Hello,
I had planned a different post for this month’s newsletter. But I decided to postpone it. While the country where I stay currently is slowly opening up after the lockdown, it’s painful to see the state of my homeland India. To say that we are anxious and afraid, would be an understatement. There is so much uncertainty and fear all around.
I hope and wish we come out of this safe and strong.
As a small business owner or a solopreneur, if you’re confused about what’s next for you, you’re not alone. If you have a business offering that comes under the non-essentials, travel, hospitality, or luxury category, I hear you.
I attended a webinar recently on business pivoting. It was encouraging to see many businesses successfully adapting to a post-pandemic world. Each category had a different strategy and approach. But if I look closely, I observe a connecting thread in all those stories. And that was -
Anticipating and accepting the structural shift in their consumer behavior.
This is the key.
There are many ways in which human behaviors can evolve post-crisis. Some may go back to the pre-crisis state, some change, and some disappear forever. I like the way Dev Patnaik, Michelle Loret, and Brady Bates bucketize this shift into 3 sections -
Sustained, Transformed, and Collapsed Behaviors.
Sustained behaviors
are activities that are likely to return to their pre-crisis state virtually unchanged. For instance, people stopped staying in hotels in the months after 9/11, but that behavior eventually returned to pre-9/11 levels. Hoteliers just needed to find ways to hold on in the meantime.
Transformed behaviors
are activities that are likely to return after the crisis, albeit with fundamental changes. After 9/11, people stopped flying on planes. When they started flying again, the need for stricter security protocols at airports was clear. Airports began to make massive investments in security technology that they had been previously slow to make. This had a major positive effect on the businesses of security system manufacturers.
Collapsed behaviors
are activities that are likely to cease altogether or be replaced by alternatives. After 9/11, travelers could no longer take beverages past the TSA checkpoint. If you owned a coffee shop outside of that point, all of a sudden, your customers just stopped buying their coffee or water as they arrived at the airport. Today, you won’t find as many beverage shops outside of TSA checkpoints.
Many such changes like 9/11 will happen post-COVID too. We need to work towards understanding the same.
But before that, the need of the hour is compassion and kindness. To yourself and to your customers. Support your customers and community in whichever way you can. Compassion will never be outdated - neither for humanity nor for business.
And if your mental bandwidth permits, then spend time observing the structural shifts. It will vary as per industry and customer segments. But I am hopeful we will be able to connect the dots together, chalking out a path between the pre and post-pandemic world.
Stay strong everyone.
Praying for India.
Kanupriya