How to reform your business and yourself during and after the lockdown.

Are you prepared for the post corona business environment?

Here I’ll talk about the ways different individuals and business owners need to adopt in near future. Post corona phase will be something different than current environment. The market is sure to be digitalized. I will be sharing some basic ideas that an individual and different small business owners need to adopt to be in line with market demand.

Eat, sleep, browse the internet and repeat. This is the common routine of almost every one of us. I had a surface look-up on routine of many leaders, entrepreneurs, winners and influencers. Their routine is totally different than all of us. They have decided to make the best use of their free time. After getting motivated from all those influencers, I too have decided to make the best use of free time. Let’s see how normal people and small businesses are responding to Corona filled market. Also let’s discuss on the future strategy of different professionals and small business owners.

1. Small Business Owner:     

As a small business owner, hard time has already started for you. You should already be struggling with cash crunch to cover minimum fixed costs like rent and salary. You may have asked your employee to go on unpaid leave. You may have already asked the landlord to defer the rental payment.

As you’ve already jumped into this pool, there’s no looking back. You may try the below techniques to keep your business running and run it smoothly once this pandemic is over:

•   Defer the vendor payments as long as possible. You should also request the landlord so that you can delay payment of rent too.
• If you’ve loan for your business, you’re already provided the relaxation to pay the installment due of Chaitra end up to Ashad end 2077. If you want to make payment of your installment before Chaitra end, you’ll be provided refund of 10% of your interest. Before opting this, make sure you have sufficient cash in hand to cover other fixed costs if this lockdown extends more.
• Try collecting money from debtors (receivable) as far as possible.
• Minimize the number of staffs if possible. Try getting things done with less number of staffs as possible.
• If your product or service can be delivered through digital means, this time you should try to go digital.
• If your current line of business can’t work during lockdown, with the available space and manpower you should try providing different line of products or service. Currently Foodmandu, a food delivering company has started selling fresh groceries during lockdown.
• In the worst case, you may have no choice but to manage fund from own pocket to keep your business running.

Remember you’re already in war and there’s no going back. If your business with no means can be run during this lockdown, use this time to sharpen your knowledge. Start discovering the ways to make your business better after lockdown. You may learn about many key financial ratios required in business, these actually help you in decision making. You can start planning for business diversification and expansion too. Remember above points may sound general as how you act depends on what business you actually are running. When you come out of this quarantine, make sure you are ready to go digital with whatever business you’re into. Make sure you encourage ‘work from home’ as far as possible.      

2. Writers, Bloggers and Vloggers:

The writers have started writing more. Part time writers have now changed to full time writers. Those who rarely used to update the blog have started updating it frequently. Some of them have started writing a book and many of them have finished the book which was due since so long. People are creating creative content based on the demand of audience and their blogs are getting more audience than ever. Travel Vlogs have been very popular earlier but now people are creating wonderful videos at home. Someone posting a video of their cooking skills is getting more views than a renowned vlogger. People are even creating videos related to Covid-19 and that’s getting the most audiences as this is the most trending topic around the globe.

If you have interest in writing, start writing from today. Doesn’t matter what the topic is, keep writing. If you keep continuing at least during this quarantine, you’re sure to have best writing skill in future. Please don’t forget to update whatever you write in a blog. But you can start sharing it to public when you’ve the confidence.

If you’re into photography and videography, start creating the content; try as many times as you can. In this period of quarantine, I am sure you can gain a good skill on it.

3. Doctors and Other Medical Professionals:

Doctors, nurses and medical professionals are the real supermen during this pandemic. They are serving the whole world and making it a better place. Saving the lives on one hand, medical professionals and entrepreneurs on the other hand have discovered the modern ways of saving lives. With new ways, they are able to treat more patients in less time. Those into invention have already invented a good product to help this pandemic control. Some have invented PPE and masks in with lower cost. We should never forget what Mr. Mahabir Pun who has put up effort to manufacture PPF similar to that in Korea.

If you are a medical professional and still manage to have free time, this is the best time to be prepared for the next generation market. As an innovative professional, you should be ready for the following:

• People are likely to demand health care services from home. Creating an online medium like an app or a website whereby patients can directly contact the doctor. With this health care service can be provided to patients in remote areas as well. With this you will definitely be able to treat more patients no matter where they are.
• Aggregator of Doctors and medical professionals: A platform where all the best doctors in town can be enlisted with their field of expertise and hospitals where they can be contacted. Such platform can help general public to identify the doctor of their choice, fees of different doctors, institutions they are associated with etc. Such platform is likely to be the choice of patients in near future.

Professionals who come up with such innovative ideas are sure to have best future in the industry.

4. Hospitality Professionals:

Tourism and hospitality industry is the most affected industry because of Covid-19. If you’re the one working in this field, there are many challenges on you the way. Most people in this industry have already lost their job. With less job and increased number of Jobholders, only the best one is likely to secure their job in future.

If you’re a chef but jobless now, why don’t you start making foods at home, make a video and post in social media. You can also share the recipe of those foods that can easily be prepared at home. With this you may be able to establish yourself as home chef. If you have heard Foodmario, a homemade food delivering company. You may start you cooking journey with this platform too.

You can also sharpen your cooking skills by looking the videos of best chef in the world. There are many online courses as well which can be useful for you. You can establish yourself as Food Blogger/Vlogger if you keep your audiences updated regularly with your cooking skills.

If you’re into food service job, housekeeping etc., there is always an option for you to learn new skills from popular blogs, YouTube videos and free online courses.

If you’re a small business owner in this field, it’s the high time you need to start modifying yourself as per the demand of modern age customers. You can try below techniques to run your business differently:

• Home delivery to nearby customers.
• Listing your restaurant in various online food delivery platforms like Foodmandu, Bhojdeals etc.
• Supplying Lunch Box in business houses. Make sure special discount is provided to corporate customers as they will be your regular customer.
• Door to door marketing in nearby corporate houses.
• Digital Marketing.

5. Retail Store,Wholesaler:

As people are locked down at their home, they have already started demanding the goods they need at their door steps. Many Online stores like daraz, sastodeal etc. have been able to expand their business to greater extent. If you’re a retail shop owner or a wholesaler, you should be willing to have your business model modified accordingly. Make sure you take care of following things:

• Start making home delivery at least to nearby customers taking order through telephone.
• Start making the list of requirements of customer for a period (week/month). This way you can supply periodic requirement of a customer at one time. Customer once start getting everything at competitive price will never think about shopping with any other sellers. You need to start this by advertising with your regular customers.
• Get registered and list your products in online stores as mentioned above. This will also increase your sales.
• If you’ve a good customer base you can gradually shift own customer to own online store. You just need to spend some money for website and app development.

6. Fashion Designers and Make-up Artists:

This lockdown can be an opportunity for those in this industry if you can deliver what people exactly expect from you. You can start this by:

• Sharing make up tutorials that can guide for easy make ups at home.
• Videos on easy but attractive dress-ups both for mem and women.
• You can also start selling make up products once you start gaining trust from customers.
• Launching an app with all kinds of make-up and fashion tutorials.
• Creating a platform of all the fashion designers, beauty artists etc. can be most popular in upcoming days. Through this platform people can have easy access to designers and beautician of their choice. They can also get the price and compare it with similar services of different service providers.

7. Jobholders:

‘Work from Home’ has been the hot topic these days. People are working from their home more effectively now. This is saving time and working space as well. In future, companies are likely to encourage ‘work from home’ and many of them have already started it. 

If you’re a jobholder and have enough of free time, you should start finding the ways to perform your job with more efficiency. You can see how people in developed country perform similar job. You can also take online courses that help you perform your job better. This is the best time to learn what you’re not good at. 

If you’re preparing for Lok Sewa examinations, you can get many classes at Ottish. This is the growing online learning platform in Nepal. You can take other online courses from: Coursera, Edx, Udemy etc. 
If you’re a jobholder at small company, you should have already lost your job. So make best use of this time to develop new skill. And make sure when you come out of quarantine, you come like a different creature with new skills and more knowledge. 

While everyone else is sleeping and youtubing, I decided to wake myself up and make best use of quarantine. Now let’s talk about you.

Have you started adopting yourself in this new environment?

Have you started working from home?

Have you started taking useful online courses?

Have you started making best use of this free time?

If not, it’s the high time to change the way you work and learn.

Instead of wasting more time in social media, let’s learn to take advantage from the industries of next generation. Let’s be ready to lead the next generation market. Let’s come out of this corona as a leader, a winner and a good human.

Happy Quarantine!!!