This article was first published in the November 2020 issue of Australian Printer magazine, by Meqa Smith

Never in living memory has there been a year that has been as uncertain in every aspect of life and business, as universally disruptive and globally impactful than 2020. 

Although we were all used to things changing fast and having to adapt and evolve the curve-balls that 2020 has thrown at businesses have come faster and more often than ever before. 

Knowing that this state of universal uncertainty is likely to continue for the foreseeable future to some extent, we now need to try to prepare ourselves to survive the rest of 2021 that may be similarly turbulent. 

Looking back on 2020 so far, what have you noticed are the things that have remained constant in your business? 

Is it …

• Your customers’ needs? 
• The importance of personal communication within your team? 
• The processes you use to deliver value? 
• The underlying model you base your business on? 
• Nothing at all? 

I believe the key to the best shot at surviving (and hopefully thriving) in the remaining months of 2021, is to focus on the things that remained the same even throughout this turbulent time and to look for ways to further leverage these things, strengthen them or enhance their value. 

For example, if you noticed that your customers still valued the face to face time they had with your team even where this was on skype you know that this is something you need to continue to prioritise and maybe even to look for ways to enhance it moving forward. 

Or you may have noticed that due to customers not being able to come into your office that communication slipped and issues arose as a result when it came to fulfilment. Ask yourself what it was about the in-person communication that is now missing and look for ways to address that by creating a form, a video message, a skype call or whatever it may be that would bridge that gap. 

You’ll also need to take an honest look at the way in which you adapted to work around the restrictions and whether or not this adaptation has actually been an improvement in efficiency. 

For example, when it comes to in-person meetings that you used to travel for, if these have had to be moved to video calls and the outcomes haven’t been affected, then is this something you can continue even where there are no restrictions? 

Where this is the case, if you find that it is saving on average 60 minutes’ drive time and $20 in parking per meeting, and you used to send your sales team out for five meetings each per week, then how can you leverage this saving? 

Is it an option to offer an incentive of time off or bonuses to your sales team for hitting targets? Or would it be better to reassign this time for team brainstorming meetings to work through customer issues or objections which are stressing the team out? Is there some time-cased task you could do for your customers that you’d previously have had to charge for or a gift you could now afford to send? 

I’ve found a great, simple way to get the whole team involved and quickly gather first-hand insights is to do a “Start Stop Continue” session. 

1. Decide where you want to focus – is it the whole business? The sales team? 
2. Decide what you’re interested in understanding more about – is it overall efficiency? Is it lead generation or closing sales?
3. In your boardroom, lunchroom or appropriate room – put up three big pieces of butcher’s paper with headings Start – Stop – Continue.
4. Decide whether you want this to be a short and sharp session of 30 to 60 minutes or whether you want to allow people to put their notes up over a day or a week. 
5. Get everyone on the relevant team, or even the whole business around a table and have a few stacks of post-it notes handy.
6. Explain to them the area of focus and specific issue that you’d like to get more info about and that you’d like them to a sense for what they feel is going really well and should continue to be done, what is not working and needs to be stopped and what they think is missing and should be started. 
7. Make sure that they all know it’s an anonymous process and they just need to jot their thoughts down on the post-it and stick it up in the right area (stop, start or continue).
8. Let them put up as many as they like. 
9. Once the period of time is over, gather up all the notes and have a VA or appropriate team member collate them.
10. Review them and then call another meeting to discuss the input and plan to implement appropriate actions.

Meqa Smith is the strategist of The Unforgettable Agency. For more information contact Meqa Smith at m@unforgettable.agency. 

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