The business Valley caused by the corona virus – Opinion Piece

The business Valley caused by the corona virus – Opinion Piece


Crisis brings out all manner of characters in us. Entrepreneurs are some of the most resilient people on earth. I honestly believe that.
But what comes out of you when everything stops. When customers are no longer coming through your door. When no one is booking through your travel app. No new orders are being made and all that seems to be left is 50 shades of lockdown.
A lot of people are going to tell you to stay positive. Take good care of your mental health and make sure to drink water and sleep on time. And you will do these things. But something in the back of your mind is unsatisfied. That inner drive to create opportunity out of the fog and have a clear path to profit.
Here are 3 Fundamentals that are helping business people like you make the most out of quarantine.


1. Take stock.
Did your business have enough in the bank to last the likely 3 months of quarantine? Then pat yourself on the back for the good financial management. Are you wondering how you are going to stay afloat as cash reserves dwindle? Then break out the spreads sheets and have a look at those numbers.
This quarantine and the global economic slowdown is a wakeup call. A push to re-evaluate how you are allocating the resources within your business and managing money at a personal level. You are going to have a lot more time to evaluate you and your businesses’ financial management protocols. While there is going to be short term pain, the lessons learned should factor into your next 5 years of doing business. Maybe you left bootstrap mode too early and began to spend excessively. Now is the time to get humble and admit those shortcomings. Money management and making sure to put cash where the ROI is high is going to be crucial in this season and moving forward. Even for successful businesses, this is a chance to introspect as success is often blinding to superfluous spending. Now those unnecessary big-ticket items will stick out like a sore thumb.

2. Keep spinning the flywheel.
Don’t underestimate the power of maintaining momentum. Don’t disengage and go watch Netflix for 18 hours a day.
Keep that work schedule. Do skype calls. Attend online conferences and work out a work calendar for you and all your partners and employees. The business might not be booming, but push and do some RNG on experimental code.
Use the knowledge you have gained from (1. Take Stock) to look at what your customers have been buying. Are there fundamental changes to your App, website or service that you couldn’t make before because of being busy and large traffic volumes? Now is the time to push.

Call up all your current clients and check on them. Being human goes a long way in business. Heck, steal clients from your sleeping competitors. The virus is not playing fair and neither should you.
While others turn things down. You have to turn things up. They will find you when they wake up.

3. And finally…

Hope and dream. Common thinkers are going to drift towards negativity during this period and they have good reason to. Some people will even wish for the world to end so they can cease to live miserable and average lives. But you, entrepreneur, cannot afford such thinking.
For the world will soon wake and the gears and the wheels will spin at full force again. With all the people seeking to get back to a sense of normalcy will come a flood of business. A lot of orders and a lot of talented people who will be looking for work.
Knowing this, it is important that you revisit the dreams that got you into wanting to work, create and build. Those inner blocks that when set one upon the other, is why we live in the great and innovative world we live in today.
So take stock, keep the momentum and keep the vision.

By Ralph Warom.

Ralph Warom is a Motion Graphics Designer from Kampala Uganda. He likes good conversation and gets excited about new technology in the Digital Art Space.

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