Ep. 13 - Retool, Restart, or Start a New

Trailblazer - Igniting Business & Community

Topic 1: Retooling

• Is it new products or services
  
• Is it changing how staff assists customers or new guidelines to service your customers
  
• The power-up sequence - turning your business back on in the right order to be able to grow fast as you emerge from the pandemic
  
• As you retool - stay lean and keep parts of your business turned off that either look back pre-crisis or delt too much on what didn't go right
  
• Reference material: https://www.bain.com/insights/when-and-how-should-leaders-retool-post-coronavirus-fm-blog/
  

Topic 2: Restart

• How do you go about restarting after being closed for almost 3 months especially if you haven't reopened
  
• Changing of hours, number of people in the store or maybe increasing curbside/delivery options - having a launch map, safety = trust, safety of staff, reviving demand, and to sustain your changes be sure to continue investment into those themes.
  
• Reference material: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-restart
  

Topic 3: Start a new business

• So we have heard this week that the U.S. is in a recession which no one wants to hear. But this may be the perfect to start a new business. Over the last few weeks, we have been discussing the tremendous opportunity this may be to finally start or explode that business.
  
• Maybe your business could not reopen due to changes in buying habits or cost to reopen under the guidelines - so build something new - entrepreneurship is a character trait to use your experience to build a new great company
  
• Business is all about finding needs and efficiently filling them, during this crisis, there have been many needs exposed and should allow you to fill them.
  
• Article Share...Steps to start a business during or out of the pandemic
  
  • Find a niche - both brain and passion are needed here. Look for trends but understand where you can fit into that theme rather than being something you are not.
    
  • Give people what they need; connections and connectivity
    
  • Check your finances - finding investors will be tough. Strategic partners, bootstrap. Investors are looking for people and teams not novel products.
    
  • Be sure to understand the commitment of taking the plunge, personally, family. Consider keeping your job and creating the business as a side hustle.
    
  • Discounts on marketing, websites and an increase in available talent. Idea of new life, business that starts fresh allows for innovation and sweat equity.
    

Reference material: https://www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/351070?__twitter_impression=true