Beyond Coronavirus: The Path to the Next Normal

The COVID-19 is not only an immense health crisis–it’s also an imminent restructuring of the global economy, but leaders can begin navigating beyond the coronavirus crisis.

Source: www.mckinsey.com
In answer to the question “What will it take to navigate this crisis” the authors call on businesses and governments to act across five stages, leading from the crisis of today to the next normal that will emerge after the battle against coronavirus has been won:

1. Resolve: All those in leadership positions must determine the scale, pace, and depth of action required at the state and business levels and resolve to do what it takes.
2. Resilience: A McKinsey Global Institute analysis indicates that the shock to our livelihoods from the economic impact of virus-suppression efforts could be the biggest in nearly a century. In the face of these challenges, resilience is a vital necessity.
3. Return: Returning businesses to operational health after a severe shutdown is extremely challenging and the weakest point in the chain will determine ultimate success. The authors suggest using Northern Hemisphere’s summer months to expand testing and surveillance capabilities, health-system capacity, and vaccine and treatment development to deal with a second surge.
4. Reimagination: Institutions that reinvent themselves to make the most of better insight and foresight, as preferences evolve, will disproportionally succeed. The crisis will reveal not just vulnerabilities but opportunities to improve the performance of businesses.
5. Reform: Leaders in government, business, healthcare, the financial system, educational institutions, and more should think about what reforms are needed to avoid, mitigate, and preempt a future health crisis of the kind we are experiencing today and to strengthen the system to withstand acute and global exogenous economic shocks, such as this pandemic’s impact.

Collectively, these five stages represent the imperative of our time: the battle against COVID-19 is one that leaders today must win if we are to find an economically and socially viable path to the next normal.

COVID-19 and the work-from-home shift are breaking work processes

Many manual work processes are becoming more difficult to execute for front line workers away from the office, according to a TrackVia report.

Source: www.techrepublic.com
For the foreseeable future, much of the world's workforce will be doing their jobs from home. Over the past several months, the shift from in-person intra-office communications to online-only interactions has revealed process gaps for many companies.
SalesRenewal has from inception been a distributed, virtual company with employees working across distance. With a decade of work-from-home experience, we have the knowledge to help guide your business and its marketing efforts on the path to effective virtualization.

The Case for Marketing Investment – Especially During Tough Times

We’ll admit: this is an uncomfortable subject to raise. Many of the people reading this will fall into one of two groups: (A) marketers who are struggling, in many cases because marketing budgets have been slashed, and (B) business operators who are up against the wall, many of whom see “severing a finger to save the hand” as the best available option.
Source: theclikk.com
For businesses that have experienced the need to cut nonessential spending due to the losses caused by the pandemic, marketing is usually one of the first areas to go. However, taking a deeper look sheds light on why investing in marketing is a good idea, if possible,  during tough times.
The Harvard Business Review found that companies that cut marketing costs faster and deeper than their rivals later have the lowest probability (21%) of pulling ahead of the competition once times improve.
If your business slashed its marketing budget, take time to look at the sources and reasoning in this article to think about bringing it back. Keep in mind that anything that is put off now, will need to be rebuilt later. Being able to adapt your marketing to the post-COVID will benefit in the long run, since your new strategy will already be built out.

Webinar: Considerations for Adapting Your Business and Marketing Strategies for the New Normal

The New Normal for Business and Marketing Strategies

As businesses around the country try to assess what’s next after the big Shut Down, many are realizing that it won’t be “business as usual”, not just because of the reopening guidelines imposed by the government, but because customers and clients may not feel comfortable reentering the same old economy and now have a brand new set of expectations around service delivery.
Major brands are highlighting their contactless, distanced ways of doing business, even if they’re not so different than they were before. Pizza Hut promises that once your pizza comes out of the oven, the only person who touches it is you; we hope that this was true pre-Covid as well, but conveying that sense of comfort is important these days.
Leading-edge service delivery models, such as purchasing a new car online, may have been targeting early adopters pre-Covid, but are suddenly becoming mainstream. Drive-by document signing is now an accepted way of closing a deal. Even voting by mail is gaining traction since people are wary of physically entering crowded places.

How Will You Adapt?

There is no doubt that the key to winning back customers in the new normal is trust. Trust that you, as a business, understand your customers’ concerns and are doing everything in your power to keep them safe.
While some businesses may need to address fundamental operational and human resource processes, much of adapting your business to the new normal revolves around messaging, positioning, and communication (such as the Pizza Hut example.) In other words, around marketing.
First, show your customers you are doing the right thing. Keep your premises (including parking lots, entrances, and lobbies) spotless and common spaces delineated for distancing. Provide PPE for all employees and ensure they wear it to show your organization is not cutting any safety corners. Enforce all scientific and medical recommendations for safety and physical distancing — not just because it’s the right thing to do but also to signal to employees, prospects and customers that you take their safety seriously.
And then, tell them. Build trust by making sure clients and customers know and understand you’re doing what you can to keep them safe. Messaging, positioning and signaling in the new normal should focus on health, safety, and well being.

Professional Service Firms

Professional service firms have particular challenges in this pandemic environment because of their historic reliance on face-to-face marketing tactics (e.g., networking, events, seminars) which desperately need to be updated for a minimal contact world.
Even more challenging is their tendency to have a single, all encompassing service that is critically important to their prospects, presented as a take-it-or-leave-it offer, which results in very long sales cycles (e.g., signing up for a wealth management service is a very consequential decision so prospects are very careful and take their time).
To shorten the time-to-first-dollar,  we recommend “unbundling” services to create tiered offerings that build on each other and provide a natural upgrade path. More on this can be found in Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar.

Sales Renewal Can Help

Sales Renewal is working with all of our clients on refining their business and marketing strategies for the New Normal. Whether it’s shortening the “time-to-first-dollar”, implementing minimal contact sales and marketing programs, creating alternatives to traditional  face-to-face marketing, or revamping communications to earn trust, contact us to learn what we can do for you.

Three Things To Expect In The ‘New Normal’, Post-Pandemic Market

The market has three things its debating among itself. When it comes to life post-pandemic, three are top of mind.
Source: www.forbes.com
Interesting take from an economist in 3 key changes. The last one is particularly scary for Sales Renewal clients:

1. More Saving, Less Spending
2. New Supply Chains
3. Small Business Looks Scarier

• “Right now, trial lawyers and ambulance chasers are busy filing suits against businesses opening up before quarantines are lifted, citing a danger to public health. Others are suing nursing homes. This becomes a whole new insurance risk going forward — making sure someone doesn’t try to sue because they went into your store and came out with a 101 fever the next day.”

New Normal After Coronavirus: 3 Changes Businesses Will Need to Adapt

Commentary: Government intervention, a contact-free economy, and automation will all define the new normal.

Source: fortune.com
Now that many of the worst-affected states are beginning to reopen their economies, we are all realizing that the post-pandemic world will be very different than it was just a few short months ago. We can expect increased government intervention as a result of the huge stimulus and bailout payments, and greater emphasis on promoting “an economy that serves all Americans”. According to the authors, the seismic shift to a contact-free economy will be seen in three areas in particular: digital commerce, telemedicine, and automation. All businesses need to rethink their business models and the name of the game is resilience. Companies will have to build, or strengthen, backup and safety plans, step up succession plans, and expand work-at-home capabilities. The good news is that the authors also anticipate some positive outcomes as a result of these changes. Sales Renewal is talking to a number of our clients on how they can adapt their businesses for success in what is being called the new normal.

Coronavirus Shut Down the ‘Experience Economy.’ Can It Come Back?

Large-scale gatherings are on hold for the foreseeable future. That is taking a toll on the live events industry and society at large.

Source: www.nytimes.com
Large public events and trade shows will probably be on hold for a long while. “Curated” events may be a very viable replacement: regional, Minimal contact events with invitation-only participants in brand name venues and controlled environments.

How COVID-19 Could Impact Retail Design: Clean lines, Clean Spaces

History has already shown us quite how drastic an effect disease can have on spatial design. COVID-19 will undoubtedly impact how we create space.

Source: www.frameweb.com
The COVID-19 pandemic will likely be an inflection point in the design of public and retail spaces. Expect to see changes in materials used (plastic and steel are out – copper is in) and navigation paths (more IKEA single-path navigation, less Apple Store open concept). In addition, advanced HVAC filtration systems and spacial semiotics to denote entrance to a clean, controlled environment will be needed to instill consumer confidence and encourage customers to return to brick-and-mortar retailers.

7 Tips for Successfully Managing Remote Teams

These tips will help you and your team be productive regardless of where they work.

Source: www.inc.com
While we at Sales Renewal have been a remote team from the company’s inception almost fifteen years ago, this new era of mandated physical distancing has forced many managers to reevaluate how to maintain productivity and preserve their pre-covid corporate culture from afar. This article reinforces the notion that personal check-ins, increased communication, and a more flexible approach to the workday may be required, with the understanding that not all personal circumstances are the same. The good news is, that armed with the right tools and technology, most managers seem to be making the shift with relatively few hiccups. Our tip: we encourage you to appreciate all the screaming kids and barking dog for what they are – a bit of levity in these tense and unpredictable times.

The Big Shift: A Prediction of What’s to Come Post-Pandemic

Change was coming all along, but the coronavirus has expedited a number of key facets of consumer behavior.

Source: www.ama.org
While the cultural shift during the pandemic has been tremendous, there are many facets that are likely to become the new normal for businesses and their marketing strategies in the future.
Businesses should not look at this time as a temporary normal that they can come up with some quick fixes for, but as a permanent shift for the future. There will be a new way of doing things and the business models and marketing strategies will be different – it’s already changing every day.
With people staying at home more often than ever, virtual has become the new standard. Video calls and online communication are more normal and saving consumers time, setting them with a new expectation of how they can communicate with companies and firms. For example, having a video meeting with a professional service instead of visiting their office, can be more convenient and efficient for a consumer – something they might want to keep doing in the future.
The reality is that people are developing new ways of doing things and new expectations are being set. Many companies will need to have a substantial online presence to meet their consumer’s needs. Is your business in line with adapting to the new virtual landscape of consumer behavior?