Covid and my business
Covid and my business
I thought I would talk to you about how COVID-19 has impacted my business. And what I’ve been doing to kind of keep myself afloat over the last couple of months. So I’ve just got into a fourth lockdown, or it certainly feels like the fourth lockdown that I’ve been in in the UK. So, what have I been doing? How has it impacted me?
Back in March 2020, all those many months ago. After I lost a few clients and I must admit, I was a little bit worried about what was going on. I thought this COVID-19 is going to just fly past and we’ll get over it and I’ll be fine. But I didn’t realise the snowball effect that this has on people’s businesses. So my clients, clients, clients were being affected and that was rolling all the way back down to, to me and my business.
Bit of a panic
I ended up losing a couple of clients over it. But I do think that some of the decisions that clients were making were quite rash and we’re like, Oh my God, I’m really worried. I don’t know what to do. Let’s kind of pull back on all of our expenses. I think that was kind of what was happening at the start.
I then gained those clients back in the summer because they realised that, they could work and it’s not as big a deal as they thought it was. And everything was kind of ticking on.
Nope I didn’t Pivot
Now, I’m not one for saying the word pivot and I didn’t pivot my business. I admit I didn’t pivot it. I didn’t need to pivot. I had everything that I needed to do to work from home. So, I was very lucky that my business is quite virtual anyway. I’ve got my desk; this is my office. And I sit here and I do my work every day. So I was able to just kind of carry on as usual.
But, um, no, I didn’t pivot and don’t like the word pivot, sorry!
Summer and Autumn
Summer was quite good, gained a couple of new clients, which was really exciting, but then September things started to kind of trail off a little bit. What I actually ended up doing was I had a look at all of my inquiries over 2018 at the same period, 2019, and then 2020. And what I realised is in autumn, I am quite quiet and that’s a natural flow for my business. So it made me feel like, Oh, we don’t have to worry as much. This is probably not COVID-19 affected, but you know, now we’re going into the next lockdown.
So what have I done in my business
What have I done? So I’ve been putting my finances aside each month to make sure that I can get myself through the next 6 months I’m thinking till June, September time, 2021, to make sure that I can stay afloat.
I’m trying to be very frugal. Trying to be very careful. You know, I don’t want my suppliers or people like my VA and that kind of stuff to be impacted by my clients, not being able to pay me. So, I am making sure that I’ve got that money to make sure that everything kind of runs from my business.
So, it has impacted me. I have had to think about finances. Have had to have a look at things and I haven’t pivoted. Everything’s been fine, but you know, I’m very grateful for the clients that I’ve got. And I’m grateful for the fact that I’m in an industry, that it doesn’t matter if I go into a lockdown or not.
I absolutely feel for people in the restaurant business and the travel and all of that, that just don’t know whether or not they’re coming and going. It must be horrific. That’s really kind of my journey. One of the key takeaways that I wanted to kind of put out there is:
When you flying into a storm, you don’t switch the engines off
I’m not switching the engines off. You know, this is not the time to do that. Anyway. I hope you found that insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening and please tune in next time. Bye for now.
Interested to know how you can work with me?
