I had the opportunity to listen in on a group call with the governor of my state and some business people. The subject under discussion was the opening of the United States.

The message from the governor was that he would open the state ‘not today, not tomorrow, but soon.’ And we were all supposed to ‘be ready for it.’

Most of the people who got to ask the governor questions seemed to have a previous relationship with him. And were reading prepared statements from their lobbying groups. Those groups are acting As If in their businesses.

They are looking ahead and trying to make things go their way ahead of time.

The question is, right now are you and your business acting As If?

That means, are you taking the precautions necessary to protect your business, without sticking your head in the sand at the moment?

As we saw the tidal wave of Covid-19 hit, we had to pivot fast. Not only for our own business, but since we are business coaches, we have a lot of small business owners that are counting on us to help them get through this storm that does not want to let up quickly.

What do we all do?  Operate and act As If.

As If the world is not going to end. Let’s go to the worst possible scenario, make a plan for it, and work our way back from there.

As If our world is going to be a S*** Show for awhile and what can we do to prepare for the future without shutting down.

As If our world is going to be different for a very long time, but it is no reason to shut down completely.

Here is a very important As If:  I read an ad from a sales trainer doing a webinar for an industry and he said “be ready so that when the pendulum swings back, you can come out and get started.”  We think that’s wrong. Act As If you are not going to wait for the pendulum. You are out there and getting things done now.

The press is filled with stories of businesses who have pivoted and they are GETTING PRESS! Your competitors who are pivoting and making waves, are acting AS IF. Your competitors  who are huddling in place are going to be left behind.

How do you act AS IF?

That’s a great question.  Let’s use our company as an example. We are used to being on between 5 and 7 stages each month, talking about marketing to small business owners. On stages. In public. Quite often, well within a 6 foot circumference. We are acting As If small business owners still need marketing help. We are doing as many webinars as possible. As of this writing, there were 8 on the schedule for April and 10 in May. We’ve had to change our presentations, but that is part of acting AS IF.

From the moment we cancelled our in-person 3-day Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamp before the end of March, we got all of our clients on group Mastermind calls.  Making plans. Acting As If.

We did a special mailing to our clients to show support and remind them that they are not in this alone.  Acting AS IF.

We did a special direct mail piece (we used our Blah Blah letter, that you hear about in our bootcamps) that we had not used in several years. But it was perfect for this time, so out it came and is now back in ‘A’ rotation.  Acting As If.

It is clear that things you were doing to market your business just a few weeks ago don’t make sense any more. Your client’s buying activity and mindset has been changed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Let’s look at four things you can do now to be prepared for later, and take care of your business now.

First, invest some time looking at your numbers, especially your budgets. Rank your best marketing activities from top to bottom. The ones that are doing that best are the ones you keep. If you are tempted to bring your marketing dollars to zero, your new leads will also be zero. Cutting costs allows you to remain viable, but in order to grow, you are going to have to commit to being smarter with your marketing. At the end of this article, we will give you a way we can help you with that.

Second, even the best tactics may have to be temporarily altered as to the method, and reoptimized as if you were beginning anew. But now you have a track record to run on. This is not the time, for example, to take a fling on an ad in a previously untested publication.

Third, make certain that your goals are reasonable. Move to protect your long term relationships with your clients and see if you can develop a plan to move forward together. Show your interest in their business. For example, with our private coaching clients, we arbitrarily added two months on to the end of each of their year contracts. We are investing in their success. We have seen retail landlords do the same for many of their tenants.

Last, take a look around for new target markets. A real world example has many fast food restaurants becoming neighborhood grocers, selling their produce and meats in bulk instead of prepared. Some of your regular clients may be off their feet for awhile after this is over, so adjusting what you sell and who you sell it to will be crucial.

Are you ready to act AS IF?

Are you looking for ways to make that happen? We would like to help you.

We would like to offer you a Free Marketing Consultation. Most small business owners that take advantage of this conversation report back to us that this success call was worth at least $10,000 in increased sales and savings to their bottom line. Let’s begin our conversation by increasing your profits. Go now to www.FreeMarketingConsultation.com