Episode 75: Tips to Help Your Business During This Tough Time

Show Notes

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I’ll Rob Cairns here. I’m the CEO and Chief creator of amazing ideas that put stunning digital marking. com. Another weekend. And, frankly, another stay home weekend. Remember, just stay home. And this week’s podcast, talks about some ideas on how you can help your business succeed in these times of uncertainty. And also gonna throw out a little bit of news. But frankly, there’s not that much of it. That’s not COVID-19 related. Please do me a favor, take care of your loved ones, and take care of yourself and pick up the phone and call somebody over 65 and make sure they’re okay. Remember, we are all in this together. Now on to this podcast.

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news today.

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First story is a bit of a local story in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where I live, it’s been reported that crimes are actually down with the exception of homicides, it means one or two things either a, they’re truly down because everybody’s scared of the COVID-19 virus, or B. Frankly, people just aren’t reporting those crimes. It’d be announced to be seen which one it is, but it will shake out. second story, those of you who have tried to order stuff on Amazon have noticed certain non essential items are being delayed. We were looking for some non essential cables we needed at the other day. And frankly, we’re looking at about a month in Canada. So that’s, you know, to be expected with everything going on with COVID-19. cases are up worldwide, the epi center still seems to be in New York City, I have major concerns over Florida and the rising rate in Michigan, we also know California is a bit of a mess right now in the US. So please take care of you’re in any of those regions, or any other place that’s been affected. The other big story COVID-19 was the ship that was off the coast of the Panama Canal. Finally, it was allowed to go through the canal. Now it’s just a case of where that cruise ship is going to land. And how we’re going to repatriate Canadians, amongst other people. I know on that chapters over 200 Canadians and many other people couple 1000. So we need to take care of them. The odds are if they’re repatriated in Canada, they’ll come into the Trenton Air Force Base in Ontario, be quarantined for 14 days, and then move to wherever they need to go in the country. So watch for that to be happening. Still some flights going on. And I’m really proud of the prime minister in Canada today, where he announced some funding for the Kids Help Phone to help young youth get through this crisis because they’re really feeling the social distancing stay in place problem. Also, shout out to the Prime Minister of India, who actually apologized to the people of India for taking such tough measures. And I actually agree with them. The only way to stop this virus is to be tough, and to be tough, and it’d be hard. Because we are all in this together. Now, on to today’s podcast. today’s podcast is what do we do with our business? At this point in time? Do I stop marketing? Do I stop worrying? How do I move forward with some marketing? And what do I do? And how to do it? Well, the first thing I would suggest as a business owner is don’t waste all your time. Don’t spend a day watching Netflix every day or housecleaning invest some of that time back into your business. The first thing you do is find a course to take great opportunity. Many small and big business owners don’t have that time during the regular day. So think about that. The second thing I would actually do is start running some Facebook and Google ads. Both Facebook and Google are giving credits which is free money to keep people spending on ads right now. And the reality is ad spends on Facebook. I’ve actually dropped for certain words not gone up. So keep that in mind. You have to work your business all year round. So that doesn’t mean because we have an issue in the world you stop marketing. What it means is you Be very careful on how you market you don’t want to make your marketing COVID-19 really difficult. Really not, you probably want to offer your customers some discounts, or some freebies or something to keep them as customers at this point in time. One of the things I’ve done frankly, is I have offered all my customers, and any non customer a free 30 minute digital marketing console, no credit card required, no, nothing needed. Frankly, the reason I made this offer was what I really want to do right now is helped some small businesses, this is going to be a tough time for a lot of people.

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If it works into something down the road, great if it keeps some current customers happy, great. If it helps some new customers great. I’ve discounted some packages for some regular customers recently, because of COVID-19. If I help them awesome, and if they don’t want to take it, that’s fine, too. I mean, the point is, I’m willing to help and I’m willing to work with people. The third thing is, I would discount for immediate payment right away. I would also try and negotiate terms if I had to pay later.

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So keep that in mind as a business. Besides marketing activities, what else can you do? It’s good time to update the content on your website.

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I’m actually in the process of doing that right now with the stunning digital marketing.com site, I started this project before COVID-19 started hoping to get it done by the end of March, it’s probably not going to be done. But I’m working on updating all the content, the front pages done. And I’m and the services pages are all done on my site. Now I’m working on all the other pages. And then once I get all that done, I’m going to make sure all my SEO was in line by doing some more keyword research, some competitor research, and so on, and make sure that that’s working. So that’s another thing you do update your website. The next thing on top of that is work on some long range planning for your business. We are going to come out of this and you want to be ready to go. So plan what you’re going to do not just go back in, like nothing’s changed, folks. Everything’s changed the way we do business, how we do business, and so on has changed. And some of us, for example, the shift online shopping, I’ve seen coming for years, and I’ve been predicting it for years. It’s now a reality. If you’re in the goods business, you now need to look at ecommerce, there’s no doubt about it. And you’re going to see some malls actually go under and all this so that it’s time to make that shift. What else can I do? I’ve thrown a couple ideas at you. If you have a large mailing list like I do over 5000 subscribers, keep in touch with your people. Send them out regular mailings. If you have a podcast, keep the podcast going, I’ve actually increased the frequency on this. As you know, I do mostly short episodes. I’ve done some interviews, I have some more coming up. But frankly, you know, I’m gonna keep talking to people and keep podcasting because I think that gives people some business ideas. Also, if you’re working at new products, software, Software as a Service, many of these products have free trials, this would be a really good opportunity to sit down with a free trial and say, Do I like this package? Or don’t I? You do have free time now, don’t you? Sure a lot better than binge watching Netflix on TV eight hours a day. And last but not least, jump on some networking Hangouts. My friend Todd Jones had a hangout with some friends the other day met some really cool people. Awesome. The authentic networks group out of Toronto has moved their hangouts to online via zoom instead of networking in person. Awesome. And they’ve increased the frequency. Use these as an opportunity to show off your stuff. Really. Remember, we need to continue to work our business. And for most of us entrepreneurs, people in the marketing space. We’ve worked online for years. I’ve done it for over 10 years. So frankly, this isn’t a big deal for me. What is a big deal is the limit. So Mark and do the big events canceled? I miss my Raptors and the social interaction with others in person. I’m still interacting with the people I talked online and keep doing that. Zoom is your friend. There’s all kinds of other tools out there teams by Microsoft Slack, Facebook groups, so on and so forth. Keep using them. As always, Robert Cairns CEO chief creator of amazing ideas of stunning digital marketing comm if you’d like a 30 minute free console with no obligation, please go over to my website stunning digital marketing comm I will give you ideas for 30 minutes on any marketing subject or business subject or security subject that you want. And not only that, I’ll send you a recording of that call. So you don’t even have to take notes you can just chat. If you’d like to join my newsletter, which goes out a couple times a week the last one went out today. The next one will be tomorrow night. Please go over to stunning digital marketing.com slash free or scroll down the bottom of the page on the main page and that way you can sign up for our newsletter to get more information like this directly to your inbox. Also, go over and subscribe to this podcast hit the subscribe button for your favorite pod catcher of choice. And don’t miss an episode and then you’ve got me right in your your podcast player

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a couple times a week just trying to help you with your business and succeed. I’ve done it I’ve proven it you need to talk to people have proven and have done it. So get out there and subscribe. Please remember this podcast dedicated my late father Bruce Cairns. I miss you more than ever dad. And as always keep your feet on the ground. Keep reaching for the stars make your business succeed.