In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 200,000 businesses closed shop. It’s feared that this number will increase as the pandemic continues taking its economic toll.
If your business has survived so far, thumbs up! However, now isn’t the time to take your hands off the deck. If anything, you need to have all hands on the deck to properly steer your business out of these rocky waters.
And if your enterprise was destroyed, small business recovery is possible. There’s light at the end of this COVID-19 tunnel, and there are a number of steps you can take to accelerate the recovery of your business.
Read on for some of the best recovery tips.
1. Take Advantage of Business Pandemic Recovery and Support Loans
For many businesses that are struggling, the one key thing COVID-19 took away from them was revenues. As a small business owner, you that if money isn’t coming in, it’s only a matter of time before the curtains fall.
The government knows this, which is why one of the first economic protection responses was to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provided for ways to offer pandemic recovery loans and other support programs, such as the paycheck protection program. Click here to learn more about PPP.
Don’t fail to take advantage of these support programs. As long as your business qualifies, these loans or grants can as well provide the funds your business needs to keep the light on until normalcy returns.
2. Cut Your Costs
When your business revenues are on a decline or have disappeared, you cannot afford to keep your costs as they are. Cutting your costs can create the financial breathing space your business needs to survive the pandemic and ultimately recover.
The big question is: which costs do you cut?
This is the time to make hard decisions. Perhaps you might need to lay off a number of your employees. Or you might need to shut down your physical operations in favor of a digital-only strategy. Even eliminating the little expenses, such as office coffee, can add up and prove to be a business-saving decision.
3. Adapt to Changing Consumer Preferences
After the pandemic, you might want to go back to doing business the old way.
While this may work for some businesses, it’s important to acknowledge that consumer preferences and habits have changed. In-store shopping, for example, is in all likelihood, a thing of the past. If your business heavily relied on in-store shopping, it’s high time you moved to eCommerce.
The same goes for your employees. The virus might have forced you hand into implementing remote working for your employees, but if the trends are anything to go by, not many want to return to the office. You might just have to find a way to keep doing business with your employees working remotely permanently.
2022 Is the Year for Small Business Recovery
The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over yet, but there are indications that the worst is behind us. You have faced many small business challenges in the past few years, but now it’s time to focus on small business recovery. It’s not going to be a smooth road, but with these tips, you have the tools to make your business’s engine rev up again.
Stay tuned to our blog for more small business advice.