EVOLVE Business and Professional Magazine May 2020 | Page 35

3. Offer Gift Certificates: If you can’t sell or provide your service now, take advantage of the movement to support local businesses. Put together a gift certificate program and encourage your customers (and others) to purchase gift certificates to keep your cash flow up. Personal services and retail can benefit from this strategy, as can restaurants. 4. Reach out to your email list: If you have an email list, no matter how small, use it. Let your subscribers know how you are handling the crisis. Include items of interest (feel free to link to our content), and share on social media. Constant Contact and Mailchimp offer free accounts to get started. You can use social media to build your list. Contests and giveaways are a great way to collect names and emails. We can get you started with these options, if you need assistance. 5. Experiment with new ideas: Take a look at what new products or services you may want to offer. Look at your processes and see if there is a better way to do business. 6. Look for new audiences: Who aren’t you serving that could benefit from your product or services? How can you reach them? There’s no time like the present to think about how you can expand your audience. 7. Really get to know your employees: By knowing your employees’ unique circumstances, you can determine how best to help them. Anything we can do to help our staff at this time will yield dividends in staff loyalty and productivity. 8. Clean up parts of your business you haven’t had time for: Are your books a mess? Have you failed to look at your marketing plan? Have you had an idea for growth that you have tabled because you were too busy? If this situation has resulted in some extra time, use it to clean up your business. 9. Plan now for post-crisis operations: We have all embraced technology a little harder these last few weeks. Does this new comfort level change how you will operate in the future? Have your clients’ needs changed? Will there be a rush when the stay-at-home order is lifted? Will you need to focus on one part of your business more than other parts? How will you navigate the post-crisis future? 10. Stay Positive: We will get through this. As much as possible, take advantage of this time to grow and become stronger! EVOLVE and Parent Magazine Florida are published by TouchPoint Innovative Solutions, a marketing innovation company. Our staff is ready to help you if you have any questions on lead generation, audience development, messaging or content creation. Please reach out to us for help. Our office number is 386-283-5906 and our email is [email protected]. Stay Safe! Jeanne Coates is the Sales and Marketing Director for EVOLVE Magazine. She is passionate about helping companies find the best way to reach their desired audiences. REAL ESTATE TASK FORCE: PROFESSIONAL ANALYSIS OF SITE POTENTIAL DWIGHT SELBY, CCIM Chief Executive Officer Selby Realty, Inc. CARL W. LENTZ IV, MBA, CCIM Managing Director SVN Alliance Commercial Real Estate Advisors The availability of sites is critical to economic development. Team Volusia’s Real Estate Task Force is chaired by Dwight Selby and Carl Lentz and includes local real estate professionals, property owners and public partners. Together, they analyze and prioritize site improvements in order to encourage new development within Volusia County. The group recently spearheaded Team Volusia’s Site Readiness Program and assessed fourteen pre-selected sites in collaboration with Quest, a nationally recognized consulting firm. We salute Dwight and Carl and the members of the Real Estate Task Force for their efforts to help Volusia County compete at the highest levels. TeamVolusiaEDC.com 386.265.6332