Staying the Course of Success: Tips for Entrepreneurs During the Pandemic

An entrepreneur can literally come from any walk of life. No matter what country they’re in, how much money they’re born with, or what their talents are, the mark of an entrepreneur can’t be found in socioeconomic details. They’re the people who are out there trying to make things happen. They’re the ones who are always looking for an angle, trying to spot the opportunities in the midst of whatever situation they happen to be in.

And make no mistake about it: there are always opportunities. Regardless of where an entrepreneur is or what they do, there are always ways to adapt to a new society and a new set of rules. But how can anyone see these “spectacular” positives right now?

The pandemic has thrown off so many businesses and caused so much turmoil that it’s a wonder more people haven’t thrown in the towel. We’ll look at what it really means to stay the course of success and how entrepreneurs can fight their way out.

The Facts

There’s no need to spell out the negative effects of COVID-19 and a country full of unrest. Even people who heavily limit their news consumption are bound to feel overwhelmed at a time like this. With the economy looking so bleak, entrepreneurs of every variety are under more pressure to sustain their business and keep their employees on the payroll.

There’s no sugar-coating any of this either. Has your physical location been vandalized or set aflame? Has it been deemed unsafe to open? Has it been destroyed by a hurricane? These possibilities are all too real right now and causing massive setbacks to the optimist that lives within all of us.

In other words, there’s no use denying that there are real challenges both now and ahead. The entrepreneur is the person who analyzes their individual challenges, weighs in against global challenges, and still doesn’t give up.

It would be easy to assume that the deck is stacked against you. In all likelihood, there’s probably a lot of relief to be found in that mindset. But there’s always something to be done, and it’s your job to find that something.

Momentum in Motion

This has been and always will be the key to an entrepreneur. No matter what industry you’ve chosen, it’s staying in motion that will keep you afloat. The entrepreneur is happy to look at risk and make calculated decisions, but they can’t spend too long overthinking the matter (because otherwise nothing would ever get done).

The true entrepreneur isn’t looking for perfect though. Most days, they’re happy to get good enough. They’ve accepted that one failure does not make an individual a failure. If they don’t have a back-up plan in mind, they’ll think of one on the fly. Most importantly, they’re giving themselves over to their goal. Instead of counting hours on the clock, they’re measuring their work in milestones.

The Better Side of Reality

The articles of doom and gloom often ignore that there are businesses who are thriving right now. There are people running into the fray and finding themselves better off for it. New companies are springing up and old companies are reinventing themselves. Some people respond better to a crisis. In fact, they need that danger to catapult them into real action.

This is the time to rethink what you think you know. What are consumers really up to? What do they really want? You can’t necessarily find this out by listening to the experts. You can only go by what people do, not what people think or say.

For example, if you were a restauranteur and assumed that everyone was eating food they cooked at home, you might be inclined to shutter their business (possibly forever). But if you found out that families were interested in inexpensive meal kits that they could use to make Sunday dinners a little easier to fix, the problem takes on a whole new meaning.

By framing the problem as a way to give family members an easier way to connect, you tempt people into becoming reliant on your new products. You also have a way to start building upon that model in order to attract different kinds of families.

Resetting Your Strategy

Just because you’ve never sold certain items or services before, doesn’t mean that you can’t start selling them now. This is all about shifting your strategy to meet the demand. The other matter, possibly even more important than the reinvention, is finding ways to talk to your customers.

Assuming that the experience of someone in NYC is anywhere near the experience of someone in LA is going to be a mistake. And if you’re trying to market to people in cities the same way you are the people in small towns, you’re really going to turn into problems.

Entrepreneurs in a relatively normal economy need to figure out who their target demographic and what their target demographic is looking for at any given time. They must accept that times change too. (When Blockbuster first heard of Netflix, their concern was so negligible that they waited until it was too late to change.)

If you run a marketing consultant company for clients in the travel industry, it’s easy to see why you might have lost your clients by now. But if you can pivot those services to companies and individuals selling glamping packages or offering socially distant tourist services, there are ways to turn things around. The first step is determining how you can do the most good for your clients and your clients’ clients.

Overcoming the Emotions

There are so many worst-case scenarios playing out all over the country. Loved ones are passing away from a still-mysterious disease and evictions are on the rise. Entrepreneurs in cities all over the US wonder when people will feel safe enough to really start shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.

How can we ask entrepreneurs to put all of this aside for the sake of ambition? As harsh as this question might sound, it’s the practical-minded entrepreneurs who are seeing their way through this crisis. It’s not that they’re being asked not to feel, it’s that they’re asking themselves to act in spite of the feelings.

If people have stopped buying one product or service, the entrepreneurs aren’t bemoaning that reality. They’re asking themselves what consumers are buying instead. There are some people across the US who are saving every penny they get, but there are plenty of former office workers and employees who have had to forego many of their normal activities and routines. That means all the money they would have spent on a gym or vacation is still up for grabs.

What Makes an Entrepreneur?

The entrepreneur is someone who can assess and manage risk, almost without thinking. They can immediately pivot if they have to, but they also don’t change everything on a whim just because the winds seem to be blowing one way or another.

There’s no benefit in judging people who are getting wrapped up in what’s happening around the world. What sets the entrepreneur apart is that they don’t absorb the negativity. They simply acknowledge their presence before continuing to work their way through the problem.

This brings us to our next conclusion: an entrepreneur is a solution person first and foremost. This doesn’t mean that they can’t hear problems or take the time to consider them, it just means that they want suggestions as much as they want complaints. When a plan isn’t working out, they take careful steps to correct the course long before the project has a chance to go off the rails.

The Process of Change

Entrepreneurs already know that many of their milestones are only made by staying open-minded. But this is a tall order to expect from other people, as not everyone thinks the same way. In some cases, the issues are circumstantial. A CEO of a Fortune 500 company doesn’t have the luxury to make constant changes in the same way that a sole proprietor does. In other cases though, the process of change is entirely based on what has been.

Why can’t most people work from home? Because that’s not the way things were done. So what have businesses found now that their employees have been forced to work from home? Is the revenue plummeting because their employees can’t gather around the water cooler? Far from it.

This is what we have to acknowledge about the pandemic: that there are some truly good things that can come from this. Take our closest parallel as an example. The 1918 Spanish Flu was clearly a nightmare. It wiped out millions right after World War I and created widespread panic. But the same flu also revolutionized healthcare as we know it today.

No Excuses

When an unexpected event strikes, we see that there are things that have been holding us back that never needed to be there in the first place. If employees are actually happier and more productive working from home, there’s no reason to eliminate the possibility.

There are countless scenarios like this playing out all over the world. “Why fix something if it isn’t broken?” might sound like a reasonable excuse, until people stop to realize that they never asked themselves if the system was broken in the first place.

During the pandemic, people are forced to rethink how they do things, what resources they have, and how they can pin down the ever-moving target that is the future. You’re always going to find reasons not to do something. In fact, you should be concerned if anything ever looks like a sure-fire bet, because those are incredibly rare.

To break down this concept a little more, we’ll look at the major shift we’ve seen in the economy and what stopped it from happening in the first place:

When business owners denied their employees the privilege of working from home, it wasn’t because they were trying to frustrate and annoy their workforce. They made this choice because it’s not always easy to get ahold of someone who works from home. The technology might not be all that reliable, leading to communication problems that end in major mistakes. Leaders might be afraid that the employees would have a hard time staying on track or staying committed to their job if they were surrounded by distractions.

These are all valid fears. For years, the rationale wasn’t just reasonable, it was an absolute. But we’ve seen that these fears just weren’t enough to warrant their reaction.

Why can’t an entrepreneur change their entire business model? Because they’ve spent so long building up the one they have. Because they don’t have the equipment or the money to make such a drastic shift. Because they don’t have the expertise needed.

Much like the work-from-home example, these are all entirely reasonable concerns. And yet, you have to be willing to really work through and test these reasons before you decide (one way or another) that they’re reasons to halt you in your tracks.

Collective Open-Mindedness

This is another good thing to come out of the pandemic. It’s not just entrepreneurs who are seeing things in a new light — it’s everyone. Professionals and consumers are willing to take leaps that they’ve never taken before. They’re rearranging their routines in a way that they never could have anticipated.

From schooling their kids from home to seeing their loved ones exclusively on Zoom, the possibilities are wide open. People are willing to try solutions that they never would have before. This kind of wide-open landscape is not often seen in a lifetime.

What’s In Front of You

So what’s in front of you right now, you might be asking yourself. What exactly is out there that needs to be solved? The answer is plenty. More and more employees are working from home, which means they need to furnish their offices and create the right environments to be productive.

More people are working online, which means they might need excellent security measures and better internet. People have stopped going to their favorite coffee shops across the street from their office, which means they need ways to make a better cup of joe in the morning. More people want to stay safe, so they’re investing in everything from sneeze guards to masks to hand sanitizer.

The list goes on and on. And just like before, the needs will vary drastically across the spectrum. A family of 6 will be facing the pandemic with a very different mindset than a single person living alone next door. They might both live on the same street, separated by nothing more than a driveway, but their expectations will not be on the same plane.

New Marketplaces

The laws have relaxed to allow consumers a new way to handle themselves. You might not have been able to schedule a specialist appointment before with your doctor, but why should you come in unless you absolutely have to? (There are certain situations where a healthcare specialist will have to see their patients in person, but there’s no reason to expose yourself unless you absolutely have to.)

These kinds of opportunities might not be apparent at first, but they’re there. The more people who are online, the more broadband we need. One solution begets another solution, and those solutions end up spawning new industries.

Entrepreneurs, investors, and even everyday citizens can follow these trends to predict the next ones. There are no guarantees in life, but you can spot the patterns that will end up driving the economy after the dust settles.

So what ultimately happens when the city, county, state, and federal regulations are given some slack? The effect is very similar to when offices relax their rules. Legislators realize that maybe they didn’t necessarily need to be so close-minded about certain matters.

For example, seeing doctors over Zoom didn’t lead to widespread chaos or endless lawsuits. New protocols that were adopted in the midst of trying times end up changing the ways in which we do business entirely. So what will the world look like when you can order a cocktail to go and visit your GP without having to leave the house at all? Hopefully, it will look like a better one, even when we’re no longer consumed with the thoughts of COVID-19.

Risk Assessment

The goal of an entrepreneur is never to do just what’s asked of them. In some cases, no one might be asking them to do anything! In a time of total disarray, there are plenty of people who are content to just take some time off. But an entrepreneur has to make themselves indispensable, no matter what it takes.

The entrepreneur is the one who sees each problem as a completely solvable obstacle. Want to cut back on business expenses? Now is the time to switch to rice and beans for dinner. Having problems with non-paying clients? This is the time to cultivate negotiation skills and practice persistence. (It might also be the time to let certain clients go.) Don’t see a way to fit into this new marketplace? Create your own marketplace!

All of these issues take an immense amount of time and energy to solve. No one is discounting this. But then again, there’s a reason why not everyone is an entrepreneur. The goal here is to be a leader in the transformation that has already started to take place. It’s not about waiting to see what happens, but about jumping in and making the changes yourself.

What Does Risk Assessment Look Like?

If you’ve learned nothing else at this point, you should know that you’re going to have to summon an awful lot of courage to move forward. As we’ve mentioned, there are always going to be serious risks implicated in nearly any decision. You can only rethink the problem and act on it when you have an unstoppable personality.

Risk assessment means swallowing the consequences and going forward anyway. It’s made for people who can take their falls and get right back on the horse. This kind of advice will always sound much better in theory, of course. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to take into account the sheer weight of the true consequences.

Failed entrepreneurs don’t necessarily just end up broke, they end up in serious debt. They could even end up homeless. There are certain risks that an entrepreneur is prepared to take, and then there are others that they’re not. The true entrepreneur though is prepared to lose it all though.

They let the fear of this drive them to keep going during even the most seemingly impossible days. Entrepreneurs work nights and weekends as a given, not an exception. They know how to combat decision fatigue when they’re feeling particularly exhausted. And they know what to do when they’re met with rejection after rejection.

The Power of Being Active

We can’t stress this enough: entrepreneurs build on their momentum. They see adversity as a stepping stone to wealth. They could live through any economic depression because these are the times that create the most number of problems. And what is an entrepreneur? It’s someone who’s there to device a solution to those problems.

So what does it take to stay positive? It really just means doing more when you want to do less. It means constantly being in motion as a way to stay in motion. And if you’re low on resources, remember that plenty of things don’t require any money (or very little money).

Brainstorming ideas, sketching out a business model, making your own flyers with nothing more than some colored pencils: these are just a few suggestions that could take you from one level to the next very quickly. There are ways to make things fun, even during a time of immense suffering. Your job is to keep looking for the other side of the coin — even when it’s hidden.