People are losing their jobs as a result of business establishments closing due to the government’s lockdown protocol to curtail the contagion of coronavirus. Businesses that undergo surveys are expected to have a decline in revenue in the upcoming six months due to the lockdown.
Managing Business Income Loss
As a business owner, there are steps you can take to handle your income loss efficiently, which will not result in business bankruptcy. You have to be creative and follow these strategies in managing your income loss in the face of such a disaster.
Government Grants
Take advantage of the grants and funding the government offered. They are giving away literally free money to businesses that are affected by the lockdown. You should ask your local government regarding the grants and comply with all the requirements as soon as possible. This money can be used as a rebuilding fund.
As of today, the government has already eased up on the lockdown, which means businesses can go back to their operations under certain guidelines. You can use the government grant to make up for your income loss and help you re-open and improve your business.
Manage Your Debts Properly
If you have multiple debts, you can acquire instant debt consolidation loans. This will help you manage all your existing debts in one repayment scheme. This loan option also offers a lesser interest rate compared to having multiple interest rates.
Acquiring this loan option can reduce your expenses, and you can use the extra money to make up for all the losses you had during the lockdown. You can also choose to deposit the money in to an emergency fund.
Document your Losses
Evaluating the damages incurred by COVID-19 lockdown to your business will help you know how much you need to cover for it. By doing this, you can set a goal for and use it to motivate yourself. Having extra motivation will push you to strive, and increase the possibility of bouncing back stronger.
Having a record of your finances can also increase your chance of getting compensated by business insurance claims and government grants.
To properly do this, create two separate accounts, one is allocated for all your losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic to use as a tracking mechanism to assess how much damage it brought upon your business.
The second account would be used to calculate the operating baseline of your business. Create a review of your business’ performance for the last 3 years and compare it to the performance during the pandemic.
Do not Totally Shut Down your Business
You can find some ways to continue your business using the online marketplace to continue offering whatever you are selling if you are selling a product. With the help of technology, it is not very hard to do this. Even before the pandemic, e-commerce was already ubiquitous.
After the pandemic, you can still continue your online shop to operate along with your physical store. This will also help you gain more customers, both locally and overseas. Do the research and study this option.
You can also check if your business can still operate during the pandemic. There are specific industries that are still allowed to continue their operations. Even during the pandemic, some companies are still eligible to run as long as they are following the proper guidelines and restrictions.
Check if your business is under those industries. If not, you can freely ask if you can operate your business by following the guidelines.
Be Proactive
Being proactive does not only mean building your business up again with motivation. It also means personally contacting your customers, suppliers, and partners. Show them compassion as they will be the ones who will help you build your business. Without these people, no matter what you do, your efforts will go to waste.
As you rebuild your business, make sure that all the essential stakeholders are still interested in doing business with you. Let them know that you are re-opening, and you want to work with them again. This includes your employees, reach out to them, and rehire them as they already know how your business runs. Hiring old employees can also help you save time, money, and effort in training the newbies.
Create a Team
After you contact all the people inside your company, you can create a team that will help you rebuild. Assign people you know who can do that specific task properly. If you do not have someone in your group that you know who can handle a particular job, hiring from the outside is also an option.
You have to divide your team to handle operations, finances, human resources, and marketing. Talk to them about how bad is the damage you need to repair. Inform them about your goal and explain how you plan to achieve it.
Takeaway
Many businesses experienced income loss during the pandemic. Managing your income loss properly will help your business endure the negative impacts of temporarily shutting down. Profit and loss management is important with or without a pandemic. However, focusing more on this aspect is much needed at this time.