Managing Through a Crisis and Living to Tell About It

I know at a time like this it’s easy to feel like your business has lost ground or momentum. I wanted to share what I see happening and what I believe is coming. In a crisis situation people go through stages, much like the stages of grief.

Right now, people are in shock and disbelief.

Shock will be followed by “wheel spinning”. This has already started. At this stage there’s so many new laws, information, guidelines, etc coming out that things are literally changing by the minute. People tend to get overwhelmed at this point and are actually paralyzed for a while as they process all of this.

Acceptance and understanding will follow.

Once people have worked through these stages and markets/businesses come back there will be a burst or surge of demand for products and services which is great! A lot of companies are shutting down all communications/operations now and hoping they’ll be able to come back when it’s over. The thing is, closing a company completely, even temporarily, is a lot of work and re-opening a company and communications with clients is also a LOT of work. It will take them time to get back up and running, if they do manage to come back. The sad truth is many of these won’t come back. They’ll want to come back but, because they’re doing nothing to prepare for this surge, they’ll either not be able to react quickly enough when clients do come back or they’ll be unprepared to handle the surge and clients will go elsewhere.

Every decision you’re making right now, you should be making with the filter of “will this help me come back quickly?”. This doesn’t mean you aren’t making the difficult decisions that we’ve all had to make lately. Do I keep, layoff, furlough employees? Do I close down some or all of my services? There is no right answer to these questions. You need to do what’s best for your business and you are the only one who knows what that is. I’m saying make these decisions looking at the short term needs but also the long-term effects. It’s hard to step outside of the immediate crisis mode but this will end and you’ve got to be looking forward now to how you’re going to lead and recover your business when it does. In a world where small business owners are overwhelmed by short term loss, the businesses owners who are able to think long term will be the ones that come back strong.

Take care and stay safe,

Eliza