Best Practices for Small Business’ During a Pandemic

Similar to any establishment during Covid-19, small business owners have had to pivot their daily operations in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on their respective company. For small businesses specifically though, this is a large area of concern as they don’t have the infrastructure nor resources to maintain their business for very long when cash flow has dried up. Given this predicament, we took some time to compile a few helpful tips that can keep your business pointed in the right direction during and after Covid-19.

1. Prioritize What is Important

This is probably the most essential step of lessening your business’ risk exposure during the pandemic. People have completely altered their spending habits, either eliminating some goods altogether or limiting them significantly. Given this, it is important that your business is set up for success at all times in order to process the existing business that may transpire.

If your business has a physical location with multiple employees, it is a good idea to plan for the expected scenario that some of your workers may be unable to report to work due to a Covid-related issue. In this case, it is intrinsic to your business that you have cross-trained some of your employees so they are able to cover another responsibility in the event of an emergency. This will ensure that your business can operate regardless of the personnel at hand, and your operations will not be choked in any way.

2. Follow Proper Cleaning Protocol

This perhaps goes without saying given the current environment, but it is absolutely important that you and your management team are abiding by all proper cleaning protocols and keeping your workspace as sanitized as possible.

This will not only benefit yourself and your workers as you will feel more calm and confident in your workplace, but also will show your guests that you are committed to their safety and are a diligent business. Only positives to come of this.

3. Go Digital!

This is the main message spewing out from business blogs across the country and world right now; can it be done online? Given everything going on in the world and the risks that physical interaction poses, it makes more sense than ever for business’ to translate any and every faucet of their business online. This can include anything from moving your brick-and-mortar sales channel onto a Shopify e-commerce platform, or even rescheduling your consultations for Zoom meetings as opposed to in-person.

This one specifically requires some consideration, because you should be looking past the more obvious routes for your business. Yes you can list your business hours online or alter your social media strategy, but you should think deeper than that to really digitize some solutions that will bring you benefit and less headaches. Can you streamline your accounting services online? This could save you real $.