Crises are a part of every business and they can come in many different shapes. At times, a crisis will come completely out of the blue, i.e. you would have never expected such a thing to happen. Some crises are directly related to your business operations and some could be external but indirectly affecting your business. Sometimes, it’s not your fault but the time plays against you. Think about all the radio stars who were at the peaks of their careers and then got lost in darkness when video arrived.
You must prepare yourself mentally for any kind of crisis, so you can well maintain business. Here are some of the tips and the ways to handle them:
Sales Crisis
Of course, any business in the world is about sales. Sales in businesses continue to fluctuate with the years passing. The reasons for low sales or sales going down slowly could be in hundreds. Inflation, ideas going obsolete, trends changing, better products arriving, wars, etc. can all become reasons for sales of a business going down. When your sales are going down, you just need to pin point the factors that are causing them to go down. If other businesses are going fine and it’s just your sales taking a nosedive, there’s something wrong with your strategy.
The great business trainer, Jeffrey Gitomer, says that today’s business strategies have to change in order to increase sales. They have to conform to the new trends and businesses have to make their strategies such that decision makers are compelled to call the business rather than businesses calling the decision makers. See if you are spending too much on material marketing and your internet marketing is lagging behind. See if you are using the best internet marketing methods.
Natural Crisis
This is the worst that could happen to a business but it is also one of the types of crises that one could easily prepare for beforehand. It is not something that you would not already know about but you can never know the extent of disaster that natural crises could result in. Floods, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, storms, etc. are all different ways for nature to put your business in crises. It is shocking that a survey in 2015 revealed that 75% of the people who have small businesses have absolutely no plan to deal with a natural disaster.
First of all, you need to have alternative locations from where your business can operate. If a natural disaster has caused damage to your assets and goods, the first thing you want to do is call your insurance company. At the same time, you need to make sure all the employees that are working at your company are well protected. Then, you need to make sure that your data is protected too. Your next step should be; raising funds to get back in business and for this, you can use online websites that raise funds for small businesses.
Personal Crisis
There are times when your personal life becomes so disastrous that you can’t focus on your business. A divorce scenario is one of those situations where you are so emotionally devastated that you can’t concentrate on your work. However, that’s where you have to show the leader hiding in you. You have to respond to the situation as positively as possible. The author of Freedom from Worry: Prayer of Peace for an Anxious Mind and a women’s life strategist, Karen Zeigler says that you have to celebrate what you still have and move on knowing that you have learned a big lesson from the crisis you are in.
A big problem for business owners, when divorcing, is when they are running a business with their spouse. Things can get quite complex and complicated in this scenario. What will happen to the business? Will the business survive if both parties part their ways? It’s not a matter for you to keep thinking about. You will be fully clear about the matter as soon as you have a professional into the picture.
Malevolence Crisis
If your business is going smooth and you have competitors who envy your success, you could become a prey of the malevolence crisis. This happens when some individual or business does the evil deed of causing your business harm in many different ways. They could do this by tampering one of your products, spreading false rumors about you on media or going to any extent that could cause you big harm. When it comes to people spreading rumors about your company, the best way to deal with this crisis is to actively communicate with the masses.
Find a way to communicate with the masses to clarify things. The best example here is of Coca Cola that has faced many rumors over the course of time. These rumors were direct attempts to make its world popular “coke” sell less. Coca Cola responded by dedicating a section on its website to clarify its point of view and has cleared almost all the rumors that have circled around against the company at any given time. In this section, they have cleared the rumors about them being anti-Muslim or putting pork in their drinks. Even Pepsi once handled a rumor by communicating well when it was rumored that its cans contained syringes.
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