Like most of you, I have never experienced a global shutdown like this one. And as we can see, no one was really prepared for such a thing.
With businesses not considered “essential” closed, many people are wondering what’s next? What will happen if people continue to lose their jobs and if businesses don’t open any time soon?
While I am stuck at my home office, I have been wondering how I can help my customers during this time. And how businesses can still function in this current environment.
Right now, you see many businesses already pivoting and redefining themselves to survive. I can only imagine what things will look like once this lockdown is over.
As a CEO for the last twenty-plus years, I have experienced several downturns. I have had to make tough and timely decisions post-9/11 as well as during the 2008 financial meltdown. I had to do this to ensure Palmchip’s survival – to come up strong in order to serve our customers, employees and shareholders. It was difficult closing offices, laying off hardworking employees, canceling long-term leases and downsizing to smaller workspaces. And it’s something I would never wish upon anyone.
But I came out of those experiences with some takeaways:
In the good times and especially the bad, businesses must focus on sales – selling with confidence, professionalism and passion. During the good times, the sales team sells, but during the tough times, every employee at all levels must become a sales person. So it’s all hands on deck during this pandemic. If companies don’t sell, they go out of business. Period.
What’s on our side today is that we have faster internet at home, video conferencing and messaging tools that make working remote as productive as the office – maybe even more productive for some. Here are some things that are helping to keep companies, where employees are lucky enough to be able to work remote, running:
1. Sales tools: Use sales tracking tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, SugarCRM or any other tool which can be shared with your team to track progress.
2. Be proactive: Regardless of what industry you are in, print out a list of all your customers contact info. Call them, don’t sell anything, just check in with them. This is the time for your clients to know you care about them. Ask them if you could be of any help. This is the time to find out what your customers need and see how you can help support them. Their success is your success. And you might find new windows of opportunities together.
3. Follow-up emails: Try not to send a blanket email to your customers unless it is important information everyone should see. Email should be used for information, not communication. Email does not build relationships because it limits the exchange of ideas. Just like you probably do, I move mass emails to the trash if it doesn’t already get lost in the spam folder.
4. You can still have face-to-face communication: Skype, FaceTime, Zoom – these are just some of the many ways to communicate with your clients or customers, not just friends and family. And it’s something many companies are already doing. We all know the best way to build a relationship is through face-to-face interaction.
5. Be a helper: People do not want to be sold on something, they want to be helped – now more than ever. Ask people how they are doing. What stresses they have. Let others know you care and that you are there for them. The best relationships always win and there is no better time to form a relationship when times are tough. Customer are people and they remember who helped them during the challenging times.
Jauher Zaidi is an entrepreneur, business advisor, investor, co-founder and chairman of Palmchip Corporation. He can be reached at Jauher.Zaidi@palmchip.com
Jauher Zaidi is an entrepreneur, business advisor, investor, co-founder and Chairman of Palmchip and CEO of Moobila, He can be reached at Jauher@moobila.com More info on linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jauherzaidi Moobila.com
Jauher Zaidi 
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