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This isn’t a normal period for most of us.
As the owner of an SMB creative agency based in Shanghai — focusing on fashion and lifestyle brands for China’s marketplace within PR, branding, social media and content creation — nearly 50% of our business is based on events, photoshoots and previews that require offline interaction and engagement.
Given that China is one of the first countries that is recovering from COVID-19, I’d like to share with you my experience of how we have safeguarded our business as a result of the pandemic.
In China, it was forecasted that a majority of small and medium enterprises in the service industry wouldn’t make it through June. I also believe this may become a domino effect on all the subsequent key countries paralyzed due to the virus. This is a crucial time to rethink the way we do business and the way we act.
My own agency was “on hold” from mid-January to mid-March, and it’s disrupted not only our teams, clients and accounts, but also the challenge of doing business and surviving at this state, as most brands have stalled their business for February and March. However, our agency is forecasting that, hopefully, by the end of April things will start to bounce back.
Implement an at-work hygiene policy.
From a safety point of view, we announced smart working and social distancing for over a month, starting in February. Now that we’re back to work, wearing masks and sanitizing shoes and hands upon entering the office has also become obligatory. Our property management officer requires us to scan two QR codes — one obligatory by the Shanghai commune and the other one created specifically for our office location in order to be allowed to enter the building. This is a system put in place in order to control the ins and outs of the building, so if the virus occurs, it’s easier to track it down with the QR codes installed.
Moreover, given that delivery food service consumption is extremely high in China, we have contactless delivery stations in each home and office building with a designated office/home number, in order to avoid any contact.
After over two months of little to no operations, taking the time to reposition ourselves in the market started to become fundamental. This year, I think it’s important to aim for a much stronger digital strategy than before. We’re personally doing this both in terms of more content creation geared for social media but also back-end analytics and a European expansion.
Look to partnerships.
Partnerships can be fruitful if your company is only based in Europe or the U.S. with limited resources.
For example, we’ve created a strategic partnership with one of the elite agencies geared toward luxury and fashion houses for the U.S. and European markets. The goal is that this will increase our momentum and credibility within the international fashion and luxury segment and lead to faster production for social platforms, and it will also allow both parties to increase the scope of services and expansion in new territories.
Invest in workshops and teambuilding.
During this period, due to the serious business impact, we, unfortunately, had to let go of some staff and cut our internal budgets because some of our clients were not able to go forward (indefinite period of no operations) or paused all their marketing and communication budget for Q1 until things got better.
Hence, this is really a vital time to take care of your team and nourish them with positivity and hope that you can get through this period. Workshops, brainstorming and letting them be open about how they feel during this period opens the doors to trust and alignment. These factors, mixed with managing hysteria and finding new commercial clients, are currently the most challenging parts of the business in order to stay afloat.
Sustain cash flow.
I also think that having a strong, stable cash flow is important for business continuity in order to remain afloat. This is why it’s so important for finance teams to keep costs under control for several months, even while undergoing little operations/activities and high fixed costs.
Use this opportunity to test creative and ‘entrepreneurial’ ad hoc projects.
At POMPOM, given that we have a bit more time now, we are taking the advantage and opportunity to work closer together as well as taking on more “entrepreneurial” test projects in order to test our abilities in different industries.
So, in general, strong morale, good hygiene safeguards installed both at work and home, more team-building and brainstorming, as well as cross-border strategic partnerships and entrepreneurial projects are the key activities that we’ve been following in order to remain in business.
It’s important to have caution but not to be paranoid or too narrow-minded, and find opportunities in this situation. I hope this helps others see a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for reading, and let’s be united during this challenging time.
