The ways COVID-19 doesn’t matter to your business

Ever since shelter-in-place orders, with the associated closure of most public venues, there has been a tremendous amount of emails that start with “COVID-19.”

Early on, I had done a video where I was giving advice on what *not* to do in a pandemic, which was basically: don’t do anything drastic, don’t make huge, catastrophic changes to your business.

I want to talk frankly to you about all of this.

Because, honestly, I know of quite a few business folks who are taking the opportunity of this disruption to do some deep thinking about their business and changes they want to make.

But. And. What they are contemplating are not changes that they dreamed up on the spot, in a panic, in response to the current moment. These were changes that had been brewing inside them, and they didn’t have the oomph to get at them, they hadn’t taken the time to deeply look at what was needed.

Being forced to slow down in ways that were financially distressing, but also useful, allowed them to see something that was already true and necessary for their businesses, well before COVID-19.

Now, naturally, there *are* ways that COVID-19 and the lack of in-person meetings have affected many businesses in terrible ways. It’s really, really painful out there.

However, I want to caution you, again, from following the urge to make HUGE, sudden changes that many take on in times of strife. It all arises out of a belief that “Everything is different now.”

In the twenty years I’ve been in this business, and through growing up in business through childhood, that’s decades of business I’ve witnessed, there have been so many, many people proclaiming, “The New Rules of Business” or other such malarkey.

Technology, circumstances, can change some details. Virtual instead of in-person, at least in the short term, for instance.

But what doesn’t change are the principles, the foundations, of what it takes to grow a business. A core audience, a need/desire, a way to help them meet that need or desire, and the ability to become known and trusted by those folks.

How humans create relationships, build trust, feel love, have not changed in any way. The basics of the human heart are still solid, as they have been for thousands of years.

Whatever the latest strategy is, COVID-19 influenced or not, is just going to be another rehashing of the same things that have helped people build success trades, practices, businesses, for hundreds, literally thousands of years.

What does the future hold? What’s going to happen to the economy? When will public life resume? We don’t know the answers to those questions. People in the midst of various wars and conflicts, people in the aftermath of famines and droughts and city-wide fires, no one knew those answers either.

Yet they did come back, and for them, the rules hadn’t changed then, either.

Periods like these can be extremely painful and challenging, overwhelming. Don’t abandon the basics. And if there are changes you are contemplating, make sure there is a consistent through-line from before COVID-19, that you aren’t responding in panic to something that is, ultimately, temporary.

May this bring you peace, and some hope, and some grounding. Blessings upon you, upon all you care for, and upon your business.

With love,

Mark Silver, M.Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.

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