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We ran a recent poll on LinkedIn to understand some of the ways that businesses have been impacted by the pandemic.

The results are fascinating!

Created a new business model – 45%

Almost half of respondents have created a new business model, something that really resonates with me. Running face to face training and coaching sessions became impossible overnight so, like many others, I was forced to find new ways of working.

So out went face to face workshops to be replaced by online sessions. I must admit to being nervous about how running a three hour workshop online would go down with participants, but by keeping the level of interaction high with regular breaks seemed to work well… at least that’s what the consistent positive feedback tells me.

Launched new products – 16%

Again, this one resonated well with me. I’m sure we all saw the stories of manufacturing businesses turning their hand to producing medical ventilators and gin produces making hand sanitiser.

On a personal level the summer months were far quieter than normal as people tried to adjust to the new ways of working, so I took the time to create a brand new on line, on demand sales training programme, EPIC Selling. This gave my clients a new way of learning, working through 6, half hour modules in their own time and at their own pace with an option to participate on review sessions or ongoing coaching on completion.

Focussed on new markets – 19%

There are two ways of looking at new markets; you can sell existing products and services to new types of customer, or you can turn your attention to selling existing products to similar types of customers but in different geographies. It was the latter that I turned my attention to, running sales workshops for customers in New Zealand (starting at 9 o’clock in the evening was interesting!) and, more recently, I’ve run a strategy development session for a customer who has staff based in Argentina, the USA, Canada and Sweden.

Without video conferencing technology, this wouldn’t have been logistically or commercially viable.

No change to how I operate – 21%

This one surprised me a little, but is perhaps a reflection on the type of businesses that I typically work with many of who were already operating quite happily online before the pandemic.

These were probably the “lucky ones”, able to continue as normal with little or no impact, although I’ve had conversations with several in this category where we’ve still looked at developing new opportunities for them.

Despite the challenges the one thing that stands out now is the increased sense of optimism about the future. I’m sure we’re not out of the woods yet and that new challenges will arise, but being forced to re-evaluate how your business operates is never a bad thing.

If you’d like to work through developing new ways of working, perhaps we should talk.

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