Category: Other

It’s an old saying, and whilst I am not convinced it is totally true, it is a good way to consider the current situation.

As I have watched the way businesses are handling the restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic, they seem to fall into two categories:

1. Those that look short term “we need to cope until things get to normal”
2. Those who look long term “Things have changed, how do we adapt to the new environment”

As you might have gathered from the title, I would advocate the latter of these strategies. The crazy thing is that both strategies require significant adaption in the short term, but only the latter will deliver benefits in the long term.

To illustrate my point, I would like to use the example of two restaurants in my local town, who have taken very different approaches to business in 2020.

Just hang on in until it is all over

The first, shut during the first lockdown, taking the time to put in place procedures to open as a restaurant with reduced capacity as soon as they were able. This they then did, and by all accounts had a good summer as things opened up.  Though I would expect that margins were down due to increased costs and reduced capacity.

Come the second lockdown which, if we were being honest was inevitable! They were back to square one. This time they chose to do takeaway, but very much in a way that suggested it was not a long term plan (First come first served, no advanced ordering, take the phone off the hook when they get busy). The impression was that their attitude was. “It is just 4 weeks, then we can open as a restaurant again.”

Well, the end of the lockdown came, but restrictions meant that they still could not open. ….The struggle goes on.

Adapt And evolve

Contrast this with the second restaurant. They took a very different approach right from the start.

In March when they shut their doors, they immediately set up a takeaway system. They posted their menu on a Tuesday. Then took bookings for delivery slots over the weekend. Whilst I would suggest they should look further than Facebook for their marketing, this was a simple solution that worked, and could be adapted further and developed as time went on.

Through the summer, they decided not to make the changes needed to reopen the restaurant, opting instead to continue the takeaway model. As a result, The second lockdown, and the tier restrictions  have not really impacted them too much. They can continue with this model until they are able to open again whenever that may be.

Furthermore, when they do, they will have developed a takeaway model that they can continue to run alongside their regular business.

I am sure that for both of these businesses the last 9 months have been hard work and stressful. But for the first, the best-case scenario is that they survive. For the second, I think survival should not be an issue. And when the restrictions are lifted, they will have evolved and be well placed to go forward strongly.

These are just 2 examples, but have seen many more where businesses taking the second approach:

• Retailers who have invested in digital focusing on their online offering
• Conference organisers who have shifted events to high-quality webinars

The list goes on. For these there is no going back to “normal”. The have moved on, and hopefully their businesses will be stronger for it.

I have a dilemma! I am a firm believer in the power of analytics for monitoring and managing your marketing. But I also believe that we live in a world where we tend to overuse analysis tools. The key to reconciling this dilemma is the word OVERUSE!

Whilst I firmly believe that analysis is a key business tool, its overuse is a bad thing. Furthermore, analytics rarely give definitive answers and issues arise when indicators presented through analysis are presented as fact.

In my experience, one casualty of over analysis is creativity. Creativity takes time, and is inherently inefficient. If you are being truly creative, you can’t expect all of your output to be brilliant. It is likely that some of your work will, whilst important in the process, come to nothing!

Over analysing can lead you to kill creative projects that are not going in the direction you expect. But given time these projects may actually deliver great results.

John Cleese on Creativity

I grew up with Monty Pythons Flying Circus, and I believe that they were and are creative genii. I think (maybe because I took Latin at school) the graffiti sketch in the Life of Brian is one of the funniest bits of film ever! But watch full episodes of the Monty Python TV show. Much of it is not very funny, and that’s the stuff that made the screen!  My point is that even talented people like the Python’s don’t hit the mark all the time. But they need the freedom to produce the dogs, to allow them to hit the comedy gold like the graffiti sketch!

Search YouTube, and you will find John Cleese talking a lot about creativity. One point he makes is that to be creative, you need to create space and time “to play”. Analysis may suggest that much of this time is not very productive. Whilst this may be true, it is needed as part of the process, and your analysis needs to recognise this fact.

Its not the Analysis that’s at fault, its how it is used

Analysis itself is not at fault here, its how it is used. It is my view that analysis should be used to inform decisions, not make them. The danger where creativity and innovation is concerned is that the ability to analyse and measure things in detail, encourages a process where decision making is primarily evidence based, driven by data of what has happened/worked in the past.

However by definition, being creative means pushing the boundaries & trying things that have not been tried before. These activities are very difficult to justify based on evidence of past activities.  As Henry Ford is quoted as saying “If I asked people what they want, they would ask for a faster horse”. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that Mr Ford never uttered these words, it does illustrate the issue. If you base creativity purely on research looking to the past, you are never going to be truly creative.

So how do we square the circle?

As Einstein pointed out “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insane”. As such using past activities & results to inform future actions can prevent you repeating old mistakes and thus is a vital part of business. But the flip of this is that just because there is no evidence to suggest something new will be a success, does not mean it is doomed to failure. Creativity requires you to say “That sounds interesting, my gut tells me it has potential, and there is nothing to suggest it has been tried & failed before and failed so lets give it a go and see what happens!”

Being creative is a punt!

Yes you weigh up the risks & rewards, but ultimately you have just got to put analysis to on side and jump into the unknown!

On 18th March the Government told us to stay at home (well, most of us). It was OK to carry on working so long as we didn’t have to go out. Working From Home was born! OK, there were homeworkers before this but now working from home became normal for most. At first, it was novel, then it became more challenging but now, 6 months later when most of us are ‘back in the office‘ I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the experience, not just as a reaction to lockdown, but more widely.

Lockdown forced a new way of thinking and operating but I reckon it has shed light on opportunities that can have a profound and long-term impact.

Working from home. Not for everyone

For some people, the shift to working from home was pretty straightforward. For others, it was more difficult, even impossible. The split between theses 2 groups really depends on the nature of your work.

1. Dealing with Data

These days, data means computers, devices and the internet. I know people who still swear by paper files but the fact is that the days of paper files are numbered. If you work with data that means you work on a computer of some sort and with the steady march to Cloud storage, it’s all about internet connections.  If you work with data and you have a reasonable internet connection, you can work anywhere.

There are other considerations which I will look at below but in principle, if you work with data, you can work from home – or the beach!

2. Dealing with stuff

The story is quite different if your work involves ‘stuff’. You have to be where the ‘stuff’ is. This may be a factory or field, a warehouse or cafe. Unless you can get the stuff you need at home, you have to go out to work.

While working from home is not an option for everyone or even the majority, there are millions of people who can benefit from the opportunities that the ‘Working From Home’ experience has opened up.

My own experience

Perhaps the best way to look at the practicalities is to reflect on my own experience. I worked from home exclusively from late March to early June. I do admit that there were factors that made my experience easier:

1. No children – the demands of children at home can make working from home challenging
2. A separate workspace – having to work on the dining table can make it difficult to separate work life and home life
3. Decent internet – to be effective, your home internet connection needs to compare well with your work-based internet speed

Risk of isolation

With grown-up family at home, I wasn’t isolated but it is easy to see how isolating working at home can be – particularly if you live alone. I feel that working from home should be an option rather than a necessity. Being able to work from home when it suits and at the office, or elsewhere, at other times, maybe gives the best balance.

Importance of breaks

With fewer distractions (daytime TV excepted!), I found it easy to get lost in what I was doing. My home office is in the cellar so I can’t even look out of the window! I did find the lack of daylight to be a difficulty. For these reasons, regular breaks are important. My solution was walking. I tried to get out for fresh air every day.

Zoom is just a tool

Zoom (or Teams/Skype/Google Meet) are just tools allowing 2 or more people to meet remotely. I find them really useful but online meetings can be intense and certainly not the same as a real face-to-face meeting. Personally. I don’t like remote meetings (as opposed to webcasts etc.) for more than 4 or 5 people. There can only be one conversation at once. You simply don’t get the opportunity for ‘side chats’. Just like Homeworking itself, online meetings are now a mainstream addition to the world of work. I would hate to think that every meeting I have from now was online but sometimes, the video meeting is ideal (for modest numbers of participants!).

A change is as good as a rest

I must be honest. By early June, working in a daylight-free cellar every day was beginning to pale somewhat. There was no-one else in the office at that time so it was no big deal to go back to work. I was as socially isolated at Glossop Gasworks as I was at home – if not more so.  Nevertheless, there were some of my lockdown working experiences that I didn’t want to lose.  I have continued to find time for an hour or 2 walking most days and I am now working fewer days in the office. I know I can work effectively from home and I love the flexibility.

The value of convenience

Commuting is a pain! I am lucky as my commute is now only 10 minutes in the fresh air by bike but I have experienced the daily slog into the city centre where it can take over an hour to travel 10 miles. Many people spend even longer commuting to and from their work every day.

One of the real benefits of homeworking is that it is so darned convenient! Every week, working from home can free up a whole extra day to use as you wish. Never mind the savings in fuel, fancy city-centre coffees and that luxury £10 sandwich at lunchtime.  Sure, the shift to homework presents challenges to the coffee bars and sandwich shops that thrive on daily commuters, but I suggest this is only a temporary problem. Coffee bars and sandwich shops are just businesses set up to serve a market. If that market shifts from the city centre to the suburbs then the businesses will follow.

A new approach

I now split my working hours between the office and home. As they are only 10 minutes apart this is easy. I get the benefit of an office environment when I choose and home-work at other times. It is convenient and flexible. I can see the potential for real growth in demand for flexible office space closer to where people live. (Quick plug – check out Glossop Gasworks Workspace) I have heard numerous anecdotal stories of large office-based businesses planning to significantly reduce their reliance on large, expensive, city-centre offices in favour of a more flexible approach based on efficiently interconnected, practical suburban workspaces with a smaller, prestige city-centre location for when it is needed.

People like convenience and flexibility to work the way they choose. Undoubtedly, the lockdown has forced change to be brought on quickly but as new working practices become more normal, there are many effective tools and more options for efficient working than many had appreciated.

We are still in the early days of the new working world and it will be a while yet before the ‘new normal‘ becomes normal. Even so, the opportunities for a more attractive way of working will be hard to ignore in the long term.

Interesting times ahead. If you’d like to talk, do get in touch

It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen next in this crazy and bizarre year, but you can always count on another instalment of the BSA Marketing Quiz!  13 summer-themed questions on a mixture on topics at different degrees of difficulty. Try your best and no Googling!

Keeping your customers and clients and arms length is likely to be here to stay for the foreseeable future. As is providing an environment where your customers stay apart. But should you see this as a threat or an opportunity? And more importantly, how can you adapt your business model to the new trading environment?

Whilst the obvious impact will be felt by the leisure &hospitality industries, where social interaction is central to their offering, it is going to change the environment for most businesses. With this in mind, I would like to look at how the ability to adapt to new scenarios can really deliver opportunities.

Adapt Adapt Adapt..

Adapting to new environments is critical for survival across pretty much every ecosystem. This is no different in the business world. There has undoubtedly been a seismic shift in the trading environment and the successful businesses will be the ones that are able to adapt their models to this new environment. The good news is – We are already seeing this happening:

• Conferences and events are going virtual
• Restaurants and pubs are moving to high quality take-away delivery model
• Craft food & beverage producers are moving from wholesale to online retail models serving local markets

And those are just in our local area, and are all doing OK.

Opportunity or Threat

Assessing opportunities & threats is a classic part of business planning – I am sure most people will be familiar with the SWOT analysis.

Taking this approach to the current situation its easy to focus on the threats, as they tend to be stating you in the face, but in most cases there will be opportunities too.

Take craft F&B who have relied on wholesale markets, those markets may have shut down, but new retail markets have emerged. Conference & event organisers are seeing the demand for online events is growing rapidly. The key is to identify these opportunists and adapt quickly to deliver.

Being Small and independent can be an advantage.

In this rapidly changing environment agility is key. As such small independent businesses who have a short decision making process and who can react quickly to changes will have a distinct advantage over larger business with more complex decision making processes.

Take the current 2m rule. Businesses have had time to develop and adapt their business models to cope with this new regulation, but now they are open. If this changes and for example moves from 2m to 1m then that will deliver opportunities. Big businesses will take time to adapt and communicate these changes through their organisation. Small independent businesses on the other had can quickly adapt and reap the benefits.

Over the coming months this ability to quickly adapt as the situation changes will give smaller businesses a real advantage. The key is to jump on the opportunities as they arise.

Think long term

I just want to finish by encouraging people to think long term. Rather than thinking “How do I adapt and cope until this is all over”, think about how adapting to the the new environment could improve your business into the long term. Some  things you are having to do now, could actually reap benefits to your business long into the future!

It has been an interesting 3 weeks. On 17th March I was sitting in a hotel in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil. I had been out of contact on an amazing trip to Galapagos since the beginning of March and now, I was trying to get home as the normal world started to unfold around me. I didn’t appreciate the full impact of what was to come. As it transpired, I caught the last scheduled international flight out of Ecuador before everything closed and the tragedy of coronavirus in Ecuador started to hit the news the following day.

I was lucky. I made it back to the UK relatively easily. There are still thousands of travellers trying to get home and I wish them well.

Lockdown Realty

Once home it was back to the office and a return to work – or so I thought! The following day, all restaurants, pubs, clubs, and indoor sport and leisure facilities across the UK were ordered to close, and then on 23 March, the lockdown was imposed.

It'll be OK. I can work from home. It wouldn't be the first time.

When I have worked from home in the past, it has never been for any length of time; the odd half-day or day here and there. We are fortunate that we have good internet connections and VPNs allowing full access to our work systems and data. With our growing use of cloud-based technologies (I talked about our move to Xero accounts a while ago) and our switch to a VOIP telephone system in January, BSA is technically well placed for remote working. It is the emotional and mental challenges in this surreal environment that are having a significant impact.

Am I on holiday?

Having just returned from an actual holiday, my first feeling was that I was still on holiday!  I always find it a challenge to get back into the work routine after being away. Now there was no routine to return to! No office to visit, no working day at the office. Am I still on holiday?

Yet there is work to do! Marketing and staying engaged with your customers and contacts is important, particularly in these strange times. We have clients who are very busy, actively involved in the fight against the pandemic and other clients who are seeing their e-commerce sites which, to date had been a minor supplement to bricks and mortar retail businesses, suddenly becoming the heart of plans to sustain business during the lockdown.

There was clearly no time for holidays! BSA’s experience and practical support are in demand.

Let’s Zoom

Two years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to make more use of remote meetings technology – I really don’t like driving to meetings if I can avoid it! 3 months later, after numerous unsuccessful trials with Skype, I gave up. The technology wasn’t up to the job. I don’t know whether it was the software, the bandwidth, the internet connections, or what, but it got in the way of the meeting. Remote meetings were on the back burner.

Although I had heard of Zoom, up to 3 weeks ago I had never used it. I was still disenchanted about the whole remote meeting thing. But with the lockdown, travelling became virtually impossible and so if I was going to meet with people, it would have to be on-line. Remote meetings were back on the agenda. I tried 4 or 5 different tools and by some margin, the best is Zoom. What a revelation, it just works. I have been involved in meeting with up to a dozen people for up to 2 hours. OK, there has been the odd occasion when the line quality wasn’t brilliant but overall, it looks like remote meeting has come of age – and just in the nick of time!

I am sure that even when the coronavirus lockdown of 2020 slips into history, online meetings are here to stay as a feature of the modern business world.

The new normal

While lockdown persists, I am seeing a sense of common purpose, a new normal. Sure, we are all still in business and it is vital that the economy is not allowed to stall. It remains appropriate to charge for products and services but this is a time for support, not profiteering. Some businesses are booming while others are struggling. A bit of flexibility, support and give & take can hopefully level things out for everyone while we try and make sense of our circumstances.

In fact, perhaps this the basis for good, sustainable business at any time?

Personally, one of the biggest challenges I am finding is to know what day it is! I have always tried to work Monday to Friday then have the weekend off. But do we still have weekends? I am starting to wonder! Does this matter? don’t get me wrong, having time off from work is essential (IMHO!) but does it need to be a working week followed by a weekend?

Working from home makes it easier to be flexible. I am trying to take time every day to get out and explore my local footpaths. this is time I would previously be stuck at my desk but it feels good to swap this for an hour or 2 work on a Saturday or Sunday, if necessary. I am seeing a new flexibility – I can work by hours not days.

This approach may be more challenging for employees – though flexitime has been a ‘thing’ – particularly in larger companies – for many years. Maybe our lockdown experience is showing the way for more flexibility in smaller businesses too.

I am sure that none of the things I am talking about here are new. People work in many different ways but alongside the challenges of lockdown, I am seeing some real positives and opportunities to do things different – and better. I am looking forward to exploring the new future.

I’d be interested to hear your experiences of the lockdown. Feel free to drop me a line – or why not join me on zoom for a chat.