Time Alone Will Be good
America is the most restless nation in the world. We move voluntarily an average of every five years, just because we can. And now, we’re shuttered and told to stare at walls and send pictures of ourselves staring at walls to our colleagues for camaraderie. It’s necessary; but not cool.
It’s time to put our restlessness energy into creative re-invention. My prediction is that this time alone is going to reinvent business as we have come to know it.
Now is the time of opportunity, not the time to hunker down and watch the world fall apart—
Let’s spend this time making our businesses more efficient. Ask yourself these questions:
1. List all areas of your business that you could do virtually. Think outside the box. Way outside. Sales? Marketing? Customer support?
2. List all the reasons you have an office space (if you do) and then, to the right of that list, consider which of those reasons is necessary and which can move online or partially online. See what comes up for you.
3. We have hundreds of millions of people now being forced into a short-term behavior change. How can your product or service adapt quickly to meet their needs—and is that adaptation something to consider as a permanent change to your business?
4. In what ways did COVID-19 catch you unprepared? How can you make sure that doesn’t happen again? Let’s build a plan for that.
5. What technologies are you scrambling to secure to keep your team connected?
Personally, I’m doing this exercise myself. While I work remotely and with a virtual team that is spread all over the globe, I’m now evaluating whether some aspects of my business could be modified for a completely virtually offering, like Catipult’s 1.5 day JumpStart workshops. If I can retool these to be as effective virtually as they are in person, then my team can help more business owners, more efficiently.
How will you take this horrible crisis and use it to improve your businesses, your life and the lives of your employees and customers?
Peter Fuller is a strategic partner with Rozzi and Associates. Learn more at catipult.ai.
Faith; not fear. Make that your motto this year.