COVID-19 Blog 5: Ingenious Ways to Upkeep and Elevate Your Business During the Pandemic

Added in 2024 – Minority-owned businesses were impacted much more by the COVID pandemic – one great way to support the Black community is to patronize Black-owned businesses.  Here is an article that lists over 150 Black-owned businesses. 

 

Minority-owned small businesses are being particularly hard hit by the COVID-19

From time to time, I post guest-written blogs, and my 5th Covid-19 pandemic blog is provided by previous 3-time blog contributor Marissa Perez. Marissa Perez, co-founder and head marketing writer at Business Pop, has spent the last 10 years honing her marketing skills, and now is sharing her small business / entrepreneurial expertise through this third guest blog she is providing.

This blog is quite relevant to my consulting area of diversity in that (1) Covid-19 is disproportionately hitting minority communities health wise and (2) small businesses impacted by the accompanying economic crisis are disproportionately owned by minorities or have minority employees. This “double impact” is truly having the most adverse effect on minority-owned businesses.


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If you’ve recently started a new business, you’ve probably noticed that life looks and feels different since the March declaration of the coronavirus pandemic. But just because things have changed does not mean that you should give up on your dreams. Keep reading for a few ideas to help you build and grow your livelihood while the world adjusts to a new normal.

Adapt Your Business Plan

You have a plan, and your plan was to stick with it. Unfortunately, the global situation changes from day to day, and it’s almost impossible to predict how this will affect your business. You need a contingency. Think ahead to many different scenarios to predict how they might influence the way you operate. ZenBusiness has a list of resources to help you do just that and also provides info on how to run things virtually and manage income streams and expenses.

Give Yourself Extra Space

While you may already have a room in your home that works as an office, as you continue to grow, it might make more sense to add an extra building to your property. A separate building will not only house your home-based business, but it will also help you keep it separate from your personal life. If you’re on a tight budget, a prefabricated metal building is a smart choice and one that will allow you to expedite construction so that you will experience few, if any, interruptions. Ask your building supplier about different layout options and pay close attention to style and design so that you don’t clash with the appearance of your neighborhood.

Dip Into Dropshipping

Dropshipping has been called, “one of the easiest ways to make money online in 2020.” But it is much more than that. A dropshipping business model can help you grow a current business. There are many benefits, but pertinent to today is that dropshipping eliminates the middleman. In other words, it reduces the number of hands that physically touch your customers’ orders. This can help lessen the chances of contamination, which, fortunately, according to Hackensack Meridian Health, are already low. It is possible, as the virus can live on cardboard for 24 hours.

Hire Remotely

Remote work used to be a novelty. That’s not the case today, and work-at-home opportunities have been popping up out of both necessity and convenience in light of the coronavirus pandemic. As a business owner, taking your company to a virtual workspace means that you have an unlimited pool of talent. But, you have to make sure that your communication is on point. Unitonomy stresses the importance of effective collaboration (using tools like Slack) and notes that to be successful, the people in your business have to feel connected to one another. Give each team access to shared information that’s specific to each project. You can also keep your teams on the same page by providing regular updates via a newsletter or recurrent blog.

There is little doubt that the coronavirus will continue to have a negative effect on small businesses across America. If you want to get ahead and continue to enjoy success, you have to get creative. This might mean looking for new revenue streams or adding extra space where you can run your business effectively and without distraction. One positive aspect of the pandemic is that remote work has become more available, and you should have no problem finding people who are ready, willing, and more than able to help you grow.

COVID-19 Blog 4: Will corporate diversity initiatives go down the tubes during and after the pandemic?

Are your diversity initiatives going downhill during these trying times?

I really do have a fear that the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across many organizations will be set back several years during this time of the Coronavirus pandemic. If DEI is truly a strategic initiative for organizations to thrive and grow into the future, why should things stop now?

In January, before all this COVID-19 stuff really started, I wrote a two part blog series:
Part 1 (Link): Huge Gaps in Diversity in Business Leadership – A Systemic Issue Needing a Systemic Approach
Part 2 (Link): Five Tactics to Address the System Issue of the Lack of Diverse Business Leaders

In Part 2, the 4th tactic I shared was “never letting up”. I shared that often executives see a little progress (“we now have an African-American in the c-Suite, women in management has gone up from 18% to 20%”) and then the budget gets cut and work stops. Then things will take their natural course and revert back to the old pattern. Dr. Vida Robertson, professor at the University of Houston, often states “you cannot take the foot of the gas or the vehicle will stop.” In this case, since it is an uphill battle, the car will go backwards once you take your foot off the gas!

Over the past 3 months, I have seen every in-person diversity training initiative I had scheduled between March and June cancelled, with little or no effort to reschedule or consider going web-based. In fact, even one 4-week webinar training series was cancelled since the organizers felt people would have too many other things to worry about instead of diversity.

My largest fear is that when we slowly reopen the country, that many corporate budgets will be slashed to try to turn out a decent annual profit statement, and diversity efforts will be one of the first items severely cut.

And then the ramifications could end up being:
• The predominately white male senior leadership will retain more of the leaders like themselves, impacting employment and promotion opportunities for under-represented minorities. And it wouldn’t be deliberate or mean-spirited, but simply unconscious bias taking its natural course.
• Diversity recruiting efforts may be cut resulting in less hires of qualified diverse candidates.
• Respectful workplace training would be cut, and some employees may revert back to old habits of forming non-diverse teams and making their diverse co-workers feel unwelcomed.
• Some companies may experience additional revenue drop as they fail to effectively sell and market to diverse customers.
• Philanthropic giving to diverse community organizations may be curtailed.

Interaction with diverse people may be less frequent during these days of social isolation.

Organizations need to realize that in challenging days, an increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion is warranted. Tactics you may want to consider at this time include:

• Offering web-based DEI training to your employees, especially those who may have a decreased workload at this time and capacity to take some online trainings. In fact here is one being offered on June 9th: Introduction to LGBTQ+ Workplace Equity.  Options can include general offerings or having your own customized training.
• Doing some strategic work and planning and how you can advance DEI initiatives in a more virtual workplace.
• Encouraging diversity councils and employee resource groups to meet virtually during this time.
• Encouraging one-on-one virtual employee connections or mentoring relationships be formed with a focus on connecting with dissimilar people.

Embrace diversity even more during these challenging days!