How SMEs Can Survive the Corona-virus Outbreak

Small-business owners trying to weather the coronavirus pandemic will face a financial blow that’s likely to be worse than what they experienced during the Great Recession more than a decade ago, says Karen G. Mills, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School.

Small businesses have been scaling down and temporarily closing as consumers stay home to stem the spread of the highly infectious virus, also known as COVID-19. Without incoming cash, many small businesses—especially restaurants and shops on American Main Streets—will soon need to cut staff or shut down for good.

Leveraging on Virtual Technology

Sitting opposite his computer, Samson, a young SQL tutor at Coven Labs, is leading a class of 18 for four hours of Introduction and overview of Database and SQL. But for the first time as a trainer, he is no with the four walls of a classroom. Instead, Samson is live-streaming via Zoom and his students are participating in their own homes.

With the coronavirus forcing businesses to close their doors as governments around the world move to either ban or limit social contact, many freelancers and self-employed people are finding their income decimated by the virus. The catastrophe is forcing some small companies and freelancers like Samson to turn their business online. This is how they are doing it.

Create Online Content

With a proliferation of course-creation platforms such as Teachable and Udemy, where business owners are running courses on everything from social media management to photography and coding, the e-learning market is booming. The value of the sector is estimated to jump to $300bn (£252bn) by 2025, up from $190bn in 2018, according to the research firm Global Market Insights.

With the coronavirus pandemic rapidly accelerating, e-learning platforms have been reporting a surge in the numbers of entrepreneurs and businesses moving their content online.

To create an online course, you need to have a skill that is teachable, such as baking, marketing or meditation. But a good online course will be very specific, so rather than “how to meditate”, something like “meditating to de-stress during coronavirus” is better. People need to instantly see why your course is for them.

You should also be sharing tips and advice on social media on this subject so that people trust you to talk about this subject. If you have an online profile and have developed a relationship with your followers, and they are keen to read all the information you share about this subject, you have a ready-formed customer base for your course.

Establish a remote work option

With plenty of people already working remotely, there are a lot of free tools business owners can utilize so that teams can stay in touch and keep working even if they aren’t in the same place. Implement a remote work policy that covers when you expect your team to be online or available, how to communicate (via email, Slack, or video call, for instance), and what deliverables each team member is responsible for completing.

Idris Ewuola (Technical Recruiter at CovenWorks)