Coronavirus Archives - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Woman watching Coronavirus Resources For Printers webinars

Do you remember when you first realized that COVID-19 was not just “some other continent’s problem,” but was indeed something that would hit close to home? When you felt that impact coming, did you lose sleep? I think most small business owners did. All of a sudden, we found ourselves wide awake at night running through a checklist of things to do to keep our companies surviving and brainstorming ways to ensure we could help others during this time. A New, Bigger Team Focus For us, those sleepless nights led to the rapid creation of the Coronavirus Resources For Printers webinar series. This webinar series was launched to provide help and hope to printers during these unique times. As this series has grown, not only have the core values of Others First and Positive Attitude had the opportunity to shine, but Team-Focused has branched out to include a whole community of printers that have rallied together to share ideas for the benefit of ALL printers. This community continues to expand to include other industry vendors and consultants who share that same desire to provide help and hope. (And there are a lot of them! There are a lot of good

Fear. Uncertainty. Stress. Those are the words being volleyed back and forth to describe the feelings of everyone from high school seniors missing out on their last weeks of school to small business owners being forced to lay off employees because of mandated social distancing. How do you lead well in times like these? How do you find that elusive balance between loving your neighbor, genuinely trying to help, and doing what needs to be done to fight for your own survival? Those are some seriously tough questions. But, even though it may feel that the waves are continuing to rise and overwhelm you, take heart. The uncharted waters ahead can still be parted to lead you on a direct path to a more prosperous future and a newfound hope. The following considerations will help you get there. 5 Considerations for Calming the Coronavirus Storm 1. Make Connection Your New Currency Now, more than ever, people are feeling isolated and are craving connection. This means that now is not the time to push pause on communication with your print buyers. Rather, this is the time to press in to what you do best: connecting through print! Focus on building relationships

At the time I’m writing this article, our country is adjusting to a new normal forced upon us by the Coronavirus. We’re all calibrating to this new normal by the day (if not by the hour), so by the time you read this there may be even a different version of the new normal. Here are some tips to help you survive (and even thrive!) in the new normal. Empathize with Your Message The Coronavirus update email faucet turned on wide-open once it became clear that the Coronavirus would be sticking around for a while. There are the obligatory emails from our kids’ schools and our church; those get an automatic pass through my personal “pay attention” filter. Then there are the emails that are nothing other than a disingenuous series of sanitized words carefully crafted to show the reader that a company was actually able to implement the common-sense virus-fighting suggestions and best practices. I’m sure you’ve received these emails too. The subject line is almost always a tip-off. Here are some examples of those email subjects, fresh from my inbox: A Message to Our Clients COVID-19 Action Plan Coronavirus: What you need to know Account Update: ____’s Response to COVID-19 COVID-19 and our commitment to you I understand that these messages are important (at least to the sender!) and may indeed even be necessary, but they sure are impersonal. They’re almost always