FREE Emergency Support

We Can Get Through This Folks – Free Emergency Support and Advice for Small Businesses

Many small businesses are concerned about the impact of the Coronavirus health pandemic on their business.  Over the past few days we have seen countless events and travel arrangements cancelled all over the world.

This is incredibly hard and worrying for small businesses, especially those that rely on local face-to-face contact with their customer-base, students and contacts.

I will do whatever I can to help you and your business weather this storm, remain resilient, continue business and service your customers.

You may have contingency plans already in place, but if you don’t, speak to me and we’ll see what may be possible.  You may need to think a little differently – this is an extraordinary situation.  Keeping in touch with customers, offering some value and continuity is paramount, I can help with that.

If you need more server space to host online materials, to deliver a course, give a presentation or whatever you need it for, I will host as much as I can over the next 30 days for free.

If you are worried about Zoom being overwhelmed with demand, I have webinar and conferencing alternatives and can get you setup for free. Lots of low-cost paid plan options for digital delivery of long and marge meetings, recordings, classes, unattended webinars and paid-for/subscriber solutions.  UPDATE: Some of the platforms have throttled back their free plans to ensure paid plans get enough bandwidth.  If you intend to use video conferencing for more than short, small meetings, you should consider a paid plan – speak to me about which will suit you best.

I can help you record instructional videos, setup email communications, re-awaken your social media or website.  If you don’t have a website, we can sort that out sharpish too, to get you through.

JUST ASK ME AND WE CAN SEE WHAT WILL HELP AND WHAT’S POSSIBLE 

Tips If Self Isolating And/Or Business Is Slow

If things aren’t looking good, business is slow and you have time on your hands because of cancelled bookings,  then use this time to focus on how you can

1) save money when the crisis is over and

2) work on your business to improve it during this downtime.

Stay calm – don’t make any rash decisions or descend into a downward spiral – this will pass.

Create content for your website – focus on specific subjects and write either blog posts or additional content for your website pages. If you write some content but don’t know how to add it to your website, let me know, I will do it for you.

Review your own website – visit all the pages – see what needs updating, removing, changing.  If you need some help making the changes, let me know, I will help you.

Research all the keywords relevant to your business and edit your website content to include some.  Make a lovely big keywords document that you can refer to.

Take pictures of or about your business so you have lots of relevant, unique photos to use all year. If you need help adding them to your website, let me know, I will do it for you.

Drop your clients an email with an offer for later in the year – need help with that?  Ask me, you can use my email system if necessary – I can send it out for you.

Tidy up your social media, make your most used ones shine.  Add details, enable messaging and post information and updates on your page(s) regularly.  Keep it upbeat and positive, we all prefer something to look forward to.

Record some instructional or informational videos about what you do.  Use them on Social Media and/or your website. Ask me if you don’t know how.

This is what I have thought of so far, that I can offer to help you and things that you can do to remain positive and feel a little more in control.  I will keep this list and ideas updated over the coming days and weeks and will post on my social media when there is anything new here.

Stay safe, stay calm, keep positive people, and we’ll get to the other side.

 Carolyn

Director

C J Strand Ltd

UPDATES

Lots of help requests coming in from Wellbeing and Event businesses. I will be publishing some help videos later today to help you along with a general approach and ideas video everyone will find useful.

General Business Support Video

In this video I mention a research website but I get the name wrong – it’s not Ask The People – it’s Answer the Public! You will find it here: https://answerthepublic.com/

My Blog article ‘What You Need to Know About SEO’ can be found here: https://cjstrand.com/your-business-seo/

Video Meetings, Conferences & Webinars

A highly flexible and most likely the #1 tool we can use to stay in touch with customers and keep business going.  Here’s an introductory video explaining the different types of meetings and platforms available, along with some words of advice about capacity, availability and cost.

Platform links:

• ClickMeeting
• Zoom
• Cisco Webex

Let's connect! Connect with me on social media using the links above and join the Elevate Your Niche Facebook Group for a one-stop Digital Marketing and Business questions and answers pitstop when you need it.