These are some of the many questions which are crossing the mind of every entrepreneur today. Be it a franchisor, brand owner or franchisee, or investor. Every businessman today thinks that I don’t want to earn profits right now. All I want is for my business to survive through this pandemic of COVID-19.
Little does every businessman know that only thinking & wishing won’t do the work. They will have to step up & take risks just like any other time.
To be able to get through this situation of COVID-19 hit, every franchisor/franchisee needs to work on the below things:
- Stay in Touch With Employees: The strength of your business is your team, your people, and your employees. You need to take care of them. Just like you, your employees are also in a panic. It is very important for you to talk them through a regular interval of time. Be positive that this too shall pass. Share your mental pressure with them. Pay cuts can be need of the hour, paying them on time will keep them calm.
- Stay in Touch With Customers: You must stay in touch with all your customers. A single message won’t harm. This will keep your business alive in their minds. Ask them about their well-being and to stay indoors. This will enhance your relations with them.
- Lower Your Margins: At this point in time if you want to keep running, try lowering your margins. Not only this will help you gain a good reputation among the customers but in time it can increase the sales figure also.
- Lower Royalty: If you are a brand owner/franchisor, you need to think about your franchisees as well. If you charge the monthly royalty or any kind of royalty, try to lower the percentage or if possible wave off the royalty for a couple of months. This will help them to manage their other expenses such as paying their own employees.
- Change in Payment Method: If you have a company policy of advance payment or one-shot payment. You can change the payment method to Installments. With this, your alliances will stay intact & they will also be able to release your payment at the earliest.
- Opportunity to gain Goodwill: This time is a golden opportunity to earn goodwill. Any kind of social work be it monetary or nonmonetary, will help you build Goodwill for your business.
- Social Media Networking: In this time you can build up a strong social media network by keeping your company’s page active on all the platforms. Be it Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Your posts can be related to your business or generic. Anything that keeps your audience engaged with you.
- Set Your Priorities: It is very important to pen down your priorities. If you don’t have that, it will probably misbalance your plan of action once this is all over which it will very soon! This will help you to manage your funds judicially which are of utmost priority right now.
The times are hard right now but, this too shall pass! If you are taking care of all the aforesaid things, you will certainly find yourself much ahead of all the other businesses & your business will sail through this time smoothly.
Further, if you need any assistance feel free to call us at +91-9717899655 or write to us info@franchisezing.com.