Using Core Capabilities to Re-Engineer Value in a Covid-19 World.

Hello everyone, thank you very much for joining us for our webinar events today. My name is Michael Aparicio, co-founder and principal consultant at Revby. I'm also joined this afternoon by Estefania Lopez one of our consultants on the Revby team. Revby is a business coaching and consulting company designed specifically for community-based small business owners. We help business owners with strategy, marketing, customer acquisition tactics, and even day-to-day operations and as you can likely relate and definitely imagine, these matters have really taken on a whole really new level of urgency.

We're helping business owners right now pivot their strategy and find other ways to mitigate revenue loss due to business disruptions from the effects of Covid 19. We of course hope that everyone on the call are staying healthy both physically and emotionally as we get through these really tough times. Many of our small business owner clients and others in our network are really asking you what can they do to mitigate these these disruptions and even prepare for the "new normal" that's ahead of us as businesses do begin to open. We decided to put to get to put together this webinar to briefly share a framework that we've been using in some of our sessions with small business owners, and we also wanted to provide some examples of local businesses that are employing some of these tactics and hopefully some of these frameworks will inspire you as you go through your process to re-engineer your own value and define the messaging that's going to be important to keep engaged with your customers. As we go along please feel free to submit any questions you'd like through the Q&A and we'll respond to some of those at the end of our or session.

So here in Boston we are in day 37 of non-essential business closure due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and just yesterday governor Baker announced that business closures and stay at home orders are going to be extended to May 18. Small business owners are obviously concerned about the prolonged economic impact that these unprecedented times are affecting us, on many levels, and of course there's no question that consumer behavior has really shifted. We're seeing ecommerce being the new platform for a lot of businesses and those that have worked in more businesses and really struggling with how to pivot there if they didn't have a presence online, or if their business type really doesn't lend itself well to online commerce. And then of course when we are preparing when businesses do begin to open we know that they're going to be a lot of factors influencing people coming into the stores, particularly in an urban area such as Boston and New York City. Some business owners we spoke into you're really desperately waiting for things to come back to normal, but our guidance is to instead take a proactive approach to acknowledge the situation and really take more of a solutions outlook.

Internal capabilities & resources

A framework that we wanted to share today, and we're trying to keep it as as simple as possible, looks at three elements. First looking to your internal capabilities your internal resources - what do you have at your disposal? We can think back to a traditional marketing framework called "the five P's": product, price, promotion, place, and people. These are the fundamentals of your business model and how you market and reach out to customers. You can evaluate what does your product look like right now, how can it be repackaged, might it be repurposed, might the raw materials be repurposed to provide a different value?

Changing customer needs

Evaluate beyond the internal aspects and core capabilities, also evaluate what are the changing customer needs. We know that there's a trend of people staying at home, maybe there's a lot of focus on home schooling children, or more focus on emotional well-being. What are some of these now core needs that you might be able to think about how your business can address what's really top of mind with your customer base. Third looking at the external limitations. On its face these may be seen as burdensome: not being able to open up your storefront, or the social distancing guidelines, or the fears of Covid 19 when people are out. We can think about how can we use these guidelines to differentiate ourselves from other businesses. So, think about what social distancing infrastructure are you going to put into place, like say in your restaurants or in your hair salon when businesses start to open up. I think customers really want to understand and hear how you are responding to those guidelines. Right now we're in a phase where we need to retain or even grow the trust with our current customer base, and even with new customers. These three we think are good places to start if you're wondering "Where do I begin?", "How do I pivot my business model?", "How do I open up a new revenue stream while my business is still closed?", "How do I let people know what we're doing?"

We think that these are the three elements:

• Looking internally, looking at our resources our supply chain our partners our employees what skills they have.
• Looking externally to our customers needs: what is the conversation? what are they looking for? how do they want to be engaged?
• And also the realities of Covid 19 no kind of restrictions we should be kind of allowed to also influence and how we engage with people.

Now we also know that some businesses may be it doesn't make sense to have a significant pivot in what they're doing so we also encourage business owners to really understand that at least at minimum we have communication at our disposal.Whether it's communicating what are the changes you're making, or communicating what we're as a business what we're doing in anticipation of businesses opening up soon? What are the experience we're doing to prepare for that new reality, for the new social distancing guidelines in store?

Some of the suggestions we've been making for business owners is to use digital presence as an avenue for communication. A simple pop up on your website is something we're helping businesses create, if they don't know how to do that themselves, just with a simple message saying what business looks like right now for you, and how can they get in touch with you. Are there messages, or even asking questions if it's not just a one-directional conversation, maybe even asking your customers how are they doing, what kind of expectations do they have for remaining engaged with your business?

The image here is a brief example of what we have on the Revby website, letting people know some specific examples of how we've shifted some of our attention, and maybe some topics that were not core to the day-to-day work that we did but we've now shifted some of our resources but more intention on those immediate needs by our customers, and shifting away from in-person consultation to virtual consultations through video conferencing. The communication also needs to be regular and consistent, and of course empathetic, considering the nature of the situation that we're in.

Examples in practice

We wanted to examples share a few examples just to give some context of what focusing on some of those elements really look like, so I'll turn it over to my colleague Estefania to share several examples with you.

Thank you Michael, and thank you everybody for joining. So, like Michael said we wanted to show you in real time some of the examples of how current local businesses are pivoting their strategies to cope with the social distancing. In the next slide we have an example from the Pronto restaurant, located in Assembly Row. They are offering a limited menu so people can order takeout and delivery, and they also taking advantage of social media and promoting one dish per day, encouraging their clients to share a picture of them enjoying it. They are also posting their stories either on Facebook and Instagram and the great part of that is that most of the days their featured dish is completely sold out.

Among the other strategies restaurants are currently using is offering meal kits, so families can cook together. Similar to what Blue Apron is offering, but with a twist on their own recipes. They're also creating larger portions for example a bigger lasagna that can feed a family of four instead of just focusing of individual portions. And the Commonwealth of Massachusetts started to offer the option to restaurants to offer groceries and perishables for sale, thereby allowing them to leverage that existing relationship they have with their suppliers, and we will see more of that I think the large restaurants like Panera Bread are also adding an online grocery option to their website.

The next industry we will talk about is the beauty industry, and in this example we have Minilooks nail salons. They of course are remaining closed due to the nature of their services and unfortunately have been one of the sectors more affected with the social distancing norms, however they're putting emphasis now in selling their products online and they created a fund that will assist some of their technicians and 50% of their their sales in products are being put towards this fund. Another strategy that is also being used by some of the beauty salons to keep engaged with their own following and clients is posting tutorials on social media and YouTube to keep them engaged.

Next we'll talk we'll take a look at what retail is doing. We have an example from Rosie's consignment store in Jamaica Plain. They developed a plan that once the store closed they transitioned the physical inventory to an online offering and in addition to that they're promoting discounted gift cards to complement their sales. This strategy will help them give access to their community to shop with them, and of course once the the norms are lifted and we get back to a more normal normal city day that will have an expanded clientele and also their offerings online now can be reached all over the country. As you can see on the picture from the right they also founded a successful GoFundMe campaign. That system allowed them to qualify to obtain a matching grant for the from the Small Business Relief Fund.

As we stay indoors, in the next slide you will find that we're also looking for ways to stay entertain as a family and with a group of friends. This is a company in Newton Massachusetts called Puzzle Break, they have their physical location but since nobody can attend right now they've shifted and pivoted to an online offering. Groups of 2-12 people can join in and do some break rooms together, and as you can see on the right most of the times they're completely sold out on weekends, so it's been a great strategy for them.

While we stay indoors it's very important to remain active. In this example from Cycle Wire location in Wellesley Massachusetts. Cycle Wire is one of the largest indoor cycling franchises in the world and they are they feel completely to their plot online platform and they encourage some of the online rights however at a local level this branch owner took it upon themselves to make sure that they're engaged with their local clients which they're still the bread and butter and they they want to remain active and it's been a great success so far.

In the next slide we want to encourage you to be creative: not all of the solutions will be very apparent. We want to show you here a cheeky picture from our liquor store in East Boston, it's calle Cappies. They brought their client awareness and they solved in this case providing toilet paper that has been high on demand, and right now they're being sold individually in a convenient way at the checkout line. So keep yourself open-minded in verifying the way of and original ways and solutions to continue with your business.

Conclusion

Thanks Estefania for those examples. The last one it may be kind of a humorous one, but I still think it's a good example of those three elements and obviously in one resource the liquor store has that they are able to have an open storefront but they found another way to address another immediate need other than liquor, as well as making use of their space to supply that obviously not all of those examples may make sense for your particular business, but again we hope that they do provide some inspiration that there are avenues to take, it might just take some exploration and identifying what is in your toolbox.

So looking internally at what resources you have, looking to your supply chain if you work with 1099 consultants what resources do they have? If they in particular are not a fit for kind of the short term period are there others they could jump in if you have that kind of structure. Are there some collaborations looking to you people you've worked with and what skill sets they have we really kind of describe it as repackaging and repurposing obviously if you are a hair salon it doesn't make sense to put it to you creating face masks necessarily right because that's an entirely business but instead utilizing the raw materials and resources to see how we can still provide some immediate value and maybe in new venues, whether that's online or through other means.

We also mentioned that there it needs to be some time spent on preparation it for when stores do open, and the kind of what policies you put in place what kind of communication what kind of trust you build with your customer bases we think it's going to make a big difference in the trend when stores do start slowly opening it up and some traffic starts to develop over the rest of the year so I think customers are looking out at how you're connecting with local authorities are you connecting with your local government agencies that are assisting businesses if you have questions on how your particular business can continue to do business in a certain way.

If you're in Boston one suggestion we have is to email the Office of Economic Development they have a special email address just for this reason small biz that's be Isay and boston gov so if you're struggling is you really understand what is possible what's legally possible at this time definitely send them an email and if you need any help finding a resource in your local area please let us know and we can help you do some of that research as well at the very kind of not even just at minimum but also may be just as important: if we are not pivoting in very significant way there's also just that connection and letting people know that you really want to just know the well-being of your customers. I decided to share this. This was posted by someone in my network on Facebook he found this in his food delivery that they had and it's just kind of a simple notes you kind of relating on a very human level and a very empathetic level and if your business is kind of really struggling we want to do in this time this might be something to consider as well again to keep engaged I think the communication aspect of that is pretty is pretty key right now and that there was some consistent communication while we really kind of all configure things out.

So we wanted to keep this webinar short introduce that simple framework several examples we know that it probably is a Free Consult little challenging to kind of get started specifically for your business we are offering free consults right now for small business owners to help them get started to at least get an outline going as they go through this brainstorming process, so please reach out, let us know if you would like to get connected. I'll leave our contact contact information here, but also if you know another small business owner that could use some guidance please definitely pass on our information we would be happy to have a free consult with them as well. We have our social media links here please encourage you to follow us we're sharing examples of how small business owners are getting through this really tough period we're showing resources we definitely want to keep engaged with the small business community here. If there are any questions at this point, please go ahead and and type those in but if not, and I don't see any questions in at the moment, please feel free to connect directly and we'll be happy to field any questions you have. That concludes our webinar for today, I'll leave this contact info here up and we want to thank everyone for your attention and please be safe. Thank you.