I called up my colleague to discuss important stuff, and instead of an immediate connection, I heard someone coughing loud.
For a moment, I thought it was my colleague and got worried if he is fine or not. After a few seconds, I realized that it was an awareness message about #Covid19.
I understand that it’s important and in favor of masses only. But I have listened to many people getting irritated by this.
But, do you know what many entrepreneurs in my industry and I are irritated/frustrated/worried about?
Covid19 has impacted the advertising and marketing industry as it has never been before. And China-centric brands, events, and promotional agencies are bracing for the worst. Non-essential travel by leadership and executives are being postponed, juries are either judging award shows long-distance or not at all. Both Cannes and Lynx 2020 have both been pushed back to later this year.
But I also believe that it’s not the right time to get panic. In fact, we should take it as a new challenge and create opportunities out of it.
After all, that’s what entrepreneurship is all about. Isn’t it?
So, here are some measures we can (and must) do right away:
- Time to touch base with each of our clients and immediate prospects over mail, skype and call – and tell them how this is the perfect time to do business via digital. Marketing leads, database building, brand-related communication – this is a great time to do them all. Remember – the noise is less right now.
- Time we also discover how deploying digital can do wonders for sales, marketing, training, and learning – both internal and external. So let’s sit with our teams, partners, and vendors for a couple of hours each day to focus on learning new tips and tricks and deploying better business practices.
- Polish, brush, and recreate the promotional material – have fun creating videos and memes with infotainment content on ourselves and brand communication tips and building a pipeline for our social media. For once, let’s focus on self-promotion without the usual fear of client assignments dangling on our heads!
- Focus on mentoring and sharing case study learnings and personal growth for each one of us. Lock time on Zoom and Skype or similar and invite your clients to join in remotely. Create an amicable atmosphere to discuss client expectations, overcoming limitations, focus on team improvement, and on your people to deploy those lessons learned in mock exercises.
Doing any or all of the following will ensure that we are actually strengthened by #Covid19 and not succumbing to the panic and manic situation around.
I would request you to spread this message to other fellow entrepreneurs. Or you can tag them.
Remember! Together we’ll win this battle too. Cheers!
