turned all of their classes virtual. Talk about resourcefulness – braving the lines at B&H, figuring out how to get music involved and getting cameras up, training teachers to give online classes – one day later, they are doing virtual classes. Way to step into “never give up.”
- Sending Materials – Podcasting Company. I’m keeping the name anonymous here. Given that many of the guests were unable to leave their homes to go into production studios – this company decided to create “at-home” mikes and AV kits to send to their guests to be able to use in their home for “semi-professional” sound. The shows had to go on – especially given that there were advertising contracts for every show. Not perfect – but do-able. Once the interview is recorded, they pack up the kits and send them to the next interview. Talk about in-the-minute resourcefulness.
- Special Deals – Dance Studio. I just got an email from a dance studio in the neighborhood. For all members who keep their memberships going – they offered unlimited dance classes for two months when they reopened. And they also offered to allow people to make up missed classes anytime between now and the end of the year. What a way to keep people committed and engaged.
- Special Releases – Universal Studios. Though the release was controversial – Universal Studios released the 2nd Troll movie – Trolls: World Tour on video on demand at the same time that it opened in theaters. This is glorious news for all the parents that are at home trying to entertain kids. While I’m not sure this will be a repeated pattern due to theaters needing to have exclusive access – it is a response that will serve Universal in the short term. It also prevents self cannibalization of too many movies being delayed and released at the same time in the Fall.
- Coffee Delivery? Devocion – A local Coffee Shop. Devocion was temporarily forced to close its doors due to the virus, but it did send out an email with glorious photos of tea, cookies and pastries right at 2:30 – with a headline of – “Need your coffee + pastries delivered?” No, they aren’t going to match the in person crowd – but they are trying to make sure that we know that we can still have our afternoon break even if it’s delivered. Nice resilience.
- Cooking with Kids – At-Home Chef. One of my clients – an in-home personal chef who suddenly found herself without work, turned around and launched a virtual cooking with kids program. Within days she had 50 people enrolled and she’s happily teaching parents how to make their evenings much more fun (I was asked to keep her name anonymous here).
This by no means is meant to make you feel upset for “not doing enough.” It’s also not put out in a spirit of “take advantage of the chaos.” But here’s the reality – as small businesses we must keep going. How can you still serve your clients with what they need now? Are there new ideas that you could launch? How will you pivot?
Photo: flickr, Matt Crawford
